Beside the well there stood for long a great pink stone, called the Shoaging, Stone, because it could be rocked like a cradle, and on it lovers used to cut their names.

Often Aaron Latta and Jean Myles sat together on the Shoaging Stone, and then there came a time when it bore these words cut by Aaron Latta: HERE LIES THE MANHOOD OF AARON LATTA, A FOND SON, A FAITHFUL FRIEND AND A TRUE LOVER, WHO VIOLATED THE FEELINGS OF SEX ON THIS SPOT, AND IS NOW THE SCUNNER OF GOD AND MAN Tommy's mother now heard these words for the first time, Aaron having cut them on the stone after she left Thrums, and her head sank at each line, as if someone had struck four blows at her.
The stone was no longer at the Cuttle Well.

As the easiest way of obliterating the words, the minister had ordered it to be broken, and of the pieces another mason had made stands for watches, one of which was now in Thrums Street.
"Aaron Latta ain't a mason now," Tommy rattled on: "he is a warper, because he can warp in his own house without looking on mankind or speaking to mankind.

Auld Petey said he minded the day when Aaron Latta was a merry loon, and then Andrew McVittie said, 'God behears, to think that Aaron Latta was ever a merry man!' and Baker Lumsden said, 'Curse her!'" His mother shrank in her chair, but said nothing, and Tommy explained: "It was Jean Myles he was cursing; did you ken her, mother?
she ruined Aaron Latta's life." "Ay, and wha ruined Jean Myles's life ?" his mother cried passionately.
Tommy did not know, but he thought that young Petey might know, for young Petey had said: "If I had been Jean Myles I would have spat in Aaron's face rather than marry him." Mrs.Sandys seemed pleased to hear this.
"They wouldna tell me what it were she did," Tommy went on; "they said it was ower ugly a story, but she were a bad one, for they stoned her out of Thrums.

I dinna know where she is now, but she were stoned out of Thrums!" "No alane ?" "There was a man with her, and his name was--it was--" His mother clasped her hands nervously while Tommy tried to remember the name.