<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
<div class="blockquot">
<p><span class="firstword">Lowland</span> farmers; Darlings of Priestlaw. Sheep-farmers. Hall
Pringle of Hatton. Farm-servants. Ayrshire milk-maids.
The consequences of salting. Poachers. ‘Cauld sowens
out o’ a pewter plate.’ Farm life in the Highlands. A
Skye eviction. Clearances in Raasay. Summer Shielings
of former times. Fat Boy of Soay. A West Highlander’s
first visit to Glasgow. Crofters in Skye. Highland ideas
of women’s work. Highland repugnance to handicrafts.</p>
</div>
<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">The</span> vicissitudes of agriculture have told on
the farmers and farm-labourers of Scotland,
as they have done everywhere else in the
British Islands. To a large extent the small
farms have been swallowed up in enlarged
holdings. It is much less common now than
it used to be to find one of them worked by
a single family, where the husband, wife, sons
and daughters all take their respective shares
of the labour. The extensive adoption of
agricultural machinery, and the replacement
of corn crops by pasture have reduced the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span>
number of labourers needed in a farm, while
the attractions of town life have still further
tended to deplete the rural population. These
important changes could not take place without
affecting the position and characteristics of the
farming class. It is for the most part only
in the remoter districts of the country that
one can now meet here and there with a
specimen of the type that was prevalent a
generation or two ago.</p>
<div class="sidenote">DARLINGS OF PRIESTLAW</div>
<p>Forty years since there lived at Priestlaw,
in the heart of the Lammermuir Hills, a
family of farmers, Darling by name, who
were perhaps the most excellent examples of
that type I have ever encountered. The farm
had been tenanted by their forebears for several
generations, and the occupants were now two
brothers and a sister, all unmarried. Active,
intelligent, kindly and honourable, they were
universally respected and esteemed throughout
Lammermuir far and near. One of the brothers
was once riding home from a fair when he
was attacked by one of the navvies who were
engaged in draining a neighbouring farm.
The ruffian had pinned the old man to the
grassy bank by the side of the road, and was
dealing him some heavy blows, when a group
of farmers returning from the same fair came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span>
in sight and rushed forward to save life.
When they saw who the victim proved to be,
their indignation rose to such a height that,
but for the intervention of the policeman who
happened to come up with another large
contingent of pedestrians, they would have
executed summary justice themselves. Some
of the party conveyed the injured farmer to
Priestlaw, while the great majority of the
company marched their prisoner off to Haddington,
a distance of some twelve miles, and
never relaxed their hold of him until they
saw him locked up within the police-cell.</p>
<p>The brothers were delightful men to converse
with. The sister, besides the family
charm, had a keen interest in natural history,
and in all the legends and traditions of the
hills. I had come to the district to carry
on the Geological Survey there, and on making
Miss Darling’s acquaintance, found from her
that when a girl she had accompanied Sir
James Hall and Professor Playfair in their
excursions up the Fassney Water. She had
seen no geologist since then, she said, some
sixty years before, and she would fain hear
something of what was thought and said about
the history of the earth now. We exchanged
wallets, I giving her such information as I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span>
had been able to gather regarding the rocks
around her home, and she, on the other
hand, retailing to me a most interesting
series of traditions that clung to particular
spots visible to us as we sat in her garden,
looking over to the Whitadder and across
into the heathy uplands. One of her tales
has always seemed to me to carry a strong
appeal in favour of the trustworthiness of
persistent local tradition. Ever since the time
of the Battle of Dunbar, she said, it had
been handed down that Cromwell, finding his
way barred by Leslie and the Covenanters,
sought to discover some route through the
hills practicable for his army, and sent out
scouts for that purpose. Two of these men,
disguised as peasants, had made their way
down the valley of the Whitadder, as far as
the mouth of a little dell or cleugh, when a
gust of wind from the hollow blew their cloaks
aside, and showed their military garb to some
of Leslie’s emissaries who were on the outlook.
They were promptly shot and buried, and
tradition had always pointed to a low mound
with some gorse bushes, as marking the site of
their grave. Miss Darling sought and received
permission from the proprietor who, I think,
was the Marquess of Tweeddale, to open a trench<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span>
at the place with the view of seeing whether
any corroboration of the tradition could be
obtained. To her great delight she found,
among some decayed bones, a few buttons
and a coin or two of the reign of Charles I.</p>
<div class="sidenote">LAMMERMUIR TRADITIONS</div>
<p>It was arranged that after I had taken a
few weeks of holiday, I should return to
Priestlaw, where she was to have a collection
of stones brought up from the river, that I
might discourse to her from them, while she
on her part promised to continue her stories
and legends. But when I came back to the
Lammermuirs, Miss Darling and one of her
brothers had been already laid in their graves.
