I dinna say that to Jamie, because he all trembles; but I'm auld noo, an' I'm no nane loth to gang." Jess's staff probably had a history before it became hers, for, as known to me, it was always old and black.

If we studied them sufficiently we might discover that staves age perceptibly just as the hair turns grey.

At the risk of being thought fanciful I dare to say that in inanimate objects, as in ourselves, there is honourable and shameful old age, and that to me Jess's staff was a symbol of the good, the true.

It rested against her in the window, and she was so helpless without it when on her feet, that to those who saw much of her it was part of herself.

The staff was very short, nearly a foot having been cut, as I think she once told me herself, from the original, of which to make a porridge thieval (or stick with which to stir porridge), and in moving Jess leant heavily on it.