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Tantissimi classici della letteratura e della cultura politica,
economica e scientifica in lingua inglese con audio di ReadSpeaker e traduttore
automatico interattivo FGA Translate
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Abbe Prevost - MANON LESCAUT
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Alcott, Louisa M. - AN OLDFASHIONED GIRL
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Alcott, Louisa M. - LITTLE MEN
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Alcott, Louisa M. - LITTLE WOMEN
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Alcott, Louisa May - JACK AND JILL
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Alcott, Louisa May - LIFE LETTERS AND JOURNALS
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Andersen, Hans Christian - FAIRY TALES
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Anonimo - BEOWULF
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Ariosto, Ludovico - ORLANDO ENRAGED
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Aurelius, Marcus - MEDITATIONS
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Austen, Jane - EMMA
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Austen, Jane - MANSFIELD PARK
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Austen, Jane - NORTHANGER ABBEY
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Austen, Jane - PERSUASION
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Austen, Jane - PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
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Austen, Jane - SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
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Authors, Various - LETTERS OF ABELARD AND HELOISE
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Authors, Various - SELECTED ENGLISH LETTERS
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Autori Vari - THE WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE
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Bacon, Francis - THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING
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Balzac, Honore de - EUGENIE GRANDET
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Balzac, Honore de - FATHER GORIOT
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Baroness Orczy - THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
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Barrie, J. M. - PETER AND WENDY
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Barrie, James M. - PETER PAN
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Bierce, Ambrose - THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
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Blake, William - SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE
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Boccaccio, Giovanni - DECAMERONE
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Brent, Linda - INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL
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Bronte, Charlotte - JANE EYRE
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Bronte, Charlotte - VILLETTE
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Buchan, John - GREENMANTLE
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Buchan, John - MR STANDFAST
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Buchan, John - THE 39 STEPS
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Bunyan, John - THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
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Burckhardt, Jacob - THE CIVILIZATION OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY
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Burnett, Frances H. - A LITTLE PRINCESS
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Burnett, Frances H. - LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY
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Burnett, Frances H. - THE SECRET GARDEN
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Butler, Samuel - EREWHON
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Carlyle, Thomas - PAST AND PRESENT
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Carlyle, Thomas - THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
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Cellini, Benvenuto - AUTOBIOGRAPHY
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Cervantes - DON QUIXOTE
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Chaucer, Geoffrey - THE CANTERBURY TALES
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Chesterton, G. K. - A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND
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Chesterton, G. K. - THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE
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Chesterton, G. K. - THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN
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Chesterton, G. K. - THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
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Chesterton, G. K. - THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY
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Chesterton, G. K. - THE WISDOM OF FATHER BROWN
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Chesterton, G. K. - TWELVE TYPES
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Chesterton, G. K. - WHAT I SAW IN AMERICA
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Chesterton, Gilbert K. - HERETICS
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Chopin, Kate - AT FAULT
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Chopin, Kate - BAYOU FOLK
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Chopin, Kate - THE AWAKENING AND SELECTED SHORT STORIES
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Clark Hall, John R. - A CONCISE ANGLOSAXON DICTIONARY
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Clarkson, Thomas - AN ESSAY ON THE SLAVERY AND COMMERCE OF THE HUMAN SPECIES
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Clausewitz, Carl von - ON WAR
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Coleridge, Herbert - A DICTIONARY OF THE FIRST OR OLDEST WORDS IN THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE
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Coleridge, S. T. - COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS
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Coleridge, S. T. - HINTS TOWARDS THE FORMATION OF A MORE COMPREHENSIVE THEORY
OF LIFE
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Coleridge, S. T. - THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
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Collins, Wilkie - THE MOONSTONE
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Collodi - PINOCCHIO
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Conan Doyle, Arthur - A STUDY IN SCARLET
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Conan Doyle, Arthur - MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
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Conan Doyle, Arthur - THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
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Conan Doyle, Arthur - THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
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Conan Doyle, Arthur - THE SIGN OF THE FOUR
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Conrad, Joseph - HEART OF DARKNESS
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Conrad, Joseph - LORD JIM
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Conrad, Joseph - NOSTROMO
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Conrad, Joseph - THE NIGGER OF THE NARCISSUS
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Conrad, Joseph - TYPHOON
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Crane, Stephen - LAST WORDS
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Crane, Stephen - MAGGIE
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Crane, Stephen - THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE
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Crane, Stephen - WOUNDS IN THE RAIN
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Dante - THE DIVINE COMEDY: HELL
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Dante - THE DIVINE COMEDY: PARADISE
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Dante - THE DIVINE COMEDY: PURGATORY
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Darwin, Charles - THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CHARLES DARWIN
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Darwin, Charles - THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
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Defoe, Daniel - A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE PYRATES
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Defoe, Daniel - A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR
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Defoe, Daniel - CAPTAIN SINGLETON
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Defoe, Daniel - MOLL FLANDERS
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Defoe, Daniel - ROBINSON CRUSOE
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Defoe, Daniel - THE COMPLETE ENGLISH TRADESMAN
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Defoe, Daniel - THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE
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Deledda, Grazia - AFTER THE DIVORCE
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Dickens, Charles - A CHRISTMAS CAROL
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Dickens, Charles - A TALE OF TWO CITIES
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Dickens, Charles - BLEAK HOUSE
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Dickens, Charles - DAVID COPPERFIELD
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Dickens, Charles - DONBEY AND SON
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Dickens, Charles - GREAT EXPECTATIONS
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Dickens, Charles - HARD TIMES
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Dickens, Charles - LETTERS VOLUME 1
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Dickens, Charles - LITTLE DORRIT
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Dickens, Charles - MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT
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Dickens, Charles - NICHOLAS NICKLEBY
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Dickens, Charles - OLIVER TWIST
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Dickens, Charles - OUR MUTUAL FRIEND
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Dickens, Charles - PICTURES FROM ITALY
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Dickens, Charles - THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD
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Dickens, Charles - THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP
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Dickens, Charles - THE PICKWICK PAPERS
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Dickinson, Emily - POEMS
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Dostoevsky, Fyodor - CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
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Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV
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Du Maurier, George - TRILBY
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Dumas, Alexandre - THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO
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Dumas, Alexandre - THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK
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Dumas, Alexandre - THE THREE MUSKETEERS
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Eliot, George - DANIEL DERONDA
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Eliot, George - MIDDLEMARCH
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Eliot, George - SILAS MARNER
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Eliot, George - THE MILL ON THE FLOSS
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Engels, Frederick - THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING-CLASS IN ENGLAND IN 1844
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Equiano - AUTOBIOGRAPHY
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Esopo - FABLES
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Fenimore Cooper, James - THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS
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Fielding, Henry - TOM JONES
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France, Anatole - THAIS
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France, Anatole - THE GODS ARE ATHIRST
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France, Anatole - THE LIFE OF JOAN OF ARC
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France, Anatole - THE SEVEN WIVES OF BLUEBEARD
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Frank Baum, L. - THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ
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Frank Baum, L. - THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ
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Franklin, Benjamin - AUTOBIOGRAPHY
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Frazer, James George - THE GOLDEN BOUGH
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Freud, Sigmund - DREAM PSYCHOLOGY
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Galsworthy, John - COMPLETE PLAYS
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Galsworthy, John - STRIFE
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Galsworthy, John - STUDIES AND ESSAYS
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Galsworthy, John - THE FIRST AND THE LAST
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Galsworthy, John - THE FORSYTE SAGA
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Galsworthy, John - THE LITTLE MAN
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Galsworthy, John - THE SILVER BOX
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Galsworthy, John - THE SKIN GAME
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Gaskell, Elizabeth - CRANFORD
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Gaskell, Elizabeth - MARY BARTON
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Gaskell, Elizabeth - NORTH AND SOUTH
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Gaskell, Elizabeth - THE LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE
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Gay, John - THE BEGGAR'S OPERA
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Gentile, Maria - THE ITALIAN COOK BOOK
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Gilbert and Sullivan - PLAYS
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Goethe - FAUST
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Gogol - DEAD SOULS
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Goldsmith, Oliver - SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER
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Goldsmith, Oliver - THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD
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Grahame, Kenneth - THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS
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Grimm, Brothers - FAIRY TALES
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Harding, A. R. - GINSENG AND OTHER MEDICINAL PLANTS
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Hardy, Thomas - A CHANGED MAN AND OTHER TALES
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Hardy, Thomas - FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD
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Hardy, Thomas - JUDE THE OBSCURE
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Hardy, Thomas - TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES
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Hardy, Thomas - THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE
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Hartley, Cecil B. - THE GENTLEMEN'S BOOK OF ETIQUETTE
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Hawthorne, Nathaniel - LITTLE MASTERPIECES
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Hawthorne, Nathaniel - THE SCARLET LETTER
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Henry VIII - LOVE LETTERS TO ANNE BOLEYN
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Henry, O. - CABBAGES AND KINGS
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Henry, O. - SIXES AND SEVENS
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Henry, O. - THE FOUR MILLION
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Henry, O. - THE TRIMMED LAMP
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Henry, O. - WHIRLIGIGS
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Hindman Miller, Gustavus - TEN THOUSAND DREAMS INTERPRETED
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Hobbes, Thomas - LEVIATHAN
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Homer - THE ILIAD
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Homer - THE ODYSSEY
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Hornaday, William T. - THE EXTERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN BISON
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Hume, David - A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE
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Hume, David - AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
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Hume, David - DIALOGUES CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION
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Ibsen, Henrik - A DOLL'S HOUSE
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Ibsen, Henrik - AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE
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Ibsen, Henrik - GHOSTS
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Ibsen, Henrik - HEDDA GABLER
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Ibsen, Henrik - JOHN GABRIEL BORKMAN
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Ibsen, Henrik - ROSMERHOLM
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Ibsen, Henrik - THE LADY FROM THE SEA
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Ibsen, Henrik - THE MASTER BUILDER
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Ibsen, Henrik - WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN
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Irving, Washington - THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW
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James, Henry - ITALIAN HOURS
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James, Henry - THE ASPERN PAPERS
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James, Henry - THE BOSTONIANS
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James, Henry - THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY
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James, Henry - THE TURN OF THE SCREW
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James, Henry - WASHINGTON SQUARE
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Jerome, Jerome K. - THREE MEN IN A BOAT
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Jerome, Jerome K. - THREE MEN ON THE BUMMEL
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Jevons, Stanley - POLITICAL ECONOMY
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Johnson, Samuel - A GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH TONGUE
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Jonson, Ben - THE ALCHEMIST
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Jonson, Ben - VOLPONE
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Joyce, James - A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN
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Joyce, James - CHAMBER MUSIC
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Joyce, James - DUBLINERS
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Joyce, James - ULYSSES
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Keats, John - ENDYMION
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Keats, John - POEMS PUBLISHED IN 1817
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Keats, John - POEMS PUBLISHED IN 1820
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King James - THE BIBLE
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Kipling, Rudyard - CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS
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Kipling, Rudyard - INDIAN TALES
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Kipling, Rudyard - JUST SO STORIES
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Kipling, Rudyard - KIM
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Kipling, Rudyard - THE JUNGLE BOOK
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Kipling, Rudyard - THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
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Kipling, Rudyard - THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK
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Lawrence, D. H - THE RAINBOW
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Lawrence, D. H - THE WHITE PEACOCK
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Lawrence, D. H - TWILIGHT IN ITALY
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Lawrence, D. H. - AARON'S ROD
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Lawrence, D. H. - SONS AND LOVERS
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Lawrence, D. H. - THE LOST GIRL
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Lawrence, D. H. - WOMEN IN LOVE
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Lear, Edward - BOOK OF NONSENSE
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Lear, Edward - LAUGHABLE LYRICS
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Lear, Edward - MORE NONSENSE
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Lear, Edward - NONSENSE SONG
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Leblanc, Maurice - ARSENE LUPIN VS SHERLOCK HOLMES
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Leblanc, Maurice - THE ADVENTURES OF ARSENE LUPIN
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Leblanc, Maurice - THE CONFESSIONS OF ARSENE LUPIN
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Leblanc, Maurice - THE HOLLOW NEEDLE
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Leblanc, Maurice - THE RETURN OF ARSENE LUPIN
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Lehmann, Lilli - HOW TO SING
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Leroux, Gaston - THE MAN WITH THE BLACK FEATHER
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Leroux, Gaston - THE MYSTERY OF THE YELLOW ROOM
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Leroux, Gaston - THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
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London, Jack - MARTIN EDEN
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London, Jack - THE CALL OF THE WILD
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London, Jack - WHITE FANG
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Machiavelli, Nicolo' - THE PRINCE
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Malthus, Thomas - PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION
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Mansfield, Katherine - THE GARDEN PARTY AND OTHER STORIES
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Marlowe, Christopher - THE JEW OF MALTA
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Marryat, Captain - THE CHILDREN OF THE NEW FOREST
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Maupassant, Guy De - BEL AMI
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Melville, Hermann - MOBY DICK
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Melville, Hermann - TYPEE
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Mill, John Stuart - PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
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Milton, John - PARADISE LOST
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Mitra, S. M. - HINDU TALES FROM THE SANSKRIT
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Montaigne, Michel de - ESSAYS
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Montgomery, Lucy Maud - ANNE OF GREEN GABLES
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More, Thomas - UTOPIA
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Nesbit, E. - FIVE CHILDREN AND IT
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Nesbit, E. - THE PHOENIX AND THE CARPET
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Nesbit, E. - THE RAILWAY CHILDREN
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Nesbit, E. - THE STORY OF THE AMULET
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Newton, Isaac - OPTICKS
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Nietsche, Friedrich - BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL
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Nietsche, Friedrich - THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA
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Nightingale, Florence - NOTES ON NURSING
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Owen, Wilfred - POEMS
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Ozaki, Yei Theodora - JAPANESE FAIRY TALES
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Pascal, Blaise - PENSEES
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Pellico, Silvio - MY TEN YEARS IMPRISONMENT
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Perrault, Charles - FAIRY TALES
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Pirandello, Luigi - THREE PLAYS
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Plato - THE REPUBLIC
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Poe, Edgar Allan - THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS 1
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Poe, Edgar Allan - THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS 2
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Poe, Edgar Allan - THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS 3