The farm-house of Priestlaw stands not far
from one of the old tracks or drove-roads
through the hills, which, though now comparatively
little used, serves as the chief
thoroughfare for pedestrians from East Lothian
into the Merse of Berwickshire. It appeared
that one day a tramp had halted at the door
of Priestlaw, from which, as was widely known,
no needy beggar was ever turned away empty.
The man looked ill, and when Miss Darling
saw him she would not let him trudge any
further on his way, but had a shake-down of
straw made for him in one of the outhouses.
She would not allow any of her servants to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span>
attend on him, lest he should have some
infectious complaint, but took charge of him
herself. It proved to be a case of scarlet-fever.
The man ultimately recovered, but she
and one of her brothers caught the infection
and died. With this most excellent woman,
I fear, much of the unwritten history of
Lammermuir perished. She had from girlhood
collected and treasured in a tenacious
memory every tradition of the district. She had
watched every excavation, whether for draining
or building, and had gathered every relic
of antiquity on which she could lay hands.
The past was a living reality to her, and she
found a keen pleasure in recounting it to any
one of like tastes and sympathies. Of her,
unhappily, it may be truly said that she is
among those ‘which have no memorial, who
are perished as though they had never been,
and are become as though they had never
been born. But these were merciful men,
whose righteousness hath not been forgotten.’</p>
<p>Among the Scottish farmers, though the
general type is actively intelligent and progressive,
examples may be found, in the remoter
upland districts, of <span class="locked">men—</span></p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span></p>
<div class="poetry-container pw25">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">Who scorn a lad should teach his father skill,</div>
<div class="verse indent0">And having once been wrong, will be so still.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="sidenote">SHEEP-FARMERS</div>
<p>Thus a small farmer in Cunningham in
descanting upon the changes he had himself
witnessed in the agriculture and general conditions
of his own neighbourhood had ruefully
to make the confession—‘When I was young
I used to think my faither hadna muckle
sense, but my sons look on mysel’ as a born
eediot.’<SPAN name="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">19</SPAN></p>
<p>A sheep farmer in the Cheviot hills had
been told that it was useful to have a barometer
in the house, for it would let him know
when the weather would be good or bad. He
was accordingly persuaded to procure a mercurial
instrument with a large round dial,
which he hung up in his lobby, and duly consulted
every day without much edification. At
last there came a spell of rainy weather, while
the barometer marked ‘set fair.’ The rain continued
to fall heavily, and still the hand on the
dial made no sign of truth. At last he took
the instrument from its nail, and marched with
it to the bottom of the garden where a burn,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span>
swollen with the drainage of the higher slopes,
was rushing along, brown and muddy. He
then thrust the glass into the water, exclaiming,
‘Will you believe your ain een noo, then?’</p>
<p>Another farmer who had also procured a
barometer had greater faith in its predictions.
The ploughing on his farm had been stopped
on account of the rain, but he noticed at last
that the glass had begun to rise, whereupon
he sent his daughter to get the ploughing
begun again. ‘Ye’re to gang on wi’ the
plooin’ noo, John, for faither says the glass is
risin’.’ ‘Deil may care, the rain’s aye fa’in,’
was the gruff response.</p>
<p>The hill farmer has been the subject of a
good many stories not much to the credit of
his intelligence. One of these men, whose
holding was on the hills to the north of
Strathmore, had laid in at Perth his stock of
matches for the winter. On his wife opening
the first box she found that she could not
get the matches to strike upon it. The
husband also tried unsuccessfully. The next
time he had to revisit Perth he took the pile
of match-boxes with him, and going to the
shopkeeper from whom he had bought them,
threw them indignantly down on the counter,
with the ejaculation, ‘They wunna licht.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span></p>
<div class="sidenote">A FIFE FARMER</div>
<p>‘Wunna licht,’ exclaimed the shopkeeper in
amazement, as he opened a box. Taking out
a match, he drew it smartly across the side of
his trousers and brought it up, alight. He
repeated the same action with a second, and
a third, each of which burst into flame as before.
