“No!” said the man, who was much disappointed to find that this, his second piece of bad news, was just as unsuccessful in rousing his master’s ire as his first had been. “He has not ta’en a single young beast, but, on my conscience, I’m thinking he has ta’en enough.”
“The villain robs by rule, I see,” said Gibbon; “but since the young beasts are safe, Hector, we shall have plenty of both cows and stots again, anon, you know.”
Corrie MacDonald, who was curious to find out how this second loss was to affect Gibbon, was absolutely piqued beyond endurance when he heard of the quiet manner in which he had taken it. Withdrawing a handful of his people from the large body of them who were then in charge of the second prey he had taken, he lay in ambush for a third night.
“We’re altogether harried now then!” cried Hector, as he appeared the third morning with a face like a ghost. “Every young beast upon the place is gone.”
“What!” cried Gibbon More, starting up to hurry on his clothes in a state of the fiercest excitement, “does the caitiff make a butt of me? I can bear to lose my bestial, but to be played on thus by a thieving scoundrel is more than man’s patience can suffer. I’ll teach these ruffians to crack their jokes upon me! Where is my two-handed sword?”
“Father, father! dear father, where are ye running to?” cried his daughter Bigla, as she met him raging out at the door like a roaring lion. “Where are you running without your bonnet?”
“I have no time to speak now,” replied the infuriated Gibbon. “I’ll tell you all about it when I come back.”
“I fear he has gone on some rash and dangerous enterprise,” said Bigla, “run, run, Hector, and gather the people, and be after him with help as fast as you may.”
Hector was not slow; but he must have been active indeed, if he could have caught Gibbon More at the pace he was going. He rushed up the steep hill in front of his dwelling, and was soon out of sight.
Gibbon had no sooner reached the summit, than, throwing his eyes abroad, he espied his young cattle feeding on the south side of the hill called the Geal-charn, or the Hoary Hill; and from the smoke which he observed curling up from a ravine at a short distance from the spot where the animals were scattered about, he at once conjectured that the robbers had chosen that concealment as a fit place for cooking their morning meal. He was right in this supposition; for, judging from his former apathy, Corrie MacDonald had not quite calculated that this third act of depredation would lead to so speedy a pursuit.