sumed the morning, and music and the dance led on the hours of evening, Waverley became daily more delighted with his hospitable landlord, and more enamoured of his bewitching sister.

At length, the period fixed for the grand hunting arrived, and Waverley and the Chieftain departed for the place of rendezvous, which was a day's journey to the northward of Glennaquoich. Fergus was attended on this occasion by about three hundred of his clan, well armed, and ac coutred in their best fashion. Waverley complied so far with the custom of the country as to adopt the trews, (hé could not be reconciled to the kilt,) brogues, and bonnet, as the fittest dress for the exercise in which he was to be engaged, and which less exposed him to be stared at as a stranger when they should reach the place of rendezvous. They found, on the spot appointed, several distinguished Chiefs, to all of whom Waverley was formally presented, and by all cordially received. Their

vassals and clans-men, a part of whose feudal duty it was to attend upon such parties, appeared in such numbers as amounted to a small army. These active assistants spread through the country far and near, forming a circle, technically called the tinchel, which, gradually closing, drove the deer in herds together towards the glen where the Chiefs and principal sportsmen lay in wait for them. In the meanwhile, these distinguished personages bivouacked among the flowery heath, wrapped up in their plaids; a mode of passing a summer's night which Waverley found by no means unpleasant.

For many hours after sun-rise, the mountain ridges and passes retained their ordinary appearance of silence and solitude, and the Chiefs, with their followers, amused themselves with various pastimes, in which the joys of the shell, as Ossian has it, were not forgotten. "Others apart sate on a hill retired;" probably as deeply engaged in the discussion of politics and news, as

Milton's spirits in metaphysical disquisition. At length signals of the approach of the game were descried and heard. Distant shouts resounded from valley to valley, as the various parties of Highlanders, climbing rocks, struggling through copses, wading brooks, and traversing thickets, approached more and more near to each other, and compelled the astonished deer, with the other wild animals that fled before them, into a narrower circuit. Every now and then the report of muskets was heard, repeated by a thousand echoes. The baying of the dogs was soon added to the chorus, which grew ever louder and more loud. At length the advanced parties of the deer began to shew themselves, and as the stragglers came bounding down the pass by two or three at a time, the Chiefs shewed their skill by distinguishing the fattest deer, and their dexterity in bringing them down with their guns. Fergus exhibited remarkable address, and Ed

ward was also so fortunate as to attract the notice and applause of the sportsmen.

But now the main body of the deer appeared at the head of the glen, compelled into a very narrow compass, and presenting a most formidable phalanx, their antlers appearing at a distance over the ridge of the steep pass like a leafless grove. Their number was very great, and, from a desperate stand which they made, with the tallest of the red-deer stags arranged in front, in a sort of battle array, gazing on the group which barred their passage down the glen, the more experienced sportsmen began to augur danger. The work of destruction, however, now commenced on all sides. Dogs and hunters were at work, and muskets and fusees resounded from every quarter. The deer, driven to desperation, made at length a fearful charge right upon the spot where the more distinguished sportsmen had taken their stand. The word was given in Gaelic to fling themselves upon their faces;

but Waverley, upon whose English ears the signal was lost, had almost fallen à sacrifice to his ignorance of the ancient language in which it was communicated. Fergus, observing his danger, sprung up and pulled him with violence to the ground just as the whole herd broke down upon them. The tide being absolutely irresist ible, and wounds from a stag's horn highly dangerous, the activity of the Chieftain may be considered, on this occasion, as having saved his guest's life. He detained him with a firm grasp until the whole herd of deer had fairly run over them. Waverley then attempted to rise, but found that he had suffered several severe contusions, and upon a further examination discovered that he had sprained his ancle violently.

This checked the mirth of the meeting, although the Highlanders, accustomed to such incidents, and prepared for them, had suffered no harm themselves. A wigwam was erected almost in an instant, where Ed