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.

482 WAVEIEEY NOVELS.
he directed barricades to be constructed upon the winding avenue which
rose to the Tower along the high-road, taking care that each should command the other. The large gate of the court-yard he barricadoed yet more
strongly, leaving only a wicket open for the convenience of passage. What
he had most to apprehend, was the slenderness of his garrison; for all the
efforts of the steward were unable to get more than nine men under arms,
himself and Gudyill included-so much more popular was the cause of the
insurgents than that of the Government; Major Bellonden, and his trusty
servant Pike, made the garrison eleven in number, of whom one-half were
old men. The round dozen might indeed have been made up, would Lady
Margaret have consented that Goose Gibbie should again take up arms.
But she recoiled from the proposal, when moved by Gudyill, with such
abhorrent recollection of the former achievements of that luckless cavalier,
that she declared she would rather the Castle were lost than that he were
to be enrolled in the defence of it. With eleven men, however, himself
included, Major Bellenden determined to hold out the place to the uttermost.
The arrangements for defence were not made without the degree of fracas
incidental to such occasions. Women shrieked - cattle bellowed - dogs
howled-men ran to- and fro, cursing and swearing without intermission —
the lumbering of the old guns backwards and forwards shook the battlements-the court resounded with the hasty gallop of messengers who went
and returned upon errands of importance, and the din of warlike preparation was mingled with the sound of female laments.
Such a Babel of discord might have awakened the slumbers of the very
dead, and, therefore, was not long ere it dispelled the abstracted reveries
of Edith Bellenden. She sent out Jenny to bring her the cause of the
tumult which shook the castle to its very basis; but Jenny, once engaged
in the bustling tide, found so much to ask and to hear, that she forgot the
state of anxious uncertainty in which she had left her young mistress.
Having no pigeon to dismiss in pursuit of information when her raven
messenger had failed to return with it, Edith was compelled to venture in
quest of it out of the ark of her own chamber into the deluge of confusion
which overflowed the rest of the Castle. Six voices speaking at once, informed her, in reply to her first inquiry, that Claver'se and all his men were
killed, and that ten thousand whigs were marching to besiege the Castle,
headed by John Balfour of Burley, young Milnwood, and Cuddie Ileadrigg.
This strange association of persons seemed to infer the falsehood of the
whole story, and yet the general bustle in the Castle intimated that danger
was certainly apprehended.'Where is Lady Margaret?" was Edith's second question.
" In her oratory," was the reply,-a cell adjoining to the chapel, in which
the good old lady was wont to spend the greater part of the days destined by
the rules of the Episcopal Church to devotional observances, as also the anniversaries of those on which she had lost her husband and her children, and,
finally, those hours, in which a deeper and more solemn address to Heaven
was called for, by national or domestic calamity.
"Where, then," said Edith, much alarmed, " is Major Bellenden?"
" On the battlements of the Tower, madam, pointing the cannon," was
the reply.
To the battlements, therefore, she made her way, impeded by a thousand
obstacles, and found the old gentleman in the midst of his natural military
element, commanding, rebuking, encouraging, instructing, and exercising
all the numerous duties of a good governor.
"In the name of God, what is the matter, uncle?" exclaimed Edith
"The matter, my love?" answered the Major, coolly, as, with spectacles
on his nose, he examined the position of a gun -" The matter? Why -
raise her breech a thought more, John Gudyill —The matter? Why,