‘Evil to him that thinks otherwise,’ said Mr. Morton; ’or who holds church government and ceremonies as the exclusive gage of Christian faith or moral virtue.’

‘But,’ continued Waverley, ’I cannot perceive why I should trouble you with a detail of particulars, out of which, after revolving them as carefully as possible in my recollection, I find myself unable to explain much of what is charged against me.  I know, indeed, that I am innocent, but I hardly see how I can hope to prove myself so.’

‘It is for that very reason, Mr. Waverley,’ said the clergyman, ’that I venture to solicit your confidence.  My knowledge of individuals in this country is pretty general, and can upon occasion be extended.  Your situation will, I fear, preclude you taking those active steps for recovering intelligence, or tracing imposture, which I would willingly undertake in your behalf; and if you are not benefited by my exertions, at least they cannot be prejudicial to you.’

Waverley, after a few minutes’ reflection, was convinced that his reposing confidence in Mr. Morton, so far as he himself was concerned, could hurt neither Mr. Bradwardine nor Fergus Mac-Ivor, both of whom had openly assumed arms against the Government, and that it might possibly, if the professions of his new friend corresponded in sincerity with the earnestness of his expression, be of some service to himself.  He therefore ran briefly over most of the events with which the reader is already acquainted, suppressing his attachment to Flora, and indeed neither mentioning her nor Rose Bradwardine in the course of his narrative.

Mr. Morton seemed particularly struck with the account of Waverley’s visit to Donald Bean Lean.  ‘I am glad,’ he said, ’you did not mention this circumstance to the Major.  It is capable of great misconstruction on the part; of those who do not consider the power of curiosity and the influence of romance as motives of youthful conduct.  When I was a young man like you, Mr. Waverley, any such hair-brained expedition (I beg your pardon for the expression) would have had inexpressible charms for me.  But there are men in the world who will not believe that danger and fatigue are often incurred without any very adequate cause, and therefore who are sometimes led to assign motives of action entirely foreign to the truth.  This man Bean Lean is renowned through the country as a sort of Robin Hood, and the stories which are told of his address and enterprise are the common tales of the winter fireside.  He certainly possesses talents beyond the rude sphere in which he moves; and, being neither destitute of ambition nor encumbered with scruples, he will probably attempt, by every means, to distinguish himself during the period of these unhappy commotions.’  Mr. Morton then made a careful memorandum of the various particulars of Waverley’s interview with Donald Bean Lean, and the other circumstances which he had communicated.