RENT DAY AT INVERHORSA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 4 March 1908, Page 89

RENT DAY AT INVERHORSA.

By G. M.

"Martinmas is coining again, and the factor will be here next month. Dear me ! how the years come and go, and how the rent becomes more fund more burdensome. Last year I had ten 6hillings extra clapped on because Lauchy ■was caught snaring some nmir hens, The year before it was five shillings because I trenched and drained & piece of the croft. This year, I suppose, it will be another five shillings because I have improved the bothy and put up box-beds for the boye and girls. For this dry stone and turf htifc and those two or three acres of bog- ■ land I have to pay six pounds a year ! ■ Bed luck to thorn ! how they tax me and • suck the life-blood out of me. My fathers • lived her© all the days of their lives, and -never paid anything for the land but loyalty to their country ; and now for the • keep of one cow and a sod hut to shelter me I have to pay six pounds every Martinmas. Aye, that is a good bit — over one hundred pounds an acre — that I shall -have to pay for it in my life time. A . pretty penny, my certies ! a pretty penny ! What bogland in this muir is worth that ' - money ? What did the laird pay for it, I wonder? A few shillings per acre, may- > be, for I hear the boys say that good land can be bought in the south for some te'» to twenty pounds an acre. Fancy that.' — a freehold of the best for ten pounds, and a leasehold of the worst for one hundred pounds! Rents must be an invention of the devil to harass poor mortals. I wonder they don't rent us the air and the water. Just you leave them; for they will try it right enough, and then, revolution, murder, and chaos. But the laird dont know me, and I don't know him. He is none of us, never comes near us, has no interest in us, and hates 'to as vermin. His factor is no better than himself — just a scourge of the evil one, to screw the ■attermosfc farthing out of us. I wonder how this has all .come about, and how it is that one man owns all the land and the ninety-and-nine have to beg of him the privilege of tilling a, barren acre or two to eke out -a ' miserable existence. But it's no use my j racking my brain over these questions : the rent has to "be paid, or out we go, and the roadside or the poorhouse is a Gold, cold shelter. Well, the epieyag will have to go ; the market is next ' week, and the poor beastie will have to be sold. The fishing was a failure, and what oan a poor •man save on eighteen pence and two shillings a day, and that only on odd days? Thank God ! we have two bolls of oatmeal in the girnal, a barrel of salt herrings, in tne barn, and taties enough till spring time. I have two pounds saved from my year's earnings, Beauty will fetch roe 4-wo pounds, and I must beg or borrow the odd pounds. TJmph ! it is a hard, task, Sandy, man ; but we must face it." Such were the musings of Sandy Gunn, a poor crofter or tenant at will on the estate of Lord Ardan in the autumn of 1670. The "fair day" arrived ; poor Beauty, 'midst the sobs and tears of the children, wae haltered, and led to the market. She was born there, lived under the same roof, heard their tales, joined in their fun, and "was considered as much a member, of the family as any one of them. When leaving the old home she save one long, low groaning bellow, as much as to say, 'Goodbye, my -friends; I am going as a victim of man's inhumanity to man." "Father will have to sell yon, Nan, son* day," said Roney, "for the factor always wants his money, and mother won't cell dad, and there's nothing else to selL" This logic was irresistible. Nan burst into tears, and to soothe them Roney declared he would kill every factor in the ■world. Late that night Sandy returned home with the nevns that he had sold Beauty for two pounds ten shillings, and borrowed the odd thirty shillings from John Sinclair, the merchant. - The rent was now secure, and a home and food in prospect for the coming winter. The children were all in bed, so Sandy and "Mary sat down together and joined in family worship. The book opened at the 24th Psalm, and Sandy read: "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness, thereof." "Do you hear that, Mary?" said Sandy. " Aye, aye, Sandy ; but men's hearts are hard, and the good Lord will come in his own time. Go on, Sandy." In his prayer that night Sandy thanked the Lord most fervently for the rent being in hand, and a home and food in promise through the coming year. Martinmas Day arrived. The factor and bis clerk drove up to the hotel in a fine landau, drawn by a beautiful pair of dark ba^. Several of the tenants were in waiting, clad in home-spuns, wide Kilmar^ nock bonnets, and shepherd tartan plaids. There was no demonstration ; their spirits were crushed, and Factor Hardman was > nothing to them. Henry Hardman was ! quite lately a London lawyer's clerk, and I from the stool of managing clerk to Messrs "■Wise, Lend, and Screw he became factotum for Lord Ardan at Inverhorsa. He had nothing in common with the people he ruled over ; they were serfs in his estimation, and they would remain so for all he cared. At 11 a.nr. precisely the great rent-roll book wa» opened in* the hotel parlour. Factor Hardman stood with his back to the fire, and hia eye upon the ground i officer at the door. * The clerk eat at the table with the-jrent book before him, ready for business. , A timid knock comes to the i door. ■• | " Come in," says Factor Hardman ; and i in comes Rory Fraser. ; " Good morning, sir." " Your name, fir?" "Bory Fraser?' "Four pounds tea shillings," said the , d«rk. "Stop 9, moment," says (Factor Hard- <

