these fits,« answered the Highland ancient with
great composure.
    When this officer left the room, the Chieftain gradually reassumed some
degree of composure. - »I know, Waverley,« he said, »that Colonel Talbot has
persuaded you to curse ten times a-day your engagement with us; - nay, never
deny it, for I am at this moment tempted to curse my own. Would you believe it,
I made this very morning two suits to the Prince, and he has rejected them both:
what do you think of it?«
    »What can I think,« answered Waverley, »till I know what your requests
were?«
    »Why, what signifies what they were, man? I tell you it was I that made
them, - I, to whom he owes more than to any three who have joined the standard;
for I negotiated the whole business, and brought in all the Perthshire men when
not one would have stirred. I am not likely, I think, to ask any thing very
unreasonable, and if I did they might have stretched a point. - Well, but you
shall know all, now that I can draw my breath again with some freedom. - You
remember my earl's patent; it is dated some years back, for services then
rendered; and certainly my merit has not been diminished, to say the least, by
my subsequent behaviour. Now sir, I value this bauble of a coronet as little as
you can, or any philosopher on earth; for I hold that the chief of such a clan
as the Sliochd nan Ivor is superior in rank to any earl in Scotland. But I had a
particular reason for assuming this cursed title at this time. You must know,
that I learned accidentally that the Prince has been pressing that old foolish
Baron of Bradwardine to disinherit his male heir, or nineteenth or twentieth
cousin, who has taken a command in the Elector of Hanover's militia, and to
settle his estate upon your pretty little friend Rose; and this, as being the
command of his king and overlord, who may alter the destination of a fief at
pleasure, the old gentleman seems well reconciled to.«
    »And what becomes of the homage?«
    »Curse the homage! - I believe Rose is to pull off the queen's slipper on
her coronation-day, or some such trash. Well, sir, as Rose Bradwardine would
always have made a suitable match for me, but for this idiotical predilection of
her father for the heir-male, it occurred to