Tacitly he hoped the Baron would sanction his addresses to Rose, and give him a right to assist him in his exile; but he forbore to speak on this subject until his own fate should be decided. They then talked of Glennaquoich, for whom the Baron expressed great anxiety, although, he observed, he was "the very Achilles of Horatius Flaccus,— Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer. Which," he continued, "has been thus rendered (vernacularly) by Struan Robertson,— A fiery etter-cap, a fractious chiel, As het as ginger and as stieve as steel. Flora had a large and unqualified share of the good old man's sympathy. It was now wearing late. Old Janet got into some kind of kennel behind the hallan; Davie had been long asleep, and snoring between Ban and Buscar. These dogs had followed him to the hut after the mansion-house was deserted, and there constantly resided; and their ferocity, with the old woman's reputation of being a witch, contributed a good deal to keep visitors from the glen. With this view, Bailie Macwheeble provided Janet underhand with meal for their maintenance, and also with little articles of luxury for his patron's use, in supplying which much precaution was necessarily used. After some compliments, the Baron occupied his usual couch, and Waverley reclined in an easychair of tattered velvet, which had once garnished the state bed-room of Tully-Veolan, for the furniture of this mansion was now scattered through all the cottages in the vicinity, and went to sleep as comfortably as if he had been in a bed of down. CHAPTER XXXVI. MORE EXPLANATION. WITH the first dawn of day old Janet was scuttling about the house to wake the Baron, who usually slept sound and heavily. "I must go back," he said to Waverley, " to my cove; will you walk down the glen wi' me?" They went out together, and followed a narrow and entangled foot-path which the occasional passage of anglers or wood-cutters had traced by the side of the stream. On their way the Baron explained to Waverley that he would be under no danger in remaining a day or two at Tully-Veolan, and even in being seen walking about, if he used the precaution of pretending that he was looking at the estate as agent or surveyor for an English gentleman who designed to be purchaser. With this view, he recommended to him to visit the bailie, who still lived at the factor's house, called Little Veolan, about a mile from the village, though he was to remove at next term. Stanley's passport would be an answer to the officer who commanded the military; and as to any of the country people who might recognize Waverley, the Baron assured him he was in no danger of being betrayed by them. I believe," said the old man, "half the people of the barony know that their poor auld laird is somewhere hereabout; for I see they do not suffer a single bairn to come here a bird-nesting, -a practice whilk, when I was in full possession of my power as baron, I was unable totally to inhibit. Nay, I often find bits of things in my way that the poor bodies, God help them! leave there because they think they may be useful to me. I hope they will get a wiser master and as kind a one as I was.” A natural sigh closed the sentence; but the quiet equanimity with which the Baron endured his misfortunes had something in it venerable and even sublime. There was no fruitless repining, no turbid melancholy; he bore his lot, and the hardships which it involved, with a good-humoured, though serious composure, and used no violent language against the prevailing party. "I did what I thought my duty," said the good old man, "and questionless they are doing what they think theirs. It grieves me sometimes to look upon these blackened walls of the house of my ancestors; but doubtless officers cannot always keep the soldier's hand from depredation and spuilzie ; and Gustavus Adolphus himself, as ye may read in Colonel Munro his Expedition with the worthy Scotch Regiment called Mackay's regiment,' did often permit it. Indeed, I have myself seen as sad sights as Tully-Veolan now is, when I served with the Maréchal Duke of Berwick. To be sure, we may say, with Virgilius Maro, Fuimus Troes,' and there's the end of an auld sang. But houses and families and men have a' stood lang eneugh when they have stood till they fall with honour and now I hae gotten a house that is not unlike a ' ; domus ultima," — they were now standing below a auld stiff limbs." With that he began to ascend the rock, striding, with the help of his hands, from one precarious footstep to another, till he got about half way up, where two or three bushes concealed the mouth of a hole, resembling an oven, into which the Baron insinuated, first his head and shoulders, and then, by slow gradation, the rest of his long body; his legs and feet finally disappearing, coiled up like a huge snake entering his retreat, or a long pedigree introduced with care and difficulty into the narrow pigeon-hole of an old cabinet. Waverley had the curiosity to clamber up and look in upon him in his den, as the lurking-place might well be termed. Upon the whole, he looked not unlike that ingenious puzzle called "a reel in a bottle," the marvel of children (and of some grown people too, myself for one), who can neither comprehend the mystery how it has got in, nor how it is to be taken out. The cave was very narrow, too low in the roof to admit of his standing, or almost of his sitting up, though he made some awkward attempts at the latter posture. His sole amusement was the perusal of his old friend Titus Livius, varied by occasionally scratching Latin proverbs and texts of Scripture with his knife on the roof and walls of his fortalice, which were of sandstone. As the cave was dry, and filled with clean straw and withered fern, "it made," as he said, coiling himself up with an air of snugness and comfort which contrasted strangely with his situation, "unless when the wind was due north, a very passable gite for an old soldier." Neither, as he observed, was he without sentries for the purpose of reconnoitring. Davie and his mother were constantly on the watch to discover and avert danger; and it was singular what instances of address seemed dictated by the instinctive attachment of the poor simpleton when his patron's safety was concerned. With Janet, Edward now sought an interview. He had recognized her at first sight as the old woman who had nursed him during his sickness after his delivery from Gifted Gilfillan. The hut also, though a little repaired, and somewhat better furnished, was certainly the place of his confinement; and he now recollected on the common moor of Tully-Veolan the trunk of a large decayed tree, called the "trysting-tree," which he had no doubt was the same at which the Highlanders rendezvoused on that memorable night. All this he had combined in his imagination the night before; but reasons, which may probably occur to the reader, prevented him from catechising Janet in the presence of the Baron. He now commenced the task in good earnest; and the first question was, Who was the young lady that visited the hut during his illness? Janet paused for a little; and then observed, that to keep the secret now would neither do good nor ill to anybody. It was just a leddy that hasna her equal in the world, Miss Rose Bradwardine!" |