The procession resumed its march, and the sledge vanished from beneath the portal, under which it had stopped for an instant. The dead-march was then heard, and its melancholy sounds were mingled with those of a muffled peal, tolled from the neighbouring cathedral. The sound of the military music died away as the procession moved on—the sullen clang of the bells was soon heard to sound alone.
The last of the soldiers had now disappeared from under the vaulted archway through which they had been filing for several minutes; the courtyard was now totally empty, but Waverley still stood there as if stupefied, his eyes fixed upon the dark pass where he had so lately seen the last glimpse of his friend. At length, a female servant of the governor's, struck with compassion at the stupefied misery which his countenance expressed, asked him if he would not walk into her master's house and sit down? She was obliged to repeat her question twice ere he comprehended her, but at length it recalled him to himself. Declining the courtesy by a hasty gesture, he pulled his hat over his eyes, and, leaving the Castle, walked as swiftly as he could through the empty streets, till he regained his inn, then rushed into an apartment, and bolted the door.
In about an hour and a half, which seemed an age of unutterable suspense, the sound of the drums and fifes, performing a lively air, and the confused murmur of the crowd which now filled the streets, so lately deserted, apprized him that all was finished, and that the military and populace were returning from the dreadful scene. I will not attempt to describe his sensations.
In the evening the priest made him a visit, and informed him that he did so by directions of his deceased friend, to assure him that Fergus Mac-Ivor had died as he lived, and remembered his friendship to the last. He added, he had also seen Flora, whose state of mind seemed more composed since all was over. With her and Sister Theresa, the priest proposed next day to leave Carlisle, for the nearest seaport from which they could embark for France. Waverley forced on this good man a ring of some value, and a sum of money to be employed (as he thought might gratify Flora) in the services of the Catholic Church, for the memory of his friend. 'FUNGARQUE INANI MUNERE,' he repeated, as the ecclesiastic retired. 'Yet why not class these acts of remembrance with other honours, with which affection, in all sects, pursues the memory of the dead?'
The next morning, ere daylight, he took leave of the town of Carlisle, promising to himself never again to enter its walls. He dared hardly look back towards the Gothic battlements of the fortified gate under which he passed (for the place is surrounded with an old wall). 'They're no there,' said Alick Polwarth, who guessed the cause of the dubious look which Waverley cast backward, and who, with the vulgar appetite for the horrible, was master of each detail of the butchery—'the heads are ower the Scotch yate, as they ca' it. It's a great pity of Evan Dhu, who was a very weel-meaning, good-natured man, to be a Hielandman; and indeed so was the Laird o' Glennaquoich too, for that matter, when he wasna in ane o' his tirrivies.
CHAPTER LXX
DOLCE DOMUM
The impression of horror with which Waverley left Carlisle softened by degrees into melancholy—a gradation which was accelerated by the painful, yet soothing, task of writing to Rose; and, while he could not suppress his own feelings of the calamity, he endeavoured to place it in a light which might grieve her without shocking her imagination. The picture which he drew for her benefit he gradually familiarized to his own mind; and his next letters were more cheerful, and referred to the prospects of peace and happiness which lay before them. Yet, though his first horrible sensations had sunk into melancholy, Edward had reached his native county before he could, as usual on former occasions, look round for enjoyment upon the face of nature.
He then, for the first time since leaving Edinburgh, began to experience that pleasure which almost all feel who return to a verdant, populous, and highly cultivated country, from scenes of waste desolation, or of solitary and melancholy grandeur. But how were those feelings enhanced when he entered on the domain so long possessed by his forefathers; recognized the old oaks of Waverley-Chase; thought with what delight he should introduce Rose to all his favourite haunts; beheld at length the towers of the venerable hall arise above the woods which embowered it, and finally threw himself into the arms of the venerable relations to whom he owed so much duty and affection!