Waverley
by
Walter Scott
Part 2 out of 11
rotunda which they occupied, and alarming anew even the distant
village curs, which had retired to sleep upon their respective
dung-hills. Tired of the din which he created, and the
unprofitable responses which it excited, Waverley began to think
that he had reached the castle of Orgoglio, as entered by the
victorious Prince Arthur,
When 'gan he loudly through the house to call,
But no man cared to answer to his cry;
There reigned a solemn silence over all,
Nor voice was heard, nor wight was seen, in bower or hall.
Filled almost with expectation of beholding some 'old, old man,
with beard as white as snow,' whom he might question concerning
this deserted mansion, our hero turned to a little oaken wicket-
door, well clenched with iron nails, which opened in the
courtyard wall at its angle with the house. It was only latched,
notwithstanding its fortified appearance, and, when opened,
admitted him into the garden, which presented a pleasant scene.
[At Ravelston may be seen such a garden, which the taste of the
proprietor, the author's friend and kinsman, Sir Alexander Keith,
Knight Mareschal, has judiciously preserved. That, as well as
the house, is, however, of smaller dimensions than the Baron of
Bradwardine's mansion and garden are presumed to have been.] The
southern side of the house, clothed with fruit-trees, and having
many evergreens trained upon its walls, extended its irregular
yet venerable front along a terrace, partly paved, partly
gravelled, partly bordered with flowers and choice shrubs. This
elevation descended by three several flights of steps, placed in
its centre and at the extremities, into what might be called the
garden proper, and was fenced along the top by a stone parapet
with a heavy balustrade, ornamented from space to space with huge
grotesque figures of animals seated upon their haunches, among
which the favourite bear was repeatedly introduced. Placed in
the middle of the terrace, between a sashed door opening from the
house and the central flight of steps, a huge animal of the same
species supported on his head and fore-paws a sundial of large
circumference, inscribed with more diagrams than Edward's
mathematics enabled him to decipher.
The garden, which seemed to be kept with great accuracy, abounded
in fruit-trees, and exhibited a profusion of flowers and
evergreens, cut into grotesque forms. It was laid out in
terraces, which descended rank by rank from the western wall to a
large brook, which had a tranquil and smooth appearance, where it
served as a boundary to the garden; but, near the extremity,
leapt in tumult over a strong dam, or weir-head, the cause of its
temporary tranquillity, and there forming a cascade, was
overlooked by an octangular summer-house, with a gilded bear on
the top by way of vane. After this feat, the brook, assuming its
natural rapid and fierce character, escaped from the eye down a
deep and wooded dell, from the copse of which arose a massive,
but ruinous tower, the former habitation of the Barons of
Bradwardine, The margin of the brook, opposite to the garden,
displayed a narrow meadow, or haugh, as it was called, which
formed a small washing-green; the bank, which retired behind it,
was covered by ancient trees.
The scene, though pleasing, was not quite equal to the gardens of
Alcina; yet wanted not the 'DUE DONZELLETTE GARRULE' of that
enchanted paradise, for upon the green aforesaid two bare-legged
damsels, each standing in a spacious tub, performed with their
feet the office of a patent washing-machine. These did not,
however, like the maidens of Armida, remain to greet with their
harmony the approaching guest, but, alarmed at the appearance of
a handsome stranger on the opposite side, dropped their garments
(I should say garment, to be quite-correct) over their limbs,
which their occupation exposed somewhat too freely, and, with a
shrill exclamation of 'Eh, sirs!' uttered with an accent between
modesty and coquetry, sprang off like deer in different
directions.
Waverley began to despair of gaining entrance into this solitary
and seemingly enchanted mansion, when a, man advanced up one of
the garden alleys, where he still retained his station. Trusting
this might be a gardener, or some domestic belonging to the
house, Edward descended the steps in order to meet him; but as
the figure approached, and long before he could descry its
features, he was struck with the oddity of its appearance and
gestures.--Sometimes this mister wight held his hands clasped
over his head, like an Indian Jogue in the attitude of penance;
sometimes he swung them perpendicularly, like a pendulum, on each
side; and anon he slapped them swiftly and repeatedly across his
breast, like the substitute used by a hackney-coachman for his
usual flogging exercise, when his cattle are idle upon the stand
in a clear frosty day. His gait was as singular as his gestures,
for at times he hopped with great perseverance on the right foot,
then exchanged that supporter to advance in the same manner on
the left, and then putting his feet close together, he hopped
upon both at once. His attire, also, was antiquated and
extravagant. It consisted in a sort of grey jerkin, with scarlet
cuffs and slashed sleeves, showing a scarlet lining; the other
parts of the dress corresponded in colour, not forgetting a pair
of scarlet stockings, and a scarlet bonnet, proudly surmounted
with a turkey's feather. Edward, whom he did not seem to
observe, now perceived confirmation in his features of what the
mien and gestures had already announced. It was apparently
neither idiocy nor insanity which gave that wild, unsettled,
irregular expression to a face which naturally was rather
handsome, but something that resembled a compound of both, where
the simplicity of the fool was mixed with the extravagance of a
crazed imagination. He sang with great earnestness, and not
without some taste, a fragment of an old Scottish ditty:--
False love, and hast thou played me thus
In summer among the flowers?
I will repay thee back again
In winter among the showers.
Unless again, again, my love,
Unless you turn again;
As you with other maidens rove,
I'll smile on other men.
[This is a genuine ancient fragment, with some alteration in the
last two lines.]
Here lifting up his eyes, which had hither&o been fixed in
observing how his feet kept time to the tune, he beheld Waverley,
and instantly doffed his cap, with many grotesque signals of
surprise, respect, and salutation. Edward, though with little
hope of receiving an answer to any constant question, requested
to know whether Mr. Bradwardine were at home, or where he could
find any of the domestics. The questioned party replied,--and,
like the witch of Thalaba, 'still his speech was song,'--
The Knight's to the mountain
His bugle to wind;
The Lady's to greenwood
Her garland to bind.
The bower of Burd Ellen
Has moss on the floor,
That the step of Lord William
Be silent and sure.
This conveyed no information, and Edward, repeating his queries,
received a rapid answer, in which, from the haste and peculiarity
of the dialect, the word 'butler' was alone intelligible.
Waverley then requested to see the butler; upon which the fellow,
with a knowing look and nod of intelligence, made a signal to
Edward to follow, and began to dance and caper down the alley up
which he had made his approaches.--A strange guide this, thought
Edward, and not much unlike one of Shakespeare's roynish clowns.
I am not over prudent to trust to his pilotage; but wiser men
have been led by fools.--By this time he reached the bottom of
the alley, where, turning short on a little parterre of flowers,
shrouded from the east and north by a close yew hedge, he found
an old man at work without his coat, whose appearance hovered
between that of an upper servant and gardener; his red nose and
ruffed shirt belonging to the former profession; his hale and
sunburnt visage, with his green apron, appearing to indicate
Old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden.
The major domo--for such he was, and indisputably the second
officer of state in the barony (nay, as chief minister of the
interior, superior even to Bailie Macwheeble, in his own
department of the kitchen and cellar)--the major domo laid down
his spade, slipped on his coat in haste, and with a wrathful look
at Edward's guide, probably excited by his having introduced a
stranger while he was engaged in this laborious, and, as he might
suppose it, degrading office, requested to know the gentleman's
commands. Being informed that he wished to pay his respects to
his master, that his name was Waverley, and so forth, the old
man's countenance assumed a great deal of respectful importance.
'He could take it upon his conscience to say, his honour would
have exceeding pleasure in seeing him. Would not Mr. Waverley
choose some refreshment after his journey? His honour was with
the folk who were getting doon the dark hag; the twa gardener
lads (an emphasis on the word TWA) had been ordered to attend
him; and he had been just amusing himself in the meantime with
dressing Miss Rose's flower-bed, that he might be near to receive
his honour's orders, if need were: he was very fond of a garden,
but had little time for such divertisements.'
'He canna get it wrought in abune twa days in the week at no rate
whatever,' said Edward's fantastic conductor.
A grim look from the butler chastised his interference, and he
commanded him, by the name of Davie Gellatley, in a tone which
admitted no discussion, to look for his honour at the dark hag,
and tell him there was a gentleman from the south had arrived at
the Ha'.
'Can this poor fellow deliver a letter?' asked Edward.
'With all fidelity, sir, to any one whom he respects. I would
hardly trust him with a long message by word of mouth--though he
is more knave than fool.'
Waverley delivered his credentials to Mr. Gellatley, who seemed
to confirm the butler's last observation, by twisting his
features at him, when he was looking another way, into the
resemblance of the grotesque face on the bowl of a German
tobacco-pipe; after which, with an odd conge to Waverley, he
danced off to discharge his errand.
'He is an innocent, sir,' said the butler; 'there is one such in
almost every town in the country, but ours is brought far ben.
He used to work a day's turn weel eneugh; but he help'd Miss Rose
when she was flemit with the Laird of Killancureit's new English
bull, and since that time we ca' him Davie Do-little indeed we
might ca' him Davie Do-naething, for since he got that gay
clothing, to please his honour and my young mistress (great folks
will have their fancies), he has done naething but dance up and
down about the TOUN, without doing a single turn, unless trimming
the laird's fishing-wand or busking his flies, or maybe catching
a dish of trouts at an orra-time. But here comes Miss Rose, who,
I take burden upon me for her, will be especially glad to see one
of the house of Waverley at her father's mansion at Tully-
Veolan.'
But Rose Bradwardine deserves better of her unworthy historian,
than to be introduced at the end of a chapter.
In the meanwhile it may be noticed, that Waverley learned two
things from this colloquy; that in Scotland a single house was
called a TOWN, and a natural fool an INNOCENT. [See Note 6.]
CHAPTER X
ROSE BRADWARDINE AND HER FATHER
Miss Bradwardine was but seventeen; yet, at the last races of the
county town of --, upon her health being proposed among a round
of beauties, the Laird of Bumperquaigh, permanent feast-master
and croupier of the Bautherwhillery Club, not only said MORE to
the pledge in a pint bumper of Bourdeaux, but, ere pouring forth
the libation, denominated the divinity to whom it was dedicated,
'the Rose of Tully-Veolan;' upon which festive occasion, three
cheers were given by all the sitting members of that respectable
society, whose throats the wine had left capable of such
exertion. Nay, I am well assured, that the sleeping partners of
the company snorted applause, and that although strong bumpers
and weak brains had consigned two or three to the floor, yet even
these, fallen as they were from their high estate, and weltering
--I will carry the parody no further--uttered divers inarticulate
sounds, intimating their assent to the motion.
Such unanimous applause could not be extorted but by acknowledged
merit; and Rose Bradwardine not only deserved it, but also the
approbation of much more rational persons than the
Bautherwhillery Club could have mustered, even before discussion
of the first MAGNUM. She was indeed a very pretty girl of the
Scotch cast of beauty, that is, with a profusion of hair of paley
gold, and a skin like the snow of her own mountains in whiteness.
Yet she had not a pallid or pensive cast of countenance; her
features, as well as her temper, had a lively expression; her
complexion, though not florid, was so pure as to seem
transparent, and the slightest emotion sent her whole blood at
once to her face and neck. Her form, though under the common
size, was remarkably elegant, and her motions light, easy, and
unembarrassed. She came from another part of the garden to
receive Captain Waverley, with a manner that hovered between
bashfulness and courtesy.
