tion, and his mind being really soothed and relieved by the kindness of Morton, held himself bound to behave with ease, though he could not affect cordiality. The Major was somewhat of a bon-vivant, and his wine was excellent. He told his old campaign stories, and displayed much knowledge of men and manners. Mr Morton had an internal fund of placid and quiet gaiety, which seldom failed to enliven any small party in which he found himself pleasantly seated. Waverley, whose life was a dream, gave ready way to the predominating impulse, and became the most lively of the party. He had at all times remarkable natural powers of conversation, though easily silenced by discouragement. On the present occasion, he piqued himself upon leaving on the minds of his companions a favourable impression of one who, under such disastrous circumstances, could sustain his misfortunes with ease and gaiety. His spirits, though not unyield ing, were abundantly elastic, and soon se

conded his efforts. The trio were engaged in very lively discourse, apparently delighted with each other, and the kind host was pressing a third bottle of Burgundy, when the sound of a drum was heard at some distance. The Major, who, in the glee of an old soldier, had forgot the du ties of a magistrate, cursed, with a muttered' military oath, the circumstance which recalled him to his official functions. He rose and went toward the window, which commanded a very near view of the highroad, and he was followed by his guests.

The drum advanced, beating no measured martial tune, but a kind of rub-a-dubdub, like that with which the fire drum startles the slumbering artizans of a Scotch burgh. It is the object of this history to do justice to all men; I must therefore record, in justice to the drummer, that he protested he could beat any known march or point of war under the British army, and had accordingly commenced with "Dumbarton's Drums," when he was si

lenced by Gifted Gilfillan, the commander of the party, who refused to permit his followers to move to this profane, and even, as he said, persecutive tune, and commanded the drummer to beat the 119th Psalm. As this was beyond the capacity of the drubber of sheep-skin, he was fain to have recourse to the inoffensive rowdow-dow, as a harmless substitute for the sacred music which his instrument or skill were unable to perform. This may be held a trifling anecdote, but the drummer in question was no less than town-drummer of Anderton. I remember his successor in office a member of that enlightened body, the British Convention: Be his memory, therefore, treated with due respect.

CHAPTER XII.

A Volunteer Sixty Years since.

UPON hearing the unwelcome sound of the drum, Major Melville hastily opened a sashed door, and stepped out upon a sort of terrace which divided his house from the highroad from which the martial music proceeded. Waverley and his new friend followed him, though probably he would have dispensed with their attendance. They soon recognized in solemn march, first, the performer upon the drum; secondly, a large flag of four compartments, in which were inscribed the words, COVENANT, KIRK, KING, KINGDOMS. person who was honoured with this charge was followed by the commander of the party, a thin, dark, rigid-looking man,

The

about sixty years old. The spiritual pride, which, in mine Host of the Candlestick, mantled in a sort of supercilious hypocrisy, was, in this man's face, elevated and yet darkened by genuine and undoubting fanaticism. It was impossible to behold him without the imagination placing him in some strange crisis, where religious zeal was the ruling principle. A martyr at the stake, a soldier in the field, a lonely and banished wanderer consoled by the inten sity and supposed purity of his faith under every earthly privation; perhaps a persecuting inquisitor, as terrific in power as unyielding in adversity; any of these seemed congenial characters to this personage. With these high traits of energy, there was something in the affected precision and solemnity of his deportment and discourse, that bordered upon the ludicrous; so that, according to the mood of the spectator's mind, and the light under which Mr Gilfillan presented himself, one might have feared, admired, or laughed at him. His