days of King James the Sax." In all this tissue of crime and
misfortune, the Elliotts of Cauldstaneslap had one boast which must
appear legitimate: the males were gallows-birds, born outlaws, petty
thieves, and deadly brawlers; but, according to the same tradition, the
females were all chaste and faithful. The power of ancestry on the
character is not limited to the inheritance of cells. If I buy ancestors
by the gross from the benevolence of Lyon King of Arms, my grandson (if
he is Scottish) will feel a quickening emulation of their deeds. The men
of the Elliotts were proud, lawless, violent as of right, cherishing and
prolonging a tradition. In like manner with the women. And the woman,
essentially passionate and reckless, who crouched on the rug, in the
shine of the peat fire, telling these tales, had cherished through life
a wild integrity of virtue.

Her father Gilbert had been deeply pious, a savage disciplinarian in the
antique style, and withal a notorious smuggler. "I mind when I was a
bairn getting mony a skelp and being shoo'd to bed like pou'try," she
would say. "That would be when the lads and their bit kegs were on the
road. We've had the riffraff of two-three counties in our kitchen,
mony's the time, betwix' the twelve and the three; and their lanterns
would be standing in the forecourt, ay, a score o' them at once. But
there was nae ungodly talk permitted at Cauldstaneslap; my faither was a
consistent man in walk and conversation; just let slip an aith, and
there was the door to ye! He had that zeal for the Lord, it was a fair
wonder to hear him pray, but the faim'ly has aye had a gift that way."
This father was twice married, once to a dark woman of the old Ellwald
stock, by whom he had Gilbert, presently of Cauldstaneslap; and,
secondly, to the mother of Kirstie. "He was an auld man when he married
her, a fell auld man wi' a muckle voice--you could hear him rowting from
the top o' the Kye-skairs," she said; "but for her, it appears she was a
perfit wonder. It was gentle blood she had, Mr. Archie, for it was your
ain. The country-side gaed gyte about her and her gowden hair. Mines is
no to be mentioned wi' it, and there's few weemen has mair hair than
what I have, or yet a bonnier colour. Often would I tell my dear Miss
Jeannie--that was your mother, dear, she was cruel ta'en up about her
hair, it was unco tender, ye see--'Hoots, Miss Jeannie,' I would say,
'just fling your washes and your French dentif