gst his last
services to Scotland, interposed to prevent this profanation!

As they approached the metropolis of Scotland, through a champaign and
cultivated country, the sounds of war began to be heard. The distant,
yet distinct report of heavy cannon, fired at intervals, apprized
Waverley that the work of destruction was going forward. Even
Balmawhapple seemed moved to take some precautions, by sending an
advanced party in front of his troop, keeping the main body in tolerable
order, and moving steadily forward.

Marching in this manner they speedily reached an eminence, from which
they could view Edinburgh stretching along the ridgy hill which slopes
eastward from the Castle. The latter, being in a state of siege, or
rather of blockade, by the northern insurgents, who had already occupied
the town for two or three days, fired at intervals upon such parties
of Highlanders as exposed themselves, either on the main street, or
elsewhere in the vicinity of the fortress. The morning being calm and
fair, the effect of this dropping fire was to invest the Castle in
wreaths of smoke, the edges of which dissipated slowly in the air, while
the central veil was darkened ever and anon by fresh clouds poured forth
from the battlements; the whole giving, by the partial concealment, an
appearance of grandeur and gloom, rendered more terrific when Waverley
reflected on the cause by which it was produced, and that each explosion
might ring some brave man's knell.

Ere they approached the city, the partial cannonade had wholly ceased.
Balmawhapple, however, having in his recollection the unfriendly
greeting which his troop had received from the battery of Stirling,
had apparently no wish to tempt the forbearance of the artillery of the
Castle. He therefore left the direct road, and sweeping considerably to
the southward, so as to keep out of the range of the cannon, approached
the ancient palace of Holyrood, without having entered the walls of
the city. He then drew up his men in front of that venerable pile,
and delivered Waverley to the custody of a guard of Highlanders, whose
officer conducted him into the interior of the building.

A long, low, and ill-proportioned gallery, hung with pictures, affirmed
to be the portraits of kings, who, if they ever flourished at all, lived
several hundred years before the invention of painting in oil colours,
served as a sort of guard-chamber, or vestibule, to the apartments
which the adventur