In the land of Erin there dwelt long ago a widow who had an only son.
He was a clever boy, so she saved up enough money to send him to school,
and, as soon as he was old enough, to apprentice him to any trade that
he would choose. But when the time came, he said he would not be bound
to any trade, and that he meant to be a thief.
Now his mother was very sorrowful when she heard of this, but she knew
quite well that if she tried to stop his having his own way he would
only grow more determined to get it. So all the answer she made was that
the end of thieves was hanging at the bridge of Dublin, and then she
left him alone, hoping that when he was older he might become more
sensible.
One day she was going to church to hear a sermon from a great preacher,
and she begged the Shifty Lad, as the neighbours called him from the
tricks he played, to come with her. But he only laughed and declared
that he did not like sermons, adding:
‘However, I will promise you this, that the first trade you hear named
after you come out from church shall be my trade for the rest of my
life.’
These words gave a little comfort to the poor woman, and her heart was
lighter than before as she bade him farewell.
When the Shifty Lad thought that the hour had nearly come for the sermon
to be over, he hid himself in some bushes in a little path that led
straight to his mother’s house, and, as she passed along, thinking of
all the good things she had heard, a voice shouted close to her ear
‘Robbery! Robbery! Robbery!’ The suddenness of it made her jump. The
naughty boy had managed to change his voice, so that she did not know
it for his, and he had concealed himself so well that, though she peered
about all round her, she could see no one. As soon as she had turned
the corner the Shifty Lad came out, and by running very fast through
the wood he contrived to reach home before his mother, who found him
stretched out comfortably before the fire.
‘Well, have you got any news to tell me?’ asked he.
‘No, nothing; for I left the church at once, and did not stop to speak
to anyone.’
‘Oh, then no one has mentioned a trade to you?’ he said in tones of
disappointment.
‘Ye--es,’ she replied slowly. ‘At least, as I walked down the path a
voice cried out “Robbery! Robbery! Robbery!” but that was all.’
‘And quite enough too,’ answered the boy. ‘What did I tell you? That is
going to be my trade.’
‘Then your end will be hanging at the bridge of Dublin,’ said she. But
there was no sleep for her that night, for she lay in the dark thinking
about her son.
‘If he is to be a thief at all, he had better be a good one. And who is
there that can teach him?’ the mother asked herself. But an idea came
to her, and she arose early, before the sun was up, and set off for the
home of the Black Rogue, or Gallows Bird, who was such a wonderful thief
that, though all had been robbed by him, no one could catch him.
‘Good-morning to you,’ said the woman as she reached the place where the
Black Gallows Bird lived when he was not away on his business. ‘My son
has a fancy to learn your trade. Will you be kind enough to teach him?’
‘If he is clever, I don’t mind trying,’ answered the Black Gallows Bird;
‘and, of course, if ANY one can turn him into a first-rate thief, it
is I. But if he is stupid, it is of no use at all; I can’t bear stupid
people.’
‘No, he isn’t stupid,’ said the woman with a sigh. ‘So to-night, after
dark, I will send him to you.’
The Shifty Lad jumped for joy when his mother told him where she had
been.
‘I will become the best thief in all Erin!’ he cried, and paid no heed
when his mother shook her head and murmured something about ‘the bridge
of Dublin.’
Every evening after dark the Shifty Lad went to the home of the Black
Gallows Bird, and many were the new tricks he learned. By-and-by he was
allowed to go out with the Bird and watch him at work, and at last there
came a day when his master though that he had grown clever enough to
help in a big robbery.
‘There is a rich farmer up there on the hill, who has just sold all his
fat cattle for much money and has bought some lean ones which will cost
him little. Now it happens that, while he has received the money for the
fat cattle, he has not yet paid the price of the thin ones, which he has
in the cowhouse. To-morrow he will go to the market with the money in
his hand, so to-night we must get at the chest. When all is quiet we
will hide in the loft.’
