Butcher's Broom

Neil M. Gunn's narrative prose describes the lives of the people in the Strath of Kildonan during the Highland Clearances in 1813. The characters, Dark Mairi of the Shore, her grandson Davie, the lovely Elie and their neighbors live and love as their ancestors have for hundreds of years. Their keen sense of humor, attachment to the land and struggles to thrive are mixed with Gunn's thought provoking descritions of the land and people. "...sea-water readily curls over and breaks on the shore of the mind" gives us a glimpse of Mairi, who had been born by the sea, but now lives in the Strath (valley). Davie's clowning and joking with Colin, Elie's lover, creates "...a moment of divine ease when live bubbles up clear at the source." Their daily life is interrupted by progress as the man who owns the whole of Sutherland, an Englishman who married a Scottish Countess, plans to "improve" his property by raising sheep for wool and meat. There is no room for thousands of sheep and hundreds of people, so the people must go.