As these dividual words were falling from my lips, we approached the end of our journey, the Roslin Inn house heaving in sight, at the door of which me and Peter louped out, an hostler with a yellow striped waistcoat, and white calico sleeves, I meantime holding the naig’s head, in case it should spend off, and capsize the concern. After seeing the horse and gig put into the stable, Peter and I pulled up our shirt necks, and after looking at our watches, as if time was precious, oxtered away, arm-in-arm, to see the Chapel, which surpasses all, and beats cock-fighting.
It is an unaccountable thing to me, how the auld folk could afford to build such grand kirks and castles. If once gold was like slate stones, there is a wearyful change now-a-days, I must confess; for, so to speak, gold guineas seem to have taken flight from the land along with the witches and warlocks, and posterity are left as toom in the pockets as rookit gamblers.
But if the mammon of precious metals be now totally altogether out of the world, weel-a-wat we had a curiosity still, and that was a cleipy woman with a long stick, that rhaemed away, and better rhaemed away, about the Prentice’s Pillar, who got a knock on the pow from his jealous blackguard of a master—and about the dogs and the deer—and Sir Thomas this-thing and my Lord tother-thing, who lay buried beneath the broad flag-stones in their rusty coats of armour—and such a heap of havers, that no throat was wide enough to swallow them for gospel, although gey an’ entertaining I allow. However, it was a real farce; that is certain.
Oh, but the building was a grand and overpowering sight, making man to dree the sense of his own insignificance, even in the midst of his own handiwork! First, we looked over our
shoulders to the grand carved roofs, where the swallows swee-swee’d, as they darted through the open windows, and the yattering sparrows fed their gorbals in the far boles; and syne we looked shuddering down into the dark vaults, where nobody in their senses could have ventured, though Peter Farrel, being a rash courageous body, was keen on it, having heard less than I could tell him of such places being haunted by the spirits of those who have died or been murdered within them in the bloody days of the old times; or of their being so full of foul air, as to extinguish man’s breath in his nostrils like the snuff of a candle. Though no man should throw his life into jeopardy, yet I commend all for taking timeous recreation—the King himself on the throne not being able to live without the comforts of life; and even the fifteen Lords of Session, with as much powder on their wigs as would keep a small family in loaves for a week, requiring air and exercise, after sentencing vagabonds to be first hanged, and then their clothes given to Jock Heich, and their bodies to Doctor Monro.
Before going out to inspect the wonderfuls, we had taken the natural precaution to tell the goodman of the inn, that we would be back to take a chack of something from him, at such and such an hour; and, having had our bellyful of the Chapel,—and the Prentice’s Pillar,—and the vaults,—and the cleipy auld wife with the lang stick,—we found that we had still half an hour to spare; so took a stroll into the Kirkyard, to see if we could find out if any of the martyrs had been buried there-away-abouts.
We saw a good few head-stones, you may make no doubt, both ancient and modern; but nothing out of the course of nature; so, the day being pleasant, Mr Farrel and me sat down on a throughstane, below an old hawthorn, and commenced chatting on the Pentland Hills—the river Esk—Penicuik—Glencorse—and all the rest of the beautiful country within sight. A mooly auld skull was lying among the grass, and Peter, as he spoke, was aye stirring it about with his stick.
“I never touched a dead man’s bones in my life,” said I to Peter, “nor would I for a sixpence. Who might that have belonged to, now, I wonder? Maybe to a baker or a tailor, in his day and generation, like you and I, Peter; or maybe to ane
of the great Sinclairs with their coats-of-mail, that the auld wife was cracking so crousely about?”
“Deil may care,” said Peter; “but are you really frighted to touch a skull, Mansie? You would make a bad doctor, I’m doubting, then; to say nothing of a resurrection man.”