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Poe, Edgar Allan - THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS 4
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Poe, Edgar Allan - THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS 5
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Poe, Edgar Allan - THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
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Potter, Beatrix - THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT
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Proust, Marcel - SWANN'S WAY
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Radcliffe, Ann - A SICILIAN ROMANCE
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Ricardo, David - ON THE PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY AND TAXATION
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Richardson, Samuel - PAMELA
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Rider Haggard, H. - ALLAN QUATERMAIN
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Rider Haggard, H. - KING SOLOMON'S MINES
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Rousseau, J. J. - THE ORIGIN AND FOUNDATION OF INEQUALITY AMONG MANKIND
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Ruskin, John - THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE
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Schiller, Friedrich - THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN
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Schiller, Friedrich - THE PICCOLOMINI
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Schopenhauer, Arthur - THE ART OF CONTROVERSY
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Schopenhauer, Arthur - THE WISDOM OF LIFE
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Scott Fitzgerald, F. - FLAPPERS AND PHILOSOPHERS
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Scott Fitzgerald, F. - TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE
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Scott Fitzgerald, F. - THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED
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Scott Fitzgerald, F. - THIS SIDE OF PARADISE
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Scott, Walter - IVANHOE
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Scott, Walter - QUENTIN DURWARD
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Scott, Walter - ROB ROY
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Scott, Walter - THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR
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Scott, Walter - WAVERLEY
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Sedgwick, Anne Douglas - THE THIRD WINDOW
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Sewell, Anna - BLACK BEAUTY
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Shakespeare, William - COMPLETE WORKS
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Shakespeare, William - HAMLET
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Shakespeare, William - OTHELLO
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Shakespeare, William - ROMEO AND JULIET
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Shelley, Mary - FRANKENSTEIN
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Shelley, Percy Bysshe - A DEFENCE OF POETRY AND OTHER ESSAYS
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Shelley, Percy Bysshe - COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS
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Sheridan, Richard B. - THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL
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Sienkiewicz, Henryk - QUO VADIS
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Smith, Adam - THE WEALTH OF NATIONS
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Smollett, Tobias - TRAVELS THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY
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Spencer, Herbert - ESSAYS ON EDUCATION AND KINDRED SUBJECTS
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Spyri, Johanna - HEIDI
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Sterne, Laurence - A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
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Sterne, Laurence - TRISTRAM SHANDY
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Stevenson, Robert Louis - A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES
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Stevenson, Robert Louis - ESSAYS IN THE ART OF WRITING
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Stevenson, Robert Louis - KIDNAPPED
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Stevenson, Robert Louis - NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
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Stevenson, Robert Louis - THE BLACK ARROW
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Stevenson, Robert Louis - THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
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Stevenson, Robert Louis - TREASURE ISLAND
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Stoker, Bram - DRACULA
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Strindberg, August - LUCKY PEHR
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Strindberg, August - MASTER OLOF
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Strindberg, August - THE RED ROOM
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Strindberg, August - THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS
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Strindberg, August - THERE ARE CRIMES AND CRIMES
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Swift, Jonathan - A MODEST PROPOSAL
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Swift, Jonathan - A TALE OF A TUB
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Swift, Jonathan - GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
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Swift, Jonathan - THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS AND OTHER SHORT PIECES
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Tagore, Rabindranath - FRUIT GATHERING
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Tagore, Rabindranath - THE GARDENER
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Tagore, Rabindranath - THE HUNGRY STONES AND OTHER STORIES
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Thackeray, William - BARRY LYNDON
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Thackeray, William - VANITY FAIR
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Thackeray, William Makepeace - THE BOOK OF SNOBS
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Thackeray, William Makepeace - THE ROSE AND THE RING
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Thackeray, William Makepeace - THE VIRGINIANS
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Thoreau, Henry David - WALDEN
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Tolstoi, Leo - A LETTER TO A HINDU
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Tolstoy, Lev - ANNA KARENINA
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Tolstoy, Lev - WAR AND PEACE
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Trollope, Anthony - AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
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Trollope, Anthony - BARCHESTER TOWERS
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Trollope, Anthony - FRAMLEY PARSONAGE
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Trollope, Anthony - THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS
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Trollope, Anthony - THE MAN WHO KEPT HIS MONEY IN A BOX
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Trollope, Anthony - THE WARDEN
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Trollope, Anthony - THE WAY WE LIVE NOW
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Twain, Mark - LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
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Twain, Mark - SPEECHES
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Twain, Mark - THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
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Twain, Mark - THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
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Twain, Mark - THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER
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Vari, Autori - THE MAGNA CARTA
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Verga, Giovanni - SICILIAN STORIES
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Verne, Jules - 20000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEAS
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Verne, Jules - A JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH
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Verne, Jules - ALL AROUND THE MOON
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Verne, Jules - AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
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Verne, Jules - FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON
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Verne, Jules - FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON
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Verne, Jules - MICHAEL STROGOFF
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Verne, Jules - THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND
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Voltaire - PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY
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Vyasa - MAHABHARATA
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Wallace, Edgar - SANDERS OF THE RIVER
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Wallace, Edgar - THE DAFFODIL MYSTERY
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Wallace, Lew - BEN HUR
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Webster, Jean - DADDY LONG LEGS
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Wedekind, Franz - THE AWAKENING OF SPRING
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Wells, H. G. - KIPPS
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Wells, H. G. - THE INVISIBLE MAN
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Wells, H. G. - THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU
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Wells, H. G. - THE STOLEN BACILLUS AND OTHER INCIDENTS
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Wells, H. G. - THE TIME MACHINE
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Wells, H. G. - THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
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Wells, H. G. - WHAT IS COMING
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Wharton, Edith - THE AGE OF INNOCENCE
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White, Andrew Dickson - FIAT MONEY INFLATION IN FRANCE
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Wilde, Oscar - A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE
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Wilde, Oscar - AN IDEAL HUSBAND
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Wilde, Oscar - DE PROFUNDIS
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Wilde, Oscar - LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN
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Wilde, Oscar - SALOME
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Wilde, Oscar - SELECTED POEMS
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Wilde, Oscar - THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL
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Wilde, Oscar - THE CANTERVILLE GHOST
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Wilde, Oscar - THE HAPPY PRINCE AND OTHER TALES
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Wilde, Oscar - THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
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Wilde, Oscar - THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GREY
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Wilde, Oscar - THE SOUL OF MAN
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Wilson, Epiphanius - SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST
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Wollstonecraft, Mary - A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN
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Woolf, Virgina - NIGHT AND DAY
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Woolf, Virgina - THE VOYAGE OUT
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Woolf, Virginia - JACOB'S ROOM
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Woolf, Virginia - MONDAY OR TUESDAY
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Wordsworth, William - POEMS
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Wordsworth, William - PROSE WORKS
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Zola, Emile - THERESE RAQUIN
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WAVERLEY
By Sir Walter Scott.
CHAPTER 1.
The sun was nearly set behind the distant mountains of Liddesdale, when a
few of the scattered and terrified inhabitants of the village of
Hersildoun, which had four days before been burned by a predatory band of
English Borderers, were now busied in repairing their ruined dwellings.
One high tower in the centre of the village alone exhibited no appearance
of devastation. It was surrounded with court walls, and the outer gate
was barred and bolted. The bushes and brambles which grew around, and had
even insinuated their branches beneath the gate, plainly showed that it
must have been many years since it had been opened. While the cottages
around lay in smoking ruins, this pile, deserted and desolate as it
seemed to be, had suffered nothing from the violence of the invaders; and
the wretched beings who were endeavouring to repair their miserable huts
against nightfall, seemed to neglect the preferable shelter which it
might have afforded them, without the necessity of labour.
Before the day had quite gone down, a knight, richly armed, and mounted
upon an ambling hackney, rode slowly into the village. His attendants
were a lady, apparently young and beautiful, who rode by his side upon a
dappled palfrey; his squire, who carried his helmet and lance, and led
his battle-horse, a noble steed, richly caparisoned. A page and four
yeomen, bearing bows and quivers, short swords, and targets of a span
breadth, completed his equipage, which, though small, denoted him to be a
man of high rank.
He stopped and addressed several of the inhabitants whom curiosity had
withdrawn from their labour to gaze at him; but at the sound of his
voice, and still more on perceiving the St. George's Cross in the caps of
his followers, they fled, with a loud cry that the Southrons were
returned. The knight endeavoured to expostulate with the fugitives, who
were chiefly aged men, women, and children; but their dread of the
English name accelerated their flight, and in a few minutes, excepting
the knight and his attendants, the place was deserted by all. He paced
through the village to seek a shelter for the night, and despairing to
find one either in the inaccessible tower or the plundered huts of the
peasantry, he directed his course to the left hand, where he spied a
small, decent habitation, apparently the abode of a man considerably
above the common rank. After much knocking, the proprietor at length
showed himself at the window, and speaking in the English dialect, with
great signs of apprehension, demanded their business. The warrior replied
that his quality was an English knight and baron, and that he was
travelling to the court of the king of Scotland on affairs of consequence
to both kingdoms.
"Pardon my hesitation, noble Sir Knight," said the old man, as he
unbolted and unbarred his doors,--
"Pardon my hesitation, but we are here exposed to too many intrusions to
admit of our exercising unlimited and unsuspicious hospitality. What I
have is yours; and God send your mission may bring back peace and the
good days of our old Queen Margaret!"
"Amen, worthy franklin," quoth the knight,--"Did you know her?"
"I came to this country in her train," said the franklin; "and the care
of some of her jointure lands, which she devolved on me, occasioned my
settling here."
"And how do you, being an Englishman," said the knight, "protect your life
and property here, when one of your nation cannot obtain a single night's
lodging, or a draught of water, were he thirsty?"
"Marry, noble sir," answered the franklin, "use, as they say, will make a
man live in a lion's den; and as I settled here in a quiet time, and have
never given cause of offence, I am respected by my neighbours, and even,
as you see, by our forayers from England."
"I rejoice to hear it, and accept your hospitality. Isabella, my love,
our worthy host will provide you a bed. My daughter, good franklin, is
ill at ease. We will occupy your house till the Scottish king shall
return from his Northern expedition. Meanwhile call me Lord Lacy of
Chester."
The attendants of the baron, assisted by the franklin, were now busied in
disposing of the horses and arranging the table for some refreshment for
Lord Lacy and his fair companion. While they sat down to it, they were
attended by their host and his daughter, whom custom did not permit to
eat in their presence, and who afterwards withdrew to an outer chamber,
where the squire and page (both young men of noble birth) partook of
supper, and were accommodated with beds. The yeomen, after doing honour
to the rustic cheer of Queen Margaret's bailiff, withdrew to the stable,
and each, beside his favourite horse, snored away the fatigues of their
journey. Early on the following morning the travellers were roused by a
thundering knocking at the door of the house, accompanied with many
demands for instant admission, in the roughest tone. The squire and page,
of Lord Lacy, after buckling on their arms, were about to sally out to
chastise these intruders, when the old host, after looking out at a
private casement, contrived for reconnoitring his visitors, entreated
them, with great signs of terror, to be quiet, if they did not mean that
all in the house should be murdered. He then hastened to the apartment of
Lord Lacy, whom he met dressed in a long furred gown and the knightly cap
called a mortier, irritated at the noise, and demanding to know the cause
which had disturbed the repose of the household.
"Noble sir," said the franklin, "one of the most formidable and bloody of
the Scottish Border riders is at hand. He is never seen," added he,
faltering with terror, "so far from the hills, but with some bad purpose,
and the power of accomplishing it; so hold yourself to your guard, for--"
A loud crash here announced that the door was broken down, and the knight
just descended the stair in time to prevent bloodshed betwixt his
attendants and the intruders. They were three in number. Their chief was
tall, bony, and athletic, his spare and muscular frame, as well as the
hardness of his features, marked the course of his life to have been
fatiguing and perilous. The effect of his appearance was aggravated by
his dress, which consisted of a jack, or jacket, composed of thick buff
leather, on which small plates of iron of a lozenge form were stitched,
in such a manner as to overlap each other and form a coat of mail, which
swayed with every motion of the wearer's body. This defensive armour
covered a doublet of coarse gray cloth, and the Borderer had a few
half-rusted plates of steel on his shoulders, a two-edged sword, with a
dagger hanging beside it, in a buff belt; a helmet, with a few iron bars,
to cover the face instead of a visor, and a lance of tremendous and
uncommon length, completed his appointments. The looks of the man were as
wild and rude as his attire; his keen black eyes never rested one moment
fixed upon a single object, but constantly traversed all around, as if
they ever sought some danger to oppose, some plunder to seize, or some
insult to revenge. The latter seemed to be his present object, for,
regardless of the dignified presence of Lord Lacy, he uttered the most
incoherent threats against the owner of the house and his guests.
"We shall see--ay, marry shall we--if an English hound is to harbour and
reset the Southrons here. Thank the Abbot of Melrose and the good Knight
of Coldingnow that have so long kept me from your skirts. But those days
are gone, by St. Mary, and you shall find it!"
It is probable the enraged Borderer would not have long continued to vent
his rage in empty menaces, had not the entrance of the four yeomen, with
their bows bent, convinced him that the force was not at this moment on
his own side.
Lord Lacy now advanced towards him. "You intrude upon my privacy,
soldier; withdraw yourself and Your followers. There is peace betwixt our
nations, or my servants should chastise thy presumption."
"Such peace as ye give such shall you have," answered the moss-trooper,
first pointing with his lance towards the burned village, and then almost
instantly levelling it against Lord Lacy. The squire drew his sword, and
severed at one blow the steel head from the truncheon of the spear.
"Arthur Fitzherbert," said the baron, "that stroke has deferred thy
knighthood for one year; never must that squire wear the spurs whose
unbridled impetuosity can draw unbidden his sword in the presence of his
master. Go hence, and think on what I have said."
The squire left the chamber abashed.
"It were vain," continued Lord Lacy, "to expect that courtesy from a
mountain churl which even my own followers can forget. Yet before thou
drawest thy brand," for the intruder laid his hand upon the hilt of his
sword, "thou wilt do well to reflect that I came with a safe-conduct from
thy king, and have no time to waste in brawls with such as thou."
"From my king,--from my king!" re-echoed the mountaineer. "I care not
that rotten truncheon," striking the shattered spear furiously on the
ground, "for the king of Fife and Lothian. But Habby of Cessford will be
here belive; and we shall soon know if he will permit an English churl to
occupy his hostelry."
Having uttered these words, accompanied with a lowering glance from under
his shaggy black eyebrows, he turned on his heel and left the house with
his two followers; they mounted their horses, which they had tied to an
outer fence, and vanished in an instant.
"Who is this discourteous ruffian?" said Lord Lacy to the franklin, who
had stood in the most violent agitation during this whole scene.
"His name, noble lord, is Adam Kerr of the Moat, but he is commonly
called by his companions the Black Rider of Cheviot. I fear, I fear, he
comes hither for no good; but if the Lord of Cessford be near, he will
not dare offer any unprovoked outrage."
"I have heard of that chief," said the baron; "let me know when he
approaches. And do thou, Rodulph," to the eldest yeoman, "keep a strict
watch. Adelbert," to the page, "attend to arm me." The page bowed, and
the baron withdrew to the chamber of the lady Isabella, to explain the
cause of the disturbance.
No more of the proposed tale was ever written; but the Author's purpose
was that it should turn upon a fine legend of superstition which is
current in the part of the Borders where he had his residence, where, in
the reign of Alexander III. of Scotland, that renowned person, Thomas of
Hersildoune, called the Rhymer, actually flourished. This personage, the
Merlin of Scotland, and to whom some of the adventures which the British
bards assigned to Merlin Caledonius, or the Wild, have been transferred
by tradition, was, as is well known, a magician, as well as a poet and
prophet. He is alleged still to live in the land of Faery, and is
expected to return at some great convulsion of society, in which he is to
act a distinguished part,--a tradition common to all nations, as the
belief of the Mahomedans respecting their twelfth Imaum demonstrates.
Now, it chanced many years since that there lived on the Borders a jolly,
rattling horse-cowper, who was remarkable for a reckless and fearless
temper, which made him much admired, and a little dreaded, amongst his
neighbours. One moonlight night, as he rode over Bowden Moor, on the west
side of the Eildon Hills, the scene of Thomas the Rhymer's prophecies,
and often mentioned in his story, having a brace of horses along with him
which he had not been able to dispose of, he met a man of venerable
appearance and singularly antique dress, who, to his great surprise,
asked the price of his horses, and began to chaffer with him on the
subject. To Canobie Dick--(for so shall we call our Border dealer)--a
chap was a chap, and he would have sold a liaise to the devil himself,
without minding his cloven hoof, and would have probably cheated Old Nick
into the bargain. The stranger paid the price they agreed on; and all
that puzzled Dick in the transaction was that the gild which he received
was in unicorns, bonnet-pieces, and other ancient coins, which would have
been invaluable to collectors, but were rather troublesome, in modern
currency.
It was gold, however, and therefore Dick contrived to get better value
for the coin than he perhaps gave to his customer. By the command of so
good a merchant, he brought horses to the same slot more than once; the
purchaser only stipulating that he should always come by night, and
alone. I do not know whether it was from mere curiosity, or whether some
hope of gain mixed with it, but after Dick had sold several horses in
this way, he began to complain that dry-bargains were unlucky, and to
hint that since his chap must live in the neighbourhood, he ought, in the
courtesy of dealing, to treat him to half a mutchkin.
"You may see my dwelling if you will," said the stranger; "but if you
lose courage at what you see there, you will rue it all your life."
Dicken, however, laughed the warning to scorn, and having alighted to
secure his horse, he followed the stranger up a narrow foot-path, which
led them up the hills to the singular eminence stuck betwixt the most
southern and the centre peaks, and called, from its resemblance to such
an animal in its form, the Lucken Hare. At the foot of this eminence,
which is almost as famous for witch meetings as the neighbouring
wind-mill of Kippilaw, Dick was somewhat startled to observe that his
conductor entered the hill-side by a passage or cavern, of which he
himself, though well acquainted with the spot, had never seen or heard.
