nd circumstance, is in
its essence a very dry and abstract task, depending chiefly upon
arithmetical combinations, requiring much attention, and a cool and
reasoning head, to bring them into action. Our hero was liable to fits
of absence, in which his blunders excited some mirth, and called down
some reproof. This circumstance impressed him with a painful sense of
inferiority in those qualities which appeared most to deserve and obtain
regard in his new profession. He asked himself in vain, why his eye
could not judge of distance or space so well as those of his companions;
why his head was not always successful in disentangling the various
partial movements necessary to execute a particular evolution; and
why his memory, so alert upon most occasions, did not correctly retain
technical phrases, and minute points of etiquette or field discipline.
Waverley was naturally modest, and therefore did not fall into the
egregious mistake of supposing such minuter rules of military duty
beneath his notice, or conceiting himself to be born a general, because
he made an indifferent subaltern. The truth was, that the vague and
unsatisfactory course of reading which he had pursued, working upon a
temper naturally retired and abstracted, had given him that wavering
and unsettled habit of mind, which is most averse to study and riveted
attention. Time, in the meanwhile, hung heavy on his hands. The gentry
of the neighbourhood were disaffected, and, showed little hospitality
to the military guests; and the people of the town, chiefly engaged in
mercantile pursuits, were not such as Waverley chose to associate
with. The arrival of summer, and a curiosity to know something more of
Scotland than he could see in a ride from his quarters, determined him
to request leave of absence for a few weeks. He resolved first to
visit his uncle's ancient friend and correspondent, with the purpose
of extending or shortening the time of his residence according to
circumstances. He travelled of course on horseback, and with a single
attendant, and passed his first night at a miserable inn, where the
landlady had neither shoes nor stockings, and the landlord, who called
himself a gentleman, was disposed to be rude to his guest, because he
had not bespoke the pleasure of his society to supper. [5] The
next day, traversing an open and unenclosed country, Edward gradually
approached the Highlands of Perthshire, which at first had appeared a
blue outline in the