1814
WAVERLEY
by Sir Walter Scott
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
Author's Preface
THE plan of this edition leads me to insert in this place some account
of the incidents on which the Novel of WAVERLEY is founded. They have
been already given to the public , by my late lamented friend, William
Erskine, Esq. (afterwards Lord Kinneder), when reviewing the Tales of
My Landlord for the Quarterly Review, in 1817. The particulars were
derived by the critic from the author's information. Afterwards they
were published in the preface to the Chronicles of the Canongate.
They are now inserted in their proper place.
The mutual protection afforded by Waverley and Talbot to each other,
upon which the whole plot depends, is founded upon one of those
anecdotes which soften the features even of civil war; and as it is
equally honourable to the memory of both parties, we have no hesitation
to give their names at length. When the Highlanders, on the morning of
the battle of Preston, 1745, made their memorable attack on Sir John
Cope's army, a battery of four field-pieces was stormed and carried by
the Camerons and the Stewarts of Appine. The late Alexander Stewart of
Invernahyle was one of the foremost in the charge, and observing an
officer of the King's forces, who, scorning to join the flight of all
around, remained with his sword in his hand, as if determined to the
very last to defend the post assigned to him, the Highland gentleman
commanded the battle-axe of a gigantic Highlander (the miller of
Invernahyle's mill) was uplifted to dash his brains out, him to
surrender, and received for reply a thrust, which he caught in his
target. The officer was now defenceless, and when Mr. Stewart with
difficulty prevailed on him to yield. He took charge of his enemy's
property, protected his person, and finally obtained him liberty on his
parole. The officer proved to be Colonel Whitefoord, an Ayrshire
gentleman of high character and influence, and warmly attached to the
House of Hanover; yet such was the confidence existing between these two
honourable men, though of different political principles, that while the
civil war was raging, and straggling officers from the Highland army
were executed without mercy, Invernahyle hesitated not to pay his late
captive a visit, as he returned to the Highlands to raise fresh
recruits, on which occasion he spent a day or two in Ayrshire among
Colonel Whitefoord's Whig friends, as pleasantly and as good-humouredly
as if all had been at peace around him.
After the battle of Culloden had ruined the hopes of Charles Edward,
and dispersed his proscribed adherents, it was Colonel Whitefoord's turn
to strain every nerve to obtain Mr. Stewart's pardon. He went to the
Lord Justice Clerk, to the Lord Advocate, and to all the officers of
state, and each application was answered by the production of a list, in
which Invernahyle (as the good old gentleman was wont to express it)
appeared "marked with the sign of the beast!" as a subject unfit for
favour or pardon.
At length Colonel Whitefoord applied to the Duke of Cumberland in
person. From him, also, he received a positive refusal. He then limited
his request, for the present, to a protection for Stewart's house, wife,
children, and property. This was also refused by the Duke; on which
Colonel Whitefoord, taking his commission from his bosom, laid it on the
table before his Royal Highness with much emotion, and asked permission
to retire from the service of a sovereign who did not know how to spare
a vanquished enemy. The Duke was struck, and even affected. He bade the
Colonel take up his commission, and granted the protection he required.
It was issued just in time to save the house, corn, and cattle at
Invernahyle from the troops, who were engaged in laying waste what it
was the fashion to call "the country of the enemy." A small encampment
of soldiers was formed on Invernahyle's property, which they spared,
while plundering the country around, and searching in every direction
for the leaders of the insurrection, and for Stewart in particular. He
was much nearer them than they suspected; for, hidden in a cave (like
the Baron of Bradwardine), he lay for many days so near the English
sentinels, that he could hear their muster-roll called. His food was
brought to him by one of his daughters, a child of eight years old, whom
Mrs. Stewart was under the necessity of intrusting with this commission;
for her own motions, and those of all her elder inmates, were closely
watched. With ingenuity beyond her years, the child used to stray about
among the soldiers, who were rather kind to her, and thus seize the
moment when she was unobserved, and steal into the thicket, when she
deposited whatever small store of provisions she had in charge, at some
marked spot, where her father might find it. Invernahyle supported life
for several weeks by means of these precarious supplies; and as he had
been wounded in the battle of Culloden, the hardships which he endured
were aggravated by great bodily pain. After the soldiers had removed
their quarters, he had another remarkable escape.
As he now ventured to his own house at night, and left it in the
morning, he was espied during the dawn by a party of the enemy, who
fired at and pursued him. The fugitive being fortunate enough to escape
their search, they returned to the house, and charged the family with
harbouring one of the proscribed traitors. An old woman had presence of
mind enough to maintain that the man they had seen was the shepherd.
"Why did he not stop when we called to him?" said the soldier. "He is as
deaf, poor man, as a peat-stack," answered the ready-witted domestic.
"Let him be sent for directly." The real shepherd accordingly was
brought from the hill, and as there was time to tutor him by the way, he
was as deaf when he made his appearance, as was necessary to sustain his
character. Invernahyle was afterwards pardoned under the Act of
Indemnity.
The author knew him well, and has often heard these circumstances from
his own mouth. He was a noble specimen of the old Highlander, far
descended, gallant, courteous, and brave, even to chivalry. He had been
out, I believe, in 1715 and 1745; was an active partaker in all the
stirring scenes which passed in the Highlands betwixt these memorable
eras; and I have heard, was remarkable, among other exploits, for having
fought a duel with the broadsword with the celebrated Rob Roy MacGregor,
at the Clachan of Balquidder.
Invernahyle chanced to be in Edinburgh when Paul Jones came into the
Frith of Forth, and though then an old man, I saw him in arms, and heard
him exult (to use his own words) in the prospect of "drawing his
claymore once more before he died." In fact, on that memorable occasion,
when the capital of Scotland was menaced by three trifling sloops or
brigs, scarce fit to have sacked a fishing village, he was the only man
who seemed to propose a plan of resistance. He offered to the
magistrates, if broadswords and dirks could be obtained, to find as many
Highlanders among the lower classes as would cut off any boat's crew who
might be sent into a town, full of narrow and winding passages, in which
they were like to disperse in quest of plunder. I know not if his plan
was attended to; I rather think it seemed too hazardous to the
constituted authorities, who might not, even at that time, desire to see
arms in Highland hands. A steady and powerful west wind settled the
matter, by sweeping Paul Jones and his vessels out of the Frith.
If there is something degrading in this recollection, it is not
unpleasant to compare it with those of the last war, when Edinburgh,
besides regular forces and militia, furnished a volunteer brigade of
cavalry, infantry, and artillery, to the amount of six thousand men and
upwards, which was in readiness to meet and repel a force of a far more
formidable description than was commanded by the adventurous American.
Time and circumstances change the character of nations, and the fate of
cities; and it is some pride to a Scotchman to reflect, that the
independent and manly character of a country, willing to intrust its own
protection to the arms of its children, after having been obscured for
half a century, has, during the course of his own lifetime, recovered
its lustre.
Other illustrations of Waverley will be found in the Notes at the
end of the volume.
Epigraph
"Under which king, Bezonian? Speak, or die!"
HENRY IV, Part 2
Chapter I: Introductory
THE title of this work has not been chosen without the grave and solid
deliberation which matters of importance demand from the prudent. Even
its first or general denomination was the result of no common research
or selection, although, according to the example of my predecessors, I
had only to seize upon the most sounding and euphonic surname that
English history or topography affords, and elect it at once as the title
of my work and the name of my hero. But, alas! what could my readers
have expected from the chivalrous epithets of Howard, Mordaunt,
Mortimer, or Stanley, or from the softer and more sentimental sounds of
Belmour, Belville, Belfield, and Belgrave, but pages of inanity, similar
to those which have been so christened for half a century past? I must
modestly admit I am too diffident of my own merit to place it in
unnecessary opposition to preconceived associations. I have, therefore,
like a maiden knight with his white shield, assumed for my hero,
WAVERLEY, an uncontaminated name, bearing with its sound little of good
or evil, excepting what the reader shall hereafter be pleased to affix
to it. But my second or supplemental title was a matter of much more
difficult election, since that, short as it is, may be held as pledging
the author to some special mode of laying his scene, drawing his
characters, and managing his adventures. Had I, for example, announced
in my frontispiece, "Waverley, a Tale of Other Days," must not every
novel-reader have anticipated a castle scarce less than that of Udolpho,
of which the eastern wing had long been uninhabited, and the keys either
lost or consigned to the care of some aged butler or housekeeper, whose
trembling steps, about the middle of the second volume, were doomed to
guide the hero, or heroine, to the ruinous precincts? Would not the owl
have shrieked and the cricket cried in my very title-page? and could it
have been possible for me, with a moderate attention to decorum, to
introduce any scene more lively than might be produced by the jocularity
of a clownish but faithful valet, or the garrulous narrative of the
heroine's fille-de-chambre, when rehearsing the stories of blood and
horror which she had heard in the servants' hall? Again, had my title
borne, "Waverley, a Romance from the German," what head so obtuse as not
to image forth a profligate abbot, an oppressive duke, a secret and
mysterious association of Rosicrucians and Illuminati, with all their
properties of black cowls, caverns, daggers, electrical machines,
trapdoors, and dark lanterns? Or if I had rather chosen to call my work
a "Sentimental Tale," would it not have been a sufficient presage of a
heroine with a profusion of auburn hair, and a harp, the soft solace of
her solitary hours, which she fortunately finds always the means of
transporting from castle to cottage, although she herself be sometimes
obliged to jump out of a two-pair-of-stairs window, and is more than
once bewildered on her journey, alone and on foot, without any guide but
a blowzy peasant girl, whose jargon she hardly can understand? Or again,
if my Waverley had been entitled "A Tale of the Times," wouldst thou
not, gentle reader, have demanded from me a dashing sketch of the
fashionable world, a few anecdotes of private scandal thinly veiled, and
if lusciously painted, so much the better? a heroine from Grosvenor
Square, and a hero from the Barouche Club or the Four-in-Hand, with a
set of subordinate characters from the elegantes of Queen Anne Street
East, or the dashing heroes of the Bow Street Office? I could proceed in
proving the importance of a title-page, and displaying at the same time
my own intimate knowledge of the particular ingredients necessary to the
composition of romances and novels of various descriptions; but it is
enough, and I scorn to tyrannise longer over the impatience of my
reader, who is doubtless already anxious to know the choice made by an
author so profoundly versed in the different branches of his art.
