Yet we must own his faults were few,
Although at Yule he sip’d a drap,
And in the kirk whiles took a nap.
True to his word in every case,
Tam scorned to cheat for lucre base.
Now he is gone to taste the fare,
Which none but honest men will share.”
At Redkirk, in the parish of Gretna, Dumfriesshire, there was formerly a churchyard, which the sea has completely swept away. The only vestige of it is a monumental stone, lying about 150 feet within high water mark, and which will no doubt be soon sanded up. The inscription upon it merits preservation:—
“Here lieth I—N. Bell, who died in ye yhere
MDX., and of his age cxxx. years.