Hidden or seen, still murmuring that old tune!
Until at last through hazel-copse, and brake,
With lap and lisp it mingles with the lake.

All on a bank impearl'd with many a flower,
We sat and knitted all the afternoon;

With song and story passed the pleasant hour
On that bright summer eve of golden June.
And when it fell to Kate a song to sing,
We made the rocks with the loud chorus ring.

KATE'S SONG.

Up on the hills after the deer,

(Ho hì, ho hò, Ranald away!)

The stag in the corrie is trembling with fear
And the mavis sings sweetly at dawn of day.

The stag and hind are down the wind,
(Ho hì, ho hò, Ranald away!)

Oscar, though swift, is far behind,

And the mavis sings sweetly at dawn of day.

The hunter shot his bolt too soon,

(Ho hì, ho hò, Ranald away!)

He might as well have shot at the moon,

And the mavis sings sweetly at dawn of day.

Oscar returns from a bootless chase,
(Ho hì, ho hò, Ranald away!)
He ran amain, but he lost the race,

And the mavis sings sweetly at dawn of day.

The hunter descends by corrie and cairn,
(Ho hì, ho hò, Ranald away!)
But the stag is couched amongst the fern,
Till the mavis sings sweetly at dawn of day.

When next the hunter bends his bow,
(Ho hì, ho hò, Ranald away!)
That antler'd head will be lying low,

When the mavis sings sweetly at dawn of day.

Whilst yet the echo of my sister's song

Was lingering 'mongst the hollows of the dell, Adown the steep came bounding fast along,

Oscar, young Ranald's dog, we knew him well;

A staghound bold, lean-flank'd, though strong of limb,

And Ranald loved him as the dog loved him.

As Oscar fawned upon us each in turn,

Ranald appear'd himself, and laughing, said

"I hid me in a hollow by the burn,

And heard your song, my Kate-O saucy maid, Wait till September, girls, and you shall know How Oscar runs and Ranald bends the bow.

"But come, my Kate, I promised you erewhile
Some summer eve to row you on the lake;
I'll take you in my boat to Willow Isle,

Where wild fowl breed-the tern and kittiwake,
The wild duck, sunderling, and many more,
That find their food in Eild, and haunt its shore."

And Kate went with her lover in his boat;

We watch'd and saw them landing on the Isle; As we watch'd still, they were again afloat,

And paddling through the dimples of the smile
That the lake smil'd back to the golden sun,
Whose long day's race at length was nearly run.
Sudden, beneath the sunlit mirror's sheen,

The boat went down as if it were a stone!
A single shout, so piercing, loud, and keen,
Rose from the skimmering ripples that went on,
Widening and widening their circles in the beam
Of golden light that fell on hill and stream.

And they were lost—alas and well-a-day !

Clasped in each others arms the twain were found;
And still our maidens sing a mournful lay

Of how the lovers in Loch-Eild were drowned;
And still, beside the lake, you may discern,
In memory of the event, a rude, grey cairn.

And ever as midsummer eve comes round,

'Tis said that sweetest music still is heard, Floating along in cadences that sound

Sweeter than maiden's voice, or harp of bard— A heavenly music, heavenly-sweet and clear,

O'er the reed-margin'd mirror of the mere.

And well-a-day, and well-a-day, the times

Are not now what they were; the world is changed; Memories of the past may ring their chimes;

But from all joys of earth I'm far estranged. Last of my race! when summer bowers are green,

I dream a waking dream, and think of what has been.

NETHER-LOCHaber,

21

THE PAST AND PRESENT POSITION OF THE
SKYE CROFTERS.

MR. LACHLAN MACDONALD of Skaebost, Isle of Skye, has recently issued a valuable pamphlet, for private circulation, entitled "The Past and Present Condition of the Skye Crofters." We present it to our readers, for whom, it will be seen, it was originally written, in the following abridged form. A series of 23 valuable full-page tables are printed at the end of the pamphlet. These would be unsuitable for our pages. We, however, think that Skaebost should publish the whole pamphlet in the usual way, and so make it accessible to the general public :

It is scarcely an exaggeration [he writes] to say that, were the Island of Skye polled to-morrow, and the wishes of the people taken, the voice of the large majority would be-Perish Landlordism, and let the land be divided among us.

"Give us more land, and restore to us the land robbed from our forefathers under cover of Landlord-made laws," has been the demand of the crofters ever since the present agitation commenced; and no doubt this feeling had its origin, and possibly still exists, from a sense of indignation arising out of a widely-spread belief among them, that a great and grievous wrong was done to their ancestors, from the consequences of which the present generation is now suffering.

My object in writing this is to try and ascertain, if possible, the truth of the above charge, and to what extent the Skye crofters were injured by the Skye proprietors, and whether the Skye crofters of to-day are justified in the attitude they have assumed towards the Skye proprietors. The way in which I propose tackling this knotty problem is by an examination of authentic figures, showing the past and present rentals, and distribution of the lands of the Isle of Skye.

According to the return presented to Parliament in 1872-73, popularly known as the Domesday Book, the Island of Skye contained 408,657 acres, and in former times 219,596 acres of this land belonged to the Macleods, and was called and known as Macleod's country; the remaining 189,061 acres belonging to the Macdonalds and Mackinnons. The following figures embrace the whole of these lands, with the exception of 13,000 acres of the Mackinnon lands, now belonging to Mr. Alexander Macalister of Strathaird, and entered in the Valuation Roll for 1885 at a rental of £939 19s., of which about II per cent. is paid by crofters. Also, say about 5000 acres now belonging to Lord Macdonald, and entered in the Valuation Roll for 1885 at a rental of £538 16s., and which is occupied by 68 crofters, paying £488 10s., and one other tenant paying £50 6s.

THE MACLEOD COUNTRY.

In 1664, the whole of Macleod's country belonged to the Macleod of Macleod of the day; now the same lands are owned by eight different proprietors.

Those figures show that a great change has taken place since 1664. They show that the rent is now more than eleven times greater in Macleod's country than it was in 1664; and, in the second place, that the tacksmen class of that day has become extinct. They show also that the lands occupied by 73 tacksmen, then paying 784 per cent. of the entire rental, are now mostly held by 10 large graziers, and by 5 proprietors paying 72 per cent of the present rental; and that the lands then occupied by 178 individuals are now held by no fewer than 780 persons. At the same time, the figures make it apparent that, whoever has cause to complain of the joining of field to field, the crofters do not seem to have suffered so much as is generally supposed. Those paying under £30 a year now pay 23 per cent. of the rental, and other small farmers pay 2 per cent., or a total of 25 per cent., against 21 per cent. paid by joint-tenants in 1664. This proves that, instead of the crofters' possessions decreasing, they have increased. But it may be said anything can be proved by statistics, and it may doubtless be asked, how can we account for all the green spots which we find here and there surrounded by wildernesses of heather, and marking the sites of former habitations, as, for instance, in Bracadale, that Parish in Macleod's country which is most coveted by the crofters, and to which the Royal Commission pointed as an instance of the reduction of numbers?

An examination of its figures will show that this Parish of Bracadale was formerly, as now, mostly occupied by the gentry, and that the crofters' ancestors (those of them who are descended from joint-tenants) never had much of a footing, either in it or in Minginish.

The present Parish of Bracadale consists of part only of the ancient Barony of Bracadale, and of the whole of the Barony of Minginish, and the lands which now comprise it were held in 1664 by

Showing that the crofters pay about 1 per cent. of the rental, and that the other small tenants pay nearly 3 per cent., or a total of only 5 per cent., against 10 per