XXXV111 INTRODUCTION. 



his lot given to Mr. Macleod, the tacksman of Monkstadt, 

 local factotum for Captain Fraser, who sent round word that 

 any one who gave Nicolson a night's shelter would be 

 treated in a similar manner next year. Having related how 

 he was evicted from his home and lands, and turned out- 

 side, Nicolson continued 



"My son's wife and her two young children were with me, 

 and we were all that night in the cart shed, and our neighbours 

 were afraid to let us in, and were crying over us. There 

 was plenty of meal outside, but we had no fire to make a 

 cake. We lived in the stable all the summer. I could 

 only erect one bed in it, and my daughter and my son's 

 wife and two children slept in the bed, and myself slept on the 

 stones. During a vacancy, the Presbytery of the Established 

 Church allowed me to enter the glebe. After that I got 

 refuge in the house of a poor woman at Duntulm, and the 

 factor, Mr. Alexander Macdonald, Portree, challenged the 

 tacksman of Duntulm for allowing this poor woman to keep 

 me in her house. Mr. Grant, the parish minister, supports 

 me now. That happened five years ago." 



The witness then appealed to Mr. Dugald Maclachlan, 

 banker, Portree, who was present as interpreter, for confir- 

 mation of his story ; and at the request of Lord Napier, Mr. 

 Maclachlan gave the following explanation : 



"After Nicolson was put out of his house he entered a 

 cart-shed, and thereafter he entered the stable ; then he was 

 evicted a second time, and an interdict taken out against 

 him, forbidding him to enter for ever his dwelling-house, or 

 at all to enter upon the lands, except for the purpose of 

 preserving his crop, which Mr. Macleod had refused to take 

 over with the croft. Under stress of circumstances, he 

 entered the barn with his family. He was had up for breach 

 of interdict, and for this breach of interdict was fined 



