The book Arran; - Cook Clan

198 THE BOOK OF ARRAN
spared for amusement of any kind ; the whole being given
for procuring the means of paying the rent, of laying in their
fuel/ or getting a scanty pittance of meat and clothing.' ^
There were distractions, however, to which the traveller
perhaps did not give proper weight : the inhabitants, we are
informed by an authority in 1793, ' attend divine service with
great regularity ; are well acquainted with the Scriptures ;
show a good example to their children, and instruct them in
the principles of Christianity.' ^^ And in the past half-century
a healthy population had increased considerably. Moreover,
if the climate was frequently unpleasant, Martin found,
a hundred years before, that ' the natives think a dram of
strong waters is a good corrective.' It is always difficult
to gauge the happiness of other people.
If we are to accept implicitly the evidence of Mr. Headrick,
Arran in one respect was a stage beyond the equipment of
the Highlands generally, indeed of much of Scotland, and
that was in its housing. But, compared with other contemporary
accounts, Headrick' s description seems to be true
only of the very best examples. The houses of the tenants
clustered in little groups somewhere near one end of the
farm, constituting the ' farm-toun '
; and round them
stretched a piece of pasture land, on which the cattle might
be collected and by which they could be led beyond the
com land. This was the ' loaning.' The houses, built by
the farmers themselves,* were of stone and clay, thatched
' 'There are extensive tracts covered with thick peat in the island of Arran,
mainly on the hijfher plateau-like ground between 700 and 1700 feet above the sea^
but occasionally it is found at lower levels, as on the old raised beaches on either side
the lower part of the Machrie Water. It was formerly much used for fuel all over
the island, and almost everywhere old peat-roads to the hills still exist ' (Memoirs of
Geol. Survey, vol. xxi. pp. 146-7). Peat is still much used on the west side.
' Pennant, p. 176.
' Rev. Gershom Stewart, minister of Kilbride, in Statistical Account.
* Headrick, p. 312. General View of the Agriculture of Bute, by William Alton,
p. 99. Alton remarks: 'The houses, or rather huts, are deplorable hovels, built
without mortar,' p. 79.