, goes to
Tully-Veolan - the principles of the Baron of Bradwardine are pretty well known,
not to mention that this lad's uncle brought him off in the year fifteen; he
engages there in a brawl, in which he is said to have disgraced the commission
he bore; Colonel Gardiner writes to him, first mildly, then more sharply - I
think you will not doubt his having done so, since he says so; the mess invite
him to explain the quarrel in which he is said to have been involved; he neither
replies to his commander nor his comrades. In the meanwhile, his soldiers become
mutinous and disorderly, and at length, when the rumour of this unhappy
rebellion becomes general, his favourite Sergeant Houghton, and another fellow,
are detected in correspondence with a French emissary, accredited, as he says,
by Captain Waverley, who urges him, according to the men's confession, to desert
with the troop and join their captain, who was with Prince Charles. In the
meanwhile this trusty captain is, by his own admission, residing at Glennaquoich
with the most active, subtle, and desperate Jacobite in Scotland; he goes with
him at least as far as their famous hunting rendezvous, and I fear a little
farther. Meanwhile two other summonses are sent him; one warning him of the
disturbances in his troop, another peremptorily ordering him to repair to the
regiment, which, indeed, common sense might have dictated, when he observed
rebellion thickening all round him. He returns an absolute refusal, and throws
up his commission.«
    »He had been already deprived of it,« said Mr. Morton.
    »But he regrets,« replied Melville, »that the measure had anticipated his
resignation. His baggage is seized at his quarters, and at Tully-Veolan, and is
found to contain a stock of pestilent jacobitical pamphlets, enough to poison a
whole country, besides the unprinted lucubrations of his worthy friend and tutor
Mr. Pembroke.«
    »He says he never read them,« answered the minister.
    »In an ordinary case I should believe him,« replied the magistrate, »for
they are as stupid and pedantic in composition, as mischievous in their tenets.
But can you suppose any thing but value for the principles they maintain would
induce a young man of his age to lug such trash about with him? Then, when news
arrive of the approach of the rebels, he sets out in a sort of disguise,
refusing to tell his name; and if yon old fanatic tell truth, attended by a very
suspicious character
