After Waverley was left alone, the exhaustion of pain and fatigue--for
the whole day's exercise had been severe--threw him into a profound, but
yet a feverish sleep, which he chiefly owed to an opiate draught
administered by the old Highlander from some decoction of herbs in his
pharmacopoeia.
Early the next morning, the purpose of their meeting being over, and
their sports damped by the untoward accident, in which Fergus and all his
friends expressed the greatest sympathy, it became a question how to
dispose of the disabled sportsman. This was settled by Mac-Ivor, who had
a litter prepared, of 'birch and hazel-grey,'
[FOOTNOTE:
On the morrow they made their biers
Of birch and hazel grey. Chevy Chase.]
which was borne by his people with such caution and dexterity as renders
it not improbable that they may have been the ancestors of some of those
sturdy Gael who have now the happiness to transport the belles of
Edinburgh in their sedan-chairs to ten routs in one evening. When Edward
was elevated upon their shoulders he could not help being gratified with
the romantic effect produced by the breaking up of this sylvan camp.
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