Scotland/Scots > Reminiscences of a Highland parish

TACKSMEN AND TENANTS. I91
men, and Englishmen trying to put off the High-
landmen with low prices—but all in the way of
“ fair dealing.”
When any person returned who had been him¬
self at the market, who could recount its ups and
downs, its sales and purchases, with all the skir¬
mishes, stern encounters, and great victories, it was
an eventful day in the tacksman’s dwelling ! A
stranger not initiated into the mysteries of a great
fair might have supposed it possible for any one to
give all information about it in a brief business
form. But there was such an enjoyment in de¬
tails, such a luxury in jibing over all the prices, and
all that was asked by the seller and refused by the
buyer, and asked again by the seller, and again
refused by the buyer, with such nice financial
fencing of “ splitting the difference,” or giving back
a “ luck-penny,” as baffles all description. It was
not enough to give the prices of three-year-olds
and four-year-olds, yell cows, crock ewes, stirks,
stots, lambs, tups, wethers, shots, bulls, &c., but
the stock of each well-known proprietor or breeder
had to be discussed. Colonsay’s bulls, Corrie’s
sheep, Drumdriesaig’s heifers, or Achadashenaig’s