Ossian Collection > Romance of the Highlands

FIDELITY AND ITS RESULTS. 125
The story is told of a merchant who collected his
accounts once a year, and who never had occasion to wait
for payment. He kept a retail shop for 50 years in the
Campbeltown district, and neither gave nor asked for
receipts. In one of his rounds he called on a man who
happened to be away from home at the time, and, in
consequence, he had to return without his money. But
it was not for long, for early the following morning he
was awakened by the man who had come to pay his
account. As showing the changes wrought in a
generation, it may be remarked that this merchant's son,
who succeeded him, found it necessary to keep strict
statements, give short credits, and count on a percentage
of bad debts.
Is it a wonder that Stewart saw the growing changes
that were then taking place ? "Unfortunately," he wrote,
"new regulations, new views of Highland statistics, and
the novel practice of letting land to the highest bidder,
regardless of the fidelity and punctual payment of old
occupiers, have occasioned a melancholy retrograde
change. Few of the late moral population now remain,
and that few are mostly reduced to the condition of cottars
and day labourers."
A Highland gentleman wished to borrow a sum of
money from Stewart of Appin, who agreed to lend the
amount. The parties arranged to meet at Ballachulish
to settle. After Stewart had handed over the money the
other offered a receipt for the loan. This was too much
for Stewart, who immediately swept the money off the
table into his own pocket, at the same time letting the
other know that the man who could not trust himself to
his own honour without a written paper could not be
trusted by him.
When the Earl of Breadalbane received a large sum
from Government to distribute among the chiefs, as the