Hail to thee, thou holy herb, That sprung on holy ground!  All in the Mount Olivet First wert thou found:  Thou art boot for many a bruise, And healest many a wound; In our Lady’s blessed name, I take thee from the ground.’ [This metrical spell, or something very like it, is preserved by Reginald Scott, in his work on Witchcraft.]

Edward observed, with some surprise, that even Fergus, notwithstanding his knowledge and education, seemed to fall in with the superstitious ideas of his countrymen, either because he deemed it impolitic to affect scepticism on a matter of general belief, or more probably because, like most men who do not think deeply or accurately on such subjects, he had in his mind a reserve of superstition which balanced the freedom of his expressions and practice upon other occasions.  Waverley made no commentary, therefore, on the manner of the treatment, but rewarded the professor of medicine with a liberality beyond the utmost conception of his wildest hopes.  He uttered, on the occasion, so many incoherent blessings in Gaelic and English, that Mac-Ivor, rather scandalized at the excess of his acknowledgements, cut them short, by exclaiming, ’CEUD mile MHALLOICH art Ort!’ i.e.  ‘A hundred thousand curses on you!’ and so pushed the helper of men out of the cabin.

After Waverley was left alone, the exhaustion of pain and fatigue,—­for the whole day’s exercise had been severe,—­threw him into a profound, but yet a feverish sleep, which he chiefly owed to an opiate draught administered by the old Highlander from some decoction of herbs in his pharmacopoeia.

Early the next morning, the purpose of their meeting being over, and their sports damped by the untoward accident, in which Fergus and all his friends expressed the greatest sympathy, it became a question how to dispose of the disabled sportsman.  This was settled by Mac-Ivor, who had a litter prepared, of ‘birch and hazel grey,’

     [On the morrow they made their biers,
     of birch and hazel grey.—­Chevy chase.]

which was borne by his people with such caution and dexterity as renders it not improbable that they may have been the ancestors of some of those sturdy Gael, who have now the happiness to transport the belles of Edinburgh, in their sedan chairs, to ten routs in one evening.  When Edward was elevated upon their shoulders, he could not help being gratified with the romantic effect produced by the breaking up of this sylvan camp. [The author has been sometimes accused of confounding fiction with reality.  He therefore thinks it necessary to state, that the circumstance of the hunting described in the text as preparatory to the insurrection of 1745, is, so far as he knows, entirely imaginary.  But it is well known such a great hunting was held in the Forest of Braemar, under the auspices of the Earl of Mar, as preparatory to the Rebellion of 1715; and most of the Highland Chieftains who afterwards engaged in that civil commotion were present on this occasion.]