Waverley Part 44

As he advanced northward, the traces of war became visible. Broken carriages, dead horses, unroofed cottages, trees felled for palisades, and bridges destroyed or only partially repaired-all indicated the movements of hostile armies. In those places where the gentry were attached to the Stuart cause, their houses seemed dismantled or deserted, the usual course of what may be called ornamental labour was totally interrupted, and the inhabitants were seen gliding about, with fear, sorrow, and dejection on their faces.

It was evening when he approached the village of Tully-Veolan, with feelings and sentiments-how different from those which attended his first entrance! Then, life was so new to him that a dull or disagreeable day was one of the greatest misfortunes which his imagination antic.i.p.ated, and it seemed to him that his time ought only to be consecrated to elegant or amusing study, and relieved by social or youthful frolic. Now, how changed! how saddened, yet how elevated was his character, within the course of a very few months! Danger and misfortune are rapid, though severe teachers. 'A sadder and a wiser man,' he felt in internal confidence and mental dignity a compensation for the gay dreams which in his case experience had so rapidly dissolved.

As he approached the village he saw, with surprise and anxiety, that a party of soldiers were quartered near it, and, what was worse, that they seemed stationary there. This he conjectured from a few tents which he beheld glimmering upon what was called the Common Moor. To avoid the risk of being stopped and questioned in a place where he was so likely to be recognised, he made a large circuit, altogether avoiding the hamlet, and approaching the upper gate of the avenue by a by-path well known to him. A single glance announced that great changes had taken place. One half of the gate, entirely destroyed and split up for firewood, lay in piles, ready to be taken away; the other swung uselessly about upon its loosened hinges. The battlements above the gate were broken and thrown down, and the carved bears, which were said to have done sentinel's duty upon the top for centuries, now, hurled from their posts, lay among the rubbish. The avenue was cruelly wasted. Several large trees were felled and left lying across the path; and the cattle of the villagers, and the more rude hoofs of dragoon horses, had poached into black mud the verdant turf which Waverley had so much admired.

Upon entering the court-yard, Edward saw the fears realised which these circ.u.mstances had excited. The place had been sacked by the King's troops, who, in wanton mischief, had even attempted to burn it; and though the thickness of the walls had resisted the fire, unless to a partial extent, the stables and out-houses were totally consumed. The towers and pinnacles of the main building were scorched and blackened; the pavement of the court broken and shattered, the doors torn down entirely, or hanging by a single hinge, the windows dashed in and demolished, and the court strewed with articles of furniture broken into fragments. The accessaries of ancient distinction, to which the Baron, in the pride of his heart, had attached so much importance and veneration, were treated with peculiar contumely. The fountain was demolished, and the spring which had supplied it now flooded the court-yard. The stone basin seemed to be destined for a drinking-trough for cattle, from the manner in which it was arranged upon the ground. The whole tribe of bears, large and small, had experienced as little favour as those at the head of the avenue, and one or two of the family pictures, which seemed to have served as targets for the soldiers, lay on the ground in tatters. With an aching heart, as may well be imagined, Edward viewed this wreck of a mansion so respected. But his anxiety to learn the fate of the proprietors, and his fears as to what that fate might be, increased with every step. When he entered upon the terrace new scenes of desolation were visible. The bal.u.s.trade was broken down, the walls destroyed, the borders overgrown with weeds, and the fruit-trees cut down or grubbed up. In one compartment of this old-fas.h.i.+oned garden were two immense horse-chestnut trees, of whose size the Baron was particularly vain; too lazy, perhaps, to cut them down, the spoilers, with malevolent ingenuity, had mined them and placed a quant.i.ty of gunpowder in the cavity. One had been s.h.i.+vered to pieces by the explosion, and the fragments lay scattered around, enc.u.mbering the ground it had so long shadowed. The other mine had been more partial in its effect. About one-fourth of the trunk of the tree was torn from the ma.s.s, which, mutilated and defaced on the one side, still spread on the other its ample and undiminished boughs. [Footnote: A pair of chestnut trees, destroyed, the one entirely and the other in part, by such a mischievous and wanton act of revenge, grew at Invergarry Castle, the fastness of MacDonald of Glengarry.]

