“I mind your great-grandfather weel, Brockburn.  He was a hamely man, I found his sheep for him one nicht on this verra hill-side.  Mair by token, ye’ll find your beasties at hame, and the men and the dogs forebye.”

The Laird thanked him heartily, and after a while the Dwarf became more liberal-spirited still.

“Yese no have to say that ye’ve been with the Daoine Shi and are no the better for it,” he said.  “I’m thinking I’ll grant ye three wushes.  But choose wisely, man, and dinna throw them away.  I hae my fears that ye’re no without a bee in your bonnet, Brockburn.”

Incensed by this insinuation, the Laird defended his own sagacity at some length, and retorted on his companion with doubts of the power of the Daoine Shi to grant wishes.

“The proof of the pudding’s in the eating o’t,” said the Man of Peace.  “Wush away, Brockburn, and mak the nut as hard to crack as ye will.”

The Laird at once began to cast about in his mind for three wishes sufficiently comprehensive to secure his lifelong prosperity; but the more he beat his brains the less could he satisfy himself.

How many miles he wandered thus, the Dwarf keeping silently beside him, he never knew, before he sank exhausted on the ground, saying: 

“I’m thinking, man, that if ye could bring hame to me, in place of bringing me hame, I’d misdoubt your powers nae mair.  It’s a far cry to Loch Awe,[7] ye ken, and it’s a weary long road to Brockburn.”

[Footnote 7:  “It’s a far cry to Loch Awe.”—­Scotch Proverb.]

“Is this your wush?” asked the Man of Peace.

“This is my wush,” said the Laird, striking his rung upon the ground.

The words had scarcely passed his lips when the whole homestead of Brockburn, house and farm buildings, was planted upon the bleak hill-side.

The astonished Laird now began to bewail the rash wish which had removed his home from the sheltered and fertile valley where it originally stood to the barren side of a bleak mountain.

The Man of Peace, however, would not take any hints as to undoing his work of his own accord.  All he said was: 

“If ye wush it away, so it’ll be.  But then ye’ll only have one wush left.  Ye’ve small discretion the nicht, Brockburn, I’m feared.”

“To leave the steading in sic a spot is no to be thought on,” sighed the Laird, as he spent his second wish in undoing his first.  But he cannily added the provision: 

“And ye may tak me wi’ it.”

The words were no sooner spoken than the homestead was back in its place, and Brockburn himself was lying in his own bed, Jock, his favourite collie, barking and licking his face by turns for joy.

“Whisht, whisht, Jock!” said the Laird.  “Ye wouldna bark when I begged of ye, so ye may hand your peace noo.”

And pushing the collie from him, he sat up in bed and looked anxiously but vainly round the chamber for the Man of Peace.