Three of the Highlanders were killed, and they brought them in wrapped in
their plaids, and laid them on the stone floor of the hall; and next
morning, their wives and daughters came, clapping their hands, and crying
the coronach, and shrieking, and carried away the dead bodies, with the
pipes playing before them. I could not sleep for six weeks without
starting and thinking I heard these terrible cries, and saw the bodies
lying on the steps, all stiff and swathed up in their bloody tartans. But
since that time there came a party from the garrison at Stirling, with a
warrant from the Lord Justice Clerk, or some such great man, and took
away all our arms; and now, how are we to protect ourselves if they come
down in any strength?'
Waverley could not help starting at a story which bore so much
resemblance to one of his own day-dreams. Here was a girl scarce
seventeen, the gentlest of her sex, both in temper and appearance, who
had witnessed with her own eyes such a scene as he had used to conjure up
in his imagination, as only occurring in ancient times, and spoke of it
coolly, as one very likely to recur. He felt at once the impulse of
curiosity, and that slight sense of danger which only serves to heighten
its interest.
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