e bent himself nearly double over his plate, in the shape of a
clasp-knife about to shut. When dinner was over, Rose and the clergyman
discreetly retired, when, with a sign to the butler, the Baron of
Bradwardine produced out of a locked case a golden cup called the
Blessed Bear of Bradwardine, in which first the host and then all the
company pledged the health of the young English stranger. After a while,
the Baron and Edward set out to see their guests a certain distance on
their way, going with them down the avenue to the village "change-house"
or inn, where Balmawhapple and Killancureit had stabled their horses.

Edward, being weary, would much rather have found himself in bed, but
this desertion of good company the Baron would noways allow. So under
the low cobwebbed roof of Lucky Macleary's kitchen the four gentlemen
sat down to "taste the sweets of the night." But it was not long before
the wine began to do its work in their heads. Each one of them, Edward
excepted, talked or sang without paying any attention to his fellows.
From wine they fell to politics, when Balmawhapple proposed a toast
which was meant to put an affront upon the uniform Edward wore, and the
King in whose army he served.

"To the little gentleman in black velvet," cried the young Laird, "he
who did such service in 1702, and may the white horse break his neck
over a mound of his making!"

The "little gentleman in black velvet" was the mole over whose hillock
King William's horse is said to have stumbled, while the "white horse"
represented the house of Hanover.

Though of a Jacobite family, Edward could not help taking offence at the
obvious insult, but the Baron was before him. The quarrel was not his,
he assured him. The guest's quarrel was the host's--so long as he
remained under his roof.

"Here," quoth the Baron, "I am _in loco parentis_ to you, Captain
Waverley. I am bound to see you scatheless. And as for you, Mr. Falconer
of Balmawhapple, I warn you to 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 other, in huge disdain, "that I will make a
muir cock of the man that refuses my toast, whether he be a crop-eared
English Whig wi' a black ribband at his lug, or ane wha deserts his
friends to claw favour wi' the rats of Hanover!"

In an instant rapiers were out, and the Baron and Balmawhapple hard at
it. The younger man wa