Old Mortality

"Old Mortality" was the familiar title of an actual personage, Robert Paterson, a harmless itinerant hermit who received this nickname because of his habit of visiting the tombs of Scotch Covenanters. His daily labor of love was to care for these stones and deepen their lettering with his chisel; doing this in honor of the martyrs for the cause, who had fallen in their struggle against the state. He died about the beginning of the 19th century. The incidents of the present story are suppose...