Waverley; Or 'Tis Sixty Years Since — Complete

by Walter Scott

'Out, ay. Did not ye hear him speak o' the Perth bailie? It cost that body five hundred merks ere he got to the south of Bally-Brough. And ance Donald played a pretty sport. [Footnote: See Note 17.] There was to be a blythe bridal between the Lady Cramfeezer, in the howe o' the Mearns (she was the auld laird's widow, and no sae young as she had been hersell), and young Gilliewhackit, who had spent his heirship and movables, like a gentleman, at cock-matches, bull-baitings, horse-races, and the like. Now, Donald Bean Lean, being aware that the bridegroom was in request, and wanting to cleik the cunzie (that is, to hook the siller), he cannily carried off Gilliewhackit ae night when he was riding dovering hame (wi' the malt rather abune the meal), and with the help of his gillies he gat him into the hills with the speed of light, and the first place he wakened in was the cove of Uaimh an Ri. So there was old to do about ransoming the bridegroom; for Donald would not lower a farthing of a thousand punds—'

'The devil!'

'Punds Scottish, ye shall understand. And the lady had not the siller if she had pawned her gown; and they applied to the governor o' Stirling castle, and to the major o' the Black Watch; and the governor said it was ower far to the northward, and out of his district; and the major said his men were gane hame to the shearing, and he would not call them out before the victual was got in for all the Cramfeezers in Christendom, let alane the Mearns, for that it would prejudice the country. And in the meanwhile ye'll no hinder Gilliewhackit to take the small-pox. There was not the doctor in Perth or Stirling would look near the poor lad; and I cannot blame them, for Donald had been misguggled by ane of these doctors about Paris, and he swore he would fling the first into the loch that he catched beyond the pass. However some cailliachs (that is, old women) that were about Donald's hand nursed Gilliewhackit sae weel that, between the free open air in the cove and the fresh whey, deil an he did not recover maybe as weel as if he had been closed in a glazed chamber and a bed with curtains, and fed with red wine and white meat. And Donald was sae vexed about it that, when he was stout and weel, he even sent him free home, and said he would be pleased with onything they would like to gie him for the plague and trouble which he had about Gilliewhackit to an unkenn'd degree. And I cannot tell you precisely how they sorted; but they agreed sae right that Donald was invited to dance at the wedding in his Highland trews, and they said that there was never sae meikle siller clinked in his purse either before or since. And to the boot of all that, Gilliewhackit said that, be the evidence what it liked, if he had the luck to be on Donald's inquest, he would bring him in guilty of nothing whatever, unless it were wilful arson or murder under trust.'

With such bald and disjointed chat Evan went on illustrating the existing state of the Highlands, more perhaps to the amusement of Waverley than that of our readers. At length, after having marched over bank and brae, moss and heather, Edward, though not unacquainted with the Scottish liberality in computing distance, began to think that Evan's five miles were nearly doubled. His observation on the large measure which the Scottish allowed of their land, in comparison to the computation of their money, was readily answered by Evan with the old jest, 'The deil take them wha have the least pint stoup.'

[Footnote: The Scotch are liberal in computing their land and liquor; the Scottish pint corresponds to two English quarts. As for their coin, every one knows the couplet—

How can the rogues pretend to sense?
Their pound is only twenty pence.]

And now the report of a gun was heard, and a sportsman was seen, with his dogs and attendant, at the upper end of the glen. 'Shough,' said Dugald Mahony, 'tat's ta Chief.'

'It is not,' said Evan, imperiously. 'Do you think he would come to meet a Sassenach duinhe-wassel in such a way as that?'

But as they approached a little nearer, he said, with an appearance of mortification, 'And it is even he, sure enough; and he has not his tail on after all; there is no living creature with him but Callum Beg.'

In fact, Fergus Mac-Ivor, of whom a Frenchman might have said as truly as of any man in the Highlands, 'Qu'il connoit bien ses gens' had no idea of raising himself in the eyes of an English young man of fortune by appearing with a retinue of idle Highlanders disproportioned to the occasion. He was well aware that such an unnecessary attendance would seem to Edward rather ludicrous than respectable; and, while few men were more attached to ideas of chieftainship and feudal power, he was, for that very reason, cautious of exhibiting external marks of dignity, unless at the time and in the manner when they were most likely to produce an imposing effect. Therefore, although, had he been to receive a brother chieftain, he would probably have been attended by all that retinue which Evan described with so much unction, he judged it more respectable to advance to meet Waverley with a single attendant, a very handsome Highland boy, who carried his master's shooting-pouch and his broadsword, without which he seldom went abroad.