CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. FIRST SERIES. VOLUME TWO CONTAINS THE SURGEON'S DAUGHTER. IN TWO VOLUMES. II. PARKER'S EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED, WITH A GENERAL PREFACE, AN INTRODUCTION ΤΟ EACH NOVEL, AND NOTES, INTRODUCTION ΤΟ THE SURGEON'S DAUGHTER. THE Author has nothing to say now in reference to this little Novel, but that the principal incident on which it turns, was narrated to him one morning at breakfast by his worthy friend, Mr. Train, of Castle Douglas, in Galloway, whose kind assistance he has so often had occasion to acknowledge in the course of these prefaces; and that the military friend who is alluded to as having furnished him with some information as to Eastern matters, was Colonel James Ferguson of Huntly Burn, one of the sons of the venerable historian and philosopher of that name-which name he took the liberty of concealing under its Gaelic forın of Mac-Erries. W. S ABBOTSFORD, APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION [Mr. Train was requested by Sir Walter Scott to give him in writing the story as nearly as possible in the shape in which he had told it; but the following narrative, which he drew up accordingly, did not reach Abbotsford until July 1832.] IN the old Stock of Fife, there was not perhaps an individual whose exertions were followed by consequences of such a remarkable nature as those of Davie Duff, popularly called "The Thane of Fife," who, from a very humble parentage, rose to fill one of the chairs of the magistracy of his native burgh. By industry and economy in early life, he obtained the means of erecting, solely on his own account, one of those ingenious manufactories for which Fifeshire is justly celebrated. From the day on which the industrious artisan first took his seat at the Council Board, he attended so much to the interests of the little privileged community, that civic honours were conferred on him as rapidly as the Set of the Royalty* could legally admit. To have the right of walking to church on holyday, preceded by a phalanx of halberdiers, in habiliments fashioned as in former times, seems, in the eyes of many a guild brother, to be a very enviable pitch of worldly *The Constitution of the Borough. |