army under the Brunswick dynasty;
and the more so, as, independent of his high and conscientious ideas of paternal
authority, it was impossible, or at least highly imprudent, to interfere
authoritatively to prevent it. This suppressed vexation gave rise to many poohs
and pshaws, which were placed to the account of an incipient fit of gout, until,
having sent for the Army List, the worthy Baronet consoled himself with
reckoning the descendants of the houses of genuine loyalty - Mordaunts,
Granvilles, and Stanleys, whose names were to be found in that military record;
and calling up all his feelings of family grandeur and warlike glory, he
concluded, with logic something like Falstaff's, that when war was at hand,
although it were shame to be on any side but one, it were worse shame to be idle
than to be on the worst side, though blacker than usurpation could make it. As
for Aunt Rachel, her scheme had not exactly terminated according to her wishes,
but she was under the necessity of submitting to circumstances; and her
mortification was diverted by the employment she found in fitting out her nephew
for the campaign, and greatly consoled by the prospect of beholding him blaze in
complete uniform.
    Edward Waverley himself received with animated and undefined surprise this
most unexpected intelligence. It was, as a fine old poem expresses it, »like a
fire to heather set,« that covers a solitary hill with smoke, and illumines it
at the same time with dusky fire. His tutor, or, I should say, Mr. Pembroke, for
he scarce assumed the name of tutor, picked up about Edward's room some
fragments of irregular verse, which he appeared to have composed under the
influence of the agitating feelings occasioned by this sudden page being turned
up to him in the book of life. The doctor, who was a believer in all poetry
which was composed by his friends, and written out in fair straight lines, with
a capital at the beginning of each, communicated this treasure to Aunt Rachel,
who, with her spectacles dimmed with tears, transferred them to her commonplace
book, among choice receipts for cookery and medicine, favourite texts, and
portions from High-church divines, and a few songs, amatory and jacobitical,
which she had carolled in her younger days, from whence her nephew's poetical
tentamina were extracted, when the volume itself, with other authentic records
of the Waverley family, were exposed to the inspection of the unworthy editor of
this memorable history. If they afford the reader no higher amusement, they will
serve, at least,