An Excerpt from Robert Graham's Memoirs

Robert Graham worked for T.J. Lawlor a merchant in Killarney in the late 19th century. He wrote his memoirs in the 1930s and it includes tales of his interactions with the Lewis crofters that settled north of the town. His writings are archived in the Provincial Archives of Manitoba (MG14 C109 M328). Here he describes his first interaction with a crofter and the start of his friendly relations to the community.

A Blackwell hitch

"In the first place, as I said, they were not farmers. They were fishermen, soldiers and sailors. As you can not make a silk purse out of a sows ear, so you cannot, in one generation make successful farmers of fishermen, soldiers or sailors ... My first personal introduction to the crofter occurred shortly after I became Mr Lawlor's employ. We had been one day selling a lot of apples in barrels, hinging them up from the basement ... Someone had thrown the rope down just at the head of the cellar stairs where any one might trip and I was coiling it down out of the way when a voice said: "You know how to coil down a rope" I looked around to see a small man with sandy hair and beard, light blue eyes and high cheek bones ... I merely smiled and he said "Perhaps you could make the towline". I did so. Then he said "can you make the clock hitch?" I made it. "Perhaps you could throw the blackwell" I threw it. Now if you just make the sheep shauls" Fortunately I could and my instructor appeared satisfied for he held out is hand and said "And what is your name?" I told him and he said "A Graham, then you will have the Gaelic". When I said I had no Gaelic "In which one of the salt isles were you born" I replied that I was born in Nova Scotia. "Ah well!" said he "you will have seen the blue waves of the rolling sea" I asked his name and after some hesitation he said "Oh well, they call me Kenneth McAulay" ... This was the beginning of a friendship..."