The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-08-03
WOMEN INTHE SHIELINGS
HOUSEKEEPING IN A CRoFTER'5
hut IN SKYE.

Where the Peat smolders on the
Hearth and the Thatch is Held
Down With Stones-Washins Day
and the Milking Song-Lonely How
els In Lonely Glens.
(Copyrighf.)
GLEN SLIGACHAN, ISLE OF SKYE, July
22.-When the sun dances on these northern
waters thu western highlands are glorious;
but when the clouds are black and the
mountains are blue-black and the sea is
black-green it would be hard to find on the
face of the globe scenes more desolate, more
savage. There looms out of the mist be-
hind me the fierce crag Of the Scuirna-
Chilean, the Peak of the Young Men.
Through the rain, that is sleet not far up its
sides, one cannot fully see the wonderful
sharpness and steepness Of its precipices
which threaten danger and death to the I'M
wary mountaineer. This morning made
out patches of snow lying in its georges. All
along the bleak track crossing the dreary
moorland to the right the Titanic watering
pot has been filled and refilled TO the dis
comfort of the black faced melancholy
sheep hud lied under the lee of gray stone.
Over the sea in front the gulls circle scream
ing, and on the thwart of herring fishers
boat black cormorant is sitting. Every
| where the basaltic rock crops out, dark
colored and barren, and there's a crumb
of human comfort save in the tedtime
story Dame Mcqueen is telling her BARNS.
Dame McQueen's shieling is the best in
the oclachan. 1t has two rooms. The
three or four other huts that make up the
little village have, so far as | have looked
iuto them, only one wv hence made we
the walk 2" she asked me when | stopped to
see If she could sell me oatcake for my
supper. Dame Mcqueen has the Gaelic,
but she speaks also little English, which is
more than do some of her neighbors 1t
required persuasion to induce her to keep
me over night, but the storm was breaking
and no other shelter reachable.
Dame McQueen's hut is built of round
STOKES, the granite of the neighborhood. laid
to all appearance without mortar. Its
thatch is straw and icks intermingle1, and
the binding pole that runs along what in a
more pretentlous mansion ore would call
the caves is weighted and held in place
agaii ST the gales of winter by large stones
hanging by straw ropes TO the ground. IL
has "a low door in the middle of the side.
One stoops in entering, from the apprehen-
sion if not necessity. A rough partition
separates the kitchen and the bedroom (;
imperfectly with rude stone tagging. The
walls are unfinished, precisely as on the out
side, but in the tiny bed chamber in which
| am writing there has been added a touch
of refining elegance in the shape of breadGLs
of coarse white cotton cloth stretched across
at the level of the top of the side walls, to
form ceiling below the thatch, but now
sagging oddly In billowy festoons. The fur
niture is prosaic enough-a low bed, spread
with dark, hand-woven blankets, and a
wooden chair. There is a window slit,
very small to save glass, and to see we'll one
must open the door.
The kitchen is more primitive and more
interesting. In the end is the open stone
fireplace, where peat is smothering, its pun
gent smell filling the air and the heavy
flakes of its SCOT hanging down from the
chimney. At one side of tine fire sits Dame
Mcqueen, on a roughly squared block Of
stone Yesterday on the shore of a lonely
loch miles from any other habtation
found hut whose furniture, barring one
ordinary chair of commerce that looked in
congruously modern among such surround
ings. consisted Of sticks OF ships timber
washed ashore from wrecks.
From the thatch overhead rows of reddish
brown fishing nets are hanging. There is Il
spinning wheel, shelf with crockery, a
table, and in every corner, there being no
place to store thom, are heaped ropes, fish
baskets and such articles of clothing as are
not walking about on the backs Of the
family. For supper we ate potatoes and
brose, the bare-footed children in their short
and dilapidated brown frocks sitting with
their share on the floor aud shaking back at
intervals the dark hair that hung over their
eyes. The children are disappointed at the
non-arrival Of the father, who should have
been home from a fishing trip. This might
be done or that, if only he would come
There are long horns, says the mother,
"on cattle in the mist" which | take to be
the cotter's way Of remarking on the size
of the fish one does not catch and the beau
ties of the things that are not to be.
/ wish | could understand the gutturals
and the aspirations of the Gaelic that is
making those same urchIns 80 round-eyed.
| must ask Dame Mcqueen to, English her
freight story for me.
She says it is the tale of MaoL a-chliobain.
Her grandmother used to tell it to her. /
cannot catch all the words of her northern
tongue, but she seems to say that once there
was "a widow whose three daughters desired
to go and seek their fortunes. So she baked
three bannocks and asked the Oldest, "Will
you have the smaller half with my blessing
or the bigger half with my curseg" Now,
the daughter was hungry and said, 81 will
take the bigger half aud your curse" And
the second daughter said the same; but the
little sister, Maol-a-chliobain, chose the
smaller part and the blessing. So the
mother gave her all. greatly to the disgust
of the her sisters, VINO tied her to a rock
and then to peatstack and then to tree,
that she should not 90 with them; but she
came after, carrying on her back the rock
and the peatstack and the tree. They
reached the giants house and slept in the
bed with the giants three daughters. In
the night the giant said TO his bald red
skinned son, xiii me ono of the strange
girls"
And the son said, "How shall know
them p
And the giant said, "My daughters have
turns Of amber beads about their necks, but
the strange girls have turns of hair"
But Maoi-a-chliobian hoard the giant and
she took the turns of amber beads off the
necks Of the giants daughters and put them
on the necks of her sisters; 80 when the
giant's son came to the bed he killed one Of
the giants daughters and the giant drank
her blood, and this he did to the second and
the third. Then Maol-a-chliobain-I hope
| am getting this individuals name with
some degree of correctness-arose, and took
her sisters on her back and fed. The giant
came after and the sparks trodden out from
her heels hit his forehead, and the sparks
trodden out from the points of his feet hit
the back of her head, but she leaped brook
and he could not follow, Tnen he said,
| You are over.n
| And aha apsu1arod tgVaq ~ n vax Won