Waverley
by
Walter Scott
Part 1 out of 11
WAVERLEY
or
'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE
by SIR WALTER SCOTT BART.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
WAVERLEY or 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE
NOTES
GLOSSARY
[Note:
Characters that were in italics in the printed text have been
written in capital letters in this Etext. Accents in quotations
in French and other accented languages have been omitted.
Footnotes in the printed text that were at the bottom of the
page have been placed in square brackets, as near as possible
to the place where they were originally referred to by a suffix.
Numbered notes at the end of the book are referred to by the
insertion of references to those notes in square brackets.]
Under which King, Bezonian? speak, or die! Henry IV, Part II.
INTRODUCTION--(1829)
The plan of this Edition leads me to insert in this place some
account of the incidents on which the Novel of WAVERLEY is
founded. They have been already given to the public, by my late
lamented friend, William Erskine, Esq. (afterwards Lord
Kinneder), when reviewing the 'Tales of My Landlord' for the
QUARTERLY REVIEW, in 1817. The particulars were derived by the
Critic from the Author's information. Afterwards they were
published in the Preface to the CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.
They are now inserted in their proper place.
The mutual protection afforded by Waverley and Talbot to each
other, upon which the whole plot depends, is founded upon one of
those anecdotes which soften the features even of civil war; and
as it is equally honourable to the memory of both parties, we
have no hesitation to give their names at length. When the
Highlanders, on the morning of the battle of Preston, 1745, made
their memorable attack on Sir John Cope's army, a battery of four
field-pieces was stormed and carried by the Camerons and the
Stewarts of Appine. The late Alexander Stewart of Invernahyle
was one of the foremost in the charge, and observing an officer
of the King's forces, who, scorning to join the flight of all
around, remained with his sword in his hand, as if determined to
the very last to defend the post assigned to him, the Highland
gentleman commanded him to surrender, and received for reply a
thrust, which he caught in his target. The officer was now
defenceless, and the battle-axe of a gigantic Highlander (the
miller of Invernahyle's mill) was uplifted to dash his brains
out, when Mr. Stewart with difficulty prevailed on him to yield.
He took charge of his enemy's property, protected his person, and
finally obtained him liberty on his parole. The officer proved
to be Colonel Whitefoord, an Ayrshire gentleman of high character
and influence, and warmly attached to the House of Hanover; yet
such was the confidence existing between these two honourable
men, though of different political principles, that while the
civil war was raging, and straggling officers from the Highland
army were executed without mercy, Invernahyle hesitated not to
pay his late captive a visit, as he returned to the Highlands to
raise fresh recruits, on which occasion he spent a day or two in
Ayrshire among Colonel Whitefoord's Whig friends, as pleasantly
and as good-humouredly as if all had been at peace around him.
After the battle of Culloden had ruined the hopes of Charles
Edward, and dispersed his proscribed adherents, it was Colonel
Whitefoord's turn to strain every nerve to obtain Mr. Stewart's
pardon. He went to the Lord Justice-Clerk, to the Lord-Advocate,
and to all the officers of state, and each application was
answered by the production of a list, in which Invernahyle (as
the good old gentleman was wont to express it) appeared 'marked
with the sign of the beast!' as a subject unfit for favour or
pardon.
At length Colonel Whitefoord applied to the Duke of Cumberland in
person. From him, also, he received a positive refusal. He then
limited his request, for the present, to a protection for
Stewart's house, wife, children, and property. This was also
refused by the Duke; on which Colonel Whitefoord, taking his
commission from his bosom, laid it on the table before his Royal
Highness with much emotion, and asked permission to retire from
the service of a sovereign who did not know how to spare a
vanquished enemy. The Duke was struck, and even affected. He
bade the Colonel take up his commission, and granted the
protection he required. If was issued just in time to save the
house, corn, and cattle at Invernahyle, from the troops who were
engaged in laying waste what it was the fashion to call 'the
country of the enemy.' A small encampment of soldiers was formed
on Invernahyle's property, which they spared while plundering the
country around, and searching in every direction for the leaders
of the insurrection, and for Stewart in particular. He was much
nearer them than they suspected; for, hidden in a cave (like the
Baron of Bradwardine), he lay for many days so near the English
sentinels, that he could hear their muster-roll called, His food
was brought to him by one of his daughters, a child of eight
years old, whom Mrs. Stewart was under the necessity of
entrusting with this commission; for her own motions, and those
of all her elder inmates, were closely watched. With ingenuity
beyond her years, the child used to stray about among the
soldiers, who were rather kind to her, and thus seize the moment
when she was unobserved, and steal into the thicket, when she
deposited whatever small store of provisions she had in charge at
some marked spot, where her father might find it. Invernahyle
supported life for several weeks by means of these precarious
supplies; and as he had been wounded in the battle of Culloden,
the hardships which he endured were aggravated by great bodily
pain. After the soldiers had removed their quarters, he had
another remarkable escape.
As he now ventured to his own house at night, and left it in the
morning, he was espied during the dawn by a party of the enemy,
who fired at and pursued him. The fugitive being fortunate
enough to escape their search, they returned to the house, and
charged the family with harbouring one of the proscribed
traitors. An old woman had presence of mind enough to maintain
that the man they had seen was the shepherd. 'Why did he not
stop when we called to him?' said the soldier.--'He is as deaf,
poor man, as a peat-stack,' answered the ready-witted domestic.
--'Let him be sent for, directly.' The real shepherd accordingly
was brought from the hill, and as there was time to tutor him by
the way, he was as deaf when he made his appearance, as was
necessary to sustain his character. Invernahyle was afterwards
pardoned under the Act of Indemnity.
The Author knew him well, and has often heard these circumstances
from his own mouth. He was a noble specimen of the old
Highlander, far descended, gallant, courteous, and brave, even to
chivalry. He had been OUT, I believe, in 1715 and 1745; was an
active partaker in all the stirring scenes which passed in the
Highlands betwixt these memorable eras; and, I have heard, was
remarkable, among other exploits, for having fought a duel with
the broadsword with the celebrated Rob Roy MacGregor, at the
Clachan of Balquhidder.
Invernahyle chanced to be in Edinburgh when Paul Jones came into
the Frith of Forth, and though then an old man, I saw him in
arms, and heard him exult (to use his own words) in the prospect
of 'drawing his claymore once more before he died.' In fact, on
that memorable occasion, when the capital of Scotland was menaced
by three trifling sloops or brigs, scarce fit to have sacked a
fishing village, he was the only man who seemed to propose a plan
of resistance. He offered to the magistrates, if broadswords and
dirks could be obtained, to find as many Highlanders among the
lower classes, as would cut off any boat's-crew who might be sent
into a town full of narrow and winding passages, in which they
were like to disperse in quest of plunder. I know not if his
plan was attended to; I rather think it seemed too hazardous to
the constituted authorities, who might not, even at that time,
desire to see arms in Highland hands. A steady and powerful west
wind settled the matter, by sweeping Paul Jones and his vessels
out of the Frith.
If there is something degrading in this recollection, it is not
unpleasant to compare it with those of the last war, when
Edinburgh, besides regular forces and militia, furnished a
volunteer brigade of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, to the
amount of six thousand men and upwards, which was in readiness to
meet and repel a force of a far more formidable description than
was commanded by the adventurous American. Time and
circumstances change the character of nations and the fate of
cities; and it is some pride to a Scotchman to reflect, that the
independent and manly character of a country willing to entrust
its own protection to the arms of its children, after having been
obscured for half a century, has, during the course of his own
lifetime, recovered its lustre.
Other illustrations of Waverley will be found in the Notes at the
foot of the pages to which they belong. [In this etext they are
embedded in the text in square brackets.] Those which appeared
too long to be so placed are given at the end of the volume.
*
WAVERLEY or 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
The title of this work has not been chosen without the grave and
solid deliberation, which matters of importance demand from the
prudent. Even its first, or general denomination, was the result
of no common research or selection, although, according to the
example of my predecessors, I had only to seize upon the most
sounding and euphonic surname that English history or topography
affords, and elect it at once as the title of my work, and the
name of my hero. But, alas! what could my readers have expected
from the chivalrous epithets of Howard, Mordaunt, Mortimer, or
Stanley, or from the softer and more sentimental sounds of
Belmour, Belville, Belfield, and Belgrave, but pages of inanity,
similar to those which have been so christened for half a century
past? I must modestly admit I am too diffident of my own merit
to place it in unnecessary opposition to preconceived
associations; I have, therefore, like a maiden knight with his
white shield, assumed for my hero, WAVERLEY, an uncontaminated
name, bearing with its sound little of good or evil, excepting
what the reader shall hereafter be pleased to affix to it. But
my second or supplemental title was a matter of much more
difficult election, since that, short as it is, may be held as
pledging the author to some special mode of laying his scene,
drawing his characters, and managing his adventures. Had I, for
example, announced in my frontispiece, 'Waverley, a Tale of other
Days,' must not every novel reader have anticipated a castle
scarce less than that of Udolpho, of which the eastern wing had
long been uninhabited, and the keys either lost, or consigned to
the care of some aged butler or housekeeper, whose trembling
steps, about the middle of the second volume, were doomed to
guide the hero, or heroine, to the ruinous precincts? Would not
the owl have shrieked and the cricket cried in my very title-
page? and could it have been possible for me, with a moderate
attention to decorum, to introduce any scene more lively than
might be produced by the jocularity of a clownish but faithful
valet, or the garrulous narrative of the heroine's fille-de-
chambre, when rehearsing the stories of blood and horror which
she had heard in the servants' hall? Again, had my title borne
'Waverley, a Romance from the German,' what head so obtuse as not
to image forth a profligate abbot, an oppressive duke, a secret
and mysterious association of Rosycrucians and Illuminati, with
all their properties of black cowls, caverns, daggers, electrical
machines, trap-doors, and dark-lanterns? Or if I had rather
chosen to call my work a 'Sentimental Tale,' would it not have
been a sufficient presage of a heroine with a profusion of auburn
hair, and a harp, the soft solace of her solitary hours, which
she fortunately finds always the means of transporting from
castle to cottage, although she herself be sometimes obliged to
jump out of a two-pair-of-stairs window, and is more than once
bewildered on her journey, alone and on foot, without any guide
but a blowzy peasant girl, whose jargon she hardly can
understand? Or again, if my WAVERLEY had been entitled 'A Tale
of the Times,' wouldst thou not, gentle reader, have demanded
from me a dashing sketch of the fashionable world, a few
anecdotes of private scandal thinly veiled, and if lusciously
painted, so much the better? a heroine from Grosvenor Square,
and a hero from the Barouche Club or the Four-in-hand, with a set
of subordinate characters from the elegantes of Queen Anne Street
East, or the dashing heroes of the Bow Street Office? I could
proceed in proving the importance of a title-page, and displaying
at the same time my own intimate knowledge of the particular
ingredients necessary to the composition of romances and novels
of various descriptions: but it is enough, and I scorn to
tyrannize longer over the impatience of my reader, who is
doubtless already anxious to know the choice made by an author so
profoundly versed in the different branches of his art.
