The two young men awaited to hear him, in anxious curiosity.

‘I doubt na, lads,’ he proceeded, ’but your education has been sae seen to that ye understand the true nature of the feudal tenures?’

Fergus, afraid of an endless dissertation, answered, ’Intimately, Baron,’ and touched Waverley as a signal to express no ignorance.

’And ye are aware, I doubt not, that the holding of the barony of Bradwardine is of a nature alike honourable and peculiar, being blanch (which Craig opines ought to be Latinated blancum, or rather francum, a free holding) pro sermtio detrahendi, seu exuendi, caligas regis post battalliam.’  Here Fergus turned his falcon eye upon Edward, with an almost imperceptible rise of his eyebrow, to which his shoulders corresponded in the same degree of elevation.  ’Now, twa points of dubitation occur to me upon this topic.  First, whether this service, or feudal homage, be at any event due to the person of the Prince, the words being, per expressum, caligas regis, the boots of the king himself; and I pray your opinion anent that particular before we proceed farther.’

‘Why, he is Prince Regent,’ answered Mac-Ivor, with laudable composure of countenance; ’and in the court of France all the honours are rendered to the person of the Regent which are due to that of the King.  Besides, were I to pull off either of their boots, I would render that service to the young Chevalier ten times more willingly than to his father.’

’ Ay, but I talk not of personal predilections.  However, your authority is of great weight as to the usages of the court of France; and doubtless the Prince, as alter ego, may have a right to claim the homagium of the great tenants of the crown, since all faithful subjects are commanded, in the commission of regency, to respect him as the King’s own person.  Far, therefore, be it from me to diminish the lustre of his authority by withholding this act of homage, so peculiarly calculated to give it splendour; for I question if the Emperor of Germany hath his boots taken off by a free baron of the empire.  But here lieth the second difficulty—­ the Prince wears no boots, but simply brogues and trews.’

This last dilemma had almost disturbed Fergus’s gravity.

‘Why,’ said he, ’you know, Baron, the proverb tells us, “It’s ill taking the breeks off a Highlandman,” and the boots are here in the same predicament.’

‘The word caligce, however,’ continued the Baron, ’though I admit that, by family tradition, and even in our ancient evidents, it is explained “lie-boots,” means, in its primitive sense, rather sandals; and Caius Caesar, the nephew and successor of Caius Tiberius, received the agnomen of Caligula, a caligulis sine caligis levioribus, quibus adolescentior usus fuerat in exercitu Germanici patris sui.  And the caligce were also proper to the monastic bodies; for we read in an ancient glossarium upon the rule of Saint Benedict, in the Abbey of Saint Amand, that caligae were tied with latchets.’