Amid these general marks of ravage, there were some which more particularly addressed the feelings of Waverley. Viewing the front of the building thus wasted and defaced, his eyes naturally sought the little balcony which more properly belonged to Rose's apartment, her troisieme, or rather cinquieme, etage. It was easily discovered, for beneath it lay the stage-flowers and shrubs with which it was her pride to decorate it, and which had been hurled from the bartizan; several of her books were mingled with broken flower-pots and other remnants. Among these Waverley distinguished one of his own, a small copy of Ariosto, and gathered it as a treasure, though wasted by the wind and rain.

While, plunged in the sad reflections which the scene excited, he was looking around for some one who might explain the fate of the inhabitants, he heard a voice from the interior of the building singing, in well-remembered accents, an old Scottish song:-

They came upon us in the night, And brake my bower and slew my knight; My servants a' for life did flee, And left us in extremitie.

They slew my knight, to me sae dear; They slew my knight, and drave his gear; The moon may set, the sun may rise, But a deadly sleep has closed his eyes.

[Footnote: The first three couplets are from an old ballad, called the Border Widow's Lament.]

'Alas,' thought Edward, 'is it thou? Poor helpless being, art thou alone left, to gibber and moan, and fill with thy wild and unconnected sc.r.a.ps of minstrelsy the halls that protected thee?' He then called, first low, and then louder, 'Davie-Davie Gellatley!'

The poor simpleton showed himself from among the ruins of a sort of greenhouse, that once terminated what was called the terrace- walk, but at first sight of a stranger retreated, as if in terror. Waverley, remembering his habits, began to whistle a tune to which he was partial, which Davie had expressed great pleasure in listening to, and had picked up from him by the ear. Our hero's minstrelsy no more equalled that of Blondel than poor Davie resembled Coeur de Lion; but the melody had the same effect of producing recognition. Davie again stole from his lurking-place, but timidly, while Waverley, afraid of frightening him, stood making the most encouraging signals he could devise. 'It's his ghaist,' muttered Davie; yet, coming nearer, he seemed to acknowledge his living acquaintance. The poor fool himself appeared the ghost of what he had been. The peculiar dress in which he had been attired in better days showed only miserable rags of its whimsical finery, the lack of which was oddly supplied by the remnants of tapestried hangings, window-curtains, and shreds of pictures with which he had bedizened his tatters. His face, too, had lost its vacant and careless air, and the poor creature looked hollow-eyed, meagre, half-starved, and nervous to a pitiable degree. After long hesitation, he at length approached Waverley with some confidence, stared him sadly in the face, and said, 'A' dead and gane-a' dead and gane.'

'Who are dead?' said Waverley, forgetting the incapacity of Davie to hold any connected discourse.

'Baron, and Bailie, and Saunders Saunderson, and Lady Rose that sang sae sweet-a' dead and gane-dead and gane;

But follow, follow me, While glowworms light the lea, I'll show ye where the dead should be- Each in his shroud, While winds pipe loud, And the red moon peeps dim through the cloud.

Follow, follow me; Brave should he be That treads by night the dead man's lea.'

With these words, chanted in a wild and earnest tone, he made a sign to Waverley to follow him, and walked rapidly towards the bottom of the garden, tracing the bank of the stream which, it may be remembered, was its eastern boundary. Edward, over whom an involuntary shuddering stole at the import of his words, followed him in some hope of an explanation. As the house was evidently deserted, he could not expect to find among the ruins any more rational informer.

Davie, walking very fast, soon reached the extremity of the garden, and scrambled over the ruins of the wall that once had divided it from the wooded glen in which the old tower of Tully- Veolan was situated. He then jumped down into the bed of the stream, and, followed by Waverley, proceeded at a great pace, climbing over some fragments of rock and turning with difficulty round others. They pa.s.sed beneath the ruins of the castle; Waverley followed, keeping up with his guide with difficulty, for the twilight began to fall. Following the descent of the stream a little lower, he totally lost him, but a twinkling light which he now discovered among the tangled copse-wood and bushes seemed a surer guide. He soon pursued a very uncouth path; and by its guidance at length reached the door of a wretched hut. A fierce barking of dogs was at first heard, but it stilled at his approach. A voice sounded from within, and he held it most prudent to listen before he advanced.

