Gilfillan presented himself, one might have feared,
admired, or laughed at him. His dress was that of a West-Country peasant,
of better materials indeed than that of the lower rank, but in no respect
affecting either the mode of the age or of the Scottish gentry at any
period. His arms were a broadsword and pistols, which, from the antiquity
of their appearance, might have seen the rout of Pentland or Bothwell
Brigg.
As he came up a few steps to meet Major Melville, and touched solemnly,
but slightly, his huge and over-brimmed blue bonnet, in answer to the
Major, who had courteously raised a small triangular gold-laced hat,
Waverley was irresistibly impressed with the idea that he beheld a leader
of the Roundheads of yore in conference with one of Marlborough's
captains.
The group of about thirty armed men who followed this gifted commander
was of a motley description. They were in ordinary Lowland dresses, of
different colours, which, contrasted with the arms they bore, gave them
an irregular and mobbish appearance; so much is the eye accustomed to
connect uniformity of dress with the military character. In front were a
few who apparently partook of their leader's enthusiasm, men obviously to
be feared in a combat, where their natural courage was exalted by
religious zeal.
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