Jamie MacLeod by Michael Phillips

Author:Michael Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC042030;FIC042000;FIC026000
ISBN: 9781441229816
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2016-04-26T04:00:00+00:00

24

Edward Graystone

The croft was by all appearances one of the poorest, if not the poorest, on the entire Aviemere estate. The front yard, if such it could even be called, was overgrown and even more untidy than the dilapidated cottage itself. The thatch on the roof was uneven and broken, badly in need of repair; gaps could be seen in the walls where the stone had crumbled away with the passage of years and never been replaced.

The three children scampering about the yard in the rags they called clothes would have inspired pity in any man. But the two riders approaching on horseback were there on business, and by necessity of their position had to steel themselves against such reactions as compassion.

George Ellice had allowed such emotions to make him give these tenants more latitude than was prudent. So now the laird himself had found it necessary to step into the situation. Ellice was an honest factor, more scrupulous than most, and certainly more fair and considerate in his dealings with the tenants. Unfortunately, honesty and fairness were not the only attributes required in a factor, especially when they extended themselves toward the tenants to the expense of the laird. Thus Ellice had, against his basic nature perhaps, tried to balance these with an appropriate amount of firmness. All told, over the years, he had been able to extract rents from the most stubborn while still maintaining the respect and goodwill of most of the locals.

Yet his weakness was always evident in such hard-luck cases as the one they now found it necessary to confront. The MacRaes were two quarters in arrears with their rents. And the situation continued to worsen. With winter looming ahead, something had to be done quickly; there were no signs of improvement. At first Jimmy MacRae, who had come into the croft some two years earlier with the death of his father, had tried to make a go of it. If his children were fed scantily, he yet paid his rent on time. If the cottage was drafty, he was yet able to cut enough peats in the surrounding hills to make it through the winter. But his croft was situated on hard, rocky, unmanageable land on the edge of the moor. Not only did it take patience and hard work to coax any kind of profit from such ground, it took a good deal of luck besides. And luck had not gone with Jimmy MacRae. He was willing to work, but when times became hard last winter after a scant autumn’s harvest, he found the laird an unbending man. As things worsened, he had lost his initial enthusiasm. His will to work followed his prudence with finances, and things went from bad to worse. He was a defeated man, knowing he had failed his family. But that knowledge only dug him deeper into the hole of his despair. Most of his time these days was spent in the village at The Ebony Stallion, and his presence on the croft was especially scarce when collection day came around.

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