‘I am the very child of caprice,‘said Waverley to himself, as he bolted the door of his apartment and paced it with hasty steps. ‘What is it to me that Fergus Mac-Ivor should wish to marry Rose Bradwardine? I love her not; I might have been loved by her perhaps; but rejected her simple, natural, and affecting attachment¹, instead of cherishing it into tenderness, and dedicated² myself to one who will never love mortal man, unless old Warwick, the King-maker, should arise from the dead The Baron³ too — I would not have cared about his estate, and so the name would have been no stumbling-block. The devil might have taken the barren moors⁴ and drawn⁵ off the royal caligae for anything I would have minded. But, framed as she is for domestic affection and tenderness, for giving and receiving all those kind and quiet attentions which sweeten life to those who pass it together, she is sought by Fergus Mac-Ivor. He will not use her ill, to be sure; of that he is incapable⁶. But he will neglect her after the first month; he will be too intent on subduing⁷ some rival chieftain or circumventing⁸ some favourite at court, on gaining some heathy hill and lake or adding to his bands some new troop of caterans, to inquire what she does, or how she amuses herself.

And then will canker sorrow eat her bud,

And chase the native beauty from her cheek;

And she will look as hollow as a ghost,

And dim and meagre as an ague fit,

And so she’ll die.

And such a catastrophe⁹ of the most gentle creature on earth might have been prevented if Mr. Edward Waverley had had his eyes! Upon my word, I cannot understand how I thought

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