By fixing, then, the date of my story Sixty Years before this present
1st November 1805, I would have my readers understand that they will
meet in the following pages neither a romance of chivalry nor a tale of
modern manners; that my hero will neither have iron on his shoulders, as
of yore, nor on the heels of his boots, as is the present fashion of
Bond Street; and that my damsels will neither be clothed "in purple and
in pall" like the lady Alice of an old ballad, nor reduced to the
primitive nakedness of a modern fashionable at a rout. From this my
choice of an era, the understanding critic may further presage that the
object of my tale is more a description of men than manners. A tale of
manners, to be interesting, must either refer to antiquity so great as
to have become venerable, or it must bear a vivid reflection of those
scenes which are passing daily before our eyes, and are interesting from
their novelty. Thus the coat-of-mail of our ancestors, and the triple-
furred pelisse of our modern beaux, may, though for very different
reasons, be equally fit for the array of a fictitious character; but
who, meaning the costume of his hero to be impressive, would willingly
attire him in the court dress of George the Second's reign, with its no
collar, large sleeves, and low pocket-holes? The same may be urged, with
equal truth, of the Gothic hall, which, with its darkened and tinted
windows, its elevated and gloomy roof, and massive oaken table garnished
with boar-heads and rosemary, pheasants and peacocks, cranes and
cygnets, has an excellent effect in fictitious description. Much may
also be gained by a lively display of a modern fete, such as we have
daily recorded in that part of a newspaper entitled the Mirror of
Fashion, if we contrast these, or either of them, with the splendid
formality of an entertainment given Sixty Years since; and thus it will
be readily seen how much the painter of antique or of fashionable
manners gains over him who delineates those of the last generation.
Considering the disadvantages inseparable from this part of my
subject, I must be understood to have resolved to avoid them as much as
possible, by throwing the force of my narrative upon the characters and
passions of the actors- those passions common to men in all stages of
society, and which have alike agitated the human heart, whether it
throbbed under the steel corselet of the fifteenth century, the brocaded
coat of the eighteenth, or the blue frock and white dimity waistcoat of
the present day. Upon these passions it is no doubt true that the state
of manners and laws casts a necessary colouring; but the bearings, to
use the language of heraldry, remain the same, though the tincture may
be not only different, but opposed in strong contradistinction. The
wrath of our ancestors, for example, was coloured gules; it broke
forth in acts of open and sanguinary violence against the objects of its
fury. Our malignant feelings, which must seek gratification through more
indirect channels, and undermine the obstacles which they cannot openly
bear down, may be rather said to be tinctured sable. But the deep-
ruling impulse is the same in both cases; and the proud peer, who can
now only ruin his neighbour according to law, by protracted suits, is
the genuine descendant of the baron who wrapped the castle of his
competitor in flames, and knocked him on the head as he endeavoured to
escape from the conflagration. It is from the great book of Nature, the
same through a thousand editions, whether of black-leather or wire-wove
and hot-pressed, that I have venturously essayed to read a chapter to
the public. Some favourable opportunities of contrast have been afforded
me by the state of society in the northern part of the island at the
period of my history, and may serve at once to vary and to illustrate
the moral lessons which I would willingly consider as the most important
part of my plan; although I am sensible how short these will fall of
their aim, if I shall be found unable to mix them with amusement- a task
not quite so easy in this critical generation as it was "Sixty Years
since."
Chapter II: Waverley-Honour- A Retrospect
IT is, then, sixty years since Edward Waverley, the hero of the
following pages, took leave of his family, to join the regiment of
dragoons in which he had lately obtained a commission. It was a
melancholy day at Waverley-Honour when the young officer parted with Sir
Everard, the affectionate old uncle to whose title and estate he was
presumptive heir.
A difference in political opinions had early separated the Baronet
from his younger brother Richard Waverley, the father of our hero. Sir
Everard had inherited from his sires the whole train of Tory or High-
Church predilections and prejudices which had distinguished the house of
Waverley since the Great Civil War. Richard, on the contrary, who was
ten years younger, beheld himself born to the fortune of a second
brother, and anticipated neither dignity nor entertainment in sustaining
the character of Will Wimble. He saw early that, to succeed in the race
of life, it was necessary he should carry as little weight as possible.
Painters talk of the difficulty of expressing the existence of compound
passions in the same features at the same moment. It would be no less
difficult for the moralist to analyse the mixed motives which unite to
form the impulse of our actions. Richard Waverley read and satisfied
himself from history and sound argument that, in the words of the old
song,-
Passive obedience was a jest,
And pshaw! was non-resistance;
yet reason would have probably been unable to combat and remove
hereditary prejudice, could Richard have anticipated that his elder
brother, Sir Everard, taking to heart an early disappointment, would
have remained a bachelor at seventy-two. The prospect of succession,
however remote, might in that case have led him to endure dragging
through the greater part of his life as "Master Richard at the Hall, the
Baronet's brother," in the hope that ere its conclusion he should be
distinguished as Sir Richard Waverley of Waverley-Honour, successor to a
princely estate, and to extended political connections as head of the
county interest in the shire where it lay. But this was a consummation
of things not to be expected at Richard's outset, when Sir Everard was
in the prime of life, and certain to be an acceptable suitor in almost
any family, whether wealth or beauty should be the object of his
pursuit, and when, indeed, his speedy marriage was a report which
regularly amused the neighbourhood once a year. His younger brother saw
no practicable road to independence save that of relying upon his own
exertions, and adopting a political creed more consonant both to reason
and his own interest than the hereditary faith of Sir Everard in High
Church and in the house of Stewart. He therefore read his recantation at
the beginning of his career, and entered life as an avowed Whig and
friend of the Hanover succession.
The ministry of George the First's time were prudently anxious to
diminish the phalanx of opposition. The Tory nobility, depending for
their reflected lustre upon the sunshine of a court, had for some time
been gradually reconciling themselves to the new dynasty. But the
wealthy country gentlemen of England, a rank which retained, with much
of ancient manners and primitive integrity, a great proportion of
obstinate and unyielding prejudice, stood aloof in haughty and sullen
opposition, and cast many a look of mingled regret and hope to Bois le
Duc, Avignon, and Italy. *001
The accession of the near relation of one of those steady and
inflexible opponents was considered as a means of bringing over more
converts, and therefore Richard Waverley met with a share of ministerial
favour more than proportioned to his talents or his political
importance. It was, however, discovered that he had respectable talents
for public business, and the first admittance to the minister's levee
being negotiated, his success became rapid. Sir Everard learned from the
public News-Letter, first, that Richard Waverley, Esquire, was
returned for the ministerial borough of Barterfaith; next, that Richard
Waverley, Esquire, had taken a distinguished part in the debate upon the
Excise bill in the support of government; and lastly, that Richard
Waverley, Esquire, had been honoured with a seat at one of those boards
where the pleasure of serving the country is combined with other
important gratifications, which, to render them the more acceptable,
occur regularly once a quarter.
Although these events followed each other so closely that the sagacity
of the editor of a modern newspaper would have presaged the two last
even while he announced the first, yet they came upon Sir Everard
gradually, and drop by drop, as it were, distilled through the cool and
procrastinating alembic of Dyer's Weekly Letter. For it may be
observed, in passing, that instead of those mail-coaches, by means of
which every mechanic at his sixpenny club may nightly learn from twenty
contradictory channels the yesterday's news of the capital, a weekly
post brought, in those days, to Waverley-Honour, a Weekly
Intelligencer, which, after it had gratified Sir Everard's curiosity,
his sister's, and that of his aged butler, was regularly transferred
from the Hall to the Rectory, from the Rectory to Squire Stubbs's at the
Grange, from the Squire to the Baronet's steward at his neat, white
house on the heath, from the steward to the bailiff, and from him
through a huge circle of honest dames and gaffers, by whose hard and
horny hands it was generally worn to pieces in about a month after its
arrival.
This slow succession of intelligence was of some advantage to Richard
Waverley in the case before us; for had the sum total of his enormities
reached the ears of Sir Everard at once, there can be no doubt that the
new commissioner would have had little reason to pique himself on the
success of his politics. The Baronet, although the mildest of human
beings, was not without sensitive points in his character. His brother's
conduct had wounded these deeply. The Waverley estate was fettered by no
entail (for it had never entered into the head of any of its former
possessors that one of their progeny could be guilty of the atrocities
laid by Dyer's Letter to the door of Richard); and if it had, the
marriage of the proprietor might have been fatal to a collateral heir.
These various ideas floated through the brain of Sir Everard, without,
however, producing any determined conclusion.
He examined the tree of his genealogy, which, emblazoned with many an
emblematic mark of honour and heroic achievement, hung upon the well-
varnished wainscot of his hall. The nearest descendants of Sir
Hildebrand Waverley, failing those of his eldest son Wilfred, of whom
Sir Everard and his brother were the only representatives, were, as this
honoured register informed him (and, indeed, as he himself well knew),
the Waverleys of Highley Park, com. Hants; with whom the main branch, or
rather stock, of the house had renounced all connection, since the great
lawsuit in 1670.
This degenerate scion had committed a further offence against the head
and source of their gentility, by intermarriage of their representative
with Judith, heiress of Oliver Bradshawe, of Highley Park, whose arms,
the same with those of Bradshawe the regicide, they had quartered with
the ancient coat of Waverley. These offences, however, had vanished from
Sir Everard's recollection in the heat of his resentment; and had Lawyer
Clippurse, for whom his groom was despatched express, arrived but an
hour earlier, he might have had the benefit of drawing a new settlement
of the lordship and manor of Waverley-Honour, with all its dependencies.
But an hour of cool reflection is a great matter when employed in
weighing the comparative evil of two measures, to neither of which we
are internally partial. Lawyer Clippurse found his patron involved in a
deep study, which he was too respectful to disturb, otherwise than by
producing his paper and leathern ink-case, as prepared to minute his
honour's commands. Even this slight manoeuvre was embarrassing to Sir
Everard, who felt it as a reproach to his indecision. He looked at the
attorney with some desire to issue his fiat, when the sun, emerging from
behind a cloud, poured at once its chequered light through the stained
window of the gloomy cabinet in which they were seated. The Baronet's
eye, as he raised it to the splendour, fell right upon the central
scutcheon, impressed with the same device which his ancestor was said to
have borne in the field of Hastings- three ermines passant, argent, in a
field azure, with its appropriate motto, Sans tache. "May our name
rather perish," exclaimed Sir Everard, "than that ancient and loyal
symbol should be blended with the dishonoured insignia of a traitorous
Roundhead!"
All this was the effect of the glimpse of a sunbeam, just sufficient
to light Lawyer Clippurse to mend his pen. The pen was mended in vain.
The attorney was dismissed, with directions to hold himself in readiness
on the first summons.
The apparition of Lawyer Clippurse at the Hall occasioned much
speculation in that portion of the world to which Waverley-Honour formed
the centre; but the more judicious politicians of this microcosm augured
yet worse consequences to Richard Waverley from a movement which shortly
followed his apostasy. This was no less than an excursion of the Baronet
in his coach-and-six, with four attendants in rich liveries, to make a
visit of some duration to a noble peer on the confines of the shire, of
untainted descent, steady Tory principles, and the happy father of six
unmarried and accomplished daughters.
Sir Everard's reception in this family was, as it may be easily
conceived, sufficiently favourable; but of the six young ladies, his
taste unfortunately determined him in favor of Lady Emily, the youngest,
who received his attentions with an embarrassment which showed, at once,
that she durst not decline them, and that they afforded her anything but
pleasure.
Sir Everard could not but perceive something uncommon in the
restrained emotions which the young lady testified at the advances he
hazarded; but, assured by the prudent countess that they were the
natural effects of a retired education, the sacrifice might have been
completed, as doubtless has happened in many similar instances, had it
not been for the courage of an elder sister, who revealed to the wealthy
suitor that Lady Emily's affections were fixed upon a young soldier of
fortune, a near relation of her own. Sir Everard manifested great
emotion on receiving this intelligence, which was confirmed to him, in a
private interview, by the young lady herself, although under the most
dreadful apprehensions of her father's indignation.
