her maidens rove,
I'll smile on other men.

[Footnote: This is a genuine ancient fragment, with some alteration in
the two last lines.]

Here lifting up his eyes, which had hitherto been fixed in observing how
his feet kept time to the tune, he beheld Waverley, and instantly doffed
his cap, with many grotesque signals of surprise, respect, and
salutation. Edward, though with little hope of receiving an answer to any
constant question, requested to know whether Mr. Bradwardine were at
home, or where he could find any of the domestics. The questioned party
replied, and, like the witch of Thalaba, 'still his speech was song,'--

The Knight's to the mountain
His bugle to wind;
The Lady's to greenwood
Her garland to bind.
The bower of Burd Ellen
Has moss on the floor,
That the step of Lord William
Be silent and sure.

This conveyed no information, and Edward, repeating his queries, received
a rapid answer, in which, from the haste and peculiarity of the dialect,
the word 'butler' was alone intelligible. Waverley then requested to see
the butler; upon which the fellow, with a knowing look and nod of
intelligence, made a signal to Edward to follow, and began to dance and
caper down the alley up which he had made his approaches. A strange guide
this, thought Edward, and not much unlike one of Shakespeare's roynish
clowns. I am not over prudent to trust to his pilotage; but wiser men
have been led by fools. By this time he reached the bottom of the alley,
where, turning short on a little parterre of flowers, shrouded from the
east and north by a close yew hedge, he found an old man at work without
his coat, whose appearance hovered between that of an upper servant and
gardener; his red nose and ruffled shirt belonging to the former
profession; his hale and sunburnt visage, with his green apron, appearing
to indicate

Old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden.

The major domo, for such he was, and indisputably the second officer of
state in the barony (nay, as chief minister of the interior, superior
even to Bailie Macwheeble in his own department of the kitchen and
cellar)--the major domo laid down his spade, slipped on his coat in
haste, and with a wrathful look at Edward's guide, probably excited by
his having introduced a stranger while he was engaged in this laborious,
and, as he might suppose it, degrading office, requested to know the
gentleman's commands. Being informed t