, 1890-10-23
MANSE OF FASNAKYLE
Scottish Highlands Now a
Game Preserve.
A RACE ROBBED OF ITS HOMES
Incidents Of q Trip Through This
Pathotioally Lonely and
Stle:lt Land.

FASNAhN 4 LIE, tocotihhut PoP" 49,
Leaving the little railway station
at Beauty, we saw not 100 feet away,
at the road-head of long pair of
stairs a huge wagonette, already
filled with people. This was the
Strathglass "coach," 80 my COM
panion said. Two seats were re-
served beside the driver. These we
scrambled into, and before the train
had steamed out of the station our
coach was rolling heavily away to-
ward region of silence eternal.
For when the Strathglass coach
finally stops some thirty or forty
miles west Of Beauty, in every di-
rection save that from whence 1t
came, Is land that has never
known road or wheeled vehicle.
Once under the old clan system 1t
was peopled with grand and noble
race. From clearance after clear
ance and eviction after eviction 1t Is
now more lone and silent
than when skin-clad helots hud-
died in Its straths and glens,
and savage Pagan rites were
celebrated within its olden stone
circles and clachans. To-day Its
very foot-paths and bridle-paths are
given over to the gamekeeper, the
gillie and the red deer. Perhaps an
hundred grave-faced crofters may
occupy every hundred square miles
of land. Landlordism has extermi-
mated the grandest portion of the
Scottish people throughout the en-
tire north of Scotland, precisely as
with famine and Baliourism, 1t Ia
gradually but surely numbering an
entire race in Ireland. The Green
Isle is being transformed into a
sheep and cattle range for London
butchers; and the Scottish High
lands from the Grampians to the
ocean rim around the whole north
of Scotland and to the outer cliffs OF
the Western Isle, Is already simply
a vast game preserve for London
sportsmen. But Gods sunlight
never shone on so romantically
beautiful a land; and the inexpress.
ible pathos of 1t all mists your eyes
as they look in vain for the homes
where a whole race has been plum.
dered Of Its heritage.
SOME OF ITS INHABITANTS.
or the scattering remnants ot
these people who, despite all injus-
tice and loss, still cling to the
mountain eeries which gave them
birth, our coach-load was com
pletely typical. One huge, grav,
fellow was blacksmith who leaseC
a little forge far up the strath wher,
he still starved along, now and ther
getting a driblet of work in shoein,
the horses kept at the gentry's hunt
ing-lodges. Another man held /
few acres of land and a dreary ole
inn at the edge of the strath, wher,
occasionally gillies loitered ant
dropped a few pence, or, at ode
intervals, lords and ladies', from
freak or accident of requiring shel
ter, flung few pounds into his grov
cling hands. Three were crofters pur,
and simple with lam OShantel
hats, bushy boards, hollow cheeks
bloodless faces, and deep-set blu,
eyes that seemed ever set upor
some far object, as If lntently en-
deavoring TO solve the riddle of theii
lives of endless want and wretched
ness. There were two women. One
was cotter's wife, miscrably clad
with an ailing child which hac
been taken a score of miles to Beaul,
that a physician might see 1t, as ne
doctor lived In all this vast region
from sea to sea. The other was 9
scraggy old guidwife, travel-worn
but bravely making her way bacl
to some Highland craft, with few
pounds In her pocket from among
the herring-curing crews at Wick OF
Lerwick In Shetland. What she
had earned would keep the thatct
over her family's heads another
year. Another man, sleek and well
fed, was from Lord Tweedmouth's
great Polled Angus stock farm ant
lodge, far up the Strath; and still
another was strath-merchant who
dealt in "sweeties" and meal in {
little hut by Fasnakyle bridge
Then there was the driver, ear
nest and awful, because entrusted
with her majesty's mail pouches
myself next to him on the box; nc
to complete the party, alongsid,
myself the Rev. Mr.. Macken ale, IN,
companion, Free Church ministe
to the tiny fold In grand Strathglass
and the resident in the Free Church
manse, by Fasnakyle.
And how L came to be q guest O
this man who, capable of filling ,
New York pulpit, Is passing u de
voted and sacrificial life among tn,
lowly of these tempest-ridder
mountains, has spice of humor il
1t worth the telling. He had beer
cycling in Norway, and, returnin,
to Scotland, came to the same littl
hotel which housed me In Edin
burgh. With like sympathies ant
longings to know all stranger
can tell each other, we ha,
tumbled into an acquaintance an,
mutual liking at breakfast; were II
my own room directly, feasting ol
a pile of several hundred deliciou
old volumes l had dug out of tn
secondhand shops of Edinburgh
and while thus gosthering at eac
other In glorious way we wer
suddenly overtaken by
A LITTLE ROMANCE.
Bursting into the room in grea
state Of trepidation our kindly land
lady of st. Andrews, Mrs. Steel,