at a few yards’ distance, covered him with the earth which it drove up.  There was no need to bid the party trudge.  In fact, every man, acting upon the impulse of the moment, soon brought Mr. Jinker’s steeds to show their mettle, and the cavaliers, retreating with more speed than regularity, never took to a trot, as the lieutenant afterwards observed, until an intervening eminence had secured them from any repetition of so undesirable a compliment on the part of Stirling Castle.  I must do Balmawhapple, however, the justice to say that he not only kept the rear of his troop, and laboured to maintain some order among them, but, in the height of his gallantry, answered the fire of the Castle by discharging one of his horse-pistols at the battlements; although, the distance being nearly half a mile, I could never learn that this measure of retaliation was attended with any particular effect.

The travellers now passed the memorable field of Bannockburn and reached the Torwood, a place glorious or terrible to the recollections of the Scottish peasant, as the feats of Wallace or the cruelties of Wude Willie Grime predominate in his recollection.  At Falkirk, a town formerly famous in Scottish history, and soon to be again distinguished as the scene of military events of importance, Balmawhapple proposed to halt and repose for the evening.  This was performed with very little regard to military discipline, his worthy quarter-master being chiefly solicitous to discover where the best brandy might be come at.  Sentinels were deemed unnecessary, and the only vigils performed were those of such of the party as could procure liquor.  A few resolute men might easily have cut off the detachment; but of the inhabitants some were favourable, many indifferent, and the rest overawed.  So nothing memorable occurred in the course of the evening, except that Waverley’s rest was sorely interrupted by the revellers hallooing forth their Jacobite songs, without remorse or mitigation of voice.

Early in the morning they were again mounted and on the road to Edinburgh, though the pallid visages of some of the troop betrayed that they had spent a night of sleepless debauchery.  They halted at Linlithgow, distinguished by its ancient palace, which Sixty Years Since was entire and habitable, and whose venerable ruins, not quite sixty years since, very narrowly escaped the unworthy fate of being converted into a barrack for French prisoners.  May repose and blessings attend the ashes of the patriotic statesman who, amongst his last services to Scotland, interposed to prevent this profanation!

As they approached the metropolis of Scotland, through a champaign and cultivated country, the sounds of war began to be heard.  The distant yet distinct report of heavy cannon, fired at intervals, apprized Waverley that the work of destruction was going forward.  Even Balmawhapple seemed moved to take some precautions, by sending an advanced party in front of his troop, keeping the main body in tolerable order, and moving steadily forward.