"You may still return," said his guide, looking ominously back upon him;
but Dick scorned to show the white feather, and on they went. They
entered a very long range of stables; in every stall stood a coal-black
horse; by every horse lay a knight in coal-black armour, with a drawn
sword in his hand; but all were as silent, hoof and limb, as if they had
been cut out of marble. A great number of torches lent a gloomy lustre to
the hall, which, like those of the Caliph Vathek, was of large
dimensions. At the upper end, however, they at length arrived, where a
sword and horn lay on an antique table.
"He that shall sound that horn and draw that sword," said the stranger,
who now intimated that he was the famous Thomas of Hersildoune, "shall,
if his heart fail him not, be king over all broad Britain. So speaks the
tongue that cannot lie. But all depends on courage, and much on your
taking the sword or the horn first." Dick was much disposed to take the
sword; but his bold spirit was quailed by the supernatural terrors of the
hall, and he thought to unsheathe the sword first, might be construed
into defiance, and give offence to the powers of the Mountain. He took
the bugle with a trembling hand, and a feeble note, but loud enough to
produce a terrible answer. Thunder rolled in stunning peals through the
immense hall; horses and men started to life; the steeds snorted,
stamped, grinned their bits, and tossed on high their heads; the warriors
sprung to their feet, clashed their armour, and brandished their swords.
Dick's terror was extreme at seeing the whole army, which had been so
lately silent as the grave, in uproar, and about to rush on him. He
dropped the horn, and made a feeble attempt to seize the enchanted sword;
but at the same moment a voice pronounced aloud the mysterious words,--
"Woe to the coward, that ever he was born,
Who did not draw the sword before he blew the horn!"
At the same time a whirlwind of irresistible fury howled through the long
hall, bore the unfortunate horse-jockey clear out of the mouth of the
cavern, and precipitated him over a steep bank of loose stones, where the
shepherds found him the next morning with just breath sufficient to tell
his fearful tale, after concluding which he expired.
This legend, with several variations, is found in many parts of Scotland
and England. The scene is sometimes laid in some favourite glen of the
Highlands, sometimes in the deep coal-mines of Northumberland and
Cumberland, which rim so far beneath the ocean. It is also to be found in
Reginald Scott's book on Witchcraft, which was written in the sixteenth
century. It would be in vain to ask what was the original of the
tradition. The choice between the horn and sword may, perhaps, include as
a moral that it is foolhardy to awaken danger before we have arms in our
hands to resist it.
Although admitting of much poetical ornament, it is clear that this
legend would have formed but an unhappy foundation for a prose story, and
must have degenerated into a mere fairy tale. Dr. John Leyden has
beautifully introduced the tradition in his "Scenes of Infancy":--
"Mysterious Rhymer, doomed by fate's decree
Still to revisit Eildon's fated tree,
Where oft the swain, at dawn of Hallow-day,
Hears thy fleet barb with wild impatience neigh,--
Say, who is he, with summons long and high,
Shall bid the charmed sleep of ages fly,
Roll the long sound through Eildon's caverns vast,
While each dark warrior kindles at the blast,
The horn, the falchion, grasp with mighty hand,
And peal proud Arthur's march from Fairy-land?"
In the same cabinet with the preceding fragment, the following occurred
among other 'disjecta membra'. It seems to be an attempt at a tale of a
different description from the last, but was almost instantly abandoned.
The introduction points out the time of the composition to have been
about the end of the eighteenth century.
THE LORD OF ENNERDALE.
IN A FRAGMENT OF A LETTER FROM JOHN B"""""", ESQ., OF THAT ILK, TO
WILLIAM G"""""", F.R.S.E.
"Fill a bumper," said the knight; "the ladies may spare us a little
longer. Fill a bumper to the Archduke Charles."
The company did due honour to the toast of their landlord.
"The success of the archduke," said the muddy vicar, "will tend to
further our negotiation at Paris; and if--"
"Pardon the interruption, Doctor," quoth a thin, emaciated figure, with
somewhat of a foreign accent; "but why should you connect those events,
unless to hope that the bravery and victories of our allies may supersede
the necessity of a degrading treaty?"
"We begin to feel, Monsieur L'Abbe," answered the vicar, with some
asperity, "that a Continental war entered into for the defence of an ally
who was unwilling to defend himself, and for the restoration of a royal
family, nobility, and priesthood who tamely abandoned their own rights,
is a burden too much even for the resources of this country."
"And was the war, then, on the part of Great Britain," rejoined the Abbe,
"a gratuitous exertion of generosity? Was there no fear of the
wide-wasting spirit of innovation which had gone abroad? Did not the
laity tremble for their property, the clergy for their religion, and
every loyal heart for the Constitution? Was it not thought necessary to
destroy the building which was on fire, ere the conflagration spread
around the vicinity?"
"Yet if upon trial," said the doctor, "the walls were found to resist our
utmost efforts, I see no great prudence in persevering in our labour amid
the smouldering ruins."
"What, Doctor," said the baronet, "must I call to your recollection your
own sermon on the late general fast? Did you not encourage us to hope
that the Lord of Hosts would go forth with our armies, and that our
enemies, who blasphemed him, should be put to shame?"
"It may please a kind father to chasten even his beloved children,"
answered the vicar.
"I think," said a gentleman near the foot of the table, "that the
Covenanters made some apology of the same kind for the failure of their
prophecies at the battle of Danbar, when their mutinous preachers
compelled the prudent Lesley to go down against the Philistines in
Gilgal."
The vicar fixed a scrutinizing and not a very complacent eye upon this
intruder. He was a young man, of mean stature and rather a reserved
appearance. Early and severe study had quenched in his features the
gaiety peculiar to his age, and impressed upon them a premature cast of
thoughtfulness. His eve had, however, retained its fire, and his gesture
its animation. Had he remained silent, he would have been long unnoticed;
but when he spoke, there was something in his manner which arrested
attention.
"Who is this young man?" said the vicar, in a low voice, to his
neighbour.
"A Scotchman called Maxwell, on a visit to Sir Henry," was the answer.
"I thought so, from his accent and his manner," said the vicar. It may be
here observed that the Northern English retain rather more of the ancient
hereditary aversion to their neighbors than their countrymen of the
South. The interference of other disputants, each of whom urged his
opinion with all the vehemence of wine and politics, rendered the summons
to the drawing-room agreeable to the more sober part of the company.
The company dispersed by degrees, and at length the vicar and the young
Scotchman alone remained, besides the baronet, his lady, daughters, and
myself. The clergyman had not, it would seem, forgot the observation
which ranked him with the false prophets of Dunbar, for he addressed Mr.
Maxwell upon the first opportunity.
"Hem! I think, sir, you mentioned something about the civil wars of last
century. You must be deeply skilled in them indeed, if you can draw any
parallel betwixt those and the present evil days,--davs which I am ready
to maintain are the most gloomy that ever darkened the prospects of
Britain."
"God forbid, Doctor, that I should draw a comparison between the present
times and those you mention; I am too sensible of the advantages we enjoy
over our ancestors. Faction and ambition have introduced division among
us; but we are still free from the guilt of civil bloodshed, and from all
the evils which flow from it. Our foes, sir, are not those of our own
household; and while we continue united and firm, from the attacks of a
foreign enemy, however artful, or however inveterate, we have, I hope,
little to dread."
"Have you found anything curious, Mr. Maxwell, among the dusty papers?"
said Sir Henry, who seemed to dread a revival of political discussion.
"My investigation amongst them led to reflection's which I have just now
hinted," said Maxwell; "and I think they are pretty strongly exemplified
by a story which I have been endeavouring to arrange from some of your
family manuscripts."
"You are welcome to make what use of them you please," said Sir Henry;
"they have been undisturbed for many a day, and I have often wished for
some person as well skilled as you in these old pothooks, to tell me
their meaning."
"Those I just mentioned," answered Maxwell, "relate to a piece of private
history savouring not a little of the marvellous, and intimately
connected with your family; if it is agreeable, I can read to you the
anecdotes in the modern shape into which I have been endeavouring to
throw them, and you can then judge of the value of the originals."
There was something in this proposal agreeable to all parties. Sir Henry
had family pride, which prepared him to take an interest in whatever
related to his ancestors. The ladies had dipped deeply into the
fashionable reading of the present day. Lady Ratcliff and her fair
daughters had climbed every pass, viewed every pine-shrouded ruin, heard
every groan, and lifted every trap-door, in company with the noted
heroine of "Udolpho." They had been heard, however, to observe that the
famous incident of the Black Veil singularly resembled the ancient
apologue of the Mountain in labour, so that they were unquestionably
critics, as well as admirers. Besides all this, they had valorously
mounted en croupe behind the ghostly horseman of Prague, through all his
seven translators, and followed the footsteps of Moor through the forest
of Bohemia. Moreover, it was even hinted (but this was a greater mystery
than all the rest) that a certain performance, called the "Monk," in
three neat volumes, had been seen by a prying eye, in the right-hand
drawer of the Indian cabinet of Lady Ratcliff's dressing-room. Thus
predisposed for wonders and signs, Lady Ratcliff and her nymphs drew
their chairs round a large blazing wood-fire, and arranged themselves to
listen to the tale. To that fire I also approached, moved thereunto
partly by the inclemency of the season, and partly that my deafness,
which you know, cousin, I acquired during my campaign under Prince
Charles Edward, might be no obstacle to the gratification of my
curiosity, which was awakened by what had any reference to the fate of
such faithful followers of royalty as you well know the house of Ratcliff
have ever been. To this wood-fire the vicar likewise drew near, and
reclined himself conveniently in his chair, seemingly disposed to testify
his disrespect for the narration and narrator by falling asleep as soon
as he conveniently could. By the side of Maxwell (by the way, I cannot
learn that he is in the least related to the Nithsdale family) was placed
a small table and a couple of lights, by the assistance of which he read
as follows:--
"Journal of Jan Von Eulen.
"On the 6th November, 1645, I, Jan Von Enlen, merchant in Rotterdam,
embarked with my only daughter on board of the good vessel 'Vryheid,' of
Amsterdam, in order to pass into the unhappy and disturbed kingdom of
England.--7th November. A brisk gale; daughter sea-sick; myself unable to
complete the calculation which I have begun, of the inheritance left by
Jane Lansache, of Carlisle, my late dear wife's sister, the collection of
which is the object of my voyage.--8th November. Wind still stormy and
adverse; a horrid disaster nearly happened,--my dear child washed
overboard as the vessel lurched to leeward.--Memorandum, to reward the
young sailor who saved her, out of the first moneys which I can recover
from the inheritance of her aunt Lansache.--9th November. Calm P.M. light
breezes front N. N. W. I talked with the captain about the inheritance of
my sister-in-law, Jane Lansache. He says he knows the principal subject,
which will not exceed L1000 in value.--N. B. He is a cousin to a family
of Petersons, which was the name of the husband of my sister-in-law; so
there is room to hope it may be worth more than be reports.--10th
November, 10 A.M. May God pardon all our sins! An English frigate,
bearing the Parliament flag, has appeared in the offing, and gives
chase.--11 A. M. She nears us every moment, and the captain of our vessel
prepares to clear for action. May God again have mercy upon us!"
"Here," said Maxwell, "the journal with which I have opened the narration
ends somewhat abruptly."
"I am glad of it," said Lady Ratcliff.
"But, Mr. Maxwell," said young Frank, Sir Henry's grandchild, "shall we
not hear how the battle ended?"
I do not know, cousin, whether I have not formerly made you acquainted
with the abilities of Frank Ratcliff. There is not a battle fought
between the troops of the Prince and of the government, during the years
1745-46, of which he is not able to give an account. It is true, I have
taken particular pains to fix the events of this important period upon
his memory by frequent repetition.
"No, my dear," said Maxwell, in answer to young Frank Itatcliff,--"No, my
dear, I cannot tell you the exact particulars of the engagement, but its
consequences appear from the following letter, despatched by Garbonete
Von Enlen, daughter of our journalist, to a relation in England, from
whom she implored assistance. After some general account of the purpose
of the voyage, and of the engagement, her narrative proceeds thus:--
"The noise of the cannon had hardly ceased, before the sounds of a
language to me but half known, and the confusion on board our vessel,
informed me that the captors had boarded us and taken possession of our
vessel. I went on deck, where the first spectacle that met my eyes was a
young man, mate of our vessel, who, though disfigured and covered with
blood, was loaded with irons, and whom they were forcing over the side of
the vessel into a boat. The two principal persons among our enemies
appeared to be a man of a tall, thin figure, with a high-crowned hat and
long neck band, and short-cropped head of hair, accompanied by a bluff,
open-looking elderly man in a naval uniform. 'Yarely! yarely! pull away,
my hearts,' said the latter, and the boat bearing the unlucky young man
soon carried him on board the frigate. Perhaps you will blame me for
mentioning this circumstance; but consider, my dear cousin, this man
saved my life, and his fate, even when my own and my father's were in the
balance, could not but affect me nearly.
"'In the name of him who is jealous, even to slaying,' said the first--"
Cetera desunt.
No. II.
CONCLUSION OF MR. STRUTT'S ROMANCE OF
QUEEN-HOO HALL.
BY THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.
CHAPTER IV.
A HUNTING PARTY.--AN ADVENTURE.--A DELIVERANCE.
The next morning the bugles were sounded by daybreak in the court of Lord
Boteler's mansion, to call the inhabitants from their slumbers, to assist
in a splendid chase, with which the baron had resolved to entertain his
neighbour Fitzallen and his noble visitor St. Clere. Peter Lanaret the
falconer was in attendance, with falcons for the knights, and tiercelets
for the ladies, if they should choose to vary their sport from hunting to
hawking. Five stout yeomen keepers, with their attendants, called Bagged
Robins, all meetly arrayed in Kendal green, with bugles and short hangers
by their sides, and quarterstaffs in their hands, led the slow-hounds, or
brackets, by which the deer were to be put up. Ten brace of gallant
greyhounds, each of which was fit to pluck down, singly, the tallest red
deer, were led in leashes by as many of Lord Boteler's foresters. The
pages, squires, and other attendants of feudal splendour, well attired in
their best hunting-gear, upon horseback or foot, according to their
rank,--with their boar-spears, long bows, and cross-bows, were in seemly
waiting.
A numerous train of yeomen, called in the language of the times
retainers, who yearly received a livery coat and a small pension for
their attendance on such solemn occasions, appeared in cassocks of blue,
bearing upon their arms the cognizance of the house of Boteler as a badge
of their adherence. They were the tallest men of their hands that the
neighbouring villages could supply, with every man his good buckler on
his shoulder, and a bright burnished broadsword dangling from his
leathern belt. On this occasion they acted as rangers for beating up the
thickets and rousing the game. These attendants filled up the court of
the castle, spacious as it was. On the green without, you might have seen
the motley assemblage of peasantry convened by report of the splendid
hunting, including most of our old acquaintances from Tewin, as well as
the jolly partakers of good cheer at Hob Filcher's. Gregory the jester,
it may well be guessed, had no great mind to exhibit himself in public
after his recent disaster; but Oswald the steward, a great formalist in
whatever concerned the public exhibition of his master's household state,
had positively enjoined his attendance. "What," quoth he, "shall the
house of the brave Lord Boteler, or such a brave day as this, be without
a fool? Certes, the good Lord St. Clere and his fair lady sister might
think our housekeeping as niggardly as that of their churlish kinsman at
Gay Bowers, who sent his father's jester to the hospital, sold the poor
sot's bells for hawk-jesses, and made a nightcap of his long-eared
bonnet. And, sirrah, let me see thee fool handsomely,--speak squibs and
crackers, instead of that dry, barren, musty gibing which thou hast used
of late; or, by the bones! the porter shall have thee to his lodge, and
cob thee with thine own wooden sword till thy skin is as motley as thy
doublet."
To this stern injunction, Gregory made no reply, any more than to the
courteous offer of old Albert Drawslot, the chief park-keeper, who
proposed to blow vinegar in his nose, to sharpen his wit, as he had done
that blessed morning to Bragger, the old hound, whose scent was failing.
