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's-breadth '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.