As Flora concluded her song, Fergus stood before them. ‘I knew I should find you here, even without the assistance of my friend Bran. A simple and unsublimed taste now, like my own, would prefer a jet d’eau at Versailles to this cascade, with all its accompaniments of rock and roar; but this is Flora’s Parnassus, Captain Waverley, and that fountain her Helicon. It would be greatly for the benefit of my cellar if she could teach her coadjutor, Mac-Murrough, the value of its influence: he has just drunk a pint of usquebaugh to correct, he said, the coldness of the claret. Let me try its virtues.’ He sipped a little water in the hollow of his hand, and immediately commenced, with a theatrical air, —

‘O Lady of the desert, hail!

That lovest the harping of the Gael,

Through fair and fertile regions borne,

Where never yet grew grass or corn.

But English poetry will never succeed under the influence of a Highland Helicon. Allons, courage!

O vous, qui buvez, a tasse pleine,

A cette heureuse f ontaine,

Ou on ne voit, sur le rivage,

Que quelques vilains troupeaux,

Suivis de nymphes de village,

Qui les escortent sans sabots — ’

‘A truce, dear Fergus! spare us those most tedious and insipid persons of all Arcadia. Do not, for Heaven’s sake, bring down Coridon and Lindor upon us.’

‘Nay, if you cannot relish la houlette et le chalumeau, have with you in heroic strains.’

‘Dear Fergus, you have certainly partaken of the inspiration of Mac-Murrough’s cup rather than of mine.’

‘I disclaim it, ma belle demoiselle, although I protest it would be the more congenial of the two. Which of your crack-brained Italian romancers is it that says,

Io d’Elicona niente

Mi curo, in fe de Dio; che’l bere d’acque

(Bea chi ber ne vuol) sempre mi spiacque! 55

But if you prefer the Gaelic, Captain Waverley, here is little Cathleen shall sing you Drimmindhu. Come, Cathleen, astore (i.e. my dear), begin; no apologies to the cean-kinne.’

Cathleen sung with much liveliness a little Gaelic song, the burlesque elegy of a countryman on the loss of his cow, the comic tones of which, though he did not understand the language, made Waverley laugh more than once.56

‘Admirable, Cathleen!’ cried the Chieftain; ‘I must find you a handsome husband among the clansmen one of these days.’

Cathleen laughed, blushed, and sheltered herself behind her companion.

In the progress of their return to the castle, the Chieftain warmly pressed Waverley to remain for a week or two, in order to see a grand hunting party, in which he and some other Highland gentlemen proposed to join. The charms of melody and beauty were too strongly impressed in Edward’s breast to permit his declining an invitation so pleasing. It was agreed, therefore, that he should write a note to the Baron of Bradwardine, expressing his intention to stay a fortnight at Glennaquoich, and requesting him to forward by the bearer (a gilly of the Chieftain’s) any letters which might have arrived for him.

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