prophecy in our family, that bodes us no good when his grave
shall be discovered."

"I wot," said the beggar, "I have often heard that when I was a bairn--

If Malcolm the Misticot's grave were fun',
The lands of Knockwinnock were lost and won."

Oldbuck, with his spectacles on his nose, had already knelt down on the
monument, and was tracing, partly with his eye, partly with his finger,
the mouldered devices upon the effigy of the deceased warrior. "It is
the Knockwinnock arms, sure enough," he exclaimed, "quarterly with the
coat of Wardour."

"Richard, called the red-handed Wardour, married Sybil Knockwinnock,
the heiress of the Saxon family, and by that alliance," said Sir Arthur,
"brought the castle and estate into the name of Wardour, in the year of
God 1150."

"Very true, Sir Arthur; and here is the baton-sinister, the mark of
illegitimacy, extended diagonally through both coats upon the shield.
Where can our eyes have been, that they did not see this curious
monument before?"

"Na, whare was the through-stane, that it didna come before our een till
e'enow?" said Ochiltree; "for I hae ken'd this auld kirk, man and bairn,
for saxty lang years, and I neer noticed it afore; and it's nae sic mote
neither, but what ane might see it in their parritch."

All were now induced to tax their memory as to the former state of the
ruins in that corner of the chancel, and all agreed in recollecting a
considerable pile of rubbish which must have been removed and spread
abroad in order to make the tomb visible. Sir Arthur might, indeed, have
remembered seeing the monument on the former occasion, but his mind was
too much agitated to attend to the circumstance as a novelty.

While the assistants were engaged in these recollections and
discussions, the workmen proceeded with their labour. They had already
dug to the depth of nearly five feet, and as the flinging out the soil
became more and more difficult, they began at length to tire of the job.

"We're down to the till now," said one of them, "and the neer a coffin
or onything else is here--some cunninger chiel's been afore us, I
reckon;"--and the labourer scrambled out of the grave.

"Hout, lad," said Edie, getting down in his room--"let me try my hand for
an auld bedral;--ye're gude seekers, but ill finders."

So soon as he got into the grave, he struck his pike-staff forcibly
down; it encountered resistance in its descent, and the beggar