Honour and generosity were hereditary attributes of the house of
Waverley. With a grace and delicacy worthy the hero of a romance, Sir
Everard withdrew his claim to the hand of Lady Emily. He had even,
before leaving Blandeville Castle, the address to extort from her father
a consent to her union with the object of her choice. What arguments he
used on this point cannot exactly be known, for Sir Everard was never
supposed strong in the powers of persuasion; but the young officer,
immediately after this transaction, rose in the army with a rapidity far
surpassing the usual pace of unpatronised professional merit, although,
to outward appearance, that was all he had to depend upon.
The shock which Sir Everard encountered upon this occasion, although
diminished by the consciousness of having acted virtuously and
generously, had its effect upon his future life. His resolution of
marriage had been adopted in a fit of indignation; the labour of
courtship did not quite suit the dignified indolence of his habits; he
had but just escaped the risk of marrying a woman who could never love
him, and his pride could not be greatly flattered by the termination of
his amour, even if his heart had not suffered. The result of the whole
matter was his return to Waverley-Honour without any transfer of his
affections, notwithstanding the sighs and languishments of the fair
tell-tale who had revealed, in mere sisterly affection, the secret of
Lady Emily's attachment, and in despite of the nods, winks, and
innuendoes of the officious lady mother, and the grave eulogiums which
the earl pronounced successively on the prudence, and good sense, and
admirable dispositions of his first, second, third, fourth, and fifth
daughters. The memory of his unsuccessful amour was with Sir Everard, as
with many more of his temper, at once shy, proud, sensitive, and
indolent, a beacon against exposing himself to similar mortification,
pain, and fruitless exertion for the time to come. He continued to live
at Waverley-Honour in the style of an old English gentleman, of an
ancient descent and opulent fortune. His sister, Miss Rachel Waverley,
presided at his table; and they became, by degrees, an old bachelor and
an ancient maiden lady, the gentlest and kindest of the votaries of
celibacy.
The vehemence of Sir Everard's resentment against his brother was but
short-lived; yet his dislike to the Whig and the placeman, though unable
to stimulate him to resume any active measures prejudicial to Richard's
interest in the succession to the family estate, continued to maintain
the coldness between them. Richard knew enough of the world, and of his
brother's temper, to believe that by any ill-considered or precipitate
advances on his part he might turn passive dislike into a more active
principle. It was accident, therefore, which at length occasioned a
renewal of their intercourse. Richard had married a young woman of rank,
by whose family interest and private fortune he hoped to advance his
career. In her right, he became possessor of a manor of some value, at
the distance of a few miles from Waverley-Honour.
Little Edward, the hero of our tale, then in his fifth year, was their
only child. It chanced that the infant with his maid had strayed one
morning to a mile's distance from the avenue of Brere-wood Lodge, his
father's seat. Their attention was attracted by a carriage drawn by six
stately long-tailed black horses, and with as much carving and gilding
as would have done honour to my lord mayor's. It was waiting for the
owner, who was at a little distance inspecting the progress of a half-
built farmhouse. I know not whether the boy's nurse had been a Welsh or
a Scotch woman, or in what manner he associated a shield emblazoned with
three ermines with the idea of personal property, but he no sooner
beheld this family emblem than he stoutly determined on vindicating his
right to the splendid vehicle on which it was displayed. The Baronet
arrived while the boy's maid was in vain endeavouring to make him desist
from his determination to appropriate the gilded coach-and-six. The
rencontre was at a happy moment for Edward, as his uncle had been just
eyeing wistfully, with something of a feeling like envy, the chubby boys
of the stout yeoman whose mansion was building by his direction. In the
round-faced rosy cherub before him, bearing his eye and his name, and
vindicating a hereditary title to his family, affection, and patronage,
by means of a tie which Sir Everard held as sacred as either Garter or
Blue-mantle, Providence seemed to have granted to him the very object
best calculated to fill up the void in his hopes and affections. Sir
Everard returned to Waverley-Hall upon a led horse, which was kept in
readiness for him, while the child and his attendant were sent home in
the carriage to Brere-wood Lodge, with such a message as opened to
Richard Waverley a door of reconciliation with his elder brother.
Their intercourse, however, though thus renewed, continued to be
rather formal and civil than partaking of brotherly cordiality; yet it
was sufficient to the wishes of both parties. Sir Everard obtained, in
the frequent society of his little nephew, something on which his
hereditary pride might found the anticipated pleasure of a continuance
of his lineage, and where his kind and gentle affections could at the
same time fully exercise themselves. For Richard Waverley, he beheld in
the growing attachment between the uncle and nephew the means of
securing his son's, if not his own, succession to the hereditary estate,
which he felt would be rather endangered than promoted by any attempt on
his own part towards a closer intimacy with a man of Sir Everard's
habits and opinions.
Thus, by a sort of tacit compromise, little Edward was permitted to
pass the greater part of the year at the Hall; and appeared to stand in
the same intimate relation to both families, although their mutual
intercourse was otherwise limited to formal messages, and more formal
visits. The education of the youth was regulated alternately by the
taste and opinions of his uncle and of his father. But more of this in a
subsequent chapter.
Chapter III: Education
THE education of our hero, Edward Waverley, was of a nature somewhat
desultory. In infancy, his health suffered, or was supposed to suffer
(which is quite the same thing), by the air of London. As soon,
therefore, as official duties, attendance on Parliament, or the
prosecution of any of his plans of interest or ambition, called his
father to town, which was his usual residence for eight months in the
year, Edward was transferred to Waverley-Honour, and experienced a total
change of instructors and of lessons, as well as of residence. This
might have been remedied, had his father placed him under the
superintendence of a permanent tutor. But he considered that one of his
choosing would probably have been unacceptable at Waverley-Honour, and
that such a selection as Sir Everard might have made, were the matter
left to him, would have burdened him with a disagreeable inmate, if not
a political spy, in his family. He, therefore, prevailed upon his
private secretary, a young man of taste and accomplishments, to bestow
an hour or two on Edward's education while at Brere-wood Lodge, and left
his uncle answerable for his improvement in literature while an inmate
at the Hall.
This was, in some degree, respectably provided for. Sir Everard's
chaplain, an Oxonian, who had lost his fellowship for declining to take
the oaths at the accession of George the First, was not only an
excellent classical scholar, but reasonably skilled in science, and
master of most modern languages. He was, however, old and indulgent; and
the recurring interregnum, during which Edward was entirely freed from
his discipline, occasioned such a relaxation of authority that the youth
was permitted, in a great measure, to learn as he pleased, what he
pleased, and when he pleased. This slackness of rule might have been
ruinous to a boy of slow understanding, who, feeling labour in the
acquisition of knowledge, would have altogether neglected it, save for
the command of a taskmaster; and it might have proved equally dangerous
to a youth whose animal spirits were more powerful than his imagination
or his feelings, and whom the irresistible influence of Alma would have
engaged in field-sports from morning till night. But the character of
Edward Waverley was remote from either of these. His powers of
apprehension were so uncommonly quick, as almost to resemble intuition;
and the chief care of his preceptor was to prevent him, as a sportsman
would phrase it, from overrunning his game- that is, from acquiring his
knowledge in a slight, flimsy, and inadequate manner. And here the
instructor had to combat another propensity too often united with
brilliancy of fancy and vivacity of talent- that indolence, namely, of
disposition which can only be stirred by some strong motive of
gratification, and which renounces study as soon as curiosity is
gratified, the pleasure of conquering the first difficulties exhausted,
and the novelty of pursuit at an end. Edward would throw himself with
spirit upon any classical author of which his preceptor proposed the
perusal, make himself master of the style so far as to understand the
story, and, if that pleased or interested him, he finished the volume.
But it was in vain to attempt fixing his attention on critical
distinctions of philology, upon the difference of idiom, the beauty of
felicitous expression, or the artificial combinations of syntax. "I can
read and understand a Latin author," said young Edward, with the self-
confidence and rash reasoning of fifteen, "and Scaliger or Bentley could
not do much more." Alas! while he was thus permitted to read only for
the gratification of his amusement, he foresaw not that he was losing
for ever the opportunity of acquiring habits of firm and assiduous
application, of gaining the art of controlling, directing, and
concentrating the powers of his mind for earnest investigation- an art
far more essential than even that intimate acquaintance with classical
learning which is the primary object of study.
I am aware I may be here reminded of the necessity of rendering
instruction agreeable to youth, and of Tasso's infusion of honey into
the medicine prepared for a child; but an age in which children are
taught the driest doctrines by the insinuating method of instructive
games has little reason to dread the consequences of study being
rendered too serious or severe. The history of England is now reduced to
a game at cards- the problems of mathematics to puzzles and riddles and
the doctrines of arithmetic may, we are assured, be sufficiently
acquired by spending a few hours a week at a new and complicated edition
of the Royal Game of the Goose. There wants but one step further, and
the Creed and Ten Commandments may be taught in the same manner, without
the necessity of the grave face, deliberate tone of recital, and devout
attention hitherto exacted from the well-governed childhood of this
realm. It may, in the meantime, be subject of serious consideration
whether those who are accustomed only to acquire instruction through the
medium of amusement may not be brought to reject that which approaches
under the aspect of study; whether those who learn history by the cards
may not be led to prefer the means to the end; and whether, were we to
teach religion in the way of sport, our pupils may not thereby be
gradually induced to make sport of their religion. To our young hero,
who was permitted to seek his instruction only according to the bent of
his own mind, and who, of consequence, only sought it so long as it
afforded him amusement, the indulgence of his tutors was attended with
evil consequences, which long continued to influence his character,
happiness, and utility.
Edward's power of imagination and love of literature, although the
former was vivid and the latter ardent, were so far from affording a
remedy to this peculiar evil, that they rather inflamed and increased
its violence. The library at Waverley-Honour, a large Gothic room, with
double arches and a gallery, contained such a miscellaneous and
extensive collection of volumes as had been assembled together, during
the course of two hundred years, by a family which had been always
wealthy, and inclined, of course, as a mark of splendour, to furnish
their shelves with the current literature of the day, without much
scrutiny or nicety of discrimination. Throughout this ample realm Edward
was permitted to roam at large. His tutor had his own studies; and
church politics and controversial divinity, together with a love of
learned ease, though they did not withdraw his attention at stated times
from the progress of his patron's presumptive heir, induced him readily
to grasp at any apology for not extending a strict and regulated survey
towards his general studies. Sir Everard had never been himself a
student, and, like his sister Miss Rachel Waverley, held the common
doctrine that idleness is incompatible with reading of any kind, and
that the mere tracing the alphabetical characters with the eye is in
itself a useful and meritorious task, without scrupulously considering
what ideas or doctrines they may happen to convey. With a desire of
amusement, therefore, which better discipline might soon have converted
into a thirst for knowledge, young Waverley drove through the sea of
books like a vessel without a pilot or a rudder. Nothing perhaps
increases by indulgence more than a desultory habit of reading,
especially under such opportunities of gratifying it. I believe one
reason why such numerous instances of erudition occur among the lower
ranks is that, with the same powers of mind, the poor student is limited
to a narrow circle for indulging his passion for books, and must
necessarily make himself master of the few he possesses ere he can
acquire more. Edward, on the contrary, like the epicure who only deigned
to take a single morsel from the sunny side of a peach, read no volume a
moment after it ceased to excite his curiosity or interest; and it
necessarily happened that the habit of seeking only this sort of
gratification rendered it daily more difficult of attainment, till the
passion for reading, like other strong appetites, produced by indulgence
a sort of satiety.
