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.

316 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
of the public gave their assurance on the subject, was extremely persevering.
I now think it farther necessary to say, that while I take on myself ail the
merits and demerits attending these compositions, I am bound to acknowledge with gratitude, hints of subjects and legends, which I have received
from various quarters, and have occasionally used as a foundation of my
fictitious compositions, or woven up with them in the shape of episodes. I
am bound, in particular, to acknowledge the unremitting kindness of Mr.
Joseph Train, supervisor of excise, at Dumfries, to whose unwearied industry
I have been indebted for many curious traditions, and points of antiquarian
interest. It was Mr. Train, who brought to my recollection the history of
Old Mortality, although I myself had had a personal interview with that
celebrated wanderer so far back as about 1792, when I found him on his
usual task. He was then engaged in repairing the gravestones of the Covenanters, who had died while imprisoned in the Castle of Dunnottar, to which
many of them were committed prisoners at the period of Argyle's rising;
their place of confinement is still called the Whig's Vault. Mr. Train, however, procured for me far more extensive information concerning this singular
person, whose name was Patterson, than I had been able to acquire during
my own short conversation with him.* He was (as I think I have somewhere stated) a native of the parish of Closeburn, in Dumfries-shire, and it
is believed that domestic affliction, as well as devotional feeling, induced
him to commence the wandering mode of life, which he pursued for a very
long period. It is more than twenty years since Robert Patterson's death,
which took place on the high road near Lockerby, where he was fond exhausted and expiring. The white pony, the companion of his pilgrimage,
was standing by the side of its dying master; the whole furnishing a scene
not unfitted for the pencil. These particulars I had from Mr. Train.
Another debt, which I pay most willingly, I owe to an unknown correspondent, (a lady,*) who favoured me with the history of the upright and
high-principled female, whom, in the Heart of Mid-Lothian, I have termed
Jeanie Deans. The circumstance of her refusing to save her sister's life
by an act of perjury, and undertaking a pilgrimage to London to obtain her
pardon, are both represented as true by my fair and obliging correspondent;
and they led me to consider the possibility of rendering a fictitious personage interesting by mere dignity of mind and rectitude of principle, assisted
by unpretending good sense and temper, without any of the beauty, grace,
talent, accomplishment, and wit, to which a heroine of romance is supposed
to have a prescriptive right. If the portrait was received with interest by
the public, I am conscious how much it was owing to the truth and force
of the original sketch, which I regret being unable to present to the public,
as it was written with much feeling and spirit.
Old and odd books, and a considerable collection of family legends,
formed another quarry, so ample that it was much more likely that the
strength of the labourer should be exhausted, than that materials should
fail. I may mention, for example's sake, that the terrible catastrophe of
the Bride of Lammermoor actually occurred in a Scottish family of rank.
The female relative, by whom the melancholy tale was communicated to me
many years since, was a near connection of the family in which the event
had happened, and always told it with an appearance of melancholy mystery,
which enhanced the interest. She had known, in her youth, the brother who
rode before the unhappy victim to the fatal altar, who, though then a mere
boy, and occupied almost entirely with the gaiety of his own appearance in
the bridal procession, could not but remark that the hand of his sister was
moist, and cold as that of a statue. It is unnecessary farther to withdraw
the veil from this scene of family distress, nor, although it occurred more
* See for some fartherparticulars, the notes to Old Mortality, in the present collective edition.
t Th!ite Mrs. Goldie.