Waverley forgot Flora Mac-Ivor’s prejudices in her magnanimity, and almost pardoned her indifference towards his affection, when he recollected the grand and decisive object which seemed to fill her whole soul.  She, whose sense of duty so wholly engrossed her in the cause of a benefactor,—­what would be her feelings in favour of the happy individual who should be so fortunate as to awaken them?  Then came the doubtful question, whether he might not be that happy man,—­a question which fancy endeavoured to answer in the affirmative, by conjuring up all she had said in his praise, with the addition of a comment much more flattering than the text warranted.  All that was commonplace—­all that belonged to the everyday world—­was melted away and obliterated in those dreams of imagination, which only remembered with advantage the points of grace and dignity that distinguished Flora, from the generality of her sex, not the particulars which she held in common with them, Edward was, in short, in the fair way of creating a goddess out of a high-spirited, accomplished, and beautiful young woman; and the time was wasted in castle-building, until, at the descent of a steep hill, he saw beneath him the market-town of—.

The Highland politeness of Callum Beg—­there are few nations, by the way, who can boast of so much natural politeness as the Highlanders [The Highlander, in former times, had always a high idea, of his own gentility, and was anxious to impress the same upon those with whom he conversed.  His language abounded in the phrases of courtesy and compliment; and the habit of carrying arms, and mixing with those who did so, made if particularly desirable they should use cautious politeness in their intercourse with each other.]—­the Highland civility of his attendant had not permitted him to disturb the reveries of our hero.  But observing him rouse himself at the sight of the village, Callum pressed closer to his side, and hoped ’When they cam to the public, his honour wad not say nothing about Vich Ian Vohr, for ta people were bitter Whigs, deil burst tem.’

Waverley assured the prudent page that he would be cautious; and as he now distinguished, not indeed the ringing of bells, but the tinkling of something like a hammer against the side of an old messy, green, inverted porridge-pot, that hung in an open booth, of the size and shape of a parrot’s cage, erected to grace the east end of a building resembling an old barn, he asked Callum Beg if it were Sunday.

’Could na say just preceesely—­Sunday seldom cam aboon the pass of Bally-Brough.’

On entering the town, however, and advancing towards the most apparent public house which presented itself, the numbers of old women, in tartan screens and red cloaks, who streamed from the barn-resembling building, debating, as they went, the comparative merits of the blessed youth Jabesh Rentowel, and that chosen vessel Maister Goukthrapple, induced Callum to assure his temporary master, ’that it was either ta muckle Sunday hersell, or ta little government Sunday that they ca’d ta fast.’