The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-08-03

al nearing IN a Skye crOfter's nut genuine
bit OF highland folk lore. Except in the
out-of -the-way glens of Skye and Lewis
and the extreme north of Scotland it must
be rare now to find an old wife or an old
man in whose memory dwells any of the
old tales. Most of the peasants whom one
nests about Oban and from Glencoe down
TO Loeb Lomond and Loeb Katrine seem
destitute Of any spark Of imagination
The lot Of the Skye crofter's wife is not
an easy one. Wherever there Is a bit OF
land fertile enough to yield a crop the
women do much of the harvesting. | have
seen them hoeing potatoes with curious old
hoes having wooden blades, evidently OF
home manufacture. But every year there
is less and less land under cultivation. Last
night, just at sunset, l watched a man and
his wife cutting peat. He lifted the largs
blocks with his spade. and she divided them
into bricks and laid them up in little stacks
to dry. AS | approached they finished
their days work. He lifted TO his shoulder
a root of bog wood found under the turf,
and she turned up her skirt like a fish
wife's and came down the path carrying in
it a bushel or so of peats for Immediate
consumption. He was all in brown tones
and she in dull reds, and, in spite of the
different landscape and the different race,
they were not unlike two of Millais' peas
ants in their Flooding melancholy against
the twilight sky.
the glens for hours without passing hut or
human being; all the colors dark, and little
blooming but the heather; but some morn
ing il may be ones fortune to surprise q
little clachan in the hustle of washing day.
The women of two or three clustered shell
ings have built a fire by the brookside and
are heating water In an iron lade. Each
woman has her wooden tub, she dips from
the stream TO fill it, pours in little from
the kettle, turns up her skirts, steps into her
washtub and treads out the clothes with
her feet instead of rubbing them with her
hands. Bundle after bundle of coarse.
dark-colored flannel--much of it homes
woven-is brought out. One sees little
linen except the pinafores Of the children
There is very little gossip among the wash
erwomen and no laughing. Each woman
treads and riuses her clothes in silence, and
little girls tread and rinse in imitation of
their mothers. Above the Tapping Of wet
wool one hears the screaming of the gullS
and, perhaps, the far-oH bleat OF n lamb.
The silence is the more noticeable because
formerly the Gaels had tongues Once, and
once only | have heard woman sing. She
was young sturdily built, with pleasant
sun-browned face and dark hair combed
back plainly and wound in a coil. The
women Of SKYE, as well say here as any
where, are good-lookiug peasant types. but
anything rising above average attractive
ness is rare. They are stronger aud more
wholes mo in appearance than one would
expect from their diet and their toilsome
lives. They go bareheaded or shawled, and
wear shoulder shawls crossed on their bosoms
and knotted at the waist behind Their dark
skirts are short and plain.
The girl who sang was milking one of the
long haired, Iong-horned Highland cattle
that are being driven out by sheep, even as
the sheep are being displaced to make room
for deer preserves. Dame Mcqueen tells
me there are two milking songs that the
women sing sometimes, though they have
not now much milking. She has lined them
for me twice, three times, but am not
sure that have them. This Is something
like one:
Turn the white backed black cows, Duncan,
Dark brown, white-faced COWS, Duncan;
Turn the white backed black cows, Duncan,
And you shall get bonny wife.
think it was this that / heard. Tho
other is about the cows Of Colin, but I hava
not yet made 1t out at all. Dame Mcqueen
saws 1t is much more 'breagh," that is
pretty.
The Skye cotter is at once fisher and shep>
herd, and even at that ekes out the baresn
living, the hills are so rock-bound and the
behring's so capricious. Some OF the women
go out to fish in the little open boats in
which are dared such stormy cruises, and
at the Sligachan hotel 1 have seen them
with bracken and fresh leaves. Another oe
their homely arts is that of grinding their
own oats between two stones turned by a
homemade water wheel. A young Scotch
man was telling me day or two ago that
he had seen this operation performed by
two women quite recently, behind one OF
the sod novels that here and there remain,
and that an English lady was saying yester4
day must be REALLY comfortable, you
know, they would be quite warm" The sod
hut is built Of turfs, walls and thatch, and
is about the most wretched sty that ever
held a human being.
The crofter is being crowded out of exist
ence by the lords of the soil, who raise 100
deer on land that might feed 1000 human
beings, but when / asked Dame MCQUEEN
why they do not 60 elsewhere she shakes
her head. This is home, unless it be true
that
The Gael has no home under the sun.
1t Is 10 o'clock, the northern twilight is
closing and darkness setting in The rain
is falling, and from the shieling's doorstone
l hear above its downfall the beating Of the
waves and the screaming of the gulls. This
is sad land. ELIZA PUTNAM HEAToN.