’Cathleen, let my sister know that Mr. Waverley wishes to bid her farewell before he leaves us.—­But Rose Bradwardine,—­her situation must be thought of.  I wish she were here.  And why should she not?  There are but four red-coats at Tully-Veolan, and their muskets would be very useful to us.’

To these broken remarks Edward made no answer; his ear indeed received them, but his soul was intent upon the expected entrance of Flora.  The door opened—­it was but Cathleen, with her lady’s excuse, and wishes for Captain Waverley’s health and happiness.

CHAPTER XXIX

WAVERLEY’S RECEPTION IN THE LOWLANDS AFTER HIS HIGHLAND TOUR

It was noon when the two friends stood at the top of the pass of Bally-Brough.  ‘I must go no farther,’ said Fergus Mac-Ivor, who during the journey had in vain endeavoured to raise his friend’s spirits, ’If my cross-grained sister has any share in your dejection, trust me she thinks highly of you, though her present anxiety about the public cause prevents her listening to any other subject.  Confide your interest to me; I will not betray it, providing you do not again assume that vile cockade.’

’No fear of that, considering the manner in which it has been recalled.  Adieu, Fergus; do not permit your sister to forget me.’

’And adieu, Waverley; you may soon hear of her with a prouder title.  Get home, write letters, and make friends as many and as fast as you can; there will speedily be unexpected guests on the coast of Suffolk, or my news from France has deceived me.’ [The sanguine Jacobites, during the eventful years 1745-6, kept up the spirits of their party by the rumour of descents from France on behalf of the Chevalier St. George.]

Thus parted the friends; Fergus returning back to his castle, while Edward, followed by Callum Beg, the latter transformed from point to point into a Low-country groom, proceeded to the little town of—.

Edward paced on under the painful and yet not altogether embittered feelings which separation and uncertainty produce in the mind of a youthful lover.  I am not sure if the ladies understand the full value of the influence of absence, nor do I think it wise to teach it them, lest, like the Clelias and Mandanes of yore, they should resume the humour of sending their lovers into banishment.  Distance, in truth, produces in idea the same effect as in real prospective.  Objects are softened, and rounded, and rendered doubly graceful; the harsher and more ordinary points of character are mellowed down, and those by which it is remembered are the more striking outlines that mark sublimity, grace, or beauty.  There are mists, too, in the mental, as well as the natural horizon, to conceal what is less pleasing in distant objects, and there are happy lights, to stream in full glory upon those points which can profit by brilliant illumination.