Having escaped from the old gentleman, Waverley went to Fergus's
lodgings by appointment, to await his return from Holyrood House. 'I
am to have a particular audience to-morrow,' said Fergus to Waverley,
overnight, 'and you must meet me to wish me joy of the success which I
securely anticipate.'
The morrow came, and in the Chief's apartment he found Ensign Maccombich
waiting to make report of his turn of duty in a sort of ditch which they
had dug across the Castle-hill, and called a trench. In a short time
the Chief's voice was heard on the stair in a tone of impatient
fury:--'Callum,--why, Callum Beg,--Diaoul!' He entered the room with all
the marks of a man agitated by a towering passion; and there were few
upon whose features rage produced a more violent effect. The veins of
his forehead swelled when he was in such agitation; his nostril became
dilated; his cheek and eye inflamed; and his look that of a demoniac.
These appearances of half-suppressed rage were the more frightful,
because they were obviously caused by a strong effort to temper with
discretion an almost ungovernable paroxysm of passion, and resulted from
an internal conflict of the most dreadful kind, which agitated his whole
frame of mortality.
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