The first greetings past, Edward learned from her that the dark
hag, which had somewhat puzzled him in the butler's account of
his master's avocations, had nothing to do either with a black
cat or a broomstick, but was simply a portion of oak copse which
was to be felled that day. She offered, with diffident civility,
to show the stranger the way to the spot, which, it seems, was
not far distant; but they were prevented by the appearance of the
Baron of Bradwardine in person, who, summoned by David Gellatley,
now appeared, 'on hospitable thoughts intent,' clearing the
ground at a prodigious rate with swift and long strides, which
reminded Waverley of the seven-league boots of the nursery fable.
He was a tall, thin, athletic figure; old indeed, and grey-
haired, but with every muscle rendered as tough as whip-cord by
constant exercise. He was dressed carelessly, and more like a
Frenchman than an Englishman of the period, while, from his hard
features and perpendicular rigidity of stature, he bore some
resemblance to a Swiss officer of the guards, who had resided
some time at Paris, and caught the costume, but not the ease or
manner of its inhabitants. The truth was, that his language and
habits were as heterogeneous as his external appearance.
Owing to his natural disposition to study, or perhaps to a very
general Scottish fashion of giving young men of rank a legal
education, he had been bred with a view to the Bar. But the
politics of his family precluding the hope of his rising in that
profession, Mr. Bradwardine travelled with high reputation for
several years, and made some campaigns in foreign service. After
his DEMELE with the law of high treason in 1715, he had lived in
retirement, conversing almost entirely with those of his own
principles in the vicinage. The pedantry of the lawyer,
superinduced upon the military pride of the soldier, might remind
a modern of the days of the zealous volunteer service, when the
bar-gown of our pleaders was often hung over a blazing uniform.
To this must be added the prejudices of ancient birth and
Jacobite politics, greatly strengthened by habits of solitary and
secluded authority, which, though exercised only within the
bounds of his half-cultivated estate, was there indisputable and
undisputed. For, as he used to observe, 'the lands of
Bradwardine, Tully-Veolan, and others, had been erected into a
free barony by a charter from David the First, CUM LIBERALI
POTEST. HABENDI CURIAS ET JUSTICIAS, CUM FOSSA ET FURCA (LIE pit
and gallows) ET SAKA ET SOKA, ET THOL ET THEAM, ET INFANG-THIEF
ET OUTFANG-THIEF, SIVE HAND-HABEND. SIVE BAK-BARAND.' The
peculiar meaning of all these cabalistical words few or none
could explain; but they implied, upon the whole, that the Baron
of Bradwardine might, in case of delinquency, imprison, try, and
execute his vassals at his pleasure. Like James the First.
however, the present possessor of this authority was more pleased
in talking about prerogative than in exercising it; and,
excepting that he imprisoned two poachers in the dungeon of the
old tower of Tully-Veolan, where they were sorely frightened by
ghosts, and almost eaten by rats, and that he set an old woman in
the JOUGS (or Scottish pillory) for saying 'there were mair fules
in the laird's ha' house than Davie Gellatley,' I do not learn
that he was accused of abusing his high powers. Still, however,
the conscious pride of possessing them gave additional importance
to his language and deportment.
At his first address to Waverley, it would seem that the hearty
pleasure he felt to behold the nephew of his friend had somewhat
discomposed the stiff and upright dignity of the Baron of
Bradwardine's demeanour, for the tears stood in the old
gentleman's eyes, when, having first shaken Edward heartily by
the hand in the English fashion, he embraced him A LA MODE
FRANCAISE, and kissed him on both sides of his face; while the
hardness of his grip, and the quantity of Scotch snuff which his
ACCOLADE communicated, called corresponding drops of moisture to
the eyes of his guest.
'Upon the honour of a gentleman,' he said, 'but it makes me young
again to see you here, Mr. Waverley!' A worthy scion of the old
stock of Waverley-Honour--SPES ALTERA, as Maro hath it--and you
have the look of the old line, Captain Waverley, not so portly
yet as my old friend Sir Everard--MAIS CELA VIENDRA AVEC LE
TEMPS, as my Dutch acquaintance, Baron Kikkitbroeck, said of the
SAGESSE of MADAME SON EPOUSE.--And so ye have mounted the
cockade? Right, right; though I could have wished the colour
different, and so I would ha' deemed might Sir Everard. But no
more of that; I am old, and times are changed.--And how does the
worthy knight baronet, and the fair Mrs. Rachel?--Ah, ye laugh,
young man! In troth she was the fair Mrs. Rachel in the year of
grace seventeen hundred and sixteen; but time passes--ET SINGULA
PRAEDANTUR ANNI--that is most certain. But once again, ye are
most heartily welcome to my poor house of Tully-Veolan!--Hie to
the house, Rose, and see that Alexander Saunderson leaks out the
old Chateau Margaux, which I sent from Bourdeaux to Dundee in the
year 1713.'
Rose tripped off demurely enough till she turned the first
corner, and then ran with the speed of a fairy, that she might
gain leisure, after discharging her father's commission, to put
her own dress in order, and produce all her little finery, an
occupation for which the approaching dinner hour left but limited
time.
'We cannot rival the luxuries of your English table, Captain
Waverley, or give you the EPULAE LAUTIORES of Wavery-Honour--I
say EPULAE rather than PRANDIUM, because the latter phrase is
popular; EPULAE AD SENATUM, PRANDIUM VERO AD POPULUM ATTINET,
says Suetonius Tranquillus. But I trust ye will applaud my
Bourdeaux; C'EST D'UNE OREILLE, as Captain Vinsauf used to say--
VINUM PRIMAE NOTAE, the Principal of St. Andrews denominated it.
And, once more, Captain Waverley, right glad am I that ye are
here to drink the best my cellar can make forthcoming.'
This speech, with the necessary interjectional answers, continued
from the lower alley where they met, up to the door of the house,
where four or five servants in old-fashioned liveries, headed by
Alexander Saunderson, the butler, who now bore no token of the
sable stains of the garden, received them in grand costume,
In an old hall hung round with pikes and with bows,
With old bucklers and corselets that had borne many shrewd
blows.
With much ceremony, and still more real kindness, the Baron,
without stopping in any intermediate apartment, conducted his
guest through several into the great dining parlour, wainscoted
with black oak, and hung round with the pictures of his ancestry,
where a table was set forth in form for six persons, and an old-
fashioned beaufet displayed all the ancient and massive plate of
the Bradwardine family. A bell was now heard at the head of the
avenue; for an old man, who acted as porter upon gala days, had
caught the alarm given by Waverley's arrival, and, repairing to
his post, announced the arrival of other guests.
These, as the Baron assured his young friend, were very estimable
persons. 'There was the young Laird of Balmawhapple, a Falconer
by surname, of the house of Glenfarquhar, given right much to
field sports--GAUDAT EQUIS ET CANIBUS--but a very discreet young
gentleman. Then there was the Laird of Killancureit, who had
devoted his leisure UNTILL tillage and agriculture, and boasted
himself to be possessed of a bull of matchless merit, brought
from the county of Devon (the Damnonia, of the Romans, if we can
trust Robert of Cirencester). He is, as ye may well suppose from
such a tendency, but of yeoman extraction--SERVABIT ODOREM TESTA
DIU--and I believe, between ourselves, his grandsire was from the
wrong side of the Border--one Bullsegg, who came hither as a
steward, or bailiff, or ground-officer, or something in that
department, to the last Girnigo of Killancureit, who died of an
atrophy. After his master's death, sir,--ye would hardly believe
such a scandal,--but this Bullsegg, being portly and comely of
aspect, intermarried with the lady dowager, who was young and
amorous, and possessed himself of the estate, which devolved on
this unhappy woman by a settlement of her umwhile husband, in
direct contravention of an unrecorded taillie, and to the
prejudice of the disponer's own flesh and blood, in the person of
his natural heir and seventh cousin, Girnigo of Tipperhewit,
whose family was so reduced by the ensuing lawsuit, that his
represenative is now serving as a private gentleman-sentinel in
the Highland Black Watch. But this gentleman, Mr. Bullsegg of
Killancureit that now is, has good blood in his veins by the
mother and grandmother, who were both of the family of
Pickletillim, and he is well liked and looked upon, and knows his
own place. And God forbid, Captain Waverley, that we of
irreproachable lineage should exult over him, when it may be,
that in the eighth, ninth, or tenth generation, his progeny may
rank, in a manner, with the old gentry of the country. Rank and
ancestry, sir, should be the last words in the mouths of us of
unblemished race--VIX EA NOSTRA VOCO, as Naso saith.--There is,
besides, a clergyman of the true (though suffering) Episcopal
church of Scotland. He was a confessor in her cause after the
year 1715, when a Whiggish mob destroyed his meeting-house, tore
his surplice, and plundered his dwelling-house of four silver
spoons, intromitting also with his mart and his meal-ark, and
with two barrels, one of single, and one of double ale, besides
three bottles of brandy. [See Note 7.] My Baron-Bailie and
doer, Mr. Duncan Macwheeble, is the fourth on our list. There is
a question, owing to the incertitude of ancient orthography,
whether he belongs to the clan of Wheedle or of Quibble, but both
have produced persons eminent in the law.'--
As such he described them by person and name,
They entered, and dinner was served as they came.
CHAPTER XI
THE BANQUET
The entertainment was ample, and handsome, according to the
Scotch ideas of the period, and the guests did great honour to
it. The Baron ate like a famished soldier, the Laird of
Balmawhapple like a sportsman, Bullsegg of Killancureit like a
farmer, Waverley himself like a traveller, and Bailie Macwheeble
like all four together; though, either out of more respect, or in
order to preserve that proper declination of person which showed
a sense that he was in the presence of his patron, he sat upon
the edge of his chair, placed at three feet distance from the
table, and achieved a communication with his plate by projecting
his person towards it in a line, which obliqued from the bottom
of his spine, so that the person who sat opposite to him could
only see the foretop of his riding periwig.
This stooping position might have been inconvenient to another
person; but long habit made it, whether seated or walking,
perfectly easy to the worthy Bailie. In the latter posture, it
occasioned, no doubt, an unseemly projection of the person
towards those who happened to walk behind; but those being at all
times his inferiors (for Mr. Macwheeble was very scrupulous in
giving place to all others), he cared very little what inference
of contempt or slight regard they might derive from the
circumstance. Hence, when he waddled across the court to and
from his old grey pony, he somewhat resembled a turnspit walking
upon its hind legs.
The nonjuring clergyman was a pensive and interesting old man,
with much the air of a sufferer for conscience' sake. He was one
of those,
Who, undeprived, their benefice forsook.
For this whim, when the Baron was out of hearing, the Bailie used
sometimes gently to rally Mr. Rubrick, upbraiding him with the
nicety of his scruples. Indeed it must be owned, that he
himself, though at heart a keen partisan of the exiled family,
had kept pretty fair with all the different turns of state in his
time; so that Davie Gellatley once described him as a
particularly good man, who had a very quiet and peaceful
conscience, THAT NEVER DID HIM ANY HARM.
When the dinner was removed, the Baron announced the health of
the King, politely leaving to the consciences of his guests to
drink to the sovereign DE FACTO or DE JURE, as their politics
inclined. The conversation now became general; and, shortly
afterwards, Miss Bradwardine, who had done the honours with
natural grace and simplicity, retired, and was soon followed by
the clergyman. Among the rest of the party, the wine, which
fully justified the encomiums of the landlord, flowed freely
round, although Waverley, with some difficulty, obtained the
privilege of sometimes neglecting the glass. At length, as the
evening grew more late, the Baron made a private signal to Mr.
