evident to his Highland
attendants or guard, for he knew not in which light to consider them,
that Waverley was quite unfit to travel. After a long consultation
among themselves, six of the party left the hut with their arms, leaving
behind an old and a young man. The former addressed Waverley, and bathed
the contusions, which swelling and livid colour now made conspicuous.
His own portmanteau, which the Highlanders had not failed to bring off,
supplied him with linen, and, to his great surprise, was, with all its
undiminished contents, freely resigned to his use. The bedding of his
couch seemed clean and comfortable, and his aged attendant closed the
door of the bed, for it had no curtain, after a few words of Gaelic,
from which Waverley gathered that he exhorted him to repose. So behold
our hero for a second time the patient of a Highland Aesculapius, but
in a situation much more uncomfortable than when he was the guest of the
worthy Tomanrait.

The symptomatic fever which accompanied the injuries he had sustained
did not abate till the third day, when it gave way to the care of his
attendants and the strength of his constitution, and he could now raise
himself in his bed, though not without pain. He observed, however, that
there was a great disinclination, on the part of the old woman who acted
as his nurse, as well as on that of the elderly Highlander, to permit
the door of the bed to be left open, so that he might amuse himself with
observing their motions; and at length, after Waverley had repeatedly
drawn open, and they had as frequently shut, the hatchway of his cage,
the old gentleman put an end to the contest, by securing it on the
outside with a nail, so effectually that the door could not be drawn
till this exterior impediment was removed.

While musing upon the cause of this contradictory spirit in persons
whose conduct intimated no purpose of plunder, and who, in all other
points, appeared to consult his welfare and his wishes, it occurred to
our hero, that, during the worst crisis of his illness, a female figure,
younger than his old Highland nurse, had appeared to flit around his
couch. Of this, indeed, he had but a very indistinct recollection, but
his suspicions were confirmed when, attentively listening, he often
heard, in the course of the day, the voice of another female conversing
in whispers with his attendant. Who could it be? And why should she
apparently desire concealment? Fancy immediately