Antiquarians -- Fiction; Beggars -- Fiction; Domestic fiction; Fathers and daughters -- Fiction; Love stories; Scotland -- Fiction
"It's travell'd earth that," said Edie, "it howks gae eithlyI ken it
weel, for ance I wrought a simmer wi' auld Will Winnet, the bedral, and
howkit mair graves than ane in my day; but I left him in winter, for
it was unco cald wark; and then it cam a green Yule, and the folk died
thick and fastfor ye ken a green Yule makes a fat kirkyard; and I never
dowed to bide a hard turn o' wark in my lifesae aff I gaed, and left
Will to delve his last dwellings by himsell for Edie."
The diggers were now so far advanced in their labours as to discover
that the sides of the grave which they were clearing out had been
originally secured by four walls of freestone, forming a parallelogram,
for the reception, probably, of the coffin.
"It is worth while proceeding in our labours," said the Antiquary to Sir
Arthur, "were it but for curiosity's sake. I wonder on whose sepulchre
they have bestowed such uncommon pains."
"The arms on the shield," said Sir Arthur, and sighed as he spoke it,
"are the same with those on Misticot's tower, supposed to have been
built by Malcolm the usurper. No man knew where he was buried, and there
is an old prophecy in our family, that bodes us no good when his grave
shall be discovered."
"I wot," said the beggar, "I have often heard that when I was a bairn
If Malcolm the Misticot's grave were fun',
The lands of Knockwinnock were lost and won."
Oldbuck, with his spectacles on his nose, had already knelt down on the
monument, and was tracing, partly with his eye, partly with his finger,
the mouldered devices upon the effigy of the deceased warrior. "It is
the Knockwinnock arms, sure enough," he exclaimed, "quarterly with the
coat of Wardour."
"Richard, called the red-handed Wardour, married Sybil Knockwinnock,
the heiress of the Saxon family, and by that alliance," said Sir Arthur,
"brought the castle and estate into the name of Wardour, in the year of
God 1150."
"Very true, Sir Arthur; and here is the baton-sinister, the mark of
illegitimacy, extended diagonally through both coats upon the shield.
Where can our eyes have been, that they did not see this curious
monument before?"
"Na, whare was the through-stane, that it didna come before our een till
e'enow?" said Ochiltree; "for I hae ken'd this auld kirk, man and bairn,
for saxty lang years, and I neer noticed it afore; and it's nae sic mote
neither, but what ane might see it in their parritch."
All were now induced to tax their memory as to the former state of the
ruins in that corner of the chancel, and all agreed in recollecting a
considerable pile of rubbish which must have been removed and spread
abroad in order to make the tomb visible. Sir Arthur might, indeed, have
remembered seeing the monument on the former occasion, but his mind was
too much agitated to attend to the circumstance as a novelty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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