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 family 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 - 'Houts, Miss Jeannie,' I would
say, 'just fling your washes and your French dentifrishes 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