A Croft in the Hills (2 page)

By this time our small daughter, Helen, was growing into a sturdy youngster. As I wandered hand in hand with her, back from the shops and along the row of trim villas to our home, I found my
mind straying, as it had done years before in London, to some imagined remoteness.

I pictured Helen splashing in a hill-burn in summer, rolling like a young Sheltie in the snow in winter, racing the wind on the moor, gazing at birds and minute creatures among the grasses.
‘Sheer nonsense!’ a small, nagging voice would hiss in my ear. ‘A child needs all the amenities of town life—a good school and lessons in music and dancing, and all the
other benefits civilisation has to offer. Without them she’ll only grow into a hopeless misfit.’ But... would she? Wouldn’t it be better for her to have at least a glimpse of the
roots of things, not allow her to accept life as she would a shining parcel neatly wrapped in cellophane? Wouldn’t close contact with natural things give her a perspective and a poise she
would never lose? I firmly believed it would.

Jim worked long hours; sometimes it was late evening before he reached home, and he would have to leave again in the morning without getting more than a glimpse of Helen. We both knew that it
was only half a life we were living.

We had bought, very cheaply, because it was in an appalling state of neglect, a house in a good residential district of the town. We had done it up and found that light paintwork everywhere and
the installation of electricity and some additional plumbing transformed it into quite a pleasant place. We tackled the wilderness of a garden and cleared a plot for vegetables. There would be room
to keep some hens and even a goat, we decided. We would be able to unearth the beehives we had brought from our southern garden and there were some derelict stable buildings where we thought we
could perhaps grow mushrooms.

But there might be objections from the authorities. We still felt hemmed in, particularly as we knew that all our outdoor activities were discreetly observed from behind impeccable net curtains
by our distinctly circumspect neighbours! There was no doubt about it, we were getting restless again.

We began to scan the columns of various newspapers, under jobs, houses, houses, jobs. Could we get some sort of a joint post which would allow us to live in open country with security? We made
one or two abortive attempts in this direction, and also inspected several smallholdings on the outskirts of the town.

Then we saw it—an advertisement for a seven-roomed house, in a place with an excitingly unfamiliar name, with forty acres of arable land and an outrun on the moor, for the comparatively
small sum of five hundred pounds. We got out the map, found the spot and repeated the name out loud, looking wonderingly at each other. Music was sounding in our ears.

Instantly, our minds were made up. It was within quite easy reach; we must see it, just see it, at least.

On Jim’s next free day we got out our old van, packed a picnic, opened the map and set off. Through Inverness we went, and along the shore of Loch Ness, to a point about half-way to
Drumnadrochit. There, a small road branched off from the main one. There was no sign-post, just this rough-shod track, pointing skywards. ‘This is it!’ We beamed at each other and put
the van sharply at the rise.

We climbed slowly, changing gear every few yards, one eye on the panorama spread out below us, the other on what might emerge round the next blind corner ahead. After about a mile of this
tortuous mounting we found ourselves on more or less level ground. Hills rose steeply on either side. There were small fields carved out of the encroaching heather. Croft houses were dotted here
and there and there was a school, a tiny post-office and a telephone kiosk.

We made inquiries and found we had another mile or so to go. We came within sight of a small loch, lapping the foot of a shapely hill. It was remarkably like the Oxford Street oasis.

We branched right at this point and the landscape opened out into great distances. Another half-mile and we left the van at the roadside and took, as directed, the footpath through a patch of
felled woodland. Then, at last, the roof and chimneys of a dwelling came into view. We stopped at the stile and took a long look at it.

Four-square and very solid it stood, facing just to the east of south, its walls of rough granite and whinstone, its roof of fine blue slate. Beyond it was the steading and in front a line of
rowan trees, sure protection against evil spirits, according to Highland lore. A patch of rough grass all round the house was enclosed by a stout netted fence and on either side of the door was a
small flower bed.

Round the house and steading was the arable ground and beyond that the moor, rising to the hill-land and to farther and farther hills against the horizon.

It was May and the warmth of the sun was bringing out the scent of the first heath flowers. A small, soft wind out of the west blew on our hands and faces, a bee hummed through the springing
grass at our feet. The flanks of the farthest hills were swathed in blue mist.

We saw the good lady of the house. She pointed out the boundaries and we talked of the various possibilities of obtaining a piped water supply. The only well was a good hundred and fifty yards
away, and below the level of the house. But she had had a diviner out and her son had started to dig for water at a spot indicated by him, within a stone’s throw of the house. We gazed
hopefully into this chasm and agreed that it would be all to the good if water could be found there.

The house was in an excellent state of repair; over the lintel was carved the date 1911. We learnt later that the house was actually built in 1910, but as the mason found it easier to make a 1
than a 0 he engraved the date as 1911! We also learnt later that in former times practically every crofter had a trade at his finger-tips, which he practised along with the working of his croft.
This house, like nearly all those in the district, had been slated by the man who was to become our nearest, and very dear, neighbour.

Downstairs were two good-sized rooms, one stone-floored, the other with a new floor of wood. The stone-floored room had originally been the kitchen, but as the cooking was now done in a built-on
scullery the range had been removed, the original wide hearth restored and a most attractive chimney-piece of rough, local stone built round it. Off this room was a small bedroom and a door leading
to the substantial scullery. Upstairs were two good bedrooms and a box-room with a skylight.

