of the prisoner.  It was the very sort of service which he was desirous to undertake, judging it might constitute a merit of such a nature as would make amends for any peccadilloes which he might be guilty of in the country.  He had the art, however, pleading all the while duty and discipline, to hold off, until poor Rose, in the extremity of her distress, offered to bribe him to the enterprise with some valuable jewels which had been her mother’s.

Donald Bean, who had served in France, knew, and perhaps over-estimated, the value of these trinkets.  But he also perceived Rose’s apprehensions of its being discovered that she had parted with her jewels for Waverley’s liberation.  Resolved this scruple should not part him and the treasure, he voluntarily offered to take an oath that he would never mention Miss Rose’s share in the transaction; and, foreseeing convenience in keeping the oath and no probable advantage in breaking it, he took the engagement—­in order, as he told his lieutenant, to deal handsomely by the young lady—­in the only mode and form which, by a mental paction with himself, he considered as binding:  he swore secrecy upon his drawn dirk.  He was the more especially moved to this act of good faith by some attentions that Miss Bradwardine showed to his daughter Alice, which, while they gained the heart of the mountain damsel, highly gratified the pride of her father.  Alice, who could now speak a little English, was very communicative in return for Rose’s kindness, readily confided to her the whole papers respecting the intrigue with Gardiner’s regiment, of which she was the depositary, and as readily undertook, at her instance, to restore them to Waverley without her father’s knowledge.  For ’they may oblige the bonnie young lady and the handsome young gentleman,’ said Alice, ’and what use has my father for a whin bits o’ scarted paper?’

The reader is aware that she took an opportunity of executing this purpose on the eve of Waverley’s leaving the glen.

How Donald executed his enterprise the reader is aware.  But the expulsion of the military from Tully-Veolan had given alarm, and while he was lying in wait for Gilfillan, a strong party, such as Donald did not care to face, was sent to drive back the insurgents in their turn, to encamp there, and to protect the country.  The officer, a gentleman and a disciplinarian, neither intruded himself on Miss Bradwardine, whose unprotected situation he respected, nor permitted his soldiers to commit any breach of discipline.  He formed a little camp upon an eminence near the house of Tully-Veolan, and placed proper guards at the passes in the vicinity.  This unwelcome news reached Donald Bean Lean as he was returning to Tully-Veolan.  Determined, however, to obtain the guerdon of his labour, he resolved, since approach to Tully-Veolan was impossible, to deposit his prisoner in Janet’s cottage, a place the very existence of which could hardly have been suspected even by those who had long