Waverley Part 4

A bartizan, or projecting gallery, before the windows of her parlour, served to ill.u.s.trate another of Rose's pursuits; for it was crowded with flowers of different kinds, which she had taken under her special protection. A projecting turret gave access to this Gothic balcony, which commanded a most beautiful prospect. The formal garden, with its high bounding walls, lay below, contracted, as it seemed, to a mere parterre; while the view extended beyond them down a wooded glen, where the small river was sometimes visible, sometimes hidden in copse. The eye might be delayed by a desire to rest on the rocks, which here and there rose from the dell with ma.s.sive or spiry fronts, or it might dwell on the n.o.ble, though ruined tower, which was here beheld in all its dignity, frowning from a promontory over the river. To the left were seen two or three cottages, a part of the village, the brow of the hill concealed the others. The glen, or dell, was terminated by a sheet of water, called Loch Veolan, into which the brook discharged itself, and which now glistened in the western sun. The distant country seemed open and varied in surface, though not wooded; and there was nothing to interrupt the view until the scene was bounded by a ridge of distant and blue hills, which formed the southern boundary of the strath or valley. To this pleasant station Miss Bradwardine had ordered coffee.

The view of the old tower, or fortalice, introduced some family anecdotes and tales of Scottish chivalry, which the Baron told with great enthusiasm. The projecting peak of an impending crag which rose near it had acquired the name of Saint Swithin's Chair. It was the scene of a peculiar superst.i.tion, of which Mr. Rubrick mentioned some curious particulars, which reminded Waverley of a rhyme quoted by Edgar in King Lear; and Rose was called upon to sing a little legend, in which they had been interwoven by some village poet,

Who, noteless as the race from which he sprung, Saved others' names, but left his own unsung.

The sweetness of her voice, and the simple beauty of her music, gave all the advantage which the minstrel could have desired, and which his poetry so much wanted. I almost doubt if it can be read with patience, dest.i.tute of these advantages, although I conjecture the following copy to have been somewhat corrected by Waverley, to suit the taste of those who might not relish pure antiquity.

Saint Swithin's Chair

On Hallow-Ma.s.s Eve, ere ye boune ye to rest, Ever beware that your couch be bless'd; Sign it with cross, and sain it with bead, Sing the Ave, and say the Creed.

For on Hallow-Ma.s.s Eve the Night-Hag will ride, And all her nine-fold sweeping on by her side, Whether the wind sing lowly or loud, Sailing through moonshine or swath'd in the cloud.

The Lady she sat in Saint Swithin's Chair, The dew of the night has damp'd her hair: Her cheek was pale; but resolved and high Was the word of her lip and the glance of her eye.

She mutter'd the spell of Swithin bold, When his naked foot traced the midnight wold, When he stopp'd the Hag as she rode the night, And bade her descend, and her promise plight.

He that dare sit on Saint Swithin's Chair, When the Night-Hag wings the troubled air, Questions three, when he speaks the spell, He may ask, and she must tell.

The Baron has been with King Robert his liege These three long years in battle and siege; News are there none of his weal or his woe, And fain the Lady his fate would know.

She shudders and stops as the charm she speaks;- Is it the moody owl that shrieks?

Or is it that sound, betwixt laughter and scream, The voice of the Demon who haunts the stream?

The moan of the wind sunk silent and low, And the roaring torrent had ceased to flow; The calm was more dreadful than raging storm, When the cold grey mist brought the ghastly Form!

'I am sorry to disappoint the company, especially Captain Waverley, who listens with such laudable gravity; it is but a fragment, although I think there are other verses, describing the return of the Baron from the wars, and how the lady was found "clay-cold upon the grounsill ledge.'"

'It is one of those figments,' observed Mr. Bradwardine, 'with which the early history of distinguished families was deformed in the times of superst.i.tion; as that of Rome, and other ancient nations, had their prodigies, sir, the which you may read in ancient histories, or in the little work compiled by Julius Obsequens, and inscribed by the learned Scheffer, the editor, to his patron, Benedictus Skytte, Baron of Dudershoff.'

'My father has a strange defiance of the marvellous, Captain Waverley,' observed Rose, 'and once stood firm when a whole synod of Presbyterian divines were put to the rout by a sudden apparition of the foul fiend.'

Waverley looked as if desirous to hear more.

