 the Chief the skirmish was ended. Matches were then made
for running, wrestling, leaping, pitching the bar, and other sports, in which
this feudal militia displayed incredible swiftness, strength, and agility; and
accomplished the purpose which their Chieftain had at heart, by impressing on
Waverley no light sense of their merit as soldiers, and of the power of him who
commanded them by his nod.43
    »And what number of such gallant fellows have the happiness to call you
leader?« asked Waverley.
    »In a good cause, and under a chieftain whom they loved, the race of Ivor
have seldom taken the field under five hundred claymores. But you are aware,
Captain Waverley, that the Disarming Act, passed about twenty years ago,
prevents their being in the complete state of preparation as in former times;
and I keep no more of my clan under arms than may defend my own or my friends'
property when the country is troubled with such men as your last night's
landlord; and Government, which has removed other means of defence, must connive
at our protecting ourselves.«
    »But with your force you might soon destroy or put down such gangs as that
of Donald Bean Lean.«
    »Yes, doubtless; and my reward would be a summons to deliver up to General
Blakeney at Stirling the few broadswords they have left us; there were little
policy in that, methinks. But come, Captain, the sound of the pipes informs me
that dinner is prepared. Let me have the honour to show you into my rude
mansion.«
 

                               Chapter Twentieth.

                               A Highland Feast.

Ere Waverley entered the banqueting hall, he was offered the patriarchal
refreshment of a bath for the feet, which the sultry weather, and the morasses
he had traversed, rendered highly acceptable. He was not, indeed, so luxuriously
attended upon this occasion as the heroic travellers in the Odyssey; the task of
ablution and abstersion being performed, not by a beautiful damsel, trained
 
To chafe the limb, and pour the fragrant oil,
 
but by a smoke-dried skinny old Highland woman, who did not seem to think
herself much honoured by the duty imposed upon her, but muttered between her
teeth, »Our fathers' herds did not feed so near together, that I should do you
this service.« A small donation, however, amply reconciled this ancient
handmaiden to the supposed degradation; and, as Edward proceeded to the hall,
she gave him her blessing, in the Gaelic proverb, »May the open hand be filled
the fullest.«
    The hall, in which
