The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

2~30 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
approach to familiarity-yet, when Lord Glenvarloch, perceiving and allowing for his timidity, sat down on the farther side of the fire, he appeared to
be more at his ease, and to hearken with some apparent interest to the arguments which from time to time Nigel used, to induce him to moderate, at
least, the violence of his grief. As the boy listened, his tears, though they
continued to flow freely, seemed to escape from their source more easily, his
sobs were less convulsive, and became gradually changed into low sighs,
which succeeded each other, indicating as much sorrow, perhaps, but less
alarm than his first transports had shown.
" Tell me who and what you are, my pretty boy," said Nigel. " Consider
me, child, as a companion, who wishes to be kind to you, would you but
teach him how he can be so."
" Sir-my lord, I mean," answered the boy, very timidly, and in a voice
which could scarce be heard even across the brief distance which divided
them, " you are very good-and I-am very unhappy —
A second fit of tears interrupted what else he had intended to say, and it
required a renewal of Lord Glenvarloch's good-natured expostulations and
encouragements, to bring him once more to such composure as rendered the
lad capable of expressing himself intelligibly. At length, however, he -was
able to say-" I am sensible of your goodness, my lord-and grateful for it
-but I am a poor unhappy creature, and, what is worse, have myself only
to thank for my misfortunes."
"VWe are seldom absolutely miserable, my young acquaintance," said
Nigel, " without being ourselves more or less responsible for it-I may well
say so, otherwise I had not been here to-day-but you are very young, and
can have but little to answer for."
"Oh, sir i I wish I could say so —I have been self-willed and obstinateand rash and ungovernable-and now-nbw, how dearly do I pay the price
of it!"
" Pshaw, my boy," replied Nigel; " this must be some childish frolic -
some breaking out of bounds-some truant trick-And yet how should any
of these have brought you to the Tower?- There is something mysterious
about you, young man, which I must inquire into."
"Indeed, indeed, my lord, there is no harm about me," said the boy,
more moved it would seem to confession by the last words, by which he
seemed considerably alarmed, than by all the kind expostulations and arguments which Nigel had previously used. " I am innocent - that is, I have
done wrong, but nothing to deserve being in this frightful place."
" Tell me the truth, then," said Nigel, in a tone in which command mingled with encouragement; " you have nothing to fear from me, and as little
to hope, perhaps —yet, placed as I am, I would know with whom I speak."
" With an unhappy - boy, sir - and idle and truantly disposed, as your
lordship said," answered the lad, looking up, and showing a countenance
in which paleness and blushes succeeded each other, as fear and shamefacedness alternately had influence. "I left my father's house without
leave, to see the King hunt in the Park at Greenwich; there came a cry of
treason, and all the gates were shut-I was frightened, and hid myself in a
thicket, and I was found by some of the rangers and examined - and they
said I gave no good account of myself-and so I was sent hither."
" I am an unhappy, a most unhappy being," said Lord Glenvarloch, rising
and walking through the apartment; "nothing approaches me but shares
my own bad fate I Death and imprisonment dog my steps, and involve all
who are found near me. Yet this boy's story sounds strangely. -You say
you were examined, my young friend-Let me pray you to say whether-you
told your name, and your means of gaining admission into the Park-if so,
they surely would not have detained you!"
"Oh, my lord," said the boy, "I took care not to tell them the name of