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.

CHAPTER XII

REPENTANCE AND A RECONCILIATION

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 wer