146 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



living : the dead Laird in his vault is not thirty feet 

 distant from the living one in his bed-chamber. Bound- 

 ing the other extremity of the garden is a burying-ground 

 in which the humbler inhabitants of the country and 

 village adjacent find their last resting-place. It is a 

 solitary spot, embosomed in wood, and at a considerable 

 distance from any house. These circumstances, which in 

 the north country would make a burying-ground after 

 nightfall the supposed haunt of restless spirits, here 

 afford the violators of sepulchres opportunity to tear 

 from its grave the newly-deposited body, and to convey 

 it to some of the dissecting rooms about Edinburgh. 

 Such is the barbarous audacity of these wretches, that 

 they frequently break and overturn monuments which lie 

 in their way ; and, without any desire of concealing their 

 depredations, leave the violated graves half open, and 

 scatter around them as if in derision the cerements that 

 wrapped the body. I hope I am not bloodthirsty, yet I 

 think I could level a musket at the villain who robbed 

 the tomb of the body of one of my relatives with as much 

 composure, and with as little compunction, as I would' 

 feel in taking aim at a wooden target. 



' The house or rather cottage in which I at present 

 lodge stands upon the side of the Dalkeith road. It is 

 sheltered on the north and west by the Niddrie woods, 

 and on the east fronts a wide though not diversified pro- 

 spect of corn-fields and farmsteadings. From the door 

 at night, through a long wooded avenue, I see the Inch- 

 keith light twinkling in the distance, like a star rising 

 out of the sea/ 



Thus does he nourish a youth, hardly sublime, yet not 

 without its genially fostering elements and influences ; 

 sauntering among the leafy woods, watching the sunset 

 as it streams along the broad valley from the west 



