ty, as if Edward were to wed a peeress in her own right, with
her paternal estate tacked to the fringe of her ermine.

But before entering upon a subject of proverbial delay, I must remind my
reader of the progress of a stone rolled downhill by an idle truant boy
(a pastime at which I was myself expert in my more juvenile years), it
moves at first slowly, avoiding by inflection every obstacle of the least
importance; but when it has attained its full impulse, and draws near the
conclusion of its career, it smokes and thunders down, taking a rood at
every spring, clearing hedge and ditch like a Yorkshire huntsman, and
becoming most furiously rapid in its course when it is nearest to being
consigned to rest for ever. Even such is the course of a narrative like
that which you are perusing. The earlier events are studiously dwelt
upon, that you, kind reader, may be introduced to the character rather by
narrative than by the duller medium of direct description; but when the
story draws near its close, we hurry over the circumstances, however
important, which your imagination must have forestalled, and leave you to
suppose those things which it would be abusing your patience to relate at
length.

We are, therefore, so far from attempting to trace the dull progress of
Messrs. Clippurse and Hookem, or that of their worthy official brethren
who had the charge of suing out the pardons of Edward Waverley and his
intended father-in-law, that we can but touch upon matters more
attractive. The mutual epistles, for example, which were exchanged
between Sir Everard and the Baron upon this occasion, though matchless
specimens of eloquence in their way, must be consigned to merciless
oblivion. Nor can I tell you at length how worthy Aunt Rachel, not
without a delicate and affectionate allusion to the circumstances which
had transferred Rose's maternal diamonds to the hands of Donald Bean
Lean, stocked her casket with a set of jewels that a duchess might have
envied. Moreover, the reader will have the goodness to imagine that Job
Houghton and his dame were suitably provided for, although they could
never be persuaded that their son fell otherwise than fighting by the
young squire's side; so that Alick, who, as a lover of truth, had made
many needless attempts to expound the real circumstances to them, was
finally ordered to say not a word more upon the subject. He indemnified
himself, however, by the liberal allowance of desperate battles