By this periphrasis Waverley readily apprehended his portmanteau was intended.  He thought upon the mysterious packet of the maid of the cavern, which seemed always to escape him when within his very grasp.  But this was no time for indulgence of curiosity; and having declined Mrs. Flockhart’s compliment of a morning, i.e. a matutinal dram, being probably the only man in the Chevalier’s army by whom such a courtesy would have been rejected, he made his adieus and departed with Callum.

‘Callum,’ said he, as they proceeded down a dirty close to gain the southern skirts of the Canongate, ’what shall I do for a horse?’

‘Ta deil ane ye maun think o’,’ said Callum.  ’Vich Ian Vohr’s marching on foot at the head o’ his kin (not to say ta Prince, wha does the like), wi’ his target on his shoulder; and ye maun e’en be neighbour-like.’

’And so I will, Callum, give me my target; so, there we are fixed.  How does it look?’

‘Like the bra’ Highlander tat’s painted on the board afore the mickle change-house they ca’ Luckie Middlemass’s,’ answered Callum; meaning, I must observe, a high compliment, for in his opinion Luckie Middlemass’s sign was an exquisite specimen of art.  Waverley, however, not feeling the full force of this polite simile, asked him no further questions.

Upon extricating themselves from the mean and dirty suburbs of the metropolis, and emerging into the open air, Waverley felt a renewal of both health and spirits, and turned his recollection with firmness upon the events of the preceding evening, and with hope and resolution towards those of the approaching day.

When he had surmounted a small craggy eminence called St. Leonard’s Hill, the King’s Park, or the hollow between the mountain of Arthur’s Seat and the rising grounds on which the southern part of Edinburgh is now built, lay beneath him, and displayed a singular and animating prospect.  It was occupied by the army of the Highlanders, now in the act of preparing for their march.  Waverley had already seen something of the kind at the hunting-match which he attended with Fergus MacIvor; but this was on a scale of much greater magnitude, and incomparably deeper interest.  The rocks, which formed the background of the scene, and the very sky itself, rang with the clang of the bagpipers, summoning forth, each with his appropriate pibroch, his chieftain and clan.  The mountaineers, rousing themselves from their couch under the canopy of heaven with the hum and bustle of a confused and irregular multitude, like bees alarmed and arming in their hives, seemed to possess all the pliability of movement fitted to execute military manoeuvres.  Their motions appeared spontaneous and confused, but the result was order and regularity; so that a general must have praised the conclusion, though a martinet might have ridiculed the method by which it was attained.