Page:Life memoirs & pedigree of Thomas Hamilton Dickson.pdf/29

 blessed with a great many daughters, all of whom were remarkable for being frank and free, and for outside appearance could be excelled by none. They had, upon that account, a great many lovers, and there was not a place so famed around the country-side among the peasantry. Therefore it was not to be wondered that they had sweet-hearts in variety, among whom I was included, as being the most simple and insane, and was said to be somewhat slow in the movement. But when people are judges in their own cause, it is generally decided favourable to themselves. In the evenings the young men generally assembled in the smithy or nearest change-house, where they usually consulted if they were all agreeable to go and see the girls, and sometimes a night was settled before the meeting, when they would have a frolic among the fair maids in the neighbourhood, technically termed a gell, and old Rowantreefauld and his daughters were always the first to call at, and sometimes the old man was in bed, or by the fireside at his devotions. When we came there, we found other youths had the ladies pre-engaged, and therefore we were left minus, which enraged a number of our body. One night some of my companions stopped the vent of the chimney with a truss of straw, having previously secured all the doors of the house, so that none could escape, while our antagonists were sitting by the kitchen fire in the company of the girls, and the old mother was knitting stockings. They endured the smoke with a