into a more picturesque and romantic country,
if my passengers incline to have some patience with me during my first
stages. [These Introductory Chapters have been a good deal censured as
tedious and unnecessary. Yet there are circumstances recorded in them
which the author has not been able to persuade himself to retract or
cancel.]

CHAPTER VI

THE ADIEUS OF WAVERLEY

It was upon the evening of this memorable Sunday that Sir Everard
entered the library, where he narrowly missed surprising our young hero
as he went through the guards of the broadsword with the ancient weapon
of old Sir Hildebrand, which, being preserved as an heirloom, usually
hung over the chimney in the library, beneath a picture of the knight
and his horse, where the features were almost entirely hidden by the
knight's profusion of curled hair, and the Bucephalus which he bestrode
concealed by the voluminous robes of the Bath with which he was
decorated. Sir Everard entered, and after a glance at the picture and
another at his nephew, began a little speech, which, however, soon
dropped into the natural simplicity of his common manner, agitated upon
the present occasion by no common feeling. 'Nephew,' he said; and then,
as mending his phrase, 'My dear Edward, it is God's will, and also the
will of your father, whom, under God, it is your duty to obey, that you
should leave us to take up the profession of arms, in which so many of
your ancestors have been distinguished. I have made such arrangements
as will enable you to take the field as their descendant, and as the
probable heir of the house of Waverley; and, sir, in the field of battle
you will remember what name you bear. And, Edward, my dear boy, remember
also that you are the last of that race, and the only hope of its
revival depends upon you; therefore, as far as duty and honour will
permit, avoid danger--I mean unnecessary danger--and keep no company
with rakes, gamblers, and Whigs, of whom, it is to be feared, there are
but too many in the service into which you are going. Your colonel, as
I am informed, is an excellent man--for a Presbyterian; but you will
remember your duty to God, the Church of England, and the--' (this
breach ought to have been supplied, according to the rubric, with
the word KING; but as, unfortunately, that word conveyed a double and
embarrassing sense, one meaning DE FACTO, and the other DE JURE, the
knight filled up the blank otherwise)--'the Church of England