The last of the soldiers had now disappeared from under the vaulted archway through which they had been filing for several minutes; the court-yard was now totally empty, but Waverley still stood there as if stupefied, his eyes fixed upon the dark pass where he had so lately seen the last glimpse of his friend.  At length a female servant of the governor’s, struck with compassion, at the stupefied misery which his countenance expressed, asked him if he would not walk into her master’s house and sit down?  She was obliged to repeat her question twice ere he comprehended her, but at length it recalled him to himself.  Declining the courtesy by a hasty gesture, he pulled his hat over his eyes, and, leaving the Castle, walked as swiftly as he could through the empty streets till he regained his inn, then rushed into an apartment and bolted the door.

In about an hour and a half, which seemed an age of unutterable suspense, the sound of the drums and fifes performing a lively air, and the confused murmur of the crowd which now filled the streets, so lately deserted, apprised him that all was finished, and that the military and populace were returning from the dreadful scene.  I will not attempt to describe his sensations.

In the evening the priest made him a visit, and informed him that he did so by directions of his deceased friend, to assure him that Fergus Mac-Ivor had died as he lived, and remembered his friendship to the last.  He added, he had also seen Flora, whose state of mind seemed more composed since all was over.  With her and sister Theresa the priest proposed next day to leave Carlisle for the nearest seaport from which they could embark for France.  Waverley forced on this good man a ring of some value and a sum of money to be employed (as he thought might gratify Flora) in the services of the Catholic church for the memory of his friend.  ‘Fun-garque inani munere,’ he repeated, as the ecclesiastic retired.  ’Yet why not class these acts of remembrance with other honours, with which affection in all sects pursues the memory of the dead?’

The next morning ere daylight he took leave of the town of Carlisle, promising to himself never again to enter its walls.  He dared hardly look back towards the Gothic battlements of the fortified gate under which he passed, for the place is surrounded with an old wall.  ‘They’re no there,’ said Alick Polwarth, who guessed the cause of the dubious look which Waverley cast backward, and who, with the vulgar appetite for the horrible, was master of each detail of the butchery—­’the heads are ower the Scotch yate, as they ca’ it.  It’s a great pity of Evan Dhu, who was a very weel-meaning, good-natured man, to be a Hielandman; and indeed so was the Laird o’ Glennaquoich too, for that matter, when he wasna in ane o’ his tirrivies.’

CHAPTER LXX

DULCE DOMUM