ave the happiness to call you
leader?' asked Waverley.

'In a good cause, and under a chieftain whom they loved, the race of
Ivor have seldom taken the field under five hundred claymores. But you
are aware, Captain Waverley, that the Disarming Act, passed about twenty
years ago, prevents their being in the complete state of preparation
as in former times; and I keep no more of my clan under arms than may
defend my own or my friends' property, when the country is troubled
with such men as your last night's landlord; and Government, which
has removed other means of defence, must connive at our protecting
ourselves.'

'But, with your force, you might soon destroy, or put down, such gangs
as that of Donald Bean Lean.'

'Yes, doubtless; and my reward would be a summons to deliver up to
General Blakeney, at Stirling, the few broadswords they have left us:
there were little policy in that, methinks.--But come, Captain, the
sound of the pipes informs me that dinner is prepared. Let me have the
honour to show you into my rude mansion.'

CHAPTER XX

A HIGHLAND FEAST

Ere Waverley entered the banqueting hall, he was offered the patriarchal
refreshment of a bath for the feet, which the sultry weather, and the
morasses he had traversed, rendered highly acceptable. He was not,
indeed, so luxuriously attended upon this occasion as the heroic
travellers in the Odyssey; the task of ablution and abstersion being
performed, not by a beautiful damsel, trained

To chafe the limb, and pour the fragrant oil,

but by a smoke-dried skinny old Highland woman, who did not seem to
think herself much honoured by the duty imposed upon her, but muttered
between her teeth, 'Our father's herds did not feed so near together,
that I should do you this service.' A small donation, however, amply
reconciled this ancient handmaiden to the supposed degradation; and, as
Edward proceeded to the hall, she gave him her blessing, in the Gaelic
proverb, 'May the open hand be filled the fullest.'

The hall, in which the feast was prepared, occupied all the first storey
of Ian nan Chaistel's original erection, and a huge oaken table extended
through its whole length. The apparatus for dinner was simple, even to
rudeness, and the company numerous, even to crowding. At the head of
the table was the Chief himself, with Edward, and two or three Highland
visitors of neighbouring clans; the elders of his own tribe, wadsetters,
and tacksmen, as they wer