'Wha hast thou brought here, thou unsonsy villain, thou?' said an old woman, apparently in great indignation. He heard Davie Gellatley in answer whistle a part of the tune by which he had recalled himself to the simpleton's memory, and had now no hesitation to knock at the door. There was a dead silence instantly within, except the deep growling of the dogs; and he next heard the mistress of the hut approach the door, not probably for the sake of undoing a latch, but of fastening a bolt. To prevent this Waverley lifted the latch himself.

In front was an old wretched-looking woman, exclaiming, 'Wha comes into folk's houses in this gate, at this time o' the night?' On one side, two grim and half-starved deer greyhounds laid aside their ferocity at his appearance, and seemed to recognise him. On the other side, half concealed by the open door, yet apparently seeking that concealment reluctantly, with a c.o.c.ked pistol in his right hand and his left in the act of drawing another from his belt, stood a tall bony gaunt figure in the remnants of a faded uniform and a beard of three weeks' growth. It was the Baron of Bradwardine. It is unnecessary to add, that he threw aside his weapon and greeted Waverley with a hearty embrace.

CHAPTER LXIV

COMPARING OF NOTES

Thearon's story was short, when divested of the adages and commonplaces, Latin, English, and Scotch, with which his erudition garnished it. He insisted much upon his grief at the loss of Edward and of Glennaquoich, fought the fields of Falkirk and Culloden, and related how, after all was lost in the last battle, he had returned home, under the idea of more easily finding shelter among his own tenants and on his own estate than elsewhere. A party of soldiers had been sent to lay waste his property, for clemency was not the order of the day. Their proceedings, however, were checked by an order from the civil court. The estate, it was found, might not be forfeited to the crown to the prejudice of Malcolm Bradwardine of Inch-Grabbit, the heir-male, whose claim could not be prejudiced by the Baron's attainder, as deriving no right through him, and who, therefore, like other heirs of entail in the same situation, entered upon possession. But, unlike many in similar circ.u.mstances, the new laird speedily showed that he intended utterly to exclude his predecessor from all benefit or advantage in the estate, and that it was his purpose to avail himself of the old Baron's evil fortune to the full extent. This was the more ungenerous, as it was generally known that, from a romantic idea of not prejudicing this young man's right as heir-male, the Baron had refrained from settling his estate on his daughter.

This selfish injustice was resented by the country people, who were partial to their old master, and irritated against his successor. In the Baron's own words, 'The matter did not coincide with the feelings of the commons of Bradwardine, Mr. Waverley; and the tenants were slack and repugnant in payment of their mails and duties; and when my kinsman came to the village wi' the new factor, Mr. James Howie, to lift the rents, some wanchancy person -I suspect John Heatherblutter, the auld gamekeeper, that was out wi' me in the year fifteen-fired a shot at him in the gloaming, whereby he was so affrighted, that I may say with Tullius In Catilinam, "Abiit, evasit, erupit, effugit." He fled, sir, as one may say, incontinent to Stirling. And now he hath advertised the estate for sale, being himself the last subst.i.tute in the entail. And if I were to lament about sic matters, this would grieve me mair than its pa.s.sing from my immediate possession, whilk, by the course of nature, must have happened in a few years; whereas now it pa.s.ses from the lineage that should have possessed it in scecula saculorum. But G.o.d's will be done, humana perpessi sumus. Sir John of Bradwardine-Black Sir John, as he is called-who was the common ancestor of our house and the Inch-Grabbits, little thought such a person would have sprung from his loins. Mean time, he has accused me to some of the primates, the rulers for the time, as if I were a cut-throat, and an abettor of bravoes and a.s.sa.s.sinates and coupe-jarrets. And they have sent soldiers here to abide on the estate, and hunt me like a partridge upon the mountains, as Scripture says of good King David, or like our valiant Sir William Wallace-not that I bring myself into comparison with either. I thought, when I heard you at the door, they had driven the auld deer 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 something for supper?' 'Ou ay, sir, I'll brander the moor-fowl that John Heatherblutter brought in this morning; and ye see puir Davie's roasting 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 het peat-ashes and roasting eggs.' Davie all this while lay with his nose almost in the fire, nuzzling 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 goes reason to roasting of eggs,' and justify the eulogium which 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 tell 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 dern hag; but though it's a bieldy eneugh bit, and the auld gudeman o' Corse-Cleugh has panged it wi' a kemple o' strae amaist, yet 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 so, ae morning, siccan a fright as I got! Twa unlucky red-coats were up for black-fis.h.i.+ng, or some siccan ploy-for the neb o' 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 him. 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 d.a.m.ned and swuir at me that it was the auld rebel, as the villains ca'd his Honour; and 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 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 f.e.c.k 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 G.o.d! at the Duchran,' answered the Baron; 'the laird's distantly related to us, and more nearly to my chaplain, Mr. Rubrick; and, though he be of Whig principles, yet he's not forgetful of auld friends.h.i.+p at this 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 ill aff in the feifteen, and got the bonnie baronie back, an' a'. And now the eggs is ready, and the muir-c.o.c.k's brandered, and there's ilk ane a trencher and some saut, and the heel o' the white loaf that cam frae the Bailie's, and there's plenty o' 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 a.s.sist him in his exile; but he forbore 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 as 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 hallan; 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 if 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 pa.s.sage of anglers or 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 pretending 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, about a mile from the village, though he was to remove at next term. Stanley's pa.s.sport would be an answer to the officer who commanded the military; and as to any of the country people who might recognise Waverley, the Baron a.s.sured him he was in no danger of being betrayed by them.