By fixing, then, the date of my story Sixty Years before the
present 1st November, 1805, I would have my readers understand,
that they will meet in the following pages neither a romance of
chivalry, nor a tale of modern manners; that my hero will neither
have iron on his shoulders, as of yore, nor on the heels of his
boots, as is the present fashion of Bond Street; and that my
damsels will neither be clothed 'in purple and in pall,' like the
Lady Alice of an old ballad, nor reduced to the primitive
nakedness of a modern fashionable at a rout. From this my choice
of an era the understanding critic may further presage, that the
object of my tale is more a description of men than manners. A
tale of manners, to be interesting, must either refer to
antiquity so great as to have become venerable, or it must bear a
vivid reflection of those scenes which are passing daily before
our eyes, and are interesting from their novelty. Thus the coat-
of-mail of our ancestors, and the triple-furred pelisse of our
modern beaux, may, though for very different reasons, be equally
fit for the array of a fictitious character; but who, meaning the
costume of his hero to be impressive, would willingly attire him
in the court dress of George the Second's reign, with its no
collar, large sleeves, and low pocket-holes? The same may be
urged, with equal truth, of the Gothic hall, which, with its
darkened and tinted windows, its elevated and gloomy roof, and
massive oaken table garnished with boar's-head and rosemary,
pheasants and peacocks, cranes and cygnets, has an excellent
effect in fictitious description. Much may also be gained by a
lively display of a modern fete, such as we have daily recorded
in that part of a newspaper entitled the Mirror of Fashion, if we
contrast these, or either of them, with the splendid formality of
an entertainment given Sixty Years since; and thus it will be
readily seen how much the painter of antique or of fashionable
manners gains over him who delineates those of the last
generation.
Considering the disadvantages inseparable from this part of my
subject, I must be understood to have resolved to avoid them as
much as possible, by throwing the force of my narrative upon the
characters and passions of the actors;--those passions common to
men in all stages of society, and which have alike agitated the
human heart, whether it throbbed under the steel corselet of the
fifteenth century, the brocaded coat of the eighteenth, or the
blue frock and white dimity waistcoat of the present day. [Alas!
that attire, respectable and gentlemanlike in 1805, or
thereabouts, is now as antiquated as the Author of Waverley has
himself become since that period! The reader of fashion will
please to fill up the costume with an embroidered waistcoat of
purple velvet or silk, and a coat of whatever colour he pleases.]
Upon these passions it is no doubt true that the state of manners
and laws casts a necessary colouring; but the bearings, to use
the language of heraldry, remain the same, though the tincture
may be not only different, but opposed in strong
contradistinction. The wrath of our ancestors, for example, was
coloured GULES; it broke forth in acts of open and sanguinary
violence against the objects of its fury. Our malignant
feelings, which must seek gratification through more indirect
channels, and undermine the obstacles which they cannot openly
bear down, may be rather said to be tinctured SABLE. But the
deep-ruling impulse is the same in both cases; and the proud peer
who can now only ruin his neighbour according to law, by
protracted suits, is the genuine descendant of the baron who
wrapped the castle of his competitor in flames, and knocked him
on the head as he endeavoured to escape from the conflagration.
It is from the great book of Nature, the same through a thousand
editions, whether of black-letter, or wire-wove and hot-pressed,
that I have venturously essayed to read a chapter to the public.
Some favourable opportunities of contrast have been afforded me,
by the state of society in the northern part of the island at
the period of my history, and may serve at once to vary and to
illustrate the moral lessons, which I would willingly consider as
the most important part of my plan; although I am sensible how
short these will fall of their aim, if I shall be found unable to
mix them with amusement,--a task not quite so easy in this
critical generation as it was 'Sixty Years since.'
CHAPTER II
WAVERLEY-HONOUR---A RETROSPECT
It is, then, sixty years since Edward Waverley, the hero of the
following pages, took leave of his family, to join the regiment
of dragoons in which he had lately obtained a commission. It was
a melancholy day at Waverley-Honour when the young officer parted
with Sir Everard, the affectionate old uncle to whose title and
estate he was presumptive heir.
A difference in political opinions had early separated the
Baronet from his younger brother, Richard Waverley, the father of
our hero. Sir Everard had inherited from his sires the whole
train of Tory or High-Church predilections and prejudices, which
had distinguished the house of Waverley since the Great Civil
War. Richard, on the contrary, who was ten years younger, beheld
himself born to the fortune of a second brother, and anticipated
neither dignity nor entertainment in sustaining the character of
Will Wimble. He saw early, that, to succeed in the race of life,
it was necessary he should carry as little weight as possible.
Painters talk of the difficulty of expressing the existence of
compound passions in the same features at the same moment: it
would be no less difficult for the moralist to analyse the mixed
motives which unite to form the impulse of our actions. Richard
Waverley read and satisfied himself, from history and sound
argument, that, in the words of the old song,
Passive obedience was a jest,
And pshaw! was non-resistance;
yet reason would have probably been unable to combat and remove
hereditary prejudice, could Richard have anticipated that his
elder brother, Sir Everard, taking to heart an early
disappointment, would have remained a batchelor at seventy-two.
The prospect of succession, however remote, might in that case
have led him to endure dragging through the greater part of his
life as 'Master Richard at the Hall, the baronet's brother,' in
the hope that ere its conclusion he should be distinguished as
Sir Richard Waverley of Waverley-Honour, successor to a princely
estate, and to extended political connexions as head of the
county interest in the shire where it lay. But this was a
consummation of things not to be expected at Richard's outset,
when Sir Everard was in the prime of life, and certain to be an
acceptable suitor in almost any family, whether wealth or beauty
should be the object of his pursuit, and when, indeed, his speedy
marriage was a report which regularly amused the neighbourhood
once a year. His younger brother saw no practicable road to
independence save that of relying upon his own exertions, and
adopting a political creed more consonant both to reason and his
own interest than the hereditary faith of Sir Everard in High
Church and in the house of Stewart. He therefore read his
recantation at the beginning of his career, and entered life as
an avowed Whig, and friend of the Hanover succession.
The ministry of George the First's time were prudently anxious to
diminish the phalanx of opposition. The Tory nobility, depending
for their reflected lustre upon the sunshine of a court, had for
some time been gradually reconciling themselves to the new
dynasty. But the wealthy country gentlemen of England, a rank
which retained, with much of ancient manners and primitive
integrity, a great proportion of obstinate and unyielding
prejudice, stood aloof in haughty and sullen opposition, and cast
many a look of mingled regret and hope to Bois de Duc, Avignon,
and Italy. [Where the Chevalier Saint George, or, as he was
termed, the Old Pretender, held his exiled court, as his
situation compelled him to shift his place of residence.] The
accession of the near relation of one of those steady and
inflexible opponents was considered as a means of bringing over
more converts, and therefore Richard Waverley met with a share of
ministerial favour more than proportioned to his talents or his
political importance. It was however, discovered that he had
respectable talents for public business, and the first admittance
to the minister's levee being negotiated, his success became
rapid. Sir Everard learned from the public NEWS-LETTER,--first,
that Richard Waverley, Esquire, was returned for the ministerial
borough of Barterfaith; next, that Richard Waverley, Esquire, had
taken a distinguished part in the debate upon the Excise bill in
the support of government; and, lastly, that Richard Waverley,
Esquire, had been honoured with a seat at one of those boards,
where the pleasure of serving the country is combined with other
important gratifications, which, to render them the more
acceptable, occur regularly once a quarter.
Although these events followed each other so closely that the
sagacity of the editor of a modern newspaper would have presaged
the last two even while he announced the first, yet they came
upon Sir Everard gradually, and drop by drop, as it were,
distilled through the cool and procrastinating alembic of DYER'S
WEEKLY LETTER. [Long the oracle of the country gentlemen of the
high Tory party. The ancient NEWS-LETTER was written in
manuscript and copied by clerks, who addressed the copies to the
subscribers. The politician by whom they were compiled picked up
his intelligence at coffee-houses, and often pleaded for an
additional gratuity, in consideration of the extra expense
attached to frequenting such places of fashionable resort.] For
it may be observed in passing, that instead of those mail-
coaches, by means of which every mechanic at his sixpenny club
may nightly learn from twenty contradictory channels the
yesterday's news of the capital, a weekly post brought, in those
days, to Waverley-Honour, a WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER, which, after it
had gratified Sir Everard's curiosity, his sister's, and that of
his aged butler, was regularly transferred from the Hall to the
Rectory, from the Rectory to Squire Stubbs' at the Grange, from
the Squire to the Baronet's steward at his neat white house on
the heath, from the steward to the bailiff, and from him through
a huge circle of honest dames and gaffers, by whose hard and
horny hands it was generally worn to pieces in about a month
after its arrival.
This slow succession of intelligence was of some advantage to
Richard Waverley in the case before us; for, had the sum total of
his enormities reached the ears of Sir Everard at once, there can
be no doubt that the new commissioner would have had little
reason to pique himself on the success of his politics. The
Baronet, although the mildest of human beings, was not without
sensitive points in his character; his brother's conduct had
wounded these deeply; the Waverley estate was fettered by no
entail (for it had never entered into the head of any of its
former possessors that one of their progeny could be guilty of
the atrocities laid by DYER'S LETTER to the door of Richard), and
if it had, the marriage of the proprietor might have been fatal
to a collateral heir. These various ideas floated through the
brain of Sir Everard, without, however, producing any determined
conclusion.
He examined the tree of his genealogy, which, emblazoned with
many an emblematic mark of honour and heroic achievement, hung
upon the well-varnished wainscot of his hall. The nearest
descendants of Sir Hildebrand Waverley, failing those of his
eldest son Wilfred, of whom Sir Everard and his brother were the
only representatives, were, as this honoured register informed
him (and, indeed, as he himself well knew), the Waverleys of
Highley Park, com. Hants; with whom the main branch, or rather
stock, of the house had renounced all connexion, since the great
lawsuit in 1670.
This degenerate scion had committed a further offence against the
head and source of their gentility, by the intermarriage of their
representative with Judith, heiress of Oliver Bradshawe, of
Highley Park, whose arms, the same with those of Bradshawe the
regicide, they had quartered with the ancient coat of Waverley.
These offences, however, had vanished from Sir Everard's
recollection in the heat of his resentment; and had Lawyer
Clippurse, for whom his groom was dispatched express, arrived but
an hour earlier, he might have had the benefit of drawing a new
settlement of the lordship and manor of Waverley-Honour, with all
its dependencies. But an hour of cool reflection is a great
matter, when employed in weighing the comparative evil of two
measures, to neither of which we are internally partial. Lawyer
Clippurse found his patron involved in a deep study, which he was
too respectful to disturb, otherwise than by producing his paper
and leathern ink-case, as prepared to minute his honour's
commands. Even this slight manoeuvre was embarrassing to Sir
Everard, who felt it as a reproach to his indecision. He looked
at the attorney with some desire to issue his fiat, when the sun,
emerging from behind a cloud, poured at once its chequered light
through the stained window of the gloomy cabinet in which they
were seated. The Baronet's eye, as he raised it to the
splendour, fell right upon the central scutcheon, impressed with
the same device which his ancestor was said to have borne in the
field of Hastings; three ermines passant, argent, in a field
azure, with its appropriate motto, SANS LACHE. 'May our name
rather perish,' exclaimed Sir Everard, 'than that ancient and
loyal symbol should be blended with the dishonoured insignia of a
traitorous Roundhead!'
All this was the effect of the glimpse of a sunbeam, just
sufficient to light Lawyer Clippurse to mend his pen. The pen
was mended in vain. The attorney was dismissed, with directions
to hold himself in readiness on the first summons.
The apparition of Lawyer Clippurse at the Hall occasioned much
speculation in that portion of the world to which Waverley-Honour
formed the centre: but the more judicious politicians of this
microcosm augured yet worse consequences to Richard Waverley from
a movement which shortly followed his apostasy. This was no less
than an excursion of the Baronet in his coach-and-six, with four
attendants in rich liveries, to make a visit of some duration to
a noble peer on the confines of the shire, of untainted descent,
steady Tory principles, and the happy father of six unmarried and
accomplished daughters.
