Waverley; or, 'Tis sixty years since — CompleteScott, Walter
History
Waverley; or, 'Tis sixty years since — Complete
Scott, Walter
Historical fiction; Jacobite Rebellion, 1745-1746 -- Fiction; Scotland -- History -- 18th century -- Fiction
Here a large greyhound, bounding up the glen, jumped upon Flora and
interrupted her music by his importunate caresses. At a distant whistle
he turned and shot down the path again with the rapidity of an arrow.
'That is Fergus's faithful attendant, Captain Waverley, and that was
his signal. He likes no poetry but what is humorous, and comes in good
time to interrupt my long catalogue of the tribes, whom one of your
saucy English poets calls
Our bootless host of high-born beggars,
Mac-Leans, Mac-Kenzies, and Mac-Gregors.'
Waverley expressed his regret at the interruption.
'O you cannot guess how much you have lost! The bard, as in duty bound,
has addressed three long stanzas to Vich Ian Vohr of the Banners,
enumerating all his great properties, and not forgetting his being a
cheerer of the harper and bard--"a giver of bounteous gifts." Besides,
you should have heard a practical admonition to the fair-haired son of
the stranger, who lives in the land where the grass is always
green--the rider on the shining pampered steed, whose hue is like the
raven, and whose neigh is like the scream of the eagle for battle. This
valiant horseman is affectionately conjured to remember that his
ancestors were distinguished by their loyalty as well as by their
courage. All this you have lost; but, since your curiosity is not
satisfied, I judge, from the distant sound of my brother's whistle, I
may have time to sing the concluding stanzas before he comes to laugh
at my translation.'
Awake on your hills, on your islands awake,
Brave sons of the mountain, the frith, and the lake!
'T is the bugle--but not for the chase is the call;
'T is the pibroch's shrill summons--but not to the hall.
'T is the summons of heroes for conquest or death,
When the banners are blazing on mountain and heath:
They call to the dirk, the claymore, and the targe,
To the march and the muster, the line and the charge.
Be the brand of each chieftain like Fin's in his ire!
May the blood through his veins flow like currents of fire!
Burst the base foreign yoke as your sires did of yore,
Or die like your sires, and endure it no more!
CHAPTER XXIII
WAVEELEY CONTINUES AT GLENNAQUOICH
As Flora concluded her song, Fergus stood before them. 'I knew I should
find you here, even without the assistance of my friend Bran. A simple
and unsublimed taste now, like my own, would prefer a jet d'eau at
Versailles to this cascade, with all its accompaniments of rock and
roar; but this is Flora's Parnassus, Captain Waverley, and that
fountain her Helicon. It would be greatly for the benefit of my cellar
if she could teach her coadjutor, Mac-Murrough, the value of its
influence: he has just drunk a pint of usquebaugh to correct, he said,
the coldness of the claret. Let me try its virtues.' He sipped a little
water in the hollow of his hand, and immediately commenced, with a
theatrical air,--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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