Saunders Saunderson, or, as he facetiously denominated him,
ALEXANDER AB ALEXANDRO, who left the room with a nod, and soon
after returned, his grave countenance mantling with a solemn and
mysterious smile, and placed before his master a small oaken
casket, mounted with brass ornaments of curious form. The Baron,
drawing out a private key, unlocked the casket, raised the lid,
and produced a golden goblet of a singular and antique
appearance, moulded into the shape of a rampant bear, which the
owner regarded with a look of mingled reverence, pride, and
delight, that irresistibly reminded Waverley of Ben Jonson's Tom
Otter, with his Bull, Horse, and Dog, as that wag wittily
denominated his chief carousing cups. But Mr. Bradwardine,
fuming towards him with complacency, requested him to observe
this curious relic of the olden time.
'It represents,' he said, 'the chosen crest of our family, a
bear, as ye observe, and rampant; because a good herald will
depict every animal in its noblest posture; as a horse SALIENT, a
greyhound CURRANT, and, as may be inferred, a ravenous animal IN
ACTU FEROCIORI, or in a voracious, lacerating, and devouring
posture. Now, sir, we hold this most honourable achievement by
the wappen-brief, or concession of arms, of Frederick Redbeard,
Emperor of Germany, to my predecessor, Godmund Bradwardine, it
being the crest of a gigantic Dane, whom he slew in the lists in
the Holy Land, on a quarrel touching the chastity of the
Emperor's spouse or daughter, tradition saith not precisely
which, and thus, as Virgilius hath it--
Mutemus clypeos, Danaumque insignia nobis
Aptemus.
Then for the cup, Captain Waverley, it was wrought by the command
of St. Duthac, Abbot of Aberbrothock, for behoof of another baron
of the house of Bradwardine, who had valiantly defended the
patrimony of that monastery against certain encroaching nobles.
It is properly termed the Blessed Bear of Bradwardine (though old
Dr. Doubleit used jocosely to call it Ursa Major), and was
supposed, in old and Catholic times, to be invested with certain
properties of a mystical and supernatural quality. And though I
give not in to such ANILIA, it is certain it has always been
esteemed a solemn standard cup and heirloom of our house; nor is
it ever used but upon seasons of high festival, and such I hold
to be the arrival of the heir of Sir Everard under my roof; and I
devote this draught to the health and prosperity of the ancient
and highly-to-be-honoured house of Waverley.'
During this long harangue, he carefully decanted a cobwebbed
bottle of claret into the goblet, which held nearly an English
pint; and, at the conclusion, delivering the bottle to the
butler, to be held carefully in the same angle with the horizon,
he devoutly quaffed off the contents of the Blessed Bear of
Bradwardine.
Edward, with horror and alarm, beheld the animal making his
rounds, and thought with great anxiety upon the appropriate
motto, 'Beware the Bear;' but at the same time plainly foresaw,
that as none of the guests scrupled to do him this extraordinary
honour, a refusal on-his part to pledge their courtesy would be
extremely ill received. Resolving, therefore, to submit to this
last piece of tyranny, and then to quit the table, if possible,
and confiding in the strength of his constitution, he did justice
to the company in the contents of the Blessed Bear, and felt less
inconvenience from the draught than he could possibly have
expected. The others, whose time had been more actively
employed, began to show symptoms of innovation,--'the good wine
did its good office.' [Southey's MADOC.] The frost of etiquette,
and pride of birth, began to give way before the genial blessings
of this benign constellation, and the formal appellatives with
which the three dignitaries had hitherto addressed each other,
were now familiarly abbreviated into Tully, Bally, and Killie.
When a few rounds had passed, the two latter, after whispering
together, craved permission (a joyful hearing for Edward) to ask
the grace-cup. This, after some delay, was at length produced,
and Waverley concluded that the orgies of Bacchus were terminated
for the evening. He was never more mistaken in his life.
As the guests had left their horses at the small inn, or CHANGE-
HOUSE, as it was called, of the village, the Baron could not, in
politeness, avoid walking with them up the avenue, and Waverley,
from the same motive, and to enjoy, after this feverish revel,
the cool summer evening, attended the party. But when they
arrived at Luckie Macleary's, the Lairds of Balmawhapple and
Killancureit declared their determination to acknowledge their
sense of the hospitality of Tully-Veolan, by partaking with their
entertainer and his guest Captain Waverley, what they technically
called DEOCH AN DORUIS, a stirrup-cup, to the honour of the
Baron's roof-tree. [See Note 8.]
It must be noticed, that the Bailie, knowing by experience that
the day's joviality, which had been hitherto sustained at the
expense of his patron, might terminate partly at his own, had
mounted his spavined grey pony, and, between gaiety of heart, and
alarm for being hooked into a reckoning, spurred him into a
hobbling canter (a trot was out of the question), and had already
cleared the village. The others entered the change-house,
leading Edward in unresisting submission; for his landlord
whispered him, that to demur to such an overture would be
construed into a high misdemeanour against the LEGES CONVIVIALES,
or regulations of genial compotation. Widow Macleary seemed to
have expected this visit, as well she might, for it was the usual
consummation of merry bouts, not only at Tully-Veolan, but at
most other gentlemen's houses in Scotland, Sixty Years since.
The guests thereby at once acquitted themselves of their burden
of gratitude for their entertainer's kindness, encouraged the
trade of his change-house, did honour to the place which afforded
harbour to their horses, and indemnified themselves for the
previous restraints imposed by private hospitality, by spending,
what Falstaff calls the sweet of the night, in the genial license
of a tavern.
Accordingly, in full expectation of these distinguished guests,
Luckie Macleary had swept her house for the first time this
fortnight, tempered her turf-fire to such a heat as the season
required in her damp hovel even at Midsummer, set forth her deal
table newly washed, propped its lame foot with a fragment of
turf, arranged four or five stools of huge and clumsy form, upon
the sites which best suited the inequalities of her clay floor;
and having, moreover, put on her clean toy, rokelay, and scarlet
plaid, gravely awaited the arrival of the company, in full hope
of custom and profit. When they were seated under the sooty
rafters of Luckie Macleary's only apartment, thickly tapestried
with cobwebs, their hostess, who had already taken her cue from
the Laird of Balmawhapple, appeared with a huge pewter measuring-
pot, containing at least three English quarts, familiarly
denominated a TAPPIT HEN, and which, in the language of the
hostess, reamed (i.e. mantled) with excellent claret, just drawn
from the cask.
It was soon plain that what crumbs of reason the Bear had not
devoured, were to be picked up by the Hen; but the confusion
which appeared to prevail favoured Edward's resolution to evade
the gaily circling glass. The others began to talk thick and at
once, each performing his own part in the conversation, without
the least respect to hist neighbour. The Baron of Bradwardine
sang French CHANSONS-A-BOIRE, and spouted pieces of Latin;
Killancureit talked, in a steady unalterable dull key, of top-
dressing and bottom-dressing, [This has been censured as an
anachronism; and it must be confessed that agriculture of this
kind was unknown to the Scotch Sixty Years since.] and year-
olds, and gimmers, and dinmonts, and stots, and runts, and
kyloes, and a proposed turnpike-act; while Balmawhapple, in notes
exalted above both, extolled his horse, his hawks, and a
greyhound called Whistler. In the middle of this din, the Baron
repeatedly implored silence; and when at length the instinct of
polite discipline so far prevailed, that for a moment he obtained
it, he hastened to beseech their attention 'unto a military
ariette, which was a particular favourite of the Marechal Duc de
Berwick;' then, imitating, as well as he could, the manner and
tone of a French mousquetaire, he immediately commenced,--
Mon coeur volage, dit-elle,
N'est pas pour vous, garcon;
Est pour un homme de guerre,
Qui a barbe au menton.
Lon, Lon, Laridon.
Qui ports chapeau a plume,
Soulier a rouge talon,
Qui joue de la flute,
Aussi du violon.
Lon, Lon, Laridon.
Balmawhapple could hold no longer, but broke in with what he
called a, d--d good song, composed by Gibby Gaethroughwi't, the
piper of Cupar; and, without wasting more time, struck up,--
It's up Glenbarchan's braes I gaed,
And o'er the bent of Killiebraid,
And mony a weary cast I made,
To cuittle the muirfowl's tail.
[SUUM CUIQUE. This snatch of a ballad was composed by Andrew
MacDonald, the ingenious and unfortunate author of VIMONDA.]
The Baron, whose voice was drowned in the louder and more
obstreperous strains of Balmawhapple, now dropped the
competition, but continued to hum, Lon, Lon, Laridon, and to
regard the successful candidate for the attention of the company,
with an eye of disdain, while Balmawhapple proceeded,--
If up a bonny black-cock should spring,
To whistle him down wi' a slug in his wing,
And strap him on to my lunzie string,
Right seldom would I fail.
After an ineffectual attempt to recover the second verse, he sang
the first over again; and, in prosecution of his triumph,
declared there was 'more sense in that than in all the DERRY-
DONGS of France, and Fifeshire to the boot of it.' The Baron
only answered with a long pinch of snuff, and a glance of
infinite contempt. But those noble allies, the Bear and the Hen,
had emancipated the young laird from the habitual reverence in
which he held Bradwardine at other times. He pronounced the
claret SHILPIT, and demanded brandy with great vociferation. It
was brought; and now the Demon of Politics envied even the
harmony arising from this Dutch concert, merely because there was
not a wrathful note in the strange compound of sounds which it
produced. Inspired by her, the Laird of Balmawhapple, now
superior to the nods and winks with which the Baron of
Bradwardine, in delicacy to Edward, had hitherto checked his
entering upon political discussion, demanded a bumper, with the
lungs of a Stentor, 'to the little gentleman in black velvet who
did such service in 1702, and may the white horse break his neck
over a mound of his making!'
Edward was not at that moment clear-headed enough to remember
that King William's fall, which occasioned his death, was said to
be owing to his horse stumbling at a mole-hill; yet felt inclined
to take umbrage at a toast, which seemed, from the glance of
Balmawhapple's eye, to have a peculiar and uncivil reference to
the Government which he served. But, ere he could interfere, the
Baron of Bradwardine had taken up the quarrel. 'Sir,' he said,
'whatever my sentiments, TANQUAM PRIVATUS, may be in such
matters, I shall not tamely endure your saying anything that may
impinge upon the honourable feelings of a gentleman under my
roof. Sir, if you have no respect for the laws of urbanity, do ye
not respect the military oath, the SACRAMENTUM MILITARE, by which
every officer is bound to the standards under which he is
enrolled? Look at Titus Livius, what he says of those Roman
soldiers who were so unhappy as EXUERE SACRAMENTUM,--to renounce
their legionary oath; but you are ignorant, sir, alike of ancient
history and modern courtesy.'
'Not so ignorant as ye would pronounce me,' roared Balmawhapple.
'I ken weel that you mean the Solemn League and Covenant; but if
a' the Whigs in hell had taken the--'
Here the Baron and Waverley both spoke at once, the former
calling out, 'Be silent, sir! ye not only show your ignorance,
but disgrace your native country before a stranger and an
Englishman;' and Waverley, at the same moment, entreating Mr.
Bradwardine to permit him to reply to an affront which seemed
levelled at him personally. But the Baron was exalted by wine,
wrath, and scorn, above all sublunary considerations.
'I crave you to be hushed, Captain Waverley; you are elsewhere,
peradventure, SUI JURIS,--foris-familiated, that is, and
entitled, it may be, to think and resent for yourself; but in my
domain, in this poor Barony of Bradwardine, and under this roof,
which is QUASI mine, being held by tacit relocation by a tenant
at will, I am IN LOCO PARENTIS to you, and bound to see you
scathless.--And for you, Mr. Falconer of Balmawhapple, I warn ye,
let me see no more aberrations from the paths of good manners.'
