the
injury I have received?'

'That will I never advise my friend,' replied Mac-Ivor. 'But I would have
vengeance to fall on the head, not on the hand, on the tyrannical and
oppressive government which designed and directed these premeditated and
reiterated insults, not on the tools of office which they employed in the
execution of the injuries they aimed at you.'

'On the government!' said Waverley.

'Yes,' replied the impetuous Highlander, 'on the usurping House of
Hanover, whom your grandfather would no more have served than he would
have taken wages of red-hot gold from the great fiend of hell!'

'But since the time of my grandfather two generations of this dynasty
have possessed the throne,' said Edward coolly.

'True,' replied the Chieftain; 'and because we have passively given them
so long the means of showing their native character,--because both you
and I myself have lived in quiet submission, have even truckled to the
times so far as to accept commissions under them, and thus have given
them an opportunity of disgracing us publicly by resuming them, are we
not on that account to resent injuries which our fathers only
apprehended, but which we have actually sustained? Or is the cause of the
unfortunate Stuart family become less just, because their title has
devolved upon an heir who is innocent of the charges of misgovernment
brought against his father? Do you remember the lines of your favourite
poet?

Had Richard unconstrain'd resign'd the throne,
A king can give no more than is his own;
The title stood entail'd had Richard had a son.

You see, my dear Waverley, I can quote poetry as well as Flora and you.
But come, clear your moody brow, and trust to me to show you an
honourable road to a speedy and glorious revenge. Let us seek Flora, who
perhaps has more news to tell us of what has occurred during our absence.
She will rejoice to hear that you are relieved of your servitude. But
first add a postscript to your letter, marking the time when you received
this calvinistical colonel's first summons, and express your regret that
the hastiness of his proceedings prevented your anticipating them by
sending your resignation. Then let him blush for his injustice.'

The letter was sealed accordingly, covering a formal resignation of the
commission, and Mac-Ivor despatched it with some letters of his own by a
special messenger, with charge to put them into the nearest post-office
in the Lowlands