nt of the common cause.

'We shall hardly,' said he one morning to Waverley when they had been
viewing the Castle--'we shall hardly gain the obsidional crown, which you
wot well was made of the roots or grain which takes root within the place
besieged, or it may be of the herb woodbind, parietaria, or pellitory; we
shall not, I say, gain it by this same blockade or leaguer of Edinburgh
Castle.' For this opinion he gave most learned and satisfactory reasons,
that the reader may not care to hear repeated.

Having escaped from the old gentleman, Waverley went to Fergus's lodgings
by appointment, to await his return from Holyrood House. 'I am to have a
particular audience to-morrow,' said Fergus to Waverley overnight, 'and
you must meet me to wish me joy of the success which I securely
anticipate.'

The morrow came, and in the Chief's apartment he found Ensign Maccombich
waiting to make report of his turn of duty in a sort of ditch which they
had dug across the Castle-hill and called a trench. In a short time the
Chief's voice was heard on the stair in a tone of impatient fury:
'Callum! why, Callum Beg! Diaoul!' He entered the room with all the marks
of a man agitated by a towering passion; and there were few upon whose
features rage produced a more violent effect. The veins of his forehead
swelled when he was in such agitation; his nostril became dilated; his
cheek and eye inflamed; and his look that of a demoniac. These
appearances of half-suppressed rage were the more frightful because they
were obviously caused by a strong effort to temper with discretion an
almost ungovernable paroxysm of passion, and resulted from an internal
conflict of the most dreadful kind, which agitated his whole frame of
mortality.

As he entered the apartment he unbuckled his broadsword, and throwing it
down with such violence that the weapon rolled to the other end of the
room, 'I know not what,' he exclaimed, 'withholds me from taking a solemn
oath that I will never more draw it in his cause. Load my pistols,
Callum, and bring them hither instantly--instantly!' Callum, whom nothing
ever startled, dismayed, or disconcerted, obeyed very coolly. Evan Dhu,
upon whose brow the suspicion that his Chief had been insulted called up
a corresponding storm, swelled in sullen silence, awaiting to learn where
or upon whom vengeance was to descend.

'So, Waverley, you are there,' said the Chief, after a moment's
recollection. 'Yes, I remember I asked