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
Edward had lived at Glennaquoich long enough to be aware of a
distinction which he had repeatedly heard noticed, and now satisfied
that he had no interest with, his attendants, he glanced a disconsolate
eye around the interior of the cabin. The only furniture, excepting a
washing-tub and a wooden press, called in Scotland an ambry, sorely
decayed, was a large wooden bed, planked, as is usual, all around, and
opening by a sliding panel. In this recess the Highlanders deposited
Waverley, after he had by signs declined any refreshment. His slumbers
were broken and unrefreshing; strange visions passed before his eyes,
and it required constant and reiterated efforts of mind to dispel them.
Shivering, violent headache, and shooting pains in his limbs succeeded
these symptoms; and in the morning it was evident to his Highland
attendants or guard, for he knew not in which light to consider them,
that Waverley was quite unfit to travel.
After a long consultation among themselves, six of the party left the
hut with their arms, leaving behind an old and a young man. The former
addressed Waverley, and bathed the contusions, which swelling and livid
colour now made conspicuous. His own portmanteau, which the Highlanders
had not failed to bring off, supplied him with linen, and to his great
surprise was, with all its undiminished contents, freely resigned to
his use. The bedding of his couch seemed clean and comfortable, and his
aged attendant closed the door of the bed, for it had no curtain, after
a few words of Gaelic, from which Waverley gathered that he exhorted
him to repose. So behold our hero for a second time the patient of a
Highland Esculapius, but in a situation much more uncomfortable than
when he was the guest of the worthy Tomanrait.
The symptomatic fever which accompanied the injuries he had sustained
did not abate till the third day, when it gave way to the care of his
attendants and the strength of his constitution, and he could now raise
himself in his bed, though not without pain. He observed, however, that
there was a great disinclination on the part of the old woman who acted
as his nurse, as well as on that of the elderly Highlander, to permit
the door of the bed to be left open, so that he might amuse himself
with observing their motions; and at length, after Waverley had
repeatedly drawn open and they had as frequently shut the hatchway of
his cage, the old gentleman put an end to the contest by securing it on
the outside with a nail so effectually that the door could not be drawn
till this exterior impediment was removed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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