WAVERLEY PROCEEDS ON HIS JOURNEY.
When Edward had collected his scattered recollection, he was surprised to observe the cavern totally deserted.Having arisen and put his dress in some order, he looked more accurately round him; but all was still solitary.If it had not been for the decayed brands of the fire, now sunk into grey ashes, and the remnants of the festival, consisting of bones half burnt and half gnawed, and an empty keg or two, there remained no traces of Donald and his band.When Waverley sallied forth to the entrance of the cave, he perceived that the point of rock, on which remained the marks of last night's beacon, was accessible by a small path, either natural, or roughly hewn in the rock, along the little inlet of water which ran a few yards up into the cavern, where, as in a wet-dock, the skiff which brought him there the night before was still lying moored.When he reached the small projecting platform on which the beacon had been established, he would have believed his further progress by land impossible, only that it was scarce probable but what the inhabitants of the cavern had some mode of issuing from it otherwise than by the lake.Accordingly, he soon observed three or four shelving steps, or ledges of rock, at the very extremity of the little platform; and, ****** use of them as a staircase, he clambered by their means around the projecting shoulder of the crag on which the cavern opened, and, descending with some difficulty on the other side, he gained the wild and precipitous shores of a Highland loch, about four miles in length, and a mile and a half across, surrounded by heathy and savage mountains, on the crests of which the morning mist was still sleeping.
Looking back to the place from which he came, he could not help admiring the address which had adopted a retreat of such seclusion and secrecy.The rock, round the shoulder of which he had turned by a few imperceptible notches, that barely afforded place for the foot, seemed, in looking back upon it, a huge precipice, which barred all further passage by the shores of the lake in that direction.There could be no possibility, the breadth of the lake considered, of descrying the entrance of the narrow and low-browed cave from the other side;so that, unless the retreat had been sought for with boats, or disclosed by treachery, it might be a safe and secret residence to its garrison as long as they were supplied with provisions.
Having satisfied his curiosity in these particulars, Waverley looked around for Evan Dhu and his attendants, who, he rightly judged, would be at no great distance, whatever might have become of Donald Bean Lean and his party, whose mode of life was, of course, liable to sudden migrations of abode.Accordingly, at the distance of about half-a-mile, he beheld a Highlander (Evan apparently) angling in the lake, with another attending him, whom, from the weapon which he shouldered, he recognised for his friend with the battle-axe.
Much nearer to the mouth of the cave, he heard the notes of a lively Gaelic song, guided by which, in a sunny recess, shaded by a glittering birch-tree, and carpeted with a bank of firm white sand, he found the damsel of the cavern, whose lay had already reached him, busy, to the best of her power, in arranging to advantage a morning repast of milk, eggs, barley-bread, fresh butter, and honey-comb.The poor girl had already made a circuit of four miles that morning in search of the eggs, of the meal which baked her cakes, and of the other materials of the breakfast, being all delicacies which she had to beg or borrow from distant cottagers.The followers of Donald Bean Lean used little food except the flesh of the animals which they drove away from the Lowlands; bread itself was a delicacy seldom thought of, because hard to be obtained, and all the domestic accommodations of milk, poultry, butter, etc., were out of the question in this Scythian camp.Yet it must not be omitted, that, although Alice had occupied a part of the morning in providing those accommodations for her guest which the cavern did not afford, she had secured time also to arrange her own person in her best trim.Her finery was very ******.A short russet-coloured jacket, and a petticoat, of scanty longitude, was her whole dress; but these were clean, and neatly arranged.
A piece of scarlet embroidered cloth, called the _snood,_ confined her hair, which fell over it in a profusion of rich dark curls.
The scarlet plaid, which formed part of her dress, was laid aside, that it might not impede her activity in attending the stranger.
I should forget Alice's proudest ornament, were I to omit mentioning a pair of gold ear-rings, and a golden rosary, which her father (for she was the daughter of Donald Bean Lean) had brought from France, the plunder, probably, of some battle or storm.
Her form, though rather large for her years, was very well proportioned, and her demeanour had a natural and rustic grace, with nothing of the sheepishness of an ordinary peasant.The smiles, displaying a row of teeth of exquisite whiteness, and the laughing eyes, with which, in dumb show, she gave Waverley that morning greeting which she wanted English words to express, might have been interpreted by a coxcomb, or perhaps by a young soldier, who, without being such, was conscious of a handsome person, as meant to convey more than the courtesy of an hostess.Nor do I take it upon me to say, that the little wild mountaineer would have welcomed any staid old gentleman advanced in life, the Baron of Bradwardine, for example, with the cheerful pains which she bestowed upon Edward's accommodation.