 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.
    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 of the unfortunate Covenanters who suffered by
the sword, or by the executioner, during the reigns of the two fast monarchs of
the Stuart line. These are most numerous in the western districts of Ayr,
Galloway, and Dumfries; but they are also to be found in other parts of
Scotland, wherever the fugitives had fought, or fallen, or suffered by military
or civil execution. Their tombs are often apart from all human habitation, in
the remote moors and wilds to which the wanderers had fled for concealment. But
wherever they existed, Old Mortality was sure to visit them when his annual
round brought them within his reach. In the most lonely recesses of the
mountains, the moor-fowl shooter has been often surprised to find him busied in
cleaning the moss from the grey stones, renewing with his chisel the
half-defaced inscriptions, and repairing the emblems of death with which these
simple monuments are usually adorned. Motives of the most sincere, though
fanciful devotion, induced the old man to dedicate so many years of existence to
perform this tribute to the memory of the deceased warriors of the church. He
considered himself as fulfilling a sacred duty, while renewing to the eyes of
posterity the decaying emblems of the zeal and sufferings of their forefathers,
and thereby trimming, as it were, the beacon-light which was to warn future
generations to defend their religion even unto blood.
    In all his wanderings, the old pilgrim never seemed to need, or was known
