whole tribe of bears, large and small, had experienced as little favour as those at the head of the avenue, and one or two of the family pictures, which seemed to have served as targets for the soldiers, lay on the ground in tatters.  With an aching heart, as may well be imagined, Edward viewed this wreck of a mansion so respected.  But his anxiety to learn the fate of the proprietors, and his fears as to what that fate might be, increased with every step.  When he entered upon the terrace new scenes of desolation were visible.  The balustrade was broken down, the walls destroyed, the borders overgrown with weeds, and the fruit-trees cut down or grubbed up.  In one compartment of this old-fashioned garden were two immense horse-chestnut trees, of whose size the Baron was particularly vain; too lazy, perhaps, to cut them down, the spoilers, with malevolent ingenuity, had mined them and placed a quantity of gunpowder in the cavity.  One had been shivered to pieces by the explosion, and the fragments lay scattered around, encumbering the ground it had so long shadowed.  The other mine had been more partial in its effect.  About one-fourth of the trunk of the tree was torn from the mass, which, mutilated and defaced on the one side, still spread on the other its ample and undiminished boughs. [Footnote:  A pair of chestnut trees, destroyed, the one entirely and the other in part, by such a mischievous and wanton act of revenge, grew at Invergarry Castle, the fastness of MacDonald of Glengarry.]

Amid these general marks of ravage, there were some which more particularly addressed the feelings of Waverley.  Viewing the front of the building thus wasted and defaced, his eyes naturally sought the little balcony which more properly belonged to Rose’s apartment, her troisieme, or rather cinquieme, etage.  It was easily discovered, for beneath it lay the stage-flowers and shrubs with which it was her pride to decorate it, and which had been hurled from the bartizan; several of her books were mingled with broken flower-pots and other remnants.  Among these Waverley distinguished one of his own, a small copy of Ariosto, and gathered it as a treasure, though wasted by the wind and rain.

While, plunged in the sad reflections which the scene excited, he was looking around for some one who might explain the fate of the inhabitants, he heard a voice from the interior of the building singing, in well-remembered accents, an old Scottish song:—­

    They came upon us in the night,
    And brake my bower and slew my knight;
    My servants a’ for life did flee,
    And left us in extremitie.

    They slew my knight, to me sae dear;
    They slew my knight, and drave his gear;
    The moon may set, the sun may rise,
    But a deadly sleep has closed his eyes.

[Footnote:  The first three couplets are from an old ballad, called the Border Widow’s Lament.]

‘Alas,’ thought Edward, ’is it thou?  Poor helpless being, art thou alone left, to gibber and moan, and fill with thy wild and unconnected scraps of minstrelsy the halls that protected thee?’ He then called, first low, and then louder, ’Davie—­Davie Gellatley!’