The exchange of mutual protection between a Highland gentleman and an officer of rank in the king’s service, together with the spirited manner in which the latter asserted his right to return the favour he had received, is literally true.  The accident by a musket shot, and the heroic reply imputed to Flora, relate to a lady of rank not long deceased.  And scarce a gentleman who was ’in hiding’ after the battle of Culloden but could tell a tale of strange concealments and of wild and hair’sbreadth’scapes as extraordinary as any which I have ascribed to my heroes.  Of this, the escape of Charles Edward himself, as the most prominent, is the most striking example.  The accounts of the battle of Preston and skirmish at Clifton are taken from the narrative of intelligent eye-witnesses, and corrected from the ’History of the Rebellion’ by the late venerable author of ‘Douglas.’  The Lowland Scottish gentlemen and the subordinate characters are not given as individual portraits, but are drawn from the general habits of the period, of which I have witnessed some remnants in my younger days, and partly gathered from tradition.

It has been my object to describe these persons, not by a caricatured and exaggerated use of the national dialect, but by their habits, manners, and feelings, so as in some distant degree to emulate the admirable Irish portraits drawn by Miss Edgeworth, so different from the ‘Teagues’ and ‘dear joys’ who so long, with the most perfect family resemblance to each other, occupied the drama and the novel.

I feel no confidence, however, in the manner in which I have executed my purpose.  Indeed, so little was I satisfied with my production, that I laid it aside in an unfinished state, and only found it again by mere accident among other waste papers in an old cabinet, the drawers of which I was rummaging in order to accommodate a friend with some fishing-tackle, after it had been mislaid for several years.

Two works upon similar subjects, by female authors whose genius is highly creditable to their country, have appeared in the interval; I mean Mrs. Hamilton’s ‘Glenburnie’ and the late account of ‘Highland Superstitions.’  But the first is confined to the rural habits of Scotland, of which it has given a picture with striking and impressive fidelity; and the traditional records of the respectable and ingenious Mrs. Grant of Laggan are of a nature distinct from the fictitious narrative which I have here attempted.

I would willingly persuade myself that the preceding work will not be found altogether uninteresting.  To elder persons it will recall scenes and characters familiar to their youth; and to the rising generation the tale may present some idea of the manners of their forefathers.