‘What do you mean,’ asked the aggrieved
shopkeeper, ‘by sayin’ that thae matches wunna
licht?’</p>
<p>‘Ay,’ answered the farmer, ‘and div <em>you</em>
think I can come doon a’ the way to Perth,
to hae a rub o’ your breeks every time I want
a licht?’</p>
<p>Hall Pringle was in my boyhood the tenant
of a farm near Largo in Fife, and belonged
to an antique type of farmer. He still wore
knee-breeches, and when dressed for church,
or for a visit to Edinburgh, used to mount
a blue tail-coat with brass or gilt buttons,
a broad-brimmed beaver-hat and a formidable
walking-stick. He was tall and broad-shouldered,
walked with a swinging pace, and
when he appeared on the pavement of Princes
Street, he cleared a way for himself and
attracted universal attention. He was a great
friend of John Goodsir, the anatomist, for they
were both Largo men, and when in Edinburgh
he usually stayed with the professor, who in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span>
return used from time to time to pay him
visits at Hatton. On the occasion of one of
these visits, Pringle was full of indignation
over the post-mistress of the village, who he
maintained was in the habit of opening his
letters. He declared to Goodsir that he would
not rest until he got her removed from her
situation. The professor wagered him a new
coat that he would fail in his endeavour. The
task proved more difficult than he supposed,
but in the end, with the assistance of the post-office
officials at head quarters, he succeeded
in gathering such unquestionable proofs of the
delinquencies of the post-mistress, that she
was dismissed. In due time the bet, with
the existence of which the village was well
acquainted, was paid, and the new coat duly
arrived at Hatton. On the first Sunday thereafter
Hall came to church wearing the garment,
and as he passed the pew of the post-mistress,
he was observed to give the tails of
his coat a triumphant flourish.</p>
<p>I was once seated on the top of a stage-coach
in the Lothians with a Peeblesshire
farmer next to me, who had a sarcastic remark
to make upon most of the farms as we passed
along. I remember one place in particular
where the owner had built a new house, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span>
had taken infinite pains to lay out his garden,
which he had stocked well with fruit-trees,
herbaceous plants, and annuals. I had often
admired the taste with which the whole had
been planned and carried out, and turned to my
neighbour to ask if he had not a good word to
say for at least that little property. ‘Ou ay,’
was his remark, ‘its a bonny bit place. The
only thing it wants is soil.’</p>
<div class="sidenote">AN AYRSHIRE MILKMAID</div>
<p>The farm-servant changes more slowly than
his master. When resident in Ayrshire I frequently
entered into talk with the ‘hinds,’ as
they are called, and found among them some
intelligent men. The young women who
attend to the cows are often admirable specimens
of their sex, comely, well-grown, and
strong, with a frankness and good humour
delightful to meet with. I was once walking
up a hilly road on the south side of the valley
of the Girvan water, and overtook one of these
girls, who was trundling a heavy wheelbarrow
in which lay a large cheese and other supplies
for the farm. She had already come a distance
of some miles, and was evidently a little tired
with her exertions. I volunteered to take
the wheelbarrow for a little—an offer which she
willingly accepted, and she walked alongside,
giving me an account of her farm, her master,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span>
his family, the farm-servants, the cows, the dairy,
and so forth. I soon found that to arms unaccustomed
to the task it was much harder to
push a heavy wheelbarrow up a hill than might
have been supposed. The girl’s bare arms
were muscular, and seemed fit for any amount
of hard work. As we drew near her farm we
could see the master and some of the servants
at work in the field below the road, which now
wound round the side of the hill. She named
each of them, and laughed aloud when she
saw them looking up at our little cavalcade,
evidently puzzled to make out who the stranger
could be that Jean had got hold of. ‘O, look
at Tam Glen,’ she burst forth. ‘See how
he’s glowerin’!’ I presumed that Tam had a
special interest in her, so not to give him
cause for jealousy, I dropped the wheelbarrow
at the corner of the steading and went on
my way, with the good wishes of the milkmaid,
who assured me that if ever I passed
that way she would see that I got a good big
glass of milk.</p>
<div class="sidenote">SALTED FOOD</div>
<p>It is interesting to hear these young women
calling to their cows ‘proo, proo, proochiemoo,’
a cry which the animals understand and obey.
