The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

230 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
The scene was therefore at once lovely and silent, when the good Dr.
Rochecliffe, wrapped in a scarlet roquelaure, which had seen service in its
day, muffling his face more from habit than necessity, and supporting Alice
on his arm, (she also defended by a cloak against the cold and damp of the
autumn morning,) glided through the tangled and long grass of the darkest
alleys, almost ankle-deep in dew, towards the place appointed for the intended duel. Both so eagerly maintained the consultation in which they
were engaged, that they were alike insensible of the roughness and discomforts of the road, though often obliged to force their way through brushwood and coppice, which poured down on them all the liquid pearls with
which they were loaded, till the mantles they were wrapped in hung lank
by their sides, and clung to their shoulders heavily charged with moisture.
They stopped when they had attained a station under the coppice, and
shrouded by it, from which they could see all that passed on the little
esplanade before the King's Oak, whose broad and scathed form, contorted
and shattered limbs, and frowning brows, made it appear like some ancient
war-worn champion, well selected to be the umpire of a field of single
combat.
The first person who appeared at the rendezvous was the gay cavalier
Roger Wildrake. He also was wrapped in his cloak, but had discarded his
puritanic beaver, and wore in its stead a Spanish hat, with a feather and
gilt hatband, all of which had encountered bad weather and hard service;
but to make amends for the appearance of poverty by the show of pretension, the castor was accurately adjusted after what was rather profanely
called the d —me cut, used among the more desperate cavaliers. He advanced hastily, and exclaimed aloud-" First in the field after all, by Jove,
though I bilked Everard in order to have my morning draught.-It has done
me much good," he added, smacking his lips.-" Well, I suppose I should
search the ground ere my principal comes up, whose Presbyterian watch
trudges as slow as his Presbyterian step."
lIe took his rapier from under his cloak, and seemed about to search the
thickets around.
"I will prevent him," whispered the Doctor to Alice. "I will keep
faith with you-you shall not come on the scene-nisi dignus vindice nodus
-I'll explain that another time. Vindex is feminine as well as masculine,
so the quotation is defensible.-Keep you close."
So saying, he stepped forward on the esplanade, and bowed to Wildrake.
"Master Louis Kerneguy," said Wildrake, pulling off his hat; but instantly discovering his error, he added, "But no-I beg your pardon, sirFatter, shorter, older.-Mr. Kerneguy's friend, I suppose, with whom I hope
to have a turn by and by.-And why not now, sir, before our principals come
up? just a snack to stay the orifice of the stomach, till the dinner is served,
sir? What say you?"
" To open the orifice of the stomach more likely, or to give it a new one,"
said the Doctor.
"True, sir," said Roger, who seemed now in his element: "you say well
-that is as thereafter may be.-But come, sir, you wear your face muffled.
I grant you, it is honest men's fashion at this unhappy time; the more is
the pity. But we do all above board-we have no traitors here. I'll get
into my gears first, to encourage you, and show you that you have to deal
with a gentleman, who honours the King, and is a match fit to fight with
any who follow him, as doubtless you do, sir, since you are the friend of
Master Louis Kerneguy."
All this while, Wildrake was busied undoing the clasps of his squarecaped cloak.
"Off-off, ye lendings," he said, "borrowings I should more properly
call you-' Via the curtain which shadow'd Borgia.'"