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Waverley; or, 'Tis sixty years since — Complete

by Walter Scott · English · Gutenberg #4966 · 1,206,364 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Waverley; or, 'Tis sixty years since — Complete

Author: Walter Scott


        
Release date: January 1, 2004 [eBook #4966]
                Most recently updated: October 26, 2014

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAVERLEY; OR, 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE — COMPLETE ***




Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.










[Transcriber's Note:

I feel that it is important to note that this book is part of the
Caledonian series. The Caledonian series is a group of 50 books
comprising all of Sir Walter Scott's works.]







WAVERLEY

OR 'T IS SIXTY YEARS SINCE

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT

VOLUME I





PUBLISHERS' NOTE


It has long been the ambition of the present publishers to offer to the
public an ideal edition of the writings of Sir Walter Scott, the great
poet and novelist of whom William Hazlitt said, 'His works are almost
like a new edition of human nature.' Secure in the belief not only that
his writings have achieved a permanent place in the literature of the
world, but that succeeding generations will prize them still more
highly, we have, after the most careful planning and study, undertaken
the publication of this edition of the Waverley Novels and the complete
poetical writings.

It is evident that the ideal edition of a great classic must be
distinguished in typography, must present the best available text, and
must be illustrated in such a way as at once to be beautiful in itself
and to add to the reader's pleasure and his understanding of the book.
As to the typography and text, little need be said here. The format of
the edition has been most carefully studied, and represents the use of
the best resources of The Riverside Press. The text has been carefully
edited in the light of Scott's own revisions; all of his own latest
notes have been included, glossaries have been added, and full
descriptive notes to the illustrations have been prepared which will,
we hope, add greatly to the reader's interest and instruction in the
reading of the novels and poems.

Of the illustrations, which make the special feature of this edition,
something more may be said. In the case of an author like Sir Walter
Scott, the ideal edition requires that the beautiful and romantic
scenery amid which he lived and of which he wrote shall be adequately
presented to the reader. No other author ever used more charming
backgrounds or employed them to better advantage. To see Scotland, and
to visit in person all the scenes of the novels and poems, would enable
the reader fully to understand these backgrounds and thereby add
materially to his appreciation of the author.

Before beginning the preparation of this edition, the head of the
department having it in charge made a visit in person to the scenes of
the novels and poems, determined to explore all the localities referred
to by the author, so far as they could be identified. The field proved
even more productive than had been at first supposed, and photographs
were obtained in sufficient quantity to illustrate all the volumes.
These pictures represent the scenes very much as Scott saw them. The
natural scenery--mountains, woods, lakes, rivers, seashore, and the
like--is nearly the same as in his day. The ruins of ancient castles
and abbeys were found to correspond very closely with his descriptions,
though in many instances he had in imagination rebuilt these ruins and
filled them with the children of his fancy. The scenes of the stories
extend into nearly every county in Scotland and through a large part of
England and Wales. All of these were thoroughly investigated, and
photographs were made of everything of interest. One of the novels has
to do with France and Belgium, one with Switzerland, one with the Holy
Land, one with Constantinople, and one with India. For all of these
lands, which Scott did not visit in person, and therefore did not
describe with the same attention to detail as in the case of his own
country, interesting pictures of characteristic scenery were secured.
By this method the publishers have hoped to bring before the reader a
series of photographs which will not only please the eye and give a
satisfactory artistic effect to the volumes, but also increase the
reader's knowledge of the country described and add a new charm to the
delightful work of the author. In addition to the photographs, old
engravings and paintings have been reproduced for the illustration of
novels having to do with old buildings, streets, etc., which have long
since disappeared. For this material a careful search was made in the
British Museum, the Advocates' Library and City Museum, Edinburgh, the
Library at Abbotsford, the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, and other
collections.

It has been thought, too, that the ideal edition of Scott's works would
not be complete without an adequate portrayal of his more memorable
characters. This has been accomplished in a series of frontispieces
specially painted for this edition by twenty of the most distinguished
illustrators of England.

4 PARK STREET, BOSTON.





ADVERTISEMENT TO THE WAVERLEY NOVELS


IT has been the occasional occupation of the Author of Waverley, for
several years past, to revise and correct the voluminous series of
Novels which pass under that name, in order that, if they should ever
appear as his avowed productions, he might render them in some degree
deserving of a continuance of the public favour with which they have
been honoured ever since their first appearance. For a long period,
however, it seemed likely that the improved and illustrated edition
which he meditated would be a posthumous publication. But the course of
the events which occasioned the disclosure of the Author's name having,
in a great measure, restored to him a sort of parental control over
these Works, he is naturally induced to give them to the press in a
corrected, and, he hopes, an improved form, while life and health
permit the task of revising and illustrating them. Such being his
purpose, it is necessary to say a few words on the plan of the proposed
Edition.

In stating it to be revised and corrected, it is not to be inferred
that any attempt is made to alter the tenor of the stories, the
character of the actors, or the spirit of the dialogue. There is no
doubt ample room for emendation in all these points,--but where the
tree falls it must lie. Any attempt to obviate criticism, however just,
by altering a work already in the hands of the public is generally
unsuccessful. In the most improbable fiction, the reader still desires
some air of vraisemblance, and does not relish that the incidents of a
tale familiar to him should be altered to suit the taste of critics, or
the caprice of the Author himself. This process of feeling is so
natural, that it may be observed even in children, who cannot endure
that a nursery story should be repeated to them differently from the
manner in which it was first told.

But without altering, in the slightest degree, either the story or the
mode of telling it, the Author has taken this opportunity to correct
errors of the press and slips of the pen. That such should exist cannot
be wondered at, when it is considered that the Publishers found it
their interest to hurry through the press a succession of the early
editions of the various Novels, and that the Author had not the usual
opportunity of revision. It is hoped that the present edition will be
found free from errors of that accidental kind.

The Author has also ventured to make some emendations of a different
character, which, without being such apparent deviations from the
original stories as to disturb the reader's old associations, will, he
thinks, add something to the spirit of the dialogue, narrative, or
description. These consist in occasional pruning where the language is
redundant, compression where the style is loose, infusion of vigour
where it is languid, the exchange of less forcible for more appropriate
epithets--slight alterations in short, like the last touches of an
artist, which contribute to heighten and finish the picture, though an
inexperienced eye can hardly detect in what they consist.

The General Preface to the new Edition, and the Introductory Notices to
each separate work, will contain an account of such circumstances
attending the first publication of the Novels and Tales as may appear
interesting in themselves, or proper to be communicated to the public.
The Author also proposes to publish, on this occasion, the various
legends, family traditions, or obscure historical facts which have
formed the ground-work of these Novels, and to give some account of the
places where the scenes are laid, when these are altogether, or in
part, real; as well as a statement of particular incidents founded on
fact; together with a more copious Glossary, and Notes explanatory of
the ancient customs and popular superstitions referred to in the
Romances.

Upon the whole, it is hoped that the Waverley Novels, in their new
dress, will not be found to have lost any part of their attractions in
consequence of receiving illustrations by the Author, and undergoing
his careful revision.

ABBOTSFORD, January, 1829.





GENERAL PREFACE TO THE WAVERLEY NOVELS

    ---And must I ravel out
    My weaved-up follies?

    Richard II, Act IV.

Having undertaken to give an Introductory Account of the compositions
which are here offered to the public, with Notes and Illustrations, the
Author, under whose name they are now for the first time collected,
feels that he has the delicate task of speaking more of himself and his
personal concerns than may perhaps be either graceful or prudent. In
this particular he runs the risk of presenting himself to the public in
the relation that the dumb wife in the jest-book held to her husband,
when, having spent half of his fortune to obtain the cure of her
imperfection, he was willing to have bestowed the other half to restore
her to her former condition. But this is a risk inseparable from the
task which the Author has undertaken, and he can only promise to be as
little of an egotist as the situation will permit. It is perhaps an
indifferent sign of a disposition to keep his word, that, having
introduced himself in the third person singular, he proceeds in the
second paragraph to make use of the first. But it appears to him that
the seeming modesty connected with the former mode of writing is
overbalanced by the inconvenience of stiffness and affectation which
attends it during a narrative of some length, and which may be observed
less or more in every work in which the third person is used, from the
Commentaries of Caesar to the Autobiography of Alexander the Corrector.

I must refer to a very early period of my life, were I to point out my
first achievements as a tale-teller; but I believe some of my old
schoolfellows can still bear witness that I had a distinguished
character for that talent, at a time when the applause of my companions
was my recompense for the disgraces and punishments which the future
romance-writer incurred for being idle himself, and keeping others
idle, during hours that should have been employed on our tasks. The
chief enjoyment of my holidays was to escape with a chosen friend, who
had the same taste with myself, and alternately to recite to each other
such wild adventures as we were able to devise. We told, each in turn,
interminable tales of knight-errantry and battles and enchantments,
which were continued from one day to another as opportunity offered,
without our ever thinking of bringing them to a conclusion. As we
observed a strict secrecy on the subject of this intercourse, it
acquired all the character of a concealed pleasure, and we used to
select for the scenes of our indulgence long walks through the solitary
and romantic environs of Arthur's Seat, Salisbury Crags, Braid Hills,
and similar places in the vicinity of Edinburgh; and the recollection
of those holidays still forms an oasis in the pilgrimage which I have
to look back upon. I have only to add, that my friend still lives, a
prosperous gentleman, but too much occupied with graver business to
thank me for indicating him more plainly as a confidant of my childish
mystery.

When boyhood advancing into youth required more serious studies and
graver cares, a long illness threw me back on the kingdom of fiction,
as if it were by a species of fatality. My indisposition arose, in part
at least, from my having broken a blood-vessel; and motion and speech
were for a long time pronounced positively dangerous. For several weeks
I was confined strictly to my bed, during which time I was not allowed
to speak above a whisper, to eat more than a spoonful or two of boiled
rice, or to have more covering than one thin counterpane. When the
reader is informed that I was at this time a growing youth, with the
spirits, appetite, and impatience of fifteen, and suffered, of course,
greatly under this severe regimen, which the repeated return of my
disorder rendered indispensable, he will not be surprised that I was
abandoned to my own discretion, so far as reading (my almost sole
amusement) was concerned, and still less so, that I abused the
indulgence which left my time so much at my own disposal.

There was at this time a circulating library in Edinburgh, founded, I
believe, by the celebrated Allan Ramsay, which, besides containing a
most respectable collection of books of every description, was, as
might have been expected, peculiarly rich in works of fiction. It
exhibited specimens of every kind, from the romances of chivalry and
the ponderous folios of Cyrus and Cassandra, down to the most approved
works of later times. I was plunged into this great ocean of reading
without compass or pilot; and, unless when some one had the charity to
play at chess with me, I was allowed to do nothing save read from
morning to night. I was, in kindness and pity, which was perhaps
erroneous, however natural, permitted to select my subjects of study at
my own pleasure, upon the same principle that the humours of children
are indulged to keep them out of mischief. As my taste and appetite
were gratified in nothing else, I indemnified myself by becoming a
glutton of books. Accordingly, I believe I read almost all the
romances, old plays, and epic poetry in that formidable collection, and
no doubt was unconsciously amassing materials for the task in which it
has been my lot to be so much employed.

At the same time I did not in all respects abuse the license permitted
me. Familiar acquaintance with the specious miracles of fiction brought
with it some degree of satiety, and I began by degrees to seek in
histories, memoirs, voyages and travels, and the like, events nearly as
wonderful as those which were the work of imagination, with the
additional advantage that they were at least in a great measure true.
The lapse of nearly two years, during which I was left to the exercise
of my own free will, was followed by a temporary residence in the
country, where I was again very lonely but for the amusement which I
derived from a good though old-fashioned library. The vague and wild
use which I made of this advantage I cannot describe better than by
referring my reader to the desultory studies of Waverley in a similar
situation, the passages concerning whose course of reading were
imitated from recollections of my own. It must be understood that the
resemblance extends no farther.

Time, as it glided on, brought the blessings of confirmed health and
personal strength, to a degree which had never been expected or hoped
for. The severe studies necessary to render me fit for my profession
occupied the greater part of my time; and the society of my friends and
companions, who were about to enter life along with, me, filled up the
interval with the usual amusements of young men. I was in a situation
which rendered serious labour indispensable; for, neither possessing,
on the one hand, any of those peculiar advantages which are supposed to
favour a hasty advance in the profession of the law, nor being, on the
other hand, exposed to unusual obstacles to interrupt my progress, I
might reasonably expect to succeed according to the greater or less
degree of trouble which I should take to qualify myself as a pleader.

It makes no part of the present story to detail how the success of a
few ballads had the effect of changing all the purpose and tenor of my
life, and of converting a painstaking lawyer of some years' standing
into a follower of literature. It is enough to say, that I had assumed
the latter character for several years before I seriously thought of
attempting a work of imagination in prose, although one or two of my
poetical attempts did not differ from romances otherwise than by being
written in verse. But yet I may observe, that about this time (now,
alas! thirty years since) I had nourished the ambitious desire of
composing a tale of chivalry, which was to be in the style of the
Castle of Otranto, with plenty of Border characters and supernatural
incident. Having found unexpectedly a chapter of this intended work
among some old papers, I have subjoined it to this introductory essay,
thinking some readers may account as curious the first attempts at
romantic composition by an author who has since written so much in that
department. [Footnote: See Appendix No I.] And those who complain, not
unreasonably, of the profusion of the Tales which have followed
Waverley, may bless their stars at the narrow escape they have made, by
the commencement of the inundation, which had so nearly taken place in
the first year of the century, being postponed for fifteen years later.

This particular subject was never resumed, but I did not abandon the
idea of fictitious composition in prose, though I determined to give
another turn to the style of the work.

My early recollections of the Highland scenery and customs made so
favourable an impression in the poem called the Lady of the Lake, that
I was induced to think of attempting something of the same kind in
prose. I had been a good deal in the Highlands at a time when they were
much less accessible and much less visited than they have been of late
years, and was acquainted with many of the old warriors of 1745, who
were, like most veterans, easily induced to fight their battles over
again for the benefit of a willing listener like myself. It naturally
occurred to me that the ancient traditions and high spirit of a people
who, living in a civilised age and country, retained so strong a
tincture of manners belonging to an early period of society, must
afford a subject favourable for romance, if it should not prove a
curious tale marred in the telling.