The words are said to be a corruption of
<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">approchez moi</i>, and to date from the time, three<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span>
hundred years ago, when French ways and
French servants were widely in vogue throughout
Scotland.</p>
<p>A farm-servant in service among the hills
above Dingwall changed to another farm a
long distance off. He was found there by some
acquaintances, who enquired why he left his
former situation.</p>
<p>‘Well, you see,’ said he, ‘I wass not very
fond of sāalt.’</p>
<p>‘Sāalt! But what had sāalt to do wi’ your
shifting?’</p>
<p>‘Well, I’ll tell you all aboot it. The maister
wass a very prudent man, and when a cow died
he wad be sāaltin’ the beast, and we wad be
eatin’ her. Then by and by there wass a great
mortāality among the cocks and hens, and they
died faster than we could be eatin’ them; and
the master, he sāalted the cocks and the hens,
and we wad be eatin’ them too. Well, ye see,
it wass comin’ on for Martinmas, and the
weather wass mortial cowld, and at last the
ould man, the maister’s faither, he died. The
maister, he cam’ to me the next mornin’, and
said he, “Donald, I see we’re rinnin short o’
sāalt, so I’m thinkin’ you’ll need to be goin’
doon to Dingwall for some more.” Well, you
see, I went down to Dingwall, whatefer, but I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span>
wass never going back to Auchengreean at all,
at all.’<SPAN name="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">20</SPAN></p>
<p>Occasionally a farm labourer becomes a
dexterous poacher, and shows by the ingenuity
of his methods how well he would have succeeded
had fortune opened a way for him in
an honest calling that would have given scope
for his abilities. The experienced poacher is
not infrequently a successful competitor in
games where skill as well as strength is required.
In curling, for instance, which, even
more than golf, brings together men of all
ranks in the social scale, the Sheriff may
sometimes be seen playing in the same game
with men on whom he has had to pass sentence.
There is a story of one of these
associations, wherein a notorious poacher, who
had often been imprisoned, shouted out to
the Sheriff who had tried him, ‘Now, Shirra,
drive the stane in; gie her sax months’; six
months’ imprisonment being an extreme display
of the Sheriff’s legal power with which
the speaker had made practical acquaintance.</p>
<div class="sidenote">CAULD SOWENS</div>
<p>A former minister of the parish of Kirkmichael,
in Ayrshire, was resting in his study
one Saturday afternoon after having finished<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span>
the preparation of his sermon for next day,
when he was startled with sounds of violent
quarrelling in his own house. He jumped up
from his easy chair, opened the door, and
heard the angry voice of his own ‘man’
shouting in the kitchen, ‘Na, noo ye limmer,
tho’ I chase ye to Jericho I’ll catch ye.’
The minister rushed off to save life, burst
into the kitchen, and found there, to his great
surprise, nobody but the man himself who
worked on the glebe, and who was now
seated at a table taking his supper. ‘John,
John, what’s the meaning o’ this? What
were ye swearing at? Wha were ye fechtin’
wi’?’ ‘<em>Me</em>, minister,’ said the astonished
John, ‘I’m no fechtin’, I’m no swearin’ at
onybody, I’m only suppin’ thae cauld sowens
oot o’ a pewter plate wi’ this thick horn-spoon,
and they’re gey an’ fickle to catch.’</p>
<p>Let me now turn to some recollections of
farm and crofter-life in the Highlands, as they
presented themselves to me in the year 1854
and thence onwards. The house which for
some happy weeks in that year, and at intervals
for forty years afterwards, became my home in
Skye, was Kilbride, to which I have already
made reference as the residence of my friend
the minister of Strath. Besides his ministerial<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span>
duties, Mr. Mackinnon had a large farm,
most of which was rough pasture for sheep
and cattle, but with some arable land in the
valley bottom, where crops of oats and potatoes
were grown.</p>
<p>Farming in the neighbourhood of a deer
forest entailed in those days some serious trials,
besides what arose from scanty soil, tempestuous
seasons, uncertain crops, and late harvests.
And with these trials I soon came actively to
sympathise at Kilbride. The farm lay at the
west end of the valley of Strath, immediately
at the foot of the range of the Red Hills.
These heights formed part of Lord Macdonald’s
deer-forest, and though the deer
were not numerous, the fields of oats or
green crops at Kilbride and the neighbouring
hamlet of Torrin offered a tempting pasturage
to them, as a change from their sterile
granite corries above. Barbed wire, or indeed
wire of any kind, had not made its way to
these parts, as a help towards the enclosing
of land. The fields were only fenced in with
low dry-stone dykes, which offered no protection
against inroads even from stray sheep.
Hence it was needful to watch all night and
to make noise enough to frighten away the
deer. I can remember sometimes awaking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span>
before daylight, and hearing the thumping of
trays, blowing of horns, and shouting of the
watchmen. And yet with all this labour and
some occasional depredation and loss, when
the deer contrived to elude detection, one
seldom heard any complaints, and I never in
those days knew of a deer being shot or
injured either by the farm-servants or by the
crofters around.</p>
<div class="sidenote">FARMING IN SKYE</div>
<p>Another source of vexation in the farming
operations at Kilbride arose from a very
different cause. Although the arable fields
were more or less enclosed, it had not been
found possible to enclose the farm as a whole,
much of the ground being rough hill-pasture.