'And I tell you, Mr. Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine, of Bradwardine and
Tully-Veolan,' retorted the sportsman, in huge disdain, 'that
I'll make a moor-cock of the man that refuses my toast, whether
it be a crop-eared English Whig wi' a black ribband at his lug,
or ane wha deserts his ain friends to claw favour wi' the rats of
Hanover.'
In an instant both rapiers were brandished, and some desperate
passes exchanged. Balmawhapple was young, stout, and active; but
the Baron, infinitely more master of his weapon, would, like Sir
Toby Belch, have tickled his opponent other gates than he did,
had he not been under the influence of Ursa Major.
Edward rushed forward to interfere between the combatants, but
the prostrate bulk of the Laird of Killancureit, over which he
stumbled, intercepted his passage. How Killancureit happened to
be in this recumbent posture at so interesting a moment, was
never accurately known. Some thought he was about to ensconce
himself under the table; he himself alleged that he stumbled in
the act of lifting a joint-stool, to prevent mischief, by
knocking down Balmawhapple. Be that as it may, if readier aid
than either his or Waverley's had not interposed, there would
certainly have been bloodshed. But the well-known clash of
swords, which was no stranger to her dwelling, aroused Luckie
Macleary as she sat quietly beyond the hallan, or earthen
partition of the cottage, with eyes employed on Boston's CROOK OF
THE LOT, while her ideas were engaged in summing up the
reckoning. She boldly rushed in, with the shrill expostulation,
'Wad their honours slay ane another there, and bring discredit on
an honest widow-woman's house, when there was a' the lee-land in
the country to fight upon?' a remonstrance which she seconded by
flinging her plaid with great dexterity over the weapons of the
combatants. The servants by this time rushed in, and being, by
great chance, tolerably sober, separated the incensed opponents,
with the assistance of Edward and Killancureit. The latter led
off Balmawhapple, cursing, swearing, and vowing revenge against
every Whig, Presbyterian, and fanatic in England and Scotland,
from John-o'-Groat's to the Land's End, and with difficulty got
him to horse. Our hero, with the assistance of Saunders
Saunderson, escorted the Baron of Bradwardine to his own
dwelling, but could not prevail upon him to retire to bed until
he had made a long and learned apology for the events of the
evening, of which, however, there was not a word intelligible,
except something about the Centaurs and the Lapithae.
CHAPTER XII
REPENTANCE AND A RECONCILIATION
Waverley was unaccustomed to the use of wine, excepting with
great temperance. He slept, therefore, soundly till late in the
succeeding morning, and then awakened to a painful recollection
of the scene of the preceding evening. He had received a
personal affront,--he, a gentleman, a soldier, and a Waverley.
True, the person who had offered it was not, at the time it was
given, possessed of the moderate share of sense which nature had
allotted him; true also, in resenting this insult, he would break
the laws of Heaven, as well as of his country; true, in doing so,
he might take the life of a young man who perhaps respectably
discharged the social duties, and render his family miserable; or
he might lose his own;--no pleasant alternative even to the
bravest, when it is debated coolly and in private.
All this pressed on his mind; yet the original statement recurred
with the same irresistible force. He had received a personal
insult; he was of the house of Waverley; and he bore a
commission. There was no alternative; and he descended to the
breakfast parlour with the intention of taking leave of the
family, and writing to one of his brother officers to meet him at
the inn mid-way between Tully-Veolan and the town where they were
quartered, in order that he might convey such a message to the
Laird of Balmawhapple as the circumstances seemed to demand. He
found Miss Bradwardine presiding over the tea and coffee, the
table loaded with warm bread, both of flour, oatmeal, and barley-
meal, in the shape of leaves, cakes, biscuits, and other
varieties, together with eggs, reindeer ham, mutton and beef,
ditto, smoked salmon, marmalade, and all other delicacies which
induced even Johnson himself to extol the luxury of a Scotch
breakfast above that of all other countries. A mess of oatmeal
porridge, flanked by a silver jug, which held an equal mixture of
cream and butter-milk, was placed for the Baron's share of this
repast; but Rose observed he had walked out early in the morning,
after giving orders that his guest should not be disturbed.
Waverley sat down almost in silence, and with an air of absence
and abstraction, which could not give Miss Bradwardine a
favourable opinion of his talents for conversation. He answered
at random one or two observations which she ventured to make upon
ordinary topics; so that feeling herself almost repulsed in her
efforts at entertaining him, and secretly wondering that a
scarlet coat should cover no better breeding, she left him to his
mental amusement of cursing Dr. Doubleit's favourite
constellation of Ursa Major, as the cause of all the mischief
which had already happened, and was likely to ensue. At once he
started, and his colour heightened, as, looking toward the
window, he beheld the Baron and young Balmawhapple pass arm in
arm, apparently in deep conversation; and he hastily asked, 'Did
Mr. Falconer sleep here last night?' Rose, not much pleased with
the abruptness of the first question which the young stranger had
addressed to her, answered drily in the negative, and the
conversation again sank into silence.
At this moment Mr. Saunderson appeared, with a message from his
master, requesting to speak with Captain Waverley in another
apartment. With a heart which beat; a little quicker, not indeed
from fear, but from uncertainty and anxiety, Edward obeyed the
summons. He found the two gentlemen standing together, an air of
complacent dignity on the brow of the Baron, while something like
sullenness, or shame, or both, blanked the bold visage of
Balmawhapple. The former slipped his arm through that of the
latter, and thus seeming to walk with him, while in reality he
led him, advanced to meet Waverley, and, stopping in the midst of
the apartment, made in great state the following oration:
'Captain Waverley,--my young and esteemed friend, Mr. Falconer of
Balmawhapple, has craved of my age and experience, as of one not
wholly unskilled in the dependencies and punctilios of the duello
or monomachia, to be his interlocutor in expressing to you the
regret with which he calls to remembrance certain passages of our
symposion last night, which could not but be highly displeasing
to you, as serving for the time under this present existing
government. He craves you, sir, to drown in oblivion the memory
of such solecisms against the laws of politeness, as being what
his better reason disavows, and to receive the hand which he
offers you in amity; and I must needs assure you, that nothing
less than a sense of being DANS SON TORT, as a gallant French
chevalier, Mons, Le Bretailleur, once said to me on such an
occasion, and an opinion also of your peculiar merit, could have
extorted such concessions; for he and all his family are, and
have been time out of mind, MAVORTIA PECTORA, as Buchanan saith,
a bold and warlike sept, or people.'
Edward immediately, and with natural politeness, accepted the
hand which Balmawhapple, or rather the Baron in his character of
mediator, extended towards him. 'It was impossible,' he said,
'for him to remember what a gentleman expressed his wish he had
not uttered; and he willingly imputed what had passed to the
exuberant festivity of the day.'
'That is very handsomely said,' answered the Baron; 'for
undoubtedly, if a man be EBRIUS, or intoxicated--an incident
which, on solemn and festive occasions, may and will take place
in the life of a man of honour; and if the same gentleman, being
fresh and sober, recants the contumelies which he hath spoken in
his liquor, it must be held VINUM LOCUTUM EST; the words cease to
be his own. Yet would I not find this exculpation relevant in
the case of one who was EBRIOSUS, or an habitual drunkard;
because, if such a person choose to pass the greater part of his
time in the predicament of intoxication, he hath no title to be
exeemed from the obligations of the code of politeness, but
should learn to deport himself peaceably and courteously when
under the influence of the vinous stimulus.--And now let us
proceed to breakfast, and think no more of this daft business.'
I must confess, whatever inference may be drawn from the
circumstance, that Edward, after so satisfactory an explanation,
did much greater honour to the delicacies of Miss Bradwardine's
breakfast-table than his commencement had promised.
Balmawhapple, on the contrary, seemed embarrassed and dejected;
and Waverley now, for the first time, observed that his arm was
in a sling, which seemed to account for the awkward and
embarrassed manner with which he had presented his hand. To a
question from Miss Bradwardine, he muttered, in answer, something
about his horse having fallen; and, seeming desirous to escape
both from the subject and the company, he arose as soon as
breakfast was over, made his bow to the party, and, declining the
Baron's invitation to tarry till after dinner, mounted his horse
and returned to his own home.
Waverley now announced his purpose of leaving Tully-Veolan early
enough after dinner to gain the stage at which he meant to sleep;
but the unaffected and deep mortification with which the good-
natured and affectionate old gentleman heard the proposal, quite
deprived him of courage to persist in it. No sooner had he
gained Waverley's consent to lengthen his visit for a few days,
than he laboured to remove the grounds upon which he conceived he
had meditated a more early retreat. 'I would not have you opine,
Captain Waverley, that I am by practice or precept an advocate of
ebriety, though it may be that, in our festivity of last night,
some of our friends, if not perchance altogether EBRII, or
drunken, were, to say the least, EBRIOLI, by which the ancients
designed those who were fuddled, or, as your English vernacular
and metaphorical phrase goes, half-seas-over. Not that I would
so insinuate respecting you, Captain Waverley, who, like a
prudent youth, did rather abstain from potation; nor can it be
truly said of myself, who, having assisted at the tables of many
great generals and marechals at their solemn carousals, have the
art to carry my wine discreetly, and did not, during the whole
evening, as ye must have doubtless observed, exceed the bounds of
a modest hilarity.'
There was no refusing assent to a proposition so decidedly laid
down by him who undoubtedly was the best judge; although, had
Edward formed his opinion from his own recollections, he would
have pronounced that the Baron was not only EBRIOLUS, but verging
to become EBRIUS; or, in plain English, was incomparably the most
drunk of the party, except perhaps his antagonist the Laird of
Balmawhapple. However, having received the expected, or rather
the required, compliment on his sobriety, the Baron proceeded,--
'No, sir, though I am myself of a strong temperament, I abhor
ebriety, and detest those who swallow wine GULAE CAUSA, for the
oblectation of the gullet; albeit I might deprecate the law of
Pittacus of Mitylene, who punished doubly a crime committed under
the influence of LIBER PATER; nor would I utterly accede to the
objurgation of the younger Plinius, in the fourteenth book of his
HISTORIA NATURALIS. No, sir; I distinguish, I discriminate, and
approve of wine so far only as it maketh glad the face, or, in
the language of Flaccus, RECEPTO AMICO.'
Thus terminated the apology which the Baron of Bradwardine
thought it necessary to make for the super-abundance of his
hospitality; and it may be easily believed that he was neither
interrupted by dissent, nor any expression of incredulity.
He then invited his guest to a morning ride, and ordered that
Davie Gellatley should meet them at the DERN PATH with Ban and
Buscar. 'For, until the shooting season commenced, I would
willingly show you some sport, and we may, God willing, meet with
a roe. The roe, Captain Waverley, may be hunted at all times
alike; for never being in what is called PRIDE OF GREASE, he is
also never out of season, though it be a truth that his venison
is not equal to that of either the red or fallow deer. [The
learned in cookery dissent from the Baron of Bradwardine, and
hold the roe-venison dry and indifferent food, unless when
dressed in soup and Scotch collops.] But he will serve to show
how my dogs run; and therefore they shall attend us with Davie
Gellatley.'
Waverley expressed his surprise that his friend Davie was capable
of such trust; but the Baron gave him to understand that this
poor simpleton was neither fatuous, NEC NATURALITER IDIOTA, as is
expressed in the brieves of furiosity, but simply a crack-brained
knave, who could execute very well any commission which jumped
with his own humour, and made his folly a plea for avoiding every
other. 'He has made an interest with us,' continued the Baron,
'by saving Rose from a great danger with his own proper peril;
and the roguish loon must therefore eat of our bread and drink of
our cup, and do what he can, or what he will; which, if the
suspicions of Saunderson and the Bailie are well founded, may
perchance in his case be commensurate terms.'
