128 THE HIGHLAND CLEARANCES. 



him what was to be done. By a direct arrangement, or by a tacit 

 arrangement, or by a misunderstanding, the whole of these 200 sheep, 

 with the exception of one, which he supposed was sick (a laugh) 

 were driven down through Waterstein to Ramasaig, past the end of 

 Milovaig township. These sheep, as sheep did working their way 

 towards their own pastures, naturally went through Waterstein and 

 through the Milovaig land. His case was that not only did they do so 

 naturally, in consequence of what Tormore allowed, but that in point of 

 fact the people upon Waterstein knew that they did so, and that, know- 

 ingly, they drove the sheep on to Milovaig. The respondents maintained 

 that a great deal of the excitement and anger of the Milovaig crofters was 

 caused by this indiscriminate thrusting over their march of sheep which 

 belonged to Borodale, and could not admittedly be pastured on Boro- 

 dale. There had been no attempt made by the servants at Waterstein 

 to discriminate between Milovaig and Borodale stock. They only 

 knew that strayed sheep were upon the ground ; and in particular, 

 nothing was done to find out whether any of the sheep of the three res- 

 pondents were upon Waterstein. That surely, when these three men 

 had been specially picked out, should have been done. It appeared 

 from the evidence of Macdonald that the shepherds had a general in- 

 struction to drive all sheep straying upon Waterstein on to Milovaig. 

 But not the slightest attempt was made here to identify any sheep. 

 Even Robertson, the factor, merely said, ' ' I knew they were strange 

 stock, but I did not know to whom they belonged". Surely this was a 

 case, when it was proposed to punish people for an alleged offence, where 

 the sheep should have been impounded and the marks examined. It was 

 clear from Robertson's testimony that he knew that the Borodale ten- 

 ants had an overstock of sheep, which could not subsist upon their own 

 ground, and that there had been complaints on the subject ; but as to 

 the conversations which took place at the meetings there was naturally 

 some haziness, as Robertson knew not a word of Gaelic, and the 

 speakers little English. The evidence of the petitioners proved that, for 

 the first time in the history of those townships, the people who were 

 anxious to get an interdict for the purpose of protecting their property 

 did none of the ordinary repairs on the fences as in former years, and 

 that they knew, both by their factor and shepherds, that there was 

 stock trespassing on their land with which the respondents had 

 nothing to do, but which, nevertheless, they pushed back on Milovaig. 

 He ventured to say that one could not very well imagine more unfav- 

 ourable circumstances for the petitioners coming forward to ask that 

 people should be punished for allowing their sheep to be on their land. 



