The first pair are turned back good naturedly, as the community has determined on a path of passive resistance with the women taking the lead, in the erroneous belief that violence will not be offered against unarmed women and girls. At first, there is hope because the agent who has to sign the eviction notices swears in writing that he will not be a party to signing them, but officials soon arrive with notices (which the people cannot open or they will be deemed to have accepted service of the notices). Connal retrieves an old pistol from hiding in the thatched roof of his house where it has been kept since their great grandfather's escape at Culloden. Set in 1854, the story is narrated from the viewpoint of a 15 year old boy, Connal Ross, who at first is excited by the preparations to watch for the arrival of officials to serve the eviction notice although he is also trepidatious after an old man, Blind John, has visions of seeing violence done to Connal's mother and his sister Katrine. Harsh laws imposed after the English defeat of the Scots at Culloden ensured that the Highlanders could not bear arms, to defend themselves or resist eviction, on penalty of death. Such people were left destitute and forced to emigrate to the Americas, because their former chiefs sold off the land in order to enjoy the luxury of lowland Scottish living standards, without a care for those who had served their ancestors for centuries. This novel for children is a good introduction to the sad events in the Scottish Highlands known as the Clearances, when people who had farmed the highlands for centuries were brutally evicted from their land to make way for sheep raising. Critic Peter Hollindale has gone so far as to assert that Hunter "is by general consent Scotland's most distinguished modern children's writer." Her books have been as popular in the United States as in the United Kingdom, and most are still in print. Hunter's portrait hangs in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, and her papers and manuscripts are preserved in the Scottish National Library. There has also been great interest in Hunter's views about writing fiction, and she has published two collections of essays and speeches on the subject. Her work, which includes fantasy, historical fiction, and realism, has been widely praised and has won many awards and honors, such as the Carnegie Medal, the Phoenix Award, a Boston Globe - Horn Book Honor Award, and the Scottish Arts Council Award. Mollie Hunter is one of the most popular and influential twentieth-century Scottish writers of fiction for children and young adults. Maureen Mollie Hunter McIlwraith writes under the name Mollie Hunter.
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