The excuse of their folly is in two words: scarce the breadth of a hair divided them from the peasantry.

The measure of their sense is this: that these symposia of rustic vanity were kept entirely within the family, like some secret ancestral practice.

To the world their serious faces were never deformed by the suspicion of any simper of self-contentment.

Yet it was known.

"They hae a guid pride o' themsel's!" was the word in the country-side.
Lastly, in a Border story, there should be added their "two-names." Hob was The Laird.