There was no moon, and it was the night of Hallowe’en, and everyone
was burning nuts and catching apples in a tub of water with their hands
tied, and playing all sorts of other games, till the Shifty Lad grew
quite tired of waiting for them to get to bed. The Black Gallows Bird,
who was more accustomed to the business, tucked himself up on the hay
and went to sleep, telling the boy to wake him when the merry-makers had
departed. But the Shifty Lad, who could keep still no longer, crept down
to the cowshed and loosened the heads of the cattle which were tied, and
they began to kick each other and bellow, and made such a noise that the
company in the farmhouse ran out to tie them up again. Then the Shifty
Lad entered the room and picked up a big handful of nuts, and returned
to the loft, where the Black Rogue was still sleeping. At first the
Shifty Lad shut his eyes too, but very soon he sat up, and taking a big
needle and thread from his pocket, he sewed the hem of the Black Gallows
Bird’s coat to a heavy piece of bullock’s hide that was hanging at his
back.
By this time the cattle were all tied up again, but as the people could
not find their nuts they sat round the fire and began to tell stories.
‘I will crack a nut,’ said the Shifty Lad.
‘You shall not,’ cried the Black Gallows Bird; ‘they will hear you.’
‘I don’t care,’ answered the Shifty Lad. ‘I never spend Hallowe’en yet
without cracking a nut’; and he cracked one.
‘Some one is cracking nuts up there,’ said one of the merry-makers in
the farmhouse. ‘Come quickly, and we will see who it is.’
He spoke loudly, and the Black Gallows Bird heard, and ran out of the
loft, dragging the big leather hide after him which the Shifty Lad had
sewed to his coat.
‘He is stealing my hide!’ shouted the farmer, and they all darted after
him; but he was too swift for them, and at last he managed to tear the
hide from his coat, and then he flew like a hare till he reached his old
hiding-place. But all this took a long time, and meanwhile the Shifty
Lad got down from the loft, and searched the house till he found the
chest with the gold and silver in it, concealed behind a load of straw
and covered with loaves of bread and a great cheese. The Shifty Lad
slung the money bags round his shoulders and took the bread and the
cheese under his arm, then set out quietly for the Black Rogue’s house.
‘Here you are at last, you villain!’ cried his master in great wrath.
‘But I will be revenged on you.’
‘It is all right,’ replied the Shifty Lad calmly. ‘I have brought what
you wanted’; and he laid the things he was carrying down on the ground.
‘Ah! you are the better thief,’ said the Black Rogue’s wife; and the
Black Rogue added:
‘Yes, it is you who are the clever boy’; and they divided the spoil and
the Black Gallows Bird had one half and the Shifty Lad the other half.
A few weeks after that the Black Gallows Bird had news of a wedding that
was to be held near the town; and the bridegroom had many friends and
everybody sent him a present. Now a rich farmer who lived up near the
moor thought that nothing was so useful to a young couple when they
first began to keep house as a fine fat sheep, so he bade his shepherd
go off to the mountain where the flock were feeding, and bring him
back the best he could find. And the shepherd chose out the largest and
fattest of the sheep and the one with the whitest fleece; then he tied
its feet together and put it across his shoulder, for he had a long way
to go.
That day, the Shifty Lad happened to be wandering over the moor, when he
saw the man with the sheep on his shoulder walking along the road which
led past the Black Rogue’s house. The sheep was heavy and the man was
in no hurry, so he came slowly and the boy knew that he himself could
easily get back to his master before the shepherd was even in sight.
‘I will wager,’ he cried, as he pushed quickly through the bushes which
hid the cabin--‘I will wager that I will steal the sheep from the man
that is coming before he passes here.’
‘Will you indeed?’ said the Gallows Bird. ‘I will wager you a hundred
silver pieces that you can do nothing of the sort.’
‘Well, I will try it, anyway,’ replied the boy, and disappeared in the
bushes. He ran fast till he entered a wood through which the shepherd
must go, and then he stopped, and taking off one of his shoes smeared it
with mud and set it in the path. When this was done he slipped behind a
rock and waited.