Sir Everard's reception in this family was, as it may be easily
conceived, sufficiently favourable; but of the six young ladies,
his taste unfortunately determined him in favour of Lady Emily,
the youngest, who received his attentions with an embarrassment
which showed at once that she durst not decline them, and that
they afforded her anything but pleasure.
Sir Everard could not but perceive something uncommon in the
restrained emotions which the young lady testified at the
advances he hazarded; but, assured by the prudent Countess that
they were the natural effects of a retired education, the
sacrifice might have been completed, as doubtless has happened in
many similar instances, had it not been for the courage of an
elder sister, who revealed to the wealthy suitor that Lady
Emily's affections were fixed upon a young soldier of fortune, a
near relation of her own. Sir Everard manifested great emotion
on receiving this intelligence, which was confirmed to him, in a
private interview, by the young lady herself, although under the
most dreadful apprehensions of her father's indignation.
Honour and generosity were hereditary attributes of the house of
Waverley. With a grace and delicacy worthy the hero of a
romance, Sir Everard withdrew his claim to the hand of Lady
Emily. He had even, before leaving Blandeville Castle, the
address to extort from her father a consent to her union with the
object of her choice. What arguments he used on this point
cannot exactly be known, for Sir Everard was never supposed
strong in the powers of persuasion; but the young officer,
immediately after this transaction, rose in the army with a
rapidity far surpassing the usual pace of unpatronized
professional merit, although, to outward appearance, that was all
he had to depend upon.
The shock which Sir Everard encountered upon this occasion,
although diminished by the consciousness of having acted
virtuously and generously, had its effect upon his future life.
His resolution of marriage had been adopted in a fit of
indignation; the labour of courtship did not quite suit the
dignified indolence of his habits; he had but just escaped the
risk of marrying a woman who could never love him; and his pride
could not be greatly flattered by the termination of his amour,
even if his heart had not suffered. The result of the whole
matter was his return to Waverley-Honour without any transfer of
his affections, notwithstanding the sighs and languishments of
the fair tell-tale, who had revealed, in mere sisterly affection,
the secret of Lady Emily's attachment, and in despite of the
nods, winks, and innuendoes of the officious lady mother, and the
grave eulogiums which the Earl pronounced successively on the
prudence, and good sense, and admirable dispositions, of his
first, second, third, fourth, and fifth daughters. The memory of
his unsuccessful amour was with Sir Everard, as with many more of
his temper, at once shy, proud, sensitive, and indolent, a beacon
against exposing himself to similar mortification, pain, and
fruitless exertion for the time to come. He continued to live at
Waverley-Honour in the style of an old English gentleman, of an
ancient descent and opulent fortune. His sister, Miss Rachel
Waverley, presided at his table; and they became, by degrees, an
old bachelor and an ancient maiden lady, the gentlest and kindest
of the votaries of celibacy.
The vehemence of Sir Everard's resentment against his brother was
but short-lived; yet his dislike to the Whig and the placeman,
though unable to stimulate him to resume any active measures
prejudicial to Richard's interest in the succession to the family
estate, continued to maintain the coldness between them. Richard
knew enough of the world, and of his brother's temper, to believe
that by any ill-considered or precipitate advances on his part,
he might turn passive dislike into a more active principle. It
was accident, therefore, which at length occasioned a renewal of
their intercourse. Richard had married a young woman of rank, by
whose family interest and private fortune he hoped to advance his
career. In her right, he became possessor of a manor of some
value, at the distance of a few miles from Waverley-Honour.
Little Edward, the hero of our tale, then in his fifth year, was
their only child. It chanced that the infant with his maid had
strayed one morning to a mile's distance from the avenue of
Brere-wood Lodge, his father's seat. Their attention was
attracted by a carriage drawn by six stately long-failed black
horses, and with as much carving and gilding as would have done
honour to my lord mayor's. It was waiting for the owner, who was
at a little distance inspecting the progress of a half-built
farm-house. I know not whether the boy's nurse had been a Welsh
or a Scotch woman, or in what manner he associated a shield
emblazoned with three ermines with the idea of personal property,
but he no sooner beheld this family emblem, than he stoutly
determined on vindicating his right to the splendid vehicle on
which it was displayed. The Baronet arrived while the boy's maid
was in vain endeavouring to make him desist from his
determination to appropriate the gilded coach and six. The
rencontre was at a happy moment for Edward, as his uncle had been
just eyeing wistfully, with something of a feeling like envy, the
chubby boys of the stout yeoman whose mansion was building by his
direction. In the round-faced rosy cherub before him, bearing
his eye and his name, and vindicating a hereditary title to his
family affection and patronage, by means of a tie which Sir
Everard held as sacred as either Garter or Blue Mantle,
Providence seemed to have granted to him the very object best
calculated to fill up the void in his hopes and affections. Sir
Everard returned to Waverley Hall upon a led horse which was kept
in readiness for him, while the child and his attendant were sent
home in the carriage to Brere-wood Lodge, with such a message as
opened to Richard Waverley a door of reconciliation with his
elder brother.
Their intercourse, however, though thus renewed, continued to be
rather formal and civil, than partaking of brotherly cordiality;
yet it was sufficient to the wishes of both parties. Sir Everard
obtained, in the frequent society of his little nephew, something
on which his hereditary pride might found the anticipated
pleasure of a continuation of his lineage, and where his kind and
gentle affections could at the same time fully exercise
themselves. For Richard Waverley, he beheld in the growing
attachment between the uncle and nephew the means of securing his
son's, if not his own, succession to the hereditary estate, which
he felt would be rather endangered than promoted by any attempt
on his own part towards a closer intimacy with a man of Sir
Everard's habits and opinions.
Thus, by a sort of tacit compromise, little Edward was permitted
to pass the greater part of the year at the Hall, and appeared to
stand in the same intimate relation to both families, although
their mutual intercourse was otherwise limited to formal
messages, and more formal visits. The education of the youth was
regulated alternately by the taste and opinions of his uncle and
of his father. But more of this in a subsequent chapter.
CHAPTER III
EDUCATION
The education of our hero, Edward Waverley, was of a nature
somewhat desultory. In infancy, his health suffered, or was
supposed to suffer (which is quite the same thing), by the air of
London. As soon, therefore, as official duties, attendance on
Parliament, or the prosecution of any of his plans of interest or
ambition, called his father to town, which was his usual
residence for eight months in the year, Edward was transferred to
Waverley-Honour, and experienced a total change of instructors
and of lessons, as well as of residence. This might have been
remedied, had his father placed him under the superintendence of
a permanent tutor. But he considered that one of his choosing
would probably have been unacceptable at Waverley-Honour, and
that such a selection as Sir Everard might have made, were the
matter left to him, would have burdened him with a disagreeable
inmate, if not a political spy, in his family. He therefore
prevailed upon his private secretary, a young man of taste and
accomplishments, to bestow an hour or two on Edward's education
while at Brere-wood Lodge, and left his uncle answerable for his
improvement in literature while an inmate at the Hall.
This was in some degree respectably provided for. Sir Everard's
chaplain, an Oxonian, who had lost his fellowship for declining
to take the oaths at the accession of George I, was not only an
excellent classical scholar, but reasonably skilled in science,
and master of most modern languages. He was, however, old and
indulgent, and the recurring interregnum, during which Edward was
entirely freed from his discipline, occasioned such a relaxation
of authority, that the youth was permitted, in a great measure,
to learn as he pleased, what he pleased, and when he pleased.
This slackness of rule might have been ruinous to a boy of slow
understanding, who, feeling labour in the acquisition of
knowledge, would have altogether neglected it, save for the
command of a task-master; and it might have proved equally
dangerous to a youth whose animal spirits were more powerful than
his imagination or his feelings, and whom the irresistible
influence of Alma would have engaged in field sports from morning
till night. But the character of Edward Waverley was remote from
either of these. His powers of apprehension were so uncommonly
quick, as almost to resemble intuition, and the chief care of his
preceptor was to prevent him, as a sportsman would phrase it,
from overrunning his game, that is, from acquiring his knowledge
in a slight, flimsy, and inadequate manner. And here the
instructor had to combat another propensity too often united with
brilliancy of fancy and vivacity of talent,--that indolence,
namely, of disposition, which can only be stirred by some strong
motive of gratification, and which renounces study as soon as
curiosity is gratified, the pleasure of conquering the first
difficulties exhausted, and the novelty of pursuit at an end.
Edward would throw himself with spirit upon any classical author
of which his preceptor proposed the perusal, make himself master
of the style so far as to understand the story, and if that
pleased or interested him, he finished the volume. But it was in
vain to attempt fixing his attention on critical distinctions of
philology, upon the difference of idiom, the beauty of felicitous
expression, or the artificial combinations of syntax. 'I can
read and understand a Latin author,' said young Edward, with the
self-confidence and rash reasoning of fifteen, 'and Scaliger or
Bentley could not do much more.' Alas! while he was thus
permitted to read only for the gratification of his amusement, he
foresaw not that he was losing for ever the opportunity of
acquiring habits of firm and assiduous application, of gaining
the art of controlling, directing, and concentrating the powers
of his mind for earnest investigation,--an art far more essential
than even that intimate acquaintance with classical learning,
which is the primary object of study.
I am aware I may be here reminded of the necessity of rendering
instruction agreeable to youth, and of Tasso's infusion of honey
into the medicine prepared for a child; but an age in which
children are taught the driest doctrines by the insinuating
method of instructive games, has little reason to dread the
consequences of study being rendered too serious or severe. The
history of England is now reduced to a game at cards,--the
problems of mathematics to puzzles and riddles,--and the
doctrines of arithmetic may, we are assured, be sufficiently
acquired, by spending a few hours a week at a new and complicated
edition of the Royal Game of the Goose. There wants but one step
further, and the Creed and Ten Commandments may be taught in the
same manner, without the necessity of the grave face, deliberate
tone of recital, and devout attention, hitherto exacted from the
well governed childhood of this realm. It may, in the meantime,
be subject of serious consideration, whether those who are
accustomed only to acquire instruction through the medium of
amusement, may not be brought to reject that which approaches
under the aspect of study; whether those who learn history by the
cards, may not be led to prefer the means to the end; and
whether, were we to teach religion in the way of sport, our
pupils may not thereby be gradually induced to make sport of
their religion. To our young hero, who was permitted to seek his
instruction only according to the bent of his own mind, and who,
of consequence, only sought it so long as it afforded him
amusement, the indulgence of his tutors was attended with evil
consequences, which long continued to influence his character,
happiness, and utility. Edward's power of imagination and love
of literature, although the former was vivid, and the latter
ardent, were so far from affording a remedy to this peculiar
evil, that they rather inflamed and increased its violence. The
library at Waverley-Honour, a large Gothic room, with double
arches and a gallery, contained such a miscellaneous and
extensive collection of volumes as had been assembled together,
during the course of two hundred years, by a family which had
been always wealthy, and inclined, of course, as a mark of
splendour, to furnish their shelves with the current literature
of the day, without much scrutiny, or nicety of discrimination.
