I'll show it ye some of thir days if ye're good.

But, as I was sayin', my mither--" On the death of the father there remained golden-haired Kirstie, who took service with her distant kinsfolk, the Rutherfords, and black-a-vised Gilbert, twenty years older, who farmed the Cauldstaneslap, married, and begot four sons between 1773 and 1784, and a daughter, like a postscript, in '97, the year of Camperdown and Cape St.Vincent.

It seemed it was a tradition in the family to wind up with a belated girl.

In 1804, at the age of sixty, Gilbert met an end that might be called heroic.

He was due home from market any time from eight at night till five in the morning, and in any condition from the quarrelsome to the speechless, for he maintained to that age the goodly customs of the Scots farmer.