'Must I tell my story as well as sing my song? Well-Once upon a time there lived an old woman, called Janet Gellatley, who was suspected to be a witch, on the infallible grounds that she was very old, very ugly, very poor, and had two sons, one of whom was a poet and the other a fool, which visitation, all the neighbourhood agreed, had come upon her for the sin of witchcraft. And she was imprisoned for a week in the steeple of the parish church, and sparely supplied with food, and not permitted to sleep until she herself became as much persuaded of her being a witch as her accusers; and in this lucid and happy state of mind was brought forth to make a clean breast, that is, to make open confession of her sorceries, before all the Whig gentry and ministers in the vicinity, who were no conjurors themselves. My father went to see fair play between the witch and the clergy; for the witch had been born on his estate. And while the witch was confessing that the Enemy appeared, and made his addresses to her as a handsome black man,-which, if you could have seen poor old blear-eyed Janet, reflected little honour on Apollyon's taste,- and while the auditors listened with astonished ears, and the clerk recorded with a trembling hand, she, all of a sudden, changed the low mumbling tone with which she spoke into a shrill yell, and exclaimed, "Look to yourselves! look to yourselves! I see the Evil One sitting in the midst of ye." The surprise was general, and terror and flight its immediate consequences. Happy were those who were next the door; and many were the disasters that befell hats, bands, cuffs, and wigs, before they could get out of the church, where they left the obstinate prelatist to settle matters with the witch and her admirer at his own peril or pleasure.'

'Risu solvuntur tabulae,' said the Baron; 'when they recovered their panic trepidation they were too much ashamed to bring any wakening of the process against Janet Gellatley.' [Footnote: See Note 11]

This anecdote led to a long discussion of

All those idle thoughts and fantasies, Devices, dreams, opinions unsound, Shows, visions, soothsays, and prophecies, And all that feigned is, as leasings, tales, and lies.

With such conversation, and the romantic legends which it introduced, closed our hero's second evening in the house of Tully-Veolan.

CHAPTER XIV

A DISCOVERY-WAVERLEY BECOMES DOMESTICATED AT TULLY-VEOLAN

The next day Edward arose betimes, and in a morning walk around the house and its vicinity came suddenly upon a small court in front of the dog-kennel, where his friend Davie was employed about his four-footed charge. One quick glance of his eye recognised Waverley, when, instantly turning his back, as if he had not observed him, he began to sing part of an old ballad:-

Young men will love thee more fair and more fast; Heard ye so merry the little bird sing?

Old men's love the longest will last, And the throstle-c.o.c.k's head is under his wing.

The young man's wrath is like light straw on fire; Heard ye so merry the little bird sing?

But like red-hot steel is the old man's ire, And the throstle-c.o.c.k's head is under his wing.

The young man will brawl at the evening board; Heard ye so merry the little bird sing?

But the old man will draw at the dawning the sword, And the throstle-c.o.c.k's head is under his wing.

Waverley could not avoid observing that Davie laid something like a satirical emphasis on these lines. He therefore approached, and endeavoured, by sundry queries, to elicit from him what the innuendo might mean; but Davie had no mind to explain, and had wit enough to make his folly cloak his knavery. Edward could collect nothing from him, excepting that the Laird of Balmawhapple had gone home yesterday morning 'wi' his boots fu' o' bluid.' In the garden, however, he met the old butler, who no longer attempted to conceal that, having been bred in the nursery line with Sumack and Co. of Newcastle, he sometimes wrought a turn in the flower- borders to oblige the Laird and Miss Rose. By a series of queries, Edward at length discovered, with a painful feeling of surprise and shame, that Balmawhapple's submission and apology had been the consequence of a rencontre with the Baron before his guest had quitted his pillow, in which the younger combatant had been disarmed and wounded in the sword arm.

Greatly mortified at this information, Edward sought out his friendly host, and anxiously expostulated with him upon the injustice he had done him in antic.i.p.ating his meeting with Mr. Falconer, a circ.u.mstance which, considering his youth and the profession of arms which he had just adopted, was capable of being represented much to his prejudice. The Baron justified himself at greater length than I choose to repeat. He urged that the quarrel was common to them, and that Balmawhapple could not, by the code of honour, evite giving satisfaction to both, which he had done in his case by an honourable meeting, and in that of Edward by such a palinode as rendered the use of the sword unnecessary, and which, being made and accepted, must necessarily sopite the whole affair.