There was, indeed, little time for reply, for the bugles, after a lively
flourish, were now silent, and Peretto, with his two attendant minstrels,
stepping beneath the windows of the strangers' apartments, joined in the
following roundelay, the deep voices of the rangers and falconers making
up a chorus that caused the very battlements to ring again.
Waken, lords and ladies gay,
On the mountain dawns the day;
All the jolly chase is here,
With hawk and horse and hunting-spear
Hounds are in their couples yelling,
Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling,
Merrily, merrily, mingle they,
"Waken, lords and ladies gay."
Waken, lords and ladies gay,
The mist has left the mountain gray;
Springlets in the dawn are streaming,
Diamonds on the brake are gleaming,
And foresters have busy been,
To track the buck in thicket green;
Now we come to chant our lay:
"Waken, lords and ladies gay."
Waken, lords and ladies gay,
To the green-wood haste away;
We can show you where he lies,
Fleet of foot, and tall of size;
We can show the marks he made
When 'gainst the oak his antlers frayed;
You shall see him brought to bay,
"Waken, lords and ladies gay."
Louder, louder chant the lay,
"Waken, lords and ladies gay;"
Tell them, youth and mirth and glee
Run a course as well as we.
Time, stern huntsman, who can baulk,
Staunch as hound, and fleet as hawk?
Think of this, and rise with day,
Gentle lords and ladies gay.
By the time this lay was finished, Lord Boteler, with his daughter and
kinsman, Fitzallen of Harden, and other noble guests had mounted their
palfreys, and the hunt set forward in due order. The huntsmen, having
carefully observed the traces of a large stag on the preceding evening,
were able, without loss of time, to conduct the company, by the marks
which they had made upon the trees, to the side of the thicket in which,
by the report of Drawslot, he had harboured all night. The horsemen
spreading themselves along the side of the cover, waited until the keeper
entered, leading his bandog, a large blood-hound tied in a leam or band,
from which he takes his name.
But it befell this. A hart of the second year, which was in the same
cover with the proper object of their pursuit, chanced to be unharboured
first, and broke cover very near where the Lady Emma and her brother were
stationed. An inexperienced varlet, who was nearer to them, instantly
unloosed two tall greyhounds, who sprung after the fugitive with all the
fleetness of the north wind. Gregory, restored a little to spirits by the
enlivening scene around him, followed, encouraging the hounds with a loud
tayout,--[Tailliers-hors; in modern phrase, Tally-ho]--for which he had
the hearty curses of the huntsman, as well as of the baron, who entered
into the spirit of the chase with all the juvenile ardour of twenty. "May
the foul fiend, booted and spurred, ride down his bawling throat, with a
scythe at his girdle," quoth Albert Drawslot; "here have I been telling
him that all the marks were those of a buck of the first head, and he has
hollowed the hounds upon a velvet-headed knobbler! By Saint Hubert, if I
break not his pate with my cross-bow, may I never cast off hound more!
But to it, my lords and masters! the noble beast is here yet, and, thank
the saints, we have enough of hounds."
The cover being now thoroughly beat by the attendants, the stag was
compelled to abandon it, and trust to his speed for his safety. Three
greyhounds were slipped upon him, whom he threw out, after running a
couple of miles, by entering an extensive furzy brake which extended
along the side of a hill. The horsemen soon came up, and casting off a
sufficient number of slowhounds, sent them, with the prickers, into the
cover, in order to chive the game from his strength. This object being
accomplished, afforded another severe chase of several miles, in a
direction almost circular, during which the poor animal tried ever wile
to get rid of his persecutors. He crossed and traversed all such dusty
paths as were likely to retain the least scent of his footsteps; he laid
himself close to the ground, drawing his feet under his belly, and
clapping his nose close to the earth, lest he should be betrayed to the
hounds by his breath and hoofs. When all was in vain, and he found the
hounds coming fast in upon him, his own strength failing, his mouth
embossed with foam, and the tears dropping from his eyes, he turned in
despair upon his pursuers, who then stood at gaze, making an hideous
clamour, and awaiting their two-footed auxiliaries. Of these, it chanced
that the Lady Eleanor, taking more pleasure in the sport than Matilda,
and being a less burden to her palfrey than the Lord Boteler, was the
first who arrived at the spot, and taking a cross-bow from an attendant,
discharged a bolt at the stag. When the infuriated animal felt himself
wounded, he pushed franticly towards her from whom he had received the
shaft, and Lady Eleanor might have had occasion to repent of her
enterprise had not young Fitzallen, who had kept near her during the
whole day, at that instant galloped briskly in, and ere the stag could
change his object of assault, despatched him with his short
hunting-sword.
Albert Drawslot, who had just come up in terror for the young lady's
safety, broke out into loud encomiums upon Fitzallen's strength and
gallantry. "By 'r Lady," said he, taking off his cap, and wiping his
sun-burnt face with his sleeve, "well struck, and in good time! But now,
boys, doff your bonnets, and sound the mort."
The sportsmen then sounded a treble mort and set up a general whoop,
which, mingled with the yelping of the dogs, made the welkin ring again.
The huntsman then offered his knife to Lord Boteler, that he might take
the say of the deer; but the baron courteously insisted upon Fitzallen
going through that ceremony. The Lady Matilda was now come up, with most
of the attendants; and the interest of the chase being ended, it excited
some surprise that neither St. Clere nor his sister made their
appearance. The Lord Boteler commanded the horns again to sound the
recheat, in hopes to call in the stragglers, and said to Fitzallen:
"Methinks St. Clere, so distinguished for service in war, should have
been more forward in the chase."
"I trow," said Peter Lanaret, "I know the reason of the noble lord's
absence; for when that moon-calf, Gregory, hallooed the dogs upon the
knobbler, and galloped like a green hilding, as he is, after them, I saw
the Lady Emma's palfrey follow apace after that varlet, who should be
trashed for overrunning, and I think her noble brother has followed her,
lest she should come to harm. But here, by the rood, is Gregory to answer
for himself."
At this moment Gregory entered the circle which had been formed round the
deer, out of breath, and his face covered with blood. He kept for some
time uttering inarticulate cries of "Harrow!" and "Wellaway!" and other
exclamations of distress and terror, pointing all the while to a thicket
at some distance from the spot where the deer had been killed.
"By my honour," said the baron, "I would gladly know who has dared to
array the poor knave thus; and I trust he should dearly aby his
outrecuidance, were he the best, save one, in England."
Gregory, who had now found more breath, cried, "Help, an ye be men! Save
Lady Emma and her brother, whom they are murdering in Brockenhurst
thicket."
This put all in motion. Lord Boteler hastily commanded a small party of
his men to abide for the defence of the ladies, while he himself,
Fitzallen, and the rest made what speed they could towards the thicket,
guided by Gregory, who for that purpose was mounted behind Fabian.
Pushing through a narrow path, the first object they encountered was a
man of small stature lying on the ground, mastered and almost strangled
by two dogs, which were instantly recognized to be those that had
accompanied Gregory. A little farther was an open space, where lay three
bodies of dead or wounded men; beside these was Lady Emma, apparently
lifeless, her brother and a young forester bending over and endeavouring
to recover her. By employing the usual remedies, this was soon
accomplished; while Lord Boteler, astonished at such a scene, anxiously
inquired at St. Clere the meaning of what he saw, and whether more danger
was to be expected?
"For the present, I trust not," said the young warrior, who they now
observed was slightly wounded; "but I pray you, of your nobleness, let
the woods here be searched; for we were assaulted by four of these base
assassins, and I see three only on the sward."
The attendants now brought forward the person whom they had rescued from
the dogs, and Henry, with disgust, shame, and astonishment, recognized
his kinsman, Gaston St. Clere. This discovery he communicated in a
whisper to Lord Boteler, who commanded the prisoner to be conveyed to
Queen-Hoo Hall and closely guarded; meanwhile he anxiously inquired of
young St. Clere about his wound. "A scratch, a trifle!" cried Henry; "I
am in less haste to bind it than to introduce to you one without whose
aid that of the leech would have come too late. Where is he? Where is my
brave deliverer?"
"Here, most noble lord," said Gregory, sliding from his palfrey and
stepping forward, "ready to receive the guerdon which your bounty would
heap on him."
"Truly, friend Gregory," answered the young warrior, "thou shalt not be
forgotten; for thou didst run speedily and roar manfully for aid, without
which, I think verily, we had not received it. But the brave forester who
came to my rescue when these three ruffians had nigh overpowered me,
where is he?"
Every one looked around; but though all had seen him on entering the
thicket, he was not now to be found. They could only conjecture that he
had retired during the confusion occasioned by the detention of Gaston.
"Seek not for him," said the Lady Emma, who had now in some degree
recovered her composure; "he will not be found of mortal, unless at his
own season."
The baron, convinced from this answer that her terror had, for the time,
somewhat disturbed her reason, forebore to question her; and Matilda and
Eleanor, to whom a message had been despatched with the result of this
strange adventure, arriving, they took the Lady Emma between them, and
all in a body returned to the castle.
The distance was, however, considerable, and before reaching it they had
another alarm. The prickers, who rode foremost in the troop, halted, and
announced to the Lord Boteler, that they perceived advancing towards them
a body of armed men. The followers of the baron were numerous, but they
were arrayed for the chase, not for battle; and it was with great
pleasure that he discerned, on the pennon of the advancing body of
men-at-arms, instead of the cognizance of Gaston, as he had some reason
to expect, the friendly bearings of Fitzosborne of Diggswell, the same
young lord who was present at the May-games with Fitzallen of Marden. The
knight himself advanced, sheathed in armour, and, without raising his
visor, informed Lord Boteler, that having heard of a base attempt made
upon a part of his train by ruffianly assassins, he had mounted and armed
a small party of his retainers, to escort them to Queen-Hoo Hall. Having
received and accepted an invitation to attend them thither, they
prosecuted their journey in confidence and security, and arrived safe at
home without any further accident.
CHAPTER V.
INVESTIGATION OF THE ADVENTURE OF THE HUNTING.--A DISCOVERY.
--GREGORY'S MANHOOD.--FATE OF GASTON ST. CLERE.--CONCLUSION.
So soon as they arrived at the princely mansion of Boteler, the Lady Emma
craved permission to retire to her chamber, that she might compose her
spirits after the terror she had undergone. Henry St. Clere, in a few
words, proceeded to explain the adventure to the curious audience. "I had
no sooner seen my sister's palfrey, in spite of her endeavours to the
contrary, entering with spirit into the chase set on foot by the
worshipful Gregory than I rode after to give her assistance. So long was
the chase that when the greyhounds pulled down the knobbler, we were out
of hearing of your bugles; and having rewarded and coupled the dogs, I
gave them to be led by the jester, and we wandered in quest of our
company, whom, it would seem, the sport had led in a different direction.
At length, passing through the thicket where you found us, I was
surprised by a cross-bow bolt whizzing past mine head. I drew my sword
and rushed into the thicket, but was instantly assailed by two ruffians,
while other two made towards my sister and Gregory. The poor knave fled,
crying for help, pursued by my false kinsman, now your prisoner; and the
designs of the other on my poor Emma (murderous no doubt) were prevented
by the sudden apparition of a brave woodsman, who, after a short
encounter, stretched the miscreant at his feet and came to my assistance.
I was already slightly wounded, and nearly overlaid with odds. The combat
lasted some time, for the caitiffs were both well armed, strong, and
desperate; at length, however, we had each mastered our antagonist, when
your retinue, my Lord Boteler, arrived to my relief. So ends in my story;
but, on my knighthood, I would give an earl's ransom for an opportunity
of thanking the gallant forester by whose aid I live to tell it."
"Fear not," said Lord Boteler; "he shall be found if this or the four
adjacent counties hold him. And now Lord Fitzosborne will be pleased to
doff the armour he has so kindly assumed for our sakes, and we will all
bowne ourselves for the banquet."
When the hour of dinner approached, the Lady Matilda and her cousin
visited the chamber of the fair Darcy. They found her in a composed but
melancholy posture. She turned the discourse upon the misfortunes of her
life, and hinted that having recovered her brother, and seeing him look
forward to the society of one who would amply repay to him the loss of
hers, she had thoughts of dedicating her remaining life to Heaven, by
whose providential interference it had been so often preserved.
Matilda coloured deeply at something in this speech, and her cousin
inveighed loudly against Emma's resolution. "Ah, my dear Lady Eleanor,"
replied she, "I have to-day witnessed what I cannot but judge a
supernatural visitation, and to what end can it call me but to give
myself to the altar? That peasant who guided me, to Baddow through the
Park of Danbury, the same who appeared before me at different times and
in different forms during that eventful journey,--that youth, whose
features are imprinted on my memory, is the very individual forester who
this day rescued us in the forest. I cannot be mistaken; and connecting
these marvellous appearances with the spectre which I saw while at Gay
Bowers, I cannot resist the conviction that Heaven has permitted my
guardian angel to assume mortal shape for my relief and protection."
The fair cousins, after exchanging looks which implied a fear that her
mind was wandering, answered her in soothing terms, and finally prevailed
upon her to accompany them to the banqueting-hall. Here the first person
they encountered was the Baron Fitzosborne of Diggswell, now divested of
his armour; at the sight of whom the Lady Emma changed colour, and
exclaiming, "It is the same!" sunk senseless into the arms of Matilda.
"She is bewildered by the terrors of the day," said Eleanor; "and we have
done ill in obliging her to descend."
"And I," said Fitzosborne, "have done madly in presenting before her one
whose presence must recall moments the most alarming in her life."
While the ladies supported Emma from the hall, Lord Boteler and St. Clere
requested an explanation from Fitzosborne of the words he had used.
"Trust me, gentle lords," said the Baron of Diggswell, "ye shall have
what ye demand, when I learn that Lady Emma Darcy has not suffered from
my imprudence."
At this moment Lady Matilda, returning, said that her fair friend, on her
recovery, had calmly and deliberately insisted that she had seen
Fitzosborne before, in the most dangerous crisis of her life.
"I dread," said she, "her disordered mind connects all that her eye
beholds with the terrible passages that she has witnessed."
"Nay," said Fitzosborne, "if noble St. Clere can pardon the unauthorized
interest which, with the purest and most honourable intentions, I have
taken in his sister's fate, it is easy for me to explain this mysterious
impression."
He proceeded to say that, happening to be in the hostelry called the
Griffin, near Baddow, while upon a journey in that country, he had met
with the old nurse of the Lady Emma Darcy, who, being just expelled front
Gay Bowers, was in the height of her grief and indignation, and made loud
and public proclamation of Lady Emma's wrongs. From the description she
gave of the beauty of her foster-child, as well as from the spirit of
chivalry, Fitzosborne became interested in her fate. This interest was
deeply enhanced when, by a bribe to Old Gaunt the Reve, he procured a
view of the Lady Emma as she walked near the castle of Gay Bowers. The
aged churl refused to give him access to the castle, yet dropped some
hints, as if he thought the lady in danger, and wished she were well out
of it. His master, he said, had heard she had a brother in life, and
since that deprived him of all chance of gaining her domains by purchase,
he, in short, Gaunt wished they were safely separated. "If any injury,"
quoth he, "should happen to the damsel here, it were ill for us all. I
tried, by an innocent stratagem, to frighten her from the castle by
introducing a figure through a trap-door and warning her, as if by a
voice from the dead, to retreat from thence; but the giglet is wilful,
and is running upon her fate."
Finding Gaunt, although covetous and communicative, too faithful a
servant to his wicked master to take any active steps against his
commands, Fitzosborne applied himself to old Ursely, whom he found more
tractable. Through her he learned the dreadful plot Gaston had laid to
rid himself of his kinswoman, and resolved to effect her deliverance. But
aware of the delicacy of Emma's situation, he charged Ursely to conceal
from her the interest he took in her distress, resolving to watch over
her in disguise until he saw her in a place of safety. Hence the
appearance he made before her in various dresses during her journey, in
the course of which he was never far distant; and he had always four
stout yeomen within hearing of his bugle, had assistance been necessary.
