The day arrived--the party of young noblemen and gentlemen
met, and were as happy and jovial as men could be. George was
never seen so brilliant, or so full of spirits; and exulting to see so
many gallant young chiefs and gentlemen about him, who all
gloried in the same principles of loyalty (perhaps this word
should have been written disloyalty), he made speeches, gave
toasts, and sung songs, all leaning slyly to the same side, until a
very late hour. By that time he had pushed the bottle so long and
so freely that its fumes had taken possession of every brain to
such a degree that they held Dame Reason rather at the staff's
end, overbearing all her counsels and expostulations; and it was
imprudently proposed by a wild inebriated spark, and carried by a
majority of voices, that the whole party should adjourn to a
bagnio for the remainder of the night.

They did so; and it appears from what follows that the house,
to which they retired must have been somewhere on the opposite
side of the street to the Black Bull Inn, a little farther to the
eastward. They had not been an hour in that house till some
altercation chanced to arise between George Colwan and a Mr.
Drummond, the younger son of a nobleman of distinction. It
was perfectly casual, and no one thenceforward, to this day,
could ever tell what it was about, if it was not about the
misunderstanding of some word or term that the one had uttered.
However it was, some high words passed between them; these
were followed by threats, and, in less than two minutes from the
commencement of the quarrel, Drummond left the house in
apparent displeasure, hinting to the other that they two should
settle that in a more convenient place.