Throughout this ample realm Edward was permitted to roam at
large. His tutor had his own studies; and church politics and
controversial divinity, together with a love of learned ease,
though they did not withdraw his attention at stated times from
the progress of his patron's presumptive heir, induced him
readily to grasp at any apology for not extending a strict and
regulated survey towards his general studies. Sir Everard had
never been himself a student, and, like his sister Miss Rachel
Waverley, he held the common doctrine, that idleness is
incompatible with reading of any kind, and that the mere tracing
the alphabetical characters with the eye is in itself a useful
and meritorious task, without scrupulously considering what ideas
or doctrines they may happen to convey. With a desire of
amusement, therefore, which better discipline might soon have
converted into a thirst for knowledge, young Waverley drove
through the sea of books, like a vessel without a pilot or a
rudder. Nothing perhaps increases by indulgence more than a
desultory habit of reading, especially under such opportunities
of gratifying it. I believe one reason why such numerous
instances of erudition occur among the lower ranks is, that, with
the same powers of mind, the poor student is limited to a narrow
circle for indulging his passion for books, and must necessarily
make himself master of the few he possesses ere he can acquire
more. Edward, on the contrary, like the epicure who only deigned
to take a single morsel from the sunny side of a peach, read no
volume a moment after it ceased to excite his curiosity or
interest; and it necessarily happened, that the habit of seeking
only this sort of gratification rendered it daily more difficult
of attainment, till the passion for reading, like other strong
appetites, produced by indulgence a sort of satiety.
Ere he attained this indifference, however, he had read, and
stored in a memory of uncommon tenacity, much curious, though
ill-arranged and miscellaneous information. In English
literature he was master of Shakespeare and Milton, of our
earlier dramatic authors; of many picturesque and interesting
passages from our old historical chronicles; and was particularly
well acquainted with Spenser, Drayton, and other poets who have
exercised themselves on romantic fiction, of all themes the most
fascinating to a youthful imagination, before the passions have
roused themselves, and demand poetry of a more sentimental
description. In this respect his acquaintance with Italian
opened him yet a wider range. He had perused the numerous
romantic poems, which, from the days of Pulci, have been a
favourite exercise of the wits of Italy; and had sought
gratification in the numerous collections of NOVELLE, which were
brought forth by the genius of that elegant though luxurious
nation, in emulation of the DECAMERON. In classical literature,
Waverley had made the usual progress, and read the usual authors;
and the French had afforded him an almost exhaustless collection
of memoirs, scarcely more faithful than romances, and of romances
so well written as hardly to be distinguished from memoirs. The
splendid pages of Froissart, with his heart-stirring and eye-
dazzling descriptions of war and of tournaments, were among his
chief favourites; and from those of Brantome and de la Noue he
learned to compare the wild and loose yet superstitious character
of the nobles of the League, with the stern, rigid, and sometimes
turbulent disposition of the Huguenot party. The Spanish had
contributed to his stock of chivalrous and romantic lore. The
earlier literature of the northern nations did not escape the
study of one who read rather to awaken the imagination than to
benefit the understanding. And yet, knowing much that is known
but to few, Edward Waverley might justly be considered as
ignorant, since he knew little of what adds dignify to man, and
qualifies him to support and adorn an elevated situation in
society.
The occasional attention of his parents might indeed have been of
service, to prevent the dissipation of mind incidental to such a
desultory course of reading. But his mother died in the seventh
year after the reconciliation between the brothers, and Richard
Waverley himself, who, after this event, resided more constantly
in London, was too much interested in his own plans of wealth and
ambition, to notice more respecting Edward, than that he was of a
very bookish turn, and probably destined to be a bishop. If he
could have discovered and analysed his son's waking dreams, he
would have formed a very different conclusion.
CHAPTER IV
CASTLE-BUILDING
I have already hinted, that the dainty, squeamish, and fastidious
taste acquired by a surfeit of idle reading, had not only
rendered our hero unfit for serious and sober study, it had even
disgusted him in some degree with that in which he had hitherto
indulged.
He was in his sixteenth year, when his habits of abstraction and
love of solitude became so much marked, as to excite Sir
Everard's affectionate apprehension. He tried to counterbalance
these propensities, by engaging his nephew in field sports, which
had been the chief pleasure of his own youthful days. But
although Edward eagerly carried the gun for one season, yet when
practice had given him some dexterity, the pastime ceased to
afford him amusement.
In the succeeding spring, the perusal of old Isaac Walton's
fascinating volume determined Edward to become 'a brother of the
angle.' But of all diversions which ingenuity ever devised for
the relief of idleness, fishing is the worst qualified to amuse a
man who is at once indolent and impatient; and our hero's rod was
speedily flung aside. Society and example, which, more than any
other motives, master and sway the natural bent of our passions,
might have had their usual effect upon the youthful visionary:
but the neighbourhood was thinly inhabited, and the homebred
young squires whom it afforded, were not of a class fit to form
Edward's usual companions, far less to excite him to emulation in
the practice of those pastimes which composed the serious
business of their lives.
There were a few other youths of better education, and a more
liberal character; but from their society also our hero was in
some degree excluded. Sir Everard had, upon the death of Queen
Anne, resigned his seat in Parliament, and, as his age increased
and the number of his contemporaries diminished, had gradually
withdrawn himself from society; so that when, upon any particular
occasion, Edward mingled with accomplished and well-educated
young men of his own rank and expectations, he felt an
inferiority in their company, not so much from deficiency of
information, as from the want of the skill to command and to
arrange that which he possessed. A deep and increasing
sensibility added to this dislike of society. The idea of having
committed the slightest solecism in politeness, whether real or
imaginary, was agony to him; for perhaps even guilt itself does
not impose upon some minds so keen a sense of shame and remorse,
as a modest, sensitive, and inexperienced youth feels from the
consciousness of having neglected etiquette, or excited ridicule.
Where we are not at ease, we cannot be happy; and therefore it is
not surprising, that Edward Waverley supposed that he disliked
and was unfitted for society, merely because he had not yet
acquired the habit of living in it with ease and comfort, and of
reciprocally giving and receiving pleasure.
The hours he spent with his uncle and aunt were exhausted in
listening to the oft-repeated tale of narrative old age. Yet
even there his imagination, the predominant faculty of his mind,
was frequently excited. Family tradition and genealogical
history, upon which much of Sir Everard's discourse turned, is
the very reverse of amber, which, itself a valuable substance,
usually includes flies, straws, and other trifles; whereas these
studies, being themselves very insignificant and trifling, do
nevertheless serve to perpetuate a great deal of what is rare and
valuable in ancient manners, and to record many curious and
minute facts, which could have been preserved and conveyed
through no other medium. If, therefore, Edward Waverley yawned
at times over the dry deduction of his line of ancestors, with
their various intermarriages, and inwardly deprecated the
remorseless and protracted accuracy with which the worthy Sir
Everard rehearsed the various degrees of propinquity between the
house of Waverley-Honour and the doughty barons, knights, and
squires, to whom they stood allied; if (notwithstanding his
obligations to the three ermines passant) he sometimes cursed in
his heart the jargon of heraldry, its griffins, its moldwarps,
its wyverns, and its dragons with all the bitterness of Hotspur
himself, there were moments when these communications interested
his fancy and rewarded his attention.
The deeds of Wilibert of Waverley in the Holy Land, his long
absence and perilous adventures, his supposed death, and his
return in the evening when the betrothed of his heart had wedded
the hero who had protected her from insult and oppression during
his absence; the generosity with which the Crusader relinquished
his claims, and sought in a neighbouring cloister that peace
which passeth not away; [See Note 1]--to these and similar tales
he would hearken till his heart glowed and his eye glistened.
Nor was he less affected, when his aunt, Mrs. Rachel, narrated
the sufferings and fortitude of Lady Alice Waverley during the
Great Civil War. The benevolent features of the venerable
spinster kindled into more majestic expression, as she told how
Charles had, after the field of Worcester, found a day's refuge
at Waverley-Honour; and how, when a troop of cavalry were
approaching to search the mansion, Lady Alice dismissed her
youngest son with a handful of domestics, charging them to make
good with their lives an hour's diversion, that the king might
have that space for escape, 'And, God help her,' would Mrs.
Rachel continue, fixing her eyes upon the heroine's portrait as
she spoke, 'full dearly did she purchase the safety of her prince
with the life of her darling child. They brought him here a
prisoner, mortally wounded; and you may trace the drops of his
blood from the great hall door along the little gallery, and up
to the saloon, where they laid him down to die at his mother's
feet. But there was comfort exchanged between them; for he knew
from the glance of his mother's eye, that the purpose of his
desperate defence was attained. Ah! I remember,' she continued,
'I remember well to have seen one that knew and loved him. Miss
Lucy St. Aubin lived and died a maid for his sake, though one of
the most beautiful and wealthy matches in this country; all the
world ran after her, but she wore widow's mourning all her life
for poor William, for they were betrothed though not married, and
died in -- I cannot think of the date; but I remember, in the
November of that very year, when she found herself sinking, she
desired to be brought to Waverley-Honour once more, and visited
all the places where she had been with my grand-uncle, and caused
the carpets to be raised that she might trace the impression of
his blood, and if tears could have washed it out, it had not been
there now; for there was not a dry eye in the house. You would
have thought, Edward, that the very trees mourned for her, for
their leaves dropped around her without a gust of wind; and,
indeed, she looked like one that would never see them green
again.'
From such legends our hero would steal away to indulge the
fancies they excited. In the corner of the large and sombre
library, with no other light than was afforded by the decaying
brands on its ponderous and ample hearth, he would exercise for
hours that internal sorcery, by which past or imaginary events
are presented in action, as it were, to the eye of the muser.
Then arose in long and fair array the splendour of the bridal
feast at Waverley Castle; the tall and emaciated form of its real
lord, as he stood in his pilgrim's weeds, an unnoticed spectator
of the festivities of his supposed heir and intended bride; the
electrical shock occasioned by the discovery; the springing of
the vassals to arms; the astonishment of the bridegroom; the
terror and confusion of the bride; the agony with which Wilibert
observed that her heart as well as consent was in these nuptials;
the air of dignity, yet of deep feeling, with which he flung down
the half-drawn sword, and turned away for ever from the house of
his ancestors. Then would he change the scene, and fancy would
at his wish represent Aunt Rachel's tragedy. He saw the Lady
Waverley seated in her bower, her ear strained to every sound,
her heart throbbing with double agony, now listening to the
decaying echo of the hoofs of the king's horse, and when that had
died away, hearing in every breeze that shook the trees of the
park, the noise of the remote skirmish. A distant sound is heard
like the rushing of a swollen stream; it comes nearer, and Edward
can plainly distinguish the galloping of horses, the cries and
shouts of men, with straggling pistol-shots between, rolling
forwards to the Hall. The lady starts up--a terrified menial
rushes in--but why pursue such a description?
As living in this ideal world became daily more delectable to our
hero, interruption was disagreeable in proportion. The extensive
domain that surrounded the Hall, which, far exceeding the
dimensions of a park, was usually termed Waverley-Chase, had
originally been forest ground, and still, though broken by
extensive glades, in which the young deer were sporting, retained
its pristine and savage character. It was traversed by broad
avenues, in many places half grown up with brushwood, where the
beauties of former days used to take their stand to see the stag
course with greyhounds, or to gain an aim at him with the
crossbow. In one spot, distinguished by a moss-grown Gothic
monument, which retained the name of Queen's Standing, Elizabeth
herself was said to have pierced seven bucks with her own arrows.
