On a signal made by the Chief, the skirmish was ended.  Marches were then made for running, wrestling, leaping, pitching the bar, and other sports, in which this feudal militia displayed incredible swiftness, strength, and agility; and accomplished the purpose which their Chieftain had at heart, by impressing on Waverley no light sense of their merit as soldiers, and of the power of him who commanded them by his nod. [16]

’And what number of such gallant fellows have the happiness to call you leader?’ asked Waverley.

’In a good cause, and under a chieftain whom they loved, the race of Ivor have seldom taken the field under five hundred claymores.  But you are aware, Captain Waverley, that the Disarming Act, passed about twenty years ago, prevents their being in the complete state of preparation as in former times; and I keep no more of my clan under arms than may defend my own or my friends’ property, when the country is troubled with such men as your last night’s landlord; and Government, which has removed other means of defence, must connive at our protecting ourselves.’

’But, with your force, you might soon destroy, or put down, such gangs as that of Donald Bean Lean.’

’Yes, doubtless; and my reward would be a summons to deliver up to General Blakeney, at Stirling, the few broadswords they have left us:  there were little policy in that, methinks.—­But come, Captain, the sound of the pipes informs me that dinner is prepared.  Let me have the honour to show you into my rude mansion.’

CHAPTER XX

A HIGHLAND FEAST

Ere Waverley entered the banqueting hall, he was offered the patriarchal refreshment of a bath for the feet, which the sultry weather, and the morasses he had traversed, rendered highly acceptable.  He was not, indeed, so luxuriously attended upon this occasion as the heroic travellers in the Odyssey; the task of ablution and abstersion being performed, not by a beautiful damsel, trained

     To chafe the limb, and pour the fragrant oil,

but by a smoke-dried skinny old Highland woman, who did not seem to think herself much honoured by the duty imposed upon her, but muttered between her teeth, ’Our father’s herds did not feed so near together, that I should do you this service.’  A small donation, however, amply reconciled this ancient handmaiden to the supposed degradation; and, as Edward proceeded to the hall, she gave him her blessing, in the Gaelic proverb, ‘May the open hand be filled the fullest.’

The hall, in which the feast was prepared, occupied all the first storey of Ian nan Chaistel’s original erection, and a huge oaken table extended through its whole length.  The apparatus for dinner was simple, even to rudeness, and the company numerous, even to crowding.  At the head of the table was the Chief himself, with Edward, and two or three Highland visitors of neighbouring clans; the elders of his own