implicity,
retired, and was soon followed by the clergyman. Among the rest of the
party, the wine, which fully justified the encomiums of the landlord,
flowed freely round, although Waverley, with some difficulty, obtained
the privilege of sometimes neglecting the glass. At length, as the
evening grew more late, the Baron made a private signal to Mr. Saunders
Saunderson, or, as he facetiously denominated him, Alexander ab
Alexandro, who left the room with a nod, and soon after returned, his
grave countenance mantling with a solemn and mysterious smile, and placed
before his master a small oaken casket, mounted with brass ornaments of
curious form. The Baron, drawing out a private key, unlocked the casket,
raised the lid, and produced a golden goblet of a singular and antique
appearance, moulded into the shape of a rampant bear, which the owner
regarded with a look of mingled reverence, pride, and delight, that
irresistibly reminded Waverley of Ben Jonson's Tom Otter, with his Bull,
Horse, and Dog, as that wag wittily denominated his chief carousing cups.
But Mr. Bradwardine, turning towards him with complacency, requested him
to observe this curious relic of the olden time.

'It represents,' he said, 'the chosen crest of our family, a bear, as ye
observe, and RAMPANT; because a good herald will depict every animal in
its noblest posture, as a horse SALIENT, a greyhound CURRANT, and, as may
be inferred, a ravenous animal in actu ferociori, or in a voracious,
lacerating, and devouring posture. Now, sir, we hold this most honourable
achievement by the wappen-brief, or concession of arms, of Frederick
Red-beard, Emperor of Germany, to my predecessor, Godmund Bradwardine, it
being the crest of a gigantic Dane, whom he slew in the lists in the Holy
Land, on a quarrel touching the chastity of the emperor's spouse or
daughter, tradition saith not precisely which, and thus, as Virgilius
hath it--

Mutemus clypeos,
Danaumque insignia nobis
Aptemus.

Then for the cup, Captain Waverley, it was wrought by the command of
Saint Duthac, Abbot of Aberbrothock, for behoof of another baron of the
house of Bradwardine, who had valiantly defended the patrimony of that
monastery against certain encroaching nobles. It is properly termed the
Blessed Bear of Bradwardine (though old Doctor Doubleit used jocosely to
call it Ursa Major), and was supposed, in old and Catholic times, to be
invested with certain properties of a mystical and super