Miss Bradwardine then gave Waverley to understand, that this poor
simpleton was doatingly fond of music, deeply affected by that
which was melancholy, and transported into extravagant gaiety by
light and lively airs. He had in this respect a prodigious
memory, stored with miscellaneous snatches and fragments of all
tunes and songs, which he sometimes applied, with considerable
address, as the vehicles of remonstrance, explanation, or satire.
Davie was much attached to the few who showed him kindness; and
both aware of any slight or ill usage which he happened to
receive, and sufficienty apt, where he saw opportunity, to
revenge it. The common people, who often judge hardly of each
other, as well as of their betters, although they had expressed
great compassion for the poor innocent while suffered to wander
in rags about the village, no sooner beheld him decently clothed,
provided for, and even a sort of favourite, than they called up
all the instances of sharpness and ingenuity, in action and
repartee, which his annals afforded, and charitably bottomed
thereupon a hypothesis, that Davie Gellatley was no further fool
than was necessary to avoid hard labour. This opinion was not
better founded than that of the Negroes, who, from the acute and
mischievous pranks of the monkeys, suppose that they have the
gift of speech, and only suppress their powers of elocution to
escape being set to work. But the hypothesis was entirely
imaginary: Davie Gellatley was in good earnest the half-crazed
simpleton which he appeared, and was incapable of any constant
and steady exertion. He had just so much solidity as kept on the
windy side of insanity; so much wild wit as saved him from the
imputation of idiocy; some dexterity in field sports (in which we
have known as great fools excel), great kindness and humanity in
the treatment of animals entrusted to him, warm affections, a
prodigious memory, and an ear for music.
The stamping of horses was now heard in the court, and Davie's
voice singing to the two large deer greyhounds,--
Hie away, hie away,
Over bank and over brae,
Where the copsewood is the greenest,
Where the fountains glisten sheenest,
Where the lady-fern grows strongest,
Where the morning dew lies longest,
Where the black-cock sweetest sips it,
Where the fairy latest trips it:
Hie to haunts right seldom seen,
Lovely, lonesome, cool, and green,
Over bank and over brae,
Hie away, hie away.
'Do the verses he sings,' asked Waverley, 'belong to old Scottish
poetry, Miss Bradwardine?'
'I believe not,' she replied. 'This poor creature had a brother,
and Heaven, as if to compensate to the family Davie's
deficiencies, had given him what the hamlet thought uncommon
talents. An uncle contrived to educate him for the Scottish
kirk, but he could not get preferment because he came from our
GROUND. He returned from college hopeless and broken-hearted,
and fell into a decline. My father supported him till his death,
which happened before he was nineteen. He played beautifully on
the flute, and was supposed to have a great turn for poetry. He
was affectionate and compassionate to his brother, who followed
him like his shadow, and we think that from him Davie gathered
many fragments of songs and music unlike those of this country.
But if we ask him where he got such a fragment as he is now
singing, he either answers with wild and long fits of laughter,
or else breaks into tears of lamentation; but was never heard to
give any explanation, or to mention his brother's name since his
death.'
'Surely,' said Edward, who was readily interested by a tale
bordering on the romantic, 'surely more might be learned by more
particular inquiry.'
'Perhaps so,' answered Rose, 'but my father will not permit any
one to practise on his feelings on this subject.'
By this time the Baron, with the help of Mr. Saunderson, had
indued a pair of jack-boots of large dimensions, and now invited
our hero to follow him as he stalked clattering down the ample
staircase, tapping each huge balustrade as he passed with the
butt of his massive horsewhip, and humming, with the air of a
chasseur of Louis Quatorze,
Pour la chasse ordonnee il faut preparer tout,
Hola ho! Vite! vite debout.
CHAPTER XIII
A MORE RATIONAL DAY THAN THE LAST
The Baron of Bradwardine, mounted on an active and well-managed
horse, and seated on a demi-pique saddle, with deep housings to
agree with his livery, was no bad representative of the old
school. His light-coloured embroidered coat, and superbly barred
waistcoat, his brigadier wig, surmounted by a small gold-laced
cocked-hat, completed his personal costume; but he was attended
by two well-mounted servants on horseback, armed with holster
pistols.
In this guise he ambled forth over hill and valley, the
admiration of every farmyard which they passed in their progress,
till, 'low down in a grassy vale,' they found Davie Gellatley
leading two very tall deer greyhounds, and presiding over half a
dozen curs, and about as many bare-legged and bare-headed boys,
who, to procure the chosen distinction of attending on the chase,
had not failed to tickle his ears with the dulcet appellation of
Maister Gellatley, though probably all and each had booted him on
former occasions in the character of daft Davie. But this is no
uncommon strain of flattery to persons in office, nor altogether
confined to the bare-legged villagers of Tully-Veolan: it was in
fashion Sixty Years since, is now, and will be six hundred years
hence, if this admirable compound of folly and knavery, called
the world, shall be then in existence.
These GILLIE-WET-FOOTS, [A bare-footed Highland lad is called a
gillie-wet-foot. Gillie, in general, means servant or
attendant.] as they were called, were destined to beat the
bushes, which they performed with so much success, that, after
half an hour's search, a roe was started, coursed, and killed;
the Baron following on his white horse, like Earl Percy of yore,
and magnanimously flaying and embowelling the slain animal
(which, he observed, was called by the French chasseurs FAIRE LA
CUREE) with his own baronial COUTEAU DE CHASSE. After this
ceremony he conducted his guest homeward by a pleasant and
circuitous route, commanding an extensive prospect of different
villages and houses, to each of which Mr. Bradwardine attached
some anecdote of history or genealogy, told in language whimsical
from prejudice and pedantry, but often respectable for the good
sense and honourable feelings which his narrative displayed, and
almost always curious, if not valuable, for the information they
contained.
The truth is, the ride seemed agreeable to both gentlemen,
because they found amusement in each other's conversation,
although their characters and habits of thinking were in many
respects totally opposite. Edward, we have informed the reader,
was warm in his feelings, wild and romantic in his ideas and in
his taste of reading, with a strong disposition towards poetry.
Mr. Bradwardine was the reverse of all this, and piqued himself
upon stalking through life with the same upright, starched,
stoical gravity which distinguished his evening promenade upon
the terrace of Tully-Veolan, where for hours together--the very
model old Hardyknute--
Stately stepped he east the wa',
And stately stepped he west.
As for literature, he read the classic poets, to be sure, and the
EPITHALAMIUM of Georgius Buchanan, and Arthur Johnston's PSALMS,
of a Sunday; and the DELICIAE POETARUM SCOTORUM, and Sir David
Lindsay's WORKS, and Barbour's BRUCE, and Blind Harry's WALLACE,
and the GENTLE SHEPHERD, and the CHERRY AND THE SLAE. But though
he thus far sacrificed his time to the Muses, he would if the
truth must be spoken, have been much better pleased had the pious
or sapient apothegms, as well as the historical narratives, which
these various works contained, been presented to him in the form
of simple prose. And he sometimes could not refrain from
expressing contempt of the 'vain and unprofitable art of poem-
making,' in which, he said, 'the only one who had excelled in his
time was Allan Ramsay, the periwig-maker.'
[The Baron ought to have remembered that the joyous Allan
literally drew his blood from the house of the noble Earl, whom
he terms--
Dalhousie of an old descent,
My stoup, my pride, my ornament.]
But although Edward and he differed TOTO COELO, as the Baron
would have said, upon this subject, yet they met upon history as
on a neutral ground, in which each claimed an interest. The
Baron, indeed, only cumbered his memory with matters of fact; the
cold, dry, hard outlines which history delineates. Edward, on
the contrary, loved to fill up and round the sketch with the
colouring of a warm and vivid imagination, which gives light and
life to the actors and speakers in the drama of past ages. Yet
with tastes so opposite, they contributed greatly to each other's
amusement. Mr. Bradwardine's minute narratives and powerful
memory supplied to Waverley fresh subjects of the kind upon which
his fancy loved to labour, and opened to him a new mine of
incident and of character. And he repaid the pleasure thus
communicated, by an earnest attention, valuable to all story-
tellers, more especially to the Baron, who felt his habits of
self-respect flattered by it; and sometimes also by reciprocal
communications, which interested Mr. Bradwardine, as confirming
or illustrating his own favourite anecdotes. Besides, Mr.
Bradwardine loved to talk of the scenes of his youth, which had
been spent in camps and foreign lands, and had many interesting
particulars to tell of the generals under whom he had served, and
the actions he had witnessed.
Both parties returned to Tully-Veolan in great good humour with
each other; Waverley desirous of studying more attentively what
he considered as a singular and interesting character, gifted
with a memory containing a curious register of ancient and modern
anecdotes; and Bradwardine disposed to regard Edward as PUER (or
rather JUVENIS) BONAE SPEI ET MAGNAE INDOLIS, a youth devoid of
that petulant volatility, which is impatient of, or vilipends,
the conversation and advice of his seniors, from which he
predicted great things of his future success and deportment in
life. There was no other guest except Mr. Rubrick, whose
information and discourse, as a clergyman and a scholar,
harmonized very well with that of the Baron and his guest.
Shortly after dinner, the Baron, as if to show that his
temperance was not entirely theoretical, proposed a visit to
Rose's appartment, or, as he termed it, her TROISIEME ETAGE.
Waverley was accordingly conducted through one or two of those
long awkward passages with which ancient architects studied to
puzzle the inhabitants of the houses which they planned, at the
end of which Mr. Bradwardine began to ascend, by two steps at
once, a very steep, narrow, and winding stair, leaving Mr.
Rubrick and Waverley to follow at more leisure, while he should
announce their approach to his daughter.
After having climbed this perpendicular corkscrew until their
brains were almost giddy, they arrived in a little matted lobby,
which served as an ante-room to Rose's SANCTUM SANCTORUM, and
through which they entered her parlour. It was a small but
pleasant apartment, opening to the south, and hung with tapestry;
adorned besides with two pictures, one of her mother, in the
dress of a shepherdess, with a bell-hoop; the other of the Baron,
in his tenth year, in a blue coat, embroidered waistcoat, laced
hat, and bag-wig, with a bow in his hand. Edward could not help
smiling at the costume, and at the odd resemblance between the
round, smooth, red-checked, staring visage in the portrait, and
the gaunt, bearded, hollow-eyed, swarthy features, which
travelling, fatigues of war, and advanced age, had bestowed on
the original. The Baron joined in the laugh. 'Truly,' he said,
'that picture was a woman's fantasy of my good mother's (a
daughter of the Laird of Tulliellum, Captain Waverley; I
indicated the house to you when we were on the top of the
Shinnyheuch; it was burnt by the Dutch auxiliaries brought in by
the Government in 1715); I never sat for my pourtraicture but
once since that was painted, and it was at the special and
reiterated request of the Marechal Duke of Berwick.'
The good old gentleman did not mention what Mr. Rubrick
afterwards told Edward, that the Duke had done him this honour on
account of his being the first to mount the breach of a fort; in
Savoy during the memorable campaign of 1709, and his having there
defended himself with his half-pike for nearly ten minutes before
any support reached him. To do the Baron justice, although
sufficiently prone to dwell upon, and even to exaggerate, his
family dignity and consequence, he was too much a man of real
courage ever to allude to such personal acts of merit as he had
himself manifested.