With this excuse, or explanation, Waverley was silenced, if not satisfied; but he could not help testifying some displeasure against the Blessed Bear, which had given rise to the quarrel, nor refrain from hinting that the sanctified epithet was hardly appropriate. The Baron observed, he could not deny that 'the Bear, though allowed by heralds as a most honourable ordinary, had, nevertheless, somewhat fierce, churlish, and morose in his disposition (as might be read in Archibald Simson, pastor of Dalkeith's 'Hieroglyphica Animalium') and had thus been the type of many quarrels and dissensions which had occurred in the house of Bradwardine; of which,' he continued, 'I might commemorate mine own unfortunate dissension with my third cousin by the mother's side, Sir Hew Halbert, who was so unthinking as to deride my family name, as if it had been QUASI BEAR-WARDEN; a most uncivil jest, since it not only insinuated that the founder of our house occupied such a mean situation as to be a custodier of wild beasts, a charge which, ye must have observed, is only entrusted to the very basest plebeians; but, moreover, seemed to infer that our coat-armour had not been achieved by honourable actions in war, but bestowed by way of paranomasia, or pun, upon our family appellation,-a sort of bearing which the French call armoires parlantes, the Latins arma cantantia, and your English authorities canting heraldry, [Footnote: See Note 12] being indeed a species of emblazoning more befitting canters, gaberlunzies, and such like mendicants, whose gibberish is formed upon playing upon the word, than the n.o.ble, honourable, and useful science of heraldry, which a.s.signs armorial bearings as the reward of n.o.ble and generous actions, and not to tickle the ear with vain quodlibets, such as are found in jestbooks.' Of his quarrel with Sir Hew he said nothing more than that it was settled in a fitting manner.

Having been so minute with respect to the diversions of Tully- Veolan on the first days of Edward's arrival, for the purpose of introducing its inmates to the reader's acquaintance, it becomes less necessary to trace the progress of his intercourse with the same accuracy. It is probable that a young man, accustomed to more cheerful society, would have tired of the conversation of so violent an a.s.sertor of the 'boast of heraldry' as the Baron; but Edward found an agreeable variety in that of Miss Bradwardine, who listened with eagerness to his remarks upon literature, and showed great justness of taste in her answers. The sweetness of her disposition had made her submit with complacency, and even pleasure, to the course of reading prescribed by her father, although it not only comprehended several heavy folios of history, but certain gigantic tomes in high-church polemics. In heraldry he was fortunately contented to give her only such a slight tincture as might be acquired by perusal of the two folio volumes of Nisbet. Rose was indeed the very apple of her father's eye. Her constant liveliness, her attention to all those little observances most gratifying to those who would never think of exacting them, her beauty, in which he recalled the features of his beloved wife, her unfeigned piety, and the n.o.ble generosity of her disposition, would have justified the affection of the most doting father.

His anxiety on her behalf did not, however, seem to extend itself in that quarter where, according to the general opinion, it is most efficiently displayed, in labouring, namely, to establish her in life, either by a large dowry or a wealthy marriage. By an old settlement, almost all the landed estates of the Baron went, after his death, to a distant relation; and it was supposed that Miss Bradwardine would remain but slenderly provided for, as the good gentleman's cash matters had been too long under the exclusive charge of Bailie Macwheeble to admit of any great expectations from his personal succession. It is true, the said Bailie loved his patron and his patron's daughter next (though at an incomparable distance) to himself. He thought it was possible to set aside the settlement on the male line, and had actually procured an opinion to that effect (and, as he boasted, without a fee) from an eminent Scottish counsel, under whose notice he contrived to bring the point while consulting him regularly on some other business. But the Baron would not listen to such a proposal for an instant. On the contrary, he used to have a perverse pleasure in boasting that the barony of Bradwardine was a male fief, the first charter having been given at that early period when women were not deemed capable to hold a feudal grant; because, according to Les coustusmes de Normandie, c'est l'homme ki se bast et ki conseille; or, as is yet more ungallantly expressed by other authorities, all of whose barbarous names he delighted to quote at full length, because a woman could not serve the superior, or feudal lord, in war, on account of the decorum of her s.e.x, nor a.s.sist him with advice, because of her limited intellect, nor keep his counsel, owing to the infirmity of her disposition. He would triumphantly ask, how it would become a female, and that female a Bradwardine, to be seen employed in servitio exuendi, seu detrahendi, caligas regis post battaliam? that is, in pulling off the king's boots after an engagement, which was the feudal service by which he held the barony of Bradwardine. 'No,' he said, 'beyond hesitation, procul dubio, many females, as worthy as Rose, had been excluded, in order to make way for my own succession, and Heaven forbid that I should do aught that might contravene the destination of my forefathers, or impinge upon the right of my kinsman, Malcolm Bradwardine of Inchgrabbit, an honourable, though decayed branch of my own family.'

