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"The ground is cumbered with carcases," said the old mountaineer, turning sullenly away; one more would hardly have been kenn'd upon it; and if it wasna for yoursell, Vich Ian Vohr, that one should be Bradwardine's or mine."

The chief soothed while he hurried him away; and then returned to the Baron. "It is Ballenkeiroch," he said, in an under and confidential voice, "father of the young man who fell eight years since in the unlucky affair at the Mains."

"Ah!" said the Baron, instantly relaxing the doubtful sternness of his features, “I can take mickle frae a man to whom I have unhappily rendered sic a displeasure as that. Ye were right to apprize me, Glennaquoich; he may look as black as midnight at Martinmas ere Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine shall say he does him wrang. Ah! I have nae male lineage, and I should bear with one I have made childless, though you are aware the blood-wit was made up to your ain satisfaction by assythment, and that I have since expedited letters of slains.-Weel, as I have said, I have no male issue, and yet it is needful that I maintain the honour of my house; and it is on that score I prayed ye for your peculiar and private attention."

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 servitio detrahendi, seu exvendi, 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 caliga, 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 Cæsar, the nephew and successor of Caius Tiberius, received the agnomen of Caligula, a caligulis, sive caligis levioribus, quibus adolescentior usus fuerat in exercitu Germanici patris sui. And the calige were also proper to the monastic bodies; for we read in an ancient Glossarium, upon the rule of St. Benedict, in the Abbey of St. Amand, that calige were tied with latchets."

VOL. I.

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"That will apply to the brogues," said Fergus.

"It will so, my dear Glennaquoich ;—and the words are express: Caligæ dictæ sunt quia ligantur; nam socci non ligantur, sed tantum intromittuntur; that is, caliga are denominated from the ligatures wherewith they are bound; whereas socci, which may be analogous to our mules, whilk the English denominate slippers, are only slipped upon the feet. The words of the charter are also alternative,-exuere, seu detrahere; that is, to undo, as in the case of sandals or brogues; and to pull off, as we say vernacularly, concerning boots. Yet I would we had more light; but I fear there is little chance of finding hereabout any erudite author, de re vestiariâ."

"I should doubt it very much," said the Chieftain, looking around on the straggling Highlanders, who were returning loaded with spoils of the slain, "though the res vestiaria itself seems to be in some request at present."

This remark coming within the Baron's idea of jocularity, he honoured it with a smile, but immediately resumed what to him appeared very serious business.

"Bailie Macwheeble indeed holds an opinion, that this honorary service is due, from its very nature, si petatur tantum; only if his Royal Highness shall require of the great tenant of the crown to perform that personal duty; and indeed he pointed out the case in Dirleton's Doubts and Queries, Grippit versus Spicer, anent the eviction of an estate ob non solutum canonem, that is, for non-payment of a feu-duty of three pepper-corns a-year, whilk were taxt to be worth seven-eighths of a penny Scots, in whilk the defender was assoilzied. But I deem it safest, wi' your good favour, to place myself in the way of rendering the Prince this service, and to proffer performance thereof; and I shall cause the Bailie to attend with a schedule of a protest, whilk he has here prepared (taking out a paper), intimating, that if it shall be his Royal Highness's pleasure to accept of other assistance at pulling off his caligæ (whether the same shall be rendered boots or brogues) save that of the said Baron of Bradwardine, who is in presence ready and willing to perform the same, it shall in no wise impinge upon or prejudice the right of the said Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine to perform the said service in future; nor shall it give any esquire, valet of the chamber, squire, or page, whose assistance it may please his Royal Highness to employ, any right, title, or ground, for evicting from the said Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine the estate and barony of Bradwardine, and others held as aforesaid, by the due and faithful performance thereof."

Fergus highly applauded this arrangement; and the Baron took a friendly leave of them, with a smile of contented importance upon his visage.

"Long live our dear friend, the Baron," exclaimed the Chief, as soon as he was out of hearing, "for the most absurd original that exists north of the Tweed! I wish to heaven I had recommended him to attend the circle this evening with a boot-ketch under his arm. I think he might have adopted the suggestion, if it had been made with suitable gravity." "And how can you take pleasure in making a man of his worth so ridiculous?"

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Begging pardon, my dear Waverley, you are as ridiculous as he. Why, do you not see that the man's whole mind is wrapped up in this ceremony? He has heard and thought of it since infancy, as the most august privilege and ceremony in the world; and I doubt not but the expected pleasure of performing it was a principal motive with him for taking up arms. Depend upon it, had I endeavoured to divert him from exposing himself, he would have treated me as an ignorant conceited coxcomb, or perhaps might have taken a fancy to cut my throat; a pleasure which he once proposed to himself upon some point of etiquette, not half so important, in his eyes, as this matter of boots or brogues, or whatever the caligæ shall finally be pronounced by the learned. But I must go to headquarters to prepare the Prince for this extraordinary scene. My information will be well taken, for it will give him a hearty laugh at present, and put him on his guard against laughing, when it might be very mal-a-propos. So, au revoir, my dear Waverley."

