THE AUTUMN CAMPAIGN. 97 



them in April last. But extreme excitement is perfectly 

 compatible with this courtesy towards those who they know 

 are not connected with the writs. If I were asked to describe 

 the Braes to-day, I should say the whole community 

 resembled a barrel of gunpowder that only required the 

 lighted match to produce an explosion. 



The officers and the police were stopped at the entrance 

 to the township of Balmeanach quite near the first house in 

 the township by a body of men, women, and children, 

 variously estimated at from 140 to 160 individuals. 



The scene, while officers and crowd were face to face with 

 each other, was one both striking and picturesque. While 

 officers and people discussed in Gaelic we wandered around 

 to see what was to be seen, and hear what of English was to 

 be heard. There they were, a great crowd engaged in loud 

 and angry talk, varied now and again by strange cries and 

 shouts from the women ; and the very gathering and the 

 noise and the excitement lent additional interest to the more 

 distant scenes, which were already striking in solitude and 

 grandeur. The girls, who were attending to the cattle on 

 the green hill-sides, gathered in little knots to hear what was 

 going on. The children who played on the roadside, or 

 watched on the green turf infants of tender years, whose 

 mothers were confronting the officers, seemed to have a 

 perfect idea of what was taking place. At the beach, far 

 down below the roadway, there lay a little boat in which three 

 fishermen were engaged in shaking out of the nets some 

 herrings which the night before they had got in Loch-Eynart. 

 They, too, had to be apprised of what was going on. 

 Occasionally one of the crew would land, ascend the steep 

 brae, and look on the crowd. But while he was in the boat 

 a knot of young women far up above the beach, would report 

 the movements. 



7 



