About this story
At Holyrood the prince's commission waits beside a white cockade; at Carlisle the Baron reads his death sentence for the grammar before a rider brings his reprieve; and at Tully-Veolan the fountain bears come home crooked and hang crooked ever since. Seventy chapters carry you from a borrowed red coat to a wedding under the mended bears.
How it opens
Your new dragoon coat still felt borrowed when the regiment halted near Dundee.
Twenty tenants from Waverley-Honour had enlisted beside you, carrying home loyalties into royal service.
Colonel GardinerA commission gives authority quickly and judgment rather more slowly.
Sergeant HoughtonThe men ask whether Captain Waverley remembers them as neighbours or only as ranks.
Choose
Tell them discipline will not erase where we began.
Remind them that the regiment cannot favour one estate.