His hand grasped a huge jockey-whip, garnished with
brassmounting. His thin legs tenanted a pair of gambadoes, fastened at
the sides with rusty clasps. Thus accoutred, he stalked into the midst of
the apartment, and announced his errand in brief phrase: 'Yer horses are
ready.'
'You go with me yourself then, landlord?'
'I do, as far as Perth; where ye may be supplied with a guide to Embro',
as your occasions shall require.'
Thus saying, he placed under Waverley's eye the bill which he held in his
hand; and at the same time, self-invited, filled a glass of wine and
drank devoutly to a blessing on their journey. Waverley stared at the
man's impudence, but, as their connection was to be short and promised to
be convenient, he made no observation upon it; and, having paid his
reckoning, expressed his intention to depart immediately. He mounted
Dermid accordingly and sallied forth from the Golden Candlestick,
followed by the puritanical figure we have described, after he had, at
the expense of some time and difficulty, and by the assistance of a
'louping-on-stane,' or structure of masonry erected for the traveller's
convenience in front of the house, elevated his person to the back of a
long-backed, raw-boned, thin-gutted phantom of a broken-down blood-horse,
on which Waverley's portmanteau was deposited.
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