ught it was not a man at all,
but some prisoned fairy tied to an endless task--Wizard Michael's
familiar spirit, or Lord Soulis's imp Red Cap doing his master's bidding
with a goose-quill.

"But it was something much more wonderful than any of these. It was the
hand of Walter Scott finishing _Waverley_, at the rate of a volume every
ten days!"

"Why did he work so hard?" demanded Hugh John, whom the appearance of
fifty hands diligently writing would not have annoyed--no, not if they
had all worked like sewing-machines.

"Because," I answered, "the man who wrote _Waverley_ was beginning to
have more need of money. He had bought land. He was involved in other
people's misfortunes. Besides, for a long time, he had been a great
poet, and now of late there had arisen a greater."

"I know," cried Sweetheart, "Lord Byron--but _I_ don't think he was."

"Anyway Fitzjames and Roderick Dhu is ripping!" announced Hugh John,
and, rising to his feet, he whistled shrill in imitation of the outlaw.
It was the time to take the affairs of children at the fulness of the
tide.

"I think," I ventured, "that you would like the story of _Waverley_ if I
were to tell it now. I know you will like _Rob Roy_. Which shall it be
first?"

Then there were counter-cries of "Waverley" and "Rob Roy"--all the fury
of a contested election. But Sweetheart, waiting till the brawlers were
somewhat breathed, indicated the final sense of the meeting by saying
quietly, "_Tell us the one the hand was writing!_"

RED CAP TALES

TOLD FROM

WAVERLEY

THE FIRST TALE FROM "WAVERLEY"[1]

I. GOOD-BYE TO WAVERLEY-HONOUR

ON a certain Sunday evening, toward the middle of the eighteenth
century, a young man stood practising the guards of the broadsword in
the library of an old English manor-house. The young man was Captain
Edward Waverley, recently assigned to the command of a company in
Gardiner's regiment of dragoons, and his uncle was coming in to say a
few words to him before he set out to join the colours.

Being a soldier and a hero, Edward Waverley was naturally tall and
handsome, but, owing to the manner of his education, his uncle, an high
Jacobite of the old school, held that he was "somewhat too bookish" for
a proper man. He must therefore see a little of the world, asserted old
Sir Everard.

His Aunt Rachel had another reason for wishing him to leave
Waverley-Honour. She had actually observed her Edward look too often
acr