Ere he attained this indifference, however, he had read, and stored in
a memory of uncommon tenacity, much curious, though ill-arranged and
miscellaneous information. In English literature he was master of
Shakespeare and Milton, of our earlier dramatic authors, of many
picturesque and interesting passages from our old historical chronicles,
and was particularly well acquainted with Spenser, Drayton, and other
poets who have exercised themselves on romantic fiction, of all themes
the most fascinating to a youthful imagination, before the passions have
roused themselves, and demand poetry of a more sentimental description.
In this respect his acquaintance with Italian opened him yet a wider
range. He had perused the numerous romantic poems which, from the days
of Pulci, have been a favourite exercise of the wits of Italy, and had
sought gratification in the numerous collections of novelle, which
were brought forth by the genius of that elegant though luxurious nation
in emulation of the "Decameron." In classical literature, Waverley had
made the usual progress, and read the usual authors; and the French had
afforded him an almost exhaustless collection of memoirs, scarcely more
faithful than romances, and of romances so well written as hardly to be
distinguished from memoirs. The splendid pages of Froissart, with his
heart-stirring and eye-dazzling descriptions of war and of tournaments,
were among his chief favourites; and from those of Brantome and de La
Noue he learned to compare the wild and loose yet superstitious
character of the nobles of the League with the stern, rigid, and
sometimes turbulent disposition of the Huguenot party. The Spanish had
contributed to his stock of chivalrous and romantic lore. The earlier
literature of the Northern nations did not escape the study of one who
read rather to awaken the imagination than to benefit the understanding.
And yet, knowing much that is known but to few, Edward Waverley might
justly be considered as ignorant, since he knew little of what adds
dignity to man, and qualifies him to support and adorn an elevated
situation in society.
The occasional attention of his parents might indeed have been of
service to prevent the dissipation of mind incidental to such a
desultory course of reading. But his mother died in the seventh year
after the reconciliation between the brothers; and Richard Waverley
himself, who, after this event, resided more constantly in London, was
too much interested in his own plans of wealth and ambition to notice
more respecting Edward than that he was of a very bookish turn, and
probably destined to be a bishop. If he could have discovered and
analysed his son's waking dreams, he would have formed a very different
conclusion.
Chapter IV: Castle-building
I HAVE already hinted that the dainty, squeamish, and fastidious taste
acquired by a surfeit of idle reading had not only rendered our hero
unfit for serious and sober study, but had even disgusted him in some
degree with that in which he had hitherto indulged.
He was in his sixteenth year when his habits of abstraction and love
of solitude became so much marked as to excite Sir Everard's
affectionate apprehension. He tried to counterbalance these propensities
by engaging his nephew in field-sports, which had been the chief
pleasure of his own youthful days. But although Edward eagerly carried
the gun for one season, yet when practice had given him some dexterity
the pastime ceased to afford him amusement.
In the succeeding spring the perusal of old Izaak Walton's fascinating
volume determined Edward to become "a brother of the angle." But of all
diversions which ingenuity ever devised for the relief of idleness,
fishing is the worst qualified to amuse a man who is at once indolent
and impatient; and our hero's rod was speedily flung aside. Society and
example, which, more than any other motives, master and sway the natural
bent of our passions, might have had their usual effect upon the
youthful visionary. But the neighbourhood was thinly inhabited, and the
home-bred young squires whom it afforded were not of a class fit to form
Edward's usual companions, far less to excite him to emulation in the
practice of those pastimes which composed the serious business of their
lives.
There were a few other youths of better education and a more liberal
character, but from their society also our hero was in some degree
excluded. Sir Everard had, upon the death of Queen Anne, resigned his
seat in Parliament, and, as his age increased and the number of his
contemporaries diminished, had gradually withdrawn himself from society;
so that when, upon any particular occasion, Edward mingled with
accomplished and well-educated young men of his own rank and
expectations, he felt an inferiority in their company, not so much from
deficiency of information, as from the want of the skill to command and
to arrange that which he possessed. A deep and increasing sensibility
added to this dislike of society. The idea of having committed the
slightest solecism in politeness, whether real or imaginary, was agony
to him; for perhaps even guilt itself does not impose upon some minds so
keen a sense of shame and remorse as a modest, sensitive, and
inexperienced youth feels from the consciousness of having neglected
etiquette or excited ridicule. Where we are not at ease we cannot be
happy; and therefore it is not surprising that Edward Waverley supposed
that he disliked and was unfitted for society merely because he had not
yet acquired the habit of living in it with ease and comfort, and of
reciprocally giving and receiving pleasure.
The hours he spent with his uncle and aunt were exhausted in listening
to the oft-repeated tale of narrative old age. Yet even there his
imagination, the predominant faculty of his mind, was frequently
excited. Family tradition and genealogical history, upon which much of
Sir Everard's discourse turned, is the very reverse of amber, which,
itself a valuable substance, usually includes flies, straws, and other
trifles; whereas these studies, being themselves very insignificant and
trifling, do nevertheless serve to perpetuate a great deal of what is
rare and valuable in ancient manners, and to record many curious and
minute facts which could have been preserved and conveyed through no
other medium. If, therefore, Edward Waverley yawned at times over the
dry deduction of his line of ancestors, with their various
intermarriages, and inwardly deprecated the remorseless and protracted
accuracy with which the worthy Sir Everard rehearsed the various degrees
of propinquity between the house of Waverley-Honour and the doughty
barons, knights, and squires to whom they stood allied- if
(notwithstanding his obligations to the three ermines passant) he
sometimes cursed in his heart the jargon of heraldry, its griffins, its
moldwarps, its wyverns, and its dragons, with all the bitterness of
Hotspur himself- there were moments when these communications interested
his fancy and rewarded his attention.
The deeds of Wilibert of Waverley in the Holy Land, his long absence
and perilous adventures, his supposed death, and his return on the
evening when the betrothed of his heart had wedded the hero who had
protected her from insult and oppression during his absence; the
generosity with which the Crusader relinquished his claims, and sought
in a neighbouring cloister that peace which passeth not away,- to these
and similar tales he would hearken till his heart glowed and his eye
glistened. Nor was he less affected when his aunt, Mrs. Rachel, narrated
the sufferings and fortitude of Lady Alice Waverley during the Great
Civil War. The benevolent features of the venerable spinster kindled
into more majestic expression as she told how Charles had, after the
field of Worcester, found a day's refuge at Waverley-Honour; and how,
when a troop of cavalry were approaching to search the mansion, Lady
Alice dismissed her youngest son with a handful of domestics, charging
them to make good with their lives an hour's diversion, that the king
might have that space for escape. "And, God help her," would Mrs. Rachel
continue, fixing her eyes upon the heroine's portrait as she spoke,
"full dearly did she purchase the safety of her prince with the life of
her darling child. They brought him here a prisoner, mortally wounded;
and you may trace the drops of his blood from the great hall door along
the little gallery, and up to the saloon, where they laid him down to
die at his mother's feet. But there was comfort exchanged between them;
for he knew, from the glance of his mother's eye, that the purpose of
his desperate defence was attained. Ah! I remember," she continued- "I
remember well to have seen one that knew and loved him. Miss Lucy St.
Aubin lived and died a maid for his sake, though one of the most
beautiful and wealthy matches in this country. All the world ran after
her; but she wore widow's mourning all her life for poor William, for
they were betrothed though not married, and died in- I cannot think of
the date; but I remember, in the November of that very year, when she
found herself sinking, she desired to be brought to Waverley-Honour once
more, and visited all the places where she had been with my grand-uncle,
and caused the carpets to be raised that she might trace the impression
of his blood; and if tears could have washed it out, it had not been
there now, for there was not a dry eye in the house. You would have
thought, Edward, that the very trees mourned for her, for their leaves
dropped around her without a gust of wind; and, indeed, she looked like
one that would never see them green again."
From such legends our hero would steal away to indulge the fancies
they excited. In the corner of the large and sombre library, with no
other light than was afforded by the decaying brands on its ponderous
and ample hearth, he would exercise for hours that internal sorcery by
which past or imaginary events are presented in action, as it were, to
the eye of the muser. Then arose in long and fair array the splendour of
the bridal feast at Waverley-Castle; the tall and emaciated form of its
real lord as he stood in his pilgrims weeds, an unnoticed spectator of
the festivities of his supposed heir and intended bride; the electrical
shock occasioned by the discovery; the springing of the vassals to arms;
the astonishment of the bridegroom; the terror and confusion of the
bride; the agony with which Wilibert observed that her heart as well as
consent was in these nuptials; the air of dignity, yet of deep feeling,
with which he flung down the half-drawn sword, and turned away for ever
from the house of his ancestors. Then would he change the scene, and
fancy would at his wish represent Aunt Rachel's tragedy. He saw the Lady
Waverley seated in her bower, her ear strained to every sound, her heart
throbbing with double agony, now listening to the decaying echo of the
hoofs of the king's horse, and when that had died away, hearing in every
breeze that shook the trees of the park the noise of the remote
skirmish. A distant sound is heard like the rushing of a swollen stream;
it comes nearer, and Edward can plainly distinguish the galloping of
horses, the cries and shouts of men, with straggling pistol-shots
between, rolling forwards to the hall. The lady starts up, a terrified
menial rushes in- but why pursue such a description?
As living in this ideal world became daily more delectable to our
hero, interruption was disagreeable in proportion. The extensive domain
that surrounded the Hall, which, far exceeding the dimensions of a park,
was usually termed Waverley-Chase, had originally been forest ground,
and still, though broken by extensive glades, in which the young deer
were sporting, retained its pristine and savage character. It was
traversed by broad avenues, in many places half grown up with brushwood,
where the beauties of former days used to take their stand to see the
stag coursed with greyhounds, or to gain an aim at him with the
crossbow. In one spot, distinguished by a moss-grown Gothic monument,
which retained the name of Queen's Standing, Elizabeth herself was said
to have pierced seven bucks with her own arrows. This was a very
favourite haunt of Waverley. At other times, with his gun and his
spaniel, which served as an apology to others, and with a book in his
pocket, which perhaps served as an apology to himself, he used to pursue
one of these long avenues, which, after an ascending sweep of four
miles, gradually narrowed into a rude and contracted path through the
cliffy and woody pass called Mirkwood Dingle, and opened suddenly upon a
deep, dark, and small lake, named, from the same cause, Mirkwood-Mere.
