A few resolute men might
easily have cut off the detachment; but of the inhabitants some
were favourable, many indifferent, and the rest overawed. So nothing
memorable occurred in the course of the evening, except that Waverley's
rest was sorely interrupted by the revellers hallooing forth their
Jacobite songs, without remorse or mitigation of voice.
Early in the morning they were again mounted, and on the road to
Edinburgh, though the pallid visages of some of the troop betrayed
that they had spent a night of sleepless debauchery. They halted at
Linlithgow, distinguished by its ancient palace, which, Sixty Years
since, was entire and habitable, and whose venerable ruins, not quite
Sixty Years since, very narrowly escaped the unworthy fate of being
converted into a barrack for French prisoners. May repose and blessings
attend the ashes of the patriotic statesman, who, amongst his last
services to Scotland, interposed to prevent this profanation!
As they approached the metropolis of Scotland, through a champaign and
cultivated country, the sounds of war began to be heard. The distant,
yet distinct report of heavy cannon, fired at intervals, apprized
Waverley that the work of destruction was going forward.
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