``If your honours are thinking of tirling the floor,'' said old Edie, ``and wad but take a puir body's advice, I would begin below that muckle stane that has the man there streekit out upon his back in the midst o't.''
``I have some reason for thinking favourably of that plan myself,'' said the Baronet.
``And I have nothing to say against it,'' said Oldbuck: ``it was not unusual to hide treasure in the tombs of the deceased --many instances might be quoted of that from Bartholinus and others.''
The tombstone, the same beneath which the coins had been found by Sir Arthur and the German, was once more forced aside, and the earth gave easy way to the spade.
``It's travell'd earth that,'' said Edie, ``it howks gae eithly --I ken it weel, for ance I wrought a simmer wi' auld Will Winnet, the bedral, and howkit mair graves than ane in my day; but I left him in winter, for it was unco cald wark; and then it cam a green Yule, and the folk died thick and fast--for ye ken a green Yule makes a fat kirkyard; and I never dowed to bide a hard turn o' wark in my life--sae aff I gaed, and left Will to delve his last dwellings by himsell for Edie.''
The diggers were now so far advanced in their labours as to discover that the sides of the grave which they were clearing out had been originally secured by four walls of freestone, forming a parallelogram, for the reception, probably, of the coffin.
``It is worth while proceeding in our labours,'' said the Antiquary to Sir Arthur, ``were it but for curiosity's sake.Iwonder on whose sepulchre they have bestowed such uncommon pains.''
``The arms on the shield,'' said Sir Arthur, and sighed as he spoke it, ``are the same with those on Misticot's tower, supposed to have been built by Malcolm the usurper.No man knew where he was buried, and there is an old 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 Iwas 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 malke 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.