LOCHBUIE’S TWO HERDSMEN.
This tale was written down as it was told by Donald Cameron, Rùdhaig, Tiree, more than twenty-five years ago, and to whose happy and retentive gift of memory it is a pleasure to recur. He had a most extensive stock of old lore, and along with it much readiness and willingness to communicate what he knew. In this the ludicrous element is natural, and the events seem to follow each other as a matter of course, so that the tale, so far as probability is concerned, may be true enough. It is one of the few tales to which a date is attached, and so far as history can be consulted the state of the country at that time makes it probable enough. Loch Buie is a district lying to the South of the Island of Mull, pleasantly situated. The tale runs as follows:—
In 1602 Lochbuie had two herdsmen, and the wife of one herdsman went to the house of the other herdsman. The housewife was in before her, and had a pot on the fire. “What have you in the pot?” said the one who came in. “Well there it is,” she said, “a drop of brochan which the goodman will have with his dinner.”
“What kind of brochan is it?” said the one who came in.
“It is dubh-bhrochan,”[10] said the one who was in.
“Isn’t he,” said she, “a poor man! Are you not giving him anything but that? I have been for so long a time under the Laird of Loch Buie, and I have not drank brochan without a grain of beef or something in it. Don’t you think it is but a small thing for the Laird of Loch Buie though we should get an ox every year. Little he would miss it. I will send over my husband to-night, and you will bring home one of the oxen.”
When night came she sent him over. The wife then sent the other away. The one said, “you will steal the ox from the fold, and you will bring it to me, and we will be free; I will swear that I did not take it from the fold, and you will swear that you did not take it home.”
The two herdsmen went away. In those days they hanged a man, when he did harm, without waiting for law or sentence, and at this time Lochbuie had hanged a man in the wood. The herdsmen went and kindled a fire near a tree in the wood as a signal to the one who went to steal. One sat at the fire, and the other went to steal the ox.
The same night a number of gentlemen were in the mansion[11] at Loch Buie. They began laying wagers with Lochbuie that there was not one in the house who would take the shoe off the man who had been hanged that day. Lochbuie laid a wager that there was. He called up his big lad MacFadyen,[12] and said to him was he going to let the wager go against him. The big lad asked what the wager was about. He said to him that they were maintaining that there was no one in his court who could take the shoe off the one who had been hanged that day. MacFadyen said he would take off him the shoe and bring it to them where they were.
MacFadyen went on his way. When he reached, he looked and saw the man who had been hanged warming himself at a fire. He did not go farther on, but returned in haste. When he came they asked him if he had the shoe. He told them he had not, for that yon one was with a withy basket of peats before him, warming himself. “We knew ourselves,” said the gentlemen, “that you had only cowards.”