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.

468 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
health, and at length rendered him incapable even of the sedentary duties of
the school, on which his bread depended. Fortunately, old Mr. Wbh.a bln,
who was the principal teacher of the little parochial establishment, was
sincerely attached to Butler. Besides that he was sensible of his merits
and value as an assistant, which had greatly raised the credit of his little
school, the ancient pedagogue, who had himself been tolerably educated,
retained some taste for classical lore, and would gladly relax, after the
drudgery of the school was over, by conning over a few pages of Horace or
Juvenal with his usher. A similarity, of taste begot kindness, and accordingly he saw Butler's increasing debility with great compassion, roused up
his own energies to teaching the school in the morning hours, insisted upon
his assistant's reposing himself at that period, and, besides, supplied him
with such eomforts as the patient's situation reqjuired, and his own means
were inadequate to compass.
Such was Butler's situation, scarce able to drag himself to the place
where his daily drudgery must gain his daily bread, and racked with a
thousand fearful anticipations concerning the fate of those who were dearest
to him in the world, when the trial and condemnation of Effie Deans put
the copestone upon his mental misery.
He had a particular account of these events from a fellow-student who
resided in the same village, and who, having been present on the melancholy occasion, was able to place it in all its agony of horrors before his
excruciated imagination. That sleep should have visited his eyes after such'a curfew-note, was impossible. A thousand dreadful visions haunted his
imagination all night, and in the morning he was awaked from a feverish
slumber, by the only circumstance which could have added to his distress,
-the visit of an intrusive ass.
This unwelcome visitant was no other than Bartoline Saddletree. The
worthy and sapient burgher had kept his appointment at MacCroskie's,
with Plumdamas and some other neighbours, to discuss the Duke of Argyle's speech, the justice of Effie Deans's condemnation, and the improbability of her obtaining a reprieve. This sage conclave disputed high and
drank deep, and on the next morning Bartoline felt, as he expressed it, as
if his head was like a " confused progress of writs."
To bring his reflective powers to their usual serenity, Saddletree resolved
to take a morning's ride upon a certain hackney, which he, Plumdamas;,
and another honest shop-keeper, combined to maintain by joint subscription,
for occasional jaunts for the purpose of business or exercise. As Saddletree
had two children boarded with Whackbairn, and was, as we have seen,
rather fond of Butler's society, he turned his palfrey's head towards Libberton, and came, as we have already said, to give the unfortunate usher
that additional vexation, of which Imogene complains so feelingly, when
she says,
I'm sprighted with a foolSprighted and anger'd worse.
If any thing could have added gall to bitterness, it was the choice which
Saddletree made of a subject for his prosing harangues, being the trial of
Effie Deans, and the probability of her being executed. Every word fell on
Butler's ear like the knell of a death-bell, or the note of a screech-owl.
Jeanie paused at the door of her lover's humble abode upon hearing the
loud and pompous tones of Saddletree sounding from the inner apartment,
"Credit me, it will be sae, Mr. Butler. Brandy cannot save her. She
maun gang down the Bow wi' the lad in the pioted coat* at her heels. — I
am sorry for the lassie, but the law, sir, maun hae its course —
Vivat Rex,
Currat Lex.
as the poet has it, in whilk of Horace's odes I know not."
The executioner, in livery of black or dark grey and silver, likened by low wit to a magpie.