to his den at last; and so I e'en proposed to die at bay, like a buck of the first head.-But now, Janet, canna ye gie us some thing for supper?"

"Ou ay, sir, I'll brander the moor-fowl that John Heatherblutter brought in this morning; and ye see puir Davie's roast ing the black hen's eggs.—I daur say, Mr. Wauverley, ye never kend that a' the eggs that were sae weel roasted at supper in the Ha'-house were aye turned by our Davie?—there's no the like o' him ony gate for powtering wi' his fingers amang the he peat-ashes, and roasting eggs." Davie all this while lay with his nose almost in the fire, muzzling among the ashes, kicking his heels, mumbling to himself, turning the eggs as they lay in the hot embers, as if to confute the proverb, that "there goe reason to roasting of eggs," and justify the eulogium whic poor Janet poured out upon

"Him whom she loved, her idiot boy."

"Davie's no sae silly as folk tak him for, Mr. Wauverley; he wadna hae brought you here unless he had kend ye was a friend to his Honour-indeed the very dogs kend ye, Mr. Wauverley, for ye was aye kind to beast and body.-I can te you a story o' Davie, wi' his Honour's leave: His Honour, ye see, being under hiding in thae sair times-the mair's the pity -he lies a' day, and whiles a' night, in the cove in the dera hag; but though it's a bieldy eneugh bit, and the auld gudema o' Corse-Cleugh has panged it wi' a kemple o' strae amaist, y when the country's quiet, and the night very cauld, his Honour whiles creeps doun here to get a warm at the ingle, and a sleep amang the blankets, and gangs awa in the morning. And sa ae morning, siccan a fright as I got! Twa unlucky red-coat were up for black-fishing, or some siccan ploy-for the neb them's never out o' mischief-and they just got a glisk o' his Honour as he gaed into the wood, and banged aff a gun at hir I out like a jer-falcon, and cried,—'Wad they shoot an honest woman's poor innocent bairn?' And I fleyt at them, and threepit it was my son; and they damned and swuir at me that it was the auld rebel, as the villains ca'd his Honour; Davie was in the wood, and heard the tuilzie, and he, just out o' his ain head, got up the auld grey mantle that his Honour had flung off him to gang the faster, and he cam out o' the very same bit o' the wood, majoring and looking about sae like his Honour, that they were clean beguiled, and thought they had letten aff their gun at crack-brained Sawney, as they ca' him;

and

and they gae me saxpence, and twa saumon fish, to say naething about it.-Na, na, Davie's no just like other folk, puir fallow; but he's no sae silly as folk tak him for.-But, to be sure, how can we do eneugh for his Honour, when we and ours have lived on his ground this twa hundred years; and when he keepit my puir Jamie at school and college, and even at the Ha-house, till he gaed to a better place; and when he saved me frae being ta'en to Perth as a witch-Lord forgi'e them that would touch sic a puir silly auld body!—and has maintained puir Davie at heck and manger maist feck o' his life?"

Waverley at length found an opportunity to interrupt Janet's narrative, by an inquiry after Miss Bradwardine.

"She's weel and safe, thank God! at the Duchran," answered he Baron; "the laird's distantly related to us, and more early to my chaplain, Mr. Rubrick; and, though he be of Whig principles, yet he's not forgetful of auld friendship at his time. The Bailie's doing what he can to save something out of the wreck for puir Rose; but I doubt, I doubt, I shall never see her again, for I maun lay my banes in some far country."

"Hout na, your Honour," said old Janet, "ye were just as laff in the feifteen, and got the bonnie baronie back, an' a'. -And now the eggs is ready, and the muir-cock's brandered, and there's ilk ane a trencher and some saut, and the heel o' he white loaf that cam frae the Bailie's; and there's plenty 'brandy in the greybeard that Luckie Maclearie sent doun, and winna ye be suppered like princes?"

"I wish one Prince, at least, of our acquaintance, may be no worse off," said the Baron to Waverley, who joined him in cordial hopes for the safety of the unfortunate Chevalier.

They then began to talk of their future prospects. The Baron's plan was very simple. It was, to escape to France, where, by the interest of his old friends, he hoped to get some military employment, of which he still conceived himself capable. He invited Waverley to go with him, a proposal in which he acquiesced, providing the interest of Colonel Talbot should fail in procuring his pardon. Tacitly he hoped the Baron would sanction his addresses to Rose, and give him a right to assist him in his exile; but he forebore 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 a 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 hallam; 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 easy chair 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 he had been in a bed of down.

CHAPTER LXV

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, o 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 pre tending 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,

erm.

bout a mile from the village, though he was to remove at next Stanley's passport would be an answer to the officer ho commanded the military; and as to any of the country eople who might recognise Waverley, the Baron assured him e was in no danger of being betrayed by them.

“I believe,” said the old man, "half the people of the arony know that their poor auld laird is somewhere herebout; for I see they do not suffer a single bairn to come here bird-nesting; a practice, wkilk, when I was in full possession my power as baron, I was unable totally to inhibit. Nay, often find bits of things in my way, that the poor bodies, od help them! leave there, because they think they may be seful to me. I hope they will get a wiser master, and as kind

f

one as I was."

A natural sigh closed the sentence; but the quiet equaninity with which the Baron endured his misfortunes, had omething in it venerable and even sublime. There was no uitless repining, no turbid melancholy; he bore his lot, and he hardships which it involved, with a good-humoured, though erious composure, and used no violent language against the revailing party.

"I did what I thought my duty," said the good old man, and questionless they are doing what they think theirs. It rieves me sometimes to look upon these blackened walls of he house of my ancestors; but doubtless officers cannot lways keep the soldier's hand from depredation and spuilzie; nd 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 een as sad sights as Tully-Veolan now is, when I served with he Marechal Duke of Berwick. To be sure we may say with Virgilius Maro, Fuimus Troes—and there's the end of an auld ang. 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"hey were now standing below a steep rock. "We poor acobites," continued the Baron, looking up, are now like he conies in the Holy Scripture, (which the great traveller Pococke calleth Jerboa,) a feeble people, that make our abode n the rocks. So, fare you well, my good lad, till we meet at anet's in the even; for I must get into my Patmos, which is no easy matter for my 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 fee finally disappearing, coiled up like a huge snake entering hi retreat, or a long pedigree introduced with care and difficult into the narrow pigeon-hole of an old cabinet. Waverley ha the curiosity to clamber up and look in upon him in his der as the lurking-place might well be termed. Upon the whole, b looked not unlike that ingenious puzzle, called a reel in a bott the marvel of children, (and of some grown people too, mysel for one,) who can neither comprehend the mystery how it ha got in, or how it is to be taken out. The cave was ver narrow, too low in the roof to admit of his standing, or almo of his sitting up, though he made some awkward attempts the latter posture. His sole amusement was the perusal of h 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 sand-stone. As the cav was dry, and filled with clean straw and withered fern, 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 fa an old soidier." Neither, as he observed, was he withou sentries for the purpose of reconnoitring. Davie and his mother were constantly on the watch, to discover and aver danger; and it was singular what instances of address seeme 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 reco nised her at first sight as the old woman who had nursed hi 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 reco lected 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 imagina tion 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