Topographical and Social. 9 



woollen, home-spun, and home tailored, with a scanty 

 supply of linen, and thus comparatively little professional 

 tailoring was needed. As for the blacksmith, with 

 scarcely a particle of iron in the plough or any other 

 farm implement, and no horse shoeing to speak of 

 even where he was capable of doing it, which was not 

 always the case he could meet the wants of a very 

 wide district. It was necessary, indeed, that he should 

 do so ere he could find employment ; and, in some 

 cases, the smith had his " sucken" bound to attend his 

 smiddy just as the miller, who had his place on every 

 laird's land, had his " bun' sucken" up to a much later 

 date the minister of a Highland parish, indeed, states 

 that by an " immemorial assessment," the smiths in his 

 region were paid in meal by the farmers, they being in 

 some cases also entitled to " the head of every cow 

 slaughtered in the parish." At the hamlet, too, we should 

 find the "chapman" or " pack-merchant," a very im- 

 portant member of the trading community in those days ; 

 who could indeed have commanded a good deal more of 

 ready cash, in most cases, than the ordinary class of 

 farmers could. The " stocks" of individual chapmen 

 are valued in the Poll Lists, in some cases, at as high 

 a figure as 500 merks ; and in a few instances at even 

 more than that ; and taking into account the relative 

 value of money, 500 merks then was probably quite as 

 large a capital, relatively, as many dealers in soft 

 goods can boast of now who exhibit their wares by 

 the medium of a grand shop front, in place of undoing 

 the pack on the old kitchen "deece." In addition to 

 the classes named, the " herd" figures pretty regularly 

 in the lists. He was not seldom a grown-up person of 

 the male sex; perhaps some one who had been lamed 

 of a hand or arm, or who was of more or less de- 

 ficient intellect. And his mode of living was apt to be 

 dependant and precarious ; " herd in summer, but begs 

 his meat in winter," and "herd on charity, his winter 

 maintenance being gratis," are definitions of this official 

 that repeatedly occur. In any case the " herd" was an 



