" In nineteenth century Aberdeenshire farm service was not a career in itself, but a stage in a career that began for almost all in family farming, and would end there for a proportion of servants. Even in the middle of the century enough folk rode what Leslie Mitchell later would call the 'strange, antique whirlimagig of the Scottish peasantry' to ensure that the machine kept spinning. William Alexander called his essay on farm service "The Peasantry of North-East Scotland" because in his time English hired farm workers were conventionally - though incorrectly - described as peasants. But the error conceals a deeper truth. Aberdeenshire farm-servants, crofters, and small farmers were three fragments of a single peasant class. "

― William Alexander , Rural Life in Victorian Aberdeenshire