CHAPTER XV.

A Creagh, and its Consequences.

WHEN Edward had been a guest at Tully-Veolan nearly six weeks, he descried, one morning as he took his usual walk before the breakfast hour, signs of unusual perturbation in the family. Four bare-legged dairy-maids, with each an empty milk-pail in her hand, ran about with frantic gestures, and uttering loud exclamations of surprise, grief, and resentment. From their

appearance, a pagan might have conceived them a detachment of the celebrated Belides, just come from their baleing penance. As nothing was to be got from this distracted chorus, excepting « Lord guide us!» and « Eh sirs!» ejaculations which threw no light upon the cause of their dismay, Waverley repaired to the forecourt, as it was called, where he beheld Baillie Macwheeble cantering his white poney down the avenue with all the speed it could muster. He had arrived, it would seem, upon a hasty summons, and was followed by half a score of

peasants from the village, who had no great difficulty in keeping pace with him.

The Baillie, greatly too busy, and too important, to enter into explanations with Edward, summoned forth Mr Saunderson, who appeared with a countenance in which dismay was mingled with solemnity, and they immediately entered into close conference. Davie Gellatley was also seen in the group, idle as Diogenes at Sinope, while his countrymen were preparing for a siege. His spirits always rose with any thing, good or bad, which occasioned tumult, and he continued frisking, hopping, dancing, and singing the burden of an old ballad,

Our gear's a' gane,»

until, happening to pass too near the Baillie, he received an admonitory hint from his horsewhip, which converted his songs into lamentation.

Passing from thence towards the garden, Waverley beheld the Baron in person, measuring and re-measuring, with swift and tremendous strides, the length of the terrace; his countenance clouded with offended pride and indignation, and the whole of his demeanour such as seemed to indicate, that any enquiry concerning the cause of his discomposure would give pain at least, if not offence. Waverley therefore glided into the house, without addressing him, and took his way to the breakfast parlour, where

he found his young friend Rose, who, though she neither exhibited the resentment of her father, the turbid importance of Baillie Macwheeble, nor the despair of the handmaidens, seemed vexed and thoughtful. A single word explained the mystery. «Your breakfast will be a disturbed one, Captain Waverley. A party of Catherans have come down upon us last night, and driven off all our milch cows.»

« A party of Catherans?»

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«Yes; robbers from the neighbouring Highlands. We used to be quite free from them while we paid black mail to Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich Ian Vohr; but my father thought it unworthy of his rank and birth to pay it any longer, and so this disaster has happened. It is not the value of the cattle, Captain Waverley, that vexes me; but my father is so much hurt at the affront, and is so bold and hot, that I fear he will try to recover them by the strong hand; and then, if he is not hurt himself, he will hurt some of these wild people, and there will be no peace between them and us perhaps for our lifetime; and we cannot defend ourselves as in old times, for the government have taken all our arms; and my dear father is so rash-O what will become of us!»Here poor Rose lost heart altogether, and burst into a flood of tears.

The Baron entered at this moment, and rebuked her with more asperity than Waverley had ever heard him use to any one. << Was it not a a shame," he said, « that she should exhibit her

self before any gentleman in such a light, as if she shed tears for a drove of horned nolt and milch kine, like the daughter of a Cheshire yeoman!-Captain Waverley, I must request your favourable construction of her grief, which may, or ought to proceed solely from seeing her father's estate exposed to spulzie and depredation from common thieves and sornars, while we are not allowed to keep a half score of muskets, whether for defence or rescue.»

Baillie Macwheeble entered immediately afterwards, and, by his report of arms and ammunition, confirmed this statement, informing the Baron, in a melancholy voice, that though the people would certainly obey his honour's orders, yet was there no chance of their following the gear to any guid purpose, in respect there were only his honour's body servants who had swords and pistols, and the depredators were twelve Highlanders, completely armed after the manner of their country.-Having delivered this doleful annunciation, he assumed a posture of silent dejection, shaking his head slowly with the motion of a pendulum when it is ceasing to vibrate, and then remained stationary, his body stooping at a more acute angle than usual, and the latter part of his person projected in proportion.

The Baron, meanwhile, paced the room in silent indignation, and at length fixing his eye upon an old portrait, whose person was clad in armour, and whose features glared grimly out of a huge bush of hair, part of which descended

from his head to his shoulders, and part from his chin and upper lip to his breast-plate,—« That gentleman, Captain Waverley, my grandsire, with two hundred horse, whom he levied within his own bounds, discomfited and put to the rout more than five hundred of these Highland reivers, who have been ever lapis offensionis, et petra scandali, a stumbling block and a rock of offence to the Lowland vicinage-He discomfited them, I say, when they had the temerity to descend to harry this country, in the time of the civil dissensions, in the year of grace sixteen hundred forty and two. And now, sir, I, his grandson, am thus used at such unworthy hands!»

Here there was an awful pause; after which all the company, as is usual in cases of difficulty, began to give separate and inconsistent counsel. Alexander ab Alexandro proposed they should send some one to compound with the Catherans, who would readily, he said, give up their prey for a dollar a-head. The Baillie opined that this transaction would amount to theft-boot, or composition of felony; and he recommended that some canny hand should be sent up to the glens to make the best bargain he could, as it were for himself, so that the Laird might not be seen in such a transaction. Edward proposed to send off to the nearest garrison for a party of soldiers and a magistrate's warrant; and Rose, as far as she dared, endeavoured to insinuate the course