man. "The ground officer tells me, Rory, that you have added a room on to your house." " Well, sir," said Rory, doffing his Kilmarnock bonnet, •' I have made a new room for my mother. I had to do it, or let her go to the poorhouse, and, sir, while Rory Fraser has hands and health to work no mother of his will enter that death trap." "Well, Rory, you have taken a person into your house and added a room to it without his lordship's approval, and so your rent is increased by ten shillings a year." To the clerk: "Note that Rory Fraser's rent is five pounds per annum hereafter." Rory deposits the four pounds ten shillings, lifts his reoeipt, looks daggers at the factor, and departs without words or salute. "Aye, man, you're fined ten shilling's a year for sheltering your poor old mother," mutters Rory. "I have to beg of his lordship if I can take her into my house, indeed ! Well, I'll see the factor and his lordship to h before I do any such thing. Lord forgive me for that wicked thought ; but, then, Lord, what cruelty you allow one man to practise upon another, especially when it comes to land dealing." "Rory, Rory!" said a neighbour, standing at the hotel bar ; "won't you have a dram before you go home?" " Yes, Allisler, yes, I have had a dram — a pretty stiff one, too, for it burned my heart so much that there is room for no more," and Rory departed, afraid to trust himself 'midst friends or foes. "Lan Grant, of Dahnore," shouted the ground officer ; and lan stepped forward, the very embodiment of stalwart, robust manhood. " By the bj'e, lan," said the factor, "the gamekeeper reports that two of your sons were seen shooting mountain hares last winter. How say you?" "Well, 6ir, the boys did shoot one or two hares on our own ground ; but, you know, sir, Dalmore is a hill farm, and in the winter the banes and deer destroy a lot of our turnips and young grass." "That may be," said the factor; "but, then, it is illegal to shoot any game without his lordship's permission, and, besides, you give the gamekeeper a lot of trouble watching you." " Maybe," said lan ; "but if he would keep his game away there would be no trouble for him or me." "You are defiant, lan ; you are defiant ; and for this and the shooting of game you shall take notice to quit your farm at next term day, and in the meantime pay a fine of five pounds." Strong man though he was, this harsh and outrageous sentence made him quail. " Leave Dalmore, Mr Hardman ! Leave Dalmore, after my people being there for over a hundred years! Surely not — surely not ! It will kill the old people, and it makes me curse my kind. Two hares, five pounds, and leave D&lmore ! Umph ! Is there a God in heaven? Is vengeance His prerogative?" lan paid his rent, but no fine. He compressed his lips, lowered his eyebrows, j clasped his plaid round his body, and i departed a broken and dispirited man. Sorrow, anger, vengeance, even murder, were alternately depicted upon his face, but with a supreme effort and silent , prayer he mastered the situation, and ; said : " Get thee behind me, Satan, for . I shall not spill this man's blood." lan bestrode his Sheltie, and set off for home. To those who saluted him he had nothing to say, and" seemed to forget his existence. " Leave Dalmore, leave Dalmore ! It is impossible ! Let me die here ! Oh, Death, come and sweep us all away from our worldly miseries !" j " What's the matter, Ian?" eaid his wife, las the Sheltie stood alt the door j m ait ing for her master to dismount. | "Leave Dalmore, leave Dalmore ! Oh, may they be dd — — d for ever more!" j "W'hat's the matter, my husba id? What's the matter, my lan? Has the factor ordered us to quit Dalmore?" "Yes, Jess, my liass, that ' 6 it ; and I'm road and ready to shed blood. God h.as handed the world over to the devil, and we are now at his mercy." The old folk* heard the news, and in the calmness of years said, " lan, it is •the will of God ; His purposes are beyond our knowing, and be assured that out of thie evil will come forth good. We •will die here and be laid beside our ! people ; as for you and the family, we 1 !, I you had better" sell off and go to New .Zealand. We heaT th-at plenty of land can be bought dn that country for a pound an acre. Think of that, lan: to be your own landlord, and not scraping and bowing to any man for the privilege of tilling his land. Then, too, lan, a number of your acquaintances and countrymen are there, and they write home that they all have pieces of land of their own, and axe not frightened of landlords, or factors, or poorhouses. Go to New Zealand, lan, and the Lord will bless you." | That winter old Simon and Kitty Fra&er were gathered to their fatherls and ladd in the Dalmoie churchyard. Lan said they were murdered, and no man contradicted him. In the meantime he had plucked up courage, arranged to sell hi 6 stock and belongings, cursed the laws and their makeis, and sat sail for the new land. It was a terrible wrench, however, to leave Dalmore, and many tears and heartburnings were the outcome. "No more Teasehold for me," said lan. "I'll have a piece of land of my own, be it large or small, and I'll no more hold my home a-t the mercy of my fellowman. Hereafter I shall •trust neither landlord, nor government, nor saint in the matter of land dealing. I shall have my borne as my very own. and no man will ever pensuade me to the contrary. Dalmore, I tell you I shall perjpetuate your name and traditions in the new land, and curse all landlords and factors while life lasts me. Oh, lam wicked, my heart i& full of bitterness, and I must .pray and ask forgiveness." " Sandy Gunn," cried the ground officer as he opened the parlour door..

