'I am at once happy and grieved,' said the prisoner, 'to have met with
you.'
'I am ignorant, sir,' answered Waverley, 'how I have deserved so much
interest.'
'Did your uncle never mention a friend called Talbot?'
'I have heard him talk with great regard of such a person,' replied
Edward; 'a colonel, I believe, in the army, and the husband of Lady
Emily Blandeville; but I thought Colonel Talbot had been abroad.'
'I am just returned,' answered the officer; 'and being in Scotland,
thought it my duty to act where my services promised to be useful. Yes,
Mr. Waverley, I am that Colonel Talbot, the husband of the lady you have
named; and I am proud to acknowledge, that I owe alike my professional
rank and my domestic happiness to your generous and noble-minded
relative. Good God! that I should find his nephew in such a dress, and
engaged in such a cause!'
'Sir,' said Fergus, haughtily, 'the dress and cause are those of men of
birth and honour.'
'My situation forbids me to dispute your assertion,' said Colonel
Talbot; 'otherwise it were no difficult matter to show, that neither
courage nor pride of lineage can gild a bad cause. But, with Mr.
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