Miss Rose now appeared from the interior room of her apartment,
to welcome her father and his friends. The little labours in
which she had been employed obviously showed a natural taste,
which required only cultivation. Her father had taught her
French and Italian, and a few of the ordinary authors in those
languages ornamented her shelves. He had endeavoured also to be
her preceptor in music; but as he began with the more abstruse
doctrines of the science, and was not perhaps master of them
himself, she had made no proficiency further than to be able to
accompany her voice with the harpsichord; but even this was not
very common in Scotland at that period. To make amends, she sang
with great taste and feeling, and with a respect to the sense of
what she uttered that might be proposed in example to ladies of
much superior musical talent. Her natural good sense taught her,
that if, as we are assured by high authority, music be 'married
to immortal verse,' they are very often divorced by the performer
in a most shameful manner. It was perhaps owing to this
sensibility to poetry, and power of combining its expression with
those of the musical notes, that her singing gave more pleasure
to all the unlearned in music, and even to many of the learned,
than could have been communicated by a much finer voice and more
brilliant execution, unguided by the same delicacy of feeling.
A bartizan, or projecting gallery, before the windows of her
parlour, served to illustrate another of Rose's pursuits; for it
was crowded with flowers of different kinds, which she had taken
under her special protection. A projecting turret gave access to
this Gothic balcony, which commanded a most beautiful prospect.
The formal garden, with its high bounding walls, lay below,
contracted, as it seemed, to a mere parterre; while the view
extended beyond them down a wooded glen, where the small river
was sometimes visible, sometimes hidden in copse. The eye might
be delayed by a desire to rest on the rocks, which here and there
rose from the dell with massive or spiry fronts, or it might
dwell on the noble, though ruined tower, which was here beheld in
all its dignity, frowning from a promontory over the river. To
the left were seen two or three cottages, a part of the village;
the brow of the hill concealed the others. The glen, or dell,
was terminated by a sheet of water, called Loch-Veolan, into
which the brook discharged itself, and which now glistened in the
western sun. The distant country seemed open and varied in
surface, though not wooded; and there was nothing to interrupt
the view until the scene was bounded by a ridge of distant and
blue hills, which formed the southern boundary of the strath or
valley. To this pleasant station Miss Bradwardine had ordered
coffee.
The view of the old tower, or fortalice, introduced some family
anecdotes and tales of Scottish chivalry, which the Baron told
with great enthusiasm. The projecting peak of an impending crag
which rose near it, had acquired the name of St. Swithin's Chair.
it was the scene of a peculiar superstition, of which Mr. Rubrick
mentioned some curious particulars, which reminded Waverley of a
rhyme quoted By Edgar in KING LEAR; and Rose was called upon to
sing a little legend, in which they had been interwoven by some
village poet,
Who, noteless as the race from which he sprung,
Saved others' names, but left his own unsung.
The sweetness of her voice, and the simple beauty of her music,
gave all the advantage which the minstrel could have desired, and
which his poetry so much wanted. I almost doubt if it can be
read with patience, destitute of these advantages; although I
conjecture the following copy to have been somewhat corrected by
Waverley, to suit the taste of those who might not relish pure
antiquity:--
ST. SWITHIN'S CHAIR.
On Hallow-Mass Eve, ere ye boune ye to rest,
Ever beware that your couch be blessed;
Sign it with cross, and sain it with bead,
Sing the Ave, and say the Creed.
For on Hallow-Mass Eve the Night-Hag will ride,
And all her nine-fold sweeping on by her side,
Whether the wind sing lowly or loud,
Sailing through moonshine or swathed in the cloud.
The Lady she sat in St. Swithin's Chair,
The dew of the night has damped her hair:
Her cheek was pale--but resolved and high
Was the word of her lip and the glance of her eye.
She muttered the spell of Swithin bold,
When his naked foot traced the midnight wold,
When he stopped the Hag as she rode the night,
And bade her descend, and her promise plight.
He that dare sit on St. Swithin's Chair,
When the Night-Hag wings the troubled air,
Questions three, when he speaks the spell,
He may ask, and she must tell.
The Baron has been with King Robert his liege,
These three long years in battle and siege;
News are there none of his weal or his woe,
And fain the Lady his fate would know.
She shudders and stops as the charm she speaks;-
Is it the moody owl that shrieks?
Or is it that sound, betwixt laughter and scream,
The voice of the Demon who haunts the stream?
The moan of the wind sunk silent and low,
And the roaring torrent ceased to flow;
The calm was more dreadful than raging storm,
Then the cold grey mist brought the ghastly form!
. . . . . .
'I am sorry to disappoint the company, especially Captain
Waverley, who listens with such laudable gravity; it is but a
fragment, although I think there are other verses, describing the
return of the Baron from the wars, and how the lady was found
"clay-cold upon the grounsill ledge."'
'It is one of those figments,' observed Mr. Bradwardine, 'with
which the early history of distinguished families was deformed in
the times of superstition; as that of Rome, and other ancient
nations, had their prodigies, sir, the which you may read in
ancient histories, or in the little work compiled by Julius
Obsequens, and inscribed by the learned Scheffer, the editor, to
his patron, Benedictus Skytte, Baron of Dudershoff.'
'My father has a strange defiance of the marvellous, Captain
Waverley,' observed Rose, 'and once stood firm when a whole synod
of Presbyterian divines were put to the rout by a sudden
apparition of the foul fiend.'
Waverley looked as if desirous to hear more.
Must I tell my story as well as sing my song?--Well.--Once upon a
time there lived an old woman, called Janet Gellatley, who was
suspected to be a witch, on the infallible grounds that she was
very old, very ugly, very poor, and had two sons, one of whom was
a poet, and the other a fool, which visitation, all the
neighbourhood agreed, had come upon her for the sin of
witchcraft. And she was imprisoned for a week in the steeple of
the parish church, and sparingly supplied with food, and not
permitted to sleep, until she herself became as much persuaded of
her being a witch as her accusers; and in this lucid and happy
state of mind was brought forth to make a clean breast, that is,
to make open confession of her sorceries, before all the Whig
gentry and ministers in the vicinity, who were no conjurers
themselves. My father went to see fair play between the witch
and the clergy; for the witch had been born on his estate. 'And
while the witch was confessing that the Enemy appeared, and made
his addresses to her as a handsome black man,--which, if you
could have seen poor old blear-eyed Janet, reflected little
honour on Apollyon's taste,--and while the auditors listened with
astonished ears, and the clerk recorded with a trembling hand,
she, all of a sudden, changed the low mumbling tone with which
she spoke into a shrill yell, and exclaimed, "Look to yourselves!
look to yourselves! I see the Evil One sitting in the midst of
ye." The surprise was general, and terror and flight its
immediate consequences. Happy were those who were next the door;
and many were the disasters that befell hats, bands, cuffs, and
wigs, before they could get out of the church, where they left
the obstinate prelatist to settle matters with the witch and her
admirer, at his own peril or pleasure.'
'RISU SOLVUNTUR TABULAE,' said the Baron: 'when they recovered
their panic trepidation, they were too much ashamed to bring any
wakening of the process against Janet Gellatley.' [The story
last told was said to have happened in the south of Scotland;
but--CEDANT ARMA TOGAE--and let the gown have its dues. It was
an old clergyman, who had wisdom and firmness enough to resist
the panic which seized his brethren, who was the means of
rescuing a poor insane creature from the cruel fate which would
otherwise have overtaken her. The accounts of the trials for
witchcraft form one of the most deplorable chapters in Scottish
story.]
This anecdote led to a long discussion of
All those idle thoughts and fantasies,
Devices, dreams, opinions unsound,
Shows, visions, soothsays, and prophecies,
And all that feigned is, as leasings, tales, and lies.
With such conversation, and the romantic legends which it
produced, closed our hero's second evening in the house of Tully-
Veolan.
CHAPTER XIV
A DISCOVERY--WAVERLEY BECOMES DOMESTICATED AT
TULLY-VEOLAN
The next day Edward arose betimes, and in a morning walk around
the house and its vicinity, came suddenly upon a small court in
front of the dog-kennel, where his friend Davie was employed
about his four-footed charge. One quick glance of his eye
recognized Waverley, when, instantly turning his back, as if he
had not observed him, he began to sing part of an old ballad:--
Young men will love thee more fair and more fast;
HEARD YE SO MERRY THE LITTLE BIRD SING?
Old men's love the longest will last,
AND THE THROSTLE-COCK'S HEAD IS UNDER HIS WING.
The young man's wrath is like light straw on fire;
HEARD YE SO MERRY THE LITTLE BIRD SING?
But like red-hot steel is the old man's ire,
AND THE THROSTLE-COCK'S HEAD IS UNDER HIS WING.
The young man will brawl at the evening board;
HEARD YE SO MERRY THE LITTLE BIRD SING?
But the old man will draw at the dawning the sword,
AND THE THROSTLE-COCK'S HEAD IS UNDER HIS WING.
Waverley could not avoid observing that Davie laid something like
a satirical emphasis on these lines. He therefore approached,
and endeavoured, by sundry queries, to elicit from him what the
innuendo might mean; but Davie had no mind to explain, and had
wit enough to make his folly cloak his knavery. Edward could
collect nothing from him, excepting that the Laird of
Balmawhapple had gone home yesterday morning, 'wi' his boots fu'
o' bluid.' In the garden, however, he met the old butler, who no
longer attempted to conceal, that, having been bred in the
nursery line with Sumack & Co., of Newcastle, he sometimes
wrought a turn in the flower-borders to oblige the Laird and Miss
Rose. By a series of queries, Edward at length discovered, with
a painful feeling of surprise and shame, that Balmawhapple's
submission and apology had been the consequence of a rencontre
with the Baron before his guest had quitted his pillow, in which
the younger combatant had been disarmed and wounded in the sword-
arm.
Greatly mortified at this information, Edward sought out his
friendly host, and anxiously expostulated with him upon the
injustice he had done him in anticipating his meeting with Mr.
Falconer, a circumstance which, considering his youth and the
profession of arms which he had just adopted, was capable of
being represented much to his prejudice. The Baron justified
himself at greater length than I choose to repeat. He urged that
the quarrel was common to them, and that Balmawhapple could not,
by the code of honour, EVITE giving satisfaction to both, which
he had done in his case by an honourable meeting, and in that of
Edward by such a PALINODE as rendered the use of the sword
unnecessary, and which, being made and accepted, must necessarily
SOPITE the whole affair.
With this excuse or explanation, Waverley was silenced, if not
satisfied; but he could not help testifying some displeasure
against the Blessed Bear, which had given rise to the quarrel,
nor refrain from hinting, that the sanctified epithet was hardly
appropriate. The Baron observed, he could not deny that 'the
Bear, though allowed by heralds as a most honourable ordinary,
had, nevertheless, somewhat fierce, churlish, and morose in his
disposition (as might be read in Archibald Simson, pastor of
Dalkeith's HIEROGLYPHICA ANIMALIUM), and had thus been the type
of many quarrels and dissensions which had occurred in the house
of Bradwardine; of which,' he continued, 'I might commemorate
mine own unfortunate dissension with my third cousin by the
mother's side, Sir Hew Halbert, who was so unthinking as to
deride my family name, as if it had been QUASI BEARWARDEN; a most
uncivil jest, since it not only insinuated that the founder of
our house occupied such a mean situation as to be a custodier of
wild beasts, a charge which, ye must have observed, is only
entrusted to the very basest plebeians; but, moreover, seemed to
infer that our coat-armour had not been achieved by honourable
actions in war, but bestowed by way of PARONOMASIA, or pun upon
our family appellation,--a sort of bearing which the French call
ARMOIRES PARLANTES; the Latins ARMA CANTANTIA; and your English
authorities, canting heraldry; being indeed a species of
emblazoning more befitting canters, gaberlunzies, and such-like
mendicants, whose gibberish is formed upon playing upon the word,
than the noble, honourable, and useful science of heraldry, which
assigns armorial bearings as the reward of noble and generous
actions, and not to tickle the ear with vain quodlibets, such as
are found in jest-books.' [See Note 9.] Of his quarrel with Sir
Hew, he said nothing more, than that it was settled in a fitting
manner.
