'I have the old rent,' replied the cotter with a sickly smile.

But the new?'

A chial! what would you be asking of me? I have the old rent, and by the sweat of my brow and the toil of my children's tender hands have I earned it. It is here. Have mercy on us, Ephraim Snaggs, and do not double the rent. You stand between us and Sir Horace-between us and starvation. He will be advised by you for good or for evil-he is an Englishman, and like a Lowlander, can know no better. You are aware that my croft is small, and that my eight children have to support themselves by fishing; but the famine was sore three years ago; our potatoes failed, and as you know well our little crop of wheat was literally thrashed on the mountain by the wind. All that remained was devoured by the game of the Duchess. I then fell into arrears. I, like my fathers before me, for more generations than I can number, have regularly paid rent and kain to the uttermost farthing-for God and Mary's sake, take pity on us now, Mr. Snaggs. Accept the old rental, but spare us the new-for a little time at least, or eleven human beings, including my old and bedridden mother, now past her ninetieth be homeless and houseless!'

year, will 'Mac Gouran,' said Mr. Snaggs, with inock impressiveness, while his malevolent eye belied his bland voice; the divine Walton says, 66 can you or any man charge God that he hath not given enough to make life happy?"

"God gave, but the duke, the lord, and the earl, have taken away,' answered the Highlander, sharply. Snaggs grinned again-took the money, gave a receipt, and with it a printed tract. Then he made another entry in his fatal book, and a groan escaped 'the breast of Mac Gouran, for too well did he know what that entry meant. His cot was in a picturesque

place where Sir Horace wished to plant some coppice; so the humble roof, where twenty generations of brave and hardy peasants had reared their sturdy broods, was doomed to be swept away.

All who came forward had the same, or nearly the same, excuses to make.

Gillespie Ruadh- -or Red Archibald Minnie's uncle, was also in default; but Snaggs, who had cast favourable eyes on his pretty niece, spoke to him with such excessive suavity that old Archy was quite puzzled.

Many professed their readiness and ability to pay the old rent, but their total incapacity to meet the new and exorbitant one, which they knew too well was but the plea, the pretence, on which they were to be driven from the glen, that it might be well stocked with deer and black cock. The last summoned by the factor was Callum Dhu Mac Ian.

My fosterer, who was viewed as a kind of champion by the people, pressed the hand of Minnie to reassure her, and with one stride appeared before Snaggs in his tattered Highland dress. He carried a gun in his hand, and had a couple of red foxes, hanging dead over his left shoulder. A dark cloud was hovering on Callum's brow and a lurid spark was gleaming in his eye, both indicative of the fire he was smothering in his heart-a fire fanned by the lamentations of the people, who were now collected in little family groups and communing together.

'How are you, Callum?' asked Snaggs, with a sardonic grin, holding out his left hand, as his right held a pen: but Callum drew back, saying proudly, "Thank you-but I would not take the left hand of a king.'

Well then, neer-do-weel,' said Snaggs, surveying the tall and handsome hunter with an eye of illdisguised antipathy, what have you to say?'

'I am no neer-do-weel Mr. Snaggs,' replied Callum

loftily, and disdaining to touch his bonnet or bend his head.

'Pay up then,' was the pithy rejoinder.

'I never was asked for rent before. I and mine have dwelt rent-free under the Mac Innons of Glen Ora since these hills had a name. We were hunters, father and son in succession, as you know well, and paid neither rent nor kain; we owed nothing to the chief but an armed man's service in time of war and feud; so I see no reason why it should be otherwise

now.

I am afraid, my fine fellow, that the sheriff and the law will tell you another story.'

'D—n both, with all my heart!'

'What-dare you say so of the law?"

Yes-and it must learn, that instead of me paying to Sir Horace, he must, as his betters did of old, pay to me a sum for every fox's head I bring to his hall.'

'You are three years in arrear, Callum.'

• Three hundred and more, perhaps, by your way of reckoning; but the last proprietor is dead-our debts died with him.'

