SHOWS THAT THE LOSS OF A HORSE'S SHOE MAY BE A SERIOUS INCONVENIENCE.
The manner and air of Waverley, but above all, the glittering contents of his purse, and the indifference with which he seemed to regard them, somewhat overawed his companion, and deterred him from making any attempts to enter upon conversation.
His own reflections were, moreover, agitated by various surmises, and by plans of self-interest, with which these were intimately connected.The travellers journeyed, therefore, in silence, until it was interrupted by the annunciation on the part of the guide, that his ``naig had lost a fore-foot shoe, which, doubtless, his honour would consider it was his part to replace.''
This was what lawyers call a _fishing question,_ calculated to ascertain how far Waverley was disposed to submit to petty imposition.``My part to replace your horse's shoe, you rascal!''
said Waverley, mistaking the purport of the intimation.
``Indubitably,'' answered Mr.Cruickshanks; ``though there was no preceese clause to that effect, it canna be expected that I am to pay for the casualties whilk may befall the puir naig while in your honour's service.---Nathless, if your honour''------``O, you mean I am to pay the farrier; but where shall we find one?''
Rejoiced at discerning there would be no objection made on the part of his temporary master, Mr.Cruickshanks assured him that Cairnvreckan, a village which they were about to enter, was happy in an excellent blacksmith; ``but as he was a professor he would drive a nail for no man on the Sabbath or kirk fast, unless it were in a case of absolute necessity, for which he always charged sixpence each shoe.'' The most important part of this communication, in the opinion of the speaker, made a very slight impression on the hearer, who only internally wondered what college this veterinary professor belonged to; not aware that the word was used to denote any person who pretended to uncommon sanctity of faith and manner.
As they entered the village of Cairnvreckan,<*> they speedily * (Supposed to represent Auchterarder, a village midway between Perth * and Stirling, noted for religious controversy.)distinguished the smith's house.Being also a _public,_ it was two storeys high, and proudly reared its crest, covered with grey slate, above the thatched hovels by which it was surrounded.
The adjoining smithy betokened none of the Sabbatical silence and repose which Ebenezer had augured from the sanctity of his friend.On the contrary, hammer clashed and anvil rang, the bellows groaned, and the whole apparatus of Vulcan appeared to be in full activity.Nor was the labour of a rural and pacific nature.The master smith, benempt, as his sign intimated, John Mucklewrath, with two assistants, toiled busily in arranging, repairing, and furbishing old muskets, pistols, and swords, which lay scattered around his workshop in military confusion.
The open shed, containing the forge, was crowded with persons who came and went as if receiving and communicating important news; and a single glance at the aspect of the people who traversed the street in haste, or stood assembled in groups, with eyes elevated, and hands uplifted, announced that some extraordinary intelligence was agitating the public mind of the municipality of Cairnvreckan.``There is some news,'' said mine host of the Candlestick, pushing his lantern-jawed visage and bare-boned nag rudely forward into the crowd---``there is some news; and if it please my Creator, I will forthwith obtain speirings thereof.''
Waverley, with better regulated curiosity than his attendant's, dismounted, and gave his horse to a boy who stood idling near.
It arose, perhaps, from the shyness of his character in early youth, that he felt dislike at applying to a stranger even for casual information, without previously glancing at his physiognomy and appearance.While he looked about in order to select the person with whom he would most willingly hold communication, the buzz around saved him in some degree the trouble of interrogatories.The names of Lochiel, Clanronald, Glengarry, and other distinguished Highland Chiefs, among whom Vich Ian Vohr was repeatedly mentioned, were as familiar in men's mouths as household words; and from the alarm generally expressed, he easily conceived that their descent into the Lowlands, at the head of their armed tribes, had either already taken place or was instantly apprehended.
Ere Waverley could ask particulars, a strong, large-boned, hard-featured woman, about forty, dressed as if her clothes had been flung on with a pitchfork, her cheeks flushed with a scarlet red where they were not smutted with soot and lamp-black, jostled through the crowd, and brandishing high a child of two years old, which she danced in her arms, without regard to its screams of terror, sang forth with all her might---``Charlie is my darling, my darling, my darling, Charlie is my darling, The young Chevalier!''
``D'ye hear what's come ower ye now,'' continued the virago, ``ye whingeing Whig carles? Dye hear wha's coming to cow yer cracks?
Little wot ye wha's coming, Little wot ye wha's coming, A' the wild Macraws are coming.''
The Vulcan of Cairnvreckan, who acknowledged his Venus in this exulting Bacchante, regarded her with a grim and ire-foreboding countenance, while some of the senators of the village hastened to interpose.``Whisht, gudewife; is this a time, or is this a day, to be singing your ranting fule sangs in?---a time when the wine of wrath is poured out without mixture in the cup of indignation, and a day when the land should give testimony against popery, and prelacy, and quakerism, and independency, and supremacy, and erastianism, and antinomianism, and a' the errors of the church?''
