"I do, as far as Perth; where ye may be supplied with a guide to Embro', as your occasions shall require." Thus saying, he placed under Waverley's eye the bill, which he held in his hand; and at the same time, self-invited, filled a glass of wine, and drank devoutly to a blessing on their journey. Waverley stared at the man's impudence, but, as their connexion was to be short, and promised to be convenient, he made no observation upon it; and having paid his reckoning, expressed his intention to depart immediately. He mounted Dermid accordingly, and sallied forth from the Golden Candlestick, followed by the puritanical figure we have described, after he had, at the expense of some time and difficulty, and by the assistance of a “louping-on-stane," or structure of masonry, erected for the traveller's convenience in front of the house, elevated his person to the back of a longbacked, raw-boned, thin-gutted phantom of a brokendown bloodhorse, on which Waverley's portmanteau was deposited. Our hero, though not in a very gay humour, could hardly help laughing at the appearance of his new squire, and at imagining the astonishment which his person and equipage would have excited at Waverley-Honour. Edward's tendency to mirth did not escape mine host of the Candlestick, who, conscious of the cause, infused a double portion of souring into the pharisaical leaven of his countenance, and resolved internally that, in one way or other, the young Englisher should pay dearly for the contempt with which he seemed to regard him. Callum also stood at the gate, and enjoyed, with undissembled glee,the ridiculous figure of Mr. Cruickshanks. As Waverley passed him, he pulled off his hat respectfully, and, approaching his stirrup, bade him "Take heed the auld whig played him nae cantrap." Waverley once more thanked, and bade him farewell, and then rode briskly onward, not sorry to be out of hearing of the shouts of the children, as they -beheld old Ebenezer rise and sink in his stirrups, to avoid the concussions occasioned by a hard trot upon a half paved street. The village of soon several miles behind him. was CHAPTER XXX. Shows that the Loss of a Horse's Shoe may be a serious Inconvenience. THE manner and air of Waverley, but above all the glittering contents of his purse, and the indifference with which he seemed to regard them, somewhat overawed his companion, and deterred him from making any attempts to enter upon conversation. His own reflections were moreover agitated by variour surmises, and by plans of self-interest, with which these were immediately connected. The travellers journeyed, therefore, in silence, until it was interrupted by the annunciation, on the part of the guide, that his "naig had lost a fore-foot shoe, which, doubtless, his honour would consider it was his part to replace." This was what lawyers call a fishing question, calculated to ascertain how far Waverley was disposed to submit to petty imposition. "My part to replace your horse's shoe, you rascal?" said Waverley, mistaking the purport of the intimation., "Indubitably," answered Mr. Cruickshanks; 66 though there was no precise clause to that effect, it canna be expected that I am to pay for the casualties whilk may befall the puir naig while in your honour' service-naitheless if your honour" Oh, you mean I am to pay the farrier; but where shall we find one?" Rejoiced at discerning there would be no objec tion made on the part of his temporary master, Mr. Cruickshanks assured him that Cairnvreckan, a village which they were about to enter, was happy in an excellent blacksmith; " but as he was a professor, he would drive a nail for no man on the Sabbath, or kirk fast, unless it were in case of absolute necessity, for which he always charged sixpence each shoe." The most important part of this communication, in the opinion of the speaker, made a very slight impression on the hearer, who only internally wondered what college this veterinary professor belonged to, not aware that the word was used to denote any person who pretended to uncommon sanctity of faith and manners. As they entered the village of Cairnvreckan, they speedily distinguished the smith's house. Being also a public, it was two stories high, and proudly reared its crest, covered with gray slate, above the thatched hovels by which it was surrounded. The adjoining smithy betokened none of the Sabbatical silence and repose which Ebenezer had augured from the sanctity of his friend. On the contrary, hammer clashed and anvil rang, the bellows groaned, and the whole apparatus of Vulcan appeared to be in full activity. Nor was the labour of a rural and pacific nature. The master smith, benempt, as his sign intimated, John Mucklewrath, with two assistants, toiled busily in arranging, repairing, and furbishing old muskets, pistols, and swords, which lay scattered around his workshop in military confusion. The open shed, containing the forge, was crowded with persons who came and went as if receiving and communicating important news; and a single glance at the aspect of the people who traversed the street in haste, or stood assembled in groups, with eyes elevated, and hands uplifted, announced that some extraordinary intelligence was agitating the public mind of the municipality of Cairnvreckan. "There is some news," said my host of the Candlestick, pushing his lantern-jaw ed visage and bare-boned nag, rudely forward into the crowd-" there is some news, and if it please my Creator, I will forthwith obtain speerings thereof." Waverley, with better regulated curiosity than his attendant, dismounted, and gave his horse to a boy, who stood idling near. It arose, perhaps, from the shyness of his character in early youth, that he felt dislike at applying to a stranger even for casual information, without previously glancing at his physiognomy and appearance. While he looked about in order to select the person with whom he would most willingly hold communication, the buzz around saved him in some degree the trouble of interrogatories. The names of Lochiel, Clanronald, Glengary, and other distinguished Highland chiefs, among whom Vich Ian Vohr was repeatedly mentioned, were as familiar in men's mouths as household words: and from the alarm generally expressed, he easily conceived that their descent into the Lowlands, at the head of their armed tribes, had either already taken place, or was instantly apprehended. Ere Waverley could ask particulars, a strong, large-boned, hard featured woman, about forty, dressed as if her clothes had been flung on with a pitchfork, her cheeks flushed with a scarlet red where they were not smutted with soot and lamp-black, jostled through the crowd, and, brandishing high a child of two years old, which she danced in her arms, without regard to its screams of terror, sang forth, with all her might "Charlie is my darling, my darling, my darling, The young chevalier. "D'ye hear what's come ower ye now, ye whingeing whig carles? D'ye here wha's coming to cow yere cracks? Little wot ye wha's coming, Little wot ye wha's coming, A' the wild Macraws are coming.” The Vulcan of Cairnvreckan, who acknowledged his Venus, in this exulting bacchanal, regarded her with a grim and ire-foreboding countenance, while some of the senators of the village hastened to interpose. "Whisht, gudewife: is this a time, or is this a day, to be singing your ranting fule-sangs in?-a time when the wine of wrath is poured out without mixture in the cup of indignation, and a day when the land should give testimony against popery and prelacy, and quakerism, and independency, and supremacy, and erastianism, and antinomianism, and a' the errors of the church." "And that's a' your whiggery," re-echoed the virago," that's a' your whiggery, and your presbytery, ye cut-legged graning carles. What d'ye think the lads with the kelts will care for yere synods and yere presbyteries, and yere buttock mail, and yere stool o' repentance? Vengeance on the black face o't! mony an honester woman's been set upon it than streeks doon beside ony whig in the country. I mysell". Here John Mucklewrath, who dreaded her entering upon a detail of personal experiences, interposed his matrimonial authority," Gae hame, and be d-, (that I should say sae,) and put on the sowens for supper." "And you, ye doil'd dotard," replied his gentle helpmate, her wrath, which had hitherto wandered abroad over the whole assembly, being at once and violently impelled into its natural channel," ye stand there hammering dog-heads for fules that will never snap them at a Highlandman, instead of earning bread for your family, and shoeing this winsome young gentleman's horse that's just come frae the north. Ise warrant him none of your whingeing King George folk, but a gallant Gordon, at the least o' him." The eyes of the assembly were now turned upon |