Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 2

O WEST HIGHLAND TALES.
they went in to the hostelry. He was standing in the
door of the stable, and his head was bent. The man
of the house came out, and he saw him. " My big
gillie, I have thee here," said the man of the house;
" art thou gomg to pay me to-day f " I am not,"
said he. Then he went in, and they were going to
begin to cut the strip of skin. She heard the noise,
and she asked Avhat they were going to do to her
gillie. They said, " They were going to cut a strip of
skin off him from his crown to his sole." " If that
was to be done," said she, " he was not to lose a
drop of blood ; send up here a web of linen, let him
stand on it, and if a drop of blood comes out of him,
another strip of skin shall come off thee." Here
there was nothing for it but to let him go ; they
could not make anything of it. Early on the mor-
row she took him over with her to the house of her
father. If he was against going to the hostelry the
night before, he was seven times as much when going
to her father's house. " Didst thou do harm here too,
as thou art against going in ?" " I got a wife here
such a time since." " What came of her 2" " I don't
know." " No wonder whatever happens to thee, thou
hast only to put up with all that comes thy way."
AA^ien her father saw liim, he said, " I have thee here !
Where is thy wife V " I don't know where she is."
" What didst thou to her 1" said her father. He could
not tell what he had done to her. Kow there was
nothing to be done but to hang him to a tree. There
was to be a great day about the hanging, and a great
many gentlemen were to come to see it. She asked
her father what they w^ere going to do to her giUie.
Her father said, " That they were going to hang him ;
he bought a wife from me, and he does not know what
lias happened to her." She went out to see the gentles