w soon found one, for he seemed
acquainted with every person in the fair. We got a fine old shepherd,
named W--m B--e, a great original, and a very obliging and civil man,
who asked no conditions but that we should not speak of it, because he
did not wish it to come to his master's ears that he had been engaged
in sic a profane thing. We promised strict secrecy; and accompanied by
another farmer, Mr. S--t, and old B--e, we proceeded to the grave,
which B--e described as about a mile and a half distant from the market
ground.

We went into the shepherd's cot to get a drink of milk, when I read to
our guide Mr. Hogg's description, asking him if he thought it correct.
He said there was hardly a bit o't correct, for the grave was not on
the hill of Cowan's-Croft nor yet on the point where three lairds'
lands met, but on the top of a hill called the Faw-Law, where there was
no land that was not the Duke of Buccleuch's within a quarter of a
mile. He added that it was a wonder how the poet could be mistaken
there, who once herded the very ground where the grave is, and saw both
hills from his own window. Mr. L--w testified great surprise at such a
singular blunder, as also how the body came not to be buried at the
meeting of three or four lairds' lands, which had always been customary
in the south of Scotland. Our guide said he had always heard it
reported that the Eltrive men, with Mr. David Anderson at their head,
had risen before day on the Monday morning, it having been on the
Sabbath day that the man put down himself; and that they set out with
the intention of burying him on Cowan's-Croft, where the three marches
met at a point. But, it having been an invariable rule to bury such
lost sinners before the rising of the sun, these five men were
overtaken by day-light, as they passed the house of Berry-Knowe; and,
by the time they reached the top of the Faw-Law, the sun was beginning
to skair the east. On this they laid down the body, and digged a deep
grave with all expedition; but, when they had done, it was too short,
and, the body being stiff, it would not go down; on which Mr. David
Anderson, looking to the east and perceiving that the sun would be up
on them in a few minutes, set his foot on the suicide's brow, and
tramped down his head into the grave with his iron-heeled shoe, until
the nose and skull crashed again, and at the same time uttered a
terrible curse on the wretch who had disgraced the family and given
the