Al Faizi stood on the lofty eminence a-lookin’ off in silence, and it seemed as though he couldn’t hardly be tore from the seen; and the grandeur and beauty wuz reflected in his eyes, some as you can see your own face in a pardner’s orbs if you look clost and lovin’ into ’em.
Alice and Adrian wuz a-walkin’ along, and seemed to be enjoyin’ themselves first-rate.
Adrian wuz a-askin’ her quite a number of questions about Robert Bruce and King James, etc., etc., and she wuz a-answerin’ him quite lusid; bein’ so late at school made her quite a adept in history, adepter than any of the rest of us wuz, by fur.
Wall, we went to the Church of St. Giles, and we see the Heart of Mid Lothian. I had heard Thomas J. read the story, and I wuz interested in it.
In the northwest corner of the church there is a heart cut in the pavement, and here the old Tolbooth, the city prison, first stood. In St. Giles Churchyard John Knox wuz buried.
The grave-stun has nothin’ but his initial and the date of his death. As I looked at it, I thought what long epitaphs—and in poetry, too, some on ’em—failed to git any attention from posterity. But as long as posterity lives—and I spoze that will be a good while yet—this unasumin’ grave will be visited, for a Man lies buried here—a hero who wuzn’t afraid to speak his mind, and who follered the right, so fur as he see it, through good and evil report.
Wall, in the Parliament House we see a copy of the first Bible that wuz ever printed. That gin me a sight of emotions—a sight; and I had quite a number of emotions a-seein’ the manuscript of the Waverley Novels, and in meditatin’ that Walter’s own hand rested on these pages.
Kinder tired hands some of the time, no doubt, and the eyes above heavy from study and toil. And he (Walter) not a-dreamin’ how so many years after she who wuz once Smith would stand and look on ’em with respect and almost veneration.
No; he didn’t have this to encourage him and make him happy, poor creeter!
But how well he did; how much happiness he has gin, and how much valuable information has been took onbeknown from the pages of his stories, like powders of smartweed in a spunful of honey.