'
'For shame, Colonel Talbot! you swell at sight of tartan as the bull is
said to do at scarlet. You and Mac-Ivor have some points not much unlike,
so far as national prejudice is concerned.'
The latter part of this discourse took place in the street. They passed
the Chief, the Colonel and he sternly and punctiliously greeting each
other, like two duellists before they take their ground. It was evident
the dislike was mutual. 'I never see that surly fellow that dogs his
heels,' said the Colonel, after he had mounted his horse, 'but he reminds
me of lines I have somewhere heard--upon the stage, I think:--
Close behind him
Stalks sullen Bertram, like a sorcerer's fiend,
Pressing to be employed.
'I assure you, Colonel,' said Waverley, 'that you judge too harshly of the
Highlanders.'
'Not a whit, not a whit; I cannot spare them a jot; I cannot bate them an
ace. Let them stay in their own barren mountains, and puff and swell, and
hang their bonnets on the horns of the moon, if they have a mind; but
what business have they to come where people wear breeches, and speak an
intelligible language? I mean intelligible in comparison to their
gibberish, for even the Lowlanders talk a kind of English little better
than the Negroes in Jamaica.
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