It was with some idea of this kind that, about the year 1805, I threw
together about one-third part of the first volume of Waverley. It was
advertised to be published by the late Mr. John Ballantyne, bookseller
in Edinburgh, under the name of Waverley; or, 'Tis Fifty Years Since--a
title afterwards altered to 'Tis Sixty Years Since, that the actual
date of publication might be made to correspond with the period in
which the scene was laid. Having proceeded as far, I think, as the
seventh chapter, I showed my work to a critical friend, whose opinion
was unfavourable; and having then some poetical reputation, I was
unwilling to risk the loss of it by attempting a new style of
composition. I therefore threw aside the work I had commenced, without
either reluctance or remonstrance. I ought to add that, though my
ingenious friend's sentence was afterwards reversed on an appeal to the
public, it cannot be considered as any imputation on his good taste;
for the specimen subjected to his criticism did not extend beyond the
departure of the hero for Scotland, and consequently had not entered
upon the part of the story which was finally found most interesting.

Be that as it may, this portion of the manuscript was laid aside in the
drawers of an old writing-desk, which, on my first coming to reside at
Abbotsford in 1811, was placed in a lumber garret and entirely
forgotten. Thus, though I sometimes, among other literary avocations,
turned my thoughts to the continuation of the romance which I had
commenced, yet, as I could not find what I had already written, after
searching such repositories as were within my reach, and was too
indolent to attempt to write it anew from memory, I as often laid aside
all thoughts of that nature.

Two circumstances in particular recalled my recollection of the mislaid
manuscript. The first was the extended and well-merited fame of Miss
Edgeworth, whose Irish characters have gone so far to make the English
familiar with the character of their gay and kind-hearted neighbours of
Ireland, that she may be truly said to have done more towards
completing the Union than perhaps all the legislative enactments by
which it has been followed up.

Without being so presumptuous as to hope to emulate the rich humour,
pathetic tenderness, and admirable tact which pervade the works of my
accomplished friend, I felt that something might be attempted for my
own country, of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so
fortunately achieved for Ireland--something which might introduce her
natives to those of the sister kingdom in a more favourable light than
they had been placed hitherto, and tend to procure sympathy for their
virtues and indulgence for their foibles. I thought also, that much of
what I wanted in talent might be made up by the intimate acquaintance
with the subject which I could lay claim to possess, as having
travelled through most parts of Scotland, both Highland and Lowland,
having been familiar with the elder as well as more modern race, and
having had from my infancy free and unrestrained communication with all
ranks of my countrymen, from the Scottish peer to the Scottish
plough-man. Such ideas often occurred to me, and constituted an
ambitious branch of my theory, however far short I may have fallen of
it in practice.

But it was not only the triumphs of Miss Edgeworth which worked in me
emulation, and disturbed my indolence. I chanced actually to engage in
a work which formed a sort of essay piece, and gave me hope that I
might in time become free of the craft of romance-writing, and be
esteemed a tolerable workman.

In the year 1807-08 I undertook, at the request of John Murray, Esq.,
of Albemarle Street, to arrange for publication some posthumous
productions of the late Mr. Joseph Strutt, distinguished as an artist
and an antiquary, amongst which was an unfinished romance, entitled
Queenhoo Hall. The scene of the tale was laid in the reign of Henry VI,
and the work was written to illustrate the manners, customs, and
language of the people of England during that period. The extensive
acquaintance which Mr. Strutt had acquired with such subjects in
compiling his laborious Horda Angel-Cynnan, his Regal and
Ecclesiastical Antiquities, and his Essay on the Sports and Pastimes of
the People of England had rendered him familiar with all the
antiquarian lore necessary for the purpose of composing the projected
romance; and although the manuscript bore the marks of hurry and
incoherence natural to the first rough draught of the author, it
evinced (in my opinion) considerable powers of imagination.

As the work was unfinished, I deemed it my duty, as editor, to supply
such a hasty and inartificial conclusion as could be shaped out from
the story, of which Mr. Strutt had laid the foundation. This concluding
chapter [Footnote: See Appendix No. II.] is also added to the present
Introduction, for the reason already mentioned regarding the preceding
fragment. It was a step in my advance towards romantic composition; and
to preserve the traces of these is in a great measure the object of
this Essay.

Queenhoo Hall was not, however, very successful. I thought I was aware
of the reason, and supposed that, by rendering his language too
ancient, and displaying his antiquarian knowledge too liberally, the
ingenious author had raised up an obstacle to his own success. Every
work designed for mere amusement must be expressed in language easily
comprehended; and when, as is sometimes the case in QUEENHOO HALL, the
author addresses himself exclusively to the antiquary, he must be
content to be dismissed by the general reader with the criticism of
Mungo, in the PADLOCK, on the Mauritanian music, 'What signifies me
hear, if me no understand?'

I conceived it possible to avoid this error; and, by rendering a
similar work more light and obvious to general comprehension, to escape
the rock on which my predecessor was shipwrecked.

But I was, on the other hand, so far discouraged by the indifferent
reception of Mr. Strutt's romance as to become satisfied that the
manners of the middle ages did not possess the interest which I had
conceived; and was led to form the opinion that a romance founded on a
Highland story and more modern events would have a better chance of
popularity than a tale of chivalry.

My thoughts, therefore, returned more than once to the tale which I had
actually commenced, and accident at length threw the lost sheets in my
way.

I happened to want some fishing-tackle for the use of a guest, when it
occurred to me to search the old writing-desk already mentioned, in
which I used to keep articles of that nature.

I got access to it with some difficulty; and, in looking for lines and
flies, the long-lost manuscript presented itself.

I immediately set to work to complete it according to my original
purpose.

And here I must frankly confess that the mode in which I conducted the
story scarcely deserved the success which the romance afterwards
attained.

The tale of WAVERLEY was put together with so little care that I cannot
boast of having sketched any distinct plan of the work. The whole
adventures of Waverley, in his movements up and down the country with
the Highland cateran Bean Lean, are managed without much skill. It
suited best, however, the road I wanted to travel, and permitted me to
introduce some descriptions of scenery and manners, to which the
reality gave an interest which the powers of the Author might have
otherwise failed to attain for them. And though I have been in other
instances a sinner in this sort, I do not recollect any of these novels
in which I have transgressed so widely as in the first of the series.

Among other unfounded reports, it has been said that the copyright of
Waverley was, during the book's progress through the press, offered for
sale to various book-sellers in London at a very inconsiderable price.
This was not the case. Messrs. Constable and Cadell, who published the
work, were the only persons acquainted with the contents of the
publication, and they offered a large sum for it while in the course of
printing, which, however, was declined, the Author not choosing to part
with the copyright.

The origin of the story of Waverley, and the particular facts on which
it is founded, are given in the separate introduction prefixed to that
romance in this edition, and require no notice in this place.

Waverley was published in 1814, and, as the title-page was without the
name of the Author, the work was left to win its way in the world
without any of the usual recommendations. Its progress was for some
time slow; but after the first two or three months its popularity had
increased in a degree which must have satisfied the expectations of the
Author, had these been far more sanguine than he ever entertained.

Great anxiety was expressed to learn the name of the Author, but on
this no authentic information could be attained. My original motive for
publishing the work anonymously was the consciousness that it was an
experiment on the public taste which might very probably fail, and
therefore there was no occasion to take on myself the personal risk of
discomfiture. For this purpose considerable precautions were used to
preserve secrecy. My old friend and schoolfellow, Mr. James Ballantyne,
who printed these Novels, had the exclusive task of corresponding with
the Author, who thus had not only the advantage of his professional
talents, but also of his critical abilities. The original manuscript,
or, as it is technically called, copy, was transcribed under Mr.
Ballantyne's eye by confidential persons; nor was there an instance of
treachery during the many years in which these precautions were
resorted to, although various individuals were employed at different
times. Double proof-sheets were regularly printed off. One was
forwarded to the Author by Mr. Ballantyne, and the alterations which it
received were, by his own hand, copied upon the other proof-sheet for
the use of the printers, so that even the corrected proofs of the
Author were never seen in the printing office; and thus the curiosity
of such eager inquirers as made the most minute investigation was
entirely at fault.

But although the cause of concealing the Author's name in the first
instance, when the reception of Waverley was doubtful, was natural
enough, it is more difficult, it may be thought, to account for the
same desire for secrecy during the subsequent editions, to the amount
of betwixt eleven and twelve thousand copies, which followed each other
close, and proved the success of the work. I am sorry I can give little
satisfaction to queries on this subject. I have already stated
elsewhere that I can render little better reason for choosing to remain
anonymous than by saying with Shylock, that such was my humour. It will
be observed that I had not the usual stimulus for desiring personal
reputation, the desire, namely, to float amidst the conversation of
men. Of literary fame, whether merited or undeserved, I had already as
much as might have contented a mind more ambitious than mine; and in
entering into this new contest for reputation I might be said rather to
endanger what I had than to have any considerable chance of acquiring
more. I was affected, too, by none of those motives which, at an
earlier period of life, would doubtless have operated upon me. My
friendships were formed, my place in society fixed, my life had
attained its middle course. My condition in society was higher perhaps
than I deserved, certainly as high as I wished, and there was scarce
any degree of literary success which could have greatly altered or
improved my personal condition.

I was not, therefore, touched by the spur of ambition, usually
stimulating on such occasions; and yet I ought to stand exculpated from
the charge of ungracious or unbecoming indifference to public applause.
I did not the less feel gratitude for the public favour, although I did
not proclaim it; as the lover who wears his mistress's favour in his
bosom is as proud, though not so vain, of possessing it as another who
displays the token of her grace upon his bonnet. Far from such an
ungracious state of mind, I have seldom felt more satisfaction than
when, returning from a pleasure voyage, I found Waverley in the zenith
of popularity, and public curiosity in full cry after the name of the
Author. The knowledge that I had the public approbation was like having
the property of a hidden treasure, not less gratifying to the owner
than if all the world knew that it was his own. Another advantage was
connected with the secrecy which I observed. I could appear or retreat
from the stage at pleasure, without attracting any personal notice or
attention, other than what might be founded on suspicion only. In my
own person also, as a successful author in another department of
literature, I might have been charged with too frequent intrusions on
the public patience; but the Author of Waverley was in this respect as
impassible to the critic as the Ghost of Hamlet to the partisan of
Marcellus. Perhaps the curiosity of the public, irritated by the
existence of a secret, and kept afloat by the discussions which took
place on the subject from time to time, went a good way to maintain an
unabated interest in these frequent publications. There was a mystery
concerning the Author which each new novel was expected to assist in
unravelling, although it might in other respects rank lower than its
predecessors.

I may perhaps be thought guilty of affectation, should I allege as one
reason of my silence a secret dislike to enter on personal discussions
concerning my own literary labours. It is in every case a dangerous
intercourse for an author to be dwelling continually among those who
make his writings a frequent and familiar subject of conversation, but
who must necessarily be partial judges of works composed in their own
society. The habits of self-importance which are thus acquired by
authors are highly injurious to a well-regulated mind; for the cup of
flattery, if it does not, like that of Circe, reduce men to the level
of beasts, is sure, if eagerly drained, to bring the best and the
ablest down to that of fools. This risk was in some degree prevented by
the mask which I wore; and my own stores of self-conceit were left to
their natural course, without being enhanced by the partiality of
friends or adulation of flatterers.

If I am asked further reasons for the conduct I have long observed, I
can only resort to the explanation supplied by a critic as friendly as
he is intelligent; namely, that the mental organisation of the novelist
must be characterised, to speak craniologically, by an extraordinary
development of the passion for delitescency! I the rather suspect some
natural disposition of this kind; for, from the instant I perceived the
extreme curiosity manifested on the subject, I felt a secret
satisfaction in baffling it, for which, when its unimportance is
considered, I do not well know how to account.

My desire to remain concealed, in the character of the Author of these
Novels, subjected me occasionally to awkward embarrassments, as it
sometimes happened that those who were sufficiently intimate with me
would put the question in direct terms. In this case, only one of three
courses could be followed. Either I must have surrendered my secret, or
have returned an equivocating answer, or, finally, must have stoutly
and boldly denied the fact. The first was a sacrifice which I conceive
no one had a right to force from me, since I alone was concerned in the
matter. The alternative of rendering a doubtful answer must have left
me open to the degrading suspicion that I was not unwilling to assume
the merit (if there was any) which I dared not absolutely lay claim to;
or those who might think more justly of me must have received such an
equivocal answer as an indirect avowal. I therefore considered myself
entitled, like an accused person put upon trial, to refuse giving my
own evidence to my own conviction, and flatly to deny all that could
not be proved against me. At the same time I usually qualified my
denial by stating that, had I been the Author of these works, I would
have felt myself quite entitled to protect my secret by refusing my own
evidence, when it was asked for to accomplish a discovery of what I
desired to conceal.

The real truth is, that I never expected or hoped to disguise my
connection with these Novels from any one who lived on terms of
intimacy with me. The number of coincidences which necessarily existed
between narratives recounted, modes of expression, and opinions
broached in these Tales and such as were used by their Author in the
intercourse of private life must have been far too great to permit any
of my familiar acquaintances to doubt the identity betwixt their friend
and the Author of Waverley; and I believe they were all morally
convinced of it. But while I was myself silent, their belief could not
weigh much more with the world than that of others; their opinions and
reasoning were liable to be taxed with partiality, or confronted with
opposing arguments and opinions; and the question was not so much
whether I should be generally acknowledged to be the Author, in spite
of my own denial, as whether even my own avowal of the works, if such
should be made, would be sufficient to put me in undisputed possession
of that character.

I have been often asked concerning supposed cases, in which I was said
to have been placed on the verge of discovery; but, as I maintained my
point with the composure of a lawyer of thirty years' standing, I never
recollect being in pain or confusion on the subject. In Captain
Medwyn's Conversations of Lord Byron the reporter states himself to
have asked my noble and highly gifted friend,' If he was certain about
these Novels being Sir Walter Scott's?' To which Lord Byron replied,
'Scott as much as owned himself the Author of Waverley to me in
Murray's shop. I was talking to him about that Novel, and lamented that
its Author had not carried back the story nearer to the time of the
Revolution. Scott, entirely off his guard, replied, "Ay, I might have
done so; but--" there he stopped. It was in vain to attempt to correct
himself; he looked confused, and relieved his embarrassment by a
precipitate retreat.' I have no recollection whatever of this scene
taking place, and I should have thought that I was more likely to have
laughed than to appear confused, for I certainly never hoped to impose
upon Lord Byron in a case of the kind; and from the manner in which he
uniformly expressed himself, I knew his opinion was entirely formed,
and that any disclamations of mine would only have savoured of
affectation. I do not mean to insinuate that the incident did not
happen, but only that it could hardly have occurred exactly under the
circumstances narrated, without my recollecting something positive on
the subject. In another part of the same volume Lord Byron is reported
to have expressed a supposition that the cause of my not avowing myself
the Author of Waverley may have been some surmise that the reigning
family would have been displeased with the work. I can only say, it is
the last apprehension I should have entertained, as indeed the
inscription to these volumes sufficiently proves. The sufferers of that
melancholy period have, during the last and present reign, been
honoured both with the sympathy and protection of the reigning family,
whose magnanimity can well pardon a sigh from others, and bestow one
themselves, to the memory of brave opponents, who did nothing in hate,
but all in honour.

