Matheson Collection > Popular tales of the west Highlands > Volume 1

XV.
THE POOR BEOTHER AND THE RICH.
From Flora IMacIntyre, Islay.
rpHERE was a poor brotlier and a rich brother before
-*- now. The work that the poor one had, was to be
at drains ; he hired a gillie, and they had nothing with
their mealtime but to take it without sauce. "Had'nt
we better," said the gillie, " steal a cow of thy brother's
lot ? " They went and they did this.
The rich brother was taking a notion that it was
they who stole his cow ; and he did not know in what
way he could contrive to find out if it were they who
stole her. He went and he put his mother-in-law in
a kist, and he came to seek room for the kist in his
brother's house ; he put bread and cheese with the
crone in the kist ; and there was a hole in it, in order
that she might find out everything. The gillie found
out that the crone was in the kist ; he wetted sacks and
put them on top of the kist ; the water was streaming out
of the sacks on the crone, and she was not hearing a
word. He went, in the night, where the crone was, and
he said to her, " Was she hearing ?" "I am not," said
she." " Art thou eating a few ?" "I am not." " Give
me a piece of the cheese, and I will cut it for thee."
He cut the cheese, and he stuffed it into her throat till
she was choked. The kist was taken home, and the