This was a very favourite haunt of Waverley. At other times,
with his gun and his spaniel, which served as an apology to
others, and with a book in his pocket, which perhaps served as an
apology to himself, he used to pursue one of these long avenues,
which, after an ascending sweep of four miles, gradually narrowed
into a rude and contracted path through the cliffy and woody pass
called Mirkwood Dingle, and opened suddenly upon a deep, dark,
and small lake, named, from the same cause, Mirkwood Mere. There
stood, in former times, a solitary tower upon a rock almost
surrounded by the water, which had acquired the name of the
Strength of Waverley, because, in perilous times, it had often
been the refuge of the family. There, in the wars of York and
Lancaster, the last adherents of the Red Rose who dared to
maintain her cause, carried on a harassing and predatory warfare,
till the stronghold was reduced by the celebrated Richard of
Gloucester. Here, too, a party of cavaliers long maintained
themselves under Nigel Waverley, elder brother of that William
whose fate Aunt Rachel commemorated. Through these scenes it was
that Edward loved to 'chew the cud of sweet and bitter fancy,'
and, like a child among his toys, culled and arranged, from the
splendid yet useless imagery and emblems with which his
imagination was stored, visions as brilliant and as fading as
those of an evening sky. The effect of this indulgence upon his
temper and character will appear in the next chapter.
CHAPTER V
CHOICE OF A PROFESSION
From the minuteness with which I have traced Waverley's pursuits,
and the bias which these unavoidably communicated to his
imagination, the reader may perhaps anticipate, in the following
tale, an imitation of the romance of Cervantes. But he will do
my prudence injustice in the supposition. My intention is not to
follow the steps of that inimitable author, in describing such
total perversion of intellect as misconstrues the objects
actually presented to the senses, but that more common aberration
from sound judgement, which apprehends occurrences indeed in
their reality, but communicates to them a tincture of its own
romantic tone and colouring. So far was Edward Waverley from
expecting general sympathy with his own feelings, or concluding
that the present state of things was calculated to exhibit the
reality of those visions in which he loved to indulge, that he
dreaded nothing more than the detection of such sentiments as
were dictated by his musings, he neither had nor wished to have a
confidant, with whom to communicate his reveries; and so sensible
was he of the ridicule attached to them, that, had he been to
choose between any punishment short of ignominy, and the
necessity of giving a cold and composed account of the ideal
world in which he lived the better part of his days, I think he
would not have hesitated to prefer the former infliction. This
secrecy became doubly precious, as he felt in advancing life the
influence of the awakening passions. Female forms of exquisite
grace and beauty began to mingle in his mental adventures; nor
was he long without looking abroad to compare the creatures of
his own imagination with the females of actual life.
The list of the beauties who displayed their hebdomadal finery at
the parish church of Waverley was neither numerous nor select.
By far the most passable was Miss Sissly, or, as she rather chose
to be called, Miss Cecilia Stubbs, daughter of Squire Stubbs at
the Grange. I know not whether it was by the 'merest accident in
the world,' a phrase which, from female lips, does not always
exclude MALICE PREPENSE, or whether it was from a conformity of
taste, that Miss Cecilia more than once crossed Edward in his
favourite walks through Waverley-Chase. He had not as yet
assumed courage to accost her on these occasions; but the meeting
was not without its effect. A romantic lover is a strange
idolater, who sometimes cares not out of what log he frames the
object of his adoration; at least, if nature has given that
object any passable proportion of personal charms, he can easily
play the jeweller and Dervise in the Oriental tale, [See
Hoppner's tale of The Seven Lovers.] and supply her richly, out
of the stores of his own imagination, with supernatural beauty,
and all the properties of intellectual wealth.
But ere the charms of Miss Cecilia Stubbs had erected her into a
positive goddess, or elevated her at least to a level with the
saint her namesake, Mrs. Rachel Waverley gained some intimation
which determined her to prevent the approaching apotheosis. Even
the most simple and unsuspicious of the female sex have (God
bless them!) an instinctive sharpness of perception in such
matters, which sometimes goes the length of observing
partialities that never existed, but rarely misses to detect such
as pass actually under their observation. Mrs. Rachel applied
herself with great prudence, not to combat, but to elude, the
approaching danger, and suggested to her brother the necessity
that the heir of his house should see something more of the world
than was consistent with constant residence at Waverley-Honour.
Sir Everard would not at first listen to a proposal which went to
separate his nephew from him. Edward was a little bookish, he
admitted; but youth, he had always heard, was the season for
learning, and, no doubt, when his rage for letters was abated,
and his head fully stocked with knowledge, his nephew would take
to field sports and country business. He had often, he said,
himself regretted that he had not spent some time in study during
his youth: he would neither have shot nor hunted with less
skill, and he might have made the roof of St. Stephen's echo to
longer orations than were comprised in those zealous Noes, with
which, when a member of the House during Godolphin's
administration, he encountered every measure of government.
Aunt Rachel's anxiety, however, lent her address to carry her
point. Every representative of their house had visited foreign
parts, or served his country in the army, before he settled for
life at Waverley-Honour, and she appealed for the truth of her
assertion to the genealogical pedigree, an authority which Sir
Everard was never known to contradict. In short, a proposal was
made to Mr. Richard Waverley that his son should travel, under
the direction of his present tutor, Mr. Pembroke, with a suitable
allowance from the baronet's liberality. The father himself saw
no objection to this overture; but upon mentioning it casually at
the table of the Minister, the great man looked grave. The
reason was explained in private. The unhappy turn of Sir
Everard's politics, the Minister observed, was such as would
render it highly improper that a young gentleman of such hopeful
prospects should travel on the Continent with a tutor doubtless
of his uncle's choosing, and directing his course by his
instructions. What might Mr. Edward Waverley's society be at
Paris, what at Rome, where all manner of snares were spread by
the Pretender and his sons--these were points for Mr. Waverley to
consider. This he could himself say, that he knew his Majesty
had such a just sense of Mr. Richard Waverley's merits, that if
his son adopted the army for a few years, a troop, he believed,
might be reckoned upon in one of the dragoon regiments lately
returned from Flanders.
A hint thus conveyed and enforced was not to be neglected with
impunity; and Richard Waverley, though with great dread of
shocking his brother's prejudices, deemed he could not avoid
accepting the commission thus offered him for his son. The truth
is, he calculated much, and justly, upon Sir Everard's fondness
for Edward, which made him unlikely to resent any step that he
might take in due submission to parental authority. Two letters
announced this determination to the Baronet and his nephew. The
latter barely communicated the fact, and pointed out the
necessary preparation for joining his regiment. To his brother,
Richard was more diffuse and circuitous. He coincided with him
in the most flattering manner, in the propriety of his son's
seeing a little more of the world, and was even humble in
expressions of gratitude for his proposed assistance; was,
however, deeply concerned that it was now, unfortunately, not in
Edward's power exactly to comply with the plan which had been
chalked out by his best friend and benefactor. He himself had
thought with pain on the boy's inactivity, at an age when all his
ancestors had borne arms; even Royalty itself had deigned to
inquire whether young Waverley was not now in Flanders, at an age
when his grandfather was already bleeding for his king in the
Great Civil War. This was accompanied by an offer of a troop of
horse. What could he do? There was no time to consult his
brother's inclinations, even if he could have conceived there
might be objections on his part to his nephew s following the
glorious career of his predecessors. And, in short, that Edward
was now (the intermediate steps of cornet and lieutenant being
overleapt with great agility) Captain Waverley, of Gardiner's
regiment of dragoons, which he must join in their quarters at
Dundee in Scotland, in the course of a month.
Sir Everard Waverley received this intimation with a mixture of
feelings. At the period of the Hanoverian succession he had
withdrawn from Parliament, and his conduct, in the memorable year
1715, had not been altogether unsuspected. There were reports of
private musters of tenants and horses in Waverley-Chase by
moonlight, and of cases of carbines and pistols purchased in
Holland, and addressed to the Baronet, but intercepted by the
vigilance of a riding officer of the excise, who was afterwards
tossed in a blanket on a moonless night, by an association of
stout yeomen, for his officiousness. Nay, it was even said, that
at the arrest of Sir William Wyndham, the leader of the Tory
party, a letter from Sir Everard was found in the pocket of his
night-gown. But there was no overt act which an attainder could
be founded on; and government, contented with suppressing the
insurrection of 1715, felt it neither prudent nor safe to push
their vengeance further than against those unfortunate gentlemen
who actually took up arms.
Nor did Sir Everard's apprehensions of personal consequences seem
to correspond with the reports spread among his Whig neighbours.
It was well known that he had supplied with money several of the
distressed Northumbrians and Scotchmen, who, after being made
prisoners at Preston in Lancashire, were imprisoned in Newgate
and the Marshalsea; and it was his solicitor and ordinary counsel
who conducted the defence of some of these unfortunate gentlemen
at their trial. It was generally supposed, however, that, had
ministers possessed any real proof of Sir Everard's accession to
the rebellion, he either would not have ventured thus to brave
the existing government, or at least would not have done so with
impunity. The feelings which then dictated his proceedings, were
those of a young man, and at an agitating period. Since that
time Sir Everard's jacobitism had been gradually decaying, like a
fire which burns out for want of fuel. His Tory and High Church
principles were kept up by some occasional exercise at elections
and quarter-sessions: but those respecting hereditary right were
fallen into a sort of abeyance. Yet it jarred severely upon his
feelings, that his nephew should go into the army under the
Brunswick dynasty; and the more so, as, independent of his high
and conscientious ideas of paternal authority, it was impossible,
or at least highly imprudent, to interfere authoritatively to
prevent it. This suppressed vexation gave rise to many poohs and
pshaws, which were placed to the account of an incipient fit of
gout, until, having sent for the Army List, the worthy Baronet
consoled himself with reckoning the descendants of the houses of
genuine loyalty, Mordaunts, Granvilles, and Stanleys, whose names
were to be found in that military record; and, calling up all his
feelings of family grandeur and warlike glory, he concluded, with
logic something like Falstaff's, that when war was at hand,
although it were shame to be on any side but one, it were worse
shame to be idle than to be on the worst side, though blacker
than usurpation could make it. As for Aunt Rachel, her scheme
had not exactly terminated according to her wishes, but she was
under the necessity of submitting to circumstances; and her
mortification was diverted by the employment she found in fitting
out her nephew for the campaign, and greatly consoled by the
prospect of beholding him blaze in complete uniform.
Edward Waverley himself received with animated and undefined
surprise this most unexpected intelligence. It was, as a fine
old poem expresses it, 'like a fire to heather set,' that covers
a solitary hill with smoke, and illumines it at the same time
with dusky fire. His tutor, or, I should say, Mr. Pembroke, for
he scarce assumed the name of tutor, picked up about Edward's
room some fragments of irregular verse, which he appeared to have
composed under the influence of the agitating feelings occasioned
by this sudden page being turned up to him in the book of life.
The doctor, who was a believer in all poetry which was composed
by his friends, and written out in fair straight lines, with a
capital at the beginning of each, communicated this treasure to
Aunt Rachel, who, with her spectacles dimmed with tears,
transferred them to her commonplace book, among choice receipts
for cookery and medicine, favourite texts, and portions from High
Church divines, and a few songs, amatory and jacobitical, which
she had carolled in her younger days, from whence her nephew's
poetical TENTAMINA were extracted, when the volume itself, with
other authentic records of the Waverley family, were exposed to
the inspection of the unworthy editor of this memorable history.