The Bailie, as prime minister, having received this decisive communication from his sovereign, durst not press his own opinion any farther, but contented himself with deploring, on all suitable occasions, to Saunderson, the minister of the interior, the laird's self-willedness, and with laying plans for uniting Rose with the young Laird of Balmawhapple, who had a fine estate, only moderately burdened, and was a faultless young gentleman, being as sober as a saint-if you keep brandy from him and him from brandy -and who, in brief, had no imperfection but that of keeping light company at a time; such as Jinker, the horse-couper, and Gibby Gaethroughwi't, the piper o' Cupar; 'o' whilk follies, Mr. Saunderson, he'll mend, he'll mend,' p.r.o.nounced the Bailie.

'Like sour ale in simmer,' added Davie Gellatley, who happened to be nearer the conclave than they were aware of.

Miss Bradwardine, such as we have described her, with all the simplicity and curiosity of a recluse, attached herself to the opportunities of increasing her store of literature which Edward's visit afforded her. He sent for some of his books from his quarters, and they opened to her sources of delight of which she had hitherto had no idea. The best English poets, of every description, and other works on belles-lettres, made a part of this precious cargo. Her music, even her flowers, were neglected, and Saunders not only mourned over, but began to mutiny against, the labour for which he now scarce received thanks. These new pleasures became gradually enhanced by sharing them with one of a kindred taste. Edward's readiness to comment, to recite, to explain difficult pa.s.sages, rendered his a.s.sistance invaluable; and the wild romance of his spirit delighted a character too young and inexperienced to observe its deficiencies. Upon subjects which interested him, and when quite at ease, he possessed that flow of natural, and somewhat florid eloquence, which has been supposed as powerful even as figure, fashion, fame, or fortune, in winning the female heart. There was, therefore, an increasing danger in this constant intercourse to poor Rose's peace of mind, which was the more imminent as her father was greatly too much abstracted in his studies, and wrapped up in his own dignity, to dream of his daughter's incurring it. The daughters of the house of Bradwardine were, in his opinion, like those of the house of Bourbon or Austria, placed high above the clouds of pa.s.sion which might obfuscate the intellects of meaner females; they moved in another sphere, were governed by other feelings, and amenable to other rules than those of idle and fantastic affection. In short, he shut his eyes so resolutely to the natural consequences of Edward's intimacy with Miss Bradwardine, that the whole neighbourhood concluded that he had opened them to the advantages of a match between his daughter and the wealthy young Englishman, and p.r.o.nounced him much less a fool than he had generally shown himself in cases where his own interest was concerned.

If the Baron, however, had really meditated such an alliance, the indifference of Waverley would have been an insuperable bar to his project. Our hero, since mixing more freely with the world, had learned to think with great shame and confusion upon his mental legend of Saint Cecilia, and the vexation of these reflections was likely, for some time at least, to counterbalance the natural susceptibility of his disposition. Besides, Rose Bradwardine, beautiful and amiable as we have described her, had not precisely the sort of beauty or merit which captivates a romantic imagination in early youth. She was too frank, too confiding, too kind; amiable qualities, undoubtedly, but destructive of the marvellous, with which a youth of imagination delights to dress the empress of his affections. Was it possible to bow, to tremble, and to adore, before the timid, yet playful little girl, who now asked Edward to mend her pen, now to construe a stanza in Ta.s.so, and now how to spell a very-very long word in her version of it? All these incidents have their fascination on the mind at a certain period of life, but not when a youth is entering it, and rather looking out for some object whose affection may dignify him in his own eyes than stooping to one who looks up to him for such distinction. Hence, though there can be no rule in so capricious a pa.s.sion, early love is frequently ambitious in choosing its object; or, which comes to the same, selects her (as in the case of Saint Cecilia aforesaid) from a situation that gives fair scope for le beau ideal, which the reality of intimate and familiar life rather tends to limit and impair. I knew a very accomplished and sensible young man cured of a violent pa.s.sion for a pretty woman, whose talents were not equal to her face and figure, by being permitted to bear her company for a whole afternoon. Thus, it is certain, that had Edward enjoyed such an opportunity of conversing with Miss Stubbs, Aunt Rachel's precaution would have been unnecessary, for he would as soon have fallen in love with the dairy-maid. And although Miss Bradwardine was a very different character, it seems probable that the very intimacy of their intercourse prevented his feeling for her other sentiments than those of a brother for an amiable and accomplished sister; while the sentiments of poor Rose were gradually, and without her being conscious, a.s.suming a shade of warmer affection.

