Of the party who went on the next hunting expedition not one returned alive. The servant who said he had heard his master speaking to the devil refused positively to be one of the party, neither threats nor promises moved him, and others followed his example. Only one of the previous party, a Macfarlane from Rannoch, a good and pious man it is said, went. It was observed that this day the officer left his watch and keys at home, a thing he had never been known to do before. Macfarlane’s body was not found on the same day with the rest. It was carried further from the hut than the searchers thought of looking, and a person who had found before the body of one lost among the hills, was got to look for his remains. There is a saying that if a person finds a body once he is more apt to find another. When the melancholy procession with the dead bodies was on the way from the forest, even the elements were not at peace, but indicated the agency that had been at work. The day became exceedingly boisterous with wind and rain, so much so, when the Black Officer’s body was foremost, that the party was unable to move on, and the order had to be changed. Two songs at least were composed on the occasion. One, strong in its praises of Captain MacPherson, will be found in _Duanaire_, p. 13; the other, among other things, says of him— “The Black Officer of Ballychroän it was, He turned his back on wife and children; Had he fallen in the wars in France, The loss was not so lamentable.”[95] THE BUNDLE OF FERN. A shepherd in Benderloch saw a large bundle of ferns rolling down the hillside, and, in addition to the downward motion given by the incline, it seemed to have a motion of its own. It disappeared down a waterfall. Of course this was Black Donald; what else could it be? THE PIG IN THE INDIGO POT. A former tenant of the farm of Holm, in Skye, and his wife had gone to bed, leaving a large pot full of indigo dye on the floor. The pig came in and fell into the pot. The wife got up to see what the noise was, and on looking into the pot saw the green snout of a pig jerking out of the troubled water. She roared out that the devil was in the pot. Her husband shouted in return to put on the lid, and jumping in great excitement out of bed, he threw his weight on the lid to keep it down till the devil was drowned. His wife was remarkable for always commending what her husband did, and kept repeating, “Many a person you will confer a favour on this night, Murdoch” (_Is iomadh duine d’an dean thusa feum a nochd, a Mhurchiadh_). At last the noise in the pot subsided, and Murdoch nearly called up the party he had sought to drown on finding it was his own pig he had been so zealously destroying. AMONG THE TAILORS.