DESOLATION Waverly riding post, as was the usual fashion of the period, without any adventure save one or two queries, which the talisman of his passport sufficiently answered, reached the borders of Scotland.

Here he heard the tidings of the decisive battle of Culloden.

It was no more than he had long expected, though the success at Falkirk had thrown a faint and setting gleam over the arms of the Chevalier.

Yet it came upon him like a shock, by which he was for a time altogether unmanned.

The generous, the courteous, the noble-minded Adventurer, was then a fugitive, with a price upon his head; his adherents, so brave, so enthusiastic, so faithful, were dead, imprisoned, or exiled.