Very soon the man came up, and seeing the shoe lying there, he stooped
and looked at it.
‘It is a good shoe,’ he said to himself, ‘but very dirty. Still, if I
had the fellow, I would be at the trouble of cleaning it’; so he threw
the shoe down again and went on.
The Shifty Lad smiled as he heard him, and, picking up the shoe, he
crept round by a short way and laid the other shoe on the path. A few
minutes after the shepherd arrived, and beheld the second shoe lying on
the path.
‘Why, that is the fellow of the dirty shoe!’ he exclaimed when he saw
it. ‘I will go back and pick up the other one, and then I shall have a
pair of good shoes,’ and he put the sheep on the grass and returned to
fetch the shoe. Then the Shifty Lad put on his shoes, and, picking up
the sheep, carried it home. And the Black Rogue paid him the hundred
marks of his wager.
When the shepherd reached the farmhouse that night he told his tale to
his master, who scolded him for being stupid and careless, and bade him
go the next day to the mountain and fetch him a kid, and he would send
that as a wedding gift. But the Shifty Lad was on the look-out, and hid
himself in the wood, and the moment the man drew near with the kid on
his shoulders began to bleat like a sheep, and no one, not even the
sheep’s own mother, could have told the difference.
‘Why, it must have got its feet loose, and have strayed after all,’
thought the man; and he put the kid on the grass and hurried off in the
direction of the bleating. Then the boy ran back and picked up the kid,
and took it to the Black Gallows Bird.
The shepherd could hardly believe his eyes when he returned from seeking
the sheep and found that the kid had vanished. He was afraid to go home
and tell the same tale that he had told yesterday; so he searched the
wood through and through till night was nearly come. Then he felt that
there was no help for it, and he must go home and confess to his master.
Of course, the farmer was very angry at this second misfortune; but this
time he told him to drive one of the big bulls from the mountain, and
warned him that if he lost THAT he would lose his place also. Again the
Shifty Lad, who was on the watch, perceived him pass by, and when he saw
the man returning with the great bull he cried to the Black Rogue:
‘Be quick and come into the wood, and we will try to get the bull also.’
‘But how can we do that?’ asked the Black Rogue.
‘Oh, quite easily! You hide yourself out there and baa like a sheep, and
I will go in the other direction and bleat like a kid. It will be all
right, I assure you.’
The shepherd was walking slowly, driving the bull before him, when he
suddenly heard a loud baa amongst the bushes far away on one side of the
path, and a feeble bleat answering it from the other side.
‘Why, it must be the sheep and the kid that I lost,’ said he. ‘Yes,
surely it must’; and tying the bull hastily to a tree, he went off
after the sheep and the kid, and searched the wood till he was tired. Of
course by the time he came back the two thieves had driven the bull home
and killed him for meat, so the man was obliged to go to his master and
confess that he had been tricked again.
After this the Black Rogue and the Shifty Lad grew bolder and bolder,
and stole great quantities of cattle and sold them and grew quite rich.
One day they were returning from the market with a large sum of money in
their pockets when they passed a gallows erected on the top of a hill.
‘Let us stop and look at that gallows,’ exclaimed the Shifty Lad. ‘I
have never seen one so close before. Yet some say that it is the end of
all thieves.’
There was no one in sight, and they carefully examined every part of it.
‘I wonder how it feels to be hanged,’ said the Shifty Lad. ‘I should
like to know, in case they ever catch me. I’ll try first, and then you
can do so.’
As he spoke he fastened the loose cord about his neck, and when it was
quite secure he told the Black Rogue to take the other end of the rope
and draw him up from the ground.
‘When I am tired of it I will shake my legs, and then you must let me
down,’ said he.
The Black Rogue drew up the rope, but in half a minute the Shifty Lad’s
legs began to shake, and he quickly let it down again.