When she was placed in safety at the lodge, it was Fitzosborne's
intention to have prevailed upon his sisters to visit, and take her under
their protection; but he found them absent from Diggswell, having gone to
attend an aged relation who lay dangerously ill in a distant county. They
did not return until the day before the May-games; and the other events
followed too rapidly to permit Fitzosborne to lay any plan for
introducing them to Lady Emma Darcy. On the day of the chase he resolved
to preserve his romantic disguise and attend the Lady Emma as a forester,
partly to have the pleasure of being near her, and partly to judge
whether, according to an idle report in the country, she favoured his
friend and comrade Fitzallen of Marden. This last motive, it may easily
be believed, he did not declare to the company. After the skirmish with
the ruffians, he waited till the baron and the hunters arrived, and then,
still doubting the further designs of Gaston, hastened to his castle to
arm the band which had escorted them to Queen-Hoo Hall.
Fitzosborne's story being finished, he received the thanks of all the
company, particularly of St. Clere, who felt deeply the respectful
delicacy with which he had conducted himself towards his sister. The lady
was carefully informed of her obligations to him; and it is left to the
well-judging reader whether even the raillery of Lady Eleanor made her
regret that Heaven had only employed natural means for her security, and
that the guardian angel was converted into a handsome, gallant, and
enamoured knight.
The joy of the company in the hall extended itself to the buttery, where
Gregory the jester narrated such feats of arms done by himself in the
fray of the morning as might have shamed Bevis and Guy of Warwick. He
was, according to his narrative, singled out for destruction by the
gigantic baron himself, while he abandoned to meaner hands the
destruction of St. Clere and Fitzosborne.
"But, certes," said he, "the foul paynim met his match; for, ever as he
foined at me with his brand, I parried his blows with my bauble, and
closing with him upon the third veny, threw him to the ground, and made
him cryrecreant to an unarmed man."
"Tush, man!" said Drawslot, "thou forgettest thy best auxiliaries, the
good greyhounds, Help and Holdfast! I warrant thee that when the
humpbacked baron caught thee by the cowl, which he hath almost torn off,
thou hadst been in a fair plight, had they not remembered an old friend
and come in to the rescue. Why, man, I found them fastened on him myself;
and there was odd staving and stickling to make them 'ware haunch!' Their
mouths were full of the flex, for I pulled a piece of the garment from
their jaws. I warrant thee that when they brought him to ground, thou
fledst like a frighted pricket."
"And as for Gregory's gigantic paynim," said Fabian, "why, he lies yonder
in the guard-room, the very size, shape, and colour of a spider in a
yewhedge."
"It is false!" said Gregory; "Colbrand the Dane was a dwarf to him."
"It is as true," returned Fabian, "as that the Tasker is to be married on
Tuesday to pretty Margery. Gregory, thy sheet hath brought them between a
pair of blankets."
"I care no more for such a gillflirt," said the Jester, "than I do for
thy leasings. Marry, thou hop-o'-my-thumb, happy wouldst thou be could
thy head reach the captive baron's girdle."
"By the Mass," said Peter Lanaret, "I will have one peep at this burly
gallant;" and leaving the buttery, he went to the guard-room where Gaston
St. Clere was confined. A man-at-arms, who kept sentinel on the strong
studded door of the apartment, said he believed he slept; for that after
raging, stamping, and uttering the most horrid imprecations, he had been
of late perfectly still. The falconer gently drew back a sliding board,
of a foot square, towards the top of the door, which covered a hole of
the same size, strongly latticed, through which the warder, without
opening the door, could look in upon his prisoner. From this aperture he
beheld the wretched Gaston suspended by the neck, by his own girdle, to
an iron ring in the side of his prison. He had clambered to it by means
of the table on which his food had been placed; and in the agonies of
shame and disappointed malice, had adopted this mode of ridding himself
of a wretched life. He was found yet warm, but totally lifeless. A proper
account of the manner of his death was drawn up and certified. He was
buried that evening in the chapel of the castle, out of respect to his
high birth; and the chaplain of Fitzallen of Marden, who said the service
upon the occasion, preached, the next Sunday, an excellent sermon upon
the text, "Radix malorum est cupiditas," which we have here transcribed.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Here the manuscript from which we have painfully transcribed, and
frequently, as it were, translated this tale, for the reader's
edification, is so indistinct and defaced that, excepting certain
"howbeits," "nathlesses," "lo ye's!" etc. we can pick out little that is
intelligible, saving that avarice is defined "a likourishness of heart
after earthly things."] A little farther there seems to have been a gay
account of Margery's wedding with Ralph the Tasker, the running at the
quintain, and other rural games practised on the occasion. There are also
fragments of a mock sermon preached by Gregory upon that occasion, as for
example:--
"Mv dear cursed caitiffs, there was once a king, and he wedded a young
old queen, and she had a child; and this child was sent to Solomon the
Sage, praying he would give it the same blessing which he got from the
witch of Endor when she bit him by the heel. Hereof speaks the worthy Dr.
Radigundus Potator. Why should not Mass be said for all the roasted shoe
souls served up in the king's dish on Saturday? For true it is that Saint
Peter asked father Adam, as they journeyed to Camelot, an high, great,
and doubtful question: 'Adam, Adam, why eated'st thou the apple without
paring?'"
[This tirade of gibberish is literally taken or selected from a mock
discourse pronounced by a professed jester, which occurs in an ancient
manuscript in the Advocates' Library, the same from which the late
ingenious Mr. Weber published the curious comic romance of the "Limiting
of the Hare." It was introduced in compliance with Mr. Strutt's plan of
rendering his tale an illustration of ancient manners. A similar
burlesque sermon is pronounced by the Fool in Sir David Lindesay's satire
of the "Three Estates." The nonsense and vulgar burlesque of that
composition illustrate the ground of Sir Andrew, Aguecheek's eulogy on
the exploits of the jester in "Twelfth Night," who, reserving his sharper
jests for Sir Toby, had doubtless enough of the jargon of his calling to
captivate the imbecility of his brother knight, who is made to exclaim:
"In sooth, thou wast in very gracious fooling last night when thou
spokest of Pigrogremitus, and of the vapours passing the equinoctials of
Quenbus; 't was very good, i' faith!" It is entertaining to find
commentators seeking to discover some meaning in the professional jargon
of such a passage as this.]
With much goodly gibberish to the same effect, which display of Gregory's
ready wit not only threw the whole company into convulsions of laughter,
but made such an impression on Rose, the Potter's daughter, that it was
thought it would be the jester's own fault if Jack was long without his
Jill. Much pithy matter concerning the bringing the bride to bed, the
loosing the bridegroom's points, the scramble which ensued for them, and
the casting of the stocking, is also omitted, from its obscurity.
The following song, which has been since borrowed by the worshipful
author of the famous "History of Fryar Bacon," has been with difficulty
deciphered. It seems to have been sung on occasion of carrying home the
bride.
BRIDAL SONG.
To the tune of "I have been a Fiddler," etc.
And did you not hear of a mirth befell
The morrow after a wedding-day,
And carrying a bride at home to dwell?
And away to Tewin, away, away!
The quintain was set, and the garlands were made,--
'T is pity old customs should ever decay;
And woe be to him that was horsed on a jade,
For he carried no credit away, away.
We met a consort of fiddle-de-dees;
We set them a cockhorse, and made them play
The winning of Bullen, and Upsey-fires,
And away to Tewin, away, away!
There was ne'er a lad in all the parish
That would go to the plough that day;
But on his fore-horse his wench he carries,
And away to Tewin, away, away!
The butler was quick, and the ale he did tap,
The maidens did make the chamber full gay;
The servants did give me a fuddling cup,
And I did carry 't away, away.
The smith of the town his liquor so took
That he was persuaded that the ground looked blue;
And I dare boldly be sworn on a book
Such smiths as he there 's but a few.
A posset was made, and the women did sip,
And simpering said they could eat no more;
Full many a maiden was laid on the lip,--
I'll say no more, but give o'er (give o'er).
But what our fair readers will chiefly regret is the loss of three
declarations of love: the first by St. Clore to Matilda, which, with the
lady's answer, occupies fifteen closely written pages of manuscript. That
of Fitzosborne to Emma is not much shorter; but the amours of Fitzallen
and Eleanor, being of a less romantic cast, are closed in three pages
only. The three noble couples were married in Queen-Hoo Hall upon the
same day, being the twentieth Sunday after Easter. There is a prolix
account of the marriage-feast, of which we can pick out the names of a
few dishes, such as peterel, crane, sturgeon, swan, etc., with a
profusion of wild-fowl and venison. We also see that a suitable song was
produced by Peretto on the occasion, and that the bishop, who blessed the
bridal beds which received the happy couples, was no niggard of his holy
water, bestowing half a gallon upon each of the couches. We regret we
cannot give these curiosities to the reader in detail, but we hope to
expose the manuscript to abler antiquaries, so soon as it shall be framed
and glazed by the ingenious artist who rendered that service to Mr.
Ireland's Shakspeare manuscripts. And so (being unable to lay aside the
style to which our pen is habituated), gentle reader, we bid thee
heartily farewell.
No. III.
ANECDOTE OF SCHOOL DAYS,
UPON WHICH MR. THOMAS SCOTT PROPOSED TO FOUND A TALE OF FICTION.
It is well known in the South that there is little or no boxing at the
Scottish schools. About forty or fifty years ago, however, a far more
dangerous mode of fighting, in parties or factions, was permitted in the
streets of Edinburgh, to the great disgrace of the police, and danger of
the parties concerned. These parties were generally formed from the
quarters of the town in which the combatants resided, those of a
particular square or district fighting against those of an adjoining one.
Hence it happened that the children of the higher classes were often
pitted against those of the lower, each taking their side according to
the residence of their friends. So far as I recollect, however, it was
unmingled either with feelings of democracy or aristocracy, or, indeed,
with malice or ill-will of any kind towards the opposite party. In fact,
it was only a rough mode of play. Such contests were, however, maintained
with great vigour with stones and sticks and fisticuffs, when one party
dared to charge, and the other stood their ground. Of course mischief
sometimes happened; boys are said to have been killed at these "bickers,"
as they were called, and serious accidents certainly took place, as many
contemporaries can bear witness.
The Author's father residing in George Square, in the southern side of
Edinburgh, the boys belonging to that family, with others in the square,
were arranged into a sort of company, to which a lady of distinction
presented a handsome set of colours. Now this company, or regiment, as a
matter of course, was engaged in weekly warfare with the boys inhabiting
the Crosscauseway, Bristo Street, the Potter Row,--in short, the
neighbouring suburbs. These last were chiefly of the lower rank, but
hardy loons, who threw stones to a hair's-breadth, and were very rugged
antagonists at close quarters. The skirmish sometimes lasted for a whole
evening, until one party or the other was victorious, when, if ours were
successful, we drove the enemy to their quarters, and were usually chased
back by the reinforcement of bigger lads who came to their assistance.
If, on the contrary, we were pursued, as was often the case, into the
precincts of our square, we were in our turn supported by our elder
brothers, domestic servants, and similar auxiliaries.
It followed, from our frequent opposition to each other, that though not
knowing the names of our enemies, we were yet well acquainted with their
appearance, and had nicknames for the most remarkable of them. One very
active and spirited boy might be considered as the principal leader in
the cohort of the suburbs. He was, I suppose, thirteen or fourteen years
old, finely made, tall, blue-eyed, with long fair hair, the very picture
of a youthful Goth. This lad was always first in the charge, and last in
the retreat,--the Achilles, at once, and Ajax of the Crosscauseway. He
was too formidable to us not to have a cognomen, and, like that of a
knight of old, it was taken from the most remarkable part of his dress,
being a pair of old green livery breeches, which was the principal part
of his clothing; for, like Pentapolin, according to Don Quixote's
account, Green-Breeks, as we called him, always entered the battle with
bare arms, legs, and feet.
It fell that once upon a time, when the combat was at the thickest, this
plebeian champion headed a sudden charge so rapid and furious that all
fled before him. He was several paces before his comrades, and had
actually laid his hands on the patrician standard, when one of our party,
whom some misjudging friend had intrusted with a couteau de chasse, or
hanger, inspired with a zeal for the honour of the corps worthy of Major
Sturgeon himself, struck poor Green-Breeks over the head with strength
sufficient to cut him down. When this was seen, the casualty was so far
beyond what had ever taken place before that both parties fled different
ways, leaving poor Green-Breeks, with his bright hair plentifully dabbled
in blood, to the care of the watchman, who (honest man) took care not to
know who had done the mischief. The bloody hanger was flung into one of
the Meadow ditches, and solemn secrecy was sworn on all hands; but the
remorse and terror of the actor were beyond all bounds, and his
apprehensions of the most dreadful character. The wounded hero was for a
few days in the Infirmary, the case being only a trifling one. But though
inquiry was strongly pressed on him, no argument could make him indicate
the person from whom he had received the wound, though he must have been
perfectly well known to him. When he recovered, and was dismissed, the
author and his brothers opened a communication with him, through the
medium of a popular gingerbread baker, of whom both parties were
customers, in order to tender a subsidy in name of smart-money. The sum
would excite ridicule were I to name it; but sure I am that the pockets
of the noted Green-Breeks never held as much money of his own. He
declined the remittance, saying that he would not sell his blood, but at
the same time reprobated the idea of being an informer, which, he said,
was "clam," i.e., base or mean. With much urgency, he accepted a pound of
snuff for the use of some old woman--aunt, grandmother, or the like--with
whom he lived. We did not become friends, for the bickers were more
agreeable to both parties than any more pacific amusement; but we
conducted them ever after under mutual assurances of the highest
consideration for each other.
Such was the hero whom Mr. Thomas Scott proposed to carry to Canada and
involve in adventures with the natives and colonists of that country.
Perhaps the youthful generosity of the lad will not seem so great in the
eyes of others as to those whom it was the means of screening from severe
rebuke and punishment. But it seemed, to those concerned, to argue a
nobleness of sentiment far beyond the pitch of most minds; and however
obscurely the lad, who showed such a frame of noble spirit, may have
lived or died, I cannot help being of opinion, that if fortune had placed
him in circumstances calling for gallantry or generosity, the man would
have fulfilled the promises of the boy. Long afterwards, when the story
was told to my father, he censured us severely for not telling the truth
at the time, that he might have attempted to be of use to the young man
in entering on life. But our alarms for the consequences of the drawn
sword, and the wound inflicted with such a weapon, were far too
predominant at the time for such a pitch of generosity.
Perhaps I ought not to have inserted this schoolboy tale; but besides the
strong impression made by the incident at the time, the whole
accompaniments of the story are matters to me of solemn and sad
recollection. Of all the little band who were concerned in those juvenile
sports or brawls, I can scarce recollect a single survivor. Some left the
ranks of mimic war to die in the active service of their country. Many
sought distant lands, to return no more. Others, dispersed in different
paths of life, "my dim eyes now seek for in vain." Of five brothers, all
healthy and promising in a degree far beyond one whose infancy was
visited by personal infirmity, and whose health after this period seemed
long very precarious, I am, nevertheless, the only survivor. The best
loved, and the best deserving to be loved, who had destined this incident
to be the foundation of literary composition, died "before his day," in a
distant and foreign land; and trifles assume an importance not their own,
when connected with those who have been loved and lost.
WAVERLEY;
OR,
'T IS SIXTY YEARS SINCE.
"Under which King, Bezonian? Speak, or die!"
Henry IV., Part II.
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION TO WAVERLEY.
"What is the value of a reputation that probably will not last above one
or two generations?" Sir Walter Scott once asked Ballantyne. Two
generations, according to the usual reckoning, have passed; "'T is Sixty
Years since" the "wondrous Potentate" of Wordsworth's sonnet died, yet
the reputation on which he set so little store survives. A constant tide
of new editions of his novels flows from the press; his plots give
materials for operas and plays; he has been criticised, praised,
condemned: but his romances endure amid the changes of taste, remaining
the delight of mankind, while new schools and little masters of fiction
come and go.
