I A Gossip on a Sutherland Hill-side 269 



and to America some — not many — went. And so 

 strong is the feeling of these emigrants against their 

 old landlord, that a very few years ago, when a 

 relation of the Morfear-chatt visited Nova Scotia, 

 they came sixty miles to see him, and were so 

 frightfully excited that they shook hands with him 

 with the most intense heartiness, and seemed ready 

 to kiss him. 



Not one of these people need have gone to 

 America had he not wished it ; every hand that 

 would labour was wanted in the country, and many 

 who went into neighbouring counties soon returned, 

 and eagerly embraced the advantages offered them. 



The delicious theory that these changes were 

 undertaken in order that the deer might be un- 

 disturbed, is, I am grieved to say, incorrect ; there 

 was as much idea of preserving snapping turtles as 

 deer when they were made, and many a corrie and 

 wide hill-side was disforested to carry them out. 

 Indeed, the old Reay forest and Stack are almost 

 the only remains of the gigantic deer-forests which 

 existed at the close of the last century. 



But why move all the people at once ? Why 

 not let them linger on and die out on the old hill- 

 sides they loved so well ? Surely a few cotters 

 could not have interfered much with the sheep- 

 farmer. Simply because by so doing you would 

 perpetuate the old mistake, attempting to grow corn 

 crops on land which could only yield a return to 

 the community at large by being kept as a winter 



