the peremptory
order that he should join his regiment. But that, without further
inquiry into the circumstances of a necessary delay, the commanding
officer, in contradiction to his known and established character, should
have proceeded in so harsh and unusual a manner, was a mystery which he
could not penetrate. He soothed our hero, however, to the best of
his power, and began to turn his thoughts on revenge for his insulted
honour.

Edward eagerly grasped at the idea. 'Will you carry a message for me to
Colonel Gardiner, my dear Fergus, and oblige me for ever?'

Fergus paused. 'It is an act of friendship which you should command,
could it be useful, or lead to the righting your honour; but in the
present case, I doubt if your commanding-officer would give you the
meeting on account of his having taken measures, which, however harsh
and exasperating, were still within the strict bounds of his duty.
Besides, Gardiner is a precise Huguenot, and has adopted certain
ideas about the sinfulness of such rencontres, from which it would be
impossible to make him depart, especially as his courage is beyond
all suspicion. And besides, I--I--to say the truth--I dare not at this
moment, for some very weighty reasons, go near any of the military
quarters or garrisons belonging to this government.'

'And am I,' said Waverley, 'to sit down quiet and contented under 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,--a