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

A natural sigh closed the sentence; but the quiet equanimity with which the Baron endured his misfortunes had something in it venerable and even sublime. There was no fruitless repining, no turbid melancholy; he bore his lot, and the hards.h.i.+ps which it involved, with a good-humored, though serious composure, and used no violent language against the prevailing party.

'I did what I thought my duty,' said the good old man, 'and questionless they are doing what they think theirs. It grieves me sometimes to look upon these blackened walls of the house of my ancestors; but doubtless officers cannot always keep the soldier's hand from depredation and spuilzie, and 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 seen as sad sights as Tully-Veolan now is when I served with the Marechal Duke of Berwick. To be sure we may say with Virgilius Maro, Fuimus Troes-and there's the end of an auld sang. 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'-they were now standing below a steep rock. 'We poor Jacobites,' continued the Baron, looking up, 'are now like the conies in Holy Scripture (which the great traveller Poc.o.c.ke calleth Jerboa), a feeble people, that make our abode in the rocks. So, fare you well, my good lad, till we meet at Janet'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 l ong body; his legs and feet finally disappearing, coiled up like a huge snake entering his retreat, or a long pedigree introduced with care and difficulty into the narrow pigeon-hole of an old cabinet. Waverley had the curiosity to clamber up and look in upon him in his den, as the lurking-place might well be termed. Upon the whole, he looked not unlike that ingenious puzzle called 'a reel in a bottle,' the marvel of children (and of some grown people too, myself for one), who can neither comprehend the mysteryhowit has got in or how it is to be taken out. The cave was very narrow, too low in the roof to admit of his standing, or almost of his sitting up, though he made some awkward attempts at the latter posture. His sole amus.e.m.e.nt was the perusal of his old friend t.i.tus 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 sandstone. As the cave was dry, and filled with clean straw and withered fern, 'it 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 pa.s.sable gite for an old soldier.' Neither, as he observed, was he without sentries for the purpose of reconnoitring. Davie and his mother were constantly on the watch to discover and avert danger; and it was singular what instances of address seemed 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 recognised her at first sight as the old woman who had nursed him during his sickness after his delivery from Gifted Gilfillan. The hut also, although a little repaired and somewhat better furnished, was certainly the place of his confinement; and he now recollected on the common moor of Tully-Veolan the trunk of a large decayed tree, called the try sting-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 imagination 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 question was, Who was the young lady that visited the hut during his illness? Janet paused for a little; and then observed, that to keep the secret now would neither do good nor ill to anybody.

' It was just a leddy that hasna her equal in the world-Miss Rose Bradwardine!'

'Then Miss Rose was probably also the author of my deliverance,' inferred Waverley, delighted at the confirmation of an idea which local circ.u.mstances had already induced him to entertain.

'I wot weel, Mr. Wauverley, and that was she e'en; but sair, sair angry and affronted wad she hae been, puir thing, if she had thought ye had been ever to ken a word about the matter; for she gar'd me speak aye Gaelic when ye was in hearing, to mak ye trow we were in the Hielands. I can speak it weil eneugh, for my mother was a Hieland woman.'

