At his first address to Waverley, it would seem that the hearty pleasure he felt to behold the nephew of his friend had somewhat discomposed the stiff and upright dignity of the Baron of Bradwardine’s demeanour, for the tears stood in the old gentleman’s eyes, when, having first shaken Edward heartily by the hand in the English fashion, he embraced him a la mode Francoise, and kissed him on both sides of his face; while the hardness of his gripe, and the quantity of Scotch snuff which his accolade communicated, called corresponding drops of moisture to the eyes of his guest.

‘Upon the honour of a gentleman,’ he said, ’but it makes me young again to see you here, Mr. Waverley!  A worthy scion of the old stock of Waverley-Honour—­spes altera, as Maro hath it—­and you have the look of the old line, Captain Waverley; not so portly yet as my old friend Sir Everard—­mais cela viendra avec le tems, as my Dutch acquaintance, Baron Kikkitbroeck, said of the sagesse of Madame son epouse.  And so ye have mounted the cockade?  Right, right; though I could have wished the colour different, and so I would ha’ deemed might Sir Everard.  But no more of that; I am old, and times are changed.  And how does the worthy knight baronet, and the fair Mrs. Rachel?—­Ah, ye laugh, young man!  In troth she was the fair Mrs. Rachel in the year of grace seventeen hundred and sixteen; but time passes—­et singula praedantur anni—­that is most certain.  But once again ye are most heartily welcome to my poor house of Tully-Veolan!  Hie to the house, Rose, and see that Alexander Saunderson looks out the old Chateau Margaux, which I sent from Bourdeaux to Dundee in the year 1713.’

Rose tripped off demurely enough till she turned the first corner, and then ran with the speed of a fairy, that she might gain leisure, after discharging her father’s commission, to put her own dress in order, and produce all her little finery, an occupation for which the approaching dinner-hour left but limited time.

’We cannot rival the luxuries of your English table, Captain Waverley, or give you the epulae lautiores of Waverley-Honour.  I say epulae rather than prandium, because the latter phrase is popular:  epulae ad senatum, prandium vero ad populum attinet, says Suetonius Tranquillus.  But I trust ye will applaud my Bourdeaux; c’est des deux oreilles, as Captain Vinsauf used to say; vinum primae notae, the principal of Saint Andrews denominated it.  And, once more, Captain Waverley, right glad am I that ye are here to drink the best my cellar can make forthcoming.’

This speech, with the necessary interjectional answers, continued from the lower alley where they met up to the door of the house, where four or five servants in old-fashioned liveries, headed by Alexander Saunderson, the butler, who now bore no token of the sable stains of the garden, received them in grand costume,

    In an old hall hung round with pikes and with bows,
    With old bucklers and corslets that had borne many shrewd
      blows.