s five miles
were nearly doubled. His observation on the large measure which the
Scottish allowed of their land, in comparison to the computation of their
money, was readily answered by Evan with the old jest, 'The deil take
them wha have the least pint stoup.'

[Footnote: The Scotch are liberal in computing their land and liquor; the
Scottish pint corresponds to two English quarts. As for their coin, every
one knows the couplet--

How can the rogues pretend to sense?
Their pound is only twenty pence.]

And now the report of a gun was heard, and a sportsman was seen, with his
dogs and attendant, at the upper end of the glen. 'Shough,' said Dugald
Mahony, 'tat's ta Chief.'

'It is not,' said Evan, imperiously. 'Do you think he would come to meet
a Sassenach duinhe-wassel in such a way as that?'

But as they approached a little nearer, he said, with an appearance of
mortification, 'And it is even he, sure enough; and he has not his tail
on after all; there is no living creature with him but Callum Beg.'

In fact, Fergus Mac-Ivor, of whom a Frenchman might have said as truly as
of any man in the Highlands, 'Qu'il connoit bien ses gens' had no idea of
raising himself in the eyes of an English young man of fortune by
appearing with a retinue of idle Highlanders disproportioned to the
occasion. He was well aware that such an unnecessary attendance would
seem to Edward rather ludicrous than respectable; and, while few men were
more attached to ideas of chieftainship and feudal power, he was, for
that very reason, cautious of exhibiting external marks of dignity,
unless at the time and in the manner when they were most likely to
produce an imposing effect. Therefore, although, had he been to receive a
brother chieftain, he would probably have been attended by all that
retinue which Evan described with so much unction, he judged it more
respectable to advance to meet Waverley with a single attendant, a very
handsome Highland boy, who carried his master's shooting-pouch and his
broadsword, without which he seldom went abroad.

When Fergus and Waverley met, the latter was struck with the peculiar
grace and dignity of the Chieftain's figure. Above the middle size and
finely proportioned, the Highland dress, which he wore in its simplest
mode, set off his person to great advantage. He wore the trews, or close
trowsers, made of tartan, chequed scarlet and white; in other particulars
his dress strictly resemb