No more characteristic instance
could be found than in the family of Kirstie Elliott. They were all,
and Kirstie the first of all, ready and eager to pour forth the
particulars of their genealogy, embellished with every detail that
memory had handed down or fancy fabricated; and, behold! from every
ramification of that tree there dangled a halter. The Elliotts
themselves have had a chequered history; but these Elliotts deduced,
besides, from three of the most unfortunate of the border clans - the
Nicksons, the Ellwalds, and the Crozers. One ancestor after another
might be seen appearing a moment out of the rain and the hill mist upon
his furtive business, speeding home, perhaps, with a paltry booty of
lame horses and lean kine, or squealing and dealing death in some
moorland feud of the ferrets and the wild cats. One after another
closed his obscure adventures in mid-air, triced up to the arm of the
royal gibbet or the Baron's dule-tree. For the rusty blunderbuss of
Scots criminal justice, which usually hurt nobody but jurymen, became a
weapon of precision for the Nicksons, the Ellwalds, and the Crozers.
Pages:
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112