that charges me with
incapacity to write these narratives, seeing, that though I have proved that I
could have written them if I would, yet, not having done so, the censure will
deservedly fall, if at all due, upon the memory of Mr. Peter Pattieson; whereas
I must be justly entitled to the praise, when any is due, seeing that, as the
Dean of St. Patrick's wittily and logically expresseth it, -
 
That without which a thing is not,
Is Causa sine qua non.
 
The work, therefore, is unto me as a child is to a parent; in the which child,
if it proveth worthy, the parent hath honour and praise; but, if otherwise, the
disgrace will deservedly attach to itself alone.
    I have only further to intimate, that Mr. Peter Pattieson, in arranging
these Tales for the press, hath more consulted his own fancy than the accuracy
of the narrative; nay, that he hath sometimes blended two or three stories
together for the mere grace of his plots: - of which infidelity, although I
disapprove and enter my testimony against it, yet I have not taken upon me to
correct the same, in respect it was the will of the deceased that his manuscript
should he submitted to the press without diminution or alteration. A fanciful
nicety it was on the part of my deceased friend, who, if thinking wisely, ought
rather to have conjured me, by all the tender ties of our friendship and common
pursuits, to have carefully revised, altered, and augmented, at my judgment and
discretion. But the will of the dead must be scrupulously obeyed, even when we
weep over their pertinacity and self-delusion. So, gentle reader, I bid you
farewell, recommending you to such fare as the mountains of your own country
produce; and I will only farther premise, that each tale is preceded by a short
introduction, mentioning the persons by whom, and the circumstances under which,
the materials thereof were collected.
    DECEMBER 1816.
                                                          JEDEDIAH CLEISHBOTHAM.
 

                         Introduction to Old Mortality

                                     1830.

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 Robert Paterson.
He was a native, it is said, of the parish of Closeburn in Dumfriesshire, 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