The Baron, meanwhile, paced the room in silent indignation, and at
length fixing his eye upon an old portrait, whose person was clad in
armour, and whose features glared grimly out of a huge bush of hair,
part of which descended from his head to his shoulders, and part from
his chin and upper-lip to his breastplate,--'That gentleman, Captain
Waverley, my grandsire,' he said, 'with two hundred horse, whom he
levied within his own bounds, discomfited and put to the rout more
than five hundred of these Highland reivers, who have been ever LAPIS
OFFENSIONIS, ET PETRA SCANDALI, a stumbling-block and a rock of offence
to the Lowland vicinage--he discomfited them, I say, when they had the
temerity to descend to harry this country, in the time of the civil
dissensions, in the year of grace sixteen hundred forty and two. And
now, sir, I, his grandson, am thus used at such unworthy hands!'
Here there was an awful pause; after which all the company, as is usual
in cases of difficulty, began to give separate and inconsistent counsel.
Alexander ab Alexandro proposed they should send some one to compound
with the Caterans, who would readily, he said, give up their prey for a
dollar a head.
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