Having been informed that a stone, familiarly known throughout the
country as "Peden’s Stone," from the fact that that prime favourite of
the Scottish peasantry used there to delight his hearers with his
eloquence, was still to be seen on the moor, I determined upon paying a
visit to this sequestered spot. It was on a lovely morning in the month
of September that I started on my expedition. The sun was shining
brightly, and the air was of that exhilarating nature which blends the
softness of summer with the least possible tinge of autumn coolness.
The Robin red-breast, sole remaining songster of the grove, poured its
gushing notes of melody from hedge-row and tree, while, with each motion
of the breeze, the now yellow leaves fell trembling on my path.
The reapers, in many places, were yet busy in the fields—the harvest
being generally late in this part of Scotland—and their merry bursts of
laughter sounded gaily from amid the fields of waving corn. My way
again lay through H—— village, near the entrance of which, on precisely
the same spot as formerly, stood the previously mentioned
pleasant-looking dame, but not alone. Two little olive branches clung
for protection to the parent stem, in a manner beautiful to witness. I
could not resist a smile as my quondam acquaintance came forward with
outstretched hand, exclaiming, while a broad laugh sat upon her honest
features, "Losh me, isn’t it funny we twa should always foregather on
the same bit?"
"Indeed it is!" was the reply.
"And you are still gaun about here?"
"Yes; and picking up all the information I can get about the
Covenanters."
"Oh, mam!" was the pathetic response, "had my brother only been
living!—but that’s by; eh sirs me, but that makes an unco difference wi’
us a’! And where may ye be gaun the day?"
"To visit Peden’s Stone; likewise to call on a Mr. Brown, who, I
understand, is able to give me some information regarding it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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