The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

A Ceilidh. 561
Aonghas, then considered the beau of the township,
beneath the moon and the stars breathed into her ears
" the tender tale."
There is also Seiimas Ruadh, the mason, the strongest
man in the whole parish, who last winter offered to fight
the whole crew of the yacht " Sunbeam," in Lochoran,
because they doubted the veracity of his story when he
described how, when "Big Tom," Farmer M'Codrum's wellknown
bull, had attacked the orraman on the farm, he had
gone to the orraman's assistance and took hold of the bull
by his horns, and how, at the end of half-an-hour's tussle^
the might}' bull lay on his back with a broken leg and
minus a horn.
No evidence could be adduced to prove the authenticity
of this story, for no ore was present during the terrible
encounter except the two men, and when the orraman
asserted that Seumas Ruadh had rushed out of the barn to
his assistance, armed with a flail, with which he belaboured
the bull, Seumas scornfully refuted the statement, and said
he had no weapon but his hands, and that the orraman's
brain was so confused, owing to the sudden attack on rhe
part of " Big Tom," that his account of the fray was not at
all worthy of credence.
There are also at the Ceiliak two or three neighbours
of Aonghas Ban's, joint-owners of the " Pride of the
Ocean," and Seoras Glass, an old man of eighty. The
latter was a splendid type of the Highlander. Fully six
feet high and straight as a gun, his broad chest and square
shoulders betokened, even yet, great physical strength, and
his dark, flashing, deep-set e\'es were indicative of more
than an average portion of intelligence. Hair whitened
with the snowi of many winters escaped from the custody
of the broad Tarn o' Shanter bonnet, which he always wore^
and fell in wavy ringlets over his shr)ulders. He was clad
in a grey suit of home-spun cloth, and had a shepherd's
plaid wrapped round his shoulders. He always carried a
heavy oaken staff protected at one end by a ponderous iron
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