[1] One apartment served for dwelling and schoolhouse, and when, in 1718, Halket married Janet Adamson, the heritors being severely economical caused his box-bed to be reversed, so that its back should be a partition between school and bedroom, while they let a window into the north wall to insure the comfort of the sleepers.
Halket's unsteady habits led to his dismissal from Rathen in 1725, and with his wife and three children he settled at Cairnbulg, some distance off, and was a more or less successful schoolmaster there for twenty-five years.
Halket's only undoubted publication is a thin 12mo volume, entitled "Occasional Poems upon Several Subjects", printed at Aberdeen in 1727 for the author, who figures on the title-page as 'George Hacket.'
1–2; 'Good Friday,' in which the author illustrates one part of his theme with severe references to the treatment of Charles I by Scottish and English whigs; 'Easter Day;' and an insipid 'Pastoral.'
It has not much value as literature, nothing in it approaching the rapid movement and the pungent satirical thrusts of the Jacobite ballad, "Whirry Whigs, Awa' Man", and nothing suggestive of the romantic tenderness, the cheerful and resolute self-dependence, and the lyrical grace of "Logie o' Buchan".