gravely awaited the arrival of the company, in full hope of custom and profit. When they were seated under the sooty rafters of Luckie Macleary's only apartment, thickly tapestried with cobwebs, their hostess, who had already taken her cue from the Laird of Balmawhapple, appeared with a huge pewter measuringpot, containing at least three English quarts, familiarly denominated a Tappit Hen, and which, in the language of the hostess, reamed (i.e. mantled) with excellent claret just drawn from. the cask.

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 class. 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 topdressing and bottom-dressing,* and year-olds, and gimmers, and dinmonts, and stots, 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 Marechal Duc de Berwick;" then, imitating, as well as he could, the manner and tone of a French musquetaire, he immediately commenced,—

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,— It's up Glenbarchan's braes I gaed, And o'er the bent of Killiebraid, And mony a weary cast I made, To cuittle the moor-fowl's tail. †

The Baron, whose voice was drowned in the louder and more obstreperous strains of Balmawhapple, now dropped the compe

This has been censured as an anachronism; and it must be confessed that agriculture of this kind was unknown to the Scots Sixty Years since.

+ Suum cuique. This snatch of a ballad was composed by Andrew MacDonald, the ingenious and unfortunate author of Vimonda.

tition, 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 Balmawhapple proceeded,—

If up a bonny black-cock should spring,

To whistle him down wi' a slug in his wing,
And strap him on to my lunzie string,
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 66
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 of 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 the 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 those 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”.

66

Here the Baron and Waverley both spoke at once, the former calling out, "Be silent, sir! ye not only shew your ignorance, but disgrace your native country before a stranger and an

Englishman," 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 riband 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 blood shed. 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 in 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 Lapithæ.

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 barleymeal, 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 Scottish 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