Neither the Highland cicerone Macturk,
nor the demure washingwoman, were
drawn from imagination: and on re-reading
my tale, after the lapse of a few years, and
comparing its effect with my remembrance of
my worthy friend's oral narration, which was
certainly extremely affecting, I cannot but suspect
myself of having marred its simplicity by
some of those interpolations, which, at the time
when I penned them, no doubt passed with
myself for embellishments.
The next tale, entitled ``The Two Drovers,''
I learned from another old friend, the late
George Constable, Esq. of Wallace-Craigie,
near Dundee, whom I have already introduced
to my reader as the original Antiquary of
Monkbarns. He had been present, I think, at
the trial at Carlisle, and seldom mentioned the
venerable judges charge to the jury, without
shedding tears,---which had peculiar pathos,
as flowing down features, carrying rather a
sarcastic or almost a cynical expression.
This worthy gentleman's reputation for
shrewd Scottish sense---knowledge of our national
antiquities---and a racy humour, peculiar
to himself, must be still remembered. For
myself, I have pride in recording that for
many years we were, in Wordsworth's language,
``------- a pair of friends, though I was young,
And `George was seventy-two.
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