The loss of this sturdy ox of my master's gave rise to strange matters; matters which quite confounded my judgment, and which to this day I do not comprehend. My master went away to the sheriff, and the lord of the manor, and made a complaint that his neighbour before-mentioned had stolen one of his cattle, the best that he had on his farm. This was the man that he caressed so much, yet knew to be a scoundrel. The complaint was attended to, and the injury deeply resented. My master returned with a strong body of men, and orders to seize Glendairg, and search all his premises; and if evidence appeared against him, he was to be carried before Lord William, called the Severe, and there imprisoned in the dungeon till time should be given him to clear himself, which, if he failed to do in a certain period, he was to be swung. All my master's servants, men and women, were ordered to proceed with the party; I went among the rest, and certainly never witnessed so curious a scene. Glendairg came out and met the party with all the consciousness of innocence; and even when he was seized and bound, he still appeared to doubt of the sincerity of the men, espepecially when they told him it was at the instance of my master.
"If that is all, it is well," said he; "I am sure my kind friend and neighbour can mean me no ill by it."
My master took him aside, and said to him in the kindest and most soothing manner, "Do not be the least disheartened, my dear friend: You know how far I would be from injuring you. I would not do it for all the cows in my byre. I ken weel wha has the ox. There is little doubt but he is in our neighbour Bauldy's beef stand. I have long suspected him, and many is the good beast I have lost. You little know how many good beasts I have lost, and was still so loth to make it public. But I can suffer it no longer. Let the skaith fall upon the skaither. In the mean time I know you are quite innocent, but I instituted this search as a blind to him: You must just submit and never mind it."
"O, very well, neighbour, very well," said Glendairg; "I knew you could not intend me any ill,—search all out and in, and welcome."
They did so; they searched all out and in, and at last, when about to give up, they found the individual ox's hide that I slew in the bog, lying hid deep below some hay and corn in the corner of a barn. In another place still more unfeasible, they found the ox's head. They were both laid upon the green, and my master and all his servants, myself included, swore to their identity, as we could not do otherwise. Glendairg looked like one bewildered, and said there was a plot laid against his life, which he neither understood, suspected, nor merited. The shrieve's officers laughed him to scorn, and proposed to hang him up on the nearest tree; and I believed they would have done it, had it not been for the kindness of my master, who came forward with tears in his eyes, and addressed them somewhat thus:
"Alas, my masters, this is a heavy and a sorrowful sight for me! This is the bitterest day of my life! I have lost many and many good cattle, and yet I would not,—I could not, let myself suspect my intimate friend. Think how I am grieved to see these proofs. Yet perhaps he may be innocent, and this may be some vile plot laid against his life. I beg, therefore, that he may be set at liberty, and the whole business hushed up."
"You are a good man and a kind," said the men; "but this thing must not be. With our lord and master, justice must have sway; but we will report your goodness and generosity to him, and be sure it will not go unrewarded. We can assure you, that this man has not only forfeited his life, but all his farms, as well as his stock of cattle and sheep to yourself."
For all this my master refused to be comforted, but wept and followed after the men, pleading for the life and the freedom of his friend, but he pleaded in vain; the men bound him on a horse, and carried him away with them to the dungeon of the castle of Coombe. I marvelled greatly at the great kindness and generosity of my master, knowing, as he did, that the man was a scoundrel; but I wondered far more what could induce the man to steal the hide and the head from off my ox.
My master was a married man, and had four children; and though he was apparently a kind husband, his wife seemed quite unhappy and discontented, which I thought highly unreasonable on her part. She knew more, however, than I did; and there are some small matters that women never patiently put up with. He had a number of servant-maids for the purpose of milking cows, making hay, and cheeses, and such things; and among them there was a very pretty one named Kelly, with whom he had fallen in love; and, after long toying and courting, he had seduced her. I knew nothing about these sorts of concerns; but I thought Kell, as we called her, the most beautiful, sprightly, and innocent being that lived, and I liked to look at her and hear her speak; and whenever she came near me, I was like to fall a-trembling. She slept with a little child in a large open loft, above the room where my master and mistress slept; and it so happened that something came by night and frightened her, and she refused to sleep there any longer without some one beside her. I slept by myself in one of the out-houses; and it was immediately proposed by my master that my bed should be removed, and put up in the loft beside Kell's. I was drunken with delight at hearing this intelligence; yet I pretended to be very averse to the plan, hanging my head, and turning about my back, when any one spoke of it, nor would I answer a word to one of them but "Tutt," or "tutts."
"Tam Nosey, it seems ye're gaun to be bedded wi' bonny Kell the night?"