ere 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, which, Sixty Years
since, was entire and habitable, and whose venerable ruins, not quite
Sixty Years since, very narrowly escaped the unworthy fate of being
converted into a barrack for French prisoners. May repose and blessings
attend the ashes of the patriotic statesman, who, amon