Then arose such a clamour of tongues, that it broke on the still air like a storm.
"What's ado, Betty ?" asked Alec of a decrepit old creature, bent almost double with rheumatism, who was trying hard to see something or other in the air or on the roof of her cottage.
But before she could speak, the answer came in another form, addressing itself to his nose instead of his ears.

For out of the cottages floated clouds of smoke, pervading the air with a variety of scents--of burning oak-bark, of burning leather-cuttings, of damp fire-wood and peat, of the cooking of red herrings, of the boiling of porridge, of the baking of oat-cake, &c., &c.

Happily for all the inhabitants, "thae deevils o' loons" had used no powder here.
But the old woman, looking round when Alec spoke, and seeing that he was one of the obnoxious school-boys, broke out thus: "Gang an' tak the divot (turf) aff o' my lum, Alec, there's a good laad! Ye sudna play sic tricks on puir auld bodies like me, near brackin' in twa wi' the rheumateeze.

I'm jist greetin' wi' the reek i' my auld een." And as she spoke she wiped her eyes with her apron.
Alec did not wait to clear himself of an accusation so gently put, but was on the roof of Luckie Lapp's cottage before she had finished her appeal to his generosity.

He took the "divot aff o' her lum" and pitched it half way down the brae, at the back of the cottage.