“By Saint Comb, but thou hast a wit larger than the tiny proportions of thy body might teach one to look for!” said Corrie. “The notion is excellent. I have long wished to work that lump of dough into a ferment. And, by Saint Mary, as the creach will be carried off from under his very nose, I shall stir up his temper now, if it is to be stirred up at all by mortal man. So speed to thy master, and keep him advised to watch his time; and if I don’t by and by clear the way for him, by giving Gibbon More and his people a chase of a day or two through the hills after me and my men, I shall wonder of it.”
“Master, master,” cried Gibbon More’s man Hector, as he came running in to him next morning quite out of breath, “Corrie MacDonald has been in the forest last night, and he has carried away every stot he could find on this part of your lands.”
“Has the rascal taken the cows too?” demanded Gibbon coolly.
“No—sure enough—he has not taken a single cow,” replied Hector, “I counted the cow-beasts myself, and they are all safe.”
“There was some civility in that, however,” said Gibbon laughing. “The fellow is a thief of some consideration; for if he hath left us the cows, thou knowest, Hector, that we shall have plenty of stot beasts by and by.”
“Ou aye, surely, sir,” said Hector as he retired, very much disappointed by the manner in which his intelligence had been received.
Corrie was not without his spies; and the oxen were hardly well so far over the hill, on their way to Lochaber, as to be fairly considered beyond all reach of recovery, when he returned with some of his people to prowl about Delnahaitnich. There he soon learned from Archy Abhach the manner and speech with which Gibbon More had received the news of his loss.
“I’ll try him again,” said Corrie. “The fellow must be the dullest stirk that ever was calved.”
“The cows are all gone now, master!” cried the same ill-omened messenger, as he entered Gibbon More’s apartment next morning before he was out of bed.
“A plague upon the plundering thief,” cried Gibbon More, “has he taken the young beasts too?”