’Eh bien, Messieurs, wheel to de right.  Ah! dat is it!  Eh, Monsieur de Bradwardine, ayez la bonte de vous mettre a la tete de votre regiment, car, par Dieu, je n’en puis plus!’

The Baron of Bradwardine was obliged to go to the assistance of Monsieur de Beaujeu, after he had fairly expended his few English military phrases.  One purpose of the Chevalier was thus answered.  The other he proposed was, that in the eagerness to hear and comprehend commands issued through such an indistinct medium in his own presence, the thoughts of the soldiers in both corps might get a current different from the angry channel in which they were flowing at the time.

Charles Edward was no sooner left with the Chieftain and Waverley, the rest of his attendants being at some distance, than he said, ’If I owed less to your disinterested friendship, I could be most seriously angry with both of you for this very extraordinary and causeless broil, at a moment when my father’s service so decidedly demands the most perfect unanimity.  But the worst of my situation is, that my very best friends hold they have liberty to ruin themselves, as well as the cause they are engaged in, upon the slightest caprice.’

Both the young men protested their resolution to submit every difference to his arbitration.  ‘Indeed,’ said Edward, ’I hardly know of what I am accused.  I sought Colonel Mac-Ivor merely to mention to him that I had narrowly escaped assassination at the hand of his immediate dependent, a dastardly revenge which I knew him to be incapable of authorising.  As to the cause for which he is disposed to fasten a quarrel upon me, I am ignorant of it, unless it be that he accuses me, most unjustly, of having engaged the affections of a young lady in prejudice of his pretensions.’

‘If there is an error,’ said the Chieftain, ’it arises from a conversation which I held this morning with his Royal Highness himself.’

‘With me?’ said the Chevalier; ’how can Colonel Mac-Ivor have so far misunderstood me?’

He then led Fergus aside, and, after five minutes’ earnest conversation, spurred his horse towards Edward.  ’Is it possible—­ nay, ride up, Colonel, for I desire no secrets—­is it possible, Mr. Waverley, that I am mistaken in supposing that you are an accepted lover of Miss Bradwardine? a fact of which I was by circumstances, though not by communication from you, so absolutely convinced that I alleged it to Vich Ian Vohr this morning as a reason why, without offence to him, you might not continue to be ambitious of an alliance which, to an unengaged person, even though once repulsed, holds out too many charms to be lightly laid aside.’

‘Your Royal Highness,’ said Waverley,’must have founded on circumstances altogether unknown to me, when you did me the distinguished honour of supposing me an accepted lover of Miss Bradwardine.  I feel the distinction implied in the supposition, but I have no title to it.  For the rest, my confidence in my own merit is too justly slight to admit of my hoping for success in any quarter after positive rejection.’