Waverley; or, 'Tis sixty years since — Volume 1Scott, Walter
History
Waverley; or, 'Tis sixty years since — Volume 1
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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