It was soon plain that what crumbs of reason the Bear had not devoured were to be picked up by the Hen; but the confusion which appeared to prevail favoured Edward's resolution to evade the gaily circling glass. The others began to talk thick and at once, each performing his own part in the conversation, without the least respect to his neighbour. The Baron of Bradwardine sung French chansons à boire, and spouted pieces of Latin; Killancureit talked, in a steady unalterable dull key, of top-dressing', and yearolds, and gimmers, and dinmonts, and stols, and runts, and kyloes, and a proposed turnpike-act; while Balmawhapple, in notes exalted above both, extolled his horse, his hawks, and a greyhound called Whistler. In the middle of this din, the Baron repeatedly implored silence; and when at length the instinct of polite discipline so far prevailed, that for a moment he obtained it, he hastened to beseech their attention "unto a military ariette, which was a particular favourite of the Maréchal Duc de Berwick;" then, imitating, as well as he could, the manner and tone of a French mousquetaire, he immediately commenced, Mon cœur volage, dit-elle, N'est pas pour vous, garçon ; Lon, Lon, Laridon. Qui porte chapeau à plume, Soulier à rouge talon, Aussi du violon. Lon, Lon, Laridon. Balmawhapple could hold no longer, but broke in with what he called a d-d good song, composed by Gibby Gaethroughwi't, the piper of Cupar; and without wasting more time, struck up, The baron, whose voice was drowned in the louder and more obstreperous strains of Balmawhapple, now dropped the competition, but continued to hum, Lon, Lon, Laridon, and to regard the successful candidate for the attention of the company with an eye of disdain, while Balmawnapple proceeded, This has been censured as an anachronism; and it must be confessed that agriculture of this kind was unknown to the Scotch Sixty Years since. 2 Suum cuique. This snatch of a ballad was composed by Andrew Mac Donald, the ingenious and unfortunate author of Vimonda. If up a bonny black-cock should spring, To whistle him down wi' a slug in his wing, Right seldom would I fail. After an ineffectual attempt to recover the second verse, he sung the first over again; and, in prosecution of his triumph, declared there was "more sense in that than in all the derry-dongs of France, and Fifeshire to the boot of it." The Baron only answered with a long pinch of snuff, and a glance of infinite contempt. But those noble allies, the Bear and the Hen, had emancipated the young laird from the habitual reverence in which he held Bradwardine at other times. He pronounced the claret shilpit, and demanded brandy with great vociferation. It was brought; and now the Demon of Politics envied even the harmony arising from this Dutch concert, merely because there was not a wrathful note in the strange compound of sounds which it produced. Inspired by her, the Laird of Balmawhapple, now superior to the nods and winks with which the Baron de Bradwardine, in delicacy to Edward, had hitherto checked his entering upon political discussion, demanded a bumper, with the lungs of a Stentor, "to the little gentleman in black velvet who did such service in 1702, and may the white horse break his neck over a mound of his making!" Edward was not at that moment clear-headed enough to remember that King William's fall, which occasioned his death, was said to be owing to his horse stumbling at a mole-hill; yet felt inclined to take umbrage at a toast which seemed, from a glance of Balmawhapple's eye, to have a peculiar and uncivil reference to the Government which he served. But, ere he could interfere, the Baron of Bradwardine had taken up the quarrel. "Sir," he said, "whatever my sentiments, tanquam privatus, may be in such matters, I shall not tamely endure your saying any thing that may impinge upon the honourable feelings of a gentleman under my roof. Sir, if you have no respect for the laws of urbanity, do ye not respect the military oath, the sacramentum militare, by which every officer is bound to the standards under which he is enrolled? Look at Titus Livius, what he says of Roman soldiers who were so unhappy as exuere sacramentum,-to renounce their legionary oath; but you are ignorant, sir, alike of ancient history and modern courtesy." "Not so ignorant as ye would pronounce me," roared Balmawhapple. "I ken weel that you mean the Solemn League and Covenant; but if a' the Whigs in hell had taken the" Here the Baron and Waverley both spoke at once, the former calling out, "Be silent, sir! ye not only show your ignorance, but disgrace your native country before a stranger and an English man ;" and Waverley, at the same moment, entreating Mr. Bradwardine to permit him to reply to an affront which seemed levelled at him personally. But the Baron was exalted by wine, wrath, and scorn, above all sublunary considerations. "I crave you to be hushed, Captain Waverley; you are elsewhere, peradventure, sui juris,-forisfamiliated, that is, and entitled, it may be, to think and resent for yourself; but in my domain, in this poor Barony of Bradwardine, and under this roof, which is quasi mine, being held by tacit relocation by a tenant at will, I am in loco parentis to you, and bound to see you scathless.-And for you, Mr. Falconer of Balmawhapple, I warn ye, let me see no more aberrations from the paths of good manners." "And I tell you, Mr. Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine, of Bradwardine and Tully-Veolan," retorted the sportsman, in huge disdain, "that I'll make a moor-cock of the man that refuses my toast, whether it be a crop-eared English Whig wi' a black ribband at his lug, or ane wha deserts his ain friends to claw favour wi' the rats of Hanover." In an instant both rapiers were brandished, and some desperate passes exchanged. Balmawhapple was young, stout; and active; but the Baron, infinitely more master of his weapon, would, like Sir Toby Belch, have tickled his opponent other gates than he did, had he not been under the influence of Ursa Major. Edward rushed forward to interfere between the combatants, but the prostrate bulk of the Laird of Killancureit, over which he stumbled, intercepted his passage. How Killancureit happened to be in this recumbent posture at so interesting a moment, was never accurately known. Some thought he was about to ensconce himself under the table; he himself alleged that he stumbled in the act of lifting a joint-stool, to prevent mischief, by knocking down