CHAP. xi. DONALD'S FLITT1N ! 149 



than usual. It rose from the green hill-side like a wail 

 of suffering and complaint. Poor people ! There stretched 

 inland, in the background, a long deep strath, with a 

 river winding through it. It had once been inhabited 

 for twenty miles from the sea ; but the inhabitants were 

 all removed to make way for sheep ; and it is now a desert, 

 with no other marks of men save the green square 

 patches still bearing the mark of the plough, that lie 

 along the water-side, and the ruined cottages, some of 

 them not unscathed by fire, with which these are studded. 

 . . . The people had a look of suffering and subdued 

 sadness about them that harmonised but too well with 

 the melancholy tones of their psalms. There is, it is 

 said, a very intense feeling about them. ' We were 

 ruined and made beggars before,' they say, ' and now 

 they have taken the gospel from us.'" 



And again, at Loch Brora, he says : " The Loch 

 stretches out in front for miles, its undulating and wind- 

 ing shores tufted with birch, and here and there mottled 

 with small green spots that, ere the poor Highlanders 

 had been driven from home, kept them in oats and here. 

 ... I doubt not that the thoughts of them live, set in 

 sorrow, in hearts beyond the Atlantic." 



When Hugh Miller had left Thurso for Edinburgh, 

 Robert Dick took his pen in hand, and wrote the fol- 

 lowing stanzas : 



DONALD'S FLITTIN ! 

 Eh, Donald, man, they've served ye sair, 



Yeer Hieland chiefs an' a', 

 They've brought their sheep, an' iiowt, aii' deer, 



And ye maun gang awa ! 