If they afford the reader no higher amusement, they will serve,
at least, better than narrative of any kind, to acquaint him with
the wild and irregular spirit of our hero:-
Late when the Autumn evening fell
On Mirkwood-Mere's romantic dell,
The lake returned, in chastened gleam,
The purple cloud, the golden beam:
Reflected in the crystal pool,
Headand and bank lay fair and cool;
The weather-tinted rock and tower,
Each drooping tree, each fairy flower,
So true, so soft, the mirror gave,
As if there lay beneath the wave,
Secure from trouble, toil, and care,
A world than earthly world more fair.
But distant winds began to wake,
And roused the Genius of the Lake!
He heard the groaning of the oak,
And donned at once his sable cloak,
As warrior, at the battle-cry,
Invests him with his panoply:
Then as the whirlwind nearer pressed,
He 'gan to shake his foamy crest
O'er furrowed brow and blackened cheek,
And bade his surge in thunder speak.
In wild and broken eddies whirled,
Flitted that fond ideal world,
And, to the shore in tumult tost,
The realms of fairy bliss were lost.
Yet, with a stern delight and strange,
I saw the spirit-stirring change,
As warred the wind with wave and wood.
Upon the ruined tower I stood,
And felt my heart more strongly bound,
Responsive to the lofty sound,
While, joying in the mighty roar,
I mourned that tranquil scene no more.
So, on the idle dreams of youth,
Breaks the loud trumpet-call of truth,
Bids each fair vision pass away,
Like landscape on the lake that lay,
As fair, as flitting, and as frail,
As that which fled the Autumn gale.--
For ever dead to fancy's eye
Be each gay form that glided by,
While dreams of love and lady's charms
Give place to honour and to arms!
In sober prose, as perhaps these verses intimate less decidedly,
the transient idea of Miss Cecilia Stubbs passed from Captain
Waverley's heart amid the turmoil which his new destinies
excited. She appeared, indeed, in full splendour in her father's
pew upon the Sunday when he attended service for the last time at
the old parish church, upon which occasion, at the request of his
uncle and Aunt Rachel, he was induced (nothing loth, if the truth
must be told) to present himself in full uniform.
There is no better antidote against entertaining too high an
opinion of others, than having an excellent one of ourselves at
the very same time. Miss Stubbs had indeed summoned up every
assistance which art could afford to beauty; but, alas! hoop,
patches, frizzled locks, and a new mantua of genuine French silk,
were lost upon a young officer of dragoons, who wore, for the
first time, his gold-laced hat, jack-boots, and broadsword. I
know not whether, like the champion of an old ballad,
His heart was all on honour bent,
He could not stoop to love;
No lady in the land had power
His frozen heart to move;
or whether the deep and flaming bars of embroidered gold, which
now fenced his breast, defied the artillery of Cecilia's eyes;
but every arrow was launched at him in vain.
Yet did I mark where Cupid's shaft did light;
It lighted not on little western flower,
But on bold yeoman, flower of all the west,
Hight Jonas Culbertfield, the steward's son.
Craving pardon for my heroics (which I am unable in certain cases
to resist giving way to), it is a melancholy fact, that my
history must here take leave of the fair Cecilia, who, like many
a daughter of Eve, after the departure of Edward, and the
dissipation of certain idle visions which she had adopted,
quietly contented herself with a PIS-ALLER, and gave her hand, at
the distance of six months, to the aforesaid Jonas, son of the
Baronet's steward, and heir (no unfertile prospect) to a
steward's fortune; besides the snug probability of succeeding to
his father's office. All these advantages moved Squire Stubbs,
as much as the ruddy brow and manly form of the suitor influenced
his daughter, to abate somewhat in the article of their gentry;
and so the match was concluded. None seemed more gratified than
Aunt Rachel, who had hitherto looked rather askance upon the
presumptuous damsel (as much so, peradventure, as her nature
would permit), but who, on the first appearance of the new-
married pair at church, honoured the bride with a smile and a
profound curtsy, in presence of the rector, the curate, the
clerk, and the whole congregation of the united parishes of
Waverley CUM Beverley.
I beg pardon, once and for all, of those readers who take up
novels merely for amusement, for plaguing them so long with old-
fashioned politics, and Whig and Tory, and Hanoverians and
Jacobites, The truth is, I cannot promise them that this story
shall be intelligible, not to say probable, without it. My plan
requires that I should explain the motives on which its action
proceeded; and these motives necessarily arose from the feelings,
prejudices, and parties of the times. I do not invite my fair
readers, whose sex and impatience give them the greatest right to
complain of these circumstances, into a flying chariot drawn by
hippogriffs, or moved by enchantment. Mine is a humble English
post-chaise, drawn upon four wheels, and keeping his Majesty's
highway. Such as dislike the vehicle may leave it at the next
halt, and wait for the conveyance of Prince Hussein's tapestry,
or Malek the Weaver's flying sentry-box. Those who are contented
to remain with me will be occasionally exposed to the dullness
inseparable from heavy roads, steep hills, sloughs, and other
terrestrial retardations; but, with tolerable horses and a civil
driver (as the advertisements have it), I engage to get as soon
as possible into a more picturesque and romantic country, if my
passengers incline to have some patience with me during my first
stages. [These Introductory Chapters have been a good deal
censured as tedious and unnecessary. Yet there are circumstances
recorded in them which the author has not been able to persuade
himself to retract or cancel.]
CHAPTER VI
THE ADIEUS OF WAVERLEY
It was upon the evening of this memorable Sunday that Sir Everard
entered the library, where he narrowly missed surprising our
young hero as he went through the guards of the broadsword with
the ancient weapon of old Sir Hildebrand, which, being preserved
as an heirloom, usually hung over the chimney in the library,
beneath a picture of the knight and his horse, where the features
were almost entirely hidden by the knight's profusion of curled
hair, and the Bucephalus which he bestrode concealed by the
voluminous robes of the Bath with which he was decorated. Sir
Everard entered, and after a glance at the picture and another at
his nephew, began a little speech, which, however, soon dropped
into the natural simplicity of his common manner, agitated upon
the present occasion by no common feeling. 'Nephew,' he said;
and then, as mending his phrase, 'My dear Edward, it is God's
will, and also the will of your father, whom, under God, it is
your duty to obey, that you should leave us to take up the
profession of arms, in which so many of your ancestors have been
distinguished. I have made such arrangements as will enable you
to take the field as their descendant, and as the probable heir
of the house of Waverley; and, sir, in the field of battle you
will remember what name you bear. And, Edward, my dear boy,
remember also that you are the last of that race, and the only
hope of its revival depends upon you; therefore, as far as duty
and honour will permit, avoid danger--I mean unnecessary danger--
and keep no company with rakes, gamblers, and Whigs, of whom, it
is to be feared, there are but too many in the service into which
you are going. Your colonel, as I am informed, is an excellent
man--for a Presbyterian; but you will remember your duty to God,
the Church of England, and the--' (this breach ought to have been
supplied, according to the rubric, with the word KING; but as,
unfortunately, that word conveyed a double and embarrassing
sense, one meaning DE FACTO, and the other DE JURE, the knight
filled up the blank otherwise)--'the Church of England, and all
constituted authorities.' Then, not trusting himself with any
further oratory, he carried his nephew to his stables to see the
horses destined for his campaign. Two were black (the regimental
colour), superb chargers both; the other three were stout active
hacks, designed for the road, or for his domestics, of whom two
were to attend him from the Hall: an additional groom, if
necessary, might be picked up in Scotland.
'You will depart with but a small retinue,' quoth the Baronet,
'compared to Sir Hildebrand, when he mustered before the gate of
the Hall a larger body of horse than your whole regiment consists
of. I could have wished that these twenty young fellows from my
estate, who have enlisted in your troop, had been to march with
you on your journey to Scotland. It would have been something,
at least; but I am told their attendance would be thought unusual
in these days, when every new and foolish fashion is introduced
to break the natural dependence of the people upon their
landlords.'
Sir Everard had done his best to correct this unnatural
disposition of the times; for he had brightened the chain of
attachment between the recruits and their young captain, not only
by a copious repast of beef and ale, by way of parting feast, but
by such a pecuniary donation to each individual, as tended rather
to improve the conviviality than the discipline of their march.
After inspecting the cavalry, Sir Everard again conducted his
nephew to the library, where he produced a letter, carefully
folded, surrounded by a little stripe of flox-silk, according to
ancient form, and sealed with an accurate impression of the
Waverley coat-of-arms. It was addressed, with great formality,
'To Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine, Esq. of Bradwardine, at his
principal mansion of Tully-Veolan, in Perthshire, North Britain,
These--By the hands of Captain Edward Waverley, nephew of Sir
Everard Waverley, of Waverley-Honour, Bart.'
The gentleman to whom this enormous greeting was addressed, of
whom we shall have more to say in the sequel, had been in arms
for the exiled family of Stuart in the year 1715, and was made
prisoner at Preston in Lancashire. He was of a very ancient
family, and somewhat embarrassed fortune; a scholar, according to
the scholarship of Scotchmen, that is, his learning was more
diffuse than accurate, and he was rather a reader than a
grammarian. Of his zeal for the classic authors he is said to
have given an uncommon instance. On the road between Preston and
London he made his escape from his guards; but being afterwards
found loitering near the place where they had lodged the former
night, he was recognized, and again arrested. His companions,
and even his escort, were surprised at his infatuation, and could
not help inquiring, why, being once at liberty, he had not made
the best of his way to a place of safety; to which he replied,
that he had intended to do so, but, in good faith, he had
returned to seek his Titus Livius, which he had forgot in the
hurry of his escape. [See Note 2.] The simplicity of this
anecdote struck the gentleman, who, as we before observed, had
managed the defence of some of those unfortunate persons, at the
expense of Sir Everard, and perhaps some others of the party. He
was, besides, himself a special admirer of the old Patavinian;
and though probably his own zeal might not have carried him such
extravagant lengths, even to recover the edition of Sweynheim and
Pannartz (supposed to be the princeps), he did not the less
estimate the devotion of the North Briton, and in consequence
exerted himself to so much purpose to remove and soften evidence,
detect legal flaws, ET CETERA, that he accomplished the final
discharge and deliverance of Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine from
certain very awkward consequences of a plea before our sovereign
lord the king in Westminster.
The Baron of Bradwardine, for he was generally so called in
Scotland (although his intimates, from his place of residence,
used to denominate him. Tully-Veolan, or more familiarly,
Tully), no sooner stood RECTUS IN CURIA, than he posted down to
pay his respects and make his acknowledgements at Waverley-
Honour. A congenial passion for field sports, and a general
coincidence in political opinions, cemented his friendship with
Sir Everard, notwithstanding the difference of their habits and
studies in other particulars; and, having spent several weeks at
Waverley-Honour, the Baron departed with many expressions of
regard, warmly pressing the Baronet to return his visit, and
partake of the diversion of grouse-shooting upon his moors in
Perthshire next season. Shortly after, Mr. Bradwardine remitted
from Scotland a sum in reimbursement of expenses incurred in the
King's High Court of Westminster, which, although not quite so
formidable when reduced to the English denomination, had, in its
original form of Scotch pounds, shillings, and pence, such a
formidable effect upon the frame of Duncan Macwheeble, the
laird's confidential factor, baron-bailie, and man of resource,
that he had a fit of the colic which lasted for five days,
occasioned, he said, solely and utterly by becoming the unhappy
instrument of conveying such a serious sum of money out of his
native country into the hands of the false English. But
patriotism as it is the fairest, so it is often the most
suspicious mask of other feelings; and many who knew Bailie
Macwheeble, concluded that his professions of regret were not
altogether disinterested, and that he would have grudged the
moneys paid to the LOONS at Westminster much less had they not
come from Bradwardine estate, a fund which he considered as more
particularly his own. But the Bailie protested he was absolutely
disinterested--
Woe, woe, for Scotland, not a whit for me!
