eard of such a name till this moment.'

'Did you never, through such a person, or any other person, communicate
with Sergeant Humphry Houghton, instigating him to desert, with as
many of his comrades as he could seduce to join him, and unite with the
Highlanders and other rebels now in arms under the command of the young
Pretender?'

'I assure you I am not only entirely guiltless of the plot you have laid
to my charge, but I detest it from the very bottom of my soul, nor would
I be guilty of such treachery to gain a throne, either for myself or any
other man alive.'

'Yet when I consider this envelope, in the handwriting of one of those
misguided gentlemen who are now in arms against their country, and the
verses which it enclosed, I cannot but find some analogy between the
enterprise I have mentioned and the exploit of Wogan, which the writer
seems to expect you should imitate.'

Waverley was struck with the coincidence, but denied that the wishes
or expectations of the letter-writer were to be regarded as proofs of a
charge otherwise chimerical.

'But, if I am rightly informed, your time was spent, during your absence
from the regiment, between the house of this Highland Chieftain,
and that of Mr. Bradwardine of Bradwardine, also in arms for this
unfortunate cause?'

'I do not mean to disguise it; but I do deny, most resolutely, being
privy to any of their designs against the Government.'

'You do not, however, I presume, intend to deny, that you attended your
host Glennaquoich to a rendezvous, where, under a pretence of a general
hunting-match, most of the accomplices of his treason were assembled to
concert measures for taking arms?'

'I acknowledge having been at such a meeting,' said Waverley; 'but I
neither heard nor saw anything which could give it the character you
affix to it.'

'From thence you proceeded,' continued the magistrate, 'with
Glennaquoich and a part of his clan, to join the army of the young
Pretender, and returned, after having paid your homage to him, to
discipline and arm the remainder, and unite them to his bands on their
way southward?'

'I never went with Glennaquoich on such an errand. I never so much as
heard that the person whom you mention was in the country.'

He then detailed the history of his misfortune at the hunting-match,
and added, that on his return he found himself suddenly deprived of his
commission and did not deny that he then, for the first time, observed
sym