There stood, in former times, a solitary tower upon a rock almost
surrounded by the water, which had acquired the name of the Strength of
Waverley, because, in perilous times, it had often been the refuge of
the family. There, in the wars of York and Lancaster, the last adherents
of the Red Rose who dared to maintain her cause, carried on a harassing
and predatory warfare, till the stronghold was reduced by the celebrated
Richard of Gloucester. Here, too, a party of cavaliers long maintained
themselves under Nigel Waverley, elder brother of that William whose
fate Aunt Rachel commemorated. Through these scenes it was that Edward
loved to "chew the cud of sweet and bitter fancy," and, like a child
among his toys, culled and arranged, from the splendid yet useless
imagery and emblems with which his imagination was stored, visions as
brilliant and as fading as those of an evening sky. The effect of this
indulgence upon his temper and character will appear in the next
chapter.
Chapter V: Choice of a Profession
FROM the minuteness with which I have traced Waverley's pursuits, and
the bias which these unavoidably communicated to his imagination, the
reader may perhaps anticipate, in the following tale, an imitation of
the romance of Cervantes. But he will do my prudence injustice in the
supposition. My intention is not to follow the steps of that inimitable
author, in describing such total perversion of intellect as misconstrues
the objects actuary presented to the senses, but that more common
aberration from sound judgment which apprehends occurrences indeed in
their reality, but communicates to them a tincture of its own romantic
tone and colouring. So far was Edward Waverley from expecting general
sympathy with his own feelings, or concluding that the present state of
things was calculated to exhibit the reality of those visions in which
he loved to indulge, that he dreaded nothing more than the detection of
such sentiments as were dictated by his musings. He neither had nor
wished to have a confidant, with whom to communicate his reveries; and
so sensible was he of the ridicule attached to them that, had he been to
choose between any punishment short of ignominy, and the necessity of
giving a cold and composed account of the ideal world in which he lived
the better part of his days, I think he would not have hesitated to
prefer the former infliction. This secrecy became doubly precious, as he
felt in advancing life the influence of the awakening passions. Female
forms of exquisite grace and beauty began to mingle in his mental
adventures; nor was he long without looking abroad to compare the
creatures of his own imagination with the females of actual life.
The list of the beauties who displayed their hebdomadal finery at the
parish church of Waverley was neither numerous nor select. By far the
most passable was Miss Sissly, or, as she rather chose to be called,
Miss Cecilia Stubbs, daughter of Squire Stubbs at the Grange. I know not
whether it was by the "merest accident in the world," a phrase which,
from female lips, does not always exclude malice prepense, or
whether it was from a conformity of taste, that Miss Cecilia more than
once crossed Edward in his favourite walks through Waverley-Chase. He
had not as yet assumed courage to accost her on these occasions, but the
meeting was not without its effect. A romantic lover is a strange
idolater, who sometimes cares not out of what log he frames the object
of his adoration; at least, if nature has given that object any passable
proportion of personal charms, he can easily play the Jeweller and
Dervish in the Oriental tale, and supply her richly, out of the stores
of his own imagination, with supernatural beauty, and all the properties
of intellectual wealth.
But ere the charms of Miss Cecilia Stubbs had erected her into a
positive goddess, or elevated her at least to a level with the saint her
namesake, Mrs. Rachel Waverley gained some intimation which determined
her to prevent the approaching apotheosis. Even the most simple and
unsuspicious of the female sex have (God bless them!) an instinctive
sharpness of perception in such matters, which sometimes goes the length
of observing partialities that never existed, but rarely misses to
detect such as pass actually under their observation. Mrs. Rachel
applied herself with great prudence, not to combat, but to elude, the
approaching danger, and suggested to her brother the necessity that the
heir of his house should see something more of the world than was
consistent with constant residence at Waverley-Honour.
Sir Everard would not at first listen to a proposal which went to
separate his nephew from him. Edward was a little bookish, he admitted;
but youth, he had always heard, was the season for learning, and, no
doubt, when his rage for letters was abated, and his head fully stocked
with knowledge, his nephew would take to field-sports and country
business. He had often, he said, himself regretted that he had not spent
some time in study during his youth: he would neither have shot nor
hunted with less skill, and he might have made the roof of St. Stephen's
echo to longer orations than were comprised in those zealous Noes with
which, when a member of the House during Godolphin's administration, he
encountered every measure of government.
Aunt Rachel's anxiety, however, lent her address to carry her point.
Every representative of their house had visited foreign parts, or served
his country in the army, before he settled for life at Waverley-Honour,
and she appealed for the truth of her assertion to the genealogical
pedigree- an authority which Sir Everard was never known to contradict.
In short, a proposal was made to Mr. Richard Waverley that his son
should travel, under the direction of his present tutor, Mr. Pembroke,
with a suitable allowance from the Baronet's liberality. The father
himself saw no objection to this overture; but upon mentioning it
casually at the table of the minister, the great man looked grave. The
reason was explained in private. The unhappy turn of Sir Everard's
politics, the minister observed, was such as would render it highly
improper that a young gentleman of such hopeful prospects should travel
on the Continent with a tutor doubtless of his uncle's choosing, and
directing his course by his instructions. What might Mr. Edward
Waverley's society be at Paris, what at Rome, where all manner of snares
were spread by the Pretender and his sons- these were points for Mr.
Waverley to consider. This he could himself say, that he knew his
Majesty had such a just sense of Mr. Richard Waverley's merits, that if
his son adopted the army for a few years, a troop, he believed, might be
reckoned upon in one of the dragoon regiments lately returned from
Flanders.
A hint thus conveyed and enforced was not to be neglected with
impunity; and Richard Waverley, though with great dread of shocking his
brother's prejudices, deemed he could not avoid accepting the commission
thus offered him for his son. The truth is, he calculated much, and
justly, upon Sir Everard's fondness for Edward, which made him unlikely
to resent any step that he might take in due submission to parental
authority. Two letters announced this determination to the Baronet and
his nephew. The latter barely communicated the fact, and pointed out the
necessary preparations for joining his regiment. To his brother, Richard
was more diffuse and circuitous. He coincided with him, in the most
flattering manner, in the propriety of his son's seeing a little more of
the world, and was even humble in expressions of gratitude for his
proposed assistance; was, however, deeply concerned that it was now,
unfortunately, not in Edward's power exactly to comply with the plan
which had been chalked out by his best friend and benefactor. He himself
had thought with pain on the boy's inactivity, at an age when all his
ancestors had borne arms; even Royalty itself had deigned to inquire
whether young Waverley was not now in Flanders, at an age when his
grandfather was already bleeding for his king in the Great Civil War.
This was accompanied by an offer of a troop of horse. What could he do?
There was no time to consult his brother's inclinations, even if he
could have conceived there might be objections on his part to his
nephew's following the glorious career of his predecessors. And, in
short, that Edward was now (the intermediate steps of cornet and
lieutenant being overleapt with great agility) Captain Waverley, of
Gardiner's regiment of dragoons, which he must join in their quarters at
Dundee in Scotland, in the course of a month.
Sir Everard Waverley received this intimation with a mixture of
feelings. At the period of the Hanoverian succession he had withdrawn
from parliament, and his conduct, in the memorable year 1715, had not
been altogether unsuspected. There were reports of private musters of
tenants and horses in Waverley-Chase by moonlight, and of cases of
carbines and pistols purchased in Holland, and addressed to the Baronet,
but intercepted by the vigilance of a riding officer of the excise, who
was afterwards tossed in a blanket on a moonless night, by an
association of stout yeomen, for his officiousness. Nay, it was even
said that at the arrest of Sir William Wyndham, the leader of the Tory
party, a letter from Sir Everard was found in the pocket of his
nightgown. But there was no overt act which an attainder could be
founded on, and government, contented with suppressing the insurrection
of 1715, felt it neither prudent nor safe to push their vengeance
further than against those unfortunate gentlemen who actually took up
arms.
Nor did Sir Everard's apprehensions of personal consequences seem to
correspond with the reports spread among his Whig neighbours. It was
well known that he had supplied with money several of the distressed
Northumbrians and Scotchmen, who, after being made prisoners at Preston
in Lancashire, were imprisoned in Newgate and the Marshalsea, and it was
his solicitor and ordinary counsel who conducted the defence of some of
these unfortunate gentlemen at their trial. It was generally supposed,
however, that, had ministers possessed any real proof of Sir Everard's
accession to the rebellion, he either would not have ventured thus to
brave the existing government, or at least would not have done so with
impunity. The feelings which then dictated his proceedings were those of
a young man, and at an agitating period. Since that time Sir Everard's
jacobitism had been gradually decaying, like a fire which burns out for
want of fuel. His Tory and High-Church principles were kept up by some
occasional exercise at elections and quarter-sessions; but those
respecting hereditary right were fallen into a sort of abeyance. Yet it
jarred severely upon his feelings that his nephew should go into the
army under the Brunswick dynasty; and the more so, as, independent of
his high and conscientious ideas of paternal authority, it was
impossible, or at least highly imprudent, to interfere authoritatively
to prevent it. This suppressed vexation gave rise to many poohs and
pshaws, which were placed to the account of an incipient fit of gout,
until, having sent for the Army List, the worthy Baronet consoled
himself with reckoning the descendants of the houses of genuine loyalty,
Mordaunts, Granvilles, and Stanleys, whose names were to be found in
that military record; and, calling up all his feelings of family
grandeur and warlike glory, he concluded, with logic something like
Falstaff's, that when war was at hand, although it were shame to be on
any side but one, it were worse shame to be idle than to be on the worst
side, though blacker than usurpation could make it. As for Aunt Rachel,
her scheme had not exactly terminated according to her wishes, but she
was under the necessity of submitting to circumstances; and her
mortification was diverted by the employment she found in fitting out
her nephew for the campaign, and greatly consoled by the prospect of
beholding him blaze in complete uniform.
Edward Waverley himself received with animated and undefined surprise
this most unexpected intelligence. It was, as a fine old poem expresses
it, "like a fire to heather set," that covers a solitary hill with
smoke, and illumines it at the same time with dusky fire. His tutor, or,
I should say, Mr. Pembroke, for he scarce assumed the name of tutor,
picked up about Edward's room some fragments of irregular verse, which
he appeared to have composed under the influence of the agitating
feelings occasioned by this sudden page being turned up to him in the
book of life. The doctor, who was a believer in all poetry which was
composed by his friends, and written out in fair straight lines, with a
capital at the beginning of each, communicated this treasure to Aunt
Rachel, who, with her spectacles dimmed with tears, transferred them to
her commonplace book, among choice receipts for cookery and medicine,
favourite texts, and portions from High-Church divines, and a few songs,
amatory and jacobitical, which she had carolled in her younger days,
from whence her nephew's poetical tentamina were extracted when the
volume itself, with other authentic records of the Waverley family, were
exposed to the inspection of the unworthy editor of this memorable
history. If they afford the reader no higher amusement, they will serve,
at least, better than narrative of any kind, to acquaint him with the
wild and irregular spirit of our hero:-
Late, when the Autumn evening fell
On Mirkwood-Mere's romantic dell,
The lake return'd, in chasten'd gleam,
The purple cloud, the golden beam:
Reflected in the crystal pool,
Headland and bank lay fair and cool;
The weather-tinted rock and tower,
Each drooping tree, each fairy flower,
So true, so soft, the mirror gave,
As if there lay beneath the wave,
Secure from trouble, toil, and care,
A world than earthly world more fair.
