'
'If visionary chivalry and imaginary loyalty come within the predicament
of high treason,' replied the magistrate, 'I know no court in
Christendom, my dear Mr. Morton, where they can sue out their Habeas
Corpus.'
'But I cannot see that this youth's guilt is at all established to my
satisfaction,' said the clergyman.
'Because your good-nature blinds your good sense,' replied Major
Melville. 'Observe now: This young man, descended of a family of
hereditary Jacobites, his uncle the leader of the Tory interest in the
county of ----, his father a disobliged and discontented courtier, his
tutor a nonjuror and the author of two treasonable volumes--this youth, I
say, enters into Gardiner's dragoons, bringing with him a body of young
fellows from his uncle's estate, who have not stickled at avowing in
their way the High-Church principles they learned at Waverley-Honour, in
their disputes with their comrades. To these young men Waverley is
unusually attentive; they are supplied with money beyond a soldier's
wants and inconsistent with his discipline; and are under the management
of a favourite sergeant, through whom they hold an unusually close
communication with their captain, and affect to consider themselves as
independent of the other officers, and superior to their comrades.
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