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The Parish of Rosskeen. 329
in-; iiKHv tliiui two or tlirce, lest T should oHeml, ;in(l tliest' only to
show that thu man had natural abilitic^s, which, it is to regretted,
ho had not the opportunity of applying for good:
The harvest of 1817 was late, and the crops a failure. The
following year many felt the scarcity of food. Money was scarce
also among the poor. Our friend, the herd, was among the
sufferers, and having heard that a well-to-do farmer, residing a few
miles off, had meal to dispose of, he went to ask the farmer for a
boll till he would be able to pay. " I have meal to dispose of,"
said the farmer, " but should I give you, you will never pay me."
" I will," said the herd, " the first money T can lay my hands upon
will be yours." "Well," said the farmer (who was noted for
cuteness), " if you tell me the cleverest piece of handiwork you
committed, I'll trust you." " Good," said the herd, " the smartest
turn I ever did was to relieve yourself of a stot, and sell him to
you." " Never," said the fiirmer ; but said the herd, " don't you
remember a black stot belonging to you having gone amissingi"
" Yes." " And you remember of me selling to you thereafter a
speckled stot?" " Yes." " Well, it was the same animal." " I'll
give you the meal for nothing if you tell me how you did the trick."
" Done," said the herd. " The stot happened to come to my byre.
I took a few bunches of salt herrings out of the brine and bound
them to the animal's body. In a few days the black hair under
the herrings rotted out, and on their removal white hair grew
instead." The herd was not asked to pay for the meal.
Our friend on one occasion passed through the East Coast of
Sutherlandshire, and on his way home took a fancy to a fine
Highland cow with a docked tail. He managed to conceal himself
and the cow for a day or two, till, as he supposed, the search
would be over, and then took the road to the Meikle Ferry, but
before doing so cut a tail from a diied hide he fell in with somewhere,
and neatly bound it to the stump of the living cow. He
entered the ferryboat with the cow, and just as the boat was to
start, a man sprung in who closely scrutinised the cow and said,
" I lost a cow three days ago, and were it not that that cow has a
tail (mine had only a stump), I would say she is mine." " But the
cow is mine," said the herd. The man approached the cow and
again said, " were it not she has a tail I woiild swear she is mine."
The herd saw that matters were getting rather too hot for him,
and just as the man was about laying his hand on the tail, the
herd took out his knife, whipped off the tail above the joining,
and threw it into the sea. " There she is now a bleeding tailless
cow, and swear is she yours." Of course the man could not, for
the evidence was gone.
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