sent various apologies which the pressure of the times compelled Fergus
to admit as current, though not without the internal resolution of being
revenged on him for his procrastination, time and place convenient.
However, as he could not amend the matter, he issued orders to Donald to
descend into the Low Country, drive the soldiers from Tully-Veolan, and,
paying all respect to the mansion of the Baron, to take his abode
somewhere near it, for protection of his daughter and family, and to
harass and drive away any of the armed volunteers or small parties of
military which he might find moving about the vicinity. As this charge
formed a sort of roving commission, which Donald proposed to interpret in
the way most advantageous to himself, as he was relieved from the
immediate terrors of Fergus, and as he had, from former secret services,
some interest in the councils of the Chevalier, he resolved to make hay
while the sun shone. He achieved without difficulty the task of driving
the soldiers from Tully-Veolan; but, although he did not venture to
encroach upon the interior of the family, or to disturb Miss Rose, being
unwilling to make himself a powerful enemy in the Chevalier's army,
For well he knew the Baron's wrath was deadly;
yet he set about to raise contributions and exactions upon the tenantry,
and otherwise to turn the war to his own advantage. Meanwhile he mounted
the white cockade, and waited upon Rose with a pretext of great devotion
for the service in which her father was engaged, and many apologies for
the freedom he must necessarily use for the support of his people. It was
at this moment that Rose learned, by open-mouthed fame, with all sorts of
exaggeration, that Waverley had killed the smith at Cairnvreckan, in an
attempt to arrest him; had been cast into a dungeon by Major Melville of
Cairnvreckan, and was to be executed by martial law within three days. In
the agony which these tidings excited she proposed to Donald Bean the
rescue 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 ser