The Lilac Fairy Book | Page 7

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