his examination, premising that, as Mr. Waverley seemed to object to general questions, his interrogatories should be as specific as his information permitted. He then proceeded in his investigation, dictating, as he went on, the import of the questions and answers to the amanuensis, by whom it was written down.
‘Did Mr. Waverley know one Humphry Houghton, a non-commissioned officer in Gardiner’s dragoons?’
‘Certainly; he was sergeant of my troop, and son of a tenant of my uncle.’
‘Exactly — and had a considerable share of your confidence, and an influence among his comrades?’
‘I had never occasion to repose confidence in a person of his description,’ answered Waverley. ‘I favoured Sergeant Houghton as a clever, active young fellow, and I believe his fellow-soldiers respected him accordingly.’
‘But you used through this man,’ answered Major Melville, ‘to communicate with such of your troop as were recruited upon Waverley-Honour?’
‘Certainly; the poor fellows, finding themselves in a regiment chiefly composed of Scotch or Irish, looked up to me in any of their little distresses, and naturally made their countryman and sergeant their spokesman on such occasions.’
‘Sergeant Houghton’s influence,’ continued the Major, ‘extended, then, particularly over those soldiers who followed you to the regiment from
your uncle’s estate?’
‘Surely; but what is that to the present purpose?’
‘To that I am just coming, and I beseech your candid reply. Have you, since leaving the regiment, held any correspondence, direct or indirect, with this Sergeant Houghton?’
‘I! — I hold correspondence with a man of his rank and situation! How, or for what purpose?’
‘That you are to explain. But did you not, for example, send to him for some books?’
‘You remind me of a trifling commission,’ said Waverley, ‘which I gave Sergeant Houghton, because my servant could not read. I do recollect I bade him, by letter, select some books, of which I sent him a list, and send them to me at Tully-Veolan.’
‘And of what description were those books?’
‘They related almost entirely to elegant literature; they were designed for a lady’s perusal.’
‘Were there not, Mr. Waverley, treasonable tracts and pamphlets among them?’
‘There were some political treatises, into which I hardly looked. They had been sent to me by the officiousness of a kind friend, whose heart is more to be esteemed than his prudence or political sagacity; they seemed to be dull compositions.’
‘That friend,’ continued the persevering inquirer, ‘was a Mr. Pembroke, a nonjuring clergyman, the author of two treasonable works, of which the manuscripts were found among your baggage?’
‘But of which, I give you my honour as a gentleman,’ replied Waverley, ‘I never read six pages.’
‘I am not your judge, Mr. Waverley; your examination will be transmitted elsewhere. And now to proceed. Do you know a person that passes by the name of Wily Will, or Will Ruthven?’
‘I never heard of such a name till this moment.’
‘Did you never through such a person, or any other person, communicate with Sergeant Humphry Houghton, instigating him to desert, with as many of his comrades as he could seduce to join him, and unite with the Highlanders and other rebels now in arms under the command of the Young Pretender?’
‘I assure you I am not only entirely guiltless of the plot you have laid to my charge, but I detest it from the very bottom of my soul, nor would I be guilty of such treachery to gain a throne, either for myself or any other man alive.’
‘Yet when I consider this envelope in the handwriting of one of those misguided gentlemen who are now in arms against their country, and the verses which it enclosed, I cannot but find some analogy between the enterprise I have mentioned and the exploit of Wogan, which the writer seems to expect you should imitate.’
Waverley was struck with the coincidence, but denied that the wishes or expectations of the letter-writer were to be regarded as proofs of a charge otherwise chimerical.
‘But, if I am rightly informed, your time was spent, during your absence from the regiment, between the house of this Highland Chieftain and that of Mr. Bradwardine of Bradwardine, also in arms for this unfortunate cause?’
‘I do not mean to disguise it; but I do deny, most resolutely, being privy to any of their designs against the government.’
‘You do not, however, I presume, intend to deny that you attended your host Glennaquoich to a rendezvous, where, under a pretence of a general hunting match, most of the accomplices of his treason were assembled to concert measures for taking arms?’
‘I acknowledge having been at such a meeting,’ said Waverley; ‘but I neither heard nor saw anything which could give it the character you affix to it.’
‘From thence you proceeded,’ continued the magistrate, ‘with Glennaquoich and a part of his clan to join the army of the Young Pretender, and returned, after having paid your homage to him, to discipline and arm the remainder, and unite them to his bands on their way southward?’
‘I never went with Glennaquoich on such an errand. I never so much as heard that the person whom you mention was in the country.’
He then detailed the history of his misfortune at the hunting match, and added, that on his return he found himself suddenly deprived of his commission, and did not deny that he then, for the first time, observed symptoms which indicated a disposition in the Highlanders to take arms; but added that, having no inclination to join their cause, and no longer any reason for remaining in Scotland, he was now on his return to his native country, to which he had been summoned by those who had a right to direct his motions, as Major Melville would perceive from the letters on the table.
Major Melville accordingly perused the letters of Richard Waverley, of Sir Everard, and of Aunt Rachel; but the inferences he drew from them were different from what Waverley expected. They held the language of discontent with government, threw out no obscure hints of revenge, and that of poor Aunt Rachel, which plainly asserted the justice of the Stuart cause, was held to contain the open avowal of what the others only ventured to insinuate.
‘Permit me another question, Mr. Waverley,’ said Major Melville. ‘Did you not receive repeated letters from your commanding officer, warning you and commanding you to return to your post, and acquainting you with the use made of your name to spread discontent among your soldiers?’
‘I never did, Major Melville. One letter, indeed, I received from him, containing a civil intimation of his wish that I would employ my leave of absence otherwise than in constant residence at Bradwardine, as to which, I own, I thought he was not called on to interfere; and, finally, I received, on the same day on which I observed myself superseded in the “Gazette,” a second letter from Colonel Gardiner, commanding me to join the regiment, an order which, owing to my absence, already mentioned and accounted for, I received too late to be obeyed. If there were any intermediate letters, and certainly from the Colonel’s high character I think it probable that there were, they have never reached