Scott himself believed that even great works usually suffer periods of
temporary occultation. His own, no doubt, have not always been in their
primitive vogue. Even at first, English readers complained of the
difficulty caused by his Scotch, and now many make his I "dialect" an
excuse for not reading books which their taste, debauched by third-rate
fiction, is incapable of enjoying. But Scott has never disappeared in one
of those irregular changes of public opinion remarked on by his friend
Lady Louisa Stuart. In 1821 she informed him that she had tried the
experiment of reading Mackenzie's "Man of Feeling" aloud: "Nobody cried,
and at some of the touches I used to think so exquisite, they
laughed."--[Abbotsford Manuscripts.]--His correspondent requested Scott
to write something on such variations of taste, which actually seem to be
in the air and epidemic, for they affect, as she remarked, young people
who have not heard the criticisms of their elders.--[See Scott's reply,
with the anecdote about Mrs. Aphra Behn's novels, Lockhart, vi. 406
(edition of 1839).]--Thus Rousseau's "Nouvelle Heloise," once so
fascinating to girls, and reputed so dangerous, had become tedious to the
young, Lady Louisa says, even in 1821. But to the young, if they have any
fancy and intelligence, Scott is not tedious even now; and probably his
most devoted readers are boys, girls, and men of matured appreciation and
considerable knowledge of literature. The unformed and the cultivated
tastes are still at one about Scott. He holds us yet with his
unpremeditated art, his natural qualities of friendliness, of humour, of
sympathy. Even the carelessness with which his earliest and his kindest
critics--Ellis, Erskine, and Lady Louisa Stuart--reproached him has not
succeeded in killing his work and diminishing his renown.
It is style, as critics remind us, it is perfection of form, no doubt,
that secure the permanence of literature; but Scott did not overstate his
own defects when he wrote in his Journal (April 22, 1826): "A solecism in
point of composition, like a Scotch word, is indifferent to me. I never
learned grammar. . . . I believe the bailiff in 'The Goodnatured Man' is
not far wrong when he says: 'One man has one way of expressing himself,
and another another; and that is all the difference between them.'" The
difference between Scott and Thackeray or Flaubert among good writers,
and a crowd of self-conscious and mannered "stylists" among writers not
so very good, is essential. About Shakspeare it was said that he "never
blotted a line." The observation is almost literally true about Sir
Walter. The pages of his manuscript novels show scarcely a retouch or an
erasure, whether in the "Waverley" fragment of 1805 or the unpublished
"Siege of Malta" of 1832.
[A history of Scott's Manuscripts, with good fac-similes, will be found
in the Catalogue of the Scott Exhibition, Edinburgh, 1872.]
The handwriting becomes closer and smaller; from thirty-eight lines to
the page in "Waverley," he advances to between fifty and sixty in
"Ivanhoe." The few alterations are usually additions. For example, a
fresh pedantry of the Baron of Bradwardine's is occasionally set down on
the opposite page. Nothing can be less like the method of Flaubert or the
method of Mr. Ruskin, who tells us that "a sentence of 'Modern Painters'
was often written four or five tunes over in my own hand, and tried in
every word for perhaps an hour,--perhaps a forenoon,--before it was
passed for the printer." Each writer has his method; Scott was no
stipples or niggler, but, as we shall see later, he often altered much in
his proof-sheets.
[While speaking of correction, it may be noted that Scott, in his
"Advertisement" prefixed to the issue of 1829, speaks of changes made in
that collected edition. In "Waverley" these emendations are very rare,
and are unimportant. A few callidae juncturae are added, a very few lines
are deleted. The postscript of the first edition did not contain the
anecdote about the hiding-place of the manuscript among the fishing
tackle. The first line of Flora Macdonald's battle-song (chapter xxii.)
originally ran, "Mist darkens the mountain, night darkens the vale," in
place of "There is mist on the mountain and mist on the vale." For the
rest, as Scott says, "where the tree falls it must lie."]
As long as he was understood, he was almost reckless of well-constructed
sentences, of the one best word for his meaning, of rounded periods. This
indifference is not to be praised, but it is only a proof of his
greatness that his style, never distinguished, and often lax, has not
impaired the vitality of his prose. The heart which beats in his works,
the knowledge of human nature, the dramatic vigour of his character, the
nobility of his whole being win the day against the looseness of his
manner, the negligence of his composition, against the haste of fatigue
which set him, as Lady Louisa Stuart often told him, on "huddling up a
conclusion anyhow, and so kicking the book out of his way." In this
matter of denouements he certainly was no more careful than Shakspeare or
Moliere.
The permanence of Sir Walter's romances is proved, as we said, by their
survival among all the changes of fashion in the art of fiction. When he
took up his pen to begin "Waverley," fiction had not absorbed, as it does
to-day, almost all the best imaginative energy of English or foreign
writers. Now we hear of "art" on every side, and every novelist must give
the world his opinion about schools and methods. Scott, on the other
hand, lived in the greatest poetical ago since that of Elizabeth. Poetry
or the drama (in which, to be sure, few succeeded) occupied Wordsworth,
Byron, Coleridge, Shelley, Crabbe, Campbell, and Keats. Then, as Joanna
Baillie hyperbolically declared, "The Scotch novels put poetry out of
fashion."
[Abbotsford Manuscripts. Hogg averred that nobody either read or wrote
poetry after Sir Walter took to prose.]
Till they appeared, novels seem to have been left to readers like the
plaintive lady's-maid whom Scott met at Dalkeith, when he beheld "the
fair one descend from the carriage with three half-bound volumes of a
novel in her hand." Mr. Morritt, writing to Scott in March, 1815, hopes
he will "restore pure narrative to the dignity from which it gradually
slipped before it dwindled into a manufactory for the circulating
library." "Waverley," he asserted, "would prevail over people otherwise
averse to blue-backed volumes." Thus it was an unconsidered art which
Scott took up and revived. Half a century had passed since Fielding gave
us in "Tom Jones" his own and very different picture of life in the
"'forty-five,"--of life with all the romance of the "Race to Derby" cut
down to a sentence or two. Since the age of the great English novelists,
Richardson and Fielding and Miss Burney, the art of fiction had been
spasmodically alive in the hands of Mrs. Radcliffe, had been sentimental
with Henry Mackenzie, and now was all but moribund, save for the humorous
Irish sketches of Miss Edgeworth. As Scott always insisted, it was mainly
"the extended and well-merited fame of Miss Edgeworth" which induced him
to try his hand on a novel containing pictures of Scottish life and
character. Nothing was more remarkable in his own novels than the
blending of close and humorous observation of common life with pleasure
in adventurous narratives about "what is not so, and was not so, and
Heaven forbid that it ever should be so," as the girl says in the nursery
tale. Through his whole life he remained the dreamer of dreams and teller
of wild legends, who had held the lads of the High School entranced round
Luckie Brown's fireside, and had fleeted the summer days in interchange
of romances with a schoolboy friend, Mr. Irving, among the hills that
girdle Edinburgh. He ever had a passion for "knights and ladies and
dragons and giants," and "God only knows," he says, "how delighted I was
to find myself in such society." But with all this delight, his
imagination had other pleasures than the fantastic: the humours and
passions of ordinary existence were as clearly visible to him as the
battles, the castles, and the giants. True, he was more fastidious in his
choice of novels of real life than in his romantic reading. "The whole
Jemmy and Jessamy tribe I abhorred," he said; "and it required the art of
Burney or the feeling of Mackenzie to fix my attention upon a domestic
tale." But when the domestic tale was good and true, no man appreciated
it more than he. None has more vigorously applauded Miss Austen than
Scott, and it was thus that as the "Author of 'Waverley'" he addressed
Miss Edgeworth, through James Ballantyne: "If I could but hit it, Miss
Edgeworth's wonderful power of vivifying all her persons, and making
there live as beings in your mind, I should not be afraid." "Often,"
Ballantyne goes on, "has the Author of 'Waverley' used such language to
me; and I knew that I gratified him most when I could say, 'Positively,
this is equal to Miss Edgeworth.'"
Thus Scott's own taste was catholic: and in this he was particularly
unlike the modern novelists, who proclaim, from both sides of the
Atlantic, that only in their own methods, and in sharing their own
exclusive tastes, is literary salvation. The prince of Romance was no
one-sided romanticiste; his ear was open to all fiction good in its kind.
His generosity made him think Miss Edgeworth's persons more alive than
his own. To his own romances he preferred Mrs. Shelley's "Frankenstein."
[Scott reviewed "Frankenstein" in 1818. Mr. Shelley had sent it with a
brief note, it, which he said that it was the work of a friend, and that
he had only seen it through the press. Sir Walter passed the hook on to
Mr. Murritt, who, in reply, gave Scott a brief and not very accurate
history of Shelley. Sir Walter then wrote a most favourable review of
"Frankenstein" in "Blackwood's Magazine," observing that it was
attributed to Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley, a son-in-law of Mr. Godwin. Mrs.
Shelley presently wrote thanking him for the review, and assuring him
that it was her own work. Scott had apparently taken Sheller's disclaimer
as an innocent evasion; it was an age of literary superscheries.
--Abbotsford Manuscripts.]
As a critic, of course, he was mistaken; but his was the generous error
of the heart, and it is the heart in Walter Scott, even more than the
brain, that lends its own vitality to his creations. Equipped as he was
with a taste truly catholic, capable in old age of admiring "Pelham," he
had the power to do what he calls "the big bow-wow strain;" yet he was
not, as in his modesty he supposed, denied "the exquisite torch which
renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the
truth of the description and the sentiment."
The letter of Rose Bradwardine to Waverley is alone enough to disprove
Scott's disparagement of himself, his belief that he had been denied
exquisiteness of touch. Nothing human is more delicate, nothing should be
more delicately handled, than the first love of a girl. What the
"analytical" modern novelist would pass over and dissect and place
beneath his microscope till a student of any manliness blushes with shame
and annoyance, Scott suffers Rose Bradwardine to reveal with a sensitive
shyness. But Scott, of course, had even less in common with the peeper
and botanizer on maidens' hearts than with the wildest romanticist. He
considered that "a want of story is always fatal to a book the first
reading, and it is well if it gets a chance of a second." From him "Pride
and Prejudice" got a chance of three readings at least. This generous
universality of taste, in addition to all his other qualities of humour
and poetry, enabled Scott to raise the novel from its decadence, and to
make the dry bones of history live again in his tales. With Charles
Edward at Holyrood, as Mr. Senior wrote in the "Quarterly Review," "we
are in the lofty region of romance. In any other hands than those of Sir
Walter Scott, the language and conduct of those great people would have
been as dignified as their situations. We should have heard nothing of
the hero in his new costume 'majoring afore the muckle pier-glass,' of
his arrest by the hint of the Candlestick, of his examination by the
well-powdered Major Melville, or of his fears of being informed against
by Mrs. Nosebag." In short, "while the leading persons and events are as
remote from ordinary life as the inventions of Scudery, the picture of
human nature is as faithful as could have been given by Fielding or Le
Sage." Though this criticism has not the advantage of being new, it is
true; and when we have added that Scott's novels are the novels of the
poet who, next to Shakspeare, knew mankind most widely and well, we have
the secret of his triumph.
For the first time in literature, it was a poet who held the pen of the
romancer in prose. Fielding, Richardson, De Foe, Miss Rurnev, were none
of them made by the gods poetical. Scott himself, with his habitual
generosity, would have hailed his own predecessor in Mrs. Radcliffe. "The
praise may be claimed for Mrs. Radcliffe of having been the first to
introduce into her prose fictions a beautiful and fanciful tone of
natural description and impressive narrative, which had hitherto been
exclusively applied to poetry. . . . Mrs. Radcliffe has a title to be
considered the first poetess of romantic fiction." When "Guy Mannering"
appeared, Wordsworth sneered at it as a work of the Radcliffe school. The
slight difference produced by the introduction of humour could scarcely
be visible to Wordsworth. But Scott would not have been hurt by his
judgment. He had the literary courage to recognize merit even when
obscured by extravagance, and to applaud that in which people of culture
could find neither excellence nor charm. Like Thackeray, he had been
thrilled by Vivaidi in the Inquisition, and he was not the man to hide
his gratitude because his author was now out of fashion.
Thus we see that Scott, when he began "Waverley" in 1805, brought to his
labour no hard-and-fast theory of the art of fiction, but a kindly
readiness to be pleased, and to find good in everything. He brought his
wide knowledge of contemporary Scottish life "from the peer to the
ploughman;" he brought his well-digested wealth of antiquarian lore, and
the poetic skill which had just been busied with the "Lay of the Last
Minstrel," and was still to be occupied, ere he finished his interrupted
novel, with "Marmion," "The Lady of the Lake," "Rokeby," and "The Lord of
the Isles." The comparative failure of the last-named no doubt
strengthened his determination to try prose romance. He had never cared
mach for his own poems, he says, Byron had outdone him in popularity, and
the Muse--"the Good Demon" who once deserted Herrick--came now less
eagerly to his call. It is curiously difficult to disentangle the
statements about the composition of "Waverley." Our first authority, of
course, is Scott's own account, given in the General Preface to the
Edition of 1829. Lockhart, however, remarks on the haste with which Sir
Walter wrote the Introductions to the magnum opus; and the lapse of
fifteen years, the effects of disease, and his habitual carelessness
about his own works and mode of working may certainly to some extent have
clouded his memory. "About the year 1805," as he says, he "threw together
about one third part of the first volume of 'Waverley.'" It was
advertised to be published, he goes on, by Ballantvne, with the second
title, "'T is Fifty Years since." This, obviously, would have made 1755
the date of the events, just as the title "'T is Sixty Years since" in
1814 brought the date of the events to 1754. By inspecting the water-mark
of the paper Lockhart discovered that 1805 was the period in which the
first few chapters were composed; the rest of the paper was marked 1814.
Scott next observes that the unfavourable opinion of a critical friend on
the first seven chapters induced him to lay the manuscript aside. Who was
this friend? Lockhart thinks it was Erskine. It is certain, from a letter
of Ballantyne's at Abbotsford,--a letter printed by Lockhart, September
15, 1810,--that Ballantyne in 1810 saw at least the earlier portions of
"Waverley," and it is clear enough that he had seen none of it before. If
any friend did read it in 1805, it cannot have been Ballantyne, and may
have been Erskine. But none of the paper bears a water-mark, between 1805
and 1813, so Scott must merely have taken it up, in 1810, as it had been
for five years. Now Scott says that the success of "The Lady of the
Lake," with its Highland pictures, induced him "to attempt something of
the same sort in prose." This, as Lockhart notes, cannot refer to 1805,
as the "Lady of the Lake" did not appear till 1810. But the good fortune
of the "Lady" may very well have induced him in 1810 to reconsider his
Highland prose romance. In 1808, as appears from an undated letter to
Surtees of Mainsforth (Abbotsford Manuscripts), he was contemplating a
poem on "that wandering knight so fair," Charles Edward, and on the
adventures of his flight, on Lochiel, Flora Macdonald, the Kennedys, and
the rest. Earlier still, on June 9, 1806, Scott wrote to Lady Abercorn
that he had "a great work in contemplation, a Highland romance of love,
magic, and war." "The Lady of the Lake" took the place of that poem in
his "century of inventions," and, stimulated by the popularity of his
Highland romance in verse, he disinterred the last seven chapters of
"Waverley" from their five years of repose. Very probably, as he himself
hints, the exercise of fitting a conclusion to Strutt's "Queenloo Hall"
may have helped to bring his fancy back to his own half-forgotten story
of "Waverley." In 1811 Scott went to Abbotsford, and there, as he tells
us, he lost sight of his "Waverley" fragment. Often looked for, it was
never found, till the accident of a search for fishing-tackle led him to
discover it in the drawer of an old bureau in a lumber-garret. This
cabinet afterwards came into the possession of Mr. William Laidlaw,
Scott's friend and amanuensis, and it is still, the Editor understands,
in the hands of Miss Laidlaw. The fishing-tackle, Miss Laidlaw tells the
Editor (mainly red hackles, tied on hair, not gut), still occupies the
drawer, except a few flies which were given, as relics, to the late Mr.
Thomas Tod Stoddart. In 1813, then, volume i. of "Waverley" was finished.
Then Scott undertook some articles for Constable, and laid the novel
aside. The printing, at last, must have been very speedy. Dining in
Edinburgh, in June, 1814, Lockhart saw "the hand of Walter Scott" busy at
its task. "Page after page is finished, and thrown on the heap of
manuscripts, and still it goes on unwearied." The book was published on
July 7, the press hardly keeping up with the activity of the author.
Scott had written "two volumes in three summer weeks" and the printers
had not shown less activity, while binders and stitchers must have worked
extra tides.
