red presbyterians, and busily employed in
deepening, with his chisel, the letters of the inscription, which,
announcing, in scriptural language, the promised blessings of futurity to
be the lot of the slain, anathematized the murderers with corresponding
violence. A blue bonnet of unusual dimensions covered the grey hairs of
the pious workman. His dress was a large old-fashioned coat of the coarse
cloth called hoddingrey, usually worn by the elder peasants, with
waistcoat and breeches of the same; and the whole suit, though still in
decent repair, had obviously seen a train of long service. Strong clouted
shoes, studded with hobnails, and gramoches or leggins, made of thick
black cloth, completed his equipment. Beside him, fed among the graves a
pony, the companion of his journey, whose extreme whiteness, as well as
its projecting bones and hollow eyes, indicated its antiquity. It was
harnessed in the most simple manner, with a pair of branks, a hair
tether, or halter, and a sunk, or cushion of straw, instead of bridle and
saddle. A canvass pouch hung around the neck of the animal, for the
purpose, probably, of containing the rider's tools, and any thing else he
might have occasion to carry with him. Although I had never seen the old
man before, yet from the singularity of his employment, and the style of
his equipage, I had no difficulty in recognising a religious itinerant
whom I had often heard talked of, and who was known in various parts of
Scotland by the title of Old Mortality.

[Illustration: The Graveyard--006]

"Where this man was born, or what was his real name, I have never been
able to learn; nor are the motives which made him desert his home, and
adopt the erratic mode of life which he pursued, known to me except very
generally. According to the belief of most people, he was a native of
either the county of Dumfries or Galloway, and lineally descended from
some of those champions of the Covenant, whose deeds and sufferings were
his favourite theme. He is said to have held, at one period of his life,
a small moorland farm; but, whether from pecuniary losses, or domestic
misfortune, he had long renounced that and every other gainful calling.
In the language of Scripture, he left his house, his home, and his
kindred, and wandered about until the day of his death, a period of
nearly thirty years.

"During this long pilgrimage, the pious enthusiast regulated his circuit
so as annually to visit the graves