ten at night
The Scotch impression is strong , and the people , to commence with , are Presbyterians . When it is considered that there is no public-house in all the island and that seven thousand souls dwell therein , some idea may be gained of the temperateness of the community . Wedded to old ways , public opinion and the ministers are powerful influences , while fathers and mothers are revered and obeyed as in few other places in this modern world . Courting lasts never later than ten at night , and no girl walks out with her young man without her parents ' knowledge and consent . The young men go down to the sea and sow their wild oats in the wicked ports , returning periodically , between voyages , to live the old intensive morality , to court till ten o'clock , to sit under the minister each Sunday , and to listen at home to the same stern precepts that the elders preached to them from the time they were laddies . Much they learned of women in the ends of the earth , these seafaring sons , yet a canny wisdom was theirs and they never brought wives home with them . The one solitary exception to this had been the schoolmaster , who had been guilty of bringing a wife from half a mile the other side of the loch .