l ousting of the
rightful King over the water; there was the Rising of 1715, and,
finally, there was the gallant attempt by Bonnie Prince Charlie to
regain his father's crown in 1745. Thus they had, indeed, a superfluity
of subjects over which men might legitimately quarrel. And when it is
remembered that gentlemen in those days universally carried swords, and
as a rule possessed some knowledge of how to use them, and that the man
who did not habitually drink too much at dinner was a veritable _rara
avis_--a poor creature, unworthy to be deemed wholly a man--the wonder
will be, not that so many, but rather that so few, fatal quarrels took
place.

Whatever in other respects might be their failings--and these were,
indeed, many and grave--Scottish inns in those days were noted for the
goodness of their claret. As a consequence of our ancient alliance and
direct trade with France, that wine was not only good, but was plentiful
and cheap--cheap enough, indeed, to become almost the national
drink--and vast quantities were daily consumed; though there were not
wanting those who, protesting that claret was "shilpit" and "cauld on
the stomach," called loudly for brandy, and with copious draughts of
that spirit corrected the acidity of the less potent wine.

Possibly the very depth of the drinking in those days guarded many a
life from sacrifice; the hand is not steady, nor the foot sure, when the
brain is muddled by fumes of wine, and it was perhaps more often chance
than design that guided the sword's point in some of these combats.
Still, even so, Death too often claimed his toll from such chance
strokes.

A duel between opponents equally armed was fair enough, provided that
the skill and sobriety were not unequally divided, and that one of the
fighters did not chance to be unduly handicapped by age. If a man wore a
sword, he knew that he might be called upon to use it--even the most
peace-loving of men might not then, without loss of honour, always
succeed in avoiding a brawl; the blame was his own if he had neglected
to make himself proficient in the use of his weapon. At that period the
tongue of the libeller was not tied by fear of the law; for the man
insulted or libelled there existed no means of redress other than that
of shedding, or trying to shed, his insulter's blood. It was a rough and
ready mode of obtaining justice; and if it had its manifest
disadvantages, it was at least not wholly unsuited to the rough and