IN THE HIGHLANDS 203 



vigorously — both were extra able young fellows then — 

 that they rushed to the granary door, and, there being 

 no railing to the stair leading up to it, the chairmen 

 belaboured them over the stair-top till they lay in a 

 heap reaching right up to it from the ground, to the 

 uproarious delight of all the mourners. We learnt 

 that the intruders poured over the stair-head, say nine 

 or ten feet above the ground, like turnips being emptied 

 out of a cart. Then the two chairmen returned to the 

 merry party inside, locking the granary door for peace. 



" At that funeral every farmer that could muster a 

 horse and saddle within, say, ten to twelve miles 

 attended, and, as stalls for horses in Beauly could then 

 easily be counted, the horses were picketed in rows 

 side by side. The country was more populous then than 

 now, when so many proprietors have cleared away their 

 people to make room for big farms; so, as every crofter 

 felt bound to attend the funeral, the crowd was by the 

 thousand. In those times it was common for the 

 farmers and crofters to tan their own leather, and then 

 make their own shoes, but the leather was not always Al, 

 and the sight of such crowds of horses, each with a saddle 

 whose flaps would make first-rate shoe soles, produced 

 such a thirst for leather that it is asserted that no rider 

 brought home with him that night any flaps to his 

 saddle; indeed, the scallywags seldom had such a good 

 chance for shoe soles !" 



I quote again from my uncle: " In April, 1830, Frank 

 and his wife (Sir Francis and Lady Mackenzie), who 

 were both devoted to Gairloch, settled to go there for 

 her confinement, and as these things had given her no 