But distant winds began to wake,
And roused the Genius of the Lake!
He heard the groaning of the oak,
And donn'd at once his sable cloak,
As warrior, at the battle-cry,
Invests him with his panoply:
Then as the whirlwind nearer press'd,
He 'gan to shake his foamy crest
O'er furrow'd brow and blacken'd cheek,
And bade his surge in thunder speak.
In wild and broken eddies whirl'd
Flitted that fond ideal world,
And to the shore in tumult tost,
The realms of fairy bliss were lost.
Yet, with a stern delight and strange,
I saw the spirit-stirring change.
As warr'd the wind with wave and wood
Upon the ruin'd tower I stood,
And felt my heart more strongly bound,
Responsive to the lofty sound,
While, joying in the mighty roar,
I mourn'd that tranquil scene no more.
So, on the idle dreams of youth,
Breaks the loud trumpet-call of truth,
Bids each fair vision pass away,
Like landscape on the lake that lay,
As fair, as flitting, and as frail,
As that which fled the Autumn gale-
For ever dead to fancy's eye
Be each gay form that glided by,
While dreams of love and lady's charms
Give place to honour and to arms!
In sober prose, as perhaps these verses intimate less decidedly, the
transient idea of Miss Cecilia Stubbs passed from Captain Waverley's
heart amid the turmoil which his new destinies excited. She appeared,
indeed, in full splendour in her father's pew upon the Sunday when he
attended service for the last time at the old parish church, upon which
occasion, at the request of his uncle and Aunt Rachel, he was induced
(nothing loth, if the truth must be told) to present himself in full
uniform.
There is no better antidote against entertaining too high an opinion
of others, than having an excellent one of ourselves at the very same
time. Miss Stubbs had indeed summoned up every assistance which art
could afford to beauty; but, alas! hoop, patches, frizzled locks, and a
new mantua of genuine French silk, were lost upon a young officer of
dragoons, who wore, for the first time, his gold-laced hat, jack-boots,
and broadsword. I know not whether, like the champion of an old ballad,
His heart was all on honour bent,
He could not stoop to love;
No lady in the land had power
His frozen heart to move;
or whether the deep and flaming bars of embroidered gold, which now
fenced his breast, defied the artillery of Cecilia's eyes; but every
arrow was launched at him in vain.
Yet did I mark where Cupid's shaft did light;
It lighted not on little western flower,
But on hold yeoman, flower of all the west,
Hight Jonas Culbertfield, the steward's son.
Craving pardon for my heroics (which I am unable in certain cases to
resist giving way to), it is a melancholy fact that my history must here
take leave of the fair Cecilia, who, like many a daughter of Eve, after
the departure of Edward, and the dissipation of certain idle visions
which she had adopted, quietly contented herself with a pis-aller,
and gave her hand, at the distance of six months, to the aforesaid
Jonas, son of the Baronet's steward, and heir (no unfertile prospect) to
a steward's fortune, besides the snug probability of succeeding to his
father's office. All these advantages moved Squire Stubbs, as much as
the ruddy brow and manly form of the suitor influenced his daughter, to
abate somewhat in the article of their gentry; and so the match was
concluded. None seemed more gratified than Aunt Rachel, who had hitherto
looked rather askance upon the presumptuous damsel (as much so,
peradventure, as her nature would permit), but who, on the first
appearance of the new-married pair at church, honoured the bride with a
smile and a profound curtsy, in presence of the rector, the curate, the
clerk, and the whole congregation of the united parishes of Waverley
cum Beverley.
I beg pardon, once and for all, of those readers who take up novels
merely for amusement, for plaguing them so long with old-fashioned
politics, and Whig and Tory, and Hanoverians and Jacobites. The truth
is, I cannot promise them that this story shall be intelligible, not to
say probable, without it. My plan requires that I should explain the
motives on which its action proceeded; and these motives necessarily
arose from the feelings, prejudices, and parties of the times. I do not
invite my fair readers, whose sex and impatience give them the greatest
right to complain of these circumstances, into a flying chariot drawn by
hippogriffs, or moved by enchantment. Mine is a humble English post-
chaise, drawn upon four wheels, and keeping his Majesty's highway. Such
as dislike the vehicle may leave it at the next halt, and wait for the
conveyance of Prince Hussein's tapestry, or Malek the Weaver's flying
sentry-box. Those who are contented to remain with me will be
occasionally exposed to the dullness inseparable from heavy roads, steep
hills, sloughs, and other terrestrial retardations; but, with tolerable
horses and a civil driver (as the advertisements have it), I engage to
get as soon as possible into a more picturesque and romantic country, if
my passengers incline to have some patience with me during my first
stages. *002
Chapter VI: The Adieus of Waverley
IT was upon the evening of this memorable Sunday that Sir Everard
entered the library, where he narrowly missed surprising our young hero
as he went through the guards of the broadsword with the ancient weapon
of old Sir Hildebrand, which, being preserved as an heirloom, usually
hung over the chimney in the library, beneath a picture of the knight
and his horse, where the features were almost entirely hidden by the
knight's profusion of curled hair, and the Bucephalus which he bestrode
concealed by the voluminous robes of the Bath with which he was
decorated. Sir Everard entered, and after a glance at the picture and
another at his nephew, began a little speech, which, however, soon dropt
into the natural simplicity of his common manner, agitated upon the
present occasion by no common feeling. "Nephew," he said; and then, as
mending his phrase, "My dear Edward, it is God's will, and also the will
of your father, whom, under God, it is your duty to obey, that you
should leave us to take up the profession of arms, in which so many of
your ancestors have been distinguished. I have made such arrangements as
will enable you to take the field as their descendant, and as the
probable heir of the house of Waverley; and, sir, in the field of battle
you will remember what name you bear. And, Edward, my dear boy, remember
also that you are the last of that race, and the only hope of its
revival depends upon you; therefore, as far as duty and honour will
permit, avoid danger- I mean unnecessary danger- and keep no company
with rakes, gamblers, and Whigs, of whom, it is to be feared, there are
but too many in the service into which you are going. Your colonel, as I
am informed, is an excellent man- for a Presbyterian; but you will
remember your duty to God, the Church of England, and the-," (this
breach ought to have been supplied, according to the rubrick, with the
word king; but as, unfortunately, that word conveyed a double and
embarrassing sense, one meaning de facto, and the other de jure,
the knight filled up the blank otherwise)- "the Church of England, and
all constituted authorities." Then, not trusting himself with any
further oratory, he carried his nephew to his stables to see the horses
destined for his campaign. Two were black (the regimental colour),
superb chargers both; the other three were stout active hacks, designed
for the road, or for his domestics, of whom two were to attend him from
the Hall; an additional groom, if necessary, might be picked up in
Scotland.
"You will depart with but a small retinue," quoth the Baronet,
"compared to Sir Hildebrand, when he mustered before the gate of the
Hall a larger body of horse than your whole regiment consists of. I
could have wished that these twenty young fellows from my estate, who
have enlisted in your troop, had been to march with you on your journey
to Scotland. It would have been something, at least; but I am told their
attendance would be thought unusual in these days, when every new and
foolish fashion is introduced to break the natural dependence of the
people upon their landlords."
Sir Everard had done his best to correct this unnatural disposition of
the times; for he had brightened the chain of attachment between the
recruits and their young captain, not only by a copious repast of beef
and ale, by way of parting feast, but by such a pecuniary donation to
each individual, as tended rather to improve the conviviality than the
discipline of their march. After inspecting the cavalry, Sir Everard
again conducted his nephew to the library, where he produced a letter,
carefully folded, surrounded by a little strip of flox-silk, according
to ancient form, and sealed with an accurate impression of the Waverley
coat-of-arms. It was addressed, with great formality, "To Cosmo Comyne
Bradwardine, Esq., of Bradwardine, at his principal mansion of Tully-
Veolan, in Perthshire, North Britain. These- By the hands of Captain
Edward Waverley, nephew of Sir Everard Waverley, of Waverley-Honour,
Bart."
The gentleman to whom this enormous greeting was addressed, of whom we
shall have more to say in the sequel, had been in arms for the exiled
family of Stewart in the year 1715, and was made prisoner at Preston in
Lancashire. He was of a very ancient family, and somewhat embarrassed
fortune; a scholar, according to the scholarship of Scotchmen, that is,
his learning was more diffuse than accurate, and he was rather a reader
than a grammarian. Of his zeal for the classic authors he is said to
have given an uncommon instance. On the road between Preston and London
he made his escape from his guards; but being afterwards found loitering
near the place where they had lodged the former night, he was
recognised, and again arrested. His companions, and even his escort,
were surprised at his infatuation, and could not help inquiring, why,
being once at liberty, he had not made the best of his way to a place of
safety; to which he replied, that he had intended to do so, but, in good
faith, he had returned to seek his Titus Livius, which he had forgot in
the hurry of his escape. The simplicity of this anecdote struck the
gentleman, who, as we before observed, had managed the defence of some
of those unfortunate persons, at the expense of Sir Everard, and perhaps
some others of the party. He was, besides, himself a special admirer of
the old Patavinian, and though probably his own zeal might not have
carried him such extravagant lengths, even to recover the edition of
Sweynheim and Pannartz (supposed to be the princeps), he did not the
less estimate the devotion of the North Briton, and in consequence
exerted himself to so much purpose to remove and soften evidence, detect
legal flaws, et cetera, that he accomplished the final discharge and
deliverance of Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine from certain very awkward
consequences of a plea before our sovereign lord the king in
Westminster.
The Baron of Bradwardine, for he was generally so called in Scotland
(although his intimates, from his place of residence, used to denominate
him Tully-Veolan, or, more familiarly, Tully), no sooner stood rectus
in curia, than he posted down to pay his respects and make his
acknowledgments at Waverley-Honour. A congenial passion for field-
sports, and a general coincidence in political opinions, cemented his
friendship with Sir Everard, notwithstanding the difference of their
habits and studies in other particulars; and, having spent several weeks
at Waverley-Honour, the Baron departed with many expressions of regard,
warmly pressing the Baronet to return his visit, and partake of the
diversion of grouse-shooting upon his moors in Perthshire next season.
Shortly after, Mr. Bradwardine remitted from Scotland a sum in
reimbursement of expenses incurred in the King's High Court of
Westminster, which, although not quite so formidable when reduced to the
English denomination, had, in its original form of Scotch pounds,
shillings, and pence, such a formidable effect upon the frame of Duncan
Macwheeble, the laird's confidential factor, baron-bailie, and man of
resource, that he had a fit of the cholic which lasted for five days,
occasioned, he said, solely and utterly by becoming the unhappy
instrument of conveying such a serious sum of money out of his native
country into the hands of the false English. But patriotism, as it is
the fairest, so it is often the most suspicious mask of other feelings;
and many who knew Bailie Macwheeble, concluded that his professions of
regret were not altogether disinterested, and that he would have grudged
the money paid to the loons at Westminster much less had they not
come from Bradwardine estate, a fund which he considered as more
particularly his own. But the Bailie protested he was absolutely
disinterested-
Woe, woe, for Scotland, not a whit for me!
