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 had 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 mid-way between Tully-Veolan and the town where they were quartered, in order that he might convey such a message to the Laird of Balmawhapple as the circumstances seemed to demand.He found Miss Bradwardine presiding over the tea and coffee, the table loaded with warm bread, both of flour, oatmeal, and barley-meal, in the shape of loaves, cakes, biscuits, and other varieties, together with eggs, rein-deer ham, mutton and beef ditto, smoked salmon, marmalade, and all other delicacies which induced even Johnson himself to extol the luxury of a Scotch breakfast above that of all other countries.
A mess of oatmeal porridge, flanked by a silver jug, which held an equal mixture of cream and butter-milk, was placed for the Baron's share of this repast; but Rose observed he had walked out early in the morning, after giving orders that his guest should not be disturbed.
Waverley sat down almost in silence, and with an air of absence and abstraction, which could not give Miss Bradwardine a favourable opinion of his talents for conversation.He answered at random one or two observations which she ventured to make upon ordinary topics; so that feeling herself almost repulsed in her efforts at entertaining him, and secretly wondering that a scarlet coat should cover no better breeding, she left him to his mental amusement of cursing Dr.Doubleit's favourite constellation of Ursa Major, as the cause of all the mischief which had already happened, and was likely to ensue.At once he started, and his colour heightened, as, looking toward the window, he beheld the Baron and young Balmawhapple pass arm in arm, apparently in deep conversation; and he hastily asked, ``Did Mr.Falconer sleep here last night?'' Rose, not much pleased with the abruptness of the first question which the young stranger had addressed to her, answered dryly in the negative, and the conversation again sunk into silence.
At this moment Mr.Saunderson appeared, with a message from his master requesting to speak with Captain Waverley in another apartment.With a heart which beat a little quicker, not indeed from fear, but from uncertainty and anxiety, Edward obeyed the summons.He found the two gentlemen standing together, an air of complacent dignity on the brow of the Baron, while something like sullenness, or shame, or both, blanked the bold visage of Balmawhapple.The former slipped his arm through that of the latter, and thus seeming to walk with him, while in reality he led him, advanced to meet Waverley, and, stopping in the midst of the apartment, made in great state the following oration: ``Captain Waverley,---my young and esteemed friend, Mr.Falconer of Balmawhapple, has craved of my age and experience, as of one not wholly unskilled in the dependencies and punctilios of the duello or monomachia, to be his interlocutor in expressing to you the regret with which he calls to remembrance certain passages of our symposion last night, which could not but be highly displeasing to you, as serving for the time under this present existing government.
He craves you, sir, to drown in oblivion the memory of such solecisms against the laws of politeness, as being what his better reason disavows, and to receive the hand which he offers you in amity; and I must needs assure you, that nothing less than a sense of being _dans son tort,_ as a gallant French chevalier, Mons.Le Bretailleur, once said to me on such an occasion, and an opinion also of your peculiar merit, could have extorted such concessions; for he and all his family are, and have been time out of mind, _Mavortia pectora,_ as Buchanan saith, a bold and warlike sept, or people.''
Edward immediately, and with natural politeness, accepted the hand which Balmawhapple, or rather the Baron in his character of mediator, extended towards him.``It was impossible,''
he said, ``for him to remember what a gentleman expressed his wish he had not uttered; and he willingly imputed what had passed to the exuberant festivity of the day.''