ed his ideas of a hero of romance; to be
courted by him in the ancient halls of his paternal palace, recovered
by the sword which he was already bending towards other conquests, gave
Edward, in his own eyes, the dignity and importance which he had ceased
to consider as his attributes. Rejected, slandered, and threatened
upon the one side, he was irresistibly attracted to the cause which the
prejudices of education, and the political principles of his family, had
already recommended as the most just. These thoughts rushed through
his mind like a torrent, sweeping before them every consideration of an
opposite tendency,--the time, besides, admitted of no deliberation,--and
Waverley, kneeling to Charles Edward, devoted his heart and sword to the
vindication of his rights!

The Prince (for, although unfortunate in the faults and follies of his
forefathers, we shall here, and elsewhere, give him the title due to
his birth) raised Waverley from the ground, and embraced him with an
expression of thanks too warm not to be genuine. He also thanked
Fergus Mac-Ivor repeatedly for having brought him such an adherent, and
presented Waverley to the various noblemen, chieftains, and officers
who were about his person, as a young gentleman of the highest hopes and
prospects, in whose bold and enthusiastic avowal of his cause they might
see an evidence of the sentiments of the English families of rank at
this important crisis. [See Note 23.] Indeed, this was a point
much doubted among the adherents of the house of Stuart; and as a
well-founded disbelief in the co-operation of the English Jacobites kept
many Scottish men of rank from his standard, and diminished the courage
of those who had joined it, nothing could be more seasonable for the
Chevalier than the open declaration in his favour of the representative
of the house of Waverley-Honour, so long known as cavaliers and
royalists. This Fergus had foreseen from the beginning. He really loved
Waverley, because their feelings and projects never thwarted each other;
he hoped to see him united with Flora, and he rejoiced that they were
effectually engaged in the same cause. But, as we before hinted, he also
exulted as a politician in beholding secured to his party a partisan of
such consequence; and he was far from being insensible to the personal
importance which he himself gained with the Prince, from having so
materially assisted in making the acquisition.

Charles Edward, on his par