It was none of this Chieftain’s faults to be indifferent to the wrongs of his friends; and for Edward, independent of certain plans with which he was connected, he felt a deep and sincere interest.  The proceeding appeared as extraordinary to him as it had done to Edward.  He indeed knew of more motives than Waverley was privy to for the peremptory order that he should join his regiment.  But that, without further inquiry into the circumstances of a necessary delay, the commanding officer, in contradiction to his known and established character, should have proceeded in so harsh and unusual a manner was a mystery which he could not penetrate.  He soothed our hero, however, to the best of his power, and began to turn his thoughts on revenge for his insulted honour.

Edward eagerly grasped at the idea.  ’Will you carry a message for me to Colonel Gardiner, my dear Fergus, and oblige me for ever?’

Fergus paused.  ’It is an act of friendship which you should command, could it be useful, or lead to the righting your honour; but in the present case I doubt if your commanding officer would give you the meeting on account of his having taken measures which, however harsh and exasperating, were still within the strict bounds of his duty.  Besides, Gardiner is a precise Huguenot, and has adopted certain ideas about the sinfulness of such rencontres, from which it would be impossible to make him depart, especially as his courage is beyond all suspicion.  And besides, I—­I, to say the truth—­I dare not at this moment, for some very weighty reasons, go near any of the military quarters or garrisons belonging to this government.’

‘And am I,’ said Waverley, ’to sit down quiet and contented under the injury I have received?’

‘That will I never advise my friend,’ replied Mac-Ivor.  ’But I would have vengeance to fall on the head, not on the hand, on the tyrannical and oppressive government which designed and directed these premeditated and reiterated insults, not on the tools of office which they employed in the execution of the injuries they aimed at you.’

‘On the government!’ said Waverley.

‘Yes,’ replied the impetuous Highlander, ’on the usurping House of Hanover, whom your grandfather would no more have served than he would have taken wages of red-hot gold from the great fiend of hell!’

’But since the time of my grandfather two generations of this dynasty have possessed the throne,’ said Edward coolly.

‘True,’ replied the Chieftain; ’and because we have passively given them so long the means of showing their native character,—­ because both you and I myself have lived in quiet submission, have even truckled to the times so far as to accept commissions under them, and thus have given them an opportunity of disgracing us publicly by resuming them, are we not on that account to resent injuries which our fathers only apprehended, but which we have actually sustained?  Or is the cause of the unfortunate Stuart family become less just, because their title has devolved upon an heir who is innocent of the charges of misgovernment brought against his father?  Do you remember the lines of your favourite poet?