The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: their distaffs behind the backs of their young mistresses.
As soon as Earnscliff had been duly welcomed, and hasty orders
issued for some addition to the evening meal, his grand-dame and
sisters opened their battery upon Hobbie Elliot for his lack of
success against the deer.
"Jenny needna have kept up her kitchen-fire for a' that Hobbie
has brought hame," said one sister.
"Troth no, lass," said another; "the gathering peat, if it was
weel blawn, wad dress a' our Hobbie's venison." [The gathering
peat is the piece of turf left to treasure up the secret seeds of
fire, without any generous consumption of fuel; in a word, to
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