The young man will brawl at the evening board;
Heard ye so merry the little bird sing?
But the old man will draw at the dawning the sword,
And the throstle-cock's head is under his wing.
Waverley could not avoid observing that Davie laid something like a
satirical emphasis on these lines. He therefore approached, and
endeavoured, by sundry queries, to elicit from him what the innuendo
might mean; but Davie had no mind to explain, and had wit enough to make
his folly cloak his knavery. Edward could collect nothing from him,
excepting that the Laird of Balmawhapple had gone home yesterday morning
'wi' his boots fu' o' bluid.' In the garden, however, he met the old
butler, who no longer attempted to conceal that, having been bred in the
nursery line with Sumack and Co. of Newcastle, he sometimes wrought a
turn in the flower-borders to oblige the Laird and Miss Rose. By a series
of queries, Edward at length discovered, with a painful feeling of
surprise and shame, that Balmawhapple's submission and apology had been
the consequence of a rencontre with the Baron before his guest had
quitted his pillow, in which the younger combatant had been disarmed and
wounded in the sword arm.
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