Sheep and cattle were thus liable to stray
elsewhere unless watched. Through the lower
ground, where, the herbage being best, the
animals chiefly grazed, ran the only road from
Strathaird to the east coast. To prevent the
flocks from escaping along this thoroughfare
into other pastures, a rude fence had been
constructed there for some distance on either
side of the road, across which a gate had
been placed. Except the scattered crofters,
who gave no trouble, as they performed their
journey on foot and willingly closed the gate
when they had passed through, Kilbride had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span>
no near neighbours. On the west side, however,
some six miles off, there lived an
eccentric and somewhat quarrelsome laird.
He received inebriates in his remote dwelling
with a view to their cure by distance from
temptation. If all tales we heard were true,
he was by no means a teetotaller himself. It
was even reported that he allowed strong
drink to be placed on the dinner-table, and
partook of it himself, but required his patients
to pass the bottle round without helping
themselves. We did not wonder that under
such a régime some of them, like Lucio,
‘had as lief have the foppery of freedom as
the morality of imprisonment,’ and that we
now and then met those who had escaped,
and who were walking all the way to Broadford,
some nine miles off, and back again in
order that they might once more have a glass
or two of whisky.</p>
<div class="sidenote">SUMMARY JUSTICE IN SKYE</div>
<p>Between the laird and the Kilbride family
there was no love lost. As the public road
passed through the heart of the minister’s
farm, it was necessary to have a gate across
it at the farm boundary-wall, otherwise the
cattle and sheep would have escaped. But
this gate was a dire offence to the laird.
For a while, every time he drove that way,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span>
he would lift the gate off its hinges and
fling it into the loch at Kilchrist. At last
the consequences of this conduct became too
serious to be tolerated, and the minister was
preparing to take legal steps to protect himself,
when two of his giant sons quietly
resolved to take the law into their own
hands. Ascertaining when the laird would
pass along the road, they concealed themselves
among some copse on the hillside
immediately above the gate, and waited for
their man. In due time he arrived, and
finding the gate closed as usual, he jumped
from his dog-cart, wrenched it off its fastenings,
and threw it, with an angry imprecation,
into the lake. In an instant he was seized
by the two young men, and, after receiving a
sound horse-whipping, was sent on his journey.
As the result of this escapade, the assaulters
were summoned before the Sheriff and fined,
but they let it be widely known that they would
willingly pay the fine ten times over for the
pleasure of thrashing the laird once more, if
he ever ventured to remove the gate again.
He never did remove it, but he always left
it wide open thereafter, and some lad had to
be employed to see that it was duly shut
after he had passed.</p>
<p>At the head of the sea-inlet of Loch Slapin<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span>
lies an alluvial plain, through which a broad
stream brings down the drainage of the
valley of Strath More. On this plain the
water has gathered into a lake—a favourite
haunt of sea-trout, which the minister had the
right of dragging with the net. The days
set apart for this employment were red-letter
days at Kilbride. We sometimes hauled ashore
large numbers of fine fish, which in various
forms—fresh, dried, and pickled—supplied the
commissariat for some time thereafter.</p>
<p>During my earlier visits to Skye I saw
much of the crofters. On distant excursions
I used to find quarters for the night in their
cottages, being franked on to them by some
minister or other friend who knew them well.
In those days the political agitator had not
appeared on the scene, and though the
people had grievances, they had never taken
steps to agitate or to oppose themselves to
their landlords or the law. On the whole,
they seemed to me a peaceable and contented
population, where they had no factors or
trustees to raise their rents or to turn them
out of their holdings. In a later chapter,
which will contain some reminiscences of my
wanderings as a geologist among the Western<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span>
Isles, I shall give some particulars of my
intercourse with the crofters of Skye.</p>
<div class="sidenote">A SKYE EVICTION</div>
<p>One of the most vivid recollections which
I retain of Kilbride is that of the eviction
or clearance of the crofts of Suishnish. The
corner of Strath between the two sea-inlets of
Loch Slapin and Loch Eishort had been for
ages occupied by a community that cultivated
the lower ground where their huts formed a
kind of scattered village. The land belonged
to the wide domain of Lord Macdonald, whose
affairs were in such a state that he had to
place himself in the hands of trustees. These
men had little local knowledge of the estate,
and though they doubtless administered it to
the best of their ability, their main object was
to make as much money as possible out of
the rents, so as on the one hand, to satisfy
the creditors, and on the other, to hasten the
time when the proprietor might be able to
resume possession. The interests of the
crofters formed a very secondary consideration.
