Walter Scott - Waverly (Unabridged)

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 insconce 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 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 Lapithae.

29Southey’s Madoc.

30I may here mention that the fashion of compotation described in the text was still occasionally practised in Scotland in the author’s youth. A company, after having taken leave of their host, often went to finish the evening at the clachan or village, in ‘womb of tavern.’ Their entertainer always accompanied them to take the stirrup-cup, which often occasioned a long and late revel.

The poculum potatorium of the valiant Baron, his blessed Bear, has a prototype at the fine old Castle of Glamis, so rich in memorials of ancient times; it is a massive beaker of silver, double gilt, moulded into the shape of a lion, and holding about an English pint of wine. The form alludes to the family name of Strathmore, which is Lyon, and, when exhibited, the cup must necessarily be emptied to the Earl’s health. The author ought perhaps to be ashamed of recording that he has had the honour of swallowing the contents of the Lion; and the recollection of the feat served to suggest the story of the Bear of Bradwardine. In the family of Scott of Thirlestane (not Thirlestane in the Forest, but the place of the same name in Roxburghshire) was long preserved a cup of the same kind, in the form of a jack-boot. Each guest was obliged to empty this at his departure. If the guest’s name was Scott, the necessity was doubly imperative.

When the landlord of an inn presented his guests with deoch an doruis, that is, the drink at the door, or the stirrup-cup, the draught was not charged in the reckoning. On this point a learned bailie of the town of Forfar pronounced a very sound judgment.

A., an ale-wife in Forfar, had brewed her ‘peck of malt’ and set the liquor out of doors to cool; the cow of B., a neighbour of A., chanced to come by, and seeing the good beverage, was allured to taste it, and finally to drink it up. When A. came to take in her liquor, she found her tub empty, and from the cow’s staggering and staring, so as to betray her intemperance, she easily divined the mode in which her ‘browst’ had disappeared. To take vengeance on Crummie’s ribs with a stick was her first effort. The roaring of the cow brought B., her master, who remonstrated with his angry neighbour, and received in reply a demand for the value of the ale which Crummie had drunk up. B. refused payment, and was conveyed before C., the bailie, or sitting magistrate. He heard the case patiently; and then demanded of the plaintiff A. whether the cow had sat down to her potation or taken it standing. The plaintiff answered, she had not seen the deed committed, but she supposed the cow drank the ale while standing on her feet, adding, that had she been near she would have made her use them to some purpose. The bailie, on this admission, solemnly adjudged the cow’s drink to be deoch an doruis, a stirrup-cup, for which no charge could be made without violating the ancient hospitality of Scotland.

31This has been censured as an anachronism; and it must be confessed that agriculture of this kind was unknown to the Scotch Sixty Years Since.

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

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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 midway 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, reindeer 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 Doctor 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.