true old soldier, observes everything and says little, gave me
afterwards to understand that he thought he had seen the piece of plate
Mr. Stanley mentioned, in the possession of a certain Mrs. Nosebag,
who, having been originally the helpmate of a pawnbroker, had found
opportunity, during the late unpleasant scenes in Scotland, to trade
a little in her old line, and so became the depositary of the more
valuable part of the spoil of half the army. You may believe the cup was
speedily recovered; and it will give me very great pleasure if you allow
me to suppose that its value is not diminished by having been restored
through my means.'

A tear mingled with the wine which the Baron filled, as he proposed a
cup of gratitude to Colonel Talbot, and 'The Prosperity of the united
Houses of Waverley-Honour and Bradwardine!'--

It only remains for me to say, that as no wish was ever uttered with
more affectionate sincerity, there are few which, allowing for the
necessary mutability of human events, have been, upon the whole, more
happily fulfilled.

CHAPTER LXXII

A POSTSCRIPT, WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN A PREFACE

Our journey is now finished, gentle reader; and if your patience has
accompanied me through these sheets, the contract is, on your part,
strictly fulfilled. Yet, like the driver who has received his full hire,
I still linger near you, and make, with becoming diffidence, a trifling
additional claim upon your bounty and good nature. You are as free,
however, to shut the volume of the one petitioner, as to close your door
in the face of the other.

This should have been a prefatory chapter, but for two reasons:--First,
that most novel readers, as my own conscience reminds me, are apt to
be guilty of the sin of omission respecting that same matter of
prefaces;--secondly, that it is a general custom with that class of
students, to begin with the last chapter of a work; so that, after
all, these remarks, being introduced last in order, have still the best
chance to be read in their proper place.

There is no European nation, which, within the course of half a century,
or little more, has undergone so complete a change as this kingdom of
Scotland. The effects of the insurrection of 1745,--the destruction
of the patriarchal power of the Highland chiefs,--the abolition of the
heritable jurisdictions of the Lowland nobility and barons,--the total
eradication of the Jacobite party, which, averse to intermingle with the