My plan
requires that I should explain the motives on which its action proceeded; and
these motives necessarily arose from the feelings, prejudices, and parties of
the times. I do not invite my fair readers, whose sex and impatience give them
the greatest right to complain of these circumstances, into a flying chariot
drawn by hippogriffs, or moved by enchantment. Mine is an humble English
post-chaise, drawn upon four wheels, and keeping his Majesty's highway. Such as
dislike the vehicle may leave it at the next halt, and wait for the conveyance
of Prince Hussein's tapestry, or Malek the Weaver's flying sentry-box. Those who
are contented to remain with me will be occasionally exposed to the dulness
inseparable from heavy roads, steep hills, sloughs, and other terrestrial
retardations; but, with tolerable horses and a civil driver (as the
advertisements have it), I engage to get as soon as possible into a more
picturesque and romantic country, if my passengers incline to have some patience
with me during my first stages.9
 

                                 Chapter Sixth.

                            The Adieus of Waverley.

It was upon the evening of this memorable Sunday that Sir Everard entered the
library, where he narrowly missed surprising our young hero as he went through
the guards of the broadsword with the ancient weapon of old Sir Hildebrand,
which, being preserved as an heir-loom, usually hung over the chimney in the
library, beneath a picture of the knight and his horse, where the features were
almost entirely hidden by the knight's profusion of curled hair, and the
Bucephalus which he bestrode concealed by the voluminous robes of the Bath with
which he was decorated. Sir Everard entered, and after a glance at the picture
and another at his nephew, began a little speech, which, however, soon dropt
into the natural simplicity of his common manner, agitated upon the present
occasion by no common feeling. »Nephew,« he said; and then, as mending his
phrase, »My dear Edward, it is God's will, and also the will of your father,
whom, under God, it is your duty to obey, that you should leave us to take up
the profession of arms, in which so many of your ancestors have been
distinguished. I have made such arrangements as will enable you to take the
field as their descendant, and as the probable heir of the house of Waverley;
and, sir, in the field of battle you will remember what name you bear. And,
Edward, my dear boy, remember also that you are the last of