Red Cap Tales | Page 8

and active, but he was no match for the
Baron at the sword-play. And the encounter would not have lasted long,
had not the landlady, Lucky Macleary, hearing the well-known clash of
swords, come running in on them, crying that surely the gentlemen
would not bring dishonour on an honest widow-woman's house, when
there was all the lee land in the country to do their fighting upon.
So saying, she stopped the combat very effectually by flinging her plaid
over the weapons of the adversaries.
* * * * *

Next morning Edward awoke late, and in no happy frame of mind. It
was an age of duels, and with his first waking thoughts there came the
memory of the insult which had been passed upon him by the Laird of
Balmawhapple. His position as an officer and a Waverley left him no
alternative but to send that sportsman a challenge. Upon descending, he
found Rose Bradwardine presiding at the breakfast table. She was alone,
but Edward felt in no mood for conversation, and sat gloomy, silent,
and ill-content with himself and with circumstances. Suddenly he saw
the Baron and Balmawhapple pass the window arm in arm, and the
next moment the butler summoned him to speak with his master in
another apartment.
There he found Balmawhapple, no little sulky and altogether silent,
with the Baron by his side. The latter in his capacity of mediator made
Edward a full and complete apology for the events of the past
evening--an apology which the young man gladly accepted along with
the hand of the offender--somewhat stiffly given, it is true, owing to the
necessity of carrying his right arm in a sling--the result (as
Balmawhapple afterwards assured Miss Rose) of a fall from his horse.
It was not till the morning of the second day that Edward learned the
whole history of this reconciliation, which had at first been so welcome
to him. It was Daft Davie Gellatley, who, by the roguish singing of a
ballad, first roused his suspicions that something underlay
Balmawhapple's professions of regret for his conduct.
"The young man will brawl at the evening board Heard ye so merry the
little birds sing? But the old man will draw at the dawning the sword,
And the throstle-cock's head is under his wing."
Edward could see by the sly looks of the Fool that he meant something
personal by this, so he plied the butler with questions, and discovered
that the Baron had actually fought Balmawhapple on the morning after
the insult, and wounded him in the sword-arm!
Here, then, was the secret of the young Laird's unexpected submission
and apology. As Davie Gellatley put it, Balmawhapple had been "sent
hame wi' his boots full o' bluid!"

THE FIRST INTERLUDE OF ACTION
The tale-telling had at this point to be broken off. Clouds began to spin
themselves from Eildon top. Dinner also was in prospect, and, most of
all, having heard so much of the tale, the four listeners desired to begin
to "play Waverley."
Sweetheart made a stately, if skirted, Bradwardine. Besides, she was in
Cæsar, and had store of Latin quotations--mostly, it is true, from the
examples in the grammar, such as "Illa incedit regina!" Certainly she
walked like a queen. Or, as it might be expressed, more fittingly with
the character of the Baron in the original:
"Stately stepped she east the wa', And stately stepped she west."
Hugh John considered the hero's part in any story only his due. His
only fault with that of Waverley was that so far he had done so little.
He specially resented the terrible combat "in the dawning" between the
Baron and the overbold Balmawhapple (played by Maid Margaret). Sir
Toady Lion as low comedian ("camelion" he called it) performed
numerous antics as Daft Davie Gellatley. He had dressed the part to
perfection by putting his striped jersey on outside his coat, and sticking
in his cricket cap such feathers as he could find.
"Lie down, Hugh John," he cried, in the middle of his dancing and
singing round and round the combatants; "why, you are asleep in bed!"
This, according to the authorities, being obvious, the baffled hero had
to succumb, with the muttered reflection that "Jim Hawkins wouldn't
have had to stay asleep, when there was a fight like that going on!"
Still, however, Hugh John could not restrain the natural rights of
criticism. He continually raised his head from his pillow of dried
branches to watch Sweetheart and Maid Margaret.
"You fight just like girls," he cried indignantly; "keep your left hand
behind you, Bradwardine--or Balmawhapple will hack it off! I
say--girls are silly things. You two are afraid of hurting each other.

Now me and Toady Lion--"
And he gave details of a late fraternal combat much