But although Edward and he differed Toto COELO, as the Baron would have said, upon this subject, yet they met upon history as on a neutral ground, in which each claimed an interest.  The Baron, indeed, only cumbered his memory with matters of fact, the cold, dry, hard outlines which history delineates.  Edward, on the contrary, loved to fill up and round the sketch with the colouring of a warm and vivid imagination, which gives light and life to the actors and speakers in the drama of past ages.  Yet with tastes so opposite, they contributed greatly to each other’s amusement.  Mr. Bradwardine’s minute narratives and powerful memory supplied to Waverley fresh subjects of the kind upon which his fancy loved to labour, and opened to him a new mine of incident and of character.  And he repaid the pleasure thus communicated by an earnest attention, valuable to all story-tellers, more especially to the Baron, who felt his habits of self-respect flattered by it; and sometimes also by reciprocal communications, which interested Mr. Bradwardine, as confirming or illustrating his own favourite anecdotes.  Besides, Mr. Bradwardine loved to talk of the scenes of his youth, whichl had been spent in camps and foreign lands, and had many interesting particulars to tell of the generals under whom he had served and the actions he had witnessed.

Both parties returned to Tully-Veolan in great good-humour with each other; Waverley desirous of studying more attentively what he considered as a singular and interesting character, gifted with a memory containing a curious register of ancient and modern anecdotes; and Bradwardine disposed to regard Edward as puer (or rather juvenis) bonae spei et magnae indolis, a youth devoid of that petulant volatility which is impatient of, or vilipends, the conversation and advice of his seniors, from which he predicted great things of his future success and deportment in life.  There was no other guest except Mr. Rubrick, whose information and discourse, as a clergyman and a scholar, harmonised very well with that of the Baron and his guest.

Shortly after dinner, the Baron, as if to show that his temperance was not entirely theoretical, proposed a visit to Rose’s apartment, or, as he termed it, her troisieme etage.  Waverley was accordingly conducted through one or two of those long awkward passages with which ancient architects studied to puzzle the inhabitants of the houses which they planned, at the end of which Mr. Bradwardine began to ascend, by two steps at once, a very steep, narrow, and winding stair, leaving Mr. Rubrick and Waverley to follow at more leisure, while he should announce their approach to his daughter.