I ought to have said that Edward, when he sent to Dundee for the books before mentioned, had applied for, and received permission, extending his leave of absence. But the letter of his commanding officer contained a friendly recommendation to him not to spend his time exclusively with persons who, estimable as they might be in a general sense, could not be supposed well affected to a government which they declined to acknowledge by taking the oath of allegiance. The letter further insinuated, though with great delicacy, that although some family connections might be supposed to render it necessary for Captain Waverley to communicate with gentlemen who were in this unpleasant state of suspicion, yet his father's situation and wishes ought to prevent his prolonging those attentions into exclusive intimacy. And it was intimated, that, while his political principles were endangered by communicating with laymen of this description, he might also receive erroneous impressions in religion from the prelatic clergy, who so perversely laboured to set up the royal prerogative in things sacred.

This last insinuation probably induced Waverley to set both down to the prejudices of his commanding officer. He was sensible that Mr. Bradwardine had acted with the most scrupulous delicacy, in never entering upon any discussion that had the most remote tendency to bias his mind in political opinions, although he was himself not only a decided partisan of the exiled family, but had been trusted at different times with important commissions for their service. Sensible, therefore, that there was no risk of his being perverted from his allegiance, Edward felt as if he should do his uncle's old friend injustice in removing from a house where he gave and received pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nt, merely to gratify a prejudiced and ill-judged suspicion. He therefore wrote a very general answer, a.s.suring his commanding officer that his loyalty was not in the most distant danger of contamination, and continued an honoured guest and inmate of the house of Tully-Veolan.

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 uncommon 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 baling penance. As nothing was to be got from this distracted chorus, excepting 'Lord guide us!' and 'Eh sirs!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns which threw no light upon the cause of their dismay, Waverley repaired to the fore-court, as it was called, where he beheld Bailie Macwheeble cantering his white pony 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 Bailie, 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 anything, 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 pa.s.s too near the Bailie, he received an admonitory hint from his horse-whip, which converted his songs into lamentation.

Pa.s.sing 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 inquiry 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 Bailie 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 Caterans have come down upon us last night, and have driven off all our milch cows.'

'A party of Caterans?'

'Yes; robbers from the neighbouring Highlands. We used to be quite free from them while we paid blackmail 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 if he is not hurt himself, he will hurt some of these wild people, and then there will be no peace between them and us perhaps for our life-time; 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 shame,' he said, 'that she should exhibit herself 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 sorners, while we are not allowed to keep half a score of muskets, whether for defence or rescue.'

Bailie 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 there was no chance of their following the gear to ony 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 a.s.sumed 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 projecting 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,' he said, '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 Caterans, who would readily, he said, give up their prey for a dollar a head. The Bailie 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 of paying the arrears of tribute money to Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich Ian Vohr, who, they all knew, could easily procure restoration of the cattle, if he were properly propitiated.

None of these proposals met the Baron's approbation. The idea of composition, direct or implied, was absolutely ignominious; that of Waverley only showed that he did not understand the state of the country, and of the political parties which divided it; and, standing matters as they did with Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich Ian Vohr, the Baron would make no concession to him, were it, he said, 'to procure rest.i.tution in integrum of every stirk and stot that the chief, his forefathers, and his clan, had stolen since the days of Malcolm Canmore.'

In fact his voice was still for war, and he proposed to send expresses to Balmawhapple, Killancureit, Tulliellum, and other lairds, who were exposed to similar depredations, inviting them to join in the pursuit; 'and then, sir, shall these nebulones nequissimi, as Leslaeus calls them, be brought to the fate of their predecessor Cacus,

"Elisos oculos, et sicc.u.m sanguine guttur."'