With these aims, the trustees determined
to clear out the whole population of
Suishnish and convert the ground into one
large sheep-farm, to be placed in the hands
of a responsible grazier, if possible, from the
south country.</p>
<p>I had heard some rumours of these intentions,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span>
but did not realise that they were in process
of being carried into effect, until one afternoon,
as I was returning from my ramble, a strange
wailing sound reached my ears at intervals on
the breeze from the west. On gaining the top
of one of the hills on the south side of the
valley, I could see a long and motley procession
winding along the road that led north from
Suishnish. It halted at the point of the road
opposite Kilbride, and there the lamentation
became loud and long. As I drew nearer,
I could see that the minister with his wife
and daughters had come out to meet the
people and bid them all farewell. It was
a miscellaneous gathering of at least three
generations of crofters. There were old men
and women, too feeble to walk, who were
placed in carts; the younger members of the
community on foot were carrying their bundles
of clothes and household effects, while the
children, with looks of alarm, walked alongside.
There was a pause in the notes of woe as the
last words were exchanged with the family of
Kilbride. Everyone was in tears; each wished
to clasp the hands that had so often befriended
them, and it seemed as if they could not tear
themselves away. When they set forth once<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span>
more, a cry of grief went up to heaven, the
long plaintive wail, like a funeral coronach,
was resumed, and after the last of the emigrants
had disappeared behind the hill, the
sound seemed to re-echo through the whole
wide valley of Strath in one prolonged note
of desolation. The people were on their way
to be shipped to Canada. I have often
wandered since then over the solitary ground
of Suishnish. Not a soul is to be seen there
now, but the greener patches of field and the
crumbling walls mark where an active and
happy community once lived.</p>
<div class="sidenote">RAASAY CLEARANCES</div>
<p>Another island that formerly possessed a considerable
crofter population is Raasay. When
I paid it my first visit from Kilbride, the
crofters had only recently been removed; many
of their cottages still retained their roofs, and
in one of these deserted homes I found on
a shelf a copy of the Bible wanting the boards
and some of the outer pages. When I revisited
the place a few years ago, only ruined walls
and stripes of brighter herbage showed where
the crofts had been. In diminution of population,
the island has changed much from what
it was when Johnson was charmed with the
society and hospitality of the Macleods. The
old house, indeed, in which he was entertained<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span>
still stands, but so built round with ampler
additions as to be almost concealed behind the
wings and frontage of a large modern mansion.
The natural features of the island, however,
must be pretty much as he saw them.
The Dun Can, one of the most wonderful
monuments of geological denudation in the
Inner Hebrides, rises as a truncated cone,
the flat top of which forms the summit of the
island. This conspicuous landmark is the last
fragment left of the sheets of lava which
stretched eastwards from Skye across Raasay
towards the mainland. Besides its geological
importance, it has long had for me a sentimental
interest, for at a picnic on the top my
old friends, John Mackinnon of Kilbride and
his future wife, became engaged to each other.</p>
<div class="sidenote">LIFE IN RAASAY</div>
<p>One of the characteristics of this island is
to be found in the holes, tunnels, and perforations
which in the course of ages have
been made by rain-water descending through
the calcareous sandstone that forms the higher
part of the eastern cliffs. These holes open
on the moor above, and as they are apt to
be concealed by bracken and heather, they
form dangerous pitfalls for sheep. In former
days, when numerous crofts stretched along
the eastern slopes and there was some traffic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span>
across the middle of the island, even an
occasional crofter would be lost if benighted,
or during the thick fog that sometimes settles
on these heights. It is told that a woman,
on her way back from the store on the west
side of the island, fell into one of these
chasms in the dark. Bruised, but not seriously
injured, she succeeded in slowly descending
between the rough walls, and was
found late on the second day crawling along
the track below the cliff, not far from her
own cottage, with her clothes torn into tatters.
All over the west Highlands the tradition is
current that such subterranean tunnels have
been traversed by dogs, which on emerging
at the further end have appeared without any
hair, their exertions in squeezing themselves
through the long narrow passages having
rubbed them bare.</p>
<p>One of the hamlets on the east side of
Raasay, built beneath the cliff and at the top
of the steep declivity that descends from the
base of the precipice to the edge of the sea,
was known by a Gaelic name meaning ‘Tethertown,’
because to prevent them rolling down
the slope into the sea, the small children had
ropes tied round their waists and were tethered
to pegs firmly driven into the ground.</p>
<p>Up till towards the close of the eighteenth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span>
century it was the general practice in the
Highlands to move the cattle and sheep in
the summer up to the hills, where the pasture
was held in common. One of the great
events of the year was this migration to the
‘shielings,’ where for some happy and busy
weeks the women and children made butter
and cheese, and their flocks gained strength
and flesh in the fresh open air and on the
sweet young herbage. But the rapid development
of sheep-rearing in large farms drove
the communities away from their summer
retreats, and began that impoverishment of the
Highlanders which has continued ever since.