Your idea is a very common one among these ignorant people,' rejoined Snaggs, with a smile on his mouth and a glare in his wolfish eye; but I must condescend to inform you, that the law of Scotland says, when a landlord or overlord dies, the rents past due belong to his executors. Sir Horace took the estate with all its debts, and the half-year's rent then current, with all arrears, are his due; and this rule applies especially to grass-farms, as you will find in the case of Elliot versus Elliot, before the Lords of Council and Session in 1792; and the landlord has a hypothec for his rent over the crop and stocking; hence your furniture and plenishing are the property of Sir Horace Everingham.'

Ha-ha-ha! A broken table, two creepies, a kail

pot and crocan; an old cashcroim, some mouldy potatoes, and a milk bowie!'

And remember,' added Snaggs, impressively, when a tenant who is bankrupt, remains, notwithstanding a notice to remove, the landlord may forcibly eject him in six days, as you will find in a case before the Lords of Council and Session in 1756. This is the wisdom, not the cunning of the law, my dear friend, for, as the learned Johnson says, "cunning differs from wisdom as much as twilight from open day.'

A nis! a nis!' cried Callum, in fierce irony, as he stamped his right foot passionately on the ground, and struck the butt of his gun on the turf; Snake! by the Black Stone of Scone you come to it now!' Minnie clung in terror to her fiery lover.

Laoighe mo chri,' she whispered, be calm and tempt him not!'

Mr. Snaggs, I am but a half-lettered Highlandman, and know not what you mean; but this I know -and here I speak for my chief Glen Ora, as well as for his people—the sun shines as bright, and the woods are as green, as ever they were twenty centuries ago, and yet we starve where our fathers lived in plenty! Why is this?'

6

Because you are a pack of lazy and idle fellows.' 'We are not,' retorted Callum, fiercely; the dun hills swarm with fatted deer; the green woods are alive with game, and the blue rivers teem with fish; but who among us dares to use a net or gun? For now the land, with all that is in its waters, its woods, and in the air, belong to the stranger. God was kind to the poor Celts, Mr. Snaggs, in the days before you were born,' he continued, with unintentional irony. He gave us all those things, because He saw that the land, though beautiful, was very barren; but you, and such as you, have robbed us of them, and one day God will call you to an account for this. Listen:

in the days of the kelp manufacture, we made twenty thousand tons of it annually, here on the western coast alone-ay, we lazy Highlandmen, raising two hundred thousand pounds sterling every year. This work, with a cow's milk, butter, and cheese, a few potatoes, and a few sheep, for food and clothes, kept many a large family in happiness, in health, and comfort; rents were paid strictly and regularly in rent and kain, and arrears were never heard of. But the Parliament, influenced by the English manufacturers, DESTROYED US by taking the duty off barilla; and when Lord Binning said, that a hundred thousand clansmen in the West would starve, the English Chancellor of the Exchequer replied "Let them starve -I care not!" may God and St. Colme forgive his soul the sin. There were only forty-five Scotsmen-timeserving and tongue-tied Scotsmen-in that House, opposed to six hundred wordy Englishmen, so how could our case be otherwise? Now, this was only thirty years ago, and since then arrears, ruin, misery, and famine have fallen upon the people of the glens; the castles of their chiefs have become English grouselodges, and the West Highlands are well nigh a voiceless wilderness, from the Mull of Cantyre to the Kyle of Duirness-two hundred and fifty good miles, Mr. Snaggs.'

'Where the deuce did you pick up all this stuffthis Lay of the Last Outlaw ? sneered Snaggs, with unfeigned surprise, while a murmur of assent from the poor tenantry followed Callum's words.

'I could tell you more, Snaggs, esquire and factor," replied Callum, still maintaining his fire; esquiro means nothing now in this world, though factor may have a terrible signification in the next; I can tell you, that these poor people whom you are about to evict--for I know their doom is sealed-have a right in the soil superior to that claimed by any landlord cr overlord either. The Lowlanders, like the English,