vi Preface. 



repeatedly refused either to indite such a relation 

 himself or to entrust the conduct of it to another. 

 He had even arranged that the materials on which 

 much of it has now been founded should be burnt 

 whenever his own more immediate control over them 

 had ceased His yielding at last, and allowing the 

 story to be now told, has been, like so many other 

 actions of his life, far less to gratify himself than to 

 oblige his friend. 



In the book at large an occasional Scotticism will, 

 no doubt, be pardoned, as tending to give local colour 

 to the life of a Scotchman. Every one knows that " a 

 burn " in Scotland would in England be a brook, and 

 most persons will be able to guess that a Scotch 

 " dyke " is not a valley, but a wall or hedge, that a 

 " decent " family means one that is honest and respec- 

 table, and that a " clever " young man designates not 

 necessarily an intellectual genius, but a youth suited 

 for the purpose in hand. Here and there, it may be, 

 a phrase not Scotch, nor yet exactly classical English, 

 has kept its place as too expressive or too quaint to 

 be omitted and lost. 



