rishes in the back o' the
fire, for that's the place for them; and awa' down to a burn side, and
wash yersel' in cauld hill water, and dry your bonny hair in the caller
wind o' the muirs, the way that my mother aye washed hers, and that I
have aye made it a practice to have wishen mines--just you do what I
tell ye, my dear, and ye'll give me news of it! Ye'll have hair, and
routh of hair, a pigtail as thick's my arm,' I said, 'and the bonniest
colour like the clear gowden guineas, so as the lads in kirk'll no can
keep their eyes off it!' Weel, it lasted out her time, puir thing! I
cuttit a lock of it upon her corp that was lying there sae cauld. I'll
show it ye some of thir days if ye're good. But, as I was sayin', my
mither----"

On the death of the father there remained golden-haired Kirstie, who
took service with her distant kinsfolk, the Rutherfords, and
black-a-vised Gilbert, twenty years older, who farmed the
Cauldstaneslap, married, and begot four sons between 1773 and 1784, and
a daughter, like a postscript, in '97, the year of Camperdown and Cape
St. Vincent. It seemed it was a tradition in the family to wind up with
a belated girl. In 1804, at the age of sixty, Gilbert met an end that
might be called heroic. He was due home from market any time from eight
at night till five in the morning, and in any condition from the
quarrelsome to the speechless, for he maintained to that age the goodly
customs of the Scots farmer. It was known on this occasion that he had a
good bit of money to bring home; the word had gone round loosely. The
laird had shown his guineas, and if anybody had but noticed it, there
was an ill-looking, vagabond crew, the scum of Edinburgh, that drew out
of the market long ere it was dusk and took the hill-road by Hermiston,
where it was not to be believed that they had lawful business. One of
the country-side, one Dickieson, they took with them to be their guide,
and dear he paid for it! Of a sudden, in the ford of the Broken Dykes,
this vermin clan fell on the laird, six to one, and him three parts
asleep, having drunk hard. But it is ill to catch an Elliott. For a
while, in the night and the black water that was deep as to his
saddle-girths, he wrought with his staff like a smith at his stithy, and
great was the sound of oaths and blows. With that the ambuscade was
burst, and he rode for home with a pistol-ball in him, three knife
wounds, the loss of his front teeth, a broken rib and bridle,