The Wee Free Men

'The Baron owns this country,' said the servant. 'It is his law.'

The look Granny Aching gave him turned the man's hair white. That was the story, anyway. But all stones about Granny Aching had a bit of fairy tale about them.

'If it is, as ye say, his law, then let him break it and see how things may then be,' she said.

A few hours later the Baron sent his bailiff, who was far more important but had known Granny Aching for longer. He said: 'Mrs Aching, the Baron requests that you use your influence to save his dog. He will happily give you fifty gold dollars to help ease this difficult situation. I am sure you can see how this will benefit everyone concerned.'

Granny smoked her pipe and stared at the new lambs and said: 'Ye speak for your master, your master speaks for his dog. Who speaks for the hills? Where is the Baron, that the law be brake for him?'

They said that when the Baron was told this he went very quiet. But although he was pompous, and often unreasonable, and far too haughty, he was not stupid. In the evening he walked up to the hut and sat down on the turf nearby. After a while, Granny Aching said: 'Can I help you, my lord?'

'Granny Aching, I plead for the life of my dog,' said the Baron.

'Bring ye siller? Bring ye gilt?' said Granny Aching.

'No silver. No gold,' said the Baron.

'Good. A law that is brake by siller or gilt is no worthwhile law. And so, my lord?'

'I plead. Granny Aching.'

'Ye try to break the law with a word?'

'That's right, Granny Aching.'

Granny Aching, the story went, stared at the sunset for a while and then said: 'Then be down at the little old stone barn at dawn tomorrow and we'll see if an old dog can learn new tricks. There will be a reckoning. Good night to you.'

Most of the village was hanging around the old stone barn the next morning. Granny arrived with one of the smaller farm wagons. It held a ewe with her new-born lamb. She put them in the barn.

Some of the men turned up with the dog. It was nervy and snappy, having spent the night chained up in a shed, and kept trying to bite the men who were holding it by two leather straps. It was hairy. It had fangs.

The Baron rode up with the bailiff. Granny Aching nodded at them and opened the barn door.

'You're putting the dog into the barn with a sheep, Mrs Aching?' said the bailiff. 'Do you want it to choke to death on lamb?'

This didn't get much of a laugh. No one really liked the bailiff.