tune of 'Nancy Dawson,' which he was
whistling. He returned the fire ineffectually, and his comrades, starting
up at the alarm, advanced alertly towards the spot from which the first
shot had issued. The Highlander, after giving them a full view of his
person, dived among the thickets, for his ruse de guerre had now
perfectly succeeded.

While the soldiers pursued the cause of their disturbance in one
direction, Waverley, adopting the hint of his remaining attendant, made
the best of his speed in that which his guide originally intended to
pursue, and which now (the attention of the soldiers being drawn to a
different quarter) was unobserved and unguarded. When they had run about
a quarter of a mile, the brow of a rising ground which they had
surmounted concealed them from further risk of observation. They still
heard, however, at a distance the shouts of the soldiers as they hallooed
to each other upon the heath, and they could also hear the distant roll
of a drum beating to arms in the same direction. But these hostile sounds
were now far in their rear, and died away upon the breeze as they rapidly
proceeded.

When they had walked about half an hour, still along open and waste
ground of the same description, they came to the stump of an ancient oak,
which, from its relics, appeared to have been at one time a tree of very
large size. In an adjacent hollow they found several Highlanders, with a
horse or two. They had not joined them above a few minutes, which
Waverley's attendant employed, in all probability, in communicating the
cause of their delay (for the words 'Duncan Duroch' were often repeated),
when Duncan himself appeared, out of breath indeed, and with all the
symptoms of having run for his life, but laughing, and in high spirits at
the success of the stratagem by which he had baffled his pursuers. This
indeed Waverley could easily conceive might be a matter of no great
difficulty to the active mountaineer, who was perfectly acquainted with
the ground, and traced his course with a firmness and confidence to which
his pursuers must have been strangers. The alarm which he excited seemed
still to continue, for a dropping shot or two were heard at a great
distance, which seemed to serve as an addition to the mirth of Duncan and
his comrades.

The mountaineer now resumed the arms with which he had entrusted our
hero, giving him to understand that the dangers of the journey were
happily surmounted. Waverley was t