_From the Baron Bradwardine to Edward Waverley_, _Esq._, _of Waverley
Honour_.
The Baron explains the mysterious circumstances of his affair with his
third cousin, Sir Hew Halbert.—“Waverley,” chap. xiv.
Tully Veolan, May 17, 1747.
SON EDWARD,—Touching my quarrel with Sir Hew Halbert, anent which I told
you no more than that it was “settled in a fitting manner,” you have long
teased me for an ampler explanation. This I have withheld, as conceiving
that it tended rather to vain quolibets and jesting, than to that respect
in which the duello, or single combat, should be regarded by gentlemen of
name and coat armour. But Sir Hew being dead, and buried with his
fathers, the matter may be broached as among friends and persons of
honour. The ground of our dispute, as ye know, was an unthinking scoff
of Sir Hew’s, he being my own third cousin by the mother’s side, Anderson
of Ettrick Hall having intermarried, about the time of the Solemn League
and Covenant, with Anderson of Tushielaw, both of which houses are
connected with the Halberts of Dinniewuddie and with the Bradwardines.
But _stemmata quid faciunt_? Sir Hew, being a young man, and the maut,
as the vulgar say, above the meal, after a funeral of one of our kin in
the Cathedral Kirkyard of St. Andrews, we met at Glass’s Inn, where, in
the presence of many gentlemen, occurred our unfortunate dissension.
We encountered betimes next morning, on a secluded spot of the sands hard
by the town, at the Eden-mouth. {190} The weapons were pistols, Sir Hew,
by a slight passing infirmity, being disabled from the use of the sword.
Inchgrabbit was my second, and Strathtyrum did the same office for my
kinsman, Sir Hew. The pistols being charged and primed, and we aligned
forenent each other at the convenient distance of twelve paces, the word
was given to fire, and both weapons having been discharged, and the smoke
having cleared away, Sir Hew was discovered fallen to the ground,
_procumbus humi_, and exanimate. The blood was flowing freely from a
face-wound, and my unhappy kinsman was senseless. At this moment we
heard a voice, as of one _clamantis in eremo_, cry “_Fore_!” to which
paying no heed in the natural agitation of our spirits, we hurried to
lift my fallen opponent and examine his wound. Upon a closer search it
proved to be no shot-wound, but a mere clour, or bruise, whereof the
reason was now apparent, he having been struck by the ball of a golfer
(from us concealed by the _dunes_, or bunkers, of sand) and not by the
discharge of my weapon. At this moment a plebeian fellow appeared with
his _arma campestria_, or clubs, cleeks, irons, and the like, under his
arm, who, without paying any attention to our situation, struck the ball
wherewith he had felled my kinsman in the direction of the hole.
Reflection directed us to the conclusion that both pistols had missed
their aim, and that Sir Hew had fallen beneath a chance blow from this
fellow’s golf-ball. But as my kinsman was still _hors de combat_, and
incapable of further action, being unwitting, too, of the real cause of
his disaster, Inchgrabbit and Strathtyrum, in their discretion as
seconds, or _belli judices_, deemed it better that we should keep a still
sough, and that Sir Hew should never be informed concerning the cause of
his discomfiture. This resolution we kept, and Sir Hew wore, till the
day of his late lamented decease, a bullet among the seals of his watch,
he being persuaded by Strathtyrum that it had been extracted from his
brain-pan, which certainly was of the thickest. But this was all a bam,
or bite, among young men, and a splore to laugh over by our three selves,
nor would I have it to go abroad now that Sir Hew is dead, as being
prejudicial to the memory of a worthy man, and an honourable family
connected with our own. Wherefore I pray you keep a still sough
hereanent, as you love me, who remain—Your loving good father,