'I am afraid, my fine fellow, that the sheriff and the law will tell you another story.'
'D—n both, with all my heart!'
'What—dare you say so of the law?'
'Yes—and it must learn, that instead of me paying to Sir Horace, he must, as his betters did of old, pay to me a sum for every fox's head I bring to his hall.'
'You are three years in arrear, Callum.'
'Three hundred and more, perhaps, by your way of reckoning; but the last proprietor is dead—our debts died with him.'
'Your idea is a very common one among these ignorant people,' rejoined Snaggs, with a smile on his mouth and a glare in his wolfish eye; 'but I must condescend to inform you, that the law of Scotland says, when a landlord or overlord dies, the rents past due belong to his executors. Sir Horace took the estate with all its debts, and the half-year's rent then current, with all arrears, are his due; and this rule applies especially to grass-farms, as you will find in the case of Elliot versus Elliot, before the Lords of Council and Session in 1792; and the landlord has a hypothec for his rent over the crop and stocking; hence your furniture and plenishing are the property of Sir Horace Everingham.'
'Ha-ha-ha! A broken table, two creepies, a kail-pot and crocan; an old cashcroim, some mouldy potatoes, and a milk bowie!'
'And remember,' added Snaggs, impressively, 'when a tenant who is bankrupt, remains, notwithstanding a notice to remove, the landlord may forcibly eject him in six days, as you will find in a case before the Lords of Council and Session in 1756. This is the wisdom, not the cunning of the law, my dear friend, for, as the learned Johnson says, "cunning differs from wisdom as much as twilight from open day."'
'A nis! a nis!' cried Callum, in fierce irony, as he stamped his right foot passionately on the ground, and struck the butt of his gun on the turf; 'Snake! by the Black Stone of Scone you come to it now!'