The laird was only rejoiced that his worthy friend, Sir Everard
Waverley of Waverley-Honour, was reimbursed of the expenditure
which he had outlaid on account of the house of Bradwardine. It
concerned, he said, the credit of his own family, and of the
kingdom of Scotland at large, that these disbursements should be
repaid forthwith, and, if delayed, if would be a matter of
national reproach. Sir Everard, accustomed to treat much larger
sums with indifference, received the remittance of 294l. 13s.
6d., without being aware that the payment was an international
concern, and, indeed, would probably have forgot the circumstance
altogether, if Bailie Macwheeble had thought of comforting his
colic by intercepting the subsidy. A yearly intercourse took
place, of a short letter, and a hamper or a cask or two, between
Waverley-Honour and Tully-Veolan, the English exports consisting
of mighty cheeses and mightier ale, pheasants and venison, and
the Scottish returns being vested in grouse, white hares, pickled
salmon, and usquebaugh. All which were meant, sent, and
received, as pledges of constant friendship and amity between two
important houses. It followed as a matter of course, that the
heir-apparent of Waverley-Honour could not, with propriety, visit
Scotland without being furnished with credentials to the Baron of
Bradwardine.
When this matter was explained and settled, Mr. Pembroke
expressed his wish to take a private and particular leave of his
dear pupil. The good man's exhortations to Edward to preserve an
unblemished life and morals, to hold fast the principles of the
Christian religion, and to eschew the profane company of scoffers
and latitudinarians, too much abounding in the army, were not
unmingled with his political prejudices. It had pleased Heaven,
he said, to place Scotland (doubtless for the sins of their
ancestors in 1642) in a more deplorable state of darkness than
even this unhappy kingdom of England. Here, at least, although
the candlestick of the Church of England had been in some degree
removed from its place, it yet afforded a glimmering light; there
was a hierarchy, though schismatical, and fallen from the
principles maintained by those great fathers of the church,
Sancroft and his brethren; there was a liturgy, though wofully
perverted in some of the principal petitions. But in Scotland it
was utter darkness; and, excepting a sorrowful, scattered, and
persecuted remnant, the pulpits were abandoned to Presbyterians,
and he feared, to sectaries of every description. It should be
his duty to fortify his dear pupil to resist such unhallowed and
pernicious doctrines in church and state, as must necessarily be
forced at times upon his unwilling ears.
Here he produced two immense folded packets, which appeared each
to contain a whole ream of closely-written manuscript. They had
been the labour of the worthy man's whole life; and never were
labour and zeal more absurdly wasted. He had at one time gone to
London, with the intention of giving them to the world, by the
medium of a bookseller in Little Britain, well known to deal in
such commodities, and to whom he was instructed to address
himself in a particular phrase, and with a certain sign, which,
it seems, passed at that time current among the initiated
Jacobites. The moment Mr. Pembroke had uttered the shibboleth,
with the appropriate gesture, the bibliopolist greeted him,
notwithstanding every disclamation, by the title of Doctor, and
conveying him into his back shop, after inspecting every possible
and impossible place of concealment, he commenced: 'Eh, doctor!
Well--all under the rose--snug--I keep no holes here even for a
Hanoverian rat to hide in. And, what--eh! any good news from
our friends over the water?--and how does the worthy king of
France? Or perhaps you are more lately from Rome?--it must be
Rome will do it at last--the church must light its candle at the
old lamp. Eh! what, cautious? I like you the better; but no
fear.'
Here Mr. Pembroke, with some difficulty, stopped a torrent of
interrogations, eked out with signs, nods, and winks; and, having
at length convinced the bookseller that he did him too much
honour in supposing him an emissary of exiled royalty, he
explained his actual business.
The man of books, with a much more composed air, proceeded to
examine the manuscripts. The title of the first was 'A Dissent
from Dissenters, or the Comprehension confuted; showing the
Impossibility of any Composition between the Church and Puritans,
Presbyterians, or Sectaries of any Description; illustrated from
the Scriptures, the fathers of the Church, and the soundest
Controversial Divines.' To this work the bookseller positively
demurred. 'Well meant,' he said, 'and learned, doubtless; but
the time had gone by. Printed on small pica it would run to
eight hundred pages, and could never pay. Begged therefore to be
excused. Loved and honoured the true church from his soul; and,
had it been a sermon on the martyrdom, or any twelve-penny touch
--why I would venture something for the honour of the cloth. But
come, let's see the other. 'Right Hereditary righted!' ah,
there's some sense in this! Hum--hum--hum--pages so many, paper
so much, letterpress--Ah! I'll tell you, though, doctor, you
must knock out some of the Latin and Greek; heavy, doctor, damn'd
heavy--(beg your pardon) and if you throw in a few grains more
pepper--I am he that never peached my author--I have published
for Drake, and Charlwood Lawton, and poor Amhurst. [See Note
3.]--Ah, Caleb! Caleb! Well, it was a shame to let poor Caleb
starve, and so many fat rectors and squires among us. I gave him
a dinner once a week; but, Lord love you, what's once a week,
when a man does not know where to go the other six days?--Well,
but I must show the manuscript to little Tom Alibi the solicitor,
who manages all my law affairs--must keep on the windy side--the
mob were very uncivil the last time I mounted in Old Palace Yard
--all Whigs and Roundheads every man of them, Williamites and
Hanover rats.'
The next day Mr. Pembroke again called on the publisher, but
found Tom Alibi's advice had determined him against undertaking
the work. 'Not but what I would go to--(what was I going to
say?) to the Plantations for the church with pleasure--but, dear
doctor, I have a wife and family; but, to show my zeal, I'll
recommend the job to my neighbour Trimmel--he is a bachelor, and
leaving off business, so a voyage in a western barge would not
inconvenience him.' But Mr. Trimmel was also obdurate, and Mr.
Pembroke, fortunately perchance for himself, was compelled to
return to Waverley-Honour with his treatise in vindication of the
real fundamental principles of church and state safely packed in
his saddle-bags.
As the public were thus likely to be deprived of the benefit
arising from his lucubrations by the selfish cowardice of the
trade, Mr. Pembroke resolved to make two copies of these
tremendous manuscripts for the use of his pupil. He felt that he
had been indolent as a tutor, and, besides, his conscience
checked him for complying with the request of Mr. Richard
Waverley, that he would impress no sentiments upon Edward's mind
inconsistent with the present settlement in church and state.
But now, thought he, I may, without breach of my word, since he
is no longer under my tuition, afford the youth the means of
judging for himself, and have only to dread his reproaches for so
long concealing the light which the perusal will flash upon his
mind. While he thus indulged the reveries of an author and a
politician, his darling proselyte, seeing nothing very inviting
in the title of the tracts, and appalled by the bulk and compact
lines of the manuscript, quietly consigned them to a corner of
his travelling trunk.
Aunt Rachel's farewell was brief and affectionate. She only
cautioned her dear Edward, whom she probably deemed somewhat
susceptible, against the fascination of Scottish beauty. She
allowed that the northern part of the island contained some
ancient families, but they were all Whigs and Presbyterians
except the Highlanders; and respecting them she must needs say,
there could be no great delicacy among the ladies, where the
gentlemen's usual attire was, as she had been assured, to say the
least, very singular, and not at all decorous. She concluded her
farewell with a kind and moving benediction, and gave the young
officer, as a pledge of her regard, a valuable diamond ring
(often worn by the male sex at that time), and a purse of broad
gold pieces, which also were more common Sixty Years since than
they have been of late.
CHAPTER VII
A HORSE-QUARTER IN SCOTLAND
The next morning, amid varied feelings, the chief of which was a
predominant, anxious, and even solemn impression, that he was now
in a great measure abandoned to his own guidance and direction,
Edward Waverley departed from the Hall amid the blessings and
tears of all the old domestics and the inhabitants of the
village, mingled with some sly petitions for sergeantcies and
corporalships, and so forth, on the part of those who professed
that 'they never thoft to ha' seen Jacob, and Giles, and
Jonathan, go off for soldiers, save to attend his honour, as in
duty bound.' Edward, as in duty bound, extricated himself from
the supplicants with the pledge of fewer promises than might have
been expected from a young man so little accustomed to the world.
After a short visit to London, he proceeded on horseback, then
the general mode of travelling, to Edinburgh, and from thence to
Dundee, a seaport on the eastern coast of Angus-shire, where his
regiment was then quartered.
He now entered upon a new world, where, for a time, all was
beautiful because all was new. Colonel Gardiner, the commanding
officer of the regiment, was himself a study for a romantic, and
at the same time an inquisitive, youth. In person he was tall,
handsome, and active, though somewhat advanced in life. In his
early years, he had been what is called, by manner of palliative,
a very gay young man, and strange stories were circulated about
his sudden conversion from doubt, if not infidelity, to a serious
and even enthusiastic turn of mind. It was whispered that a
supernatural communication, of a nature obvious even to the
exterior senses, had produced this wonderful change; and though
some mentioned the proselyte as an enthusiast, none hinted at his
being a hypocrite. This singular and mystical circumstance gave
Colonel Gardiner a peculiar and solemn interest in the eyes of
the young soldier. [See Note 4.] It may be easily imagined that
the officers of a regiment, commanded by so respectable a person,
composed a society more sedate and orderly than a military mess
always exhibits; and that Waverley escaped some temptations to
which he might otherwise have been exposed.
Meanwhile his military education proceeded. Already a good
horseman, he was now initiated into the arts of the manege,
which, when carried to perfection, almost realize the fable of
the Centaur, the guidance of the horse appearing to proceed from
the rider's mere volition, rather than from the use of any
external and apparent signal of motion. He received also
instructions in his field duty; but, I must own, that when his
first ardour was passed, his progress fell short in the latter
particular of what he wished and expected. The duty of an
officer, the most imposing of all others to the inexperienced
mind, because accompanied with so much outward pomp and
circumstance, is in its essence a very dry and abstract task,
depending chiefly upon arithmetical combinations, requiring much
attention, and a cool and reasoning head, to bring them into
action. Our hero was liable to fits of absence, in which his
blunders excited some mirth, and called down some reproof. This
circumstance impressed him with a painful sense of inferiority in
those qualities which appeared most to deserve and obtain regard
in his new profession. He asked himself in vain, why his eye
could not judge of distance or space so well as those of his
companions; why his head was not always successful in
disentangling the various partial movements necessary to execute
a particular evolution; and why his memory, so alert upon most
occasions, did not correctly retain technical phrases, and minute
points of etiquette or field discipline. Waverley was naturally
modest, and therefore did not fall into the egregious mistake of
supposing such minuter rules of military duty beneath his notice,
or conceiting himself to be born a general, because he made an
indifferent subaltern. The truth was, that the vague and
unsatisfactory course of reading which he had pursued, working
upon a temper naturally retired and abstracted, had given him
that wavering and unsettled habit of mind, which is most averse
to study and riveted attention. Time, in the meanwhile, hung
heavy on his hands. The gentry of the neighbourhood were
disaffected, and, showed little hospitality to the military
guests; and the people of the town, chiefly engaged in mercantile
pursuits, were not such as Waverley chose to associate with. The
arrival of summer, and a curiosity to know something more of
Scotland than he could see in a ride from his quarters,
determined him to request leave of absence for a few weeks. He
resolved first to visit his uncle's ancient friend and
correspondent, with the purpose of extending or shortening the
time of his residence according to circumstances. He travelled
of course on horseback, and with a single attendant, and passed
his first night at a miserable inn, where the landlady had
neither shoes nor stockings, and the landlord, who called himself
a gentleman, was disposed to be rude to his guest, because he had
not bespoke the pleasure of his society to supper. [See Note 5.]
