'Truly,' said Fergus Mac-Ivor, 'I think it can only be the inspiration of the tartans; for, though Waverley be always a young fellow of sense and honour, I have hitherto often found him a very absent and inattentive companion.'
'We are the more obliged to him,' said the Prince, 'for having reserved for this evening qualities which even such intimate friends had not discovered.—But come, gentlemen, the night advances, and the business of to-morrow must be early thought upon. Each take charge of his fair partner, and honour a small refreshment with your company.'
He led the way to another suite of apartments, and assumed the seat and canopy at the head of a long range of tables, with an air of dignity mingled with courtesy, which well became his high birth and lofty pretensions. An hour had hardly flown away when the musicians played the signal for parting, so well known in Scotland.' [Which is, or was wont to be, the old air of 'Good-night, and joy be with you a'!']
'Good-night, then, said the Chevalier, rising; 'Good-night, and joy be with you!—Good-night, fair ladies, who have so highly honoured a proscribed and banished Prince.—Good-night, my brave friends;—may the happiness we have this evening experienced be an omen of our return to these our paternal halls, speedily and in triumph, and of many and many future meetings of mirth and pleasure in the palace of Holyrood!'
When the Baron of Bradwardine afterwards mentioned this adieu of the Chevalier, he never failed to repeat, in a melancholy tone,
Audiit, et voti Phoebus succedere partem
Mente dedit; partem volueres dispersit in auras,
'which,' as he added, 'is weel rendered into English metre by my friend Bangour:
Ae half the prayer, wi' Phoebus grace did find,
The t'other half he whistled down the wind.'