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.

OLD M1OR1TALITY. 435
their banners, joined to the clang of their trumpets and kettle-drums, had
at once a lively and awful effect upon the imagination. As they advanced
still nearer and nearer, they could distinctly see the files of those chosen
troops following each other in long succession, completely equipped and
superbly mounted.
"It's a sight that makes me thirty years younger," said the old cavalier;
6 and yet I do not much like the service that these poor fellows are to be
engaged in. Although I had my share of the civil war, I cannot say I had
ever so much real pleasure in that sort of service as when I was employed
on tho Continent, and we were haclking at fellows with foreign faces and
outlandish dialect. It's a hard thing to hear a hamely Scotch tongue cry
quarter, and be obliged to cut him down just the same as if he called out
misgricorde. - So, there they come through the Netherwood haughb; upon
my word, fine-looking fellows, and capitally mounted. - He that is galloping from the rear of the column must be Claver'se himself; — ay, he gets
into the front as they cross the bridge, and now they will be with us in less
than five minutes."
At the bridge beneath the tower, the cavalry divided, and the greater
part, moving up the left bank of the brook and crossing at a ford a little
above, took the road of the Grange, as it was called, a large set of farmoffices belonging to the Tower, where Lady Margaret had ordered preparation to be made for their reception and suitable entertainment. The officers
alone, with their colours and an escort to guard them, were seen to take the
steep road up to the gate of the Tower, appearing by intervals as they
gained the ascent, and again hidden by projections of the bank and of the
huge old trees with which it is covered. When they emerged from this
narrow path, they found themselves in front of the old Tower, the gates of
which were hospitably open for their reception. Lady Margaret, with Edith
and her brother-in-law, having hastily descended from'their post of observation, appeared to meet and to welcome their guests, with a retinue of
domestics in as good order as the orgies of the preceding evening permitted.
The gallant young cornet (a relation as well as namesake of Claverhouse,
with whom the reader has been already made acquainted) lowered the
standaAm'd amid the fanfare of the trumpets, in homage to the rank of Lady
Margaret and the charms of her granddaughter, and the old walls echoed
to the flourish of the instruments, and the stamp and neigh of the chargers.
Ciaverhouse* himself alighted from a black horse, the most beautiful
perhaps in Scotland. He had not a single white hair upon his whole body
-a circumstance which, joined to his spirit and fleetness, and to his being
so frequently employed in pursuit of the presbyterian recusants, caused
an opinion to prevail among them, that the steed had been presented to his
rider by the great Enemy of Mankind, in order to assist him in persecuting
the fugitive wanderers. When Claverhouse had paid his respects to the
ladies with military politeness, had apologized -for the trouble to which he
was putting Lady M argaret's family, and had received the corresponding
assurances that she could not think anything an inconvenience which
brought within the walls of Tillietudlem so distinguished a soldier, and so
* This remarkable person united the seemingly inconsistent qualities of courage and cruelty, a disinterested
and devoted loyalty to his prince, with a disregard of the rights of his fellow-subjects. He -was the unscrupulous agent of the Scottish Privy Council in executing the merciless severities of the Government in Scotland during the reigns of Charles II. and James II.; but he redeemed his character by the zeal witlh which
he asserted the cause of the latter monarch after the Revolution, the military skrill with wthich he supported
it at the battle of Kfillieerankie, and by his own death in the arms of victory.
It is said by tradition, that he was very desinous to see, and be inctroduced to, a certain Lady Elphinstoun,
who had reached the advanced age of one hundred years and upwards.'Ihe noble natron, being a staunch
whig, was rather ulwilling to receive Claver'se (as he was called from his title), but at length consented.
After the usual compliments, the officer observed to the lady, ticat laving lived so much beyond the usual
term of humanity, she must in her time have seen many strange changes. " Hout na, sir," said Lady Elphlinstoun, " the world is just to end with me as it began. W1ren I was entering life, thiere was ane Knox deaving
us a' wi' his clavers, and now I am ganging out, there is ane Claver'se deaving us a' wi' hlis knocks."
Clavers signifying, in common parlance, idle chat, the double pun does credit to the ingenuity of a lady -lf a
laundred yecrs old.