A Pistol in Greenyards

This reissue (originally Evans 1965) unearths a gem of a story written about a long forgotten, brutal historical event in Scotland in the 1850s. The clearances of the Highlands for the invasion of the lowland graziers with their great herds of sheep' had been going on for some time. Now, in March 1854, it was the turn of the tenants on the Greenyards estate to be turned 'out of our farm as thousands had been before us, to die of hunger or be driven miserably into exile in the Americas.' Mobile Hunter slips social commentary naturally into the flow of the story, the exploitation both of men and natural resources that gradually drained the lifeblood from the Highlands, to suit the then Government's purposes. 'It was the government and not the chief who ruled in the Highlands,' despotic overlords, yet not above 'taking our young men in the regiments raised when it needed fighting men.' Superb but sad commentary on a period of shame in our commercial past.