paternity, or of the still greater crime of being supposed
willing to receive indirectly praise to which I had no just
title. I thus found myself suddenly and unexpectedly placed in
the confessional, and had only time to recollect that I had been
guided thither by a most friendly hand, and could not, perhaps,
find a better public opportunity to lay down a disguise which
began to resemble that of a detected masquerader.

I had therefore the task of avowing myself, to the numerous and
respectable company assembled, as the sole and unaided author of
these Novels of Waverley, the paternity of which was likely at
one time to have formed a controversy of some celebrity, for the
ingenuity with which some instructors of the public gave their
assurance on the subject was extremely persevering. I now think
it further necessary to say that, while I take on myself all the
merits and demerits attending these compositions, I am bound to
acknowledge with gratitude hints of subjects and legends which I
have received from various quarters, and have occasionally used
as a foundation of my fictitious compositions, or woven up with
them in the shape of episodes. I am bound, in particular, to
acknowledge the unremitting kindness of Mr. Joseph Train,
supervisor of excise at Dumfries, to whose unwearied industry I
have been indebted for many curious traditions and points of
antiquarian interest. It was Mr. Train who brought to my
recollection the history of Old Mortality, although I myself had
had a personal interview with that celebrated wanderer so far
back as about 1792, when I found him on his usual task. He was
then engaged in repairing the Gravestones of the Covenanters who
had died while imprisoned in the Castle of Dunnottar, to which
many of them were committed prisoners at the period of Argyle's