'You run your head into the lion's mouth,' answered Mac-Ivor. 'You do
not know the severity of a Government harassed by just apprehensions,
and a consciousness of their own illegality and insecurity. I shall have
to deliver you from some dungeon in Stirling or Edinburgh Castle.'
'My innocence, my rank, my father's intimacy with Lord M--, General G--,
&c., will be a sufficient protection,' said Waverley.
'You will find the contrary,' replied the Chieftain;--'these gentlemen
will have enough to do about their own matters. Once more, will you
take the plaid, and stay a little while with us among the mists and the
crows, in the bravest cause ever sword was drawn in?' [A Highland rhyme
on Glencairn's Expedition, in 1650, has these lines--
We'll hide a while among ta crows,
'We'll wiske ta sword and bend ta bows.]
'For many reasons, my dear Fergus, you must hold me excused.'
'Well, then,' said Mac-Ivor, 'I shall certainly find you exerting
your poetical talents in elegies upon a prison, or your antiquarian
researches in detecting the Oggam [The Oggam is a species of the old
Irish character. The idea of the correspondence betwixt the Celtic
and Punic, founded on a scene in Plautus, was not started till General
Vallancey set up his theory, long after the date of Fergus Mac-Ivor.
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