arrested more than a hundred persons, together with many women and children. These captives had been seized because it was supposed that their religious principles they were Covenanters or Presbyterians, and hence opposed to the worship and forms of the Church of England made them unfriendly to the government of James II. The prisoners were driven northward like a drove of cattle, and finally penned up in an underground dungeon in the Castle of Dunottar. The repose which this melancholy place of confinement afforded them was anything but undisturbed. The guards made them pay for every indulgence, even that of water; and when some of the prisoners insisted on their right to have this necessary of life untaxed, their keepers emptied the water on the dungeon floor, saying, "If we are obliged to bring water for canting Whigs, we are not bound to give them the use of bowls and pitchers for nothing."

In this stern prison, which is still termed the Whig's Vault for in Scotland Whig and Covenanter were, as a rule, convertible terms-several died of disease, and others broke their limbs and incurred fatal injuries in desperate attempts to escape. Over the graves of these unhappy persons, their friends, after the Revolution of 1688 which brought William and Mary to the throne, erected a monument with a suitable inscription.

It was while looking at this monument, in company with the Rev. Mr. Walker, that I saw Old Mortality engaged in his daily task of cleaning and repairing the ornaments and epitaphs upon the tomb.

His appearance and equipment were exactly as described in the novel. I was very desirous of seeing something of a person so singular; but though Mr. Walker invited him up after dinner to partake of a glass of spirits and water, to which he was supposed not to be very averse, yet he would not speak frankly upon the subject of his occupation.

He was in bad humor, and had, according to his expression, no freedom for conversation with us. His spirit had been sorely vexed by hearing, in a certain Aberdonian kirk, the psalmody directed by a pitch-pipe, or some simi

lar instrument, which was to Old Mortality the abomination of abominations. Perhaps, after all, he did not feel himself at ease with his company. He might suspect the questions asked by a north-country minister and a young barrister to savor more of idle curiosity than of profit. At any rate, to use John Bunyan's phrase, Old Mortality went on his way, and I saw him no more.

Lockhart says that Scott had this interview with Old Mortality in 1793, and that more than twenty years later, Mr. Joseph Train, an old friend, visited him in Edinburgh a few days after the publication of the Antiquary. Mr. Train saw in the novelist's library a picture

the only one in the room—which greatly impressed him. It was a portrait of Colonel Grahame of Claverhouse, "the bonnie Dundee" of Scott's famous song. The visitor was so much interested in the handsome but melancholy countenance of this persecutor of the Covenanters, that he ventured to hint to Scott that Clayerhouse might be made the hero of a Scottish romance. Scott replied, "He might, but your western zealots"— the Covenanters "would require to be faithfully portrayed in order to bring him out with the right effect." "And what," resumed his friend, "if the story were to be delivered as if from the mouth of Old Mortality?" Scott, it would seem, had forgotten his meeting with that pious but eccentric character, but his visitor's suggestion recalled the matter to his recollection, and Mr. Train supplied additional particulars concerning that venerable haunter of graveyards. The result was that Scott set to work in earnest on the new story, the first of his historical novels, and before the year 1816 had closed, the literary circles of Edinburgh and of London were deep in the pages of Old Mortality. When Lord Holland, who sat up till morning reading the book, was asked what his opinion was of the Scotch romance, he answered, "Opinion! we did not one of us go to bed last night: nothing slept but my gout."

But in Scotland Old Mortality was greeted by a storm of criticism from the descendants of the Covenanters, who thought that the great novelist had not done them justice, and that he had whitewashed Claverhouse and his per

secuting companions. Undoubtedly Scott's sympathies leaned strongly to the Tory side; he believed with all his heart that the man whom the "Hill-folk" of Scotland nicknamed "Bloody Claver'se one who was “in league

with the devil was, as he declared, " every inch a soldier and a gentleman." On the other hand, the writer of Old Mortality has shown in his portrayal of such characters as Macbriar and Morton that he was not blind to the merits of those who had risen in arms against the intolerant measures of Charles II. Finally, to quote his own words concerning the Covenanters: "Whatever may be thought of the extravagance or narrow-minded bigotry of many of their tenets, it is impossible to deny the praise of devoted courage to a few hundred peasants, who, without leaders, without money, without magazines, without any fixed plan of action, and almost without arms, borne out only by their innate zeal, and a detestation of the oppression of their rulers, ventured to declare open war against an established government, supported by a regular army and the whole force of three kingdoms."*

* See "Old Mortality," Chapter XVIII.

