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Her brother James, who, in the same interval, had arrived at man's estate, had been endeavouring, not very successfully, for some time past to establish himself as a merchant in Perth; and his cousin, Sandy Crawford, whom the reader will recollect as the herd laddie at Howdycraigs, had, by the death of his father, been promoted to be tacksman of Gairyburn; upon which place he resided with his mother.
The Tacksman admits some of his inferior neighbours to the cultivation of his grounds, on condition that performing all the work, and giving a third part of the seed, they shall keep a certain number of cows, sheep, and goats, and reap a third part of the harvest. Thus by less than the tillage of two acres they pay the rent of one.
Lieutenant Lindsay answered that the soldiers came as friends, and wanted nothing but quarters. They were kindly received, and were lodged under the thatched roofs of the little community. Glenlyon and several of his men were taken into the house of a tacksman who was named, from the cluster of cabins over which he exercised authority, Inverriggen.
Nothing is less difficult than to procure one convenience by the forfeiture of another. A soldier may expedite his march by throwing away his arms. To banish the Tacksman is easy, to make a country plentiful by diminishing the people, is an expeditious mode of husbandry; but little abundance, which there is nobody to enjoy, contributes little to human happiness.
'Cousin, he would say to such and such a tacksman or demiwassal, 'I told my pantry lads to hand you some claret, but they tell me you like port or punch best. In like manner to the beer drinkers he would say, 'Gentlemen, there is what you please at your service; but I send you ale because I understand you like ale. Everybody was thus well pleased; and none were so ill bred as to gainsay what had been reported to his Lordship.
At last, I bethought me, to send for the different competitors, and converse with them on the subject quietly; and I found in Thomas Shovel, the tacksman of Whinstone- quarry, a discreet and considerate man.
The Laird in these wide estates, which often consist of islands remote from one another, cannot extend his personal influence to all his tenants; and the steward having no dignity annexed to his character, can have little authority among men taught to pay reverence only to birth, and who regard the Tacksman as their hereditary superior; nor can the steward have equal zeal for the prosperity of an estate profitable only to the Laird, with the Tacksman, who has the Laird's income involved in his own.
"I think you are too hard on them, mother! They are not exactly vulgar. I thought, indeed, there was a sort of gentleness about them you do not often meet in Scotch girls!" "In the lowlands, I grant, Ian; but the daughter of the poorest tacksman of the Macruadhs has a manner and a modesty I have seen in no Sasunnach girl yet. Those girls are bold!" "Self-possessed, perhaps!" said Ian.
The land, say they, is let to the Tacksman at sixpence an acre, and by him to the tenant at ten- pence. Let the owner be the immediate landlord to all the tenants; if he sets the ground at eight-pence, he will increase his revenue by a fourth part, and the tenant's burthen will be diminished by a fifth.
'Not a proprietor, he replied, 'I am only, in copartnery with others, a tacksman or lessee of some valuable salmon-fisheries a little down the coast. But mistake me not.
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