"Ye hae't, Mr. Owen--ye hae't--whereof there may be twenty-eight thousand
seven hundred able-bodied gillies fit to bear arms, and that do bear
arms, and will touch or look at nae honest means of livelihood even if
they could get it--which, lack-a-day! they cannot."

"But is it possible," said I, "Mr. Jarvie, that this can be a just
picture of so large a portion of the island of Britain?"

"Sir, I'll make it as plain as Peter Pasley's pike-staff. I will allow
that ilk parochine, on an average, employs fifty pleughs, whilk is a
great proportion in sic miserable soil as thae creatures hae to labour,
and that there may be pasture enough for pleugh-horses, and owsen, and
forty or fifty cows; now, to take care o' the pleughs and cattle, we'se
allow seventy-five families of six lives in ilk family, and we'se add
fifty mair to make even numbers, and ye hae five hundred souls, the tae
half o' the population, employed and maintained in a sort o' fashion, wi'
some chance of sour-milk and crowdie; but I wad be glad to ken what the
other five hunder are to do?"

"In the name of God!" said I, "what _do_ they do, Mr. Jarvie? It makes me
shudder to think of their situation."

"Sir," replied the Bailie, "ye wad maybe shudder mair if ye were living
near hand them. For, admitting that the tae half of them may make some
little thing for themsells honestly in the Lowlands by shearing in harst,
droving, hay-making, and the like; ye hae still mony hundreds and
thousands o' lang-legged Hieland gillies that will neither work nor want,
and maun gang thigging and sorning* about on their acquaintance, or live
by doing the laird's bidding, be't right or be't wrang.

* _Thigging_ and _sorning_ was a kind of genteel begging, or rather
something between begging and robbing, by which the needy in Scotland
used to extort cattle, or the means of subsistence, from those who had
any to give.

And mair especially, mony hundreds o' them come down to the borders of
the low country, where there's gear to grip, and live by stealing,
reiving, lifting cows, and the like depredations--a thing deplorable in
ony Christian country!--the mair especially, that they take pride in it,
and reckon driving a spreagh (whilk is, in plain Scotch, stealing a herd
of nowte) a gallant, manly action, and mair befitting of pretty* men (as
sic reivers will ca' themselves), than to win a day's wage by ony honest
thrift.

* The word _pretty_ is or was used in Scotch, in the sen