DUNVEGAN CASTLE.
He shook hands heartily with us both when he left. One may doubt the demagogue who uses the people's suffering for political capital; but one can but respect a man like this sturdy old crofter, himself one of the people, who knows his wrongs and determines to right them. His methods may be illegal; so have been those of many men who have struggled for freedom.
At Dunvegan Inn we were again in civilized society. We dined with two young men from London who were followed even here by the Saturday Review and the Standard. They took interest in the evicted Irish, and ignored the existence of Highland crofters; they could tell us much of the fish, but nothing of the fishermen. They were anxious to direct us to many howling wildernesses within an easy walk of the dinner-table, where we could escape from the people; and when the people, in the shape of two Aberdeen farmers, full of the crofter's wrongs, appeared at breakfast, they went from the room in disgust. I think this disgust would have been greater had they known how much more interesting we found the farmers.
Beyond the inn the road led through a dense wood to the castle of the Macleod of Macleod. Trees will not grow on Hebridean soil until the laird wishes to raise them for himself; then they thrive well enough. Of course we did not expect to find them growing on northern exposed shores; but surely there must be other sheltered spots besides those directly around the laird's house. However, it is the same with his crops; broad acres are covered by his grain and that of his large tenants; his pasture-land is fresh and green. It is a strange fact that only when the crofter asks to cultivate the land does it become absolutely barren. It is but a step from the wild, lonely moorland to the beautiful green wood at Dunvegan. Landward it shuts in the castle, whose turreted keep rises high above the ivy-grown battlemented walls, crowning a rocky island in a sheltered corner of the loch. The water has been drained from the natural moat, but the rock falls sheer and steep from the castle gate, and the drawbridge still crosses the gulf below. We did not go inside; we were told that the present wife of the Macleod objected to visitors, even though she admitted them. We believe there are tapestries and old armor and the usual adjuncts to be seen for the asking, such things as one can find in any museum; but it is only by going to the islands that you can see the crofters' wrongs.
Almost at the end of the woods, and yet sheltered by them, was a pretty, old-fashioned flower-garden, surrounded by well-clipped hedges, and as well cared for as the garden of an English castle. Nearer to the inn, on a low hill, was the graveyard of the Macleod. We pushed open the tumble-down gate and squeezed through. A hundred years ago Dr. Johnson found fault with the bad English on Lord Lovat's tomb; to-day we could hardly find the tomb. The stone on which the inscription was carved lay in pieces on the ground. It may be that the Macleod of Macleod has bankrupted himself to save his tenants from starvation. This is most praiseworthy on his part. But we could not help thinking that if he and all the Macleods, from one end of Great Britain to the other, are so anxious to be buried here, they might among them find money enough to free the enclosure of their dead from the whiskey bottles and sandwich tins left by the tourist. The resting-place of the dead Macleod lies desolate; not far off is the garden, with smooth lawn and many blossoms. A few flowers less, perhaps, and at least the bottles and tins that defile what should be a holy place, could be cleared away. And this graveyard, with its broken tombs and roofless chapel, is a ruin of yesterday. A century ago Dr. Johnson saw it still cared for and in order. The people in Dunvegan told us that twenty years since the roof fell in; it has never been repaired. We have been to the graveyard of old St. Pancras in London, where every few minutes trains rush above the desecrated graves; but here the dead are unknown, or else, like Mary Wolstonecraft and Godwin, their tombs have been removed beyond the reach of modern improvements. We have been to the Protestant burying-ground in the cemetery of old St. Louis in New Orleans, neglected because those who lie there belong to the despised faith. And yet neither of these is dishonored as is the graveyard where sleep the Macleods of the far and near past, whose greatness the living Macleods never cease to sing. Beneath the weeds are old gray slabs, with carvings like those of Iona; in the ruined weed-grown chapel walls are fresh white marble tablets. At Dunvegan the dead are not forgotten, not despised; they are only neglected. The mower comes and cuts the long grass from above their trampled graves. Let the laird make hay while the sun shines, for the day is coming when the storms, forever brooding over the Isle of Mists, will break forth with a violence he has never felt before, and he and his kind will be swept away from off the face of the land.
GRAVEYARD OF THE MACLEOD.
To-day Macleod of Macleod is a poor man. One year of famine, to keep the crofters from starving, he emptied his own purse. It is but another proof of the uselessness of charity in the Hebrides. What did it profit the crofters that Macleod became for their sake a bankrupt? They still starve. He who would really help them must be not only their benefactor, but their emancipator.
From Dunvegan to