A SKYE EVICTION
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.
I had heard some rumours of these intentions, 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 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.
RAASAY CLEARANCES
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 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.
LIFE IN RAASAY
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 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.
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.
Up till towards the close of the eighteenth 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.
THE FAT BOY OF SOAY