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He said the Free Church ministers were particular friends of the crofters and of course the good-will of the crofters is of importance to a shooting-tenant " "The good-will of the crofters!" the bewigged old nobleman broke in, impatiently. "Are you aware, sir, that the Strathaivron Branch of the Land League met last week and passed a resolution declaring salmon to be ground-game?
It was on some such grounds that the Royal Commissioners recommended that restrictions be placed upon the further extension of deer-forests, that the fishing interests should be aided by the government, that the proprietors should be required to restore to the crofters lands formerly used as common pastures, and to give them, under certain restrictions, the use of more land, enlarging their holdings, and that in certain cases they should be compelled to grant leases at rents fixed by arbitration, and to give compensation for improvements.
And at first he sings small, and is hail-fellow-well-met with Sheamus that's James of the Glens, my chieftain's agent. But by-and-by, that came to his ears that I have just told you; how the poor commons of Appin, the farmers and the crofters and the boumen, were wringing their very plaids to get a second rent, and send it over-seas for Ardshiel and his poor bairns.
Though a landlord in the Highlands he was beloved, for he was the friend of crofters, as rent was no object to him, and he did not particularly care for sport. He accepted the argument, dear to the Celt, that salmon are ground game, and free to all, while the natives were allowed to use ancient flint-locked fusils on his black cocks. Mr.
"Man, Davie," interrogated one of the crofters in a broad Orkney dialect, "where has thoo been wandering sae lang? They was expecting thee mair than a twa week syne. Was thoo thinking o' starving us all?" "Starving you, Tam," returned Flett. "Nay, nay, lad, we'll see ye dinna starve. Come aboard, lad, and let's know what you're needing. We have everything you can want, from a needle to an anchor.
Still more wretched is the condition of the cottars and squatters. The latter are in some places numerous and have taken up considerable portions of land formerly used as common, thus interfering with the rights of the crofters. They appropriate land and possess and pasture stock, but pay no rent, obey no control, and scarcely recognize any authority.
Charles had dismissed the crofters on the estate; and, as the shooting-party that day was in an opposite direction, not a soul was near to whom we could call for succour. I climbed down again to Charles. The evening came on slowly. Cries of sea-birds rang weird upon the water. Puffins and cormorants circled round our heads in the gray of twilight.
A Highland laird and lady, visiting some of their crofters on the moors, are met and escorted by a delighted wife to her cot. The children and the husband are duly presented. At an opportune moment the proud wife cannot refrain from informing her visitors that "it was Donald himsel' the laird had to send for to thatch the pretty golf-house at the Castle.
And were not these peat-cutters, with the big baskets on their backs, walking in silhouette along the ridges, the people that Sheila loved and tried to help; and were not these crofters' cottages with thatched roofs, like beehives, blending almost imperceptibly with the landscape, the dwellings into which she planned to introduce the luxury of windows; and were not these Standing Stones of Callernish, huge tombstones of a vanished religion, the roofless temple from which the Druids paid their westernmost adoration to the setting sun as he sank into the Atlantic was not this the place where Sheila picked the bunch of wild flowers and gave it to her lover?
Now, all at once, a daughter, the ugly one, from whom no credit was to be looked for, dared to defy him for a clown figuring in a worn-out rag of chieftainship the musty fiction of a clan half a dozen shepherds, crofters, weavers, and shoemakers, not the shadow of a gentleman among them! a man who ate brose, went with bare knees, worked like any hind, and did not dare offend his wretched relations by calling his paltry farm his own! for the sake of such a fellow, with a highland twang that disgusted his fastidious ear, his own daughter made a mock of his authority, treated him as a nobody!
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