After this reception, Edward continued very willingly at Glennaquoich--both because of his growing admiration for Flora, and because his curiosity increased every day as to this wild race, and the life so different from all that he had hitherto known. Nothing occurred for three weeks to disturb his pleasant dreams, save the chance discovery, made when he was writing a letter to the Baron, that he had somehow lost his seal with the arms of Waverley, which he wore attached to his watch. Flora was inclined to blame Donald Bean Lean for the theft, but the Chief scouted the idea. It was impossible, he said, when Edward was his guest, and, besides (he added slyly), Donald would never have taken the seal and left the watch. Whereupon Edward borrowed Vich Ian Vohr's seal, and, having despatched his letter, thought no more of the matter.
Soon afterwards, whilst Waverley still remained at Glennaquoich, there was a great hunting of the stag, to which Fergus went with three hundred of his clan to meet some of the greatest Highland chiefs, his neighbours. He took Edward with him, and the numbers present amounted almost to those of a formidable army. While the clansmen drove in the deer, the chiefs sat on the heather in little groups and talked in low tones. During the _drive_, the main body of the deer, in their desperation, charged right upon the place where the chief sportsmen were waiting in ambush. The word was given for every one to fling himself down on his face. Edward, not understanding the language, remained erect, and his life was only saved by the quickness of Vich Ian Vohr, who seized him and flung him down, holding him there by main force till the whole herd had rushed over them. When Edward tried to rise, he found that he had severely sprained his ankle.
However, among those present at the _drive_, there was found an old man, half-surgeon, half-conjurer, who applied hot fomentations, muttering all the time of the operation such gibberish as _Gaspar-Melchior-Balthazar-max-prax-fax!_
Thus it happened that, to his great disappointment, Edward was unable to accompany the clansmen and their chiefs any farther. So Vich Ian Vohr had Edward placed in a litter, woven of birch and hazel, and walked beside this rude couch to the house of an old man, a smaller chieftain, who, with only a few old vassals, lived a retired life at a place called Tomanrait.