There was something in this last sentence which grated on Waverley’s feelings.  He could not bear that Flora should be considered as conducing to her brother’s preferment by the admiration which she must unquestionably attract; and although it was in strict correspondence with many points of Fergus’s character, it shocked him as selfish, and unworthy of his sister’s high mind and his own independent pride.  Fergus, to whom such manoeuvres were familiar, as to one brought up at the French court, did not observe the unfavourable impression which he had unwarily made upon his friend’s mind, and concluded by saying,’ that they could hardly see Flora before the evening, when she would be at the concert and ball with which the Prince’s party were to be entertained.  She and I had a quarrel about her not appearing to take leave of you.  I am unwilling to renew it by soliciting her to receive you this morning; and perhaps my doing so might not only be ineffectual, but prevent your meeting this evening.’

While thus conversing, Waverley heard in the court, before the windows of the parlour, a well-known voice.  ’I aver to you, my worthy friend,’ said the speaker, ’that it is a total dereliction of military discipline; and were you not as it were a tyro, your purpose would deserve strong reprobation.  For a prisoner of war is on no account to be coerced with fetters, or debinded in ergastulo, as would have been the case had you put this gentleman into the pit of the peel-house at Balmawhapple.  I grant, indeed, that such a prisoner may for security be coerced in carcere, that is, in a public prison.’

The growling voice of Balmawhapple was heard as taking leave in displeasure, but the word ‘land-louper’ alone was distinctly audible.  He had disappeared before Waverley reached the house in order to greet the worthy Baron of Bradwardine.  The uniform in which he was now attired, a blue coat, namely, with gold lace, a scarlet waistcoat and breeches, and immense jack-boots, seemed to have added fresh stiffness and rigidity to his tall, perpendicular figure; and the consciousness of military command and authority had increased, in the same proportion, the self-importance of his demeanour and the dogmatism of his conversation.

He received Waverley with his usual kindness, and expressed immediate anxiety to hear an explanation of the circumstances attending the loss of his commission in Gardiner’s dragoons; ‘not,’ he said, ’that he had the least apprehension of his young friend having done aught which could merit such ungenerous treatment as he had received from government, but because it was right and seemly that the Baron of Bradwardine should be, in point of trust and in point of power, fully able to refute all calumnies against the heir of Waverley-Honour, whom he had so much right to regard as his own son.’