With a heart which beat; a little quicker, not indeed from fear, but from uncertainty and anxiety, Edward obeyed the summons.

He found the two gentlemen standing together, an air of complacent dignity on the brow of the Baron, while something like sullenness, or shame, or both, blanked the bold visage of Balmawhapple.

The former slipped his arm through that of the latter, and thus seeming to walk with him, while in reality he led him, advanced to meet Waverley, and, stopping in the midst of the apartment, made in great state the following oration: 'Captain Waverley,--my young and esteemed friend, Mr.Falconer of Balmawhapple, has craved of my age and experience, as of one not wholly unskilled in the dependencies and punctilios of the duello or monomachia, to be his interlocutor in expressing to you the regret with which he calls to remembrance certain passages of our symposion last night, which could not but be highly displeasing to you, as serving for the time under this present existing government.

He craves you, sir, to drown in oblivion the memory of such solecisms against the laws of politeness, as being what his better reason disavows, and to receive the hand which he offers you in amity; and I must needs assure you, that nothing less than a sense of being DANS SON TORT, as a gallant French chevalier, Mons, Le Bretailleur, once said to me on such an occasion, and an opinion also of your peculiar merit, could have extorted such concessions; for he and all his family are, and have been time out of mind, MAVORTIA PECTORA, as Buchanan saith, a bold and warlike sept, or people.' Edward immediately, and with natural politeness, accepted the hand which Balmawhapple, or rather the Baron in his character of mediator, extended towards him.

'It was impossible,' he said, 'for him to remember what a gentleman expressed his wish he had not uttered; and he willingly imputed what had passed to the exuberant festivity of the day.' 'That is very handsomely said,' answered the Baron; 'for undoubtedly, if a man be EBRIUS, or intoxicated--an incident which, on solemn and festive occasions, may and will take place in the life of a man of honour; and if the same gentleman, being fresh and sober, recants the contumelies which he hath spoken in his liquor, it must be held VINUM LOCUTUM EST; the words cease to be his own.