. The land of heather . r she had exhibited her treasured photo-graphs she put fresh peats on the fire, and the smokebecame so stifling I hastened to escape. This hamlet by the shore was inhabited by folkswho depended largely on fishing for their miles inland was a more strictly farming com-munity which I one day visited. On the way to it Imet several men leading panniered ponies. They weregoing to Portree to get goods brought by the steamerand carry them back into the country. I followed anarrow road that wound along over the moors. Thisroad had been made only about a year. Pr
. The land of heather . r she had exhibited her treasured photo-graphs she put fresh peats on the fire, and the smokebecame so stifling I hastened to escape. This hamlet by the shore was inhabited by folkswho depended largely on fishing for their miles inland was a more strictly farming com-munity which I one day visited. On the way to it Imet several men leading panniered ponies. They weregoing to Portree to get goods brought by the steamerand carry them back into the country. I followed anarrow road that wound along over the moors. Thisroad had been made only about a year. Previouslythere had been naught but a faintly marked village to which I journeyed was a scattering oflow, thatched huts, so earthy and rough they seemedmuch like boulders of rock sticking up through thesoil. They were planted at random on the hillsidesand in the hollows, and the distant view of the crofts,with the patchwork of their small fields, was ratherattractive. I went up an almost indistinguishable footway. Resting on a Dyke The Crofters of Skye 207 through a spongy bog to a house, where a woman wasmaking a peatstack in the yard. She had been bring-ing the peats from one of the black cuttings on themoor, and her heavy creel lay near by on the looked in at the door of the womans house, and sawa cow and a calf in the dusky interior of an apartmentonly separated from the family living-room by a woodenpartition. At the next house an old man, smoking a short pipe,and a barefoot woman were sitting talking on a had not much command of any language savethe Gaehc, but we managed to hold a broken conver-sation. Presently the woman invited me to have aglass of milk, and led the way to the house. Theentrance was at the end, and admitted me first to thebyre. The footing was not all it should be here, andthe woman sprinkled down some heather to enable meto get safely across the mire to the kitchen supply of light for this latter room all came froma
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjohnsonc, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookyear1904
