his hand upon his sword, Waverley lifted his head as if he had just awaked from a dream, and asked, with great composure, what the mat

ter was."

L "

« Well, and did not the laughter they fell into at his absence of mind serve better to break off the dispute, than any thing he could have said to them?>>

« True, but not quite so creditably for Waverley, as if he had brought them to their senses by force of reason.">

« Would you have him peace-maker general between all the gun-powder Highlanders in the army? I beg your pardon, Flora, your brother, you know, is out of the question; he has more sense than half of them. But can you think the fierce, hot, furious spirits, of whose brawls we see much and hear more, and who terrify me out of my life every day in the world, are at all to be compared to Waverley?">

<< I do not compare him with those uneducated men, my dear Rose. I only lament that, with his talents and genius, he does not assume that place in society for which they eminently fit him, and that he does not lend their full impulse to the noble cause in which he has enlisted. Are there not Lochiel, and P-, and M-, and G——, all men of the highest education, as well as the first talents, why will he not stoop like them to be alive and useful?--I often believe his

zeal is frozen by that proud cold-blooded Eng

lishman, whom he now lives with so much.

« Colonel Talbot-he is a very disagreeable person, to be sure. He looks as if he thought no Scottish woman worth the trouble of handing her a cup of tea. But Waverley is so gentle, so well-informed».

«Yes, he can admire the moon, and quote a stanza from Tasso.»

« Besides, you know how he fought.»>

<< For mere fighting,» answered Flora, « I believe all men (that is, who deserve the name) are pretty much alike: there is generally more courage required to run away. They have besides, when confronted with each other, a certain instinct for strife, as we see in other male animals, such as dogs, bulls, and so forth. But high and perilous enterprize is not Waverley's forte. He would never have been his celebrated ancestor Sir Nigel, but only Sir Nigel's eulogist and poet. I will tell you where he will be at home, my dear, and in his place,-in the quiet circle of domestic happiness, lettered indolence, and elegant enjoyments of Waverley-Honour. And he will refit the old library in the most exquisite Gothic taste, and garnish its shelves with the rarest and most valuable volumes; and he will draw plans and landscapes, and write verses, and rear temples, and dig grottoes; and he will stand in a clear summer night in the colonnade before the hall, and gaze on the deer as they stray in the moonlight, or lie shadowed by the boughs of the huge old fantastic oaks; and he

will repeat verses to his beautiful wife, who shall hang upon his arm;-and he will be a happy

man."

« And she will be a happy woman,» thought poor Rose. But she only sighed, and dropped the conversation.

CHAPTER VI.

Fergus, a Suitor.

WAVERLEY had, indeed, as he looked closer upon the state of the Chevalier's court, less reason to be satisfied with it. It contained, as they say an acorn includes all the ramifications of the future oak, as many seeds of tracasserie and intrigue, as might have done honour to the court of a large empire. Every person of importance had some separate object, which he pursued with a fury that Waverley considered as altogether disproportioned to its importance. Almost all had their causes of discontent, although the most legitimate was that of the worthy old Baron, who was only distressed on account of the common cause.

<< We will hardly," said he one morning to Waverley when they had been viewing the castle, << we will hardly gain the obsidional crown, which you wot well was made of the roots or grain which takes root within the place besieged, or it may be of the herb woodbind, parietaria, or

pellitory; we will not, I say, gain it by this same blockade or leaguer of Edinburgh Castle.» For this opinion, he gave most learned and satisfactory reasons, that the reader may not care to hear repeated.

« I

Having escaped from the old gentleman, Waverley went to Fergus's lodgings by appointment, to await his return from Holyrood-House. am to have a particular audience to-morrow, said Fergus to Waverley, over-night, « and you must meet me to wish me joy of the success which I securely anticipate.»>

The morrow came, and in the Chief's apartment he found Ensign Maccombich waiting to make report of his turn of duty in a sort of ditch which they had dug across the Castle-hill, and called a trench. In a short time the Chief's voice was heard on the stair in a tone of impatient fury, Callum,—why, Callum Beg,-Diaoul!» He entered the room with all the marks of a man agitated by a towering passion; and there were few upon whose features rage produced a more violent effect. The veins of his forehead swelled when he was in such agitation; his nostril became dilated; his cheek and eye inflamed; and his look that of a demoniac. These appearances of halfsuppressed rage were the more frightful, because they were obviously caused by a strong effort to temper with discretion an almost ungovernable paroxysm of passion, and resulted from an internal conflict of the most dreadful kind, which agitated his whole frame of mortality.