"Well, Sandy," said the factor, "I hear you have greatly improved your house." " Yes," said Sandy ; "the family is £r<*wing ; we only had a *but' and a- 'ben,' and the "wife said we must have separate rooms for the boys and girls, so I erected an inside wall and put up two box-beds." "Is that all? Have yon not made the *ben' much larger?" j "Oh, yes," replied Sandy, "but the 'ben' came off the 'but,' and the closet, too."' . "Well, those improvements are worth six shillings a jear moTe, so the rent ■hereafter will be six pounds six shillings sterling." "Well, well, sir," s?iid Sandy, "we poor I bodies have no choosing. We are compelled to live like brutes, half-starving and in_ constant fear, or else quit the country. We aTe the slaves of our masters, and we j cannot help ourselves. I cannot leave the country, for I have no money, and I have a large and helpless family. It's a great ,plity (that God did not give us wings ; but if He had there would have been no landlords nor factors to harass us. Do your worst, sir, for I have the Lord's word that h© will help me." "What audacity and spinit of indepenI dence the fellows have," said Factor I Hardman, as Sandy disappeared. "How j they all tr.ljfc the Lord, and how little He does for them! Well, 'tis a blessing *or one and some ofhers they are possessed , of such religious convictions, but, oh, what splendid material goe6 to waste!" Tenant after tenant entered the parlour. All their acts for the last 12 monthte ,-were recorded. The gamekeeper had hdo i report-book in, and so had the- ground .officer. The state of the game, of their homes, lands, crops ,etc. , was entered in those books. Nathtag was too insignificant for Factor Hardman to notice, and nfcthing -was too paltry for his servants to record. One year the tenants held a meeting Ito discilss the land question. The questions were : "Tenancy at will versus leases," "Leases versus freehold," and "Violence versus submission." Danny Sutherland, the ruling elder, was chairman, and opened the meeting with prayer.' After a stormy debate it was decided that "tenancy at will was slavery" ; "rented lands, no matter by whom owned, were a dangerous instrument, of oppression and a begetter of all manner of evils" ; that freehold was the only safe tenure," and that " violence was contrary to the Word of God." It was. thereafter resolved : "That any young man and woman m the district should be advised to strive t<- emigrate to one or other of the colonies, where abundance of freeholds could be procured by thctoe desirous of them." The minister heard of the meeting, and applauded his elder at the outcome. >T No bloodshed. Danny, <iio blood- 1 shed," said he. "Remember the oomone cheek, turn to hdm the other aiteo.' " mand,' ' If thy neighbour smite thee on the "Aye, aye, minister," said Danny, "I know at ; it's grand teaching ; but empty stomachs and 6ore hearts are not conducive to Christian charfity, and I ami more than surprised at the moderation of the people. However, the lairds and the factors — indeed the whole country — have made laws to whip thedr own backs. There's a Tod in pickle for Scotland, as> sure as my name is Daniel." Lord Ardan "was duly informed of the meeting and of its results. " A good riddance.' said he; "let the vermin go, and I shall fill the country with game and double the rents for two months' occupation in the year. "Yes, my lord," said old Sergeant Swanr eon, the lodge-keeper, "but game won't defend you, nor pay fhe taxes of the counrtay. I fear me 'tis the- case of Goth and Rome over a-gain." " Not at all, sergeant, not at all. My hope is in gold, for it can do anything and everything," said his lordship. _ "Mayfce it can, and maybe it cannot," said the sergeant, " but it did not save Rome, nor will it save Scotland. No, no, my lord : 111 fares the land, to hastening-vills a prey, "Where gains do multiply and men decay.