While those who were in habitual intercourse with the real author had
little hesitation in assigning the literary property to him, others,
and those critics of no mean rank, employed themselves in investigating
with persevering patience any characteristic features which might seem
to betray the origin of these Novels. Amongst these, one gentleman,
equally remarkable for the kind and liberal tone of his criticism, the
acuteness of his reasoning, and the very gentlemanlike manner in which
he conducted his inquiries, displayed not only powers of accurate
investigation, but a temper of mind deserving to be employed on a
subject of much greater importance; and I have no doubt made converts
to his opinion of almost all who thought the point worthy of
consideration. [Footnote: Letters on the Author of Waverly; Rodwell and
Martin, London, 1822.] Of those letters, and other attempts of the same
kind, the Author could not complain, though his incognito was
endangered. He had challenged the public to a game at bo-peep, and if
he was discovered in his 'hiding-hole,' he must submit to the shame of
detection.

Various reports were of course circulated in various ways; some founded
on an inaccurate rehearsal of what may have been partly real, some on
circumstances having no concern whatever with the subject, and others
on the invention of some importunate persons, who might perhaps imagine
that the readiest mode of forcing the Author to disclose himself was to
assign some dishonourable and discreditable cause for his silence.

It may be easily supposed that this sort of inquisition was treated
with contempt by the person whom it principally regarded; as, among all
the rumours that were current, there was only one, and that as
unfounded as the others, which had nevertheless some alliance to
probability, and indeed might have proved in some degree true.

I allude to a report which ascribed a great part, or the whole, of
these Novels to the late Thomas Scott, Esq., of the 70th Regiment, then
stationed in Canada. Those who remember that gentleman will readily
grant that, with general talents at least equal to those of his elder
brother, he added a power of social humour and a deep insight into
human character which rendered him an universally delightful member of
society, and that the habit of composition alone was wanting to render
him equally successful as a writer. The Author of Waverley was so
persuaded of the truth of this, that he warmly pressed his brother to
make such an experiment, and willingly undertook all the trouble of
correcting and superintending the press. Mr. Thomas Scott seemed at
first very well disposed to embrace the proposal, and had even fixed on
a subject and a hero. The latter was a person well known to both of us
in our boyish years, from having displayed some strong traits of
character. Mr. T. Scott had determined to represent his youthful
acquaintance as emigrating to America, and encountering the dangers and
hardships of the New World, with the same dauntless spirit which he had
displayed when a boy in his native country. Mr. Scott would probably
have been highly successful, being familiarly acquainted with the
manners of the native Indians, of the old French settlers in Canada,
and of the Brules or Woodsmen, and having the power of observing with
accuracy what I have no doubt he could have sketched with force and
expression. In short, the Author believes his brother would have made
himself distinguished in that striking field in which, since that
period, Mr. Cooper has achieved so many triumphs. But Mr. T. Scott was
already affected by bad health, which wholly unfitted him for literary
labour, even if he could have reconciled his patience to the task. He
never, I believe, wrote a single line of the projected work; and I only
have the melancholy pleasure of preserving in the Appendix [Footnote:
See Appendix No. III.] the simple anecdote on which he proposed to
found it.

To this I may add, I can easily conceive that there may have been
circumstances which gave a colour to the general report of my brother
being interested in these works; and in particular that it might derive
strength from my having occasion to remit to him, in consequence of
certain family transactions, some considerable sums of money about that
period. To which it is to be added that if any person chanced to evince
particular curiosity on such a subject, my brother was likely enough to
divert himself with practising on their credulity.

It may be mentioned that, while the paternity of these Novels was from
time to time warmly disputed in Britain, the foreign booksellers
expressed no hesitation on the matter, but affixed my name to the whole
of the Novels, and to some besides to which I had no claim.

The volumes, therefore, to which the present pages form a Preface are
entirely the composition of the Author by whom they are now
acknowledged, with the exception, always, of avowed quotations, and
such unpremeditated and involuntary plagiarisms as can scarce be
guarded against by any one who has read and written a great deal. The
original manuscripts are all in existence, and entirely written
(horresco referens) in the Author's own hand, excepting during the
years 1818 and 1819, when, being affected with severe illness, he was
obliged to employ the assistance of a friendly amanuensis.

The number of persons to whom the secret was necessarily entrusted, or
communicated by chance, amounted, I should think, to twenty at least,
to whom I am greatly obliged for the fidelity with which they observed
their trust, until the derangement of the affairs of my publishers,
Messrs. Constable and Co., and the exposure of their account books,
which was the necessary consequence, rendered secrecy no longer
possible. The particulars attending the avowal have been laid before
the public in the Introduction to the Chronicles of the Canongate.

The preliminary advertisement has given a sketch of the purpose of this
edition. I have some reason to fear that the notes which accompany the
tales, as now published, may be thought too miscellaneous and too
egotistical. It maybe some apology for this, that the publication was
intended to be posthumous, and still more, that old men may be
permitted to speak long, because they cannot in the course of nature
have long time to speak. In preparing the present edition, I have done
all that I can do to explain the nature of my materials, and the use I
have made of them; nor is it probable that I shall again revise or even
read these tales. I was therefore desirous rather to exceed in the
portion of new and explanatory matter which is added to this edition
than that the reader should have reason to complain that the
information communicated was of a general and merely nominal character.
It remains to be tried whether the public (like a child to whom a watch
is shown) will, after having been satiated with looking at the outside,
acquire some new interest in the object when it is opened and the
internal machinery displayed to them.

That Waverly and its successors have had their day of favour and
popularity must be admitted with sincere gratitude; and the Author has
studied (with the prudence of a beauty whose reign has been rather
long) to supply, by the assistance of art, the charms which novelty no
longer affords. The publishers have endeavoured to gratify the
honourable partiality of the public for the encouragement of British
art, by illustrating this edition with designs by the most eminent
living artists. [Footnote: The illustrations here referred to were made
for the edition of 1829]

To my distinguished countryman, David Wilkie, to Edwin Landseer, who
has exercised his talents so much on Scottish subjects and scenery, to
Messrs. Leslie and Newton, my thanks are due, from a friend as well as
an author. Nor am I less obliged to Messrs. Cooper, Kidd, and other
artists of distinction to whom I am less personally known, for the
ready zeal with which they have devoted their talents to the same
purpose.

Farther explanation respecting the Edition is the business of the
publishers, not of the Author; and here, therefore, the latter has
accomplished his task of introduction and explanation. If, like a
spoiled child, he has sometimes abused or trifled with the indulgence
of the public, he feels himself entitled to full belief when he
exculpates himself from the charge of having been at any time
insensible of their kindness.

ABBOTSFORD, 1st January, 1829.





WAVERLEY

OR 'T IS SIXTY YEARS SINCE

    Under which King, Bezonian? speak, or die!

    Henry IV, Part II.

VOLUME II



INTRODUCTION


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
Invernahylewas one of the foremost in the charge, and observing an
officer of the King's forces, who, scorning to join the flight of all
around, remained with his sword in his hand, as if determined to the
very last to defend the post assigned to him, the Highland gentleman
commanded him to surrender, and received for reply a thrust, which he
caught in his target. The officer was now defenceless, and the
battle-axe of a gigantic Highlander (the miller of Invernahyle's mill)
was uplifted to dash his brains out, when Mr. Stewart with difficulty
prevailed on him to yield. He took charge of his enemy's property,
protected his person, and finally obtained him liberty on his parole.
The officer proved to be Colonel Whitefoord, an Ayrshire gentleman of
high character and influence, and warmly attached to the House of
Hanover; yet such was the confidence existing between these two
honourable men, though of different political principles, that, while
the civil war was raging, and straggling officers from the Highland
army were executed without mercy, Invernahyle hesitated not to pay his
late captive a visit, as he returned to the Highlands to raise fresh
recruits, on which occasion he spent a day or two in Ayrshire among
Colonel Whitefoord's Whig friends, as pleasantly and as good-humouredly
as if all had been at peace around him.

After the battle of Culloden had ruined the hopes of Charles Edward and
dispersed his proscribed adherents, it was Colonel Whitefoord's turn to
strain every nerve to obtain Mr. Stewart's pardon. He went to the Lord
Justice Clerk to the Lord Advocate, and to all the officers of state,
and each application was answered by the production of a list in which
Invernahyle (as the good old gentleman was wont to express it) appeared
'marked with the sign of the beast!' as a subject unfit for favour or
pardon.

At length Colonel Whitefoord applied to the Duke of Cumberland in
person. From him, also, he received a positive refusal. He then limited
his request, for the present, to a protection for Stewart's house,
wife, children, and property. This was also refused by the Duke; on
which Colonel Whitefoord, taking his commission from his bosom, laid it
on the table before his Royal Highness with much emotion, and asked
permission to retire from the service of a sovereign who did not know
how to spare a vanquished enemy. The Duke was struck, and even
affected. He bade the Colonel take up his commission, and granted the
protection he required. 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
entrusting with this commission; for her own motions, and those of all
her elder inmates, were closely watched. With ingenuity beyond her
years, the child used to stray about among the soldiers, who were
rather kind to her, and thus seize the moment when she was unobserved
and steal into the thicket, when she deposited whatever small store of
provisions she had in charge at some marked spot, where her father
might find it. Invernahyle supported life for several weeks by means of
these precarious supplies; and, as he had been wounded in the battle of
Culloden, the hardships which he endured were aggravated by great
bodily pain. After the soldiers had removed their quarters he had
another remarkable escape.

As he now ventured to his own house at night and left it in the
morning, he was espied during the dawn by a party of the enemy, who
fired at and pursued him. The fugitive being fortunate enough to escape
their search, they returned to the house and charged the family with
harbouring one of the proscribed traitors. An old woman had presence of
mind enough to maintain that the man they had seen was the shepherd.
'Why did he not stop when we called to him?' said the soldier. 'He is
as deaf, poor man, as a peat-stack,' answered the ready-witted
domestic. 'Let him be sent for directly.' The real shepherd accordingly
was brought from the hill, and, as there was time to tutor him by the
way, he was as deaf when he made his appearance as was necessary to
sustain his character. Invernahyle was afterwards pardoned under the
Act of Indemnity.

The Author knew him well, and has often heard these circumstances from
his own mouth. He was a noble specimen of the old Highlander, far
descended, gallant, courteous, and brave, even to chivalry. He had been
out, I believe, in 1715 and 1745, was an active partaker in all the
stirring scenes which passed in the Highlands betwixt these memorable
eras; and, I have heard, was remarkable, among other exploits, for
having fought a duel with the broadsword with the celebrated Rob Roy
MacGregor at the clachan of Balquidder.

Invernahyle chanced to be in Edinburgh when Paul Jones came into the
Firth 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 Firth.

If there is something degrading in this recollection, it is not
unpleasant to compare it with those of the last war, when Edinburgh,
besides regular forces and militia, furnished a volunteer brigade of
cavalry, infantry, and artillery to the amount of six thousand men and
upwards, which was in readiness to meet and repel a force of a far more
formidable description than was commanded by the adventurous American.
Time and circumstances change the character of nations and the fate of
cities; and it is some pride to a Scotchman to reflect that the
independent and manly character of a country, willing to entrust its
own protection to the arms of its children, after having been obscured
for half a century, has, during the course of his own lifetime,
recovered its lustre.

Other illustrations of Waverley will be found in the Notes at the foot
of the pages to which they belong. Those which appeared too long to be
so placed are given at the end of the chapters to which they severally
relate. [Footnote: In this edition at the end of the several volumes.]





PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION


To this slight attempt at a sketch of ancient Scottish manners the
public have been more favourable than the Author durst have hoped or
expected. He has heard, with a mixture of satisfaction and humility,
his work ascribed to more than one respectable name. Considerations,
which seem weighty in his particular situation, prevent his releasing
those gentlemen from suspicion by placing his own name in the
title-page; so that, for the present at least, it must remain uncertain
whether Waverley be the work of a poet or a critic, a lawyer or a
clergyman, or whether the writer, to use Mrs. Malaprop's phrase, be,
'like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once.' The Author, as he is
unconscious of anything in the work itself (except perhaps its
frivolity) which prevents its finding an acknowledged father, leaves it
to the candour of the public to choose among the many circumstances
peculiar to different situations in life such as may induce him to
suppress his name on the present occasion. He may be a writer new to
publication, and unwilling to avow a character to which he is
unaccustomed; or he may be a hackneyed author, who is ashamed of too
frequent appearance, and employs this mystery, as the heroine of the
old comedy used her mask, to attract the attention of those to whom her
face had become too familiar. He may be a man of a grave profession, to
whom the reputation of being a novel-writer might be prejudicial; or he
may be a man of fashion, to whom writing of any kind might appear
pedantic. He may be too young to assume the character of an author, or
so old as to make it advisable to lay it aside.

The Author of Waverley has heard it objected to this novel, that, in
the character of Callum Beg and in the account given by the Baron of
Bradwardine of the petty trespasses of the Highlanders upon trifling
articles of property, he has borne hard, and unjustly so, upon their
national character. Nothing could be farther from his wish or
intention. The character of Callum Beg is that of a spirit naturally
turned to daring evil, and determined, by the circumstances of his
situation, to a particular species of mischief. Those who have perused
the curious Letters from the Highlands, published about 1726, will find
instances of such atrocious characters which fell under the writer's
own observation, though it would be most unjust to consider such
villains as representatives of the Highlanders of that period, any more
than the murderers of Marr and Williamson can be supposed to represent
the English of the present day. As for the plunder supposed to have
been picked up by some of the insurgents in 1745, it must be remembered
that, although the way of that unfortunate little army was neither
marked by devastation nor bloodshed, but, on the contrary, was orderly
and quiet in a most wonderful degree, yet no army marches through a
country in a hostile manner without committing some depredations; and
several, to the extent and of the nature jocularly imputed to them by
the Baron, were really laid to the charge of the Highland insurgents;
for which many traditions, and particularly one respecting the Knight
of the Mirror, may be quoted as good evidence. [Footnote: A homely
metrical narrative of the events of the period, which contains some
striking particulars, and is still a great favourite with the lower
classes, gives a very correct statement of the behaviour of the
mountaineers respecting this same military license; and, as the verses
are little known, and contain some good sense, we venture to insert
them.]





