Besides these and other shows, there were the wandering minstrels, most of whom were "Waterloo veterans" wanting arms or a leg.

I remember one whose arms had been "smashed by a thunderbolt at Jamaica." Queer bent old dames, who superintended "lucky bags" or told fortunes, supplied the uncanny element, but hesitated to call themselves witches, for there can still be seen near Thrums the pool where these unfortunates used to be drowned, and in the session book of the Glen Quharity kirk can be read an old minute announcing that on a certain Sabbath there was no preaching because "the minister was away at the burning of a witch." To the storm-stayed shows came the gypsies in great numbers.

Claypots (which is a corruption of Claypits) was their headquarters near Thrums, and it is still sacred to their memory.

It was a clachan of miserable little huts built entirely of clay from the dreary and sticky pit in which they had been flung together.

A shapeless hole on one side was the doorway, and a little hole, stuffed with straw in winter, the window.