As he spoke, Lady Emily, leaning upon the arm of her husband, met the party at the lower gate with a thousand welcomes. After the ceremony of introduction had been gone through, much abridged by the ease and excellent breeding of Lady Emily, she apologised for having used a little art to wile them back to a place which might awaken some painful reflections—“But as it was to change masters, we were very desirous that the Baron—”
“Mr. Bradwardine, madam, if you please,” said the old gentleman.
“—Mr. Bradwardine, then, and Mr. Waverley should see what we have done towards restoring the mansion of your fathers to its former state.”
The Baron answered with a low bow. Indeed, when he entered the court, excepting that the heavy stables, which had been burnt down, were replaced by buildings of a lighter and more picturesque appearance, all seemed as much as possible restored to the state in which he had left it when he assumed arms some months before. The pigeon-house was replenished; the fountain played with its usual activity, and not only the bear who predominated over its basin, but all the other bears whatsoever, were replaced on their several stations, and renewed or repaired with so much care that they bore no tokens of the violence which had so lately descended upon them. While these minutiae had been so needfully attended to, it is scarce necessary to add that the house itself had been thoroughly repaired, as well as the gardens, with the strictest attention to maintain the original character of both, and to remove as far as possible all appearance of the ravage they had sustained. The Baron gazed in silent wonder; at length he addressed Colonel Talbot—
“While I acknowledge my obligation to you, sir, for the restoration of the badge of our family, I cannot but marvel that you have nowhere established your own crest, whilk is, I believe, a mastiff, anciently called a talbot; as the poet has it,
“ ‘A talbot strong—a sturdy tyke.’
At least such a dog is the crest of the martial and renowned Earls of Shrewsbury, to whom your family are probably blood-relations.”
“I believe,” said the Colonel, smiling, “our dogs are whelps of the same litter; for my part, if crests were to dispute precedence, I should be apt to let them, as the proverb says, ‘fight dog, fight bear.’ ”
As he made this speech, at which the Baron took another long pinch of snuff, they had entered the house, that is, the Baron, Rose, and Lady Emily, with young Stanley and the Bailie, for Edward and the rest of the party remained on the terrace to examine a new greenhouse stocked with the finest plants. The Baron resumed his favourite topic—“However it may please you to derogate from the honour of your burgonet, Colonel Talbot, which is doubtless your humour, as I have seen in other gentlemen of birth and honour in your country, I must again repeat it as a most ancient and distinguished bearing, as well as that of my young friend Francis Stanley, which is the eagle and child.”
“The bird and bantling they call it in Derbyshire, sir,” said Stanley.
“Ye’re a daft callant, sir,” said the Baron, who had a great liking to this young man, perhaps because he sometimes teased him—“Ye’re a daft callant, and I must correct you some of these days,” shaking his great brown fist at him. “But what I meant to say, Colonel Talbot, is, that yours is an ancient prosapia, or descent, and since you have lawfully and justly acquired the estate for you and yours which I have lost for me and mine, I wish it may remain in your name as many centuries as it has done in that of the late proprietor’s.”
“That,” answered the Colonel, “is very handsome, Mr. Bradwardine, indeed.”
“And yet, sir, I cannot but marvel that you, Colonel, whom I noted to have so much of the amor patritae, when we met in Edinburgh as even to vilipend other countries, should have chosen to establish your Lares, or household gods, procul a patriae finibus, and in a manner to expatriate yourself.”
“Why really, Baron, I do not see why, to keep the secret of these foolish boys, Waverley and Stanley, and of my wife, who is no wiser, one old soldier should continue to impose upon another. You must know, then, that I have so much of that same prejudice in favour of my native country, that the sum of money which I advanced to the seller of this extensive barony has only purchased for me a box in ⸺shire, called Brerewood Lodge, with about two hundred and fifty acres of land, the chief merit of which is, that it is within a very few miles of Waverley-Honour.”
“And who, then, in the name of Heaven, has bought this property?”
“That,” said the Colonel, “it is this gentleman’s profession to explain.”
The Bailie, whom this reference regarded, and who had all this while shifted from one foot to another with great impatience, “like a hen,” as he afterwards said, “upon a het girdle”; and chuckling, he might have added, like the said hen in all the glory of laying an egg, now pushed forward. “That I can, that I
