ing with those
who did so, made if particularly desirable they should use cautious
politeness in their intercourse with each other.]--the Highland civility
of his attendant had not permitted him to disturb the reveries of our
hero. But observing him rouse himself at the sight of the village,
Callum pressed closer to his side, and hoped 'When they cam to the
public, his honour wad not say nothing about Vich Ian Vohr, for ta
people were bitter Whigs, deil burst tem.'

Waverley assured the prudent page that he would be cautious; and as he
now distinguished, not indeed the ringing of bells, but the tinkling
of something like a hammer against the side of an old messy, green,
inverted porridge-pot, that hung in an open booth, of the size and
shape of a parrot's cage, erected to grace the east end of a building
resembling an old barn, he asked Callum Beg if it were Sunday.

'Could na say just preceesely--Sunday seldom cam aboon the pass of
Bally-Brough.'

On entering the town, however, and advancing towards the most apparent
public house which presented itself, the numbers of old women, in tartan
screens and red cloaks, who streamed from the barn-resembling building,
debating, as they went, the comparative merits of the blessed youth
Jabesh Rentowel, and that chosen vessel Maister Goukthrapple, induced
Callum to assure his temporary master, 'that it was either ta muckle
Sunday hersell, or ta little government Sunday that they ca'd ta fast.'

On alighting at the sign of the Seven-branched Golden Candlestick,
which, for the further delectation of the guests, was graced with
a short Hebrew motto, they were received by mine host, a tall, thin
puritanical figure, who seemed to debate with himself whether he ought
to give shelter to those who travelled on such a day. Reflecting,
however, in all probability, that he possessed the power of mulcting
them for this irregularity, a penalty which they might escape by passing
into Gregor Duncanson's, at the sign of the Highlander and the Hawick
Gill, Mr. Ebenezer Cruickshanks condescended to admit them into his
dwelling.

To this sanctified person Waverley addressed his request that he would
procure him a guide, with a saddle-horse, to carry his portmanteau to
Edinburgh.

'And whar may ye be coming from?' demanded mine host of the Candlestick.

'I have told you where I wish to go; I do not conceive any further
information necessary either for the guide or his saddle-horse.'

'Hem!