The laird was only rejoiced that his worthy friend, Sir Everard
Waverley of Waverley-Honour, was reimbursed of the expenditure which he
had outlaid on account of the house of Bradwardine. It concerned, he
said, the credit of his own family, and of the kingdom of Scotland at
large, that these disbursements should be repaid forthwith, and, if
delayed, it would be a matter of national reproach. Sir Everard,
accustomed to treat much larger sums with indifference, received the
remittance of L294, 13s. 6d., without being aware that the payment was
an international concern, and, indeed, would probably have forgot the
circumstance altogether, if Bailie Macwheeble had thought of comforting
his cholic by intercepting the subsidy. A yearly intercourse took place,
of a short letter, and a hamper or a cask or two, between Waverley-
Honour and Tully-Veolan, the English exports consisting of mighty
cheeses and mightier ale, pheasants, and venison, and the Scottish
returns being vested in grouse, white hares, pickled salmon, and
usquebaugh. All which were meant, sent, and received, as pledges of
constant friendship and amity between two important houses. It followed
as a matter of course, that the heir-apparent of Waverley-Honour could
not with propriety visit Scotland without being furnished with
credentials to the Baron of Bradwardine.
When this matter was explained and settled, Mr. Pembroke expressed his
wish to take a private and particular leave of his dear pupil. The good
man's exhortations to Edward to preserve an unblemished life and morals,
to hold fast the principles of the Christian religion, and to eschew the
profane company of scoffers and latitudinarians, too much abounding in
the army, were not unmingled with his political prejudices. It had
pleased Heaven, he said, to place Scotland (doubtless for the sins of
their ancestors in 1642) in a more deplorable state of darkness than
even this unhappy kingdom of England. Here, at least, although the
candlestick of the Church of England had been in some degree removed
from its place, it yet afforded a glimmering light; there was a
hierarchy, though schismatical, and fallen from the principles
maintained by those great fathers of the church, Sancroft and his
brethren; there was a liturgy, though wofully perverted in some of the
principal petitions. But in Scotland it was utter darkness; and,
excepting a sorrowful, scattered, and persecuted remnant, the pulpits
were abandoned to Presbyterians, and, he feared, to sectaries of every
description. It should be his duty to fortify his dear pupil to resist
such unhallowed and pernicious doctrines in church and state, as must
necessarily be forced at times upon his unwilling ears.
Here he produced two immense folded packets, which appeared each to
contain a whole ream of closely written manuscript. They had been the
labour of the worthy man's whole life; and never were labour and zeal
more absurdly wasted. He had at one time gone to London, with the
intention of giving them to the world, by the medium of a bookseller in
Little Britain, well known to deal in such commodities, and to whom he
was instructed to address himself in a particular phrase, and with a
certain sign, which, it seems, passed at that time current among the
initiated Jacobites. The moment Mr. Pembroke had uttered the Shibboleth,
with the appropriate gesture, the bibliopolist greeted him,
notwithstanding every disclamation, by the title of Doctor, and
conveying him into his back shop, after inspecting every possible and
impossible place of concealment, he commenced: "Eh, doctor!- Well- all
under the rose- snug- I keep no holes here even for a Hanoverian rat to
hide in. And, what- eh! any good news from our friends over the water?-
and how does the worthy King of France?- Or perhaps you are more lately
from Rome? it must be Rome will do it at least- the church must light
its candle at the old lamp.- Eh- what, cautious? I like you the better;
but no fear."
Here Mr. Pembroke with some difficulty stopt a torrent of
interrogations, eked out with signs, nods, and winks; and, having at
length convinced the bookseller that he did him too much honour in
supposing him an emissary of exiled royalty, he explained his actual
business.
The man of books with a much more composed air proceeded to examine
the manuscripts. The title of the first was "A Dissent from Dissenters,
or the Comprehension confuted; showing the Impossibility of any
Composition between the Church and Puritans, Presbyterians, or Sectaries
of any Description; illustrated from the Scriptures, the Fathers of the
Church, and the soundest Controversial Divines." To this work the
bookseller positively demurred. "Well meant," he said, "and learned,
doubtless; but the time had gone by. Printed on small-pica it would run
to eight hundred pages, and could never pay. Begged therefore to be
excused- Loved and honoured the true church from his soul, and, had it
been a sermon on the martyrdom, or any twelve-penny touch- why I would
venture something for the honour of the cloth- But come, let's see the
other. 'Right Hereditary righted!'- Ah! there's some sense in this. Hum-
hum- hum- pages so many, paper so much, letter-press- Ah- I'll tell you,
though, doctor, you must knock out some of the Latin and Greek; heavy,
doctor, damn'd heavy- (beg your pardon) and if you throw in a few grains
more pepper- I am he that never peached my author- I have published for
Drake and Charlwood Lawton, and poor Amhurst- Ah, Caleb! Caleb! Well, it
was a shame to let poor Caleb starve, and so many fat rectors and
squires among us. I gave him a dinner once a week; but, Lord love you,
what's once a week, when a man does not know where to go the other six
days?- Well, but I must show the manuscript to little Tom Alibi the
solicitor, who manages all my law affairs- must keep on the windy side-
the mob were very uncivil the last time I mounted in Old Palace Yard-
all Whigs and Roundheads every man of them, Williamites and Hanover
rats."
The next day Mr. Pembroke again called on the publisher, but found Tom
Alibi's advice had determined him against undertaking the work. "Not but
what I would go to- (what was I going to say?) to the Plantations for
the church with pleasure- but, dear doctor, I have a wife and family;
but, to show my zeal, I'll recommend the job to my neighbour Trimmel- he
is a bachelor, and leaving off business, so a voyage in a western barge
would not inconvenience him." But Mr. Trimmel was also obdurate, and Mr.
Pembroke, fortunately perchance for himself, was compelled to return to
Waverley-Honour with his treatise in vindication of the real fundamental
principles of church and state safely packed in his saddle-bags.
As the public were thus likely to be deprived of the benefit arising
from his lucubrations by the selfish cowardice of the trade, Mr.
Pembroke resolved to make two copies of these tremendous manuscripts for
the use of his pupil. He felt that he had been indolent as a tutor, and,
besides, his conscience checked him for complying with the request of
Mr. Richard Waverley, that he would impress no sentiments upon Edward's
mind inconsistent with the present settlement in church and state.- But
now, thought he, I may, without breach of my word, since he is no longer
under my tuition, afford the youth the means of judging for himself, and
have only to dread his reproaches for so long concealing the light which
the perusal will flash upon his mind. While he thus indulged the
reveries of an author and a politician, his darling proselyte, seeing
nothing very inviting in the title of the tracts, and appalled by the
bulk and compact lines of the manuscript, quietly consigned them to a
corner of his traveling trunk.
Aunt Rachel's farewell was brief and affectionate. She only cautioned
her dear Edward, whom she probably deemed somewhat susceptible, against
the fascination of Scottish beauty. She allowed that the northern part
of the island contained some ancient families, but they were all Whigs
and Presbyterians except the Highlanders; and respecting them she must
needs say, there could be no great delicacy among the ladies, where the
gentlemen's usual attire was, as she had been assured, to say the least,
very singular, and not at all decorous. She concluded her farewell with
a kind and moving benediction, and gave the young officer, as a pledge
of her regard, a valuable diamond ring (often worn by the male sex at
that time), and a purse of broad gold pieces, which also were more
common Sixty Years since than they have been of late.
Chapter VII: A Horse-quarter in Scotland
THE next morning, amid varied feelings, the chief of which was a
predominant, anxious, and even solemn impression, that he was now in a
great measure abandoned to his own guidance and direction, Edward
Waverley departed from the Hall amid the blessings and tears of all the
old domestics and the inhabitants of the village, mingled with some sly
petitions for sergeantcies and corporalships, and so forth, on the part
of those who professed that "they never thoft to ha' seen Jacob, and
Giles, and Jonathan, go off for soldiers, save to attend his honour, as
in duty bound." Edward, as in duty bound, extricated himself from the
supplicants with the pledge of fewer promises than might have been
expected from a young man so little accustomed to the world. After a
short visit to London, he proceeded on horseback, then the general mode
of travelling, to Edinburgh, and from thence to Dundee, a seaport on the
eastern coast of Angus-shire, where his regiment was then quartered.
He now entered upon a new world, where, for a time, all was beautiful
because all was new. Colonel Gardiner, the commanding officer of the
regiment, was himself a study for a romantic, and at the same time an
inquisitive, youth. In person he was tall, handsome, and active, though
somewhat advanced in life. In his early years, he had been what is
called, by manner of palliative, a very gay young man, and strange
stories were circulated about his sudden conversion from doubt, if not
infidelity, to a serious and even enthusiastic turn of mind. It was
whispered that a supernatural communication, of a nature obvious even to
the exterior senses, had produced this wonderful change; and though some
mentioned the proselyte as an enthusiast, none hinted at his being a
hypocrite. This singular and mystical circumstance gave Colonel Gardiner
a peculiar and solemn interest in the eyes of the young soldier. It may
be easily imagined that the officers of a regiment, commanded by so
respectable a person, composed a society more sedate and orderly than a
military mess always exhibits; and that Waverley escaped some
temptations to which he might otherwise have been exposed.
Meanwhile his military education proceeded. Already a good horseman,
he was now initiated into the arts of the manege, which, when carried to
perfection, almost realise the fable of the Centaur, the guidance of the
horse appearing to proceed from the rider's mere volition, rather than
from the use of any external and apparent signal of motion. He received
also instructions in his field duty; but I must own, that when his first
ardour was past, his progress fell short in the latter particular of
what he wished and expected. The duty of an officer, the most imposing
of all others to the inexperienced mind, because accompanied with so
much outward pomp and circumstance, is in its essence a very dry and
abstract task, depending chiefly upon arithmetical combinations,
requiring much attention, and a cool and reasoning head to bring them
into action. Our hero was liable to fits of absence, in which his
blunders excited some mirth, and called down some reproof. This
circumstance impressed him with a painful sense of inferiority in those
qualities which appeared most to deserve and obtain regard in his new
profession. He asked himself in vain, why his eye could not judge of
distance or space so well as those of his companions; why his head was
not always successful in disentangling the various partial movements
necessary to execute a particular evolution; and why his memory, so
alert upon most occasions, did not correctly retain technical phrases,
and minute points of etiquette or field discipline. Waverley was
naturally modest, and therefore did not fall into the egregious mistake
of supposing such minuter rules of military duty beneath his notice, or
conceiting himself to be born a general, because he made an indifferent
subaltern. The truth was, that the vague and unsatisfactory course of
reading which he had pursued, working upon a temper naturally retired
and abstracted, had given him that wavering and unsettled habit of mind,
which is most averse to study and riveted attention. Time, in the
meanwhile, hung heavy on his hands. The gentry of the neighbourhood were
disaffected, and showed little hospitality to the military guests; and
the people of the town, chiefly engaged in mercantile pursuits, were not
such as Waverley chose to associate with. The arrival of summer, and a
curiosity to know something more of Scotland than he could see in a ride
from his quarters, determined him to request leave of absence for a few
weeks. He resolved first to visit his uncle's ancient friend and
correspondent, with the purpose of extending or shortening the time of
his residence according to circumstances. He travelled of course on
horseback, and with a single attendant, and passed his first night at a
miserable inn where the landlady had neither shoes nor stockings, and
the landlord, who called himself a gentleman, was disposed to be rude to
his guest, because he had not bespoke the pleasure of his society to
supper. The next day, traversing an open and uninclosed country, Edward
gradually approached the Highlands of Perthshire, which at first had
appeared a blue outline in the horizon, but now swelled into huge
gigantic masses, which frowned defiance over the more level country that
lay beneath them. Near the bottom of this stupendous barrier, but still
in the lowland country, dwelt Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine of Bradwardine;
and, if grey-haired eld can be in aught believed, there had dwelt his
ancestors, with all their heritage, since the days of the gracious King
Duncan.
