which was no stranger to her dwelling, aroused Luckie Macleary as she sat quietly beyond the hallan, or earthen partition of the cottage, with eyes employed on Boston’s crook of 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 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 leaves, cakes, biscuits,