THE AUTHOR'S ADDRESS TO ALL IN GENERAL


    Now, gentle readers, I have let you ken
    My very thoughts, from heart and pen,
    'Tis needless for to conten'
                  Or yet controule,
    For there's not a word o't I can men';
                  So ye must thole.

    For on both sides some were not good;
    I saw them murd'ring in cold blood,
    Not the gentlemen, but wild and rude,
                  The baser sort,
    Who to the wounded had no mood
                  But murd'ring sport!

    Ev'n both at Preston and Falkirk,
    That fatal night ere it grew mirk,
    Piercing the wounded with their durk,
                  Caused many cry!
    Such pity's shown from Savage and Turk
                  As peace to die.

    A woe be to such hot zeal,
    To smite the wounded on the fiell!
    It's just they got such groats in kail,
                  Who do the same.
    It only teaches crueltys real
                  To them again.

    I've seen the men call'd Highland rogues,
    With Lowland men make shangs a brogs,
    Sup kail and brose, and fling the cogs
                  Out at the door,
    Take cocks, hens, sheep, and hogs,
                  And pay nought for.

    I saw a Highlander,'t was right drole,
    With a string of puddings hung on a pole,
    Whip'd o'er his shoulder, skipped like a fole,
                        Caus'd Maggy bann,
    Lap o'er the midden and midden-hole,
                        And aff he ran.

    When check'd for this, they'd often tell ye,
    'Indeed her nainsell's a tume belly;
    You'll no gie't wanting bought, nor sell me;
                        Hersell will hae't;
    Go tell King Shorge, and Shordy's Willie,
                        I'll hae a meat.'

    I saw the soldiers at Linton-brig,
    Because the man was not a Whig,
    Of meat and drink leave not a skig,
                        Within his door;
    They burnt his very hat and wig,
                        And thump'd him sore.

    And through the Highlands they were so rude,
    As leave them neither clothes nor food,
    Then burnt their houses to conclude;
                        'T was tit for tat.
    How can her nainsell e'er be good,
                        To think on that?

    And after all, O, shame and grief!
    To use some worse than murd'ring thief,
    Their very gentleman and chief,
                        Unhumanly!
    Like Popish tortures, I believe,
                        Such cruelty.

    Ev'n what was act on open stage
    At Carlisle, in the hottest rage,
    When mercy was clapt in a cage,
                        And pity dead,
    Such cruelty approv'd by every age,
                        I shook my head.

    So many to curse, so few to pray,
    And some aloud huzza did cry;
    They cursed the rebel Scots that day,
                        As they'd been nowt
    Brought up for slaughter, as that way
                        Too many rowt.

    Therefore, alas! dear countrymen,
    O never do the like again,
    To thirst for vengeance, never ben'
                        Your gun nor pa',
    But with the English e'en borrow and len',
                        Let anger fa'.

    Their boasts and bullying, not worth a louse,
    As our King's the best about the house.
    'T is ay good to be sober and douce,
                        To live in peace;
    For many, I see, for being o'er crouse,
                        Gets broken face.





WAVERLEY

OR 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE





CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY


The title of this work has not been chosen without the grave and solid
deliberation which matters of importance demand from the prudent. Even
its first, or general denomination, was the result of no common
research or selection, although, according to the example of my
predecessors, I had only to seize upon the most sounding and euphonic
surname that English history or topography affords, and elect it at
once as the title of my work and the name of my hero. But, alas! what
could my readers have expected from the chivalrous epithets of Howard,
Mordaunt, Mortimer, or Stanley, or from the softer and more sentimental
sounds of Belmour, Belville, Belfield, and Belgrave, but pages of
inanity, similar to those which have been so christened for half a
century past? I must modestly admit I am too diffident of my own merit
to place it in unnecessary opposition to preconceived associations; I
have, therefore, like a maiden knight with his white shield, assumed
for my hero, WAVERLEY, an uncontaminated name, bearing with its sound
little of good or evil, excepting what the reader shall hereafter be
pleased to affix to it. But my second or supplemental title was a
matter of much more difficult election, since that, short as it is, may
be held as pledging the author to some special mode of laying his
scene, drawing his characters, and managing his adventures. Had I, for
example, announced in my frontispiece, 'Waverley, a Tale of other
Days,' must not every novel-reader have anticipated a castle scarce
less than that of Udolpho, of which the eastern wing had long been
uninhabited, and the keys either lost, or consigned to the care of some
aged butler or housekeeper, whose trembling steps, about the middle of
the second volume, were doomed to guide the hero, or heroine, to the
ruinous precincts? Would not the owl have shrieked and the cricket
cried in my very title-page? and could it have been possible for me,
with a moderate attention to decorum, to introduce any scene more
lively than might be produced by the jocularity of a clownish but
faithful valet, or the garrulous narrative of the heroine's
fille-de-chambre, when rehearsing the stories of blood and horror which
she had heard in the servants' hall? Again, had my title borne,
'Waverley, a Romance from the German,' what head so obtuse as not to
image forth a profligate abbot, an oppressive duke, a secret and
mysterious association of Rosycrucians and Illuminati, with all their
properties of black cowls, caverns, daggers, electrical machines,
trap-doors, and dark-lanterns? Or if I had rather chosen to call my
work a 'Sentimental Tale,' would it not have been a sufficient presage
of a heroine with a profusion of auburn hair, and a harp, the soft
solace of her solitary hours, which she fortunately finds always the
means of transporting from castle to cottage, although she herself be
sometimes obliged to jump out of a two-pair-of-stairs window, and is
more than once bewildered on her journey, alone and on foot, without
any guide but a blowzy peasant girl, whose jargon she hardly can
understand? Or, again, if my Waverley had been entitled 'A Tale of the
Times,' wouldst thou not, gentle reader, have demanded from me a
dashing sketch of the fashionable world, a few anecdotes of private
scandal thinly veiled, and if lusciously painted, so much the better? a
heroine from Grosvenor Square, and a hero from the Barouche Club or the
Four-in-Hand, with a set of subordinate characters from the elegantes
of Queen Anne Street East, or the dashing heroes of the Bow-Street
Office? I could proceed in proving the importance of a title-page, and
displaying at the same time my own intimate knowledge of the particular
ingredients necessary to the composition of romances and novels of
various descriptions;--but it is enough, and I scorn to 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 farther presage that the
object of my tale is more a description of men than manners. A tale of
manners, to be interesting, must either refer to antiquity so great as
to have become venerable, or it must bear a vivid reflection of those
scenes which are passing daily before our eyes, and are interesting
from their novelty. Thus the coat-of-mail of our ancestors, and the
triple-furred pelisse of our modern beaux, may, though for very
different reasons, be equally fit for the array of a fictitious
character; but who, meaning the costume of his hero to be impressive,
would willingly attire him in the court dress of George the Second's
reign, with its no collar, large sleeves, and low pocket-holes? The
same may be urged, with equal truth, of the Gothic hall, which, with
its darkened and tinted windows, its elevated and gloomy roof, and
massive oaken table garnished with boar's-head and rosemary, pheasants
and peacocks, cranes and cygnets, has an excellent effect in fictitious
description. Much may also be gained by a lively display of a modern
fete, such as we have daily recorded in that part of a newspaper
entitled the Mirror of Fashion, if we contrast these, or either of
them, with the splendid formality of an entertainment given Sixty Years
Since; and thus it will be readily seen how much the painter of antique
or of fashionable manners gains over him who delineates those of the
last generation.

Considering the disadvantages inseparable from this part of my subject,
I must be understood to have resolved to avoid them as much as
possible, by throwing the force of my narrative upon the characters and
passions of the actors;--those passions common to men in all stages of
society, and which have alike agitated the human heart, whether it
throbbed under the steel corslet of the fifteenth century, the brocaded
coat of the eighteenth, or the blue frock and white dimity waistcoat of
the present day. [Footnote: Alas' that attire, respectable and
gentlemanlike in 1805, or thereabouts, is now as antiquated as the
Author of Waverley has himself become since that period! The reader of
fashion will please to fill up the costume with an embroidered
waistcoat of purple velvet or silk, and a coat of whatever colour he
pleases.] Upon these passions it is no doubt true that the state of
manners and laws casts a necessary colouring; but the bearings, to use
the language of heraldry, remain the same, though the tincture may be
not only different, but opposed in strong contradistinction. The wrath
of our ancestors, for example, was coloured gules; it broke forth in
acts of open and sanguinary violence against the objects of its fury.
Our malignant feelings, which must seek gratification through more
indirect channels, and undermine the obstacles which they cannot openly
bear down, may be rather said to be tinctured sable. But the
deep-ruling impulse is the same in both cases; and the proud peer, who
can now only ruin his neighbour according to law, by protracted suits,
is the genuine descendant of the baron who wrapped the castle of his
competitor in flames, and knocked him on the head as he endeavoured to
escape from the conflagration. It is from the great book of Nature, the
same through a thousand editions, whether of black-letter, or wire-wove
and hot-pressed, that I have venturously essayed to read a chapter to
the public. Some favourable opportunities of contrast have been
afforded me by the state of society in the northern part of the island
at the period of my history, and may serve at once to vary and to
illustrate the moral lessons, which I would willingly consider as the
most important part of my plan; although I am sensible how short these
will fall of their aim if I shall be found unable to mix them with
amusement--a task not quite so easy in this critical generation as it
was 'Sixty Years Since.'





CHAPTER II

WAVERLEY-HONOUR--A RETROSPECT


It is, then, sixty years since Edward Waverley, the hero of the
following pages, took leave of his family, to join the regiment of
dragoons in which he had lately obtained a commission. It was a
melancholy day at Waverley-Honour when the young officer parted with
Sir Everard, the affectionate old uncle to whose title and estate he
was presumptive heir.

A difference in political opinions had early separated the Baronet from
his younger brother Richard Waverley, the father of our hero. Sir
Everard had inherited from his sires the whole train of Tory or
High-Church predilections and prejudices which had distinguished the
house of Waverley since the Great Civil War. Richard, on the contrary,
who was ten years younger, beheld himself born to the fortune of a
second brother, and anticipated neither dignity nor entertainment in
sustaining the character of Will Wimble. He saw early that, to succeed
in the race of life, it was necessary he should carry as little weight
as possible. Painters talk of the difficulty of expressing the
existence of compound passions in the same features at the same moment;
it would be no less difficult for the moralist to analyse the mixed
motives which unite to form the impulse of our actions. Richard
Waverley read and satisfied himself from history and sound argument
that, in the words of the old song,

      Passive obedience was a jest,
      And pshaw! was non-resistance;

yet reason would have probably been unable to combat and remove
hereditary prejudice could Richard have anticipated that his elder
brother, Sir Everard, taking to heart an early disappointment, would
have remained a 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 Stuart. 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
Due, Avignon, and Italy. [Footnote: Where the Chevalier St. George, or,
as he was termed, the Old Pretender, held his exiled court, as his
situation compelled him to shift his place of residence.] The accession
of the near relation of one of those steady and inflexible opponents
was considered as a means of bringing over more converts, and therefore
Richard Waverley met with a share of ministerial favour more than
proportioned to his talents or his political importance. It was,
however, discovered that he had respectable talents for public
business, and the first admittance to the minister's levee being
negotiated, his success became rapid. Sir Everard learned from the
public 'News-Letter,' first, that Richard Waverley, Esquire, was
returned for the ministerial borough of Barterfaith; next, that Richard
Waverley, Esquire, had taken a distinguished part in the debate upon
the Excise Bill in the support of government; and, lastly, that Richard
Waverley, Esquire, had been honoured with a seat at one of those boards
where the pleasure of serving the country is combined with other
important gratifications, which, to render them the more acceptable,
occur regularly once a quarter.

Although these events followed each other so closely that the sagacity
of the editor of a modern newspaper would have presaged the 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.' [Footnote: See Note
I. ] For it may be observed in passing, that instead of those
mail-coaches, by means of which every mechanic at his six-penny 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 law-suit in 1670.

This degenerate scion had committed a farther offence against the head
and source of their gentility, by the intermarriage of their
representative with Judith, heiress of Oliver Bradshawe, of Highley
Park, whose arms, the same with those of Bradshawe the regicide, they
had quartered with the ancient coat of Waverley. These offences,
however, had vanished from Sir Everard's recollection in the heat of
his resentment; and had Lawyer Clippurse, for whom his groom was
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,
inpressed 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 favour of Lady Emily, the
youngest, who received his attentions with an embarrassment which
showed at once that she durst not decline them, and that they afforded
her anything but pleasure.

Sir Everard could not but perceive something uncommon in the restrained
emotions which the young lady testified at the advances he hazarded;
but, assured by the prudent Countess that they were the natural effects
of a retired education, the sacrifice might have been completed, as
doubtless has happened in many similar instances, had it not been for
the courage of an elder sister, who revealed to the wealthy suitor that
Lady Emily's affections were fixed upon a young soldier of fortune, a
near relation of her own.

Sir Everard manifested great emotion on receiving this intelligence,
which was confirmed to him, in a private interview, by the young lady
herself, although under the most dreadful apprehensions of her father's
indignation.

Honour and generosity were hereditary attributes of the house of
Waverley. With a grace and delicacy worthy the hero of a romance, Sir
Everard withdrew his claim to the hand of Lady Emily. He had even,
before leaving Blandeville Castle, the address to extort from her
father a consent to her union with the object of her choice. What
arguments he used on this point cannot exactly be known, for Sir
Everard was never supposed strong in the powers of persuasion; but the
young officer, immediately after this transaction, rose in the army
with a rapidity far surpassing the usual pace of 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
innuendos 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 Brerewood 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 farm-house. I know not whether the boy's nurse had been a
Welsh--or a Scotch-woman, or in what manner he associated a shield
emblazoned with three ermines with the idea of personal property, but
he no sooner beheld this family emblem than he stoutly determined on
vindicating his right to the splendid vehicle on which it was
displayed. The Baronet arrived while the boy's maid was in vain
endeavouring to make him desist from his determination to appropriate
the gilded coach-and-six. The rencontre was at a happy moment for
Edward, as his uncle had been just eyeing wistfully, with something of
a feeling like envy, the chubby boys of the stout yeoman whose mansion
was building by his direction. In the round-faced rosy cherub before
him, bearing his eye and his name, and vindicating a hereditary title
to his family, affection, and patronage, by means of a tie which Sir
Everard held as sacred as either Garter or Blue-mantle, Providence
seemed to have granted to him the very object best calculated to fill
up the void in his hopes and affections. Sir Everard returned to
Waverley-Hall upon a led horse, which was kept in readiness for him,
while the child and his attendant were sent home in the carriage to
Brerewood Lodge, with such a message as opened to Richard Waverley a
door of reconciliation with his elder brother.

