It was evident
the dislike was mutual. 'I never see that surly fellow that dogs his
heels,' said the Colonel, after he had mounted his horse, 'but he
reminds me of lines I have somewhere heard--upon the stage, I think:
--Close behind him
Stalks sullen Bertram, like a sorcerer's fiend,
Pressing to be employed.'
'I assure you, Colonel,' said Waverley,' that you judge too harshly of
the Highlanders.'
'Not a whit, not a whit; I cannot spare them a jot--I cannot bate them
an ace. Let them stay in their own barren mountains, and puff and swell,
and hang their bonnets on the horns of the moon, if they have a mind;
but what business have they to come where people wear breeches, and
speak an intelligible language? I mean intelligible in comparison with
their gibberish, for even the Lowlanders talk a kind of English little
better than the negroes in Jamaica. I could pity the Pr--, I mean the
Chevalier himself, for having so many desperadoes about him. And they
learn their trade so early. There is a kind of subaltern imp, for
example, a sort of sucking devil, whom your friend Glenna--Glennamuck
there, has sometimes in his train. To look at him, he is about fifteen
years; but he is a century old in mischief and villany.
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