IN THE HIGHLANDS 217 



admitted he hieiv it must be Satan who seized him. 

 It is very seldom the Bench is so convulsed with laughter 

 as it was when listening to this smuggling story, 



** Many years after, when I was factor for Gairloch, 

 I had to support the anti-smugglers, and I warned the 

 crofters that anyone convicted of smuggling would be 

 evicted; for, irrespective of law-breaking, no person 

 who works in a smuggling bothy is ever a well-doing, rent- 

 paying tenant. One day the riding officer and his two 

 helps came to complain that Norman Mackenzie, a 

 Diabaig tenant, had been caught brewing * dew,' and 

 after beating him and his two men badly had escaped 

 and absconded, and that as I could, of course, lay hands 

 on him, I must, as a Justice of the Peace, do so, and 

 commit him to Dingwall, eighty miles of? ! I could 

 only promise to do what I could, and, getting word to 

 Norman, who was about the smartest and best young 

 crofter on the estate, I had an interview with him. 

 His excuse was that he was going to be married, and 

 that he could not ask his friends to drink the horrid 

 Parliament whisky. So he was making some proper 

 stui? for them merely for his marriage. He could 

 not imagine that this was a reasonable cause for 

 eviction. 



" Alas ! in spite of my desire to protect Norman, 

 I could not help telling him he must go to Dingwall 

 and give himself up to the Sheriff, our law agent going 

 with him and explaining matters. So he was landed 

 in the gaol, and in a day or two I had a letter from 

 our agent saying Norman was fined £30 or thirty days 

 in gaol, and that he feared Norman would * go out of 

 his mind ' with the public disgrace of the thing. But, 



