Edward could
not help smiling at the costume, and at the odd resemblance between
the round, smooth, red-checked, staring visage in the portrait, and
the gaunt, bearded, hollow-eyed, swarthy features, which travelling,
fatigues of war, and advanced age, had bestowed on the original. The
Baron joined in the laugh. 'Truly,' he said, 'that picture was a woman's
fantasy of my good mother's (a daughter of the Laird of Tulliellum,
Captain Waverley; I indicated the house to you when we were on the top
of the Shinnyheuch; it was burnt by the Dutch auxiliaries brought in by
the Government in 1715); I never sat for my pourtraicture but once since
that was painted, and it was at the special and reiterated request of
the Marechal Duke of Berwick.'
The good old gentleman did not mention what Mr. Rubrick afterwards told
Edward, that the Duke had done him this honour on account of his being
the first to mount the breach of a fort; in Savoy during the memorable
campaign of 1709, and his having there defended himself with his
half-pike for nearly ten minutes before any support reached him. To do
the Baron justice, although sufficiently prone to dwell upon, and even
to exaggerate, his family dignity and consequence, he was too much a man
of real courage ever to allude to such personal acts of merit as he had
himself manifested.
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