Their intercourse, however, though thus renewed, continued to be rather
formal and civil than partaking of brotherly cordiality; yet it was
sufficient to the wishes of both parties. Sir Everard obtained, in the
frequent society of his little nephew, something on which his
hereditary pride might found the anticipated pleasure of a continuation
of his lineage, and where his kind and gentle affections could at the
same time fully exercise themselves. For Richard Waverley, he beheld in
the growing attachment between the uncle and nephew the means of
securing his son's, if not his own, succession to the hereditary
estate, which he felt would be rather endangered than promoted by any
attempt on his own part towards a closer intimacy with a man of Sir
Everard's habits and opinions.

Thus, by a sort of tacit compromise, little Edward was permitted to
pass the greater part of the year at the Hall, and appeared to stand in
the same intimate relation to both families, although their mutual
intercourse was otherwise limited to formal messages and more formal
visits. The education of the youth was regulated alternately by the
taste and opinions of his uncle and of his father. But more of this in
a subsequent chapter.





CHAPTER III

EDUCATION


The education of our hero, Edward Waverley, was of a nature somewhat
desultory. In infancy his health suffered, or was supposed to suffer
(which is quite the same thing), by the air of London. As soon,
therefore, as official duties, attendance on Parliament, or the
prosecution of any of his plans of interest or ambition, called his
father to town, which was his usual residence for eight months in the
year, Edward was transferred to Waverley-Honour, and experienced a
total change of instructors and of lessons, as well as of residence.
This might have been remedied had his father placed him under the
superintendence of a permanent tutor. But he considered that one of his
choosing would probably have been unacceptable at Waverley-Honour, and
that such a selection as Sir Everard might have made, were the matter
left to him, would have burdened him with a disagreeable inmate, if not
a political spy, in his family. He therefore prevailed upon his private
secretary, a young man of taste and accomplishments, to bestow an hour
or two on Edward's education while at Brerewood Lodge, and left his
uncle answerable for his improvement in literature while an inmate at
the Hall. This was in some degree respectably provided for. Sir
Everard's chaplain, an Oxonian, who had lost his fellowship for
declining to take the oaths at the accession of George I, was not only
an excellent classical scholar, but reasonably skilled in science, and
master of most modern languages. He was, however, old and indulgent,
and the recurring interregnum, during which Edward was entirely freed
from his discipline, occasioned such a relaxation of authority, that
the youth was permitted, in a great measure, to learn as he pleased,
what he pleased, and when he pleased. This slackness of rule might have
been ruinous to a boy of slow understanding, who, feeling labour in the
acquisition of knowledge, would have altogether neglected it, save for
the command of a 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 over-running his game--that is, from acquiring
his knowledge in a slight, flimsy, and inadequate manner. And here the
instructor had to combat another propensity too often united with
brilliancy of fancy and vivacity of talent--that indolence, namely, of
disposition, which can only be stirred by some strong motive of
gratification, and which renounces study as soon as curiosity is
gratified, the pleasure of conquering the first difficulties exhausted,
and the novelty of pursuit at an end. Edward would throw himself with
spirit upon any classical author of which his preceptor proposed the
perusal, make himself master of the style so far as to understand the
story, and, if that pleased or interested him, he finished the volume.
But it was in vain to attempt fixing his attention on critical
distinctions of philology, upon the difference of idiom, the beauty of
felicitous expression, or the artificial combinations of syntax. 'I can
read and understand a Latin author,' said young Edward, with the
self-confidence and rash reasoning of fifteen, 'and Scaliger or Bentley
could not do much more.' Alas! while he was thus permitted to read only
for the gratification of his amusement, he foresaw not that he was
losing for ever the opportunity of acquiring habits of firm and
assiduous application, of gaining the art of controlling, directing,
and concentrating the powers of his mind for earnest investigation--an
art far more essential than even that intimate acquaintance with
classical learning which is the primary object of study.

I am aware I may be here reminded of the necessity of rendering
instruction agreeable to youth, and of Tasso's infusion of honey into
the medicine prepared for a child; but an age in which children are
taught the driest doctrines by the insinuating method of instructive
games, has little reason to dread the consequences of study being
rendered too serious or severe. The history of England is now reduced
to a game at cards, the problems of mathematics to puzzles and riddles,
and the doctrines of arithmetic may, we are assured, be sufficiently
acquired by spending a few hours a week at a new and complicated
edition of the Royal Game of the Goose. There wants but one step
further, and the Creed and Ten Commandments may be taught in the same
manner, without the necessity of the grave face, deliberate tone of
recital, and devout attention, hitherto exacted from the well-governed
childhood of this realm. It may, in the meantime, be subject of serious
consideration, whether those who are accustomed only to acquire
instruction through the medium of amusement may not be brought to
reject that which approaches under the aspect of study; whether those
who learn history by the cards may not be led to prefer the means to
the end; and whether, were we to teach religion in the way of sport,
our pupils may not thereby be gradually induced to make sport of their
religion. To our young hero, who was permitted to seek his instruction
only according to the bent of his own mind, and who, of consequence,
only sought it so long as it afforded him amusement, the indulgence of
his tutors was attended with evil consequences, which long continued to
influence his character, happiness, and utility.

Edward's power of imagination and love of literature, although the
former was vivid and the latter ardent, were so far from affording a
remedy to this peculiar evil, that they rather inflamed and increased
its violence. The library at Waverley-Honour, a large Gothic room, with
double arches and a gallery, contained such a miscellaneous and
extensive collection of volumes as had been assembled together, during
the course of two hundred years, by a family which had been always
wealthy, and inclined, of course, as a mark of splendour, to furnish
their shelves with the current literature of the day, without much
scrutiny or nicety of discrimination. Throughout this ample realm
Edward was permitted to roam at large. His tutor had his own studies;
and church politics and controversial divinity, together with a love of
learned ease, though they did not withdraw his attention at stated
times from the progress of his patron's presumptive heir, induced him
readily to grasp at any apology for not extending a strict and
regulated survey towards his general studies. Sir Everard had never
been himself a student, and, like his sister, Miss Rachel Waverley, he
held the common doctrine, that idleness is incompatible with reading of
any kind, and that the mere tracing the alphabetical characters with
the eye is in itself a useful and meritorious task, without
scrupulously considering what ideas or doctrines they may happen to
convey. With a desire of amusement, therefore, which better discipline
might soon have converted into a thirst for knowledge, young Waverley
drove through the sea of books like a vessel without a pilot or a
rudder. Nothing perhaps increases by indulgence more than a desultory
habit of reading, especially under such opportunities of gratifying it.
I believe one reason why such numerous instances of erudition occur
among the lower ranks is, that, with the same powers of mind, the poor
student is limited to a narrow circle for indulging his passion for
books, and must necessarily make himself master of the few he possesses
ere he can acquire more. Edward, on the contrary, like the epicure who
only deigned to take a single morsel from the sunny side of a peach,
read no volume a moment after it ceased to excite his curiosity or
interest; and it necessarily happened, that the habit of seeking only
this sort of gratification rendered it daily more difficult of
attainment, till the passion for reading, like other strong appetites,
produced by indulgence a sort of satiety.

Ere he attained this indifference, however, he had read, and stored in
a memory of uncommon tenacity, much curious, though ill-arranged and
miscellaneous information. In English literature he was master of
Shakespeare and Milton, of our earlier dramatic authors, of many
picturesque and interesting passages from our old historical
chronicles, and was particularly well acquainted with Spenser, Drayton,
and other poets who have exercised themselves on romantic fiction, of
all themes the most fascinating to a youthful imagination, before the
passions have roused themselves and demand poetry of a more sentimental
description. In this respect his acquaintance with Italian opened him
yet a wider range. He had perused the numerous romantic poems, which,
from the days of Pulci, have been a favourite exercise of the wits of
Italy, and had sought gratification in the numerous collections of
novelle, which were brought forth by the genius of that elegant though
luxurious nation, in emulation of the 'Decameron.' In classical
literature, Waverley had made the usual progress, and read the usual
authors; and the French had afforded him an almost exhaustless
collection of memoirs, scarcely more faithful than romances, and of
romances so well written as hardly to be distinguished from memoirs.
The splendid pages of Froissart, with his heart-stirring and
eye-dazzling descriptions of war and of tournaments, were among his
chief favourites; and from those of Brantome and De la Noue he learned
to compare the wild and loose, yet superstitious, character of the
nobles of the League with the stern, rigid, and sometimes turbulent
disposition of the Huguenot party. The Spanish had contributed to his
stock of chivalrous and romantic lore. The earlier literature of the
northern nations did not escape the study of one who read rather to
awaken the imagination than to benefit the understanding. And yet,
knowing much that is known but to few, Edward Waverley might justly be
considered as ignorant, since he knew little of what adds 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 Isaac Walton's fascinating
volume determined Edward to become 'a brother of the angle.' But of all
diversions which ingenuity ever devised for the relief of idleness,
fishing is the worst qualified to amuse a man who is at once indolent
and impatient; and our hero's rod was speedily flung aside. Society and
example, which, more than any other motives, master and sway the
natural bent of our passions, might have had their usual effect upon
the youthful visionary. But the neighbourhood was thinly inhabited, and
the 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;
[Footnote: See Note 2.]--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 Saint
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 dropt around her without a gust of wind, and, indeed, she
looked like one that would never see them green again.'

From such legends our hero would steal away to indulge the fancies they
excited. In the corner of the large and sombre library, with no other
light than was afforded by the decaying brands on its ponderous and
ample hearth, he would exercise for hours that internal sorcery by
which past or imaginary events are presented in action, as it were, to
the eye of the muser. Then arose in long and fair array the splendour
of the bridal feast at Waverley-Castle; the tall and emaciated form of
its real lord, as he stood in his pilgrim's weeds, an unnoticed
spectator of the festivities of his supposed heir and intended bride;
the electrical shock occasioned by the discovery; the springing of the
vassals to arms; the astonishment of the bridegroom; the terror and
confusion of the bride; the agony with which Wilibert observed that her
heart as well as consent was in these nuptials; the air of dignity, yet
of deep feeling, with which he flung down the half-drawn sword, and
turned away for ever from the house of his ancestors. Then would he
change the scene, and fancy would at his wish represent Aunt Rachel's
tragedy. He saw the Lady Waverley seated in her bower, her ear strained
to every sound, her heart throbbing with double agony, now listening to
the decaying echo of the hoofs of the king's horse, and when that had
died away, hearing in every breeze that shook the trees of the park,
the noise of the remote skirmish. A distant sound is heard like the
rushing of a swoln 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 brush-wood, 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 actually 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 Dervise in the Oriental tale, [Footnote: See Hoppner's tale of The
Seven Lovers.] and supply her richly, out of the stores of his own
imagination, with supernatural beauty, and all the properties of
intellectual wealth.

But ere the charms of Miss Cecilia Stubbs had erected her into a
positive goddess, or elevated her at least to a level with the saint
her namesake, Mrs. Rachel Waverley gained some intimation which
determined her to prevent the approaching apotheosis. Even the most
simple and unsuspicious of the female sex have (God bless them!) an
instinctive sharpness of perception in such matters, which sometimes
goes the length of observing partialities that never existed, but
rarely misses to detect such as pass actually under their observation.
Mrs. Rachel applied herself with great prudence, not to combat, but to
elude, the approaching danger, and suggested to her brother the
necessity that the heir of his house should see something more of the
world than was consistent with constant residence at Waverley-Honour.

Sir Everard would not at first listen to a proposal which went to
separate his nephew from him. Edward was a little bookish, he admitted,
but youth, he had always heard, was the season for learning, and, no
doubt, when his rage for letters was abated, and his head fully stocked
with knowledge, his nephew would take to field-sports and country
business. He had often, he said, himself regretted that he had not
spent some time in study during his youth: he would neither have shot
nor hunted with less skill, and he might have made the roof of Saint
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
night-gown. But there was no overt act which an attainder could be
founded on, and government, contented with suppressing the insurrection
of 1715, felt it neither prudent nor safe to push their vengeance
farther 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 both, if the truth must be told) to present himself in full
uniform.

There is no better antidote against entertaining too high an opinion of
others than having an excellent one of ourselves at the very same time.
Miss Stubbs had indeed summoned up every assistance which art could
afford to beauty; but, alas! hoop, patches, frizzled locks, and a new
mantua of genuine French silk, were lost upon a young officer of
dragoons who wore for the first time his gold-laced hat, jack-boots,
and broadsword. I know not whether, like the champion of an old
ballad,--

    His heart was all on honour bent,
    He could not stoop to love;
    No lady in the land had power
    His frozen heart to move;

or whether the deep and flaming bars of embroidered gold, which now
fenced his breast, defied the artillery of Cecilia's eyes; but every
arrow was launched at him in vain.

    Yet did I mark where Cupid's shaft did light;
    It lighted not on little western flower,
    But on bold yeoman, flower of all the west,
    Hight Jonas Culbertfield, the steward's son.

Craving pardon for my heroics (which I am unable in certain cases to
resist giving way to), it is a melancholy fact, that my history must
here take leave of the fair Cecilia, who, like many a daughter of Eve,
after the departure of Edward, and the dissipation of certain idle
visions which she had adopted, quietly contented herself with a
pisaller, 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 brown 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 sentrybox. Those who are contented to remain with me will be
occasionally exposed to the dulness 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. [Footnote: These Introductory Chapters have been a good deal
censured as tedious and unnecessary. Yet there are circumstances
recorded in them which the author has not been able to persuade himself
to retrench or cancel.]





