g them, and there was obviously an
increased disposition to resist Waverley's departure. He attempted to
argue mildly with them, but his voluntary ally, Mrs. Mucklewrath, broke
in upon and drowned his expostulations, taking his part with an abusive
violence which was all set down to Edward's account by those on whom it
was bestowed. 'YE'LL stop ony gentleman that's the Prince's freend?' for
she too, though with other feelings, had adopted the general opinion
respecting Waverley. 'I daur ye to touch him,' spreading abroad her long
and muscular fingers, garnished with claws which a vulture might have
envied. 'I'll set my ten commandments in the face o' the first loon that
lays a finger on him.'

'Gae hame, gudewife,' quoth the farmer aforesaid; 'it wad better set you
to be nursing the gudeman's bairns than to be deaving us here.'

'HIS bairns?' retorted the Amazon, regarding her husband with a grin of
ineffable contempt--'HIS bairns!

O gin ye were dead, gudeman,
And a green turf on your head, gudeman!
Then I wad ware my widowhood
Upon a ranting Highlandman'

This canticle, which excited a suppressed titter among the younger part
of the audience, totally overcame the patience of the taunted man of the
anvil. 'Deil be in me but I'll put this het gad down her throat!' cried
he in an ecstasy of wrath, snatching a bar from the forge; and he might
have executed his threat, had he not been withheld by a part of the mob,
while the rest endeavoured to force the termagant out of his presence.

Waverley meditated a retreat in the confusion, but his horse was nowhere
to be seen. At length he observed at some distance his faithful
attendant, Ebenezer, who, as soon as he had perceived the turn matters
were likely to take, had withdrawn both horses from the press, and,
mounted on the one and holding the other, answered the loud and repeated
calls of Waverley for his horse. 'Na, na! if ye are nae friend to kirk
and the king, and are detained as siccan a person, ye maun answer to
honest men of the country for breach of contract; and I maun keep the
naig and the walise for damage and expense, in respect my horse and
mysell will lose to-morrow's day's wark, besides the afternoon
preaching.'

Edward, out of patience, hemmed in and hustled by the rabble on every
side, and every moment expecting personal violence, resolved to try
measures of intimidation, and at length drew a pocket-pistol,
threatening, on the one