'
Fergus highly applauded this arrangement; and the Baron took a friendly
leave of them, with a smile of contented importance upon his visage.
'Long live our dear friend the Baron,' exclaimed the Chief, as soon as he
was out of hearing, 'for the most absurd original that exists north of
the Tweed! I wish to heaven I had recommended him to attend the circle
this evening with a boot-ketch under his arm. I think he might have
adopted the suggestion if it had been made with suitable gravity.'
'And how can you take pleasure in making a man of his worth so
ridiculous?'
'Begging pardon, my dear Waverley, you are as ridiculous as he. Why, do
you not see that the man's whole mind is wrapped up in this ceremony? He
has heard and thought of it since infancy as the most august privilege
and ceremony in the world; and I doubt not but the expected pleasure of
performing it was a principal motive with him for taking up arms. Depend
upon it, had I endeavoured to divert him from exposing himself he would
have treated me as an ignorant, conceited coxcomb, or perhaps might have
taken a fancy to cut my throat; a pleasure which he once proposed to
himself upon some point of etiquette not half so important, in his eyes,
as this matter of boots or brogues, or whatever the caliga shall finally
be pronounced by the learned.
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