'
It seemed like a dream to Waverley that these deeds of violence should
be familiar to men's minds, and currently talked of, as falling within
the common order of things, and happening daily in the immediate
vicinity, without his having crossed the seas, and while he was yet in
the otherwise well-ordered island of Great Britain. [10]
CHAPTER XVI
AN UNEXPECTED ALLY APPEARS
The Baron returned at the dinner-hour, and had in a great measure
recovered his composure and good humour. He not only confirmed the
stories which Edward had heard from Rose and Bailie Macwheeble, but
added many anecdotes from his own experience, concerning the state of
the Highlands and their inhabitants, The chiefs he pronounced to be,
in general, gentlemen of great honour and high pedigree, whose word was
accounted as a law by all those of their own sept, or clan. 'It did not,
indeed,' he said, 'become them, as had occurred in late instances, to
propone their PROSAPIA, a lineage which rested for the most part on the
vain and fond rhymes of their Seannachies or Barahs, as aequiponderate
with the evidence of ancient charters and royal grants of antiquity,
conferred upon distinguished houses in the Low Country by divers
Scottish monarchs; nevertheless, such was their OUTRECUIDANCE and
presumption, as to undervalue those who possessed such evidents, as if
they held their lands in a sheep's skin.
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