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

3 I 2 WEST HIGHLAND TALES.
" I will do that," said Mac-a-Eusgaich ; and lie
went, and he put the sheep into the fang, and he cut
their feet off, and he made a stair with the sheeps' legs,
and he went back where his master was, and his master
said to him,
"Didst thou that?"
And Mac-a-Eusgaich said, " I did. Thou mayest
go thyseK and see."
And the master went to see the sheep footpath
that Mac-a-Eusgaich had made, and when he arrived
and saw the sheeps' legs in the path, he went into a
rage, and he saitl, " Adversity and calamities be upon
thee, boy ; what made thee cut the legs oft' the sheep ?"
And Mac-a-Eusgaich said, " Didst thou not ask me
thyself to make a sheep footpath; and how should I
make a sheep footpath unless I should cut the legs off
the slieep ? See ! Art thou taking the rue that thou
didst ask me to do it, old carle ? "
" I am not, I am not ! " said liis master.
"What have I to do again?" said Mac-a-Eusgaich.
" It is," said his master, " to clean and to wash the
horses and the stable, both without and Avithin."
And ]\Iac-a-Eusgaich went and he cleaned out the
stable, and he washed the walls on the outside, and he
washed the stable on the inside ; he washed the horses,
and he killed them, and he took their insides out of
them, and he washed their insides, and he went where
According to Dewar, a path made over a bog, when a gate
happens to be where the ground is soft, or where peat moss is.
If sheep be often driven through such a gate, the pathway soon
gets soft, so that the sheep sink in it. It is repaired by cutting
brushwood or heather, and Laying it on the soft phice with a
covering of gravel, and is called Stair Chasa Caorach.
I know the kind of road meant, but I never heard the name. —
J. F. C.