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

MAC-A-RUSGAICH. 3 I I
When the tenant went to the wedding, Mac-a-Eus-
gaich went to put the stots into the fang, and he took
a knife and took their eyes out, and he put the eyes in
his pocket ; and when the night came, Mac-a-Rusgaich
put the saddle on the horse, and he went to the wed-
ding house to seek his master, and he reached the
wedding house, and he went into the company, and
he sat till it was near upon the twelfth hour.
And then he began at throAving the eye of a stot at
the carle at the end of each while, and at last the old
carle noticed him, and he said to him,
" What art thou doing ? "
And Mac-a-Iiusgaich said, " I am casting an ox-eye
on the side that thou art, for that it is now near upon
the twelfth hour."
And the old carle said, " Dost thou think thyself
that thou hast gone to take the eyes out of the stots 1 "
And Mac-a-Eusgaich said, " It is not thinking it I
am at all ; I am sure of it. Thou didst ask me thyself
to cast an ox eye the side thou mightst be when it was
near upon the twelfth hour, and how could I do that
unless I should have taken the eyes out of the stots ? "
And the tenant said, " Adversity and calamities be
upon thee, thou boy."
And Mac-a-Eusgaich said, "Adversity and cala-
mities on thyself, old carle ! Art thou taking the rue
that thou didst ask me to do it ? "
" I am not, I am not ! " said the carle ; and they
went home together, and there was no more about it
that night.
And the end of a day or two after that, his master
asked Mac-a-Eusgaich to go up to the gates at the top
and make a sheep footpath.*
* Stair, a path or causeway in a wet bog.
Chasa, for the feet, or of the feet. Chaokacii, of sheep.