However, let us sit
down on this knoll; even Saddleback and Ulswater will suit what I have to
say better than the English hedgerows, enclosures, and farmhouses. You
must know, then, that when my ancestor, Ian nan Chaistel, wasted
Northumberland, there was associated with him in the expedition a sort of
Southland Chief, or captain of a band of Lowlanders, called Halbert Hall.
In their return through the Cheviots they quarrelled about the division
of the great booty they had acquired, and came from words to blows. The
Lowlanders were cut off to a man, and their chief fell the last, covered
with wounds by the sword of my ancestor. Since that time his spirit has
crossed the Vich Ian Vohr of the day when any great disaster was
impending, but especially before approaching death. My father saw him
twice, once before he was made prisoner at Sheriff-Muir, another time on
the morning of the day on which he died.'
'How can you, my dear Fergus, tell such nonsense with a grave face?'
'I do not ask you to believe it; but I tell you the truth, ascertained
by three hundred years' experience at least, and last night by my own
eyes.'
'The particulars, for heaven's sake!' said Waverley, with eagerness.
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