J. F. Campbell Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 2

THE THREE WIDOWS. 23 I
of dressing it in grave-clothes, be put ou his mother's usual dress,
and went away with it to the market town. When he reached
the market town he looked about for a well, and he saw a great
deep well there. He took two sticks, and propped the body of
bis mother, with the two sticks, at the side of the well. He saw
a number of fine looking scholars ilocking out from a school in
the neighbourhood. He asked a boy, who seemed to be the son
of a great influential and distinguished man, if he would be so
good as go and tell the old woman who was standing near the
well, that he was wishful to leave, and to ask her to come to him.
The boy agreed, and went to the old woman. She took no notice
of him. He returned to Levi-our, and said that she did not
answer him. " Ud," said Levi-our, " go again and speak loud
and resolutely to her, and tell her it is her own son wants her."
The boy returned, and went up close to her, and as he thought
she was deaf, he spoke loud to her. As she made no reply, he
gave her a push, when down she tumbled into the well. Levi-
our called out for the town-guard and told them to seize the boy
that had drowned his mother. The officers came immediately,
arrested the boy, and put him in prison. Notice was given
through the town, with the ringing of a bell, that such a young
man had been imprisoned for drowning an old woman in a well.
Who did the boy happen to be but the son of the provost of the
town. The provost came to Levi-our and asked what he would
take on condition of letting his son off, and as an equivalent for
the life of his mother. Levi-our said it was not an easy matter
to say, seeing he had so great a regard for his mother. " Oh,"
said the provost, " I will see your mother decently buried, and
will give you besides five hundred merks in consideration of her
having been drowned as happened." " Very well," said Levi-our,
" as you are a respectable gentleman, I will accept that." Levi-
our returned home. Next day he saw his two neighbours coming
towards his house. He commenced counting the money he had
got for his mother. "Oh," said they, "where did you get all
that money?" " My mother died," said he, "and I went with
her to the market town and sold her. There is a high price given
for dead old women, to make powder of their bones." "Then,"
said they, " we, ourselves, will try the same thing." He who
had no mother had a mother-in-law ; so they killed an old woman