'I do not mean to disguise it; but I do deny, most resolutely, being privy to any of their designs against the government.'
'You do not, however, I presume, intend to deny that you attended your host Glennaquoich to a rendezvous, where, under a pretence of a general hunting match, most of the accomplices of his treason were assembled to concert measures for taking arms?'
'I acknowledge having been at such a meeting,' said Waverley; 'but I neither heard nor saw anything which could give it the character you affix to it.'
'From thence you proceeded,' continued the magistrate, 'with Glennaquoich and a part of his clan to join the army of the Young Pretender, and returned, after having paid your homage to him, to discipline and arm the remainder, and unite them to his bands on their way southward?'
'I never went with Glennaquoich on such an errand. I never so much as heard that the person whom you mention was in the country.'
He then detailed the history of his misfortune at the hunting match, and added, that on his return he found himself suddenly deprived of his commission, and did not deny that he then, for the first time, observed symptoms which indicated a disposition in the Highlanders to take arms; but added that, having no inclination to join their cause, and no longer any reason for remaining in Scotland, he was now on his return to his native country, to which he had been summoned by those who had a right to direct his motions, as Major Melville would perceive from the letters on the table.
Major Melville accordingly perused the letters of Richard Waverley, of Sir Everard, and of Aunt Rachel; but the inferences he drew from them were different from what Waverley expected. They held the language of discontent with government, threw out no obscure hints of revenge, and that of poor Aunt Rachel, which plainly asserted the justice of the Stuart cause, was held to contain the open avowal of what the others only ventured to insinuate.
'Permit me another question, Mr. Waverley,' said Major Melville. 'Did you not receive repeated letters from your commanding officer, warning you and commanding you to return to your post, and acquainting you with the use made of your name to spread discontent among your soldiers?'
'I never did, Major Melville. One letter, indeed, I received from him, containing a civil intimation of his wish that I would employ my leave of absence otherwise than in constant residence at Bradwardine, as to which, I own, I thought he was not called on to interfere; and, finally, I received, on the same day on which I observed myself superseded in the "Gazette," a second letter from Colonel Gardiner, commanding me to join the regiment, an order which, owing to my absence, already mentioned and accounted for, I received too late to be obeyed. If there were any intermediate letters, and certainly from the Colonel's high character I think it probable that there were, they have never reached me.'
'I have omitted, Mr. Waverley,' continued Major Melville, 'to inquire after a matter of less consequence, but which has nevertheless been publicly talked of to your disadvantage. It is said that a treasonable toast having been proposed in your hearing and presence, you, holding his Majesty's commission, suffered the task of resenting it to devolve upon another gentleman of the company. This, sir, cannot be charged against you in a court of justice; but if, as I am informed, the officers of your regiment requested an explanation of such a rumour, as a gentleman and soldier I cannot but be surprised that you did not afford it to them.'