CHAPTER XXIX.

Waverley's Reception in the Lowlands after his Highland Tour

IT was noon when the two friends stood at the top of the pass of Bally-Brough. "I must go no farther, said Fergus Mac-Ivor, who, during this journey had in vain endeavoured to raise his friend's spirits. "If my cross-grained sister has any share in your dejection, trust me she thinks highly of you, though her present anxiety about the public cause prevents her listening to any other subject. Confide your interest to me; I will not betray it, providing you do not again assume that vile cockade."

"No fear of that, considering the manner in which it has been recalled. Adieu, Fergus; do not permit your sister to forget me."

"And adieu, Wayerley; you may soon hear of her with a prouder title. Get home, write letters, and make friends as many and as fast as you can; there will speedily be unexpected guests on the coast of Suffolk, or my news from France has deceived me.”

Thus parted the friends. Fergus returning back to his castle, while Edward, followed by Callum Beg, the latter transformed from point to point into a Lowcountry groom, proceeded to the little town of

Edward paced on under the painful, and yet not altogether embittered, feelings, which separation and uncertainty produce in the mind of a youthful lover. I am not sure if the ladies understand the full value of the influence of absence, nor do I think it wise to teach it them, lest, like the Clelias and Mandanes of yore, they should resume the humour of sending their lovers to banishment. Distance, in truth, produces in idea the same effect as in real perspective. Objects are softened, and rounded, and rendered doubly graceful;

the harsher and more ordinary points of character are melted down, and those by which it is remembered are the more striking outlines that mark sublimity, grace, or beauty. There are mists too in the mental, as well as the natural, horizon, to conceal what is less pleasing in distant objects, and there are happy lights, to stream in full glory upon those points which can profit by brilliant illumination.

Waverley forgot Flora Mac-Ivor's prejudices in her magnanimity, and almost pardoned her indifference towards his affections, when he recollected the grand and decisive object which seemed to fill her whole soul. She, whose sense of duty so wholly engrossed her in the cause of a benefactor, what would be her feelings in favour of the happy individual who should be so fortunate as to awaken them? Then came the doubtful question, whether he might not be that happy man-a question which fancy endeavoured to answer in the affirmative, by conjuring up all she had said in his praise, with the addition of a comment much more flattering than the text warranted. All that was commonplace, all that belonged to the every-day world, was melted away and obliterated in these dreams of imagination, which only remembered with advantage the points of grace and dignity that distinguished Flora from the generality of her sex, not the particulars which she held in common with them. Edward was, in short, in the fair way of creating a goddess out of a high-spirited, accomplished, and beautiful young woman; and the time was wasted in castle-building, until, at the descent of a steep hill, he saw beneath him the market town of

The Highland politeness of Callum Beg-(there are few nations, by the way, that can boast of so much natural politeness as the Highlanders)-the Highland civility of his attendant had not permitted him to disturb the reveries of our hero. But, observing him rouse himself at the sight of the village, Callum pressed closer to his side, and hoped, "when they can to

the public, his honour wad not say nothing about Vich Ian Vohr, for ta people were bitter whigs, deil burst tem.'

Waverley assured the prudent page that he would be cautious; and as he now distinguished, not, indeed, the ringing of bells, but the tinkling of something like a hammer against the side of an old mossy green, inverted porridge pot, that hung in an open booth, of the size and shape of a parrot's cage, erected to grace the east end of a building resembling an old barn, he asked Callum Beg if it were Sunday.

"Could na say just preceesely--Sunday seldom cam aboon the pass of Bally-Brough."

On entering the town, however, and advancing toward the most apparent public-house which presented itself, the numbers of old women, in tartan screens and red cloaks, who streamed from the barn-resembling building, debating, as they went, the comparative merits of the blessed youth Jabesh Rentowel, and that chosen vessel, Maister Goukthrapple, induced Callum to assure his temporary master, "that it was either ta mickle Sunday hersell, or ta little government Sunday that they ca'd ta fast."

Upon alighting at the sign of the Seven-branched Golden Candlestick, which, for the further delectation of the guests, was graced with a short Hebrew motto, they were received by mine host, a tall, thin, puritanical figure, who seemed to debate with himself whether he ought to give shelter to those who travelled on such a day. Reflecting, however, in all probability, that he possessed the power of mulcting them for this irregularity, a penalty which they might escape by passing into Gregor Duncanson's, at the sign of the Highlander and the Hawick Gill, Mr. Ebenezer Cruickshanks condescended to admit them into his dwelling.

To this sanctified person Waverley addressed his request, that he would procure him a guide, with a saddle-horse to carry his portmanteau to Edinburgh.

"And whare may ye be coming frae?" demanded mine host of the Candlestick.

"I have told you where I wish to go; I do not conceive any further information necessary either for the guide or his saddle-horse."

"Hem! Ahem!" returned he of the Candlestick, somewhat disconcerted at this rebuff. "It's the general fast, sir, and I cannot enter into ony carnal transactions on sic a day, when the people should be humbled, and the backsliders should return, as worthy Mr. Goukthrapple said; and, moreover, when, as the precious Mr. Jabesh Rentowel did weel observe, the land was mourning for covenants burnt, broken, and buried."

"My good friend, if you cannot let me have a horse and a guide, my servant shall seek them elsewhere."

"A weel! Your servant?-and what for gangs he no forward with you himsell?"

Waverley had but very little of a captain of horse's spirit within him--I mean of that sort of spirit which I have been obliged to, when I happened, in a máilcoach or diligence, to meet some military man who has kindly taken upon him the disciplining of the waiters, and the taxing of reckonings. Some of this useful talent our hero had, however, acquired during his military service, and on this gross provocation, it began seriously to arise. "Look ye, sir, I came here for my own accommodation, and not to answer impertinent questions. Either say you can, or cannot get me what I want; I shall pursue my course in ei

ther case.

Mr. Ebenezer Cruickshanks left the room with some indistinct muttering, but whether negative or acquiescent, Edward could not well distinguish. The hostess, a civil, quiet, laborious drudge, came to take his orders for dinner, but declined to make answer upon the subject of the horse and guide, for the Salique

law, it seems, extended to the stables of the Golden Candlestick.

From a window which overlooked the dark and narrow court in which Callum Beg dressed the horses after their journey, Waverley heard the following dialogue between the subtle foot-page of Vich Ian Vohr and his landlord.

"Ye'll be frae the north, young man?" began the latter.

"And ye may say that answered Callum.

"And ye'll hae ridden a lang way the day, it may weel be?"

"Sae long that I could weel tak a dram." "Gudewife, bring the gill stoup."

Here some compliments passed fitting the occasion, when my host of the Golden Candlestick, having, as he thought, opened his guest's heart by this hospitable propitiation, resumed his scrutiny.

"Ye'll not hae mickle better whiskey than that aboon the pass?"

"I am nae frae aboon the pass.'

"Ye're a Highlandman by your tongue ?" "Na, I am but just Aberdeen a-way."

"And did your master come from Aberdeen wi'

you?"

"Ay-that's when I left it mysell," answered the cool and impenetrable Callum Beg.

"And what kind of a gentleman is he?"

"I believe he is ane o' King George's state officers; at least he's aye for ganging on to the south, and he has a hantle silver, and never grudges ony thing till a poor body, or in the way of lawing.'

"He wants a guide and a horse frae this to Edinburgh ?"

t Ay, and ye maun find it him forthwith." "Ahem! It will be chargeable."

"He cares na for that a boddle."