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Updated: June 11, 2025
It became, of course, before very long, well known about the country that Mr. Duff's crofters upon Glashgar had taken in and were bringing up a foundling some said an innocent, some said a wild boy who helped Robert with his sheep, and Janet with her cow, but could not speak a word of either Gaelic or English.
The tough prairie sod had to be broken up and worked over, but the only implement which the Colonist had to use was a simple hoe, the one harrow being incomplete. The crofters were poor farmers, for they were rather fishermen. But the fish in Red River were scarce in this year, so that even the fisher's art which they knew was of little avail to them.
Hall Caine himself, with his ruddy beard and hair and distinctive features, has inherited rather the physical characteristics of his maternal ancestors, the Norsemen. He comes of a stock of crofters, or small farmers, who for centuries had supported themselves by tilling the soil and fishing the sea. He is the first of all his line who ever worked his brain for a living.
Much of this land is either unfit for agricultural purposes or could not at present be cultivated with profit. Some of it, however, is fertile, or well suited for grazing, and greatly coveted by the crofters.
An Englishman who, on seeing these "sordid surroundings," was disposed to compare the social and moral condition of the people to "the barbarism of Egypt," was told that if he would ask one of the crofters, in Gaelic or English, "What is the chief end of man?" he would soon see the difference.
He knew the price of butter and of oatmeal, of cattle and of sheep, and his information was often of great value to the farmers in adjusting the values of farm produce. With the old men he would laugh over the jokes of days that had been; tell them how laird had gone to law with laird, or how poor crofters had been evicted from their holdings for failing to pay their taxes or their rents.
They 'had a lad with the gift who would do the preaching fine, and as there was no police-station within forty miles it seemed fairly long odds on the Free Kirk recalcitrants. However, there was a resolute minority of crofters on the side of the minister, and every chance of an ecclesiastical battle royal.
Macrae, and then the company saw what they had never seen before, the bard blushing. He seemed so discomposed that Miss Macrae took compassion on him. 'Never mind my father, Mr. Blake, she said, 'he is a very good Highlander, and believes in Eachain of the Hairy Arm as much as the crofters do. Have you heard of Eachain, Mr. Blake? He is a spectre in full Highland costume, attached to our clan.
Therefore all crofters or villagers likely to trespass must be got rid of and first and foremost the shepherds, for they had endless opportunities of helping themselves to a deer. Where there were sheep there must be shepherds: they would make a clearance of both! The neighbour referred to, a certain Mr.
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."
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