from one of the embrazures upon the rock; and ere the report
with which it was attended could be heard, the rushing sound of a
cannon-ball passed over Balmawhapple's head, and the bullet, burying
itself in the ground at a few yards' distance, covered him with the earth
which it drove up. There was no need to bid the party trudge. In fact,
every man, acting upon the impulse of the moment, soon brought Mr.
Jinker's steeds to show their mettle, and the cavaliers, retreating with
more speed than regularity, never took to a trot, as the lieutenant
afterwards observed, until an intervening eminence had secured them from
any repetition of so undesirable a compliment on the part of Stirling
Castle. I must do Balmawhapple, however, the justice to say that he not
only kept the rear of his troop, and laboured to maintain some order
among them, but, in the height of his gallantry, answered the fire of the
Castle by discharging one of his horse-pistols at the battlements;
although, the distance being nearly half a mile, I could never learn that
this measure of retaliation was attended with any particular effect.

The travellers now passed the memorable field of Bannockburn and reached
the Torwood, a place glorious or terrible to the recollections of the
Scottish peasant, as the feats of Wallace or the cruelties of Wude Willie
Grime predominate in his recollection. At Falkirk, a town formerly famous
in Scottish history, and soon to be again distinguished as the scene of
military events of importance, Balmawhapple proposed to halt and repose
for the evening. This was performed with very little regard to military
discipline, his worthy quarter-master being chiefly solicitous to
discover where the best brandy might be come at. Sentinels were deemed
unnecessary, and the only vigils performed were those of such of the
party as could procure liquor. A few resolute men might easily have cut
off the detachment; but of the inhabitants some were favourable, many
indifferent, and the rest overawed. So nothing memorable occurred in the
course of the evening, except that Waverley's rest was sorely interrupted
by the revellers hallooing forth their Jacobite songs, without remorse or
mitigation of voice.

Early in the morning they were again mounted and on the road to
Edinburgh, though the pallid visages of some of the troop betrayed that
they had spent a night of sleepless debauchery. They halted at
Linlithgow, distinguished by its ancient palace,