to crown the cheer.  The Highlanders drank it copiously and undiluted; but Edward, having mixed a little with water, did not find it so palatable as to invite him to repeat the draught.  Their host bewailed himself exceedingly that he could offer him no wine:  ’Had he but known four-and-twenty hours before, he would have had some, had it been within the circle of forty miles round him.  But no gentleman could do more to show his sense of the honour of a visit from another, than to offer him the best cheer his house afforded.  Where there are no bushes there can be no nuts, and the way of those you live with is that you must follow.’

He went on regretting to Evan Dhu the death of an aged man, Donnacha an Amrigh, or Duncan with the Cap, ‘a gifted seer,’ who foretold, through the second sight, visitors of every description who haunted their dwelling, whether as friends or foes.

‘Is not his son Malcolm TAISHATR?’ (a second-sighted person), asked Evan.

‘Nothing equal to his father,’ replied Donald Bean.  He told us the other day we were to see a great gentleman riding on a horse, and there came nobody that whole day but Shemus Beg, the blind harper, with his dog.  Another time he advertised us of a wedding, and behold it proved a funeral; and on the creagh, when he foretold to us we should bring home a hundred head of horned cattle, we gripped nothing but a fat bailie of Perth.’

From this discourse he passed to the political and military state of the country; and Waverley was astonished, and even alarmed, to find a person of this description so accurately acquainted with the strength of the various garrisons and regiments quartered north of the Tay.  He even mentioned the exact number of recruits who had joined Waverley’s troop from his uncle’s estate, and observed they were pretty men, meaning, not handsome, but stout warlike fellows.  He put Waverley in mind of one or two minute circumstances which had happened at a general review of the regiment, which satisfied him that the robber had been an eye-witness of it; and Evan Dhu having by this time retired from the conversation, and wrapped himself up in his plaid to take some repose, Donald asked Edward, in a very significant manner, whether he had nothing particular to say to him.

Waverley, surprised and somewhat startled at this question from such a character, answered he had no motive in visiting him but curiosity to see his extraordinary place of residence.  Donald Bean Lean looked him steadily in the face for an instant, and then said, with a significant nod, ’You might as well have confided in me; I am as much worthy of trust as either the Baron of Bradwardine, or Vich Ian Vohr:—­but you are equally welcome to my house.’