"You will not know what it is all about," said the King of Borva with a peevish air, as though it were too bad that a person of his authority should have to descend to petty details about a hen-tax. "It is many and many a tax and a due Sir James will take away from his tenants in the Lewis, and he will spend more money a thousand times than ever he will get back; and it was this _Airgiod-cearc_, it will stand in the place of a great many other things taken away, just to remind the folk that they have not their land all in their own right. It is many things you will have to do in managing the poor people, not to let them get too proud, or forgetful of what they owe to you; and now there is no more tacksmen to be the masters of the small crofters, and the crofters they would think they were landlords themselves if there were no dues for them to pay." "I have heard of those middlemen: they were dreadful tyrants and thieves, weren't they?" said Lavender. Ingram kicked his foot under the table. "I mean, that was the popular impression of them--a vulgar error, I presume," continued the young man in the coolest manner. "And so you have got rid of them? Well, I dare say many of them were honest men, and suffered very unjustly in common report." Mackenzie answered nothing, but his daughter said quickly, "But, you know, Mr. Lavender, they have not gone away merely because they cease to have the letting of the land to the crofters. They have still their old holdings, and so have the crofters in most cases. Every one now holds direct from the proprietor, that is all." "So that there is no difference between the former tacksman and his serf except the relative size of their farms?" "Well, the crofters have no leases, but the tacksmen have," said the girl somewhat timidly; and then she added, "But you have not decided yet, Mr. Ingram, what you will do to-day. It is too clear for the salmon-fishing. Will you go over to Meavig, and show Mr. Lavender the Bay of Uig and the Seven Hunters?" "Surely we must show him Borvabost first, Sheila," said Ingram. "He saw nothing of it last night in the dark; and I think, if you offered to take Mr. Lavender round in your boat and show him what a clever sailor you are, he would prefer that to walking over the hill." "I can take you all round in the boat, certainly," said the girl with a quick blush of pleasure; and forthwith a message was sent to Duncan that cushions should be taken down to the Maighdean-mhara, the little vessel of which Sheila was both skipper and pilot.