The next day, traversing an open and unenclosed country, Edward
gradually approached the Highlands of Perthshire, which at first
had appeared a blue outline in the horizon, but now swelled into
huge gigantic masses, which frowned defiance over the more level
country that lay beneath them. Near the bottom of this
stupendous barrier, but still in the Lowland country, dwelt Cosmo
Comyne Bradwardine of Bradwardine; and, if grey-haired eld can be
in aught believed, there had dwelt his ancestors, with all their
heritage, since the days of the gracious King Duncan.
CHAPTER VIII
A SCOTTISH MANOR-HOUSE SIXTY YEARS SINCE
It was about noon when Captain Waverley entered the straggling
village, or rather hamlet, of Tully-Veolan, close to which was
situated the mansion of the proprietor. The houses seemed
miserable in the extreme, especially to an eye accustomed to the
smiling neatness of English cottages. They stood, without any
respect for regularity, on each side of & straggling kind of
unpaved street, where children, almost in a primitive state of
nakedness, lay sprawling, as if to be crushed by the hoofs of the
first passing horse. Occasionally, indeed, when such a
consummation seemed inevitable, a watchful old grandam, with her
close cap, distaff, and spindle, rushed like a sibyl in frenzy
out of one of these miserable cells, dashed into the middle of
the path, and snatching up her own charge from among the sunburnt
loiterers, saluted him with a sound cuff, and transported him
back to his dungeon, the little white-headed varlet screaming all
the while, from the very top of his lungs, a shrilly treble to
the growling remonstrances of the enraged matron. Another part
in this concert was sustained by the incessant yelping of a score
of idle useless curs, which followed, snarling, barking, howling,
and snapping at the horses' heels; a nuisance at that time so
common in Scotland, that a French tourist, who, like other
travellers, longed to find a good and rational reason for
everything he saw, has recorded, as one of the memorabilia of
Caledonia, that the state maintained in each village a relay of
curs, called COLLIES, whose duty it was to chase the CHEVAUX DE
POSTE (too starved and exhausted to move without such a stimulus)
from one hamlet to another, till their annoying convoy drove them
to the end of their stage. The evil and remedy (such as it is)
still exist: but this is remote from our present purpose, and is
only thrown out for consideration of the collectors under Mr.
Dent's dog bill.
As Waverley moved on, here and there an old man, bent as much by
toil as years, his eyes bleared with age and smoke, tottered to
the door of his hut, to gaze on the dress of the stranger, and
the form and motions of the horses, and then assembled with his
neighbours, in a little group at the smithy, to discuss the
probabilities of whence the stranger came, and where he might be
going. Three or four village girls, returning from the well or
brook with pitchers and pails upon their heads, formed more
pleasing objects; and, with their thin, short gowns and single
petticoats, bare arms, legs, and feet, uncovered heads, and
braided hair, somewhat resembled Italian forms of landscape. Nor
could a lover of the picturesque have challenged either the
elegance of their costume, or the symmetry of their shape;
although, to say the truth, a mere Englishman, in search of the
COMFORTABLE, a word peculiar to his native tongue, might have
wished the clothes less scanty, the feet and legs somewhat
protected from the weather, the head and complexion shrouded from
the sun, or perhaps might even have thought the whole person and
dress considerably improved, by a plentiful application of spring
water, with a QUANTUM SUFFICIT of soap, The whole scene was
depressing; for it argued, at the first glance, at least a
stagnation of industry, and perhaps of intellect. Even
curiosity, the busiest passion of the idle, seemed of a listless
cast in the village of Tully-Veolan: the curs aforesaid alone
showed any part of its activity; with the villagers it was
passive. They stood and gazed at the handsome young officer and
his attendant, but without any of those quick motions, and eager
looks, that indicate the earnestness with which those who live in
monotonous ease at home, look out for amusement abroad. Yet the
physiognomy of the people, when more closely examined, was far
from exhibiting the indifference of stupidity; their features
were rough, but remarkably intelligent; grave, but the very
reverse of stupid; and from among the young women, an artist
might have chosen more than one model, whose features and form
resembled those of Minerva. The children, also, whose skins were
burnt black, and whose hair was bleached white, by the influence
of the sun, had a look and manner of life and interest. It
seemed, upon the whole, as if poverty, and indolence, its too
frequent companion, were combining to depress the natural genius
and acquired information of a hardy, intelligent, and reflecting
peasantry.
Some such thoughts crossed Waverley's mind as he paced his horse
slowly through the rugged and flinty street of Tully-Veolan,
interrupted only in his meditations by the occasional caprioles
which his charger exhibited at the reiterated assaults of those
canine Cossacks, the COLLIES before mentioned. The village was
more than half a mile long, the cottages being irregularly
divided from each other by gardens, or yards, as the inhabitants
called them, of different sizes, where (for it is Sixty Years
since) the now universal potato was unknown, but which were
stored with gigantic plants of KALE or colewort, encircled with
groves of nettles, and exhibited here and there a huge hemlock,
or the national thistle, overshadowing a quarter of the petty
enclosure. The broken ground on which the village was built had
never been levelled; so that these enclosures presented
declivities of every degree, here rising like terraces, there
sinking like tan-pits. The dry-stone walls which fenced, or
seemed to fence (for they were sorely breached), these hanging
gardens of Tully-Veolan, were intersected by a narrow lane
leading to the common field, where the joint labour of the
villagers cultivated alternate ridges and patches of rye, oats,
barley, and peas, each of such minute extent, that at a little
distance the unprofitable variety of the surface resembled a
tailor's book of patterns. In a few favoured instances, there
appeared behind the cottages a miserable wigwam, compiled of
earth, loose stones, and turf, where the wealthy might perhaps
shelter a starved cow or sorely galled horse. But almost every
hut was fenced in front by a huge black stack of turf on one side
of the door, while on the other the family dung-hill ascended in
noble emulation.
About a bow-shot from the end of the village appeared the
enclosures, proudly denominated the Parks of Tully-Veolan, being
certain square fields, surrounded and divided by stone walls five
feet in height. In the centre of the exterior barrier was the
upper gate of the avenue, opening under an archway, battlemented
on the top, and adorned with two large weather-beaten mutilated
masses of upright stone, which, if the tradition of the hamlet
could be trusted, had once represented, at least had been once
designed to represent, two rampant Bears, the supporters of the
family of Bradwardine. This avenue was straight, and of moderate
length, running between a double row of very ancient horse-
chestnuts, planted alternately with sycamores, which rose to such
huge height, and flourished so luxuriantly, that their boughs
completely over-arched the broad road beneath. Beyond these
venerable ranks, and running parallel to them, were two high
walls, of apparently the like antiquity, overgrown with ivy,
honeysuckle, and other climbing plants. The avenue seemed very
little trodden, and chiefly by foot-passengers; so that being
very broad, and enjoying a constant shade, it was clothed with
grass of a deep and rich verdure, excepting where a footpath,
worn by occasional passengers, tracked with a natural sweep the
way from the upper to the lower gate. This nether portal, like
the former, opened in front of a wall ornamented with some rude
sculpture, with battlements on the top, over which were seen,
half-hidden by the trees of the avenue, the high steep roofs and
narrow gables of the mansion, with lines indented into steps, and
corners decorated with small turrets. One of the folding leaves
of the lower gate was open, and as the sun shone full into the
court behind, a long line of brilliancy was flung upon the
aperture up the dark and gloomy avenue. It was one of those
effects which a painter loves to represent, and mingled well with
the struggling light which found its way between the boughs of
the shady arch that vaulted the broad green alley.
The solitude and repose of the whole scene seemed almost
romantic; and Waverley, who had given his horse to his servant on
entering the first gate, walked slowly down the avenue, enjoying
the grateful and cooling shade, and so much pleased with the
placid ideas of rest and seclusion excited by this confined and
quiet scene, that he forgot the misery and dirt of the hamlet he
had left behind him. The opening into the paved courtyard
corresponded with the rest of the scene. The house, which seemed
to consist of two or three high, narrow, and steep-roofed
buildings, projecting from each other at right angles, formed one
side of the enclosure. It had been built at a period when
castles were no longer necessary, and when the Scottish
architects had not yet acquired the art of designing a domestic
residence. The windows were numberless, but very small; the roof
had some nondescript kind of projections, called bartizans, and
displayed at each frequent angle a small turret, rather
resembling a pepper-box than a Gothic watch-tower. Neither did
the front indicate absolute security from danger. There were
loop-holes for musketry, and iron stanchions on the lower
windows, probably to repel any roving band of gipsies, or resist
a predatory visit from the Caterans of the neighbouring
Highlands. Stables and other offices occupied another side of
the square. The former were low vaults, with narrow slits
instead of windows, resembling, as Edward's groom observed,
'rather a prison for murderers and larceners, and such like as
are tried at 'sizes, than a place for any Christian cattle.'
Above these dungeon-looking stables were granaries, called
girnels, and other offices, to which there was access by outside
stairs of heavy masonry. Two battlemented walls, one of which
faced the avenue, and the other divided the court from the
garden, completed the enclosure.
Nor was the court without its ornaments. In one corner was a
tun-bellied pigeon-house, of great size and rotundity, resembling
in figure and proportion the curious edifice called Arthur's
Oven, which would have turned the brains of all the antiquaries
in England, had not the worthy proprietor pulled it down for the
sake of mending a neighbouring dam-dyke. This dovecot, or
COLUMBARIUM, as the owner called it, was no small resource to a
Scottish laird of that period, whose scanty rents were eked out
by the contributions levied upon the farms by these light
foragers, and the conscriptions exacted from the latter for the
benefit of the table.
Another corner of the court displayed a fountain, where a huge
bear, carved in stone, predominated over a large stone basin,
into which he disgorged the water. This work of art was the
wonder of the country ten miles round. It must not be forgotten,
that all sorts of bears, small and large, demi or in full
proportion, were carved over the windows, upon the ends of the
gables, terminated the spouts, and supported the turrets, with
the ancient family motto 'BEWAR THE BAR,' cut under each
hyperborean form. The court was spacious, well paved, and
perfectly clean, there being probably another entrance behind the
stables for removing the litter. Everything around appeared
solitary, and would have been silent, but for the continued
plashing of the fountain; and the whole scene still maintained
the monastic illusion which the fancy of Waverley had conjured
up.--And here we beg permission to close a chapter of still life.
[There is no particular mansion described under the name of
Tully-Veolan; but the peculiarities of the description occur in
various old Scottish seats. The House of Warrender upon
Bruntsfield Links, and that of Old Ravelston, belonging, the
former to Sir George Warrender, the latter to Sir Alexander
Keith, have both contributed several hints to the description in
the text. The House of Dean, near Edinburgh, has also some
points of resemblance with Tully-Veolan. The author has,
however, been informed, that the House of Grandtully resembles
that of the Baron of Bradwardine still more than any of the
above.]
CHAPTER IX
MORE OF THE MANOR-HOUSE AND ITS ENVIRONS
After having satisfied his curiosity by gazing around him for a
few minutes, Waverley applied himself to the massive knocker of
the hall-door, the architrave of which bore the date 1594. But
no answer was returned, though the peal resounded through a
number of apartments, and was echoed from the courtyard walls
without the house, startling the pigeons from the venerable
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