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.
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