Old Mortality (originally called The Tale of Old Mortality) is an 1816 historical novel by Sir Walter Scott. It's the second in the Tales of My Landlord series, a subset of the Waverley novels.
Set in southwest Scotland in the late 1600s, the story revolves around Henry Morton, a Covenanter's son. Henry gives shelter to John Balfour, a man who turns out to be wanted for the murder of Archbishop James Sharp, and becomes an outlaw as a result. He joins Balfour in the Covenanter uprising and witnesses the Battle of Drumclog, followed by the Covenanters' disintegration and defeat.
The novel is in the public domain and available on Gutenberg
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Old Mortality contains examples of:
- Affably Evil: Claverhouse, though Scott doesn't treat him as a full-blown monster.
- Babies Ever After: Cuddie and Jenny have at least three children during the time-skip. In the epilogue it's briefly mentioned that Henry and Edith also had children.
- Bittersweet Ending: Lord Evandale dies, but Basil's death means Lady Margaret regains her lands while Henry and Edith are finally able to marry.
- Character Title: Well, Character Nickname Title. "Old Mortality" is the nickname of Robert Paterson, a minor character.
- Composite Character: John Balfour is one of Sharp's assassins and is identified as John Balfour of Burley (sic). Historically there was a John Balfour of Burleigh, who wasn't a covenanter and had nothing to do with the assassination. The real assassin was John Balfour of Kinloch. Scott appears to have been confused by the identical names rather than actually combining the two historical figures into one character.
- Death of the Hypotenuse: Lord Evandale dies, allowing Henry and Edith to marry.
- Defiant to the End: Francis Stewart. Even when he's been stabbed three times and is dying, he takes the time to tell his killer that he isn't afraid to die.
- Direct Line to the Author: Taken to extremes. Scott claims he got the story from Peter Pattieson, who got it from Jedediah Cleishbotham, who got it from Old Mortality.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Truth in Television, as it's standard practice to refer to aristocrats by their titles rather than their names.
- Lord Evandale's name is William Maxwell, but this is mentioned only once and easily overlooked. The rest of the time he's referred to by his title.
- Played with in Claverhouse's case. He's usually called Claverhouse, but his real name (John Grahame) is mentioned too, and Scott sometimes calls him Grahame.
- John Balfour of Burley provides a non-aristocratic version: the narration regularly calls him Burley.
- First-Person Peripheral Narrator: An odd case. The first chapter is narrated by Jedediah Cleishbotham and is set years after the main plot. From then the narration switches to the third person to follow Henry.
- The Fundamentalist: The Covenanters, and especially the Cameronians. It's clear Scott wasn't fond of them. Mause in particular gets herself and her son kicked out of every place they could take shelter because of her inability to keep her mouth shut about her opinions.
- Funetik Aksent: Used regularly. Niel Blane's speech is especially incomprehensible.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: On the one hand the Covenanters are fundamentalists and mostly unpleasant people to be around. On the other they have legitimate grievances about the way the government's treated them.
- Historical Character's Fictional Relative: Francis Stewart of Bothwell is said to be descended from and named after Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell.
- Historical Domain Character: Many of them. John Balfour (who really did murder Archbishop Sharp), Old Mortality himself, and John Grahame of Claverhouse are some of the most notable ones.
- Honour Before Reason: Lord Evandale plans to join a rebellion he doesn't believe in, on the side of a king he doesn't support, because he feels it's his duty. Edith lampshades how stupid this is.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Francis Stewart gets impaled three times, courtesy of John Balfour.
- Killed Offscreen: Claverhouse disappears from the story after the time-skip and is briefly mentioned to have been killed.
- Love Triangle: Henry Morton and Edith Bellenden love each other, while Lord Evandale loves Edith.
- Mutual Kill: After being shot Burley drags the soldier who shot him into the river and they both drown.
- Never Trust a Title: Old Mortality appears only once and has nothing to do with the plot.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Cuddie's name is Cuthbert, but virtually no one calls him that.
- Persecution Flip: When the Stuarts are on the throne the Covenanters are forced to meet in secret. When William and Mary are on the throne the situation is reversed and the Jacobites are forced to meet in secret.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Covenanters are a deconstruction. They're mostly poor farmers with very few weapons and no military training, they're divided by their own disagreements, and with the exception of their first battle they lose badly against the better-armed, better-trained royalist army.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Everyone thinks Henry drowned in a shipwreck. He wrote to Edith after his supposed death, but the letter never reached her.
- Running Gag: Every time Lady Margaret appears she will find some way to tell everyone about the time Charles II visited Tillietudlem.
- Shoot the Messenger: Claverhouse sends his nephew Richard Grahame to ask the Covenanters to surrender. Burley shoots him in the middle of his message. This backfires on Burley when it motivates the royalists to avenge Grahame.
- Terms of Endangerment: Francis Stewart refers to strangers as "beloved" while trying to start a fight with them.
- Villainous Rescue: Henry is captured and about to be murdered by the Cameronians. Then he hears horses approaching, Claverhouse arrives with a group of soldiers, and minutes later Henry is free and the Cameronians are prisoners or dead. Cuddie explains that he met Claverhouse while looking for help and told him where he could find a group of rebels.
- We ARE Struggling Together: The Covenanters' factional in-fighting dooms any chance they had of success.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The epilogue explains what happened after Lord Evandale's death: Lady Margaret regained her lands, Henry and Edith married, and Cuddie never told anyone he shot Basil.
