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 patritz when we met in Edinburgh as even to vilipend other countries, should have chosen to establish your Lares, or household gods, procul a patrice 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 Brere-wood 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 can, your honour,' drawing from his pocket a budget of papers, and untying the red tape with a hand trembling with eagerness. 'Here is the disposition and assignation by Malcolm Bradwardine of Inch- Grabbit, regularly signed and tested in terms of the statute, whereby, for a certain sum of sterling money presently contented and paid to him, he has disponed, alienated, and conveyed the whole estate and barony of Bradwardine, Tully-Veolan, and others, with the fortalice and manor-place—'
'For God's sake, to the point, sir; I have all that by heart,' said the Colonel.
'—To Cosmo Comyne Bradwardme, Esq.,' pursued the Bailie, 'his heirs and assignees, simply and irredeemably, to be held either a me vel de me—'
'Pray read short, sir.'
'On the conscience of an honest man, Colonel, I read as short as is consistent with style—under the burden and reservation always—'
'Mr. Macwheeble, this would outlast a Russian winter; give me leave. In short, Mr. Bradwardine, your family estate is your own once more in full property, and at your absolute disposal, but only burdened with the sum advanced to re-purchase it, which I understand is utterly disproportioned to its value.'
'An auld sang—an auld sang, if it please your honours,' cried the Bailie, rubbing his hands; 'look at the rental book.'
'—Which sum being advanced, by Mr. Edward Waverley, chiefly from the price of his father's property which I bought from him, is secured to his lady your daughter and her family by this marriage.'
'It is a catholic security,' shouted the Bailie,' to Rose Comyne Bradwardine, alias Wauverley, in life-rent, and the children of the said marriage in fee; and I made up a wee bit minute of an antenuptial contract, intuitu matrimonij, so it cannot be subject to reduction hereafter, as a donation inter virum et uxorem.'
It is difficult to say whether the worthy Baron was most delighted with the restitution of his family property or with the delicacy and generosity that left him unfettered to pursue his purpose in disposing of it after his death, and which avoided as much as possible even the appearance of laying him under pecuniary obligation. When his first pause of joy and astonishment was over, his thoughts turned to the unworthy heir-male, who, he pronounced, had sold his birthright, like Esau, for a mess o' pottage.
'But wha cookit the parritch for him?' exclaimed the Bailie; 'I wad like to ken that;—wha but your honour's to command, Duncan Macwheeble? His honour, young Mr. Wauverley, put it a' into my hand frae the beginning—frae the first calling o' the summons, as I may say. I circumvented them—I played at bogle about the bush wi' them—I cajolled them; and if I havena gien Inch-Grabbit and Jamie Howie a bonnie begunk, they ken themselves. Him a writer! I didna gae slapdash to them wi' our young bra' bridegroom, to gar them baud up the market. Na, na; I scared them wi' our wild tenantry, and the Mac-Ivors, that are but ill settled yet, till they durstna on ony errand whatsoever gang ower the doorstane after gloaming, for fear John Heatherblutter, or some siccan dare- the-deil, should tak a baff at them; then, on the other hand, I beflummed them wi' Colonel Talbot; wad they offer to keep up the price again' the Duke's friend? did they na ken wha was master? had they na seen eneugh, by the sad example of mony a puir misguided unhappy body—'