The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

OLD MORTALITY. 369
"Although I am far from venerating the peculiar tenets asserted by those
uno call themselves the followers of those men, and whose intolerance and
narrow-minded bigotry are at least as conspicuous as their devotional zeal,
yet it is without depreciating the memory of those sufferers, many of whom
united the independent sentiments of a Hampden with the suffering zeal
of a Hooper or Latimer. On the other hand, it would be unjust to forget,
that many even of those who had been most active in crushing what they
conceived the rebellious and seditious spirit of those unhappy wanderers,
displayed themselves, when called upon to suffer for their political and religious opinions, the same daring and devoted zeal, tinctured, in their case,
with chivalrous loyalty, as in the former with republican enthusiasm. It
has often been remarked of the Scottish character, that the stubbornness
with which it is moulded shows most to advantage in adversity, when it
seems akin to the native sycamore of their hills, which scorns to be biassed
in its mode of growth even by the influence of the prevailing wind, but,
shooting its branches with equal boldness in every direction, shows no
weather-side to the storm, and may be broken, but can never be bended.
It must be understood that I speak of my countrymen as they fall under
my own observation. When in foreign countries, I have been informed
that they are more docile. But it is time to return from this digression.
"One summer evening, as, in a stroll such as I have described, I approached this deserted mansion of the dead, I was somewhat surprised to
hear sounds distinct from those which usually soothe its solitude — the
gentle chiding, namely, of the brook, and the sighing of the wind in the
boughs of three gigantic ash-trees, which mark the cemetery. The clink
of a hammer was on this occasion distinctly heard; and I entertained some
alarm that a march-dike, long meditated by the two proprietors whose
estates were divided by my favourite brook, was about to be drawn up the
glen, in order to substitute its rectilinear deformity for the graceful winding
of the natural boundary.* As I approached, I was agreeably undeceived.
An old man was seated upon the monument of the slaughtered 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 hoddin-grey, 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 canvas
pouch hung around the neck of the animal, - for the purpose, probably, of
containing the rider's tools, and anything 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.
* I deem it fitting that the reader should be apprised that this limitarvy lnundary between the conternlinous
heritable property of his honour the Laird of Gandercleuch, and his honour the Laird of Gusedtnb, Vwas to
have been in fashion an agger, or rather murus of uncemented granite, called by the vulgar a dry-stane dyke,
surmountied, or coped. cespite viridi, i. e. with a sod-turf. Truly their honours fell into discord conceringfi
two iroods of marshy ground, near the cove called the Bedral's Beild, and the controversy, having some
years bygone been removed from before the judges of the land (with whom it abode long), even unto the
great city of London and the Assembly of the Nobles therein, is, as I may say, adlhc in pesndente. -J. C.
VOL. II.-24