IN THE HIGHLANDS 179 



northern homes which are now occupied by people quite 

 unknown in my young days/' 



To show the enthusiasm of the people in past days 

 for their lairds I must tell the following story. Very 

 soon after my father's death, my uncle, as factor for the 

 estate, had occasion to come up to Gairloch, and took 

 along with him my two half-brothers, aged twelve and 

 ten. The Tigh Dige and the sporting rights of the whole 

 Gairloch property had been let to an Irishman, Sir 

 St. George Gore, for £300 a year on a lease, so my uncle 

 and the boys put up at the small Ceann-t-saile Inn. 

 When the crofters heard this they were frantic at the 

 idea of an t'oidhre agus an tanaistar (the heir and the next 

 in succession) not putting up in the ancestral home, 

 and a mob of them came and surrounded the Tigh Dige, 

 and threatened the Irishman that, if he did not at once 

 invite my uncle and the boys to come and stay with him, 

 he would find himself with a rope and stone round his 

 neck at the bottom of Loch Maree ! My uncle had the 

 greatest difficulty in pacifying the people, and had to 

 apologise most profusely to Sir St. George Gore, who was 

 terrified and very nearly started shooting into the crowd. 

 Before long, Sir St. George having proved himself a 

 very imsatisfactory tenant, my uncle gave him notice to 

 quit. This surprised him very much, as he knew he 

 had a pretty long lease of the place, and was quite 

 unaware that, in the case of an entailed property, by 

 Scots law any lease of a mansion-house comes to an 

 end on the death of the proprietor, so that the heir of 

 entail can at once take possession of his home. 