Balmawhapple. Be that as it may, if readier aid than either his or Waverley's had not interposed, there would certainly have been bloodshed. But the well-known clash of swords, which was no stranger to her dwelling, aroused Luckie Macleary as she sat quietly beyond the hallan, or earthen partition of the cottage, with eyes employed on Boston's Crook of the Lot, while her ideas were engaged in summing up the reckoning. She boldly rushed in, with the shrill expostulation, "Wad their honours slay ane another there, and bring discredit on an honest widow-woman's house, when there was a' the lee-land in the country to fight upon ?" a remonstrance which she seconded by flinging her plaid with great dexterity over the weapons of the combatants. The servants by this time rushed in, and being, by great chance, tolerably sober, separated the incensed opponents, with the assistance of Edward and Killancureit. The latter led off Balmawhapple, cursing, swearing, and vowing revenge against every Whig, Presbyterian, and fanatic in England and Scotland, from John-o'-Groat's to the Land's End, and with difficulty got him to horse, Our hero, with the assistance of Saunders Saunderson, escorted the Baron of Bradwardine to his own dwelling, but could not prevail upon him to retire to bed until he had made a long and learned apology for the events of the evening, of which, however, there was not a word intelligible, except something about the Centaurs and the Lapitha. CHAPTER XII. REPENTANCE AND A RECONCILIATION. WAVERLEY was unaccustomed to the use of wine, excepting with great temperance. He slept therefore soundly till late in the succeeding morning, and then awakened to a painful recollection of the scene of the preceding evening. He had received a personal affront,-he, a gentleman, a soldier, and a Waverley. True, the person who offered it was not, at the time it was given, possessed of the moderate share of sense which nature had allotted him ; true also, in resenting this insult, he would break the laws of Heaven, as well as of his country; true, in doing so, he might take the life of a young man who perhaps respectably discharged the social duties, and render his family miserable; or he might lose his own;-no pleasant alternative even to the bravest, when it is debated coolly and in private. All this pressed on his mind; yet the original statement recurred with the same irresistible force. He had received a personal insult; he was of the house of Waverley; and he bore a commission. There was no alternative; and he descended to the breakfast parlour with the intention of taking leave of the family, and writing to one of his brother officers to meet him at the inn mid-way between Tully-Veolan and the town where they were quartered, in order that he might convey such a message to the Laird of Balmawhapple as the circumstances seemed to demand. He found Miss Bradwardine presiding over the tea and coffee, the table loaded with warm bread, both of flour, oatmeal, and barley meal, in the shape of loaves, cakes, biscuits, and other varieties, together with eggs, rein-deer ham, mutton and beef ditto, smoked salmon, marmalade, and all the other delicacies which induced even Johnson himself to extol the luxury of a Scotch breakfast above that of all other countries. A mess of oatmeal porridge, flanked by a silver jug, which held an equal mixture of cream and butter-milk, was placed for the Baron's share of this repast; but Rose observed he had walked out early in the morning, after giving orders that his guest should not be disturbed. Waverley sat down almost in silence, and with an air of absence and abstraction, which could not give Miss Bradwardine a favourable opinion of his talents for conversation. He answered at random one or two observations which she ventured to make upon ordinary topics; so that feeling herself almost repulsed in her efforts at entertaining him, and secretly wondering that a scarlet coat should cover no better breeding, she left him to his mental amusement of cursing Dr. Doubleit's favourite constellation of Ursa Major, as the cause of all the mischief which had already happened, and was likely to ensue. At once he started, and his colour heightened, as, looking toward the window, he beheld the Baron and young Balmawhapple, pass arm in arm, apparently in deep conversation; and he hastily asked, "Did Mr. Falconer sleep here last night? Rose, not much pleased with the abruptness of the first question which the young stranger had addressed to her, answered drily in the negative, and the conversation again sunk into silence. At this moment Mr. Saunderson appeared, with a message from his master, requesting to speak with Captain Waverley in another apartment. With a heart which beat a little quicker, not indeed from fear, but from uncertainty and anxiety, Edward obeyed the summons. He found the two gentlemen standing together, an air of complacent dignity on the brow of the Baron, while something like sullenness or shame, or both, blanked the bold visage of Balmawhapple. The former slipped his arm through that of the latter, and thus seeming to walk with him, while in reality he led him, advanced to meet Waverley, and, stepping in the midst of the apartment, made in great state the following oration "Captain Waverley,my young and esteemed friend, Mr. Falconer of Balmawhapplc, has craved of my age and experience, as of one not wholly unskilled in the dependencies and punctilios of the duello or monomachia, to be his interlocutor in expressing to you the regret with which he calls to remembrance certain passages of our symposion last night, which could not but be highly displeasing to you, as serving for the time under this present existing government. He craves you, sir, to drown in oblivion the memory of such solecisms against the laws of politeness, as being what his better reason disavows, and to receive the hand which he offers you in amity; and I must needs assure you that nothing less than a sense of being dans son tort, as a gallant French chevalier, Mons. Le Bretailleur, once said to me on such an occasion, and an opinion also of your peculiar merit, could have extorted such concessions; for he and all his family are, and have been, time out of mind, Mavortia pectora, as Buchanan saith, a bold and warlike sept, or people." Edward immediately, and with natural politeness, accepted the hand which Balmawhapple, or rather the Baron in his character of mediator, extended towards him. "It was impossible," he said, |