Having been so minute with respect to the diversions of Tully-
Veolan, on the first days of Edward's arrival, for the purpose of
introducing its inmates to the reader's acquaintance, it becomes
less necessary to trace the progress of his intercourse with the
same accuracy. It is probable that a young man, accustomed to
more cheerful society, would have tired of the conversation of so
violent an asserter of the 'boast of heraldry' as the Baron; but
Edward found an agreeable variety in that of Miss Bradwardine,
who listened with eagerness to his remarks upon literature, and
showed great justness of taste in her answers. The sweetness of
her disposition had made her submit with complacency, and even
pleasure, to the course of reading prescribed by her father,
although it not only comprehended several heavy folios of
history, but certain gigantic tomes in High Church polemics. In
heraldry he was fortunately contented to give her only such a
slight tincture as might be acquired by perusal of the two folio
volumes of Nisbet. Rose was indeed the very apple of her
father's eye. Her constant liveliness, her attention to all
those little observances most gratifying to those who would never
think of exacting them, her beauty, in which he recalled the
features of his beloved wife, her unfeigned piety, and the noble
generosity of her disposition, would have justified the affection
of the most doting father.
His anxiety on her behalf did not, however, seem to extend itself
in that quarter, where, according to the general opinion, it is
most efficiently displayed; in labouring, namely, to establish
her in life, either by a large dowry or a wealthy marriage. By
an old settlement, almost all the landed estates of the Baron
went, after his death, to a distant relation; and it was supposed
that Miss Bradwardine would remain but slenderly provided for, as
the good gentleman's cash matters had been too long under the
exclusive charge of Bailie Macwheeble, to admit of any great
expectations from his personal succession. It is true, the said
Bailie loved his patron and his patron's daughter next (although
at an incomparable distance) to himself. He thought it was
possible to set aside the settlement on the male line, and had
actually procured an opinion to that effect (and, as he boasted,
without a fee) from an eminent Scottish counsel, under whose
notice he contrived to bring the point while consulting him
regularly on some other business. But the Baron would not listen
to such a proposal for an instant. On the contrary, he used to
have a perverse pleasure in boasting that the barony of
Bradwardine was a male fief, the first charter having been given
at that early period when women were not deemed capable to hold a
feudal grant; because, according to Les COUSTUSMES DE NORMANDIE,
C'EST L'HOMME KI SE BAST ET KI CONSEILLE; or, as is yet more
ungallantly expressed by other authorities, all of whose
barbarous names he delighted to quote at full length, because a
woman could not serve the superior, or feudal lord, in war, on
account of the decorum of her sex, nor assist him with advice,
because of her limited intellect, nor keep his counsel, owing to
the infirmity of her disposition. He would triumphantly ask, how
it would become a female, and that female a Bradwardine, to be
seen employed in, SERVITIO EXUENDI, SEU DETRAHENDI, CALIGAS REGIS
POST BATTALIAM? that is, in pulling off the king's boots after
an engagement, which was the feudal service by which he held the
barony of Bradwardine. 'No,' he said, 'beyond hesitation, PROCUL
DUBIO, many females, as worthy as Rose, had been excluded, in
order to make way for my own succession, and Heaven forbid that I
should do aught that might contravene the destination of my
forefathers, or impinge upon the right of my kinsman, Malcolm
Bradwardine of Inchgrabbit, an honourable though decayed branch
of my own family.'
The Bailie, as prime minister, having received this decisive
communication from his sovereign, durst not press his own
opinion any further, but contented himself with deploring, on
all suitable occasions, to Saunderson, the minister of the
interior, the Laird's self-willedness, and with laying plans for
uniting Rose with the young laird of Balmawhapple, who had a fine
estate, only moderately burdened, and was a faultless young
gentleman, being as sober as a saint--if you keep brandy from
him, and him from brandy--and who, in brief, had no imperfection
but that of keeping light company at a time; such as Jinker, the
horse-couper, and Gibby Gaethroughwi't, the piper o' Cupar; o'
whilk follies, Mr. Saunderson, he'll mend, he'll mend,'--
pronounced the Bailie.
'Like sour ale in simmer,' added Davie Gellatley, who happened to
be nearer the conclave than they were aware of.
Miss Bradwardine, such as we have described her, with all the
simplicity and curiosity of a recluse, attached herself to the
opportunities of increasing her store of literature which
Edward's visit afforded her. He sent for some of his books from
his quarters, and they opened to her sources of delight of which
she had hitherto had no idea. The best English poets, of every
description, and other works on belles lettres, made a part of
this precious cargo. Her music, even her flowers, were
neglected, and Saunders not only mourned over, but began to
mutiny against the labour for which he now scarce received
thanks. These new pleasures became gradually enhanced by sharing
them with one of a kindred taste. Edward's readiness to comment,
to recite, to explain difficult passages, rendered his assistance
invaluable; and the wild romance of his spirit delighted a
character too young and inexperienced to observe its
deficiencies. Upon subjects which interested him, and when quite
at ease, he possessed that flow of natural, and somewhat florid
eloquence, which has been supposed as powerful even as figure,
fashion, fame, or fortune, in winning the female heart. There
was, therefore, an increasing danger in this constant
intercourse, to poor Rose's peace of mind, which was the more
imminent, as her father was greatly too much abstracted in his
studies, and wrapped up in his own dignity, to dream of his
daughter's incurring it. The daughters of the house of
Bradwardine were, in his opinion, like those of the house of
Bourbon or Austria, placed high above the clouds of passion which
might obfuscate the intellects of meaner females; they moved in
another sphere, were governed by other feelings, and amenable to
other rules, than those of idle and fantastic affection. In
short, he shut his eyes so resolutely to the natural consequences
of Edward's intimacy with Miss Bradwardine, that the whole
neighbourhood concluded that he had opened them to the advantages
of a match between his daughter and the wealthy young Englishman,
and pronounced him much less a fool than he had generally shown
himself in cases where his own interest was concerned.
If the Baron, however, had really meditated such an alliance, the
indifference of Waverley would have been an insuperable bar to
his project. Our hero, since mixing more freely with the world,
had learned to think with great shame and confusion upon his
mental legend of Saint Cecilia, and the vexation of these
reflections was likely, for some time at least, to counterbalance
the natural susceptibility of his disposition. Besides, Rose
Bradwardine, beautiful and amiable as we have described her, had
not precisely the sort of beauty or merit which captivates a
romantic imagination in early youth. She was too frank, too
confiding, too kind; amiable qualities, undoubtedly, but
destructive of the marvellous, with which a youth of imagination
delights to address the empress of his affections. Was it
possible to bow, to tremble, and to adore, before the timid, yet
playful little girl, who now asked Edward to mend her pen, now to
construe a stanza in Tasso, and now how to spell a very--very
long word in her version of it? All these incidents have their
fascination on the mind at a certain period of life, but not when
a youth is entering it, and rather looking out for some object
whose affection may dignify him in his own eyes, than stooping to
one who looks up to him for such distinction. Hence, though
there can be no rule in so capricious a passion, early love is
frequently ambitious in choosing its object; or, which comes to
the same, selects her (as in the case of Saint Cecilia aforesaid)
from a situation that gives fair scope for LE BEAU IDEAL, which
the reality of intimate and familiar life rather tends to limit
and impair. I knew a very accomplished and sensible young man
cured of a violent passion for a pretty woman, whose talents
were not equal to her face and figure, by being permitted to bear
her company for a whole afternoon. Thus it is certain, that had
Edward enjoyed such an opportunity of conversing with Miss
Stubbs, Aunt Rachel's precaution would have been unnecessary, for
he would as soon have fallen in love with the dairymaid. And
although Miss Bradwardine was a very different character, it
seems probable that the very intimacy of their intercourse
prevented his feeling for her other sentiments than those of a
brother for an amiable and accomplished sister; while the
sentiments of poor Rose were gradually, and without her being
conscious, assuming a shade of warmer affection.
I ought to have said that Edward, when he sent to Dundee for the
books before mentioned, had applied for, and received permission,
extending his leave of absence. But the letter of his
commanding-officer contained a friendly recommendation to him,
not to spend his time exclusively with persons, who, estimable as
they might be in a general sense, could not be supposed well
affected to a government which they declined to acknowledge by
taking the oath of allegiance. The letter further insinuated,
though with great delicacy, that although some family connexions
might be supposed to render it necessary for Captain Waverley to
communicate with gentlemen who were in this unpleasant state of
suspicion, yet his father's situation and wishes ought to prevent
his prolonging those attentions into exclusive intimacy. And it
was intimated, that; while his political principles were
endangered by communicating with laymen of this description, he
might also receive erroneous impressions in religion from the
prelatic clergy, who so perversely laboured to set up the royal
prerogative in things sacred.
This last insinuation probably induced Waverley to set both down
to the prejudices of his commanding-officer. He was sensible
that Mr. Bradwardine had acted with the most scrupulous delicacy,
in never entering upon any discussion that had the most remote
tendency to bias his mind in political opinions, although he was
himself not only a decided partisan of the exiled family, but had
been trusted at different times with important commissions for
their service. Sensible, therefore, that there was no risk of
his being perverted from his allegiance, Edward felt as if he
should do his uncle's old friend injustice in removing from a
house where he gave and received pleasure and amusement, merely
to gratify a prejudiced and ill-judged suspicion, He therefore
wrote a very general answer, assuring his commanding-officer that
his loyalty was not in the most distant danger of contamination,
and continued an honoured guest and inmate of the house of Tully-
Veolan.
CHAPTER XV
A CREAGH, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
[A CREAGH was an incursion for plunder, termed on the Borders a raid.]
When Edward had been a guest at Tully-Veolan nearly six weeks, he
descried one morning, as he took his usual walk before the
breakfast-hour, signs of uncommon perturbation in the family.
Four bare-legged dairymaids, with each an empty milk-pail in her
hand, ran about with frantic gestures, and uttering loud
exclamations of surprise, grief, and resentment. From their
appearance, a pagan might have conceived them a detachment of the
celebrated Belides, just come from their baling penance. As
nothing was to be got from this distracted chorus, excepting
'Lord guide us!' and 'Eh, sirs!' ejaculations which threw no
light upon the cause of their dismay, Waverley repaired to the
forecourt, as it was called, where he beheld Bailie Macwheeble
cantering his white pony down the avenue with all the speed it
could muster. He had arrived, it would seem, upon a hasty
summons and was followed by half a score of peasants from the
village, who had no great difficulty in keeping pace with him.
The Bailie, greatly too busy, and too important, to enter into
explanations with Edward, summoned forth Mr. Saunderson, who
appeared with a countenance in which dismay was mingled with
solemnity, and they immediately entered into close conference.
Davie Gellatley was also seen in the group, idle as Diogenes at
Sinope, while his countrymen were preparing for a siege. His
spirits always rose with anything, good or bad, which occasioned
tumult, and he continued frisking, hopping, dancing, and singing
the burden of an old ballad,
Our gear's a' gane,
until, happening to pass too near the Bailie, he received an
admonitory hint from his horsewhip, which converted his songs
into lamentation.
Passing from thence towards the garden, Waverley beheld the Baron
in person, measuring and re-measuring, with swift and tremendous
strides, the length of the terrace; his countenance clouded with
offended pride and indignation, and the whole of his demeanour
such as seemed to indicate, that any inquiry concerning the cause
of his discomposure would give pain at least, if not offence.
