chel had
felt during Waverley's perilous engagement with the young Chevalier, it
assorted too well with the principles in which they had been brought up,
to incur reprobation, or even censure. Colonel Talbot also had smoothed
the way, with great address, for Edward's favourable reception,
by dwelling upon his gallant behaviour in the military character,
particularly his bravery and generosity at Preston; until, warmed at the
idea of their nephew's engaging in single combat, making prisoner,
and saving from slaughter, so distinguished an officer as the Colonel
himself, the imagination of the Baronet and his sister ranked the
exploits of Edward with those of Wilibert, Hildebrand, and Nigel, the
vaunted heroes of their line.

The appearance of Waverley, embrowned by exercise, and dignified by
the habits of military discipline, had acquired an athletic and
hardy character, which not only verified the Colonel's narration, but
surprised and delighted all the inhabitants of Waverley-Honour. They
crowded to see, to hear him, and to sing his praises. Mr. Pembroke, who
secretly extolled his spirit and courage in embracing the genuine cause
of the Church of England, censured his pupil gently, nevertheless,
for being so careless of his manuscripts, which indeed, he said, had
occasioned him some personal inconvenience, as, upon the Baronet's being
arrested by a king's messenger, he had deemed it prudent to retire to a
concealment called 'The Priest's Hole,' from the use it had been put to
in former days; where, he assured our hero, the butler had thought it
safe to venture with food only once in the day, so that he had been
repeatedly compelled to dine upon victuals either absolutely cold, or,
what was worse, only half warm, not to mention that sometimes his
bed had not been arranged for two days together. Waverley's mind
involuntarily turned to the Patmos of the Baron of Bradwardine, who was
well pleased with Janet's fare, and a few bunches of straw stowed in
a cleft in the front of a sand-cliff: but he made no remarks upon a
contrast which could only mortify his worthy tutor.

All was now in a bustle to prepare for the nuptials of Edward, an event
to which the good old Baronet and Mrs. Rachel looked forward as if
to the renewal of their own youth. The match, as Colonel Talbot had
intimated, had seemed to them in the highest degree eligible, having
every recommendation but wealth, of which they themselves had more than
enough. Mr