And the woman, essentially passionate and reckless, who crouched on the rug, in the shine of the peat fire, telling these tales, had cherished through life a wild integrity of virtue.
Her father Gilbert had been deeply pious, a savage disciplinarian in the antique style, and withal a notorious smuggler.

"I mind when I was a bairn getting mony a skelp and being shoo'd to bed like pou'try," she would say.

"That would be when the lads and their bit kegs were on the road.

We've had the riffraff of two-three counties in our kitchen, mony's the time, betwix' the twelve and the three; and their lanterns would be standing in the forecourt, ay, a score o' them at once.

But there was nae ungodly talk permitted at Cauldstaneslap.