The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

OLD MORTALITY.
INTRODUCTION - (1829.)
THE remarkable person, called by the title of Old Mortality, was well
known in Scotland about the end of the last century. His real name was
rtobert Paterson. He was a native, it is said, of the parish of Closeburn,
in Dumfries-shire, and probably a mason by profession - at least educated
to the use of the chisel. Whether family dissensions, or the deep and enthusiastic feeling of supposed duty, drove him to leave his dwelling, and
adopt the singular mode of life in which he wandered, like a palmer, through
Scotland, is not known. It could not be poverty, however, which prompted
his journeys, for he never accepted anything beyond the hospitality which
was willingly rendered him, and when that was not proffered, he always
had money enough to provide for his own humble wants. His personal
appearance, and favourite, or rather sole occupation, are accurately described
in the preliminary chapter of the following work.
It is about thirty years since, or more, that the author met this singular
person in the churchyard of Dunnottar, when spending a day or two with
the late learned and excellent clergyman, Mr. Walker, the minister of that
parish, for the purpose of a close examination of the ruins of the Castle of
D)unnottar, and other subjects of antiquarian research in that neighbourhood. Old Mortality chanced to be at the same place, on the usual business of his pilgrimage; for the Castle of Dunnottar, though lying in the
anti-covenanting district of the Mearns, was, with the parish church-yard,
celebrated for the oppressions sustained there by the Cameronians in the
time of James II.
It was in 1685, when Argyle was threatening a descent upon Scotland,
and Monmouth was preparing to invade the west of England, that the Privy
Council of Scotland, with cruel precaution, made a general arrest of more
than a hundred persons in the southern and western provinces, supposed,
from their religious principles, to be inimical to Government, together with
many women and children. These captives were driven northward like a
flock of bullocks, but with less precaution to provide for their wants, and
finally penned up in a subterranean dungeon in the Castle of Dunnottar,
having a window opening to the front of a precipice which overhangs the
German Ocean. They had suffered not a little on the journey, and were
much hurt both at the scoffs of the northern prelates, and the mocks, gibes,
and contemptuous tunes played by the fiddlers and pipers who had come
from every quarter as they passed, to triumph over the revilers of their
calling. The repose which the melancholy dungeon afforded them was
anything but undisturbed. The guards made them pay for every indulgence, even that of water; and when some of the prisoners resisted a
demand so unreasonable, and insisted on their right to have this necessary
of life untaxed, their keepers emptied the water on the prison floors, say2 F (361)