HE first occupation of Waverley, after he departed from the Chieftain, was to go in quest of the officer whose life he had saved. He was guarded, along with his companions in misfortune, who were very numerous, in a gentleman's house near the field of battle.

On entering the room where they stood crowded together, Waverley easily recognised the object of his visit, not only by the peculiar dignity of his appearance, but by the appendage of Dugald Mahony, with his battle-axe, who had stuck to him from the moment of his captivity, as if he had been skewered to his side. This close attendance was, perhaps, for the purpose of securing his promised reward from Edward, but it also operated to save the English gentleman from being plundered in the scene of general confusion; for Dugald sagaciously argued, that the amount of the salvage which he might be allowed, would be regulated by the state of the prisoner, when he should deliver him over to Waverley. He hastened to assure Waverley, therefore, with more words than he usually employed, that he had "keepit ta sidier roy haill, and that he wasna a plack the waur since the fery moment when his honour forbad her to gie him a bit clamhewit wi' her Lochaber-axe."

Waverley assured Dugald of a liberal recompense, and, approaching the English officer expressed his anxiety to do any thing which might contribute to his convenience under his present unpleasant circumstances.

"I am not so inexperienced a soldier, sir," answered the Englishman, "as to complain of the fortune of war. I am only grieved to see those scenes acted in our own island, which I have often witnessed elsewhere with comparative indifference."

"Another such day as this," said Waverley, "and I trust the cause of your regrets will be removed, and all will again return to peace and order."

The officer smiled and shook his head. "I must not forget my situation so far as to attempt a formal confutation of that opinion; but, notwithstanding your success, and the

valour which achieved it, you have undertaken a task to which your strength appears wholly inadequate."

At this moment Fergus pushed into the press.

"Come, Edward, come along; the Prince has gone to Pinkie-house for the night; and we must follow, or lose the whole ceremony of the caliga. Your friend, the Baron, has been guilty of a great piece of cruelty; he has insisted upon dragging Bailie Macwheeble out to the field of battle. Now you must know the Bailie's greatest horror is an armed Highlander, or a loaded gun; and there he stands, listening to the Baron's instructions concerning the protest; ducking his head like a sea-gull at the report of every gun and pistol that our idle boys are firing upon the fields; and undergoing, by way of penance, at every symptom of flinching, a severe rebuke from his patron, who would not admit the discharge of a whole battery of cannon, within point-blank distance, as an apology for neglecting a discourse, in which the honour of his family is interested."

"But how has Mr. Bradwardine got him to venture so far?" said Edward. "Why, he had come as far as Musselburgh, I fancy, in hopes of making some of our wills; and the peremptory commands of the Baron dragged him forward to Preston after the battle was over. He complains of one or two of our ragamuffins having put him in peril of his life, by presenting their pieces at him; but as they limited his ransom to an English penny, I don't think we need trouble the provost-marshal upon that subject. So, come along, Waverley."

"Waverley!" said the English officer, with great emotion; "the nephew of Sir Everard Waverley, of -shire?"

"The same, sir,” replied our hero, somewhat surprised at the tone in which he was addressed.

"I am at once happy and grieved," said the prisoner, "to have met with you." “I am ignorant, sir," answered Waverley, "how I have deserved so much interest." "Did your uncle never mention a friend called Talbot ?"

"I have heard him talk with great regard of such a person,” replied Edward; "a colonel, I believe, in the army, and the husband of Lady Emily Blandeville; but I thought Colonel Talbot had been abroad."

"I am just returned," answered the officer; "and being in Scotland, thought it my duty to act where my services promised to be useful. Yes, Mr. Waverley, I am that Colonel Talbot, the husband of the lady you have named; and I am proud to acknowledge, that I owe alike my professional rank and my domestic happiness to your generous and noble-minded relative. Good God! that I should find his nephew in such a dress, and engaged in such a cause !"

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Sir," said Fergus, haughtily, "the dress and cause are those of men of birth and honour." "My situation forbids me to dispute your assertion," said Colonel Talbot; otherwise it were no difficult matter to show, that neither courage nor pride of lineage can gild a bad cause. But, with Mr. Waverley's permission, and yours, sir, if yours also must be asked, I would willingly speak a few words with him on affairs connected with his own family."

"Mr. Waverley, sir, regulates his own motions.-You will follow me, I suppose, to Pinkie," said Fergus, turning to Edward, "when you have finished your discourse with this new acquaintance?" So saying, the Chief of Glennaquoich adjusted his plaid with rather more than his usual air of haughty assumption, and left the apartment.

The interest of Waverley readily procured for Colonel Talbot the freedom of adjourning to a large garden belonging to his place of confinement. They walked a few paces in silence, Colonel Talbot apparently studying how to open what he had to say; at length he addressed Edward.

"Mr. Waverley, you have this day saved my life; and yet I would to God that I had lost it, ere I had found you wearing the uniform and cockade of these men."