I hear on very good authority that the purchaser of part of one of the old estates has acquired an unpleasant notoriety in his management of the land. I am compelled to believe that in the old period the peasants enjoyed their little holdings at a very low rent. Moreover these holdings were not all "measured on 'um," as one of my informants phrased it, but were often composed of two or more patches, bits of productive land, taken here and there on the rough mountain. Doubtless this arrangement had its inconveniences, but the people were accustomed to it, and also set great store by the run of the mountain, which they had, it seems, enjoyed without let or hindrance from time immemorial. The first act of the new management was to "sthripe the land on 'um," that is to mark it out into five-pound holdings, each in one "sthripe" or block. This arrangement, which to the ordinary mind hardly appears unreasonable, was considered oppressive by the tenants, who submitted, however, as was then the manner of their kind. They had still the mountain, and could graze their cow or two, or their half-dozen sheep upon it, and they naturally regarded this privilege as the most valuable part of their holding, inasmuch as it paid their rent, clothed them, and supplied them with milk to drink with their potatoes. In these days of alimentary science it is needless to remind readers that, humble as it appears, a dinner of abundant potatoes and milk is a perfect meal, containing all the constituents of human food--fat, starch, acids, and so forth. Thus many of the tenants were, as they call it, "snug." Satisfied with little, they rubbed on contentedly enough, only the more adventurous spirits going to England for the harvesting. Then came serious changes. The rent of the five-pound holdings was raised to seven pounds, and the mountain was taken away. The poor people protested that they had nothing to feed their few animals upon on the paltry holdings of which a couple of acres might be available for tillage, a couple more for grass, and the remaining two or three good for hardly anything. An answer was given to them. If they must have the mountain they must pay for it--practically another rise in the rent. To this they agreed perforce, and even to the extraordinary condition that during a month or six weeks of the breeding season for grouse they should drive their tiny flocks or herds off the mountain and on to their holdings, in order that the game might not be disturbed at a critical period. I hear that for the last year rents have fallen into arrear, and that the beasts of those who have not paid up have just been driven off the mountain.