Chapter VIII: A Scottish Manor-house Sixty Years Since
IT was about noon when Captain Waverley entered the straggling
village, or rather hamlet, of Tully-Veolan, close to which was situated
the mansion of the proprietor. The houses seemed miserable in the
extreme, especially to an eye accustomed to the smiling neatness of
English cottages. They stood, without any respect for regularity, on
each side of a straggling kind of unpaved street, where children, almost
in a primitive state of nakedness, lay sprawling, as if to be crushed by
the hoofs of the first passing horse. Occasionally, indeed, when such a
consummation seemed inevitable, a watchful old grandam, with her close
cap, distaff, and spindle, rushed like a sibyl in frenzy out of one of
these miserable cells, dashing into the middle of the path, and
snatching up her own charge from among the sunburnt loiterers, saluted
him with a sound cuff, and transported him back to his dungeon, the
little white-headed varlet screaming all the while, from the very top of
his lungs, a shrilly treble to the growling remonstrances of the enraged
matron. Another part in this concert was sustained by the incessant
yelping of a score of idle useless curs, which followed, snarling,
barking, howling, and snapping at the horses' heels; a nuisance at that
time so common in Scotland, that a French tourist, who, like other
travellers, longed to find a good and rational reason for everything he
saw, has recorded, as one of the memorabilia of Caledonia, that the
state maintained in each village a relay of curs, called collies,
whose duty it was to chase the chevaux de poste (too starved and
exhausted to move without such a stimulus) from one hamlet to another,
till their annoying convoy drove them to the end of their stage. The
evil and remedy (such as it is) still exist: but this is remote from our
present purpose, and is only thrown out for consideration of the
collectors under Mr. Dent's dog-bill.
As Waverley moved on, here and there an old man, bent as much by toil
as years, his eyes bleared with age and smoke, tottered to the door of
his hut, to gaze on the dress of the stranger and the form and motions
of the horses, and then assembled, with his neighbours, in a little
group at the smithy, to discuss the probabilities of whence the stranger
came, and where he might be going. Three or four village girls,
returning from the well or brook with pitchers and pails upon their
heads, formed more pleasing objects, and, with their thin short-gowns
and single petticoats, bare arms, legs, and feet, uncovered heads and
braided hair, somewhat resembled Italian forms of landscape. Nor could a
lover of the picturesque have challenged either the elegance of their
costume, or the symmetry of their shape; although, to say the truth, a
mere Englishman, in search of the comfortable, a word peculiar to
his native tongue, might have wished the clothes less scanty, the feet
and legs somewhat protected from the weather, the head and complexion
shrouded from the sun, or perhaps might even have thought the whole
person and dress considerably improved, by a plentiful application of
spring water, with a quantum sufficit of soap. The whole scene was
depressing; for it argued, at the first glance, at least a stagnation of
industry, and perhaps of intellect. Even curiosity, the busiest passion
of the idle, seemed of a listless cast in the village of Tully-Veolan:
the curs aforesaid alone showed any part of its activity; with the
villagers it was passive. They stood and gazed at the handsome young
officer and his attendant, but without any of those quick motions and
eager looks, that indicate the earnestness with which those who live in
monotonous ease at home, look out for amusement abroad. Yet the
physiognomy of the people, when more closely examined, was far from
exhibiting the indifference of stupidity; their features were rough, but
remarkably intelligent; grave, but the very reverse of stupid; and from
among the young women, an artist might have chosen more than one model,
whose features and form resembled those of Minerva. The children also,
whose skins were burnt black, and whose hair was bleached white, by the
influence of the sun, had a look and manner of life and interest. It
seemed, upon the whole, as if poverty, and indolence, its too frequent
companion, were combining to depress the natural genius and acquired
information of a hardy, intelligent, and reflecting peasantry.
Some such thoughts crossed Waverley's mind as he paced his horse
slowly through the rugged and flinty street of Tully-Veolan, interrupted
only in his meditations by the occasional caprioles which his charger
exhibited at the reiterated assaults of those canine Cossacks, the
collies before mentioned. The village was more than half a mile
long, the cottages being irregularly divided from each other by gardens,
or yards, as the inhabitants called them, of different sizes, where (for
it is Sixty Years since) the now universal potato was unknown, but which
were stored with gigantic plants of kale or colewort, encircled with
groves of nettles, and exhibited here and there a huge hemlock, or the
national thistle, overshadowing a quarter of the petty inclosure. The
broken ground on which the village was built had never been levelled; so
that these inclosures presented declivities of every degree, here rising
like terraces, there sinking like tan-pits. The dry-stone walls which
fenced, or seemed to fence (for they were sorely breached), these
hanging gardens of Tully-Veolan, were intersected by a narrow lane
leading to the common field, where the joint labour of the villagers
cultivated alternate ridges and patches of rye, oats, barley, and pease,
each of such minute extent, that at a little distance the unprofitable
variety of the surface resembled a tailor's book of patterns. In a few
favoured instances, there appeared behind the cottages a miserable
wigwam, compiled of earth, loose stones, and turf, where the wealthy
might perhaps shelter a starved cow or sorely galled horse. But almost
every hut was fenced in front by a huge black stack of turf on one side
of the door, while on the other the family dunghill ascended in noble
emulation.
About a bowshot from the end of the village appeared the inclosures,
proudly denominated the Parks of Tully-Veolan, being certain square
fields, surrounded and divided by stone walls five feet in height. In
the centre of the exterior barrier was the upper gate of the avenue,
opening under an archway, battlemented on the top, and adorned with two
large weather-beaten mutilated masses of upright stone, which, if the
tradition of the hamlet could be trusted, had once represented, at least
had been once designed to represent, two rampant Bears, the supporters
of the family of Bradwardine. This avenue was straight, and of moderate
length, running between a double row of very ancient horse-chestnuts,
planted alternately with sycamores, which rose to such huge height, and
flourished so luxuriantly, that their boughs completely over-arched the
broad road beneath. Beyond these venerable ranks, and running parallel
to them, were two high walls, of apparently the like antiquity,
overgrown with ivy, honey-suckle, and other climbing plants. The avenue
seemed very little trodden, and chiefly by foot-passengers; so that
being very broad, and enjoying a constant shade, it was clothed with
grass of a deep and rich verdure, excepting where a footpath, worn by
occasional passengers, tracked with a natural sweep the way from the
upper to the lower gate. This nether portal, like the former, opened in
front of a wall ornamented with some rude sculpture, with battlements on
the top, over which were seen, half-hidden by the trees of the avenue,
the high steep roofs and narrow gables of the mansion, with lines
indented into steps, and corners decorated with small turrets. One of
the folding-leaves of the lower gate was open, and as the sun shone full
into the court behind, a long line of brilliancy was flung upon the
aperture up the dark and gloomy avenue. It was one of those effects
which a painter loves to represent, and mingled well with the struggling
light which found its way between the boughs of the shady arch that
vaulted the broad green alley.
The solitude and repose of the whole scene seemed almost monastic; and
Waverley, who had given his horse to his servant on entering the first
gate, walked slowly down the avenue, enjoying the grateful and cooling
shade, and so much pleased with the placid ideas of rest and seclusion
excited by this confined and quiet scene, that he forgot the misery and
dirt of the hamlet he had left behind him. The opening into the paved
courtyard corresponded with the rest of the scene. The house, which
seemed to consist of two or three high, narrow, and steep-roofed
buildings, projecting from each other at right angles, formed one side
of the inclosure. It had been built at a period when castles were no
longer necessary, and when the Scottish architects had not yet acquired
the art of designing a domestic residence. The windows were numberless,
but very small; the roof had some nondescript kind of projections,
called bartizans, and displayed at each frequent angle a small turret,
rather resembling a pepper-box than a Gothic watch-tower. Neither did
the front indicate absolute security from danger. There were loop-holes
for musketry, and iron stanchions on the lower windows, probably to
repel any roving band of gipsies, or resist a predatory visit from the
Caterans of the neighbouring Highlands. Stables and other offices
occupied another side of the square. The former were low vaults, with
narrow slits instead of windows, resembling, as Edward's groom observed,
"rather a prison for murderers, and larceners, and such like as are
tried at 'sizes, than a place for any Christian cattle." Above these
dungeon-looking stables were granaries, called girnels, and other
offices, to which there was access by outside stairs of heavy masonry.
Two battlemented walls, one of which faced the avenue, and the other
divided the court from the garden, completed the inclosure.
Nor was the court without its ornaments. In one corner was a tun-
bellied pigeon-house, of great size and rotundity, resembling in figure
and proportion the curious edifice called Arthur's Oven, which would
have turned the brains of all the antiquaries in England, had not the
worthy proprietor pulled it down for the sake of mending a neighbouring
dam-dyke. This dovecot, or columbarium, as the owner called it, was
no small resource to a Scottish laird of that period, whose scanty rents
were eked out by the contributions levied upon the farms by these light
foragers, and the conscriptions exacted from the latter for the benefit
of the table.
Another corner of the court displayed a fountain, where a huge bear,
carved in stone, predominated over a large stone basin, into which he
disgorged the water. This work of art was the wonder of the country ten
miles round. It must not be forgotten, that all sorts of bears, small
and large, demi or in full proportion, were carved over the windows,
upon the ends of the gables, terminated the spouts, and supported the
turrets, with the ancient family motto, "Bewar the Bar," cut under each
hyperborean form. The court was spacious, well paved, and perfectly
clean, there being probably another entrance behind the stables for
removing the litter. Everything around appeared solitary, and would have
been silent, but for the continued plashing of the fountain; and the
whole scene still maintained the monastic illusion which the fancy of
Waverley had conjured up.- And here we beg permission to close a chapter
of still life.
Chapter IX: More of the Manor-house and its Environs
AFTER having satisfied his curiosity by gazing around him for a few
minutes, Waverley applied himself to the massive knocker of the hall-
door, the architrave of which bore the date 1594. But no answer was
returned, though the peal resounded through a number of apartments, and
was echoed from the courtyard walls without the house, startling the
pigeons from the venerable rotunda which they occupied, and alarming
anew even the distant village curs, which had retired to sleep upon
their respective dunghills. 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 reign'd 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. 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 i |