Many a time, in my wanderings among the
mountains, have I come upon the traces of
these shielings—patches of greener verdure,
with ruined walls or heaps of stones, overgrown
with nettles and other plants indicative
of human occupation, but all now solitary and
silent.</p>
<div class="sidenote">THE FAT BOY OF SOAY</div>
<p>At the mouth of Loch Scavaig lies a small
flat island of red sandstone named Soay, which
when I first came to the district was chiefly
noted for possessing the fattest boy in the
West Highlands. The soil of this island is
thin and poor, the climate rather moist, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span>
the situation, facing the Atlantic, cuts the
island off from constant communication with
Skye. The crofters had their little bits of
land, and some of them possessed also frail
boats, with which they ferried themselves over
the sound to the Skye shore, and added to
their slender fare by a little fishing. But one
family owned the fat boy, and the brilliant
idea occurred to his parents to take him to
Glasgow, and earn an honest penny by exhibiting
him to the public. They left the
island for this purpose, with bright visions of
success. But they had no Barnum to take
charge of them, nor do they seem to have
fallen into the hands of any other showman
experienced in</p>
<div class="poetry-container pw25">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">All our antic sights and pageantry,</div>
<div class="verse indent0">Which English idiots run in crowds to see.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">Had large posters been widely placarded announcing
that the veritable fat boy of Pickwickian
fame could be seen in all his rotundity
for the modest charge of sixpence, enough
money might have been made, not only to
keep the family for the rest of their lives,
but perhaps to buy up the whole island, and
establish a dynasty of Kings of Soay. But
the young prodigy and his disappointed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span>
parents had sorrowfully to return wiser and
poorer to their northern home.</p>
<p>The first visit to Glasgow is a memorable
event in the lives of those West Highlanders
who have never seen more people together
than at a fair or a sacrament, or more houses
than make one of their little clachans. Donald’s
astonishment at the crowded streets, the interminable
array of high houses, and the bustle
and swirl of city-life, has been chronicled in
many ludicrous anecdotes. One of these may
be quoted as illustrative of one aspect of commercial
dealing. Many years ago a newly-arrived
Highlander was being shown the
sights of Glasgow by a fellow-countryman
who had now got used to them. As they
crossed a street, they saw in the distance a
dense crowd of people, and the newcomer
naturally asked what it meant. He was told
that there was a man being hanged. He then
enquired what they were hanging him for,
and was told it was for sheep-stealing. He
looked aghast at this news, and at last exclaimed:
‘Ochan, ochan; hanging a man
for stealing sheeps! Could he no’ ha bocht
them and no’ peyed for them?’</p>
<div class="sidenote">A HIGHLAND FAIR</div>
<p>The best opportunity of seeing the whole
crofter population of a district is furnished by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span>
the summer fairs or markets. In Strath, this
important gathering is held on an open moor
not far from Broadford. Everybody who has
anything to sell or to buy makes a point of
attending it, from far and near, accompanied
by a still larger number of idlers, intent only
on fun and whisky. Old and young, men,
women, and children, horses and cattle, sheep
and dogs, find their way to the ‘stance.’
Whether or not much business profitable to
the crofters was done, the fair to the outside
spectator used always to be eminently amusing
and picturesque.</p>
<p>The quantity of whisky consumed on these
occasions must have been enormous. There
was likewise a kind of epidemic of bargaining.
I remember the case of a woman who brought
a small terrier dog for sale, which she had
named Idir—a Gaelic word, equivalent to our
expression ‘At all.’ Having sold her dog,
she passed on complaining, ‘Cha ’n ’eil margadh
<span class="allsmcap">IDIR, IDIR</span>’ (This is no market, at all, at all),
sounding out the last word so loudly as to
reach the ears of the dog, which, when it
came to her, she caught up in her arms and
sold again in a more distant part of the fair.
Another occasion which brought the scattered
crofter communities of Strath together<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span>
was the half-yearly celebration of the communion
in Broadford Church. Not only the
people of the parish, but numbers of others
from adjacent parishes, tramped many a long
mile to attend the services.</p>
<p>One cannot live much in the Highlands
without meeting with instances of that inveterate
laziness already alluded to, more
especially on the part of the men. They have
a certain code of work for women, and another
for themselves, and that of the women is generally
the heavier of the two. This national
characteristic has been often noticed. Writing
as far back as 1787, Mrs. Grant, of Laggan,
gave what is not improbably its true explanation.
