k
proper to read my narrative. Let me therefore consider. It is true, that
the annals and documents in my hands say but little of this Highland
chase; but then I can find copious materials for description elsewhere.
There is old Lindsay of Pitscottie ready at my elbow, with his Athole
hunting, and his 'lofted and joisted palace of green timber; with all
kind of drink to be had in burgh and land, as ale, beer, wine, muscadel,
malvaise, hippocras, and aquavitae; with wheat-bread, main-bread,
ginge-bread, beef, mutton, lamb, veal, venison, goose, grice, capon,
coney, crane, swan, partridge, plover, duck, drake, brissel-cock,
pawnies, black-cock, muir-fowl, and capercailzies;' not forgetting the
'costly bedding, vaiselle, and napry,' and least of all the 'excelling
stewards, cunning barters, excellent cooks, and pottingars, with
confections and drugs for the desserts.' Besides the particulars which
may be thence gleaned for this Highland feast (the splendour of which
induced the Pope's legate to dissent from an opinion which he had
hitherto held, that Scotland, namely, was the--the--the latter end of
the world)--besides these, might I not illuminate my pages with Taylor
the Water Poet's hunting in the braes of Mar, where,

Through heather, mosse, 'mong frogs, and bogs, and fogs,
'Mongst craggy cliffs and thunder-battered hills,
Hares, hinds, bucks, roes, are chased by men and dogs,
Where two hours' hunting fourscore fat deer kills.
Lowland, your sports are low as is your seat;
The Highland games and minds are high and great.

But without further tyranny over my readers, or display of the extent of
my own reading, I shall content myself with borrowing a single incident
from the memorable hunting at Lude, commemorated in the ingenious Mr.
Gunn's Essay on the Caledonian Harp, and so proceed in my story with
all the brevity that my natural style of composition, partaking of
what scholars call the periphrastic and ambagitory, and the vulgar the
circumbendibus, will permit me.

The solemn hunting was delayed, from various causes, for about three
weeks. The interval was spent by Waverley with great satisfaction at
Glennaquoich; for the impression which Flora had made on his mind at
their first meeting grew daily stronger. She was precisely the character
to fascinate a youth of romantic imagination. Her manners, her language,
her talents for poetry and music, gave additional and varied influence
to