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.
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