Cape Breton's Magazine

Donald John MacMullin with Maicoimcampbeii There was a man called The Pig, and a good many peo? ple would think it wasn't a nice name but it was. My grandfather told me the story. This man had a big black dog, according to my grandfather. He knew him well. And the dog would never pay no attention to no? body. He'd look at you. Wouldn't growl or nothing. But the man went fishing this night, fishing for sal? mon or something, spearing. We done that here. You know, spear salmon with a light. And he saw a light ahead of him around a turn and he came up with a stranger. The stranger said, "You're fishing?" The man says, "Yes." "Well," he says, "vrtiy can't we fish together?" "Well," the man says, "I might think that over." "Oh, yes," the stranger says, "we can divide the fish, one to you and one to me, and" he says, "the last big one for me." The man caught on he had the wron' man with him* So they start fishing. And soon the stranger says, "We've got enough." "Oh, no," says the man, "there's lots of fish in the brook yet." You see, I have an idea or two • that's why I like the rooster. If the rooster crows at any bad persons in the olden times, you were gonna know. So he was killing time. And the pheasant rooster • out of a clear sky • the pheasant rooster crowed in the woods alongside of him. He said, "I've got to go. We'll have to divide the fish." They started dividing the fish and the man started measuring them, even lengths • but he didn't agree with giving him the big fish, the last one, at all. So, anyhow, the big fellow went. He said, "Only for your trickery, we should have this division long ago." And all right the dog never moved. Coming home, there was a big black pig met them, and she charged the man. I guess his shoes wasn't too good. He kicked her and kicked her and the shoes went off his feet. But the dog came to life and charged into the black pig. And the dog and the pig went at it and they went out in the water. And nobody ever seen one of them since. The dog went. The pig went. But the man came to Cape Breton. And he was always called Muiceadh • The Pig. Malcolm Campbell: How about things that you have heard that never come to pass? Do you remember, Donald John, the year • there was a lot of snow. And there was crust on it, you know • some of it would hold you in the fields • remember the hard shiny crust used to come on the snow? Well one evening my Uncle Alex and his brother-in- law, Donald John Pine, they came up to our house just in the evening. It was dark almost; they had a lantern. They were out at the door, taking the snow off. And you remember John R. Campbell. He had a horsebell • oh, it was a dandy • you'd recognize it above everybody else's in the neighborhood. And we could hear the bell, and you could hear the horse breaking up the crust, and the slei,';;h. Now I don't know if my grandmother heard it or not. There was my grandmother and my mother and my Uncle Peter and Uncle Alex and Donald John Ferguson. And we were listenii' to this. Now the road wasn't broke up on what we call the back road at all. They were coming through the field • up by the barn • and they were going out at the other end. Anyway, they thought well now that's John R.'s bell and he's coming home from Sydney and he's drunk and he's asleep and the mare is following straight up and she's going to go the logging road • lovely road • oh, the double sleds and the chains, it would make a road just like the floor here • everybody followed that • it went right through the neighborhood. Donald John and Uncle Peter took the lantern and they went out to head them off • and there wasn't a sign of anything • not a living creature • there was no horse, no track. Now that horse bell: Angus MacLean had it on one of his cows and she lost it. And John R. is dead and all of these people except myself are dead.And that never came to pass and it never will. How can it? But we heard it, all of us. Donald John: I'd sooner say that it's coming true than not. Maybe somebody got that bell. Malcolm: God only knows. There is no other sound in the world that would be same as a horse and a sleigh breaking through the crust • because he takes a step and

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