rule was not without its exceptions, often of novel and peculiar
description. The skull and crossbone series, so common in the south,
have no place in North Britain; while the symbol of the cross, so
frequent in Ireland, is very rarely to be found in any shape whatever
within the boundaries of a Scottish burial-place. I present four
specimen types from the old chapel-yard at Inverness.

[Illustration: FIG. 92. INVERNESS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 93. BRAEMAR.]

FIG. 92.--AT INVERNESS.

On the stone No. 2 the tailor's tools--shears, goose, and bodkin--are
clear enough, and I was told that the figures on the stone in the
lower left-hand corner (No. 3) are locally recognized as the shuttle
and some other requisite of the weaver's trade. Inverness had spinning
and weaving for its staple industries when Pennant visited the place
in 1759. Its exports of cordage and sacking were considerable, and
(says Pennant) "the linen manufacture saves the town above £3000 a
year, which used to go to Holland."

In the 1698 example (No. 1) the short "and" (&) leaves no doubt that
W.F. & J. McP. (probably McPherson and his wife) are there buried;
and the similar information is almost as certainly conveyed in the
manifold cases in which appears the sign which occupies the same
position in the two lower stones (Nos. 3 and 4). These, however, are
all of later date, and may be set down as developments, or rather
corruptions, of the original form. The same signs, however, constantly
occur in all the northern graveyards.