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You, Sir, could help me to the history
Of half these Graves?
Priest.
For eight-score winters past,
With what I 've witnessed, and with what I 've heard,
Perhaps I might; and, on a winter's evening,
If you were seated at my chimney's nook,
By turning o'er these hillocks one by one
We two could travel, Sir, through a strange round;
Yet all in the broad high-way of the world.
Now there's a grave—your foot is half upon it,—
It looks just like the rest; and yet that Man
Died broken-hearted.
Leonard.
'Tis a common case.
We'll take another: who is he that lies
Beneath yon ridge, the last of those three graves?
It touches on that piece of native rock
Left in the church-yard wall.
Priest.
That's Walter Ewbank.
He had as white a head and fresh a cheek
As ever were produced by youth and age
Engendering in the blood of hale fourscore.