‘You can’t imagine what a funny feeling hanging gives you,’ murmured
the Shifty Lad, who looked rather purple in the face and spoke in an odd
voice. ‘I don’t think you have every tried it, or you wouldn’t have let
me go up first. Why, it is the pleasantest thing I have ever done. I was
shaking my legs from sheer delight, and if you had been there you would
have shaken your legs too.’
‘Well, let me try, if it is so nice,’ answered the Black Rogue. ‘But be
sure you tie the knot securely, for I don’t want to fall down and break
my neck.’
‘Oh, I will see to that!’ replied the Shifty Lad. ‘When you are tired,
just whistle, and I’ll let you down.’
So the Black Rogue was drawn up, and as soon as he was as high as the
rope would allow him to go the Shifty Lad called to him:
‘Don’t forest to whistle when you want to come down; but if you are
enjoying yourself as I did, shake your legs.’
And in a moment the Black Rogue’s legs began to shake and to kick, and
the Shifty Lad stood below, watching him and laughing heartily.
‘Oh, how funny you are! If you could only see yourself! Oh, you ARE
funny! But when you have had enough, whistle and you shall be let down’;
and he rocked again with laughter.
But no whistle came, and soon the legs ceased to shake and to kick, for
the Black Gallows Bird was dead, as the Shifty Lad intended he should
be.
Then he went home to the Black Rogue’s wife, and told her that her
husband was dead, and that he was ready to marry her if she liked. But
the woman had been fond of the Black Rogue, thief though he was, and she
shrank from the Shifty Lad in horror, and set the people after him,
and he had to fly to another part of the country where none knew of his
doings.
Perhaps if the Shifty Lad’s mother knew anything of this, she may have
thought that by this time her son might be tired of stealing, and ready
to try some honest trade. But in reality he loved the tricks and danger,
and life would have seemed very dull without them. So he went on just as
before, and made friends whom he taught to be as wicked as himself, till
they took to robbing the king’s storehouses, and by the advice of the
Wise Man the king sent out soldiers to catch the band of thieves.
For a long while they tried in vain to lay hands on them. The Shifty Lad
was too clever for them all, and if they laid traps he laid better ones.
At last one night he stole upon some soldiers while they were asleep in
a barn and killed them, and persuaded the villagers that if THEY did not
kill the other soldiers before morning they would certainly be killed
themselves. Thus it happened that when the sun rose not a single soldier
was alive in the village.
Of course this news soon reached the king’s ears, and he was very angry,
and summoned the Wise Man to take counsel with him. And this was the
counsel of the Wise Man--that he should invite all the people in the
countryside to a ball, and among them the bold and impudent thief would
be sure to come, and would be sure to ask the king’s daughter to dance
with him.
‘Your counsel is good,’ said the king, who made his feast and prepared
for his ball; and all the people of the countryside were present, and
the Shifty Lad came with them.
When everyone had eaten and drunk as much as they wanted they went into
the ballroom. There was a great throng, and while they were pressing
through the doorway the Wise Man, who had a bottle of black ointment
hidden in his robes, placed a tiny dot on the cheek of the Shifty Lad
near his ear. The Shifty Lad felt nothing, but as he approached the
king’s daughter to ask her to be his partner he caught sight of the
black dot in a silver mirror. Instantly he guessed who had put it
there and why, but he said nothing, and danced so beautifully that the
princess was quite delighted with him. At the end of the dance he bowed
low to his partner and left her, to mingle with the crowd that was
filling the doorway. As he passed the Wise Man he contrived not only to
steal the bottle but to place two black dots on his face, and one on the
faces of twenty other men. Then he slipped the bottle back in the Wise
Man’s robe.
By-and-by he went up to the king’s daughter again, and begged for the
honour of another dance. She consented, and while he was stooping to
tie the ribbons on his shoe she took out from her pocket another bottle,
which the Wizard had given her, and put a black dot on his cheek. But
she was not as skilful as the Wise Man, and the Shifty Lad felt the
touch of her fingers; so as soon as the dance was over he contrived to
place a second black dot on the faces of the twenty men and two more on
the Wizard, after which he slipped the bottle into her pocket.
