The cats began to yowl a coronach, and what with the crack of lightning and the roll of thunder and the rain pelting down on the roof and lashing the sides of the hut, the clamour, inside and out together, was terrible to hear.
They got to the end of the coronach at last and sat still, all glaring at Murdo with their green eyes opened wide.
“Come, Murdo,” the red one said. “Pay them now for singing the coronach to you.”
There were no two ways about it. Whether it was his or not, the laird’s cow would have to go to the cats. Murdo pointed a finger to the creature and told them, “There’s a cow up there on the lea. Take that for your pay.”
The cow was old and had but little flesh upon her, so the cats finished her faster than they had the sheep. Soon they were back at the hut again, and all that they left behind was a heap of shining bones on the lea beside those of the sheep.
Down, they sat in a ring again, and the red one bid them sing another coronach to Murdo MacTaggart. And once again the great black cats raised their voices and yowled out their song.
Murdo was in a desperate case, for the wether was gone and the cow was gone and he had naught to pay them for the coronach, which he hadn’t asked for and had never wanted. He had it in his mind that this time it was his own bones the great black cats would be leaving behind in a neat little heap.
Then just as he was giving up hope and saying his prayers for what he thought was the last time, he looked over the heads of the cats and out of the door. What did he see but the laird’s big deerhound, a big rangy long-legged creature who could outrun the swiftest stag. The hound was sniffing about the piles of bones as if perplexed to find them there, and at that moment the coronach came to an end.
Murdo did not wait for the red one to bring up the subject. He lifted a finger and pointed it at the laird’s dog, and cried out, “There’s your pay!”
The cats flew out of the hut in a body, but the deerhound saw them coming. He gathered his legs beneath him and took off with a mighty bound that carried him halfway across the lea. After that first leap the deerhound put his mind on getting away quickly from the place. He moved with such speed that he made a tunnel through the torrents of the rain, and it was a good long time before the hole he had made closed up after him again.
The great black cats flew over the lea and up the road after the deerhound, and the red one with them. As soon as Murdo found himself alone, he got himself out of the hut as fast as he could and ran into the wood that stood on the other side of the lea, hoping to make his escape undiscovered. He was going along the path as fast as his legs would carry him, making his way toward home, when he heard the cats coming back again, and in a great state of anger they were, because the deerhound had been too fleet and had got away. They began to search through the wood, looking for Murdo among the bushes and trees, and Murdo knew that there were too many of them for him to keep out of their way for long. One or the other of them would be sure to come across him soon.
There was a very tall tree beside him, with a trunk that was bare of branches almost three-fourths of the way up, and up the tree Murdo went, climbing it as a sailor climbs a mast. He settled himself on a good stout branch near the top and watched to see what went on below.
The big black cats were going about searching for him among the trees and bushes. Murdo grinned to himself to see them and thought himself safe up there, so high in the top. But his joy soon turned to dismay, for the red one came along and, looking up, spied him among the branches and called to his companions, “You can give up your search, for I’ve found Murdo MacTaggart for you. There he is in the treetop, and we’ll soon have him down.”
“That you’ll not!” said Murdo to himself.
But at that moment one of the great black cats began to climb the tree. When Murdo saw the creature coming, he drew his dirk from his belt and waited until the cat was almost up to his hiding place. The cat reached out with claws spread to grab him, but Murdo stabbed it to the heart with a quick thrust of his dirk. If the cat ever had nine lives it must have lost the other eight before Murdo finished it off, for its body hurtled to the ground and there it lay dead.
A second cat then came climbing up the tree, and then a third one, and Murdo killed both of them.
“Hold!” said the red one to his companions who were left. “We’ll not get him down that way! May ill luck befall him, he’ll kill us all before we’re through, if we continue to climb the tree.”
He gathered the great black cats about him to talk the matter over, and at last the red one said, “If we cannot climb up and fetch him down, we’ll bring the tree down with him in it, and catch him that way.”
So the black cats gathered about the tree and began to dig the earth away from it with their claws, and when they came to a root they chewed through it with their sharp white teeth. When they cut through the first big root, the tree gave a shiver and listed to one side, and Murdo began to shake with fear. He opened his mouth and gave a great cry for help.
There was a church on the other side of the wood and the priest was just coming out with the people around him. He heard Murdo’s shout and said to one of the men beside him, “That was the cry of one in great trouble. I may be needed. I must go.”
“Wait now, Father,” the man told him. “ ’Tis a bad night for you to be going out. Let it be until we hear if the shout is raised again.”
“Och, well, then,” said the priest. “So let it be.” But he went back into the church to fetch the things that might be needed, should the call come again.
At the tree the cats were digging with mad haste, and soon they had uncovered another root, and they bit it through. The tree began to lean heavily to the side, and Murdo gave a second wild shout for help.
“To be sure,” said the priest. “That is a man whose need is great. Let us go quickly!”
The man beside him made no further objection, but with a nod here and a beckoning finger there he drew a dozen men from among the crowd at the church, and all of them went with the priest towards the wood.
The cats had uncovered the last big root and were chewing at it wildly. The root parted and the tree fell down with a crash just as the priest and the men with him came into sight. Murdo gave one last loud shout and climbed into the branches as high as he could, with the cats springing up to catch him and drag him down, and he with his dirk in hand to defend himself to his last breath. The men rushed forward to rescue Murdo, but the priest was before them. He was a wise old man, that priest, and he knew at once what he had to deal with. He had his holy water bottle in hand, and he opened it as he ran. He sprinkled the blessed water over the big black cats, making sure that every one of them had his full share.
“Begone, Satan, and you demons from hell! Begone!” he cried. “I bid you leave the soul and body of this man alone!”
The red one leapt high into the air and off he flew and soon was seen no more, but he left a great stench of smoke and brimstone behind him. As for the great black cats, they lay about on the ground beside the tree they had cut down. It was a strange thing about those great black cats, for when men went up to them to examine them where they lay, they were not cats at all but only great black cat skins lying upon the ground with neither bones nor flesh within them!
So that was how Murdo MacTaggart was saved on that wild stormy night, not from a pack of great black cats with a red one for their leader, but from Auld Clootie, the de’il himself, with a pack of his demons he’d brought along with him from hell.
It taught Murdo a lesson, for never again did he go down to the shore to go fishing on an All Hallowmass Eve.