made childless, though you are
aware the blood-wit was made up to your ain satisfaction by assythment,
and that I have since expedited letters of slains. Weel, as I have said,
I have no male issue, and yet it is needful that I maintain the honour of
my house; and it is on that score I prayed ye for your peculiar and
private attention.'

The two young men awaited to hear him, in anxious curiosity.

'I doubt na, lads,' he proceeded, 'but your education has been sae seen
to that ye understand the true nature of the feudal tenures?'

Fergus, afraid of an endless dissertation, answered, 'Intimately, Baron,'
and touched Waverley as a signal to express no ignorance.

'And ye are aware, I doubt not, that the holding of the barony of
Bradwardine is of a nature alike honourable and peculiar, being blanch
(which Craig opines ought to be Latinated blancum, or rather francum, a
free holding) pro sermtio detrahendi, seu exuendi, caligas regis post
battalliam.' Here Fergus turned his falcon eye upon Edward, with an
almost imperceptible rise of his eyebrow, to which his shoulders
corresponded in the same degree of elevation. 'Now, twa points of
dubitation occur to me upon this topic. First, whether this service, or
feudal homage, be at any event due to the person of the Prince, the words
being, per expressum, caligas REGIS, the boots of the king himself; and I
pray your opinion anent that particular before we proceed farther.'

'Why, he is Prince Regent,' answered Mac-Ivor, with laudable composure of
countenance; 'and in the court of France all the honours are rendered to
the person of the Regent which are due to that of the King. Besides, were
I to pull off either of their boots, I would render that service to the
young Chevalier ten times more willingly than to his father.'

'Ay, but I talk not of personal predilections. However, your authority
is of great weight as to the usages of the court of France; and doubtless
the Prince, as alter ego, may have a right to claim the homagium of the
great tenants of the crown, since all faithful subjects are commanded, in
the commission of regency, to respect him as the King's own person. Far,
therefore, be it from me to diminish the lustre of his authority by
withholding this act of homage, so peculiarly calculated to give it
splendour; for I question if the Emperor of Germany hath his boots taken
off by a free baron of the empire. But here lieth the second
difficulty--the Prince wears no