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WAVERLEY;

OR,

'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE.

VOL. II.

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WAVERLEY;

OR,

'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE.

CHAPTER I.

A Stag-hunting and its Consequences.

SHALL this be a short or a long chapter?This is a question in which you, gentle, reader, have no vote, however much you may be interested in the consequences; just as probably you may (like myself) have nothing to do with the imposing a new tax, excepting the trifling circumstance of being obliged to pay it. More happy surely in the present case, since,

though it lies within my arbitrary power to extend my materials as I think proper, I cannot call you into Exchequer if you do not think proper to read my narrative. Let me therefore consider. It is true, that the annals and documents in my hands say but little of this Highland chase; but then I can find copious materials for description elsewhere. There is old Lindsay of Pitscottie ready at my elbow, with his Athole hunting, and his "lofted and joisted palace of green timber; with all kind of drink to be had in burgh and land, as ale, beer, wine, muscadel, malvasie, hippocras, and aquavita; with wheat-bread, main-bread, ginge-bread, beef, mutton, lamb, veal, venison, goose, grice, capon, coney, crane, swan, partridge, plover, duck, drake, brissel-cock, pawnies, black-cock, muir-fowl, and capercailzies;" not forgetting the costly bedding, vaiselle, and napry," and least of all the "excelling stewards, cunning baxters, excellent cooks, and pottingars, with confections and drugs

"

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