It is the Ettrick Shepherd, I think, who tells of two Highlanders who set out on a reiving expedition to steal the litter of a wild sow, which lay in a narrow-mouthed cave. Seizing the opportunity of Madame Grumphie’s absence, one of the men crept in, and the other kept a watch at the mouth. Presently, down the hillside came the distracted and angry sow, and rushed with menacing tusks towards her den. The guard, as she slipped into the passage, had just time to lay hold of her tail, give it a firm twist round his strong hand; and, throwing himself down and setting his feet against the sides of the den, he held her fast. The Highlander in the cave was too much engaged with the screaming little pigs to hear the tussle going on outside; but finding himself in darkness, he called out to his mate, “Donald, fat the deil’s the maitter? I canna see.” Donald, who by this time had found a pig’s tail a most uneasy tenure, and who had no wind left for explanations, briefly but significantly answered, “Gin the tail breaks, Dougal’, my lad, you’ll see fat’s the maitter.”
“Hillo, Donald!” exclaimed one Highlander to another, as they met on a country road recently, “what are you doing here at all? I socht you was always with M’Lachlan down in the Glen.”
“So I was a long time with M’Lachlan too,” replied Donald, “but I have left him, whatever.”
“Why did you leave him? He’s a good master I’m sure.”
“Hooch, ay, a good master enough; but I left him about the salt beef.”
“Did you not like salt beef?”
“Hooch, ay, I like salt beef well enough.”
“Did you get too much salt beef?”
“This is how it was, you see. There was a cow that died, and he salted the cow, and we got nothing but salt cow as long as she lasted. And I like salt cow well enough. But then there was a sheeps that died, and he salted that too, and we got nothing but salt sheep as long as she lasted; and I like salt sheeps well enough. But some time after there was a pig that died, and he salted her too, and we got nothing but salt pig as long as she lasted. And I like salt pigs well enough. But just when the pig was nearly all done, one day his grandmother died, and he comes out to the stable, and says he, ‘You’ll have to go away for a stone of salt, Donald.’
“‘Hooch ay,’ thinks I to myself, ‘my man; but if you’ll thought that I was going to eat your grandmother you’re very far mistaken,’ and I never says a word to him at all, but just comes away.”