Waverley therefore glided into the house, without addressing him,
and took his way to the breakfast parlour, where he found his
young friend Rose, who, though she neither exhibited the
resentment of her father, the turbid importance of Bailie
Macwheeble, nor the despair of the hand-maidens, seemed vexed and
thoughtful. A single word explained the mystery. 'Your
breakfast will be a disturbed one, Captain Waverley, A party of
Caterans have come down upon us, last night, and have driven off
all our milch cows.'
'A party of Caterans?'
'Yes; robbers from the neighbouring Highlands. We used to be
quite free from them while we paid blackmail to Fergus Mac-Ivor
Vich Ian Vohr; but my father thought it unworthy of his rank and
birth to pay it any longer, and so this disaster has happened.
It is not the value of the cattle, Captain Waverley, that vexes
me; but my father is so much hurt at the affront, and is so bold
and hot, that I fear he will try to recover them by the strong
hand; and if he is not hurt himself, he will hurt some of these
wild people, and then there will be no peace between them and us
perhaps for our lifetime; and we cannot defend ourselves as is
old times, for the government have taken all our arms; and my
dear father is so rash--Oh, what will become of us!'--Here poor
Rose lost heart altogether, and burst into a flood of tears.
The Baron entered at this moment, and rebuked her with more
asperity than Waverley had ever heard him use to any one. 'Was
it not a shame,' he said, 'that she should exhibit herself before
any gentleman in such a light, as if she shed tears for a drove
of horned nolt and milch kine, like the daughter of a Cheshire
yeoman! Captain Waverley, I must request your favourable
construction of her grief, which may, or ought to proceed, solely
from seeing her father's estate exposed to spulzie and
depredation from common thieves and sornars, [Sornars may be
translated sturdy beggars, more especially indicating those
unwelcome visitors who exact lodgings and victuals by force, or
something approaching to it.] while we are not allowed to keep
half a score of muskets, whether for defence or rescue.'
Bailie Macwheeble entered immediately afterwards, and by his
report of arms and ammunition confirmed this statement, informing
the Baron, in a melancholy voice, that though the people would
certainly obey his honour's orders, yet there was no chance of
their following the gear to ony guid purpose, in respect there
were only his honour's body servants who had swords and pistols,
and the depredators were twelve Highlanders, completely armed
after the manner of their country.--Having delivered this doleful
annunciation, he assumed a posture of silent dejection, shaking
his head slowly with the motion of a pendulum when it is ceasing
to vibrate, and then remained stationary, his body stooping at a
more acute angle than usual, and the latter part of his person
projecting in proportion.
The Baron, meanwhile, paced the room in silent indignation, and
at length fixing his eye upon an old portrait, whose person was
clad in armour, and whose features glared grimly out of a huge
bush of hair, part of which descended from his head to his
shoulders, and part from his chin and upper-lip to his
breastplate,--'That gentleman, Captain Waverley, my grandsire,'
he said, 'with two hundred horse, whom he levied within his own
bounds, discomfited and put to the rout more than five hundred of
these Highland reivers, who have been ever LAPIS OFFENSIONIS, ET
PETRA SCANDALI, a stumbling-block and a rock of offence to the
Lowland vicinage--he discomfited them, I say, when they had the
temerity to descend to harry this country, in the time of the
civil dissensions, in the year of grace sixteen hundred forty and
two. And now, sir, I, his grandson, am thus used at such
unworthy hands!'
Here there was an awful pause; after which all the company, as is
usual in cases of difficulty, began to give separate and
inconsistent counsel. Alexander ab Alexandro proposed they
should send some one to compound with the Caterans, who would
readily, he said, give up their prey for a dollar a head. The
Bailie opined that this transaction would amount to theft-boot,
or composition of felony; and he recommended that some CANNY HAND
should be sent up to the glens to make the best bargain he could,
as it were for himself, so that the laird might not be seen in
such a transaction. Edward proposed to send off to the nearest
garrison for a party of soldiers and a magistrate's warrant; and
Rose, as far as she dared, endeavoured to insinuate the course of
paying the arrears of tribute money to Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich Ian
Vohr, who, they all knew, could easily procure restoration of the
cattle, if he were properly propitiated.
None of these proposals met the Baron's approbation. The idea of
composition, direct or implied, was absolutely ignominious; that
of Waverley only showed that he did not understand the state of
the country, and of the political parties which divided it; and,
standing matters as they did with Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich Ian Vohr,
the Baron would make no concession to him, were it, he said, (to
procure restitution IN INTEGRUM of every stirk and stot that the
chief, his forefathers, and his clan, had stolen since the days
of Malcolm Canmore.'
In fact, his voice was still for war, and he proposed to send
expresses to Balmawhapple, Killancureit, Tulliellum, and other
lairds, who were exposed to similar depredations, inviting them
to join in the pursuit; 'and then, sir, shall these NEBULONES
NEQUISSIMI, as Leslaeus calls them, be brought to the fate of
their predecessor Cacus,
Elisos oculos, et siccum sanguine guttur.'
The Bailie, who by no means relished these warlike counsels, here
pulled forth an immense watch, of the colour, and nearly of the
size, of a pewter warming-pan, and observed it was now past noon,
and that the Caterans had been seen in the pass of Bally-Brough
soon after sunrise; so that before the allied forces could
assemble, they and their prey would be far beyond the reach of
the most active pursuit, and sheltered in those pathless deserts
where it was neither advisable to follow, nor indeed possible to
trace them.
This proposition was undeniable. The council therefore broke up
without coming to any conclusion, as has occurred to councils of
more importance; only it was determined that the Bailie should
send his own three milk-cows down to the Mains for the use of the
Baron's family, and brew small ale, as a substitute for milk, in
his own. To this arrangement, which was suggested by Saunderson,
the Bailie readily assented, both from habitual deference to the
family, and an internal consciousness that his courtesy would, in
some mode or other, be repaid tenfold.
The Baron having also retired to give some necessary directions,
Waverley seized the opportunity to ask, whether this Fergus, with
the unpronounceable name, was the chief thief-taker of the
district.
'Thief-taker!' answered Rose, laughing; 'he is a gentleman of
great honour and consequence; the chieftain of an independent
branch of a powerful Highland clan, and is much respected, both
for his own power, and that of his kith, kin, and allies.'
'And what has he to do with the thieves, then? is he a
magistrate, or in the commission of the peace?' asked Waverley.
The commission of war rather, if there be such a thing,' said
Rose; 'for he is a very unquiet neighbour to his un-friends, and
keeps a greater FOLLOWING on foot than many that have thrice his
estates. As to his connexion with the thieves, that I cannot
well explain; but the boldest of them will never steal a hoof
from any one that pays blackmail to Vich Ian Vohr.'
'And what is blackmail?'
'A sort of protection-money that Low-country gentlemen and
heritors, lying near the Highlands, pay to some Highland chief,
that he may neither do them harm himself, nor suffer it to be
done to them by others; and then, if your cattle are stolen, you
have only to send him word, and he will recover them; or it may
be, he will drive away cows from some distant place, where he has
a quarrel, and give them to you to make up your loss.'
'And is this sort of Highland Jonathan Wild admitted into
society, and called a gentleman?'
'So much so,' said Rose, 'that the quarrel between my father and
Fergus Mac-Ivor began at a county meeting, where he wanted to
take precedence of all the Lowland gentlemen then present, only
my father would not suffer it. And then he upbraided my father
that he was under his banner, and paid him tribute; and my father
was in a towering passion, for Bailie Macwheeble, who manages
such things his own way, had contrived to keep this blackmail a
secret from him, and passed it in his account for cess-money.
And they would have fought; but Fergus Mac-Ivor said, very
gallantly, he would never raise his hand against a grey head that
was so much respected as my father's. Oh, I wish, I wish they
had continued friends!'
'And did you ever see this Mr. Mac-Ivor, if that be his name,
Miss Bradwardine?'
'No, that is not his name; and he would consider MASTER as a sort
of affront, only that you are an Englishman, and know no better.
But the Lowlanders call him, like other gentlemen, by the name of
his estate, Glennaquoich; and the Highlanders call him Vich Ian
Vohr, that is, the son of John the Great; and we upon the braes
here call him by both names indifferently.'
I am afraid I shall never bring my English tongue to call him by
either one or other.'
'But he is a very polite, handsome man,' continued Rose; 'and his
sister Flora is one of the most beautiful and accomplished young
ladies in this country: she was bred in a convent in France, and
was a great friend of mine before this unhappy dispute. Dear
Captain Waverley, try your influence with my father to make
matters up. I am sure this is but the beginning of our troubles;
for Tully-Veolan has never been a safe or quiet residence when we
have been at feud with the Highlanders. When I was a girl about
ten, there was a skirmish fought between a party of twenty of
them, and my father and his servants, behind the Mains; and the
bullets broke several panes in the north windows, they were so
near. Three of the Highlanders were killed, and they brought
them in, wrapped in their plaids, and laid them on the stone
floor of the hall; and next morning, their wives and daughters
came, clapping their hands, and crying the coronach, and
shrieking, and carried away the dead bodies, with the pipes
playing before them. I could not sleep for six weeks without
starting, and thinking I heard these terrible cries, and saw the
bodies lying on the steps, all stiff and swathed up in their
bloody tartans. But since that time there came a party from the
garrison at Stirling, with a warrant from the Lord Justice-Clerk,
or some such great man, and took away all our arms; and now, how
are we to protect ourselves if they come down in any strength?'
Waverley could not help starting at a story which bore so much
resemblance to one of his own day-dreams. Here was a girl scarce
seventeen, the gentlest of her sex, both in temper and
appearance, who had witnessed with her own eyes such a scene as
he had used to conjure up in his imagination, as only occurring
in ancient times, and spoke of it coolly, as one very likely to
recur. He felt at once the impulse of curiosity, and that slight
sense of danger which only serves to heighten its interest. He
might have said with Malvolio, '"I do not now fool myself, to let
imagination jade me!" I am actually in the land of military and
romantic adventures, and it only remains to be seen what will be
my own share in them.'
The whole circumstances now detailed concerning the state of the
country, seemed equally novel and extraordinary. He had indeed
often heard of Highland thieves, but had no idea of the
systematic mode in which their depredations were conducted; and
that the practice was connived at, and even encouraged, by many
of the Highland chieftains, who not only found the creaghs, or
forays, useful for the purpose of training individuals of their
clan to the practice of arms, but also of maintaining a wholesome
terror among their Lowland neighbours, and levying, as we have
seen, a tribute from them, under colour of protection-money.
Bailie Macwheeble, who soon afterwards entered, expatiated still
more at length upon the same topic. This honest gentleman's
conversation was so formed upon his professional practice, that
Davie Gellatley once said his discourse was like 'a charge of
horning.' He assured our hero, that 'from the maist ancient
times of record, the lawless thieves, limmers, and broken men of
the Highlands, had been in fellowship together by reason of their
surnames, for the committing of divers thefts, reifs, and
herships upon the honest men of the Low Country, when they not
only intromitted with their whole goods and gear, corn, cattle,
horse, nolt, sheep, outsight and insight plenishing, at their
wicked pleasure, but moreover made prisoners, ransomed them, or
concussed them into giving borrows (pledges) to enter into
captivity again: all which was directly prohibited in divers
parts of the Statute Book, both by the act one thousand five
hundred and sixty-seven, and various others; the whilk statutes,
with all that had followed and might follow thereupon, were
shamefully broken and vilipended by the said sornars, limmers,
and broken men, associated into fellowships, for the aforesaid
purposes of theft, stouthreef, fire-raising, murther, RAPTUS
MULIERUM, or forcible abduction of women, and such like as
aforesaid.'
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