 to
accept, pecuniary assistance. It is true, his wants were very few; for wherever
he went, he found ready quarters in the house of some Cameronian of his own
sect, or of some other religious person. The hospitality which was reverentially
paid to him he always acknowledged, by repairing the gravestones (if there
existed any) belonging to the family or ancestors of his host. As the wanderer
was usually to be seen bent on this pious task within the precincts of some
country churchyard, or reclined on the solitary tombstone among the heath,
disturbing the plover and the black-cock with the clink of his chisel and
mallet, with his old white pony grazing by his side, he acquired, from his
converse among the dead, the popular appellation of Old Mortality.
    The character of such a man could have in it little connection even with
innocent gaiety. Yet, among those of his own religious persuasion, he is
reported to have been cheerful. The descendants of persecutors, or those whom he
supposed guilty of entertaining similar tenets, and the scoffers at religion by
whom he was sometimes assailed, he usually termed the generation of vipers.
Conversing with others, he was grave and sententious, not without a cast of
severity. But he is said never to have been observed to give way to violent
passion, excepting upon one occasion, when a mischievous truant-boy defaced with
a stone the nose of a cherub's face, which the old man was engaged in
re-touching. I am in general a sparer of the rod, notwithstanding the maxim of
Solomon, for which schoolboys have little reason to thank his memory; but on
this occasion I deemed it proper to show that I did not hate the child. - But I
must return to the circumstances attending my first interview with this
interesting enthusiast.
    In accosting Old Mortality, I did not fail to pay respect to his years and
his principles, beginning my address by a respectful apology for interrupting
his labours. The old man intermitted the operation of the chisel, took off his
spectacles and wiped them, then replacing them on his nose, acknowledged my
courtesy by a suitable return. Encouraged by his affability, I intruded upon him
some questions concerning the sufferers on whose monument he was now employed.
To talk of the exploits of the Covenanters was the delight, as to repair their
monuments was the business, of his life. He was profuse in the communication of
all the minute information which he had collected concerning them, their wars,
and their wanderings. One would almost have supposed he must have been their
contemporary, and