CHAPTER VI

THE ADIEUS OF WAVERLEY


It was upon the evening of this memorable Sunday that Sir Everard
entered the library, where he narrowly missed surprising our young hero
as he went through the guards of the broadsword with the ancient weapon
of old Sir Hildebrand, which, being preserved as an heirloom, usually
hung over the chimney in the library, beneath a picture of the knight
and his horse, where the features were almost entirely hidden by the
knight's profusion of curled hair, and the Bucephalus which he bestrode
concealed by the voluminous robes of the Bath with which he was
decorated. Sir Everard entered, and after a glance at the picture and
another at his nephew, began a little speech, which, however, soon
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 rubric, with the
word KING; but as, unfortunately, that word conveyed a double and
embarrassing sense, one meaning de facto and the other de jure, the
knight filled up the blank otherwise)--'the Church of England, and all
constituted authorities.' Then, not trusting himself with any further
oratory, he carried his nephew to his stables to see the horses
destined for his campaign. Two were black (the regimental colour),
superb chargers both; the other three were stout active hacks, designed
for the road, or for his domestics, of whom two were to attend him from
the Hall; an additional groom, if necessary, might be picked up in
Scotland.

'You will depart with but a small retinue,' quoth the Baronet,
'compared to Sir Hildebrand, when he mustered before the gate of the
Hall a larger body of horse than your whole regiment consists of. I
could have wished that these twenty young fellows from my estate, who
have enlisted in your troop, had been to march with you on your journey
to Scotland. It would have been something, at least; but I am told
their attendance would be thought unusual in these days, when every new
and foolish fashion is introduced to break the natural dependence of
the people upon their landlords.'

Sir Everard had done his best to correct this unnatural disposition of
the times; for he had brightened the chain of attachment between the
recruits and their young captain, not only by a copious repast of beef
and ale, by way of parting feast, but by such a pecuniary donation to
each individual as tended rather to improve the conviviality than the
discipline of their march. After inspecting the cavalry, Sir Everard
again conducted his nephew to the library, where he produced a letter,
carefully folded, surrounded by a little stripe of flox-silk, according
to ancient form, and sealed with an accurate impression of the Waverley
coat-of-arms. It was addressed, with great formality, 'To Cosmo Comyne
Bradwardine, Esq., of Bradwardine, at his principal mansion of
Tully-Veolan, in Perthshire, North Britain. These--By the hands of
Captain Edward Waverley, nephew of Sir Everard Waverley, of
Waverley-Honour, Bart.'

The gentleman to whom this enormous greeting was addressed, of whom we
shall have more to say in the sequel, had been in arms for the exiled
family of Stuart in the year 1715, and was made prisoner at Preston in
Lancashire. He was of a very ancient family, and somewhat embarrassed
fortune; a scholar, according to the scholarship of Scotchmen, that is,
his learning was more diffuse than accurate, and he was rather a reader
than a grammarian. Of his zeal for the classic authors he is said to
have given an uncommon instance. On the road between Preston and
London, he made his escape from his guards; but being afterwards found
loitering near the place where they had lodged the former night, he was
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. [Footnote: See Note 3.] 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 moneys paid to the
LOONS at Westminster much less had they not come from Bradwardine
estate, a fund which he considered as more particularly his own. But
the Bailie protested he was absolutely disinterested--

    'Woe, woe, for Scotland, not a whit for me!'

The laird was only rejoiced that his worthy friend, Sir Everard
Waverley of Waverley-Honour, was reimbursed of the expenditure which he
had outlaid on account of the house of Bradwardine. It concerned, he
said, the credit of his own family, and of the kingdom of Scotland at
large, that these disbursements should be repaid forthwith, and, if
delayed, 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 ex hortations 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 woefully
perverted in some of the principal petitions. But in Scotland it was
utter darkness; and, excepting a sorrowful, scattered, and persecuted
remnant, the pulpits were abandoned to Presbyterians, and, he feared,
to sectaries of every description. It should be his duty to fortify his
dear pupil to resist such unhallowed and pernicious doctrines in church
and state as must necessarily be forced at times upon his unwilling
ears.

Here he produced two immense folded packets, which appeared each to
contain a whole ream of closely written manuscript. They had been the
labour of the worthy man's whole life; and never were labour and zeal
more absurdly wasted. He had at one time gone to London, with the
intention of giving them to the world, by the medium of a bookseller in
Little Britain, well known to deal in such commodities, and to whom he
was instructed to address himself in a particular phrase and with a
certain sign, which, it seems, passed at that time current among the
initiated Jacobites. The moment Mr. Pembroke had uttered the
Shibboleth, with the appropriate gesture, the bibliopolist greeted him,
notwithstanding every disclamation, by the title of Doctor, and
conveying him into his back shop, after inspecting every possible and
impossible place of concealment, he commenced: 'Eh, Doctor!--Well--all
under the rose--snug--I keep no holes here even for a Hanoverian rat to
hide in. And, what--eh! any good news from our friends over the
water?--and how does the worthy King of France?--Or perhaps you are
more lately from Rome? it must be Rome will do it at last--the church
must light its candle at the old lamp.--Eh--what, cautious? I like you
the better; but no fear.' Here Mr. Pembroke with some difficulty 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 preached my author. I have published for Drake and Charlwood
Lawton, and poor Amhurst [Footnote: See Note 4.]--Ah, Caleb! Caleb!
Well, it was a shame to let poor Caleb starve, and so many fat rectors
and squires among us. I gave him a dinner once a week; but, Lord love
you, what's once a week, when a man does not know where to go the other
six days? Well, but I must show the manuscript to little Tom Alibi the
solicitor, who manages all my law affairs--must keep on the windy side;
the mob were very uncivil the last time I mounted in Old Palace
Yard--all Whigs and Roundheads every man of them, Williamites and
Hanover rats.'

The next day Mr. Pembroke again called on the publisher, but found Tom
Alibi's advice had determined him against undertaking the work. 'Not
but what I would go to--(what was I going to say?) to the Plantations
for the church with pleasure--but, dear Doctor, I have a wife and
family; but, to show my zeal, I'll recommend the job to my neighbour
Trimmel--he is a bachelor, and leaving off business, so a voyage in a
western barge would not inconvenience him.' But Mr. Trimmel was also
obdurate, and Mr. Pembroke, fortunately perchance for himself, was
compelled to return to Waverley-Honour with his treatise in vindication
of the real fundamental principles of church and state safely packed in
his saddle-bags.

As the public were thus likely to be deprived of the benefit arising
from his lucubrations by the selfish cowardice of the trade, Mr.
Pembroke resolved to make two copies of these tremendous manuscripts
for the use of his pupil. He felt that he had been indolent as a tutor,
and, besides, his conscience checked him for complying with the request
of Mr. Richard Waverley, that he would impress no sentiments upon
Edward's mind inconsistent with the present settlement in church and
state. But now, thought he, I may, without breach of my word, since he
is no longer under my tuition, afford the youth the means of judging
for himself, and have only to dread his reproaches for so long
concealing the light which the perusal will flash upon his mind. While
he thus indulged the reveries of an author and a politician, his
darling proselyte, seeing nothing very inviting in the title of the
tracts, and appalled by the bulk and compact lines of the manuscript,
quietly consigned them to a corner of his travelling trunk.

Aunt Rachel's farewell was brief and affectionate. She only cautioned
her dear Edward, whom she probably deemed somewhat susceptible, against
the fascination of Scottish beauty. She allowed that the northern part
of the island contained some ancient families, but they were all Whigs
and Presbyterians except the Highlanders; and respecting them she must
needs say, there could be no great delicacy among the ladies, where the
gentlemen's usual attire was, as she had been assured, to say the
least, very singular, and not at all decorous. She concluded her
farewell with a kind and moving benediction, and gave the young
officer, as a pledge of her regard, a valuable diamond ring (often worn
by the male sex at that time), and a purse of broad gold-pieces, which
also were more common Sixty Years Since than they have been of late.





CHAPTER VII

A HORSE-QUARTER IN SCOTLAND


The next morning, amid varied feelings, the chief of which was a
predominant, anxious, and even solemn impression, that he was now in a
great measure abandoned to his own guidance and direction, Edward
Waverley departed from the Hall amid the blessings and tears of all the
old domestics and the inhabitants of the village, mingled with some sly
petitions for sergeantcies and corporalships, and so forth, on the part
of those who professed that 'they never thoft to ha' seen Jacob, and
Giles, and Jonathan go off for soldiers, save to attend his honour, as
in duty bound.' Edward, as in duty bound, extricated himself from the
supplicants with the pledge of fewer promises than might have been
expected from a young man so little accustomed to the world. After a
short visit to London, he proceeded on horseback, then the general mode
of travelling, to Edinburgh, and from thence to Dundee, a seaport on
the eastern coast of Angus-shire, where his regiment was then quartered.

He now entered upon a new world, where, for a time, all was beautiful
because all was new. Colonel Gardiner, the commanding officer of the
regiment, was himself a study for a romantic, and at the same time an
inquisitive youth. In person he was tall, handsome, and active, though
somewhat advanced in life. In his early years he had been what is
called, by manner of palliative, a very gay young man, and strange
stories were circulated about his sudden conversion from doubt, if not
infidelity, to a serious and even enthusiastic turn of mind. It was
whispered that a supernatural communication, of a nature obvious even
to the exterior senses, had produced this wonderful change; and though
some mentioned the proselyte as an enthusiast, none hinted at his being
a hypocrite. This singular and mystical circumstance gave Colonel
Gardiner a peculiar and solemn interest in the eyes of the young
soldier. [Footnote: See Note 5.] 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 mean while, 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 horse-back, 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. [Footnote: See
Note 6.] 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, dashed into the middle of the path, and
snatching up her own charge from among the sunburnt loiterers, saluted
him with a sound cuff, and transported him back to his dungeon, the
little white-headed varlet screaming all the while, from the very top
of his lungs, a shrilly treble to the growling remonstrances of the
enraged matron. Another part in this concert was sustained by the
incessant yelping of a score of idle useless curs, which followed,
snarling, barking, howling, and snapping at the horses' heels; a
nuisance at that time so common in Scotland, that a French tourist,
who, like other travellers, longed to find a good and rational reason
for everything he saw, has recorded, as one of the memorabilia of
Caledonia, that the state maintained, in each village a relay of curs,
called collies, whose duty it was to chase the chevaux de poste (too
starved and exhausted to move without such a stimulus) from one hamlet
to another, till their annoying convoy drove them to the end of their
stage. The evil and remedy (such as it is) still exist.--But this is
remote from our present purpose, and is only thrown out for
consideration of the collectors under Mr. Dent's Dog Bill.

As Waverley moved on, here and there an old man, bent as much by toil
as years, his eyes bleared with age and smoke, tottered to the door of
his hut, to gaze on the dress of the stranger and the form and motions
of the horses, and then assembled, with his neighbours, in a little
group at the smithy, to discuss the probabilities of whence the
stranger came and where he might be going. Three or four village girls,
returning from the well or brook with pitchers and pails upon their
heads, formed more pleasing objects, and, with their thin short-gowns
and single petticoats, bare arms, legs, and feet, uncovered heads and
braided hair, somewhat resembled Italian forms of landscape. Nor could
a lover of the picturesque have challenged either the elegance of their
costume or the symmetry of their shape; although, to say the truth, a
mere Englishman in search of the COMFORTABLE, a word peculiar to his
native tongue, might have wished the clothes less scanty, the feet and
legs somewhat protected from the weather, the head and complexion
shrouded from the sun, or perhaps might even have thought the whole
person and dress considerably improved by a plentiful application of
spring water, with a quantum sufficit of soap. The whole scene was
depressing; for it argued, at the first glance, at least a stagnation
of industry, and perhaps of intellect. Even curiosity, the busiest
passion of the idle, seemed of a listless cast in the village of
Tully-Veolan: the curs aforesaid alone showed any part of its activity;
with the villagers it was passive. They stood, and gazed at the
handsome young officer and his attendant, but without any of those
quick motions and eager looks that indicate the earnestness with which
those who live in monotonous ease at home look out for amusement
abroad. Yet the physiognomy of the people, when more closely examined,
was far from exhibiting the indifference of stupidity; their features
were rough, but remarkably intelligent; grave, but the very reverse of
stupid; and from among the young women an artist might have chosen more
than one model whose features and form resembled those of Minerva. The
children also, whose skins were burnt black, and whose hair was
bleached white, by the influence of the sun, had a look and manner of
life and interest. It seemed, upon the whole, as if poverty, and
indolence, its too frequent companion, were combining to depress the
natural genius and acquired information of a hardy, intelligent, and
reflecting peasantry.

Some such thoughts crossed Waverley's mind as he paced his horse slowly
through the rugged and flinty street of Tully-Veolan, interrupted only
in his meditations by the occasional caprioles which his charger
exhibited at the reiterated assaults of those canine Cossacks, the
collies before mentioned. The village was more than half a mile long,
the cottages being irregularly divided from each other by gardens, or
yards, as the inhabitants called them, of different sizes, where (for
it is Sixty Years Since) the now universal potato was unknown, but
which were stored with gigantic plants of kale or colewort, encircled
with groves of nettles, and exhibited here and there a huge hemlock, or
the national thistle, overshadowing a quarter of the petty 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 nourished so luxuriantly, that their boughs completely
over-arched the broad road beneath. Beyond these venerable ranks, and
running parallel to them, were two high walls, of apparently the like
antiquity, overgrown with ivy, honeysuckle, and other climbing plants.
The avenue seemed very little trodden, and chiefly by foot-passengers;
so that being very broad, and enjoying a constant shade, it was clothed
with grass of a deep and rich verdure, excepting where a foot-path,
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
court-yard 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 watchtower. 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 gypsies, 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 dove-cot, 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, 'Beware the Bear', 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. [Footnote: See Note 7.]





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 court-yard 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 court-yard 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. [Footnote: Footnote: At Ravelston may
be seen such a garden, which the taste of the proprietor, the author's
friend and kinsman, Sir Alexander Keith, Knight Mareschal, has
judiciously preserved. That, as well as the house is, however, of
smaller dimensions than the Baron of Bradwardine's mansion and garden
are presumed to have been.] The southern side of the house, clothed
with fruit-trees, and having many evergreens trained upon its walls,
extended its irregular yet venerable front along a terrace, partly
paved, partly gravelled, partly bordered with flowers and choice
shrubs. This elevation descended by three several flights of steps,
placed in its centre and at the extremities, into what might be called
the garden proper, and was fenced along the top by a stone parapet with
a heavy balustrade, ornamented from space to space with huge grotesque
figures of animals seated upon their haunches, among which the
favourite bear was repeatedly introduced. Placed in the middle of the
terrace between a sashed-door opening from the house and the central
flight of steps, a huge animal of the same species supported on his
head and fore-paws a sun-dial of large circumference, inscribed with
more diagrams than Edward's mathematics enabled him to decipher.

