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.


[Illustration: The Graveyard--006]


"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 last monarchs of the Stewart 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