The Two Drovers

About this book

This short story is based on an account Scott had heard many years previously of the trial and execution in Carlisle of a Highland cattle drover accused of the murder of an English drover. Scott's source, which he acknowledged in the 'Magnum Opus' edition of Chronicles of the Canongate (1831), was George Constable (1719 - 1803), a friend of his father and the model for Jonathan Oldbuck in The Antiquary. It has not been established to date whether Constable's anecdote refers to a historically verifiable case.