to be taken out.  The cave was very narrow, too low in the roof to admit of his standing, or almost of his sitting up, though he made some awkward attempts at the latter posture.  His sole amusement was the perusal of his old friend Titus Livius, varied by occasionally scratching Latin proverbs and texts of Scripture with his knife on the roof and walls of his fortalice, which were of sandstone.  As the cave was dry, and filled with clean straw and withered fern, ‘it made,’ as he said, coiling himself up with an air of snugness and comfort which contrasted strangely with his situation, ’unless when the wind was due north, a very passable gite for an old soldier.’  Neither, as he observed, was he without sentries for the purpose of reconnoitring.  Davie and his mother were constantly on the watch to discover and avert danger; and it was singular what instances of address seemed dictated by the instinctive attachment of the poor simpleton when his patron’s safety was concerned.

With Janet, Edward now sought an interview.  He had recognised her at first sight as the old woman who had nursed him during his sickness after his delivery from Gifted Gilfillan.  The hut also, although a little repaired and somewhat better furnished, was certainly the place of his confinement; and he now recollected on the common moor of Tully-Veolan the trunk of a large decayed tree, called the try sting-tree, which he had no doubt was the same at which the Highlanders rendezvoused on that memorable night.  All this he had combined in his imagination the night before; but reasons which may probably occur to the reader prevented him from catechising Janet in the presence of the Baron.

He now commenced the task in good earnest; and the first question was, Who was the young lady that visited the hut during his illness?  Janet paused for a little; and then observed, that to keep the secret now would neither do good nor ill to anybody.

’ It was just a leddy that hasna her equal in the world—­Miss Rose Bradwardine!’

‘Then Miss Rose was probably also the author of my deliverance,’ inferred Waverley, delighted at the confirmation of an idea which local circumstances had already induced him to entertain.

’I wot weel, Mr. Wauverley, and that was she e’en; but sair, sair angry and affronted wad she hae been, puir thing, if she had thought ye had been ever to ken a word about the matter; for she gar’d me speak aye Gaelic when ye was in hearing, to mak ye trow we were in the Hielands.  I can speak it weil eneugh, for my mother was a Hieland woman.’

A few more questions now brought out the whole mystery respecting Waverley’s deliverance from the bondage in which he left Cairnvreckan.  Never did music sound sweeter to an amateur than the drowsy tautology with which old Janet detailed every circumstance thrilled upon the ears of Waverley.  But my reader is not a lover and I must spare his patience, by attempting to condense within reasonable compass the narrative which old Janet spread through a harangue of nearly two hours.