The garden, which seemed to be kept with great accuracy, abounded in
fruit-trees, and exhibited a profusion of flowers and evergreens, cut
into grotesque forms. It was laid out in terraces, which descended rank
by rank from the western wall to a large brook, which had a tranquil
and smooth appearance, where it served as a boundary to the garden;
but, near the extremity, leapt in tumult over a strong dam, or
wear-head, the cause of its temporary tranquillity, and there forming a
cascade, was overlooked by an octangular summer-house, with a gilded
bear on the top by way of vane. After this feat, the brook, assuming
its natural rapid and fierce character, escaped from the eye down a
deep and wooded dell, from the copse of which arose a massive, but
ruinous tower, the former habitation of the Barons of Bradwardine. The
margin of the brook, opposite to the garden, displayed a narrow meadow,
or haugh, as it was called, which formed a small washing-green; the
bank, which retired behind it, was covered by ancient trees.

The scene, though pleasing, was not quite equal to the gardens of
Alcina; yet wanted not the 'due donzellette garrule' of that enchanted
paradise, for upon the green aforesaid two bare-legged damsels, each
standing in a spacious tub, performed with their feet the office of a
patent washing-machine. These did not, however, like the maidens of
Armida, remain to greet with their harmony the approaching guest, but,
alarmed at the appearance of a handsome stranger on the opposite side,
dropped their garments (I should say garment, to be quite correct) over
their limbs, which their occupation exposed somewhat too freely, and,
with a shrill exclamation of 'Eh, sirs!' uttered with an accent between
modesty and coquetry, sprung off like deer in different directions.

Waverley began to despair of gaining entrance into this solitary and
seemingly enchanted mansion, when a man advanced up one of the garden
alleys, where he still retained his station. Trusting this might be a
gardener, or some domestic belonging to the house, Edward descended the
steps in order to meet him; but as the figure approached, and long
before he could descry its features, he was struck with the oddity of
its appearance and gestures. Sometimes this mister wight held his hands
clasped over his head, like an Indian Jogue in the attitude of penance;
sometimes he swung them perpendicularly, like a pendulum, on each side;
and anon he slapped them swiftly and repeatedly across his breast, like
the substitute used by a hackney-coachman for his usual flogging
exercise, when his cattle are idle upon the stand, in a clear frosty
day. His gait was as singular as his gestures, for at times he hopped
with great perseverance on the right foot, then exchanged that
supporter to advance in the same manner on the left, and then putting
his feet close together he hopped upon both at once. His attire also
was antiquated and extravagant. It consisted in a sort of grey jerkin,
with scarlet cuffs and slashed sleeves, showing a scarlet lining; the
other parts of the dress corresponded in colour, not forgetting a pair
of scarlet stockings, and a scarlet bonnet, proudly surmounted with a
turkey's feather. Edward, whom he did not seem to observe, now
perceived confirmation in his features of what the mien and gestures
had already announced. It was apparently neither idiocy nor insanity
which gave that wild, unsettled, irregular expression to a face which
naturally was rather handsome, but something that resembled a compound
of both, where the simplicity of the fool was mixed with the
extravagance of a crazed imagination. He sung with great earnestness,
and not without some taste, a fragment of an old Scottish ditty:--

    False love, and hast thou play'd me this
    In summer among the flowers?
    I will repay thee back again
    In winter among the showers.
    Unless again, again, my love,
    Unless you turn again;
    As you with other maidens rove,
    I'll smile on other men.

[Footnote: This is a genuine ancient fragment, with some alteration in
the two last lines.]

Here lifting up his eyes, which had hitherto been fixed in observing
how his feet kept time to the tune, he beheld Waverley, and instantly
doffed his cap, with many grotesque signals of surprise, respect, and
salutation. Edward, though with little hope of receiving an answer to
any constant question, requested to know whether Mr. Bradwardine were
at home, or where he could find any of the domestics. The questioned
party replied, and, like the witch of Thalaba, 'still his speech was
song,'--

    The Knight's to the mountain
    His bugle to wind;
    The Lady's to greenwood
    Her garland to bind.
    The bower of Burd Ellen
    Has moss on the floor,
    That the step of Lord William
    Be silent and sure.

This conveyed no information, and Edward, repeating his queries,
received a rapid answer, in which, from the haste and peculiarity of
the dialect, the word 'butler' was alone intelligible. Waverley then
requested to see the butler; upon which the fellow, with a knowing look
and nod of intelligence, made a signal to Edward to follow, and began
to dance and caper down the alley up which he had made his approaches.
A strange guide this, thought Edward, and not much unlike one of
Shakespeare's roynish clowns. I am not over prudent to trust to his
pilotage; but wiser men have been led by fools. By this time he reached
the bottom of the alley, where, turning short on a little parterre of
flowers, shrouded from the east and north by a close yew hedge, he
found an old man at work without his coat, whose appearance hovered
between that of an upper servant and gardener; his red nose and ruffled
shirt belonging to the former profession; his hale and sunburnt visage,
with his green apron, appearing to indicate

    Old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden.

The major domo, for such he was, and indisputably the second officer of
state in the barony (nay, as chief minister of the interior, superior
even to Bailie Macwheeble in his own department of the kitchen and
cellar)--the major domo laid down his spade, slipped on his coat in
haste, and with a wrathful look at Edward's guide, probably excited by
his having introduced a stranger while he was engaged in this
laborious, and, as he might suppose it, degrading office, requested to
know the gentleman's commands. Being informed that he wished to pay his
respects to his master, that his name was Waverley, and so forth, the
old man's countenance assumed a great deal of respectful importance.
'He could take it upon his conscience to say, his honour would have
exceeding pleasure in seeing him. Would not Mr. Waverley choose some
refreshment after his journey? His honour was with the folk who were
getting doon the dark hag; the twa gardener lads (an emphasis on the
word twa) had been ordered to attend him; and he had been just amusing
himself in the mean time with dressing Miss Rose's flower-bed, that he
might be near to receive his honour's orders, if need were; he was very
fond of a garden, but had little time for such divertisements.'

'He canna get it wrought in abune twa days in the week at no rate
whatever,' said Edward's fantastic conductor.

A grim look from the butler chastised his interference, and he
commanded him, by the name of Davie Gellatley, in a tone which admitted
no discussion, to look for his honour at the dark hag, and tell him
there was a gentleman from the south had arrived at the Ha'.

'Can this poor fellow deliver a letter?' asked Edward.

'With all fidelity, sir, to any one whom he respects. I would hardly
trust him with a long message by word of mouth--though he is more knave
than fool.'

Waverley delivered his credentials to Mr. Gellatley, who seemed to
confirm the butler's last observation, by twisting his features at him,
when he was looking another way, into the resemblance of the grotesque
face on the bole of a German tobacco pipe; after which, with an odd
conge to Waverley, he danced off to discharge his errand.

'He is an innocent, sir,' said the butler; 'there is one such in almost
every town in the country, but ours is brought far ben. [Footnote: See
Note 8.] He used to work a day's turn weel enough; but he helped Miss
Rose when she was flemit with the Laird of Killancureit's new English
bull, and since that time we ca' him Davie Do-little; indeed we might
ca' him Davie Do-naething, for since he got that gay clothing, to
please his honour and my young mistress (great folks will have their
fancies), he has done naething but dance up and down about the toun,
without doing a single turn, unless trimming the laird's fishing-wand
or busking his flies, or may be catching a dish of trouts at an orra
time. But here comes Miss Rose, who, I take burden upon me for her,
will be especial glad to see one of the house of Waverley at her
father's mansion of Tully-Veolan.'

But Rose Bradwardine deserves better of her unworthy historian than to
be introduced at the end of a chapter.

In the mean while it may be noticed, that Waverley learned two things
from this colloquy: that in Scotland a single house was called a TOWN,
and a natural fool an INNOCENT.





CHAPTER X

ROSE BRADWARDINE AND HER FATHER


Miss Bradwardine was but seventeen; yet, at the last races of the
county town of ----, upon her health being proposed among a round of
beauties, the Laird of Bumperquaigh, permanent toast-master and
croupier of the Bautherwhillery Club, not only said MORE to the pledge
in a pint bumper of Bourdeaux, but, ere pouring forth the libation,
denominated the divinity to whom it was dedicated, 'the Rose of
Tully-Veolan'; upon which festive occasion three cheers were given by
all the sitting members of that respectable society, whose throats the
wine had left capable of such exertion. Nay, I am well assured, that
the sleeping partners of the company snorted applause, and that
although strong bumpers and weak brains had consigned two or three to
the floor, yet even these, fallen as they were from their high estate,
and weltering--I will carry the parody no farther--uttered divers
inarticulate sounds, intimating their assent to the motion.

Such unanimous applause could not be extorted but by acknowledged
merit; and Rose Bradwardine not only deserved it, but also the
approbation of much more rational persons than the Bautherwhillery Club
could have mustered, even before discussion of the first magnum. She
was indeed a very pretty girl of the Scotch cast of beauty, that is,
with a profusion of hair of paley gold, and a skin like the snow of her
own mountains in whiteness. Yet she had not a pallid or pensive cast of
countenance; her features, as well as her temper, had a lively
expression; her complexion, though not florid, was so pure as to seem
transparent, and the slightest emotion sent her whole blood at once to
her face and neck. Her form, though under the common size, was
remarkably elegant, and her motions light, easy, and unembarrassed. She
came from another part of the garden to receive Captain Waverley, with
a manner that hovered between bashfulness and courtesy.

The first greetings past, Edward learned from her that the dark hag,
which had somewhat puzzled him in the butler's account of his master's
avocations, had nothing to do either with a black cat or a broomstick,
but was simply a portion of oak copse which was to be felled that day.
She offered, with diffident civility, to show the stranger the way to
the spot, which, it seems, was not far distant; but they were prevented
by the appearance of the Baron of Bradwardine in person, who, summoned
by David Gellatley, now appeared, 'on hospitable thoughts intent,'
clearing the ground at a prodigious rate with swift and long strides,
which reminded Waverley of the seven-league boots of the nursery fable.
He was a tall, thin, athletic figure, old indeed and grey-haired, but
with every muscle rendered as tough as whip-cord by constant exercise.
He was dressed carelessly, and more like a Frenchman than an Englishman
of the period, while, from his hard features and perpendicular rigidity
of stature, he bore some resemblance to a Swiss officer of the guards,
who had resided some time at Paris, and caught the costume, but not the
ease or manner, of its inhabitants. The truth was, that his language
and habits were as heterogeneous as his external appearance.

Owing to his natural disposition to study, or perhaps to a very general
Scottish fashion of giving young men of rank a legal education, he had
been bred with a view to the bar. But the politics of his family
precluding the hope of his rising in that profession, Mr. Bradwardine
travelled with high reputation for several years, and made some
campaigns in foreign service. After his demele with the law of high
treason in 1715, he had lived in retirement, conversing almost entirely
with those of his own principles in the vicinage. The pedantry of the
lawyer, superinduced upon the military pride of the soldier, might
remind a modern of the days of the zealous volunteer service, when the
bar-gown of our pleaders was often flung over a blazing uniform. To
this must be added the prejudices of ancient birth and Jacobite
politics, greatly strengthened by habits of solitary and secluded
authority, which, though exercised only within the bounds of his
half-cultivated estate, was there indisputable and undisputed. For, as
he used to observe, 'the lands of Bradwardine, Tully-Veolan, and
others, had been erected into a free barony by a charter from David the
First, cum liberali potest. habendi curias et justicias, cum fossa et
furca (LIE, pit and gallows) et saka et soka, et thol et theam, et
infang-thief et outfang-thief, sive hand-habend. sive bak-barand.' The
peculiar meaning of all these cabalistical words few or none could
explain; but they implied, upon the whole, that the Baron of
Bradwardine might, in case of delinquency, imprison, try, and execute
his vassals at his pleasure. Like James the First, however, the present
possessor of this authority was more pleased in talking about
prerogative than in exercising it; and excepting that he imprisoned two
poachers in the dungeon of the old tower of Tully-Veolan, where they
were sorely frightened by ghosts, and almost eaten by rats, and that he
set an old woman in the jougs (or Scottish pillory) for saying' there
were mair fules in the laird's ha' house than Davie Gellatley,' I do
not learn that he was accused of abusing his high powers. Still,
however, the conscious pride of possessing them gave additional
importance to his language and deportment.

At his first address to Waverley, it would seem that the hearty
pleasure he felt to behold the nephew of his friend had somewhat
discomposed the stiff and upright dignity of the Baron of Bradwardine's
demeanour, for the tears stood in the old gentleman's eyes, when,
having first shaken Edward heartily by the hand in the English fashion,
he embraced him a la mode Francoise, and kissed him on both sides of
his face; while the hardness of his gripe, and the quantity of Scotch
snuff which his accolade communicated, called corresponding drops of
moisture to the eyes of his guest.

'Upon the honour of a gentleman,' he said, 'but it makes me young again
to see you here, Mr. Waverley! A worthy scion of the old stock of
Waverley-Honour--spes altera, as Maro hath it--and you have the look of
the old line, Captain Waverley; not so portly yet as my old friend Sir
Everard--mais cela viendra avec le tems, as my Dutch acquaintance,
Baron Kikkitbroeck, said of the sagesse of Madame son epouse. And so ye
have mounted the cockade? Right, right; though I could have wished the
colour different, and so I would ha' deemed might Sir Everard. But no
more of that; I am old, and times are changed. And how does the worthy
knight baronet, and the fair Mrs. Rachel?--Ah, ye laugh, young man! In
troth she was the fair Mrs. Rachel in the year of grace seventeen
hundred and sixteen; but time passes--et singula praedantur anni--that
is most certain. But once again ye are most heartily welcome to my poor
house of Tully-Veolan! Hie to the house, Rose, and see that Alexander
Saunderson looks out the old Chateau Margaux, which I sent from
Bourdeaux to Dundee in the year 1713.'

Rose tripped off demurely enough till she turned the first corner, and
then ran with the speed of a fairy, that she might gain leisure, after
discharging her father's commission, to put her own dress in order, and
produce all her little finery, an occupation for which the approaching
dinner-hour left but limited time.

'We cannot rival the luxuries of your English table, Captain Waverley,
or give you the epulae lautiores of Waverley-Honour. I say epulae
rather than prandium, because the latter phrase is popular: epulae ad
senatum, prandium vero ad populum attinet, says Suetonius Tranquillus.
But I trust ye will applaud my Bourdeaux; c'est des deux oreilles, as
Captain Vinsauf used to say; vinum primae notae, the principal of Saint
Andrews denominated it. And, once more, Captain Waverley, right glad am
I that ye are here to drink the best my cellar can make forthcoming.'