"Waverley" was published without the Author's name. Scott's reasons for
being anonymous have been stated by himself. "It was his humour,"--that
is the best of the reasons and the secret gave him a great deal of
amusement. The Ballantynes, of course, knew it from the first; so did Mr.
Morritt, Lady Louisa Stuart, and Lord and Lady Montague, and others were
gradually admitted. In an undated letter, probably of November, 1816,
Scott says to the Marchioness of Abercorn, a most intimate friend: "I
cannot even conjecture whom you mean by Mr. Mackenzie as author of 'The
Antiquary.' I should think my excellent old friend Mr. Harry Mackenzie
[author of the 'Man of Feeling,' etc.] was too much advanced in years and
plugged in business to amuse himself by writing novels; and besides, the
style in no degree resembles his." (Lady Abercorn meant 'Young Harry
Mackenzie,' not the patriarch.) "I am told one of the English reviews
gives these works by name and upon alleged authority to George Forbes,
Sir William's brother; so they take them off my hands, I don't care who
they turn to, for I am really tired of an imputation which I am under the
necessity of confuting at every corner. Tom will soon be home from
Canada, as the death of my elder brother has left him a little money. He
may answer for himself, but I hardly suspect him, unless much changed, to
be Possessed of the perseverance necessary to write nine volumes." Scott
elsewhere rather encouraged the notion that his brother Thomas was the
author, and tried to make him exert himself and enter the field as a
rival. Gossip also assigned the "Scotch novels" to Jeffrey, to Mrs.
Thomas Scott, aided by her husband and Sir Walter, to a Dr. Greenfield, a
clergyman, and to many others. Sir Walter humorously suggested George
Cranstoun as the real offender. After the secret was publicly confessed,
Lady Louisa Stuart reminded Scott of all the amusement it had given them.
"Old Mortality" had been pronounced "too good" for Scott, and free from
his "wearisome descriptions of scenery." Clever people had detected
several separate hands in "Old Mortality," as in the Iliad. All this was
diverting. Moreover, Scott was in some degree protected from the bores
who pester a successful author. He could deny the facts very stoutly,
though always, as he insists, With the reservation implied in alleging
that, if he had been the author, he would still have declined to confess.
In the notes to later novels we shall see some of his "great denials."
The reception of "Waverley" was enthusiastic. Large editions were sold in
Edinburgh, and when Scott returned from his cruise in the northern
islands he found society ringing with his unacknowledged triumph. Byron,
especially, proclaimed his pleasure in "Waverley." It may be curious to
recall some of the published reviews of the moment. Probably no author
ever lived so indifferent to published criticism as Scott. Miss
Edgeworth, in one of her letters, reminds him how they had both agreed
that writers who cared for the dignity and serenity of their characters
should abstain from "that authors' bane-stuff." "As to the herd of
critics," Scott wrote to Miss Seward, after publishing "The Lay," "many
of those gentlemen appear to me to be a set of tinkers, who, unable to
make pots and pans, set up for menders of them." It is probable,
therefore, that he was quite unconcerned about the few remarks which Mr.
Gifford, in the "Quarterly Review" (vol. xl., 1814), interspersed among a
multitude of extracts, in a notice of "Waverley" manufactured with
scissors and paste. The "Quarterly" recognized "a Scotch Castle
Rackrent," but in "a much higher strain." The tale was admitted to
possess all the accuracy of history, and all the vivacity of romance.
Scott's second novel, "Guy Mannering," was attacked with some viciousness
in the periodical of which he was practically the founder, and already
the critic was anxious to repeat what Scott, talking of Pope's censors,
calls "the cuckoo cry of written out'!" The notice of "Waverley" in the
"Edinburgh Review" by Mr. Jeffrey was not so slight and so unworthy of
the topic. The novel was declared, and not unjustly, to be "very hastily,
and in many places very unskilfully, written." The Scotch was decried as
"unintelligible" dialect by the very reviewer who had accused "Marmion"
of not being Scotch enough. But the "Edinburgh" applauded "the
extraordinary fidelity and felicity" with which all the inferior agents
in the story are represented. "Fastidious readers" might find Callum Beg
and Mrs. Nosebag and the Cumberland peasants "coarse and disgusting,"
said the reviewer, who must have had in his imagination readers extremely
superfine. He objected to the earlier chapters as uninteresting,
and--with justice--to the passages where the author speaks in "the smart
and flippant style of modern makers of paragraphs." "These form a strange
and humiliating contrast with the force and freedom of his manner when
engaged in those dramatic and picturesque representations to which his
genius so decidedly inclines." He spoke severely of the places where
Scott explains the circumstances of Waverley's adventures before he
reaches Edinburgh; and Scott himself, in his essay on Mrs. Radcliffe,
regrets that explanatory chapters had ever been invented. The reviewer
broadly hints his belief that Scott is the author; and on the whole,
except for a cautious lack of enthusiasm, the notice is fair and kindly.
The "Monthly Review" differed not much from the Blue and Yellow (the
"Edinburgh Review").
"It is not one of the least merits of this very uncommon production that
all the subordinate characters are touched with the same discriminating
force which so strongly marks their principals; and that in this manner
almost every variety of station and interest, such as existed at the
period under review, is successively brought before the mind of the
reader in colours vivid as the original.
"A few oversights, we think, we have detected in the conduct of the story
which ought not to remain unnoticed. For example, the age of Stanley and
Lady Emily does not seem well to accord with the circumstances of their
union, as related in the commencement of the work; and we are not quite
satisfied that Edward should have been so easily reconciled to the
barbarous and stubborn prejudices which precluded even the office of
intercession for his gallant friend and companion-in-arms.
"The pieces of poetry which are not very profusely scattered through
these volumes can scarcely fail to be ascribed to Mr. Scott, whatever may
be judged of the body of the work. In point of comparative merit, we
should class them neither with the highest nor with the meanest effusions
of his lyric minstrelsy."
Lord Byron's "Grandmother's Review, the British," was also friendly and
sagacious, in its elderly way.
"We request permission, therefore, to introduce 'Waverley,' a publication
which has already excited considerable interest in the sister kingdom, to
the literary world on this side the Tweed.
"A very short time has elapsed since this publication made its appearance
in Edinburgh, and though it came into the world in the modest garb of
anonymous obscurity, the Northern literati are unanimous, we understand,
in ascribing part of it, at, least, to the pen of W. Scott.
"We are unwilling to consider this publication in the light of a common
novel whose fate it is to be devoured with rapidity for a day, and
afterwards forgotten forever, but as a vehicle of curious and accurate
information upon a subject which must at all times demand our
attention,--the history and manners of a very large and renowned portion
of the inhabitants of these islands. We would recommend this tale as
faithfully embodying the lives, the manners, and the opinions of this
departed race, and as affording those features of ancient days which no
man probably, besides its author, has had the means to collect, the
desire to preserve, or the power to portray.
"Although there are characters sufficient to awaken the attention and to
diversify the scenes, yet they are not in sufficient number to perplex
the memory or to confuse the incidents. Their spirit is well kept up till
the very last, and they relieve one another with so much art that the
reader will not find himself wearied even with the pedantic jargon of the
old Baron of Bradwardine.
"Of Waverley himself we shall say but little, as his character is far too
common to need a comment; we can only say that his wanderings are not
gratuitous, nor is he wavering and indecisive only because the author
chooses to make him so. Every feature in his character is formed by
education, and it is to this first source that we are constantly referred
for a just and sufficient cause of all the wandering passions as they
arise in his mind.
"The secondary personages are drawn with much spirit and fidelity, and
with a very striking knowledge of the peculiarities of the Scotch temper
and disposition. The incidents are all founded on fact, and the
historical parts are related with much accuracy. The livelier scenes
which are displayed are of the most amusing species, because they flow so
naturally from the personages before us that the characters, not the
author, appear to speak. A strong vein of very original humour marks the
whole: in most instances it is indeed of a local and particular nature,
but in many cases it assumes a more general appearance.
"Of the more serious portions we can speak with unqualified approbation;
the very few pathetic scenes which occur are short, dignifed, and
affecting. The love-scenes are sufficiently contracted to produce that
very uncommon sensation in the mind,--a wish that they were longer.
"The religious opinions expressed in the course of the tale are few, but
of those few we fully approve.
"The humorous and happy adaptation of legal terns shows no moderate
acquaintance with the arcana of the law, and a perpetual allusion to the
English and Latin classics no common share of scholarship and taste."
The "Scots Magazine" illustrated the admirable unanimity of reviewers
when they are unanimous. The "Anti-Jacobin" objected that no
Chateau-Margaux sent in the wood from Bordeaux to Dundee in 1713 could
have been drinkable in 1741. "Claret two-and-thirty years old! It almost
gives us the gripes to think of it." Indeed, Sir Walter, as Lochhart
assures us, was so far from being a judge of claret that he could not
tell when it was "corked." One or two points equally important amused the
reviewer, who, like most of his class, detected the hand of Scott. There
was hardly a possibility, as Mr. Morritt told Sir Walter, "that the poems
in "Waverley" could fail to suggest their author. No man who ever heard
you tell a story over a table but must recognize you at once." To his
praise of "Waverley" Mr. Morritt hardly added any adverse criticism,
beyond doubting the merit of the early chapters, and denouncing the word
"sombre" as one which had lately "kept bad company among the slipshod
English of the sentimental school." Scott, in defence, informed Mr.
Morritt that he had "left the story to flag in the first volume on
purpose. . . . I wished (with what success Heaven knows) to avoid the
ordinary error of novelists, whose first volume is usually their best."
It must be admitted that if Scott wished to make "Waverley" "flag" in the
beginning, he succeeded extremely well,--too well for many modern
readers, accustomed to a leap into the midst of the story. "These
introductory chapters," he observes in a note on the fifth of them, "have
been a good deal censured as tedious and unnecessary; yet there are
circumstances recorded in them which the Author has not been able to
persuade himself to retract or cancel." These "circumstances" are
probably the studies of Waverley, his romantic readings, which are really
autobiographic. Scott was, apparently, seriously of opinion that the
"mental discipline" of a proper classical education would have been
better for himself than his own delightfully desultory studies.
Ballantyne could not see what Waverley's reading had to do with his
adventures and character. Scott persisted in being of another mind. He
himself, writing to Morritt, calls his hero "a sneaking piece of
imbecility;" but he probably started with loftier intentions of
"psychological analysis" than he fulfilled. He knew, and often said, in
private letters, as in published works, that he was no hand at a
respectable hero. Borderers, buccaneers, robber, and humorsome people,
like Dugald Dalgetty and Bailie Nicol Jarvie and Macwheeble, whom he said
he preferred to any person in "Waverley," were the characters he
delighted in. We may readily believe that Shakspeare too preferred
Jacques and the Fat Knight to Orlando or the favoured lover of Anne Page.
Your hero is a difficult person to make human,--unless, indeed, he has
the defects of Pendennis or Tom Jones. But it is likely enough that the
Waverley whom Scott had in his mind in 1805 was hardly the Waverley of
1813. His early English chapters are much in the ordinary vein of novels
as they were then written; in those chapters come the "asides" by the
author which the "Edinburgh Review" condemned. But there remains the
kindly, honourable Sir Everard, while the calm atmosphere of English
meadows, and the plump charms of Miss Cecilia Stubbs, are intended as
foils to the hills of the North, the shy refinement of Rose, and the
heroic heart of Flora Mac-Ivor. Scott wished to show the remote extremes
of civilization and mental habit co-existing in the same island of
Scotland and England. Yet we regret such passages as "craving pardon for
my heroics, which I am unable in certain cases to resist giving way to,"
and so forth. Scott was no Thackeray, no Fielding, and failed (chiefly in
"Waverley") when he attempted the mood of banter, which one of his
daughters, a lady "of Beatrice's mind," "never got from me," he observes.
In any serious, attempt to criticise "Waverley" as a whole, it is not
easy to say whether we should try to put ourselves at the point of view
of its first readers, or whether we should look at it from the
vantage-ground of to-day. In 1811 the dead world of clannish localty was
fresh in many memories. Scott's own usher had often spoken with a person
who had seen Cromwell enter Edinburgh after Dunbar. He himself knew
heroes of the Forty-five, and his friend Lady Louisa Stuart had been well
acquainted with Miss Walkinshaw, sister of the mistress of Charles
Edward. To his generation those things were personal memories, which to
us seem as distant as the reign of Men-Ka-Ra. They could not but be
"carried off their feet" by such pictures of a past still so near them.
Nor had they other great novelists to weaken the force of Scott's
impressions. They had not to compare him with the melancholy mirth of
Thackeray, and the charm, the magic of his style. Balzac was of the
future; of the future was the Scott of France,--the boyish, the witty,
the rapid, the brilliant, the inexhaustible Dumas. Scott's generation had
no scruples abort "realism," listened to no sermons on the glory of the
commonplace; like Dr. Johnson, they admired a book which "was amusing as
a fairy-tale." But we are overwhelmed with a wealth of comparisons, and
deafened by a multitude of homilies on fiction, and distracted, like the
people in the Erybyggja Saga, by the strange rising and setting, and the
wild orbits of new "weirdmoons" of romance. Before we can make up our
minds on Scott, we have to remember, or forget, the scornful patronage of
one critic, the over-subtlety and exaggerations of another, the more than
papal infallibility of a third. Perhaps the best critic would be an
intelligent school-boy, with a generous heart and an unspoiled
imagination. As his remarks are not accessible, as we must try to judge
"Waverley" like readers inured to much fiction and much criticism, we
must confess, no doubt, that the commencement has the faults which the
first reviewers detected, and it which Scott acknowledged. He is
decidedly slow in getting to business, as they say; he began with more of
conscious ethical purpose than he went on, and his banter is poor. But
when once we enter the village of Tully-Veolan, the Magician finds his
wand. Each picture of place or person tells,--the old butler, the daft
Davie Gellatley, the solemn and chivalrous Baron, the pretty natural
girl, the various lairds, the factor Macwheeble,--all at once become
living people, and friends whom we can never lose. The creative fire of
Shakspeare lives again. The Highlanders--Evan Dhu, Donald Bean Lean, his
charming daughter, Callum Beg, and all the rest--are as natural as the
Lowlanders. In Fergus and Flora we feel, indeed, at first, that the
author has left his experience behind, and is giving us creatures of
fancy. But they too become human and natural,--Fergus in his moods of
anger, ambition, and final courageous resignation; Flora, in her grief.
As for Waverley, his creator was no doubt too hard on him. Among the
brave we hear that he was one of the bravest, though Scott always wrote
his battlepieces in a manner to suggest no discomfort, and does not give
us particular details of Waverley's prowess. He has spirit enough, this
"sneaking piece of imbecility," as he shows in his quarrel with Fergus,
on the march to Derby. Waverley, that creature of romance, considered as
a lover, is really not romantic enough. He loved Rose because she loved
him,--which is confessed to be unheroic behaviour. Scott, in "Waverley,"
certainly does not linger over love-scenes. With Mr. Ruskin, we may say:
"Let it not be thought for an instant that the slight and sometimes
scornful glance with which Scott passes over scenes, which a novelist of
our own day would have analyzed with the airs of a philosopher, and
painted with the curiosity of a gossip, indicates any absence in his
heart of sympathy with the great and sacred elements of personal
happiness." But his mind entertained other themes of interest, "loyalty,
patriotism, piety." On the other hand, it is necessary to differ from Mr.
Ruskin when he says that Scott "never knew 'l'amor che move 'l sol e l'
altre stelle.'" He whose heart was "broken for two years," and retained
the crack till his dying day, he who, when old and tired, and near his
death, was yet moved by the memory of the name which thirty years before
he had cut in Runic characters on the turf at the Castle-gate of St.
Andrew, knew love too well to write of it much, or to speak of it at all.
He had won his ideal as alone the ideal can be won; he never lost her:
she was with him always, because she had been unattainable. "There are
few," he says, "who have not, at one period of life, broken ties of love
and friendship, secret disappointments of the heart, to mourn over,--and
we know no book which recalls the memory of them more severely than
'Julia de Roubigne.'" He could not be very eager to recall them, he who
had so bitterly endured them, and because he had known and always knew
"l'amor che move 'l sol e l'altre stelle," a seal was on his lips, a
silence broken only by a caress of Di Vernon's.'