OLD MORTALITY.

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY.

Why seeks he with unwearied toil

Through death's dim walks to urge his way,

Reclaim his long-asserted spoil,

And lead oblivion into day

LANGHORNE.

“Most readers," says the Manuscript of Mr. Pattieson, "must have witnessed with delight the joyous burst which attends the dismissing of a village-school on a fine summer evening. The buoyant spirit of childhood, repressed with so much difficulty during the tedious hours of discipline, may then be seen to explode, as it were, in shout, and song, and frolic, as the little urchins join in groups on their playground, and arrange their matches of sport for the evening. But there is one individual who partakes of the relief afforded by the moment of dismission, whose feelings are not so obvious to the eye of the spectator, or so apt to receive his sympathy. I mean the teacher himself, who, stunned with the hum, and suffocated with the closeness of his schoolroom, has spent the whole day (himself against a host) in controlling petulance, exciting indifference to action, striving to enlighten stupidity, and laboring to soften obstinacy; and whose very powers of intellect have been confounded by hearing the same dull lesson repeated a hundred times by rote, and only varied by the various blunders of the reciters. Even the flowers of classic genius, with which his solitary fancy is most gratified, have been rendered degraded, in his imagination, by their connexion with tears, with errors, and with punishment; so that the Eclogues of Virgil and Odes of Horace are each inseparably

1

allied in association with the sullen figure and monotonous recitation of some blubbering school-boy. If to these mental distresses are added a delicate frame of body, and a mind ambitious of some higher distinction than that of being the tyrant of childhood, the reader may have some slight conception of the relief which a solitary walk, in the cool of fine summer evening, affords to the head which has ached, and the nerves which have been shattered, for so many hours, in plying the irksome task of public instruction.

a

"To me these evening strolls have been the happiest hours of an unhappy life; and if any gentle reader shall hereafter find pleasure in perusing these lucubrations, I am not unwilling he should know that the plan of them has been usually traced in those moments when relief from toil and clamor, combined with the quiet scenery around me, has disposed my mind to the task of composition.

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My chief haunt, in these hours of golden leisure, is the banks of the small stream, which, winding through a 'lone vale of green bracken,' passes in front of the village school-house of Gandercleugh. For the first quarter of a mile, perhaps, I may be disturbed from my meditations, in order to return the scrape, or doffed bonnet, of such stragglers among my pupils as fish for trouts or minnows in the little brook, or seek rushes and wild-flowers by its margin. But, beyond the space I have mentioned, the juvenile anglers do not, after sunset, voluntarily extend their excursions. The cause is, that farther up the narrow valley, and in a recess which seems scooped out of the side of the steep heathy bank, there is a deserted burial-ground, which the little cowards are fearful of approaching in the twilight. To me, however, the place has an inexpressible charm. It has been long the favorite termination of my walks, and, if my kind patron forgets not his promise, will (and probably at no very distant day) be my final resting-place after my mortal pilgrimage.*

*Note, by Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham.—That I kept my plight in this melancholy matter with my deceased and lamented friend, appeareth from a handsome headstone, erected at my proper charges in this spot, bearing the name and calling of Peter Pattieson, with the date of his nativity and sepulture; together also with a testimony of his merits, attested by myself as his superior and patron.-J. C.

Bracken: fern. Scrape: an awkward bow accompanied with a scrape of the foot. Doffed: removed. Bonnet: a Scotch cap.