obin Oig had just given the preliminary "HOO-HOO!" to urge forward the
loiterers of the drove, when there was a cry behind him:--

"Stay, Robin--bide a blink. Here is Janet of Tomahourich--auld Janet,
your father's sister."

"Plague on her, for an auld Highland witch and spaewife," said a farmer
from the Carse of Stirling; "she'll cast some of her cantrips on the
cattle."

"She canna do that," said another sapient of the same profession. "Robin
Oig is no the lad to leave any of them without tying Saint Mungo's knot
on their tails, and that will put to her speed the best witch that ever
flew over Dimayet upon a broomstick."

It may not be indifferent to the reader to know that the Highland
cattle are peculiarly liable to be TAKEN, or infected, by spells and
witchcraft, which judicious people guard against by knitting knots of
peculiar complexity on the tuft of hair which terminates the animal's
tail.

But the old woman who was the object of the farmer's suspicion seemed
only busied about the drover, without paying any attention to the drove.
Robin, on the contrary, appeared rather impatient of her presence.

"What auld-world fancy," he said, "has brought you so early from the
ingle-side this morning, Muhme? I am sure I bid you good-even, and had
your God-speed, last night."

"And left me more siller than the useless old woman will use till you
come back again, bird of my bosom," said the sibyl. "But it is little I
would care for the food that nourishes me, or the fire that warms me,
or for God's blessed sun itself, if aught but weel should happen to the
grandson of my father. So let me walk the DEASIL round you, that you may
go safe out into the far foreign land, and come safe home."

Robin Oig stopped, half embarrassed, half laughing, and signing to those
around that he only complied with the old woman to soothe her humour.
In the meantime, she traced around him, with wavering steps, the
propitiation, which some have thought has been derived from the
Druidical mythology. It consists, as is well known, in the person who
makes the DEASIL walking three times round the person who is the object
of the ceremony, taking care to move according to the course of the sun.
At once, however, she stopped short, and exclaimed, in a voice of alarm
and horror, "Grandson of my father, there is blood on your hand."

"Hush, for God's sake, aunt!" said Robin Oig. "You will bring more
trouble on yourself with this TAISHATARAGH" (se