That day and those which had preceded and those which followed we went into many huts, talked to many people. We became bold because we wished to learn for ourselves the truth of what we had heard, and not to be prejudiced by hearsay. The crofter's hut is felt to be a disgrace to the Highlands. The landlord shifts all responsibility. The crofter alone is at fault; he has no shame in living in his hovel, which is scarcely fit to shelter a dog. This is the favorite argument. How the crofter, without money, without other materials than those at his disposal, could build anything better has not as yet been explained. If, however, he does contrive to make it better, his rent is raised, and he might, until within two years, have been turned out on the morrow. If he moves into a house set up by a landlord there is again question of higher rent, though he may find it has been put up so cheaply that cold winds pour through cracks and crannies, heavy rains soak through roof and walls. In his own black hut, if he lives with his cattle he can at least keep warm. His contentment in his degradation is a myth. To many cottages we were absolutely refused admittance. Ours was not the experience of Miss Gordon Cumming. Whenever we approached a cottage, a kindly voice did not bid us welcome. I remember one in particular where the door was shut against us. Of a woman of the village who could speak English—and it must be borne in mind that with few rare exceptions people in the Hebrides speak but Gaelic—and who had already shown us her smoky, dismal home, we asked that we might be let in to see the old loom. No, was the first answer sent out; its owner will not be dressed. No, was the second; the loom will not be working. No, was the third and final; "we wass just pretending about the loom; it wass the house we wanted to see." In another, though the woman drew up chairs by the peat smouldering and smoking in the middle of the floor, there was no mistaking she looked upon us as intruders. She shook her head and said without a smile, "No English," when we spoke to her; and then she turned her back and began to comb her hair. A bright, fresh-looking girl who rowed us over the water near Kingsburgh House received us more amiably. It was the usual interior, thick with smoke, all details lost in black shadow, though without the sun was shining. "You will find our houses very queer places to live in," she said. And as she ferried us across, every few minutes she turned and asked if we didn't find their cottages queer homes.
Nothing is left of Flora Macdonald's house which has made Kingsburgh famous. But our ferry-woman pointed to a clump of trees on the shores of the loch where it once stood. "Flora Macdonald was a good friend of the people," she said; "she was a strong woman and clever, and she helped to hide Prince Charlie from those who were in search of him, and for that reason she will be loved and remembered."
Strange as it may seem, these were her words. They so struck us at the time that I wrote them down once we were on shore again. I have heard people wonder at the intelligence Italian peasants show in expressing themselves; but it is not more striking than that of Western Islanders. When they could speak English, it always made us marvel. No one can read the report of their evidence before the Royal Commission without marvelling with us.
It was not only in Skye we talked to the people; already in Harris we had much to say to those who had the English. The very fact that we were walking, a great part of the time with packs on our backs, made the people meet us on more friendly terms than if we drove in coaches or sailed in yachts. We were strangers, it was evident; but we were not sportsmen or moneyed tourists. On every side we heard the same story of hated landlords and exhausted crofts. We know that what we say can have but little influence for good or evil. And yet when we remember the sad stories to which we listened, and the cruel lot of those who told them, we would not run the smallest risk of making that lot still more cruel, those stories still more sad. There is ill-feeling enough between Hebridean landlords and their slaves. In three cases at least crofters were turned from their crofts because they gave evidence to the Commissioners of 1883. It is well to be on the safe side. The chances are, not a landlord will know that we have been writing about his estates after walking over them; but we think it best to give no clew to the identity of men who told us in a friendly way that which already had been proclaimed officially.
The chief complaint was the same wherever we went: "We have not enough land; we could and would pay rent willingly if we had more ground to cultivate. As it is, our crofts are not large enough to keep us in food." The outside world has been busy watching the battle in Ireland; little attention has been spared to the Highlands; yet every small paragraph on the subject for which newspapers can make room, between accounts of stolen breeches and besieged members of Parliament, shows the determination of the men who are fighting the same battle in the far north. If troops are kept in Ireland, if Welsh tithes can only be collected by hussars, war-ships are sent to the Islands. If Irishmen, protected by a Land League, refuse to pay rent, so do Scotch crofters. Indeed, the latter are far more determined and daring. They know, too, how to hold together. In Glendale, an out-of-the-way corner of Skye to which strangers seldom penetrate, not a crofter has paid rent for five years. An old man, tenant on another estate, told us about them with pride. "No, sir," he said, "they have no paid a penny for five years, but the factor he will keep friends with them. He will know ferry well if he wass not their friend it will be worse trouble that will be coming whatever."
He was a fine, healthy old man, between sixty and seventy; and when he found that we sympathized, he walked about half a mile just to talk with us. He pretended he came to show us the way, but as the road was straight before us it was easy to see through his excuse.
J—— asked him what he thought about the crofter question. "I will be a real old Land Leaguer every time," he declared; and then he went on to tell us that in his part of the island the crofters held together like one man. The Commission was coming; it was slow, but they would wait for it. Then, if it did not improve their condition, they would take matters into their own hands. Their landlord was good enough, as landlords went; he was a civil-spoken gentleman if rents were paid on the very day they were due, but that was about all that could be said for him. Rents were not so high on his estate as on others, but the taxes were heavy, and it was more land they needed. "You will see those potatoes"—and he pointed to a tiny green patch sloping down from the road to a ditch, beyond which was heather—"you will see for yourself they grow well whatever. And they would be growing as well on the other side of the ditch, where I myself have planted them in other days. But what will grow there now? Heather and ferns! And it will be heather and ferns you will see as far as you can for twelve miles. If they will be giving us more land, sir, it's no trouble from the Highlanders they will be having; but if they don't give it to us we will take it."
