ppers for a pair of stout walking shoes, with cutikins, as he
called them, of black cloth. He only interrupted the walk by a slight
deviation to the tomb of John o' the Girnel, remembered as the last
bailiff of the abbey who had resided at Monkbarns. Beneath an old
oak-tree upon a hillock, sloping pleasantly to the south, and catching
a distant view of the sea over two or three rich enclosures, and the
Mussel-crag, lay a moss-grown stone, and, in memory of the departed
worthy, it bore an inscription, of which, as Mr. Oldbuck affirmed
(though many doubted), the defaced characters could be distinctly traced
to the following effect:--

Here lyeth John o' ye Girnell;
Erth has ye nit, and heuen ye kirnell.
In hys tyme ilk wyfe's hennis clokit,
Ilka gud mannis herth wi' bairnis was stokit.
He deled a boll o' bear in firlottis fyve,
Four for ye halie kirke, and ane for puir mennis wyvis.

"You see how modest the author of this sepulchral commendation was;--he
tells us that honest John could make five firlots, or quarters, as you
would say, out of the boll, instead of four,--that he gave the fifth to
the wives of the parish, and accounted for the other four to the abbot
and CHAPTER--that in his time the wives' hens always laid eggs--and devil
thank them, if they got one-fifth of the abbey rents; and that honest
men's hearths were never unblest with offspring--an addition to the
miracle, which they, as well as I, must have considered as perfectly
unaccountable. But come on--leave we Jock o' the Girnel, and let us jog
on to the yellow sands, where the sea, like a repulsed enemy, is now
retreating from the ground on which he gave us battle last night."

Thus saying, he led the way to the sands. Upon the links or downs close
to them, were seen four or five huts inhabited by fishers, whose boats,
drawn high upon the beach, lent the odoriferous vapours of pitch melting
under a burning sun, to contend with those of the offals of fish and
other nuisances usually collected round Scottish cottages. Undisturbed
by these complicated steams of abomination, a middle-aged woman, with a
face which had defied a thousand storms, sat mending a net at the door
of one of the cottages. A handkerchief close bound about her head, and
a coat which had formerly been that of a man, gave her a masculine air,
which was increased by her strength, uncommon stature, and