ces of this description
are found occupying, like ospreys' nests, projecting rocks, or
promontories, in many parts of the eastern coast of Scotland, and the
position of Fast Castle seems certainly to resemble that of Wolf's
Crag as much as any other, while its vicinity to the mountain ridge of
Lammermoor renders the assimilation a probable one.

We have only to add, that the death of the unfortunate bridegroom by
a fall from horseback has been in the novel transferred to the no less
unfortunate lover.

CHAPTER I

By Cauk and keel to win your bread,
Wi' whigmaleeries for them wha need,
Whilk is a gentle trade indeed
To carry the gaberlunzie on.

Old Song.

FEW have been in my secret while I was compiling these narratives, nor
is it probable that they will ever become public during the life of
their author. Even were that event to happen, I am not ambitious of the
honoured distinction, digito monstrari. I confess that, were it safe to
cherish such dreams at all, I should more enjoy the thought of remaining
behind the curtain unseen, like the ingenious manager of Punch and his
wife Joan, and enjoying the astonishment and conjectures of my audience.
Then might I, perchance, hear the productions of the obscure Peter
Pattieson praised by the judicious and admired by the feeling,
engrossing the young and attracting even the old; while the critic
traced their fame up to some name of literary celebrity, and the
question when, and by whom, these tales were written filled up the pause
of conversation in a hundred circles and coteries. This I may never
enjoy during my lifetime; but farther than this, I am certain, my vanity
should never induce me to aspire.

I am too stubborn in habits, and too little polished in manners, to envy
or aspire to the honours assigned to my literary contemporaries. I could
not think a whit more highly of myself were I found worthy to "come in
place as a lion" for a winter in the great metropolis. I could not rise,
turn round, and show all my honours, from the shaggy mane to the tufted
tail, "roar you an't were any nightingale," and so lie down again like a
well-behaved beast of show, and all at the cheap and easy rate of a
cup of coffee and a slice of bread and butter as thin as a wafer. And
I could ill stomach the fulsome flattery with which the lady of the
evening indulges her show-monsters on such occasions, as she crams her
parrots with sugar-plums, in order to