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She tauld thee weel thou wast a skellum, A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum; That frae November till October, Ae market-day thou was nae sober; That ilka melder, wi' the miller, Thou sat as lang as thou had siller; That every naig was ca'd a shoe on, The smith and thee gat roaring fou on; That at the Lord's house, even on Sunday, Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday.

In 1644, when Grenville deserted the parliamentary party, a proclamation was put out against him; in this there were attached to his name several offensive epithets, among them being skellum, a word probably derived from the German Schelm, a scoundrel.

Hence he is often called “skellum Grenville.”

“O the skellum!—O the scoundrel!—there is not a horse in the province that can catch him, and there is no one ready to follow him,” he shouted out to no one in particular as he splashed clumsily across the river against the stream.

Well, Miss Gray, so you have played me a nice little trick, letting that skellum steal my horse.