Our experience with our town house had taught us what points to look for in examining property. The walls and wood-work were shabby but the structure was sound and weather-proof. It was the sort
of house you could start to live in right away.

The steading was of the usual Highland design—a long, low building divided into three parts—byre, stable and barn—with thick stone walls and a roof of corrugated iron, and like
the house it was in excellent repair. Beyond it were the ruins of the ‘black house’ (a small stone cottage, thatched with heather, its walls blackened with peat-reek), which had been
the original dwelling on the holding. Opposite the steading, in the shelter of four giant rowans, was a small wooden hen-house.

The fields had been cultivated only spasmodically over the last years, but they had a healthy slope to them, and we knew that it was possible to obtain grants and subsidies for ploughing-up and
fertilising such marginal land as this. Only a small area in the one level part of the arable ground was really damp and choked with rushes. We reckoned that a good clearing-out and a repairing of
drains would help there. The rough grazing gave promise of a good summer bite for sheep and hardy cattle.

The fencing was patchy, to say the least of it, but we had already noticed on our way through the felled woodland the quantity of quite sound wood that was lying about. Some of it would surely
be fit to make into fencing posts, and we knew of an excellent scrap-yard in Inverness where wire could often be picked up very cheaply.

The access road for vehicles was shared by our two immediate neighbours to the east. (In Scotland, as nearly all the glens run roughly east and west, one always goes ‘east’, or goes
‘west’, when visiting neighbours.) We could see that deliveries of heavy goods would have to be made during the drier months, as the road surface was distinctly soft, but it seemed to
have a reasonably hard bottom and livestock could be loaded at a fank at the side of the main road.

The only thing that did really worry us a little was the lack of shelter. The woodland, which had formerly broken the force of the wind from all the southerly points of the compass, had been
felled during and after the war. The view from the scullery window at the back was superb, but there seemed to be little but the heady air between us and Ben Wyvis which lay, like a great, dozing
hound, away to the north.

But it was May-time and one of May’s most glorious efforts in the way of a day—warm and sweet-scented and domed with milky blue. It is difficult on such a day really to visualise the
storm and stress of winter.

We walked to the limit of the little property and stood looking down the strath. Several small, white croft houses stood on either side of the burn flowing down its centre. The fields adjoining
them looked tidy and well-cultivated. Plumes of smoke rose from squat chimneys. Here and there were the ruins of former houses, where one holding had been incorporated into another. There was, on
the whole, a feeling of quiet snugness about the prospect. It seemed incredible that we were standing nearly a thousand feet above sea-level.

Probably an upland area such as this would never have been settled at all had it not been for the clearances of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One certainly shudders to think of the
labour that must have gone into the wresting of the small fields from the bog and heather. The dry-stone dykes remain as memorials to those who heaved the mighty stones out of the plough’s
way and made the crops sheep- and cattle-proof.

The crofters’ tenacity and innate gift for husbandry had resulted in their being able to maintain their families in health in these surroundings. Could we, who had so little experience,
reasonably hope to do the same? We had health and strength and a tremendous appetite for this kind of life; we each had close links with the soil. There were Government schemes of assistance
undreamt-of by the older generation of crofters and we could realise a certain amount of capital. We were braced and eager to take the leap.

With Helen staggering ahead of us, a bunch of small, bright heath flowers in her hand, we made our way back to the house. I think the lady in possession must have read her fate in our faces. She
gave us tea and we told her, as sops to our conscience, that we would think it over and let her know our decision in a day or two.

Quietly and methodically she told us that there was a postal delivery every day, that an all-purpose van called every Wednesday and another on Saturday, but that, as it was often the early hours
of Sunday before this latter one arrived, she preferred to deal with the Wednesday one. Small parcels of meat and fish, she said, could be sent through the post.

We made a mental note of all the information she gave us, thanked her and walked slowly back to the road. We
did
have a look at another place on the way home, but it was quite out of the
question, twice the price and very inaccessible and, as the French have it, it ‘said nothing to us’.

The house on the hill was already making its voice heard. All the way back in the van we listened in silence to what it had to say. It was a supremely honest little place. It hid nothing from
us. Its fields had been neglected, its access road was little more than a track, its water supply was altogether unhandy. In winter it was liable to be cut off by impenetrable snow-drifts.
But—it offered a challenge. We had enough imagination to visualise its possibilities and most of its impossibilities. Experience had taught us that the worst hardly ever happens, and if it
does, it can usually be turned into a best.

Our minds were seething with positive plans. All traces of discontent, however divine, had vanished utterly.

CHAPTER II

THE HOUSE ON THE HILL

W
ITHIN
a week the deed of purchase of the house and land was signed and sealed by us. Occupation was ‘to be arranged’. This meant that the
seller would be leaving very shortly and that we should take over in the autumn.

Immediately we set about selling our own house. We knew this would not be difficult as it was now classed as a ‘desirable residence’ and was much sought after, occupying, as it did,
a most favoured site in a most favoured neighbourhood. The angels had been on our side after all. Like fools we had rushed to buy it, only wondering by what stroke of luck we had managed to get it
so cheaply and easily. Not until after the sale was concluded did we hear the gruesome rumour that the roof was afflicted with dry rot. For several days we were haunted by this nightmare, till a
thorough investigation by the builder called in to do the repairs assured us that the rumour was completely ill-founded. There were traces of the activity of woodworm in some of the cupboards but
of dry rot there was no sign. So we were able to dispose of our house with the greatest ease and at a considerable profit.