A SUMMER RAMBLE AMOXG THE HEBRIDES. 167 



was a low-roofed domicile beside the river, but iii the days of 

 ray old acquaintance it had presented an appearance of great 

 comfort and neatness ; and as there now hung an air of ne- 

 glect about it, I inferred that it had found some other tenant 

 I inquired, however, at the door, and was informed that Mr 

 * * * now lived higher up the street I would find him, 

 it was added, in the best house on the right-hand side, the 

 house with a hewn front, and a shop in it He kept the shop, 

 and was the owner of the house, and had another house be- 

 sides, and was one of the elders of the Free Church in Ur- 

 quhart Such was the standing of my old acquaintance the 

 journeyman mason of twenty-three years ago. He had been, 

 when I knew him, a steady, industrious, religious man, 

 with but one exception the only contributor to missionary 

 and bible societies among a numerous party of workmen ; 

 and he was now occupying a respectable place in his village, 

 and was one of the voters of the county. Let Chartism as- 

 sert what it pleases on the one hand, and Toryism what it 

 may on the other, the property-qualification of the Reform 

 Bill is essentially a good one for such a country as Scotland. 

 In our cities it no doubt extends the political franchise to a 

 fluctuating class, ill-hafted in society, who possess it one year 

 and want it another ; but in our villages and smaller towns 

 it hits very nearly the right medium for forming a premium 

 on steady industry and character, and for securing that at 

 least the mass of those who possess it should be sober-minded 

 men, with a stake in the general welfare. In running over 

 the histories of the various voters in one of our smaller towns, 

 I found that nearly one-half of the whole had, like my old 

 comrade at Conon Bridge, acquired for themselves, through 

 steady and industrious habits, the qualification from which 

 they derived their vote. My companion failed to recognise 

 in the man turned of forty the smooth-cheeked stripling of 

 eighteen, with whom he had wrought so long before. I soon 



