The peat-fire flame : folk-tales and traditions of the Highlands & Islands

THE PEAT-FIRE FLAME
there, and nursed his wounds until he was fit to return the
way he had come. One evening the Lochaber man, in
thanking the minister for his kindness, announced that he
thought he was now well enough to depart. That evening,
then, he took leave of his host ; and, in doing so, he drove
off some of the minister's cattle at the same time. Missing
the hill-track at the top of Glen Beag, he chanced to meet
a stranger in the twilight, of whom he enquired the way.
It was agreed that, if the stranger directed him to the track,
he would hand over to him a couple of the beasts in
recompense. The stranger thereupon led him on; and,
when they came to the edge of the precipice by the tall
waterfall in Glen Beag, he pushed the cateran over. Down
he crashed to his death. Thereafter the stranger, who
happened to be the minister himself, took possession of his
own cattle, and returned in triumph to the manse to receive
the congratulations of his parishioners for his valorous
performance.
The Rieving Exploits of Iain Gearr.
On the rocky shore of Ardnamurchan, and situated
between the village of Kilchoan and the headland known
as the Sron Bheag, or Little Nose, is a cave that goes by
the name of Short John Maclan's Cave. Short John, or
Iain Gearr, as we shall refer to him for the purposes of
this story, lived some time during the eighteenth century
and he was namely for his robberies and cattle-liftings.
He belonged to that sept of the MacDonalds known as the
Maclans of Ardnamurchan, the chief members of which,
it is said, once resided at Mingary Castle. So numerous
and extensive were his depredations that he was obliged to
resort to all manner of schemes to avoid apprehension.
They say in Ardnamurchan, for instance, that he never
painted both sides of his boat the same colour, and that he
often repainted his craft in different colours. In this wise,
when news went rtmnd the district that he had been sighted
off the Ardnamurchan coast in a white boat, the natives,
noticing his craft from a ditierent angle, declared that they
206
;