Crofting is much more than a way of life in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. It is a storehouse of cultural, linguistic and moral values, which holds together a scattered and struggling rural population. This book fills a blank in the written history of crofting over the last two centuries. Bloody conflicts and gunboat diplomacy, treachery, compassion, music and story: all figure as Francis Thompson takes us into the homes and the very minds of those who fought so desperately for security on their land.