After alluding to the Highlanders as
formerly fighters, hunters, loungers in the
sun, fond of music and poetry, she continues
thus: ‘Haughtily indolent, they thought no
rural employment compatible with their dignity,
unless, indeed, the plough.’ Hence they left
all the domestic and family concerns to their
women, who worked the farms, attended to
the cattle and other cognate labours. ‘The
men are now civilised in comparison to what
they were, yet the custom of leaving the
weight of everything on the more helpless
sex still continues. The men think they preserve<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span>
dignity by this mode of management;
the women find a degree of power or consequence
in having such an extensive department,
which they would not willingly exchange for
inglorious ease.’<SPAN name="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">21</SPAN></p>
<div class="sidenote">“WOMEN’S WORK” IN HIGHLANDS</div>
<p>More than a hundred years have passed
since these words were written, yet the usages
Mrs. Grant described may still be seen in
operation. A few years ago, in boating
along the north shore of Loch Carron, on a
warm day, I passed a field where the women
were hard at harvesting work, while the men
were leaning against a wall, with tobacco-pipes
in their mouths and their hands in their
pockets. I remarked to my two boatmen that
these hulking fellows should be ashamed of
themselves, to let the women do that heavy
work under the hot sun, while they looked on
in idleness. The answer was characteristic
and not unexpected: ‘Ye surely wadna hae
men doin’ women’s wark, wad ye, sir?’</p>
<p>This habit of allowing the women to do
menial drudgery, so characteristic of uncivilised
races, seems hard to throw off, though probably
it is now undergoing amelioration. Burt,
writing in the earlier part of the eighteenth
century, gives an amusing instance of how<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span>
the treatment of women in the Highlands
appeared to a foreigner. ‘A French officer
coming hither to raise some recruits for the
Dutch service, met a Highlandman with a
good pair of brogues on his feet, and his wife
marching bare-foot after him. This indignity
to the sex raised the Frenchman’s anger to
such a degree, that he leaped from his horse
and obliged the fellow to take off the shoes,
and the woman to put them on.’ In commenting
on this incident, the editor of the
fifth edition of Burt’s volumes records an
instance in which ‘a stout fellow of the very
lowest class in Ardgour, took his wife and
daughter, with wicker baskets on their backs,
to a dunghill, filled their baskets with manure,
and sent them to spread it with their hands
on the croft; then, with his greatcoat on,
he laid himself down on the lee side of the
heap, to bask and chew tobacco till they
returned for another load. A stranger, who
merely looked at the outside of things, would
hardly believe that this man was a kind and
tender husband and father, as he really was.
The maxim that such work (which must be
done by some one) <em>spoils the men</em>, has been so
long received as unquestionable by the women,
that it makes a part of their nature; and a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span>
wife would despise her husband, and expect the
contempt of her neighbours on her husband’s
account, if he were so forgetful of himself, as
to attempt to do such a thing, unless her situation
at the time did not admit of her doing it.’<SPAN name="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">22</SPAN></p>
<p>Manufactures have never flourished in the
Highlands. Yet the region has many advantages
for the establishment of industries, especially
abundant water-power and the existence
of numerous inlets and natural harbours to
and from which commodities could easily be
shipped. Whisky-making, indeed, has long
flourished, the traditions of the ‘sma’ still’ no
doubt making it natural to take service in a
large distillery. Mrs. Grant of Laggan maintained
that ‘nature never meant Donald for
a manufacturer; born to cultivate or defend
his native soil, he droops and degenerates in
any mechanical calling. He feels it as losing
his caste; and when he begins to be a weaver,
he ceases to be a Highlander. Fixing a mountaineer
on a loom too much resembles yoking
a deer in a plough, and will not in the end
suit much better.’<SPAN name="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">23</SPAN> The indignant imprecation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span>
which Scott puts into the mouth of Rob Roy,
when honest Bailie Nicol Jarvie proposes to
make the Highlander’s sons weavers, represents
the ingrained national repugnance to
mechanical crafts. In recent years a few industries
have been introduced on a small scale
into some of the little Highland towns, such
as Inverness, Oban, and Campbeltown. These
innovations, however, make slow progress.
Possibly the utilisation of the Falls of Foyers
by a Sassenach company of manufacturers
may prove to be the forerunner of other
similar invasions. But if the future of the
Highlands be left to Donald himself, the
lovers of the unspoilt charms of the mountains
may console themselves with the belief that
these charms will remain much as they still
are for many a long day to come.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span></p>
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