However, if Miss Stanley had on one or two occasions suspected that the presence of the detested factor might have something to do with the failure of her efforts to cultivate amicable relations with her tenants, here was an opportunity of seeing what she could do by herself; for on their way back they again came to the small township of Minard, where the amphibious population were busy in the crofts and along the shore. She dismissed the carriage; and proceeded to make a few friendly little calls—guarding carefully against any appearance of intrusion, and, indeed, almost humbly begging for something of consideration and good-will. And she was resolved to take no heed of any surly manners or uncivil speech; for she was of a large, bland, magnanimous nature; and she had a considerable fund of patience, and gentleness, and sweetness, to draw upon. Then she had to remember that her uncle had been unpopular, and had no doubt amply earned his unpopularity. Moreover, a factor who stands between a wilful and domineering landlord and a tenantry not in the happiest condition, is most invidiously situated: he is the universal scapegoat, and is bound to be hated as well as feared. But here was she willing to make what atonement was possible; ready to sacrifice her own interests for the general good; and above all things anxious to make friends. With gifts in both hands, ought she not to have been welcome at every door? Then she was pleasant to look upon; her manner was gracious and winning; her eyes were kind. With the small children she could get on well enough: they knew nothing of any deep-slumbering feud.
But her charm of manner, her wonder-working smile, her unfailing good-humour, that had made life easy for her elsewhere, seemed to be of no avail here—with the grown-up folk, at all events. Not that they were rude: they were merely obdurate and silent. Of course, when she got this one or that pinned by a direct question, he did not absolutely refuse to reply; but their answers were so contradictory, and their demands in most cases so impossible, that no practical enlightenment was possible. One man wanted more boats from the Government; another said that more boats were of no use unless the Government supplied nets as well; a third said boats and nets were valueless unless they had a steamer calling daily. There was also a demand that the Government should build more harbours; and when Mary said, in reply to this, that she understood the harbours they had got—Lochgarra, that is to say, and Camus Bheag—to be about as excellent as any in the West Highlands, she was answered that the harbours were perhaps good enough—if there was a railway. Then there were some who did not seem to have any occupation at all.
"Don't you have anything to work at?" she said, to one tall and rather good-looking young fellow, who was standing looking on at the women and girls gathering the sea-tangle.
"My father has a croft," he made answer, in a listless way.
"But wouldn't you," she said, in a very gentle and hesitating manner, so as not to seem impertinent, "wouldn't you rather go away and find some work for yourself?"
"Aw, well, I was at Glasgow, and I was getting twenty shillings a week there."
"And you did not stay?"
"Well, I could not live there," he said, simply enough. "It is no use getting twenty shillings a week if you cannot live in a place; and in a few years I would be dead, if I was living in Glasgow. I am better to be alive here than dead in Glasgow."
"Then perhaps you go to the East Coast fishing?" she suggested.
"No, I am not going there now. I was there one or two years, but it did not pay me."