This book is from the 'Kailyard' tradition of scottish literature which draws criticism for its mawkish sentimentality and patronising impressions of Scottish rural life. I've never read a Kailyard book before, just books written in response to it like 'A House with Green Shutters' I'm finding it very hard to review this book because it's not so much that it's bad as that it's aged into unrelatabilty incredibly quickly. While the Canterbury Tales has some great characters and decent jokes six hundred years later this book is not even one hundred and thirty years old and it is completely baffling in themes, attitudes and language. As an example the first story concerns a clever country boy with academic potential. His teacher persuades his parents to let him go to university and persuades the local landowner to provide the funds. The boy goes to university, comes top of his class, returns home stricken with a illness that is never named, converts his old school teacher back to Christianity and dies. His funeral is considered noteworthy because everyone is too sad to drink alcohol, and because the school teacher chooses a verse from the bible to go on his tombstone.  Read Para Handy or LM Montgomery instead.