At length the ball came to an end, and then the king ordered all the
doors to be shut, and search made for a man with two black dots on his
cheek. The chamberlain went among the guests, and soon found such a man,
but just as he was going to arrest him and bring him before the king his
eye fell on another with the same mark, and another, and another, till
he had counted twenty--besides the Wise Man--on whose face were found
spots.
Not knowing what to do, the chamberlain hurried back with his tale
to the king, who immediately sent for the Wise Man, and then for his
daughter.
‘The thief must have stolen your bottle,’ said the king to the Wizard.
‘No, my lord, it is here,’ answered the Wise Man, holding it out.
‘Then he must have got yours,’ he cried, turning to his daughter.
‘Indeed, father, it is safe in my pocket,’ replied she, taking it out as
she spoke; and they all three looked at each other and remained silent.
‘Well,’ said the king at last, ‘the man who has done this is cleverer
than most men, and if he will make himself known to me he shall marry
the princess and govern half my kingdom while I am alive, and the whole
of it when I am dead. Go and announce this in the ballroom,’ he added to
an attendant, ‘and bring the fellow hither.’
So the attendant went into the ballroom and did as the king had bidden
him, when, to his surprise, not one man, but twenty, stepped forward,
all with black dots on their faces.
‘I am the person you want,’ they all exclaimed at once, and the
attendant, as much bewildered as the chamberlain had been, desired them
to follow him into the king’s presence.
But the question was too difficult for the king to decide, so he called
together his council. For hours they talked, but to no purpose, and in
the end they hit upon a plan which they might just as well have thought
of at the beginning.
And this was the plan. A child was to be brought to the palace, and next
the king’s daughter would give her an apple. Then the child was to take
the apple and be led into a room where the twenty men with the black
dots were sitting in a ring. And to whomsoever the child gave the apple,
that man should marry the king’s daughter.
‘Of course,’ said the king, ‘it may not be the right man, after all, but
then again it MAY be. Anyhow, it is the best we can do.’
The princess herself led the child into the room where the twenty men
were now seated. She stood in the centre of the ring for a moment,
looking at one man after another, and then held out the apple to the
Shifty Lad, who was twisting a shaving of wood round his finger, and had
the mouthpiece of a bagpipe hanging from his neck.
‘You ought not to have anything which the others have not got,’ said
the chamberlain, who had accompanied the princess; and he bade the
child stand outside for a minute, while he took away the shaving and the
mouthpiece, and made the Shifty Lad change his place. Then he called the
child in, but the little girl knew him again, and went straight up to
him with the apple.
‘This is the man whom the child has twice chosen,’ said the chamberlain,
signing to the Shifty Lad to kneel before the king. ‘It was all quite
fair; we tried it twice over.’ In this way the Shifty Lad won the king’s
daughter, and they were married the next day.
A few days later the bride and bridegroom were taking a walk together,
and the path led down to the river, and over the river was a bridge.
‘And what bridge may this be?’ asked the Shifty Lad; and the princess
told him that this was the bridge of Dublin.
‘Is it indeed?’ cried he. ‘Well, now, many is the time that my mother
has said, when I played her a trick, that my end would be that I should
hang on the bridge of Dublin.’
‘Oh, if you want to fulfil her prophecies,’ laughed the princess, ‘you
have only to let me tie my handkerchief round your ankle, and I will
hold you as you hang over the wall of the bridge.’
‘That would be fine fun,’ said he; ‘but you are not strong enough to
hold me up.’
‘Oh, yes, I am,’ said the princess; ‘just try.’ So at last he let her
bind the handkerchief round his ankle and hang him over the wall, and
they both laughed and jested at the strength of the princess.
‘Now pull me up again,’ called he; but as he spoke a great cry arose
that the palace was burning. The princess turned round with a start, and
let go her handkerchief, and the Shifty Lad fell, and struck his head on
a stone, and died in an instant.
So his mother’s prophecy had come true, after all.
West Highland Tales.