’I assure you I am not only entirely guiltless of the plot you have laid to my charge, but I detest it from the very bottom of my soul, nor would I be guilty of such treachery to gain a throne, either for myself or any other man alive.’

’Yet when I consider this envelope, in the handwriting of one of those misguided gentlemen who are now in arms against their country, and the verses which it enclosed, I cannot but find some analogy between the enterprise I have mentioned and the exploit of Wogan, which the writer seems to expect you should imitate.’

Waverley was struck with the coincidence, but denied that the wishes or expectations of the letter-writer were to be regarded as proofs of a charge otherwise chimerical.

’But, if I am rightly informed, your time was spent, during your absence from the regiment, between the house of this Highland Chieftain, and that of Mr. Bradwardine of Bradwardine, also in arms for this unfortunate cause?’

’I do not mean to disguise it; but I do deny, most resolutely, being privy to any of their designs against the Government.’

’You do not, however, I presume, intend to deny, that you attended your host Glennaquoich to a rendezvous, where, under a pretence of a general hunting-match, most of the accomplices of his treason were assembled to concert measures for taking arms?’

‘I acknowledge having been at such a meeting,’ said Waverley; ’but I neither heard nor saw anything which could give it the character you affix to it.’

‘From thence you proceeded,’ continued the magistrate, ’with Glennaquoich and a part of his clan, to join the army of the young Pretender, and returned, after having paid your homage to him, to discipline and arm the remainder, and unite them to his bands on their way southward?’

’I never went with Glennaquoich on such an errand.  I never so much as heard that the person whom you mention was in the country.’

He then detailed the history of his misfortune at the hunting-match, and added, that on his return he found himself suddenly deprived of his commission and did not deny that he then, for the first time, observed symptoms which indicated a disposition in the Highlanders to take arms; but added, that having no inclination to join their cause, and no longer any reason for remaining in Scotland, he was now on his return to his native country, to which he had been summoned by those who had a right to direct his motions, as Major Melville would perceive from the letters on the table.

Major Melville accordingly perused the letters of Richard Waverley, of Sir Everard, and of Aunt Rachel; but the inferences he drew from them were different from what Waverley expected.  They held the language of discontent with Government, threw out no obscure hints of revenge; and that of poor Aunt Rachel, which plainly asserted the justice of the Stuart cause, was held to contain the open avowal of what the others only ventured to insinuate.