This speech, with the necessary interjectional answers, continued from
the lower alley where they met up to the door of the house, where four
or five servants in old-fashioned liveries, headed by Alexander
Saunderson, the butler, who now bore no token of the sable stains of
the garden, received them in grand COSTUME,

    In an old hall hung round with pikes and with bows,
    With old bucklers and corslets that had borne many shrewd
      blows.

With much ceremony, and still more real kindness, the Baron, without
stopping in any intermediate apartment, conducted his guest through
several into the great dining parlour, wainscotted with black oak, and
hung round with the pictures of his ancestry, where a table was set
forth in form for six persons, and an old-fashioned beaufet displayed
all the ancient and massive plate of the Bradwardine family. A bell was
now heard at the head of the avenue; for an old man, who acted as
porter upon gala days, had caught the alarm given by Waverley's
arrival, and, repairing to his post, announced the arrival of other
guests.

These, as the Baron assured his young friend, were very estimable
persons. 'There was the young Laird of Balmawhapple, a Falconer by
surname, of the house of Glenfarquhar, given right much to
field-sports--gaudet equis et canibus--but a very discreet young
gentleman. Then there was the Laird of Killancureit, who had devoted
his leisure UNTILL tillage and agriculture, and boasted himself to be
possessed of a bull of matchless merit, brought from the county of
Devon (the Damnonia of the Romans, if we can trust Robert of
Cirencester). He is, as ye may well suppose from such a tendency, but
of yeoman extraction--servabit odorem testa diu--and I believe, between
ourselves, his grandsire was from the wrong side of the Border--one
Bullsegg, who came hither as a steward, or bailiff, or ground-officer,
or something in that department, to the last Girnigo of Killancureit,
who died of an atrophy. After his master's death, sir,--ye would hardly
believe such a scandal, --but this Bullsegg, being portly and comely of
aspect, intermarried with the lady dowager, who was young and amorous,
and possessed himself of the estate, which devolved on this unhappy
woman by a settlement of her umwhile husband, in direct contravention
of an unrecorded taillie, and to the prejudice of the disponer's own
flesh and blood, in the person of his natural heir and seventh cousin,
Girnigo of Tipperhewit, whose family was so reduced by the ensuing
law-suit, that his representative is now serving as a private
gentleman-sentinel in the Highland Black Watch. But this gentleman, Mr.
Bullsegg of Killancureit that now is, has good blood in his veins by
the mother and grandmother, who were both of the family of
Pickletillim, and he is well liked and looked upon, and knows his own
place. And God forbid, Captain Waverley, that we of irreproachable
lineage should exult over him, when it may be, that in the eighth,
ninth, or tenth generation, his progeny may rank, in a manner, with the
old gentry of the country. Rank and ancestry, sir, should be the last
words in the mouths of us of unblemished race--vix ea nostra voco, as
Naso saith. There is, besides, a clergyman of the true (though
suffering) Episcopal church of Scotland. [Footnote: See Note 9.] He was
a confessor in her cause after the year 1715, when a Whiggish mob
destroyed his meeting-house, tore his surplice, and plundered his
dwelling-house of four silver spoons, intromitting also with his mart
and his mealark, and with two barrels, one of single and one of double
ale, besides three bottles of brandy. My baron-bailie and doer, Mr.
Duncan Macwheeble, is the fourth on our list. There is a question,
owing to the incertitude of ancient orthography, whether he belongs to
the clan of Wheedle or of Quibble, but both have produced persons
eminent in the law.'--

  As such he described them by person and name,
  They enter'd, and dinner was served as they came.





CHAPTER XI

THE BANQUET


The entertainment was ample and handsome, according to the Scotch ideas
of the period, and the guests did great honour to it. The Baron eat
like a famished soldier, the Laird of Balmawhapple like a sportsman,
Bullsegg of Killancureit like a farmer, Waverley himself like a
traveller, and Bailie Macwheeble like all four together; though, either
out of more respect, or in order to preserve that proper declination of
person which showed a sense that he was in the presence of his patron,
he sat upon the edge of his chair, placed at three feet distance from
the table, and achieved a communication with his plate by projecting
his person towards it in a line which obliqued from the bottom of his
spine, so that the person who sat opposite to him could only see the
foretop of his riding periwig.

This stooping position might have been inconvenient to another person;
but long habit made it, whether seated or walking, perfectly easy to
the worthy Bailie. In the latter posture it occasioned, no doubt, an
unseemly projection of the person towards those who happened to walk
behind; but those being at all times his inferiors (for Mr. Macwheeble
was very scrupulous in giving place to all others), he cared very
little what inference of contempt or slight regard they might derive
from the circumstance. Hence, when he waddled across the court to and
from his old grey pony, he somewhat resembled a turnspit walking upon
its hind legs.

The nonjuring clergyman was a pensive and interesting old man, with
much of the air of a sufferer for conscience' sake. He was one of those

    Who, undeprived, their benefice forsook.

For this whim, when the Baron was out of hearing, the Bailie used
sometimes gently to rally Mr. Rubrick, upbraiding him with the nicety
of his scruples. Indeed, it must be owned, that he himself, though at
heart a keen partisan of the exiled family, had kept pretty fair with
all the different turns of state in his time; so that Davie Gellatley
once described him as a particularly good man, who had a very quiet and
peaceful conscience, THAT NEVER DID HIM ANY HARM.

When the dinner was removed, the Baron announced the health of the
King, politely leaving to the consciences of his guests to drink to the
sovereign de facto or de jure, as their politics inclined. The
conversation now became general; and, shortly afterwards, Miss
Bradwardine, who had done the honours with natural grace and
simplicity, retired, and was soon followed by the clergyman. Among the
rest of the party, the wine, which fully justified the encomiums of the
landlord, flowed freely round, although Waverley, with some difficulty,
obtained the privilege of sometimes neglecting the glass. At length, as
the evening grew more late, the Baron made a private signal to Mr.
Saunders Saunderson, or, as he facetiously denominated him, Alexander
ab Alexandro, who left the room with a nod, and soon after returned,
his grave countenance mantling with a solemn and mysterious smile, and
placed before his master a small oaken casket, mounted with brass
ornaments of curious form. The Baron, drawing out a private key,
unlocked the casket, raised the lid, and produced a golden goblet of a
singular and antique appearance, moulded into the shape of a rampant
bear, which the owner regarded with a look of mingled reverence, pride,
and delight, that irresistibly reminded Waverley of Ben Jonson's Tom
Otter, with his Bull, Horse, and Dog, as that wag wittily denominated
his chief carousing cups. But Mr. Bradwardine, turning towards him with
complacency, requested him to observe this curious relic of the olden
time.

'It represents,' he said, 'the chosen crest of our family, a bear, as
ye observe, and RAMPANT; because a good herald will depict every animal
in its noblest posture, as a horse SALIENT, a greyhound CURRANT, and,
as may be inferred, a ravenous animal in actu ferociori, or in a
voracious, lacerating, and devouring posture. Now, sir, we hold this
most honourable achievement by the wappen-brief, or concession of arms,
of Frederick Red-beard, Emperor of Germany, to my predecessor, Godmund
Bradwardine, it being the crest of a gigantic Dane, whom he slew in the
lists in the Holy Land, on a quarrel touching the chastity of the
emperor's spouse or daughter, tradition saith not precisely which, and
thus, as Virgilius hath it--

    Mutemus clypeos, Danaumque insignia nobis
    Aptemus.

Then for the cup, Captain Waverley, it was wrought by the command of
Saint Duthac, Abbot of Aberbrothock, for behoof of another baron of the
house of Bradwardine, who had valiantly defended the patrimony of that
monastery against certain encroaching nobles. It is properly termed the
Blessed Bear of Bradwardine (though old Doctor Doubleit used jocosely
to call it Ursa Major), and was supposed, in old and Catholic times, to
be invested with certain properties of a mystical and supernatural
quality. And though I give not in to such anilia, it is certain it has
always been esteemed a solemn standard cup and heirloom of our house;
nor is it ever used but upon seasons of high festival, and such I hold
to be the arrival of the heir of Sir Everard under my roof; and I
devote this draught to the health and prosperity of the ancient and
highly-to-be-honoured house of Waverley.'

During this long harangue, he carefully decanted a cob-webbed bottle of
claret into the goblet, which held nearly an English pint; and, at the
conclusion, delivering the bottle to the butler, to be held carefully
in the same angle with the horizon, he devoutly quaffed off the
contents of the Blessed Bear of Bradwardine.

Edward, with horror and alarm, beheld the animal making his rounds, and
thought with great anxiety upon the appropriate motto, 'Beware the
Bear'; but, at the same time, plainly foresaw that, as none of the
guests scrupled to do him this extraordinary honour, a refusal on his
part to pledge their courtesy would be extremely ill received.
Resolving, therefore, to submit to this last piece of tyranny, and then
to quit the table, if possible, and confiding in the strength of his
constitution, he did justice to the company in the contents of the
Blessed Bear, and felt less inconvenience from the draught than he
could possibly have expected. The others, whose time had been more
actively employed, began to show symptoms of innovation--'the good wine
did its good office.' [Footnote: Southey's Madoc.] The frost of
etiquette and pride of birth began to give way before the genial
blessings of this benign constellation, and the formal appellatives
with which the three dignitaries had hitherto addressed each other were
now familiarly abbreviated into Tully, Bally, and Killie. When a few
rounds had passed, the two latter, after whispering together, craved
permission (a joyful hearing for Edward) to ask the grace-cup. This,
after some delay, was at length produced, and Waverley concluded the
orgies of Bacchus were terminated for the evening. He was never more
mistaken in his life.

As the guests had left their horses at the small inn, or change-house,
as it was called, of the village, the Baron could not, in politeness,
avoid walking with them up the avenue, and Waverley from the same
motive, and to enjoy after this feverish revel the cool summer evening,
attended the party. But when they arrived at Luckie Macleary's the
Lairds of Balmawhapple and Killancureit declared their determination to
acknowledge their sense of the hospitality of Tully-Veolan by
partaking, with their entertainer and his guest Captain Waverley, what
they technically called deoch an doruis, a stirrup-cup, [Footnote 2:
See Note 10] to the honour of the Baron's roof-tree.

It must be noticed that the Bailie, knowing by experience that the
day's jovialty, which had been hitherto sustained at the expense of his
patron, might terminate partly at his own, had mounted his spavined
grey pony, and, between gaiety of heart and alarm for being hooked into
a reckoning, spurred him into a hobbling canter (a trot was out of the
question), and had already cleared the village. The others entered the
change-house, leading Edward in unresisting submission; for his
landlord whispered him, that to demur to such an overture would be
construed into a high misdemeanour against the leges conviviales, or
regulations of genial compotation. Widow Macleary seemed to have
expected this visit, as well she might, for it was the usual
consummation of merry bouts, not only at Tully-Veolan, but at most
other gentlemen's houses in Scotland, Sixty Years Since. The guests
thereby at once acquitted themselves of their burden of gratitude for
their entertainer's kindness, encouraged the trade of his change-house,
did honour to the place which afforded harbour to their horses, and
indemnified themselves for the previous restraints imposed by private
hospitality, by spending what Falstaff calls the sweet of the night in
the genial license of a tavern.

Accordingly, in full expectation of these distinguished guests, Luckie
Macleary had swept her house for the first time this fortnight,
tempered her turf-fire to such a heat as the season required in her
damp hovel even at Midsummer, set forth her deal table newly washed,
propped its lame foot with a fragment of turf, arranged four or five
stools of huge and clumsy form upon the sites which best suited the
inequalities of her clay floor; and having, moreover, put on her clean
toy, rokelay, and scarlet plaid, gravely awaited the arrival of the
company, in full hope of custom and profit. When they were seated under
the sooty rafters of Luckie Macleary's only apartment, thickly
tapestried with cobwebs, their hostess, who had already taken her cue
from the Laird of Balmawhapple, appeared with a huge pewter
measuring-pot, containing at least three English quarts, familiarly
denominated a Tappit Hen, and which, in the language of the hostess,
reamed (i.e., mantled) with excellent claret just drawn from the cask.

It was soon plain that what crumbs of reason the Bear had not devoured
were to be picked up by the Hen; but the confusion which appeared to
prevail favoured Edward's resolution to evade the gaily circling glass.
The others began to talk thick and at once, each performing his own
part in the conversation without the least respect to his neighbour.
The Baron of Bradwardine sung French chansons-a-boire, and spouted
pieces of Latin; Killancureit talked, in a steady unalterable dull key,
of top-dressing and bottom-dressing, [Footnote: This has been censured
as an anachronism; and it must be confessed that agriculture of this
kind was unknown to the Scotch Sixty Years Since.] and year-olds, and
gimmers, and dinmonts, and stots, and runts, and kyloes, and a proposed
turnpike-act; while Balmawhapple, in notes exalted above both, extolled
his horse, his hawks, and a greyhound called Whistler. In the middle of
this din, the Baron repeatedly implored silence; and when at length the
instinct of polite discipline so far prevailed that for a moment he
obtained it, he hastened to beseech their attention 'unto a military
ariette, which was a particular favourite of the Marechal Duc de
Berwick'; then, imitating, as well as he could, the manner and tone of
a French musquetaire, he immediately commenced,--

    Mon coeur volage, dit elle,
      N'est pas pour vous, garcon;
    Est pour un homme de guerre,
      Qui a barbe au menton.
                 Lon, Lon, Laridon.

    Qui port chapeau a plume,
      Soulier a rouge talon,
    Qui joue de la flute,
      Aussi du violon.
                 Lon, Lon, Laridon.

Balmawhapple could hold no longer, but broke in with what he called a
d--d good song, composed by Gibby Gaethroughwi't, the piper of Cupar;
and, without wasting more time, struck up,--

    It's up Glenbarchan's braes I gaed,
    And o'er the bent of Killiebraid,
    And mony a weary cast I made,
      To cuittle the moor-fowl's tail.

[Footnote: Suum cuique. This snatch of a ballad was composed by Andrew
MacDonald, the ingenious and unfortunate author of Vimonda.]

The Baron, whose voice was drowned in the louder and more obstreperous
strains of Balmawhapple, now dropped the competition, but continued to
hum 'Lon, Lon, Laridon,' and to regard the successful candidate for the
attention of the company with an eye of disdain, while Balmawhapple
proceeded,--

    If up a bonny black-cock should spring,
    To whistle him down wi' a slug in hi

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