GROUSE MOORS AND DEER FORESTS. 249 



precisely where the line lay between them. Poaching there 

 was, but it was for food or for sport, not for the filthy lucre 

 of the city poulterer, and did but little harm to any one ; 

 neither did the sport of the lairds interfere in any way with 

 the peasantry. The lot of the Highland peasant in those 

 days was rough and primitive. Sheltered nooks in the hill- 

 sides, where a turn of the hill protected a patch of decent 

 soil, grew corn and potatoes enough to feed a family sparsely ; 

 a few hardly black-faced sheep supplied wool which the 

 peasants themselves spun, wove, and dyed for their homely 

 clothing ; prices of grain and of mutton were good, if they 

 had any to sell. No one dreamt of artificially keeping up 

 a large head of game ; and if damage were done to crops, 

 it was more than compensated for by presents of game given 

 liberally by laird or chief. 



The opening up of the Highlands by railways and coach- 

 roads, and the influx of tourists drawn thither by the fasci- 

 nation of Scott's novels, changed all the conditions of life as 

 suddenly as the shift of a pantomime scene. For the 

 peasants themselves, their lot had been grower harder, their 

 struggle for existence more severe from many causes. Since 

 they ceased to kill each other in constant clan feuds, and 

 learned to live more healthy and sanitary lives, they rapidly 

 increased beyond the capacity of the land to support them 

 in anything like comfort ; moreover, the natural indolence 

 of the Celtic temperament led them to depend largely on 

 the cultivation of the potatoe, and when the potatoe crop 

 failed the congested district was plunged in misery and 

 starvation. To these poor people the opening up of the 

 Highlands brought the sharp contrast of comfort and luxury 

 in city life, and the ready means of going thither, while the 

 repeal of the corn laws, largely depressing the prices of 

 produce, also had its necessary effect on a populace who 

 were all vendors, and hardly, if at all, purchasers of articles 

 of food. The concurrence of these and various other cognate 

 causes began the depopulation of the Highlands long before 



