had returned home, under the idea of more
easily finding shelter among his own tenants and on his own estate than
elsewhere. A party of soldiers had been sent to lay waste his property,
for clemency was not the order of the day. Their proceedings, however,
were checked by an order from the civil court. The estate, it was found,
might not be forfeited to the crown to the prejudice of Malcolm
Bradwardine of Inch-Grabbit, the heir-male, whose claim could not be
prejudiced by the Baron's attainder, as deriving no right through him,
and who, therefore, like other heirs of entail in the same situation,
entered upon possession. But, unlike many in similar circumstances, the
new laird speedily showed that he intended utterly to exclude his
predecessor from all benefit or advantage in the estate, and that it was
his purpose to avail himself of the old Baron's evil fortune to the full
extent. This was the more ungenerous, as it was generally known that,
from a romantic idea of not prejudicing this young man's right as
heir-male, the Baron had refrained from settling his estate on his
daughter.

This selfish injustice was resented by the country people, who were
partial to their old master, and irritated against his successor. In the
Baron's own words, 'The matter did not coincide with the feelings of the
commons of Bradwardine, Mr. Waverley; and the tenants were slack and
repugnant in payment of their mails and duties; and when my kinsman came
to the village wi' the new factor, Mr. James Howie, to lift the rents,
some wanchancy person--I suspect John Heatherblutter, the auld
gamekeeper, that was out wi' me in the year fifteen--fired a shot at him
in the gloaming, whereby he was so affrighted, that I may say with
Tullius In Catilinam, "Abiit, evasit, erupit, effugit." He fled, sir, as
one may say, incontinent to Stirling. And now he hath advertised the
estate for sale, being himself the last substitute in the entail. And if
I were to lament about sic matters, this would grieve me mair than its
passing from my immediate possession, whilk, by the course of nature,
must have happened in a few years; whereas now it passes from the lineage
that should have possessed it in scecula saculorum. But God's will be
done, humana perpessi sumus. Sir John of Bradwardine--Black Sir John, as
he is called--who was the common ancestor of our house and the
Inch-Grabbits, little thought such a person would have sprung from his
loins. Mean time, he ha