’And why?  Hundreds of misguided gentlemen are now in arms against the government, many, doubtless, upon principles which education and early prejudice have gilded with the names of patriotism and heroism; Justice, when she selects her victims from such a multitude (for surely all will not be destroyed), must regard the moral motive.  He whom ambition or hope of personal advantage has led to disturb the peace of a well-ordered government, let him fall a victim to the laws; but surely youth, misled by the wild visions of chivalry and imaginary loyalty, may plead for pardon.’

’If visionary chivalry and imaginary loyalty come within the predicament of high treason,’ replied the magistrate, ’I know no court in Christendom, my dear Mr. Morton, where they can sue out their Habeas Corpus.’

’But I cannot see that this youth’s guilt is at all established to my satisfaction,’ said the clergyman.

‘Because your good-nature blinds your good sense,’ replied Major Melville.  ’Observe now:  This young man, descended of a family of hereditary Jacobites, his uncle the leader of the Tory interest in the county of ——­, his father a disobliged and discontented courtier, his tutor a nonjuror and the author of two treasonable volumes—­this youth, I say, enters into Gardiner’s dragoons, bringing with him a body of young fellows from his uncle’s estate, who have not stickled at avowing in their way the High-Church principles they learned at Waverley-Honour, in their disputes with their comrades.  To these young men Waverley is unusually attentive; they are supplied with money beyond a soldier’s wants and inconsistent with his discipline; and are under the management of a favourite sergeant, through whom they hold an unusually close communication with their captain, and affect to consider themselves as independent of the other officers, and superior to their comrades.’

’All this, my dear Major, is the natural consequence of their attachment to their young landlord, and of their finding themselves in a regiment levied chiefly in the north of Ireland and the west of Scotland, and of course among comrades disposed to quarrel with them, both as Englishmen and as members of the Church of England.’

‘Well said, parson!’ replied the magistrate.  ’I would some of your synod heard you.  But let me go on.  This young man obtains leave of absence, goes to Tully-Veolan—­the principles of the Baron of Bradwardine are pretty well known, not to mention that this lad’s uncle brought him off in the year fifteen; he engages there in a brawl, in which he is said to have disgraced the commission he bore; Colonel Gardiner writes to him, first mildly, then more sharply—­I think you will not doubt his having done so, since he says so; the mess invite him to explain the quarrel in which he is said to have been involved; he neither replies to his commander nor his comrades.  In the meanwhile his soldiers become mutinous and disorderly, and at length, when