But houses and families and men have a' stood
lang eneugh when they have stood till they fall with honour; and now
I hae gotten a house that is not unlike a DOMUS ULTIMA'--they were now
standing below a steep rock. 'We poor Jacobites,' continued the Baron,
looking up, 'are now like the conies in Holy Scripture (which the great
traveller Pococke calleth Jerboa), a feeble people, that make our abode
in the rocks. So, fare you well, my good lad, till we meet at Janet's in
the even; for I must get into my Patmos, which is no easy matter for my
auld still limbs.'
With that he began to ascend the rock, striding, with the help of
his hands, from one precarious footstep to another, till he got about
half-way up, where two or three bushes concealed the mouth of a hole,
resembling an oven, into which the Baron insinuated, first his head and
shoulders, and then, by slow gradation, the rest of his long body; his
legs and feet finally disappearing, coiled up like a huge snake entering
his retreat, or a long pedigree introduced with care and difficulty into
the narrow pigeon-hole of an old cabinet. Waverley had the curiosity to
clamber up and look in upon him in his den, as the lurking-place might
well be termed.
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