Scotland has also its cruder form of memorial in the rough unhewn
slabs of native freestone, which are used in all parts of the British
Isles wherever such material is readily procurable.

FIG. 93.--AT BRAEMAR.

Two of these slabs of different degrees are seen in my Braemar sketch,
but both seem of one family and serve to shew us the unconscious
evolution of a doctrinal law into a national custom. The employment
of initials, originally the sacrifice and self-denial of a dissentient
faith, is here, as in other instances, combined with the Catholic
emblem of the Cross. This little graveyard of Braemar, lying among
the moors and mountains which surround Balmoral, and accustomed to
receiving illustrious pilgrims whose shoe-string the poor gravestone
tramp is not worthy to unloose, is still used for indiscriminate
burials, and furnishes several examples of Roman Catholic interments.
Wherever such are found in Scotland, bearing dates of the eighteenth
century, they are usually of the rough character depicted in the
sketch. The recumbent slab in the same drawing is given to illustrate
the table or altar stone, which throughout Scotland has been used
all through the Covenantic period to evade the Covenantic rule of the
simple anonymous gravestone, for such memorials are almost invariably
engraved and inscribed with designs and epitaphs, sometimes of the
most elaborate character. But these are not mere gravestones: they are
"tombs."

[Illustration: FIG. 94. STIRLING]

FIG. 94.--AT STIRLING.