A DISCOVERY---WAVERLEY BECOMES DOMESTICATED AT TULLY-VEOLAN.
The next day Edward arose betimes, and in a morning walk around the house and its vicinity, came suddenly upon a small court in front of the dog-kennel, where his friend Davie was employed about his four-footed charge.One quick glance of his eye recognised Waverley, when, instantly turning his back, as if he had not observed him, he began to sing part of an old ballad:---Young men will love thee more fair and more fast _Heard ye so merry the little bird sing?_Old men's love the longest will last, _And the throstle-cock's head is under his wing._The young man's wrath is like light straw on fire;_Heard ye so merry the little bird sing?_But like red-hot steel is the old man's ire, _And the throstle-cock's head is under his wing._The young man will brawl at the evening board;_Heard ye so merry the little bird sing?_But the old man will draw at the dawning the sword, _And the throstle-cook's head is under his wing._Waverley could not avoid observing that Davie laid something like a satirical emphasis on these lines.He therefore approached, and endeavoured, by sundry queries, to elicit from him what the innuendo might mean; but Davie had no mind to explain, and had wit enough to make his folly cloak his knavery.
Edward could collect nothing from him, excepting that the Laird of Balmawhapple had gone home yesterday morning ``wi' his boots fu' o' bluid.'' In the garden, however, he met the old butler, who no longer attempted to conceal that, having been bred in the nursery line with Sumack and Co.of Newcastle, he sometimes wrought a turn in the flower-borders to oblige the Laird and Miss Rose.By a series of queries, Edward at length discovered, with a painful feeling of surprise and shame, that Balmawhapple's submission and apology had been the consequence of a rencontre with the Baron before his guest had quitted his pillow, in which the younger combatant had been disarmed and wounded in the sword-arm.
Greatly mortified at this information, Edward sought out his friendly host, and anxiously expostulated with him upon the injustice he had done him in anticipating his meeting with Mr.
Falconer, a circumstance which, considering his youth and the profession of arms which he had just adopted, was capable of being represented much to his prejudice.The Baron justified himself at greater length than I choose to repeat.He urged that the quarrel was common to them, and that Balmawhapple could not, by the code of honour, _<e'>vite_ giving satisfaction to both, which he had done in his case by an honourable meeting, and in that of Edward by such a _palinode_ as rendered the use of the sword unnecessary, and which, being made and accepted, must necessarily _sopite_ the whole affair.
With this excuse or explanation Waverley was silenced, if not satisfied; but he could not help testifying some displeasure against the Blessed Bear which had given rise to the quarrel, nor refrain from hinting that the sanctified epithet was hardly appropriate.The Baron observed, he could not deny that ``the Bear, though allowed by heralds as a most honourable ordinary, had, nevertheless, somewhat fierce, churlish, and morose in his disposition (as might be read in Archibald Simson, pastor of Dalkeith's _Hieroglyphica Animalium_), and had thus been the type of many quarrels and dissensions which had occurred in the house of Bradwardine; of which,'' he continued, ``I might commemorate mine own unfortunate dissension with my third cousin by the mother's side, Sir Hew Halbert, who was so unthinking as to deride my family name, as if it had been _quasi Bear-warden;_ a most uncivil jest, since it not only insinuated that the founder of our house occupied such a mean situation as to be a custodier of wild beasts, a charge which, ye must have observed, is only entrusted to the very basest plebeians, but, moreover, seemed to infer that our coat-armour had not been achieved by honourable actions in war, but bestowed by way of _paranomasia,_ or pun upon our family appellation---a sort of bearing which the French call _armoires parlantes;_ the Latins, _arma cantatia;_ and your English authorities, canting heraldry; being indeed a species of emblazoning more befitting canters, gaberlunzies, and suchlike mendicants, whose gibberish is formed upon playing upon the word, than the noble, honourable, and useful science of heraldry, which assigns armorial bearings as the reward of noble and generous actions, and not to tickle the ear with vain quodlibets, such as are found in jest-books.''<*>
* Although canting heraldry is generally reprobated, it seems nevertheless * to have been adopted in the arms and mottoes of many honourable * families.Thus the motto of the Vernons, _Ver non semper viret,_ is a perfect * pun, and so is that of the Onslows, _Festina lente._ The _Periissem ni periissem_* of the Anstruthers is liable to a similar objection.One of that * ancient race, finding that an antagonist, with whom he had fixed a friendly * meeting, was determined to take the opportunity of assassinating him, prevented * the hazard by dashing out his brains with a battle-axe.Two sturdy * arms brandishing such a weapon form the usual crest of the family, with the * above motto---_Periissem ni per-iissem_---I had died, unless I had gone * through with it.
Of his quarrel with Sir Hew, he said nothing more than that it was settled in a fitting manner.
Having been so minute with respect to the diversions of Tully-Veolan, on the first days of Edward's arrival, for the purpose of introducing its inmates to the reader's acquaintance, it becomes less necessary to trace the progress of his intercourse with the same accuracy.It is probable that a young man accustomed to more cheerful society would have tired of the conversation of so violent an assertor of the ``boast of heraldry''