Grampian Club > Monuments and monumental inscriptions in Scotland > Volume 1

298 DUMFRIESSHIRE.
her eighty-seventh year ; she was aunt of the Countess de Montijo,
mother of the ex-Empress.
Eobert Paterson, better known as " Old Mortality," rests in this
churchyard; his grave adjoins the burying-place of the Kirk-
patricks. He was born in 1715. Youngest son of Walter Paterson
and Margaret Scott, who rented the farm of Haggisha, parish of
Hawick, he some time served an elder brother, who had a farm
in Comcockle-muir, near Lochmaben. He married Elizabeth Gray,
who having been cook in the family of Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick of
Closeburn, procured for him an advantageous lease of a freestone
quarry at Morton. Here he resided many years, labouring with
exemplary diligence. From his youth attached to the sect of the
Cameronians he evinced a deep interest in the memory of those
who had suffered in the cause of Presbytery. Occasionally he
restored their tombstones. At length his zeal in the restoration of
these stony memorials acquired the force of a passion. In 1758 he
began to travel from parish to parish, ever working with hammer
and chisel in renewing the epitaphs of the martyrs. His self-
imposed task no entreaties of wife or children could induce him to
abandon. Though reduced to the verge of poverty he persisted in
his labours till the last day of his existence. He died at Bankend
village, near Lockerby, on the 29th January, 1801, aged eighty-six.
At his death he was found possessed of twenty-seven shillings and
sixpence, which were applied to the expenses of his funeral. Sir
Walter Scott, who has made "Old Mortality" the subject of a
novel, intended to rear a tombstone to his memory, but was unable
to discover his place of sepulture. Since the discovery has been
made, Messrs. Black, of Edinburgh, who possess the copyright of
the Waverley novels, have reared at the grave of the old enthusiast
a suitable memorial stone. It is thus inscribed : —
" Erected to the memory of Piobert Paterson, the Old Mortality
of Sir Walter Scott, who was buried here February, 1801.
" Why seeks he with unwearied toil
Through death's dim walk to urge his way.
Reclaim his long-asserted spoil,
And lead oblivion into day ? "