A few more questions now brought out the whole mystery respecting Waverley's deliverance from the bondage in which he left Cairnvreckan. Never did music sound sweeter to an amateur than the drowsy tautology with which old Janet detailed every circ.u.mstance thrilled upon the ears of Waverley. But my reader is not a lover and I must spare his patience, by attempting to condense within reasonable compa.s.s the narrative which old Janet spread through a harangue of nearly two hours.

When Waverley communicated to Fergus the letter he had received from Rose Bradwardine by Davie Gellatley, giving an account of Tully-Veolan being occupied by a small party of soldiers, that circ.u.mstance had struck upon the busy and active mind of the Chieftain. Eager to distress and narrow the posts of the enemy, desirous to prevent their establis.h.i.+ng a garrison so near him, and willing also to oblige the Baron-for he often had the idea of marriage with Rose floating through his brain-he resolved to send some of his people to drive out the red-coats and to bring Rose to Glennaquoich. But just as he had ordered Evan with a small party on this duty, the news of Cope's having marched into the Highlands, to meet and disperse the forces of the Chevalier ere they came to a head, obliged him to join the standard with his whole forces.

He sent to order Donald Bean to attend him; but that cautious freebooter, who well understood the value of a separate command, instead of joining, sent various apologies which the pressure of the times compelled Fergus to admit as current, though not without the internal resolution of being revenged on him for his procrastination, time and place convenient. However, as he could not amend the matter, he issued orders to Donald to descend into the Low Country, drive the soldiers from Tully-Veolan, and, paying all respect to the mansion of the Baron, to take his abode somewhere near it, for protection of his daughter and family, and to hara.s.s and drive away any of the armed volunteers or small parties of military which he might find moving about the vicinity. As this charge formed a sort of roving commission, which Donald proposed to interpret in the way most advantageous to himself, as he was relieved from the immediate terrors of Fergus, and as he had, from former secret services, some interest in the councils of the Chevalier, he resolved to make hay while the sun shone. He achieved without difficulty the task of driving the soldiers from Tully-Veolan; but, although he did not venture to encroach upon the interior of the family, or to disturb Miss Rose, being unwilling to make himself a powerful enemy in the Chevalier's army,

For well he knew the Baron's wrath was deadly;

yet he set about to raise contributions and exactions upon the tenantry, and otherwise to turn the war to his own advantage. Meanwhile he mounted the white c.o.c.kade, and waited upon Rose with a pretext of great devotion for the service in which her father was engaged, and many apologies for the freedom he must necessarily use for the support of his people. It was at this moment that Rose learned, by open-mouthed fame, with all sorts of exaggeration, that Waverley had killed the smith at Cairnvreckan, in an attempt to arrest him; had been cast into a dungeon by Major Melville of Cairnvreckan, and was to be executed by martial law within three days. In the agony which these tidings excited she proposed to Donald Bean the rescue of the prisoner. It was the very sort of service which he was desirous to undertake, judging it might const.i.tute a merit of such a nature as would make amends for any peccadilloes which he might be guilty of in the country. He had the art, however, pleading all the while duty and discipline, to hold off, until poor Rose, in the extremity of her distress, offered to bribe him to the enterprise with some valuable jewels which had been her mother's.

Donald Bean, who had served in France, knew, and perhaps over- estimated, the value of these trinkets. But he also perceived Rose's apprehensions of its being discovered that she had parted with her jewels for Waverley's liberation. Resolved this scruple should not part him and the treasure, he voluntarily offered to take an oath that he would never mention Miss Rose's share in the transaction; and, foreseeing convenience in keeping the oath and no probable advantage in breaking it, he took the engagement-in order, as he told his lieutenant, to deal handsomely by the young lady-in the only mode and form which, by a mental paction with himself, he considered as binding: he swore secrecy upon his drawn dirk. He was the more especially moved to this act of good faith by some attentions that Miss Bradwardine showed to his daughter Alice, which, while they gained the heart of the mountain damsel, highly gratified the pride of her father. Alice, who could now speak a little English, was very communicative in return for Rose's kindness, readily confided to her the whole papers respecting the intrigue with Gardiner's regiment, of which she was the depositary, and as readily undertook, at her instance, to restore them to Waverley without her father's knowledge. For 'they may oblige the bonnie young lady and the handsome young gentleman,' said Alice, 'and what use has my father for a whin bits o' scarted paper?'