This apology we may make, if an apology be needed, for what modern
readers may think the meagreness of the love-passages in Scott. He does
not deal in embraces and effusions, his taste is too manly; he does not
dwell much on Love, because, like the shepherd in Theocritus, he has
found him an inhabitant of the rocks. Moreover, when Scott began
novel-writing, he was as old as Thackeray when Thackeray said that while
at work on a love-scene he blushed so that you would think he was going
into an apoplexy. "Waverley" stands by its pictures of manners, of
character, by its humour and its tenderness, by its manly "criticism of
life," by its touches of poetry, so various, so inspired, as in Davie
Gellatley with his songs, and Charles Edward in the gallant hour of
Holyrood, and Flora with her high, selfless hopes and broken heart, and
the beloved Baron, bearing his lot "with a good-humoured though serious
composure." "To be sure, we may say with Virgilius Maro, 'Fuimus Troes'
and there 's the end of an auld sang. But houses and families and men
have a' stood lang eneugh when they have stood till they fall with
honour."
"Waverley" ends like a fairy-tale, while real life ever ends like a
Northern saga. But among the good things that make life bearable, such
fairy-tales are not the least precious, and not the least enduring.
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
Volume I.
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 IV
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 exhortations to Edward to preserve an unblemished life and morals,
to hold fast the principles of the Christian religion, and to eschew the
profane company of scoffers and latitudinarians, too much abounding in
the army, were not unmingled with his political prejudices. It had
pleased Heaven, he said, to place Scotland (doubtless for the sins of
their ancestors in 1642) in a more deplorable state of darkness than even
this unhappy kingdom of England. Here, at least, although the candlestick
of the Church of England had been in some degree removed from its place,
it yet afforded a glimmering light; there was a hierarchy, though
schismatical, and fallen from the principles maintained by those great
fathers of the church, Sancroft and his brethren; there was a liturgy,
though 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 his wing,
And strap him on to my lunzie string,
Right seldom would I fail.
After an ineffectual attempt to recover the second verse, he sung the
first over again; and, in prosecution of his triumph, declared there was
'more sense in that than in all the derry-dongs of France, and Fifeshire
to the boot of it.' The Baron only answered with a long pinch of snuff
and a glance of infinite contempt. But those noble allies, the Bear and
the Hen, had emancipated the young laird from the habitual reverence in
which he held Bradwardine at other times. He pronounced the claret
shilpit, and demanded brandy with great vociferation. It was brought; and
now the Demon of Politics envied even the harmony arising from this Dutch
concert, merely because there was not a wrathful note in the strange
compound of sounds which it produced. Inspired by her, the Laird of
Balmawhapple, now superior to the nods and winks with which the Baron of
Bradwardine, in delicacy to Edward, had hitherto checked his entering
upon political discussion, demanded a bumper, with the lungs of a
Stentor, 'to the little gentleman in black velvet who did such service in
1702, and may the white horse break his neck over a mound of his making!'
Edward was not at that moment clear-headed enough to remember that King
William's fall, which occasioned his death, was said to be owing to his
horse stumbling at a mole-hill; yet felt inclined to take umbrage at a
toast which seemed, from the glance of Balmawhapple's eye, to have a
peculiar and uncivil reference to the Government which he served. But,
ere he could interfere, the Baron of Bradwardine had taken up the
quarrel. 'Sir,' he said, 'whatever my sentiments tanquam privatus may be
in such matters, I shall not tamely endure your saying anything that may
impinge upon the honourable feelings of a gentleman under my roof. Sir,
if you have no respect for the laws of urbanity, do ye not respect the
military oath, the sacramentum militare, by which every officer is bound
to the standards under which he is enrolled? Look at Titus Livius, what
he says of those Roman soldiers who were so unhappy as exuere
sacramentum, to renounce their legionary oath; but you are ignorant, sir,
alike of ancient history and modern courtesy.'
'Not so ignorant as ye would pronounce me,' roared Balmawhapple. 'I ken
weel that you mean the Solemn League and Covenant; but if a' the Whigs in
hell had taken the--'
Here the Baron and Waverley both spoke at once, the former calling out,
'Be silent, sir! ye not only show your ignorance, but disgrace your
native country before a stranger and an Englishman'; and Waverley, at the
same moment, entreating Mr. Bradwardine to permit him to reply to an
affront which seemed levelled at him personally. But the Baron was
exalted by wine, wrath, and scorn above all sublunary considerations.
'I crave you to be hushed, Captain Waverley; you are elsewhere,
peradventure, sui juris,--foris-familiated, that is, and entitled, it may
be, to think and resent for yourself; but in my domain, in this poor
Barony of Bradwardine, and under this roof, which is quasi mine, being
held by tacit relocation by a tenant at will, I am in loco parentis to
you, and bound to see you scathless. And for you, Mr. Falconer of
Balmawhapple, I warn ye, let me see no more aberrations from the paths of
good manners.'
'And I tell you, Mr. Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine of Bradwardine and
Tully-Veolan,' retorted the sportsman in huge disdain, 'that I'll make a
moor-cock of the man that refuses my toast, whether it be a crop-eared
English Whig wi' a black ribband at his lug, or ane wha deserts his ain
friends to claw favour wi' the rats of Hanover.'
In an instant both rapiers were brandished, and some desperate passes
exchanged. Balmawhapple was young, stout, and active; but the Baron,
infinitely more master of his weapon, would, like Sir Toby Belch, have
tickled his opponent other gates than he did had he not been under the
influence of Ursa Major.
Edward rushed forward to interfere between the combatants, but the
prostrate bulk of the Laird of Killancureit, over which he stumbled,
intercepted his passage. How Killancureit happened to be in this
recumbent posture at so interesting a moment was never accurately known.
Some thought he was about to insconce himself under the table; he himself
alleged that he stumbled in the act of lifting a joint-stool, to prevent
mischief, by knocking down Balmawhapple. Be that as it may, if readier
aid than either his or Waverley's had not interposed, there would
certainly have been bloodshed. But the well-known clash of swords, which
was no stranger to her dwelling, aroused Luckie Macleary as she sat
quietly beyond the hallan, or earthen partition of the cottage, with eyes
employed on Boston's 'Crook the Lot,' while her ideas were engaged in
summing up the reckoning. She boldly rushed in, with the shrill
expostulation, 'Wad their honours slay ane another there, and bring
discredit on an honest widow-woman's house, when there was a' the
lee-land in the country to fight upon?' a remonstrance which she seconded
by flinging her plaid with great dexterity over the weapons of the
combatants. The servants by this time rushed in, and being, by great
chance, tolerably sober, separated the incensed opponents, with the
assistance of Edward and Killancureit. The latter led off Balmawhapple,
cursing, swearing, and vowing revenge against every Whig, Presbyterian,
and fanatic in England and Scotland, from John-o'-Groat's to the Land's
End, and with difficulty got him to horse. Our hero, with the assistance
of Saunders Saunderson, escorted the Baron of Bradwardine to his own
dwelling, but could not prevail upon him to retire to bed until he had
made a long and learned apology for the events of the evening, of which,
however, there was not a word intelligible, except something about the
Centaurs and the Lapithae.
CHAPTER XII
REPENTANCE AND A RECONCILIATION
Waverley was unaccustomed to the use of wine, excepting with great
temperance. He slept therefore soundly till late in the succeeding
morning, and then awakened to a painful recollection of the scene of the
preceding evening. He had received a personal affront--he, a gentleman, a
soldier, and a Waverley. True, the person who offered it was not, at the
time it was given, possessed of the moderate share of sense which nature
had allotted him; true also, in resenting this insult, he would break the
laws of Heaven as well as of his country; true, in doing so, he might
take the life of a young man who perhaps respectably discharged the
social duties, and render his family miserable, or he might lose his
own--no pleasant alternative even to the bravest, when it is debated
coolly and in private.
All this pressed on his mind; yet the original statement recurred with
the same irresistible force. He had received a personal insult; he was of
the house of Waverley; and he bore a commission. There was no
alternative; and he descended to the breakfast parlour with the intention
of taking leave of the family, and writing to one of his brother officers
to meet him at the inn midway between Tully-Veolan and the town where
they were quartered, in order that he might convey such a message to the
Laird of Balmawhapple as the circumstances seemed to demand. He found
Miss Bradwardine presiding over the tea and coffee, the table loaded with
warm bread, both of flour, oatmeal, and barleymeal, in the shape of
loaves, cakes, biscuits, and other varieties, together with eggs,
reindeer ham, mutton and beef ditto, smoked salmon, marmalade, and all
the other delicacies which induced even Johnson himself to extol the
luxury of a Scotch breakfast above that of all other countries. A mess of
oatmeal porridge, flanked by a silver jug, which held an equal mixture of
cream and butter-milk, was placed for the Baron's share of this repast;
but Rose observed, he had walked out early in the morning, after giving
orders that his guest should not be disturbed.
Waverley sat down almost in silence, and with an air of absence and
abstraction which could not give Miss Bradwardine a favourable opinion of
his talents for conversation. He answered at random one or two
observations which she ventured to make upon ordinary topics; so that,
feeling herself almost repulsed in her efforts at entertaining him, and
secretly wondering that a scarlet coat should cover no better breeding,
she left him to his mental amusement of cursing Doctor Doubleit's
favourite constellation of Ursa Major as the cause of all the mischief
which had already happened and was likely to ensue. At once he started,
and his colour heightened, as, looking toward the window, he beheld the
Baron and young Balmawhapple pass arm in arm, apparently in deep
conversation; and he hastily asked, 'Did Mr. Falconer sleep here last
night?' Rose, not much pleased with the abruptness of the first question
which the young stranger had addressed to her, answered drily in the
negative, and the conversation again sunk into silence.
At this moment Mr. Saunderson appeared, with a message from his master,
requesting to speak with Captain Waverley in another apartment. With a
heart which beat a little quicker, not indeed from fear, but from
uncertainty and anxiety, Edward obeyed the summons. He found the two
gentlemen standing together, an air of complacent dignity on the brow of
the Baron, while something like sullenness or shame, or both, blanked the
bold visage of Balmawhapple. The former slipped his arm through that of
the latter, and thus seeming to walk with him, while in reality he led
him, advanced to meet Waverley, and, stopping in the midst of the
apartment, made in great state the following oration: 'Captain
Waverley--my young and esteemed friend, Mr. Falconer of Balmawhapple, has
craved of my age and experience, as of one not wholly unskilled in the
dependencies and punctilios of the duello or monomachia, to be his
interlocutor in expressing to you the regret with which he calls to
remembrance certain passages of our symposion last night, which could not
but be highly displeasing to you, as serving for the time under this
present existing government. He craves you, sir, to drown in oblivion the
memory of such solecisms against the laws of politeness, as being what
his better reason disavows, and to receive the hand which he offers you
in amity; and I must needs assure you that nothing less than a sense of
being dans son tort, as a gallant French chevalier, Mons. Le Bretailleur,
once said to me on such an occasion, and an opinion also of your peculiar
merit, could have extorted such concessions; for he and all his family
are, and have been, time out of mind, Mavortia pectora, as Buchanan
saith, a bold and warlike sept, or people.'
Edward immediately, and with natural politeness, accepted the hand which
Balmawhapple, or rather the Baron in his character of mediator, extended
towards him. 'It was impossible,' he said, 'for him to remember what a
gentleman expressed his wish he had not uttered; and he willingly imputed
what had passed to the exuberant festivity of the day.'
'That is very handsomely said,' answered the Baron; 'for undoubtedly, if
a man be ebrius, or intoxicated, an incident which on solemn and festive
occasions may and will take place in the life of a man of honour; and if
the same gentleman, being fresh and sober, recants the contumelies which
he hath spoken in his liquor, it must be held vinum locutum est; the
words cease to be his own. Yet would I not find this exculpation relevant
in the case of one who was ebriosus, or an habitual drunkard; because, if
such a person choose to pass the greater part of his time in the
predicament of intoxication, he hath no title to be exeemed from the
obligations of the code of politeness, but should learn to deport himself
peaceably and courteously when under influence of the vinous stimulus.
And now let us proceed to breakfast, and think no more of this daft
business.'
I must confess, whatever inference may be drawn from the circumstance,
that Edward, after so satisfactory an explanation, did much greater
honour to the delicacies of Miss Bradwardine's breakfast-table than his
commencement had promised. Balmawhapple, on the contrary, seemed
embarrassed and dejected; and Waverley now, for the first time, observed
that his arm was in a sling, which seemed to account for the awkward and
embarrassed manner with which he had presented his hand. To a question
from Miss Bradwardine, he muttered in answer something about his horse
having fallen; and seeming desirous to escape both from the subject and
the company, he arose as soon as breakfast was over, made his bow to the
party, and, declining the Baron's invitation to tarry till after dinner,
mounted his horse and returned to his own home.
Waverley now announced his purpose of leaving Tully-Veolan early enough
after dinner to gain the stage at which he meant to sleep; but the
unaffected and deep mortification with which the good-natured and
affectionate old gentleman heard the proposal quite deprived him of
courage to persist in it. No sooner had he gained Waverley's consent to
lengthen his visit for a few days than he laboured to remove the grounds
upon which he conceived he had meditated a more early retreat. 'I would
not have you opine, Captain Waverley, that I am by practice or precept an
advocate of ebriety, though it may be that, in our festivity of last
night, some of our friends, if not perchance altogether ebrii, or
drunken, were, to say the least, ebrioli, by which the ancients designed
those who were fuddled, or, as your English vernacular and metaphorical
phrase goes, half-seas-over. Not that I would so insinuate respecting
you, Captain Waverley, who, like a prudent youth, did rather abstain from
potation; nor can it be truly said of myself, who, having assisted at the
tables of many great generals and marechals at their solemn carousals,
have the art to carry my wine discreetly, and did not, during the whole
evening, as ye must have doubtless observed, exceed the bounds of a
modest hilarity.'
There was no refusing assent to a proposition so decidedly laid down by
him, who undoubtedly was the best judge; although, had Edward formed his
opinion from his own recollections, he would have pronounced that the
Baron was not only ebriolus, but verging to become ebrius; or, in plain
English, was incomparably the most drunk of the party, except perhaps his
antagonist the Laird of Balmawhapple. However, having received the
expected, or rather the required, compliment on his sobriety, the Baron
proceeded--'No, sir, though I am myself of a strong temperament, I abhor
ebriety, and detest those who swallow wine gulce causa, for the
oblectation of the gullet; albeit I might deprecate the law of Pittacus
of Mitylene, who punished doubly a crime committed under the influence of
'Liber Pater'; nor would I utterly accede to the objurgation of the
younger Plinius, in the fourteenth book of his 'Historia Naturalis.' No,
sir, I distinguish, I discriminate, and approve of wine so far only as it
maketh glad the face, or, in the language of Flaccus, recepto amico.'
Thus terminated the apology which the Baron of Bradwardine thought it
necessary to make for the superabundance of his hospitality; and it may
be easily believed that he was neither interrupted by dissent nor any
expression of incredulity.
He then invited his guest to a morning ride, and ordered that Davie
Gellatley should meet them at the dern path with Ban and Buscar. 'For,
until the shooting season commence, I would willingly show you some
sport, and we may, God willing, meet with a roe. The roe, Captain
Waverley, may be hunted at all times alike; for never being in what is
called PRIDE OF GREASE, he is also never out of season, though it be a
truth that his venison is not equal to that of either the red or fallow
deer. [Footnote: The learned in cookery dissent from the Baron of
Bradwardine, and hold the roe venison dry and indifferent food, unless
when dressed in soup and Scotch collops.] But he will serve to show how
my dogs run; and therefore they shall attend us with David Gellatley.'
Waverley expressed his surprise that his friend Davie was capable of such
trust; but the Baron gave him to understand that this poor simpleton was
neither fatuous, nec naturaliter idiota, as is expressed in the brieves
of furiosity, but simply a crack-brained knave, who could execute very
well any commission which jumped with his own humour, and made his folly
a plea for avoiding every other. 'He has made an interest with us,'
continued the Baron, 'by saving Rose from a great danger with his own
proper peril; and the roguish loon must therefore eat of our bread and
drink of our cup, and do what he can, or what he will, which, if the
suspicions of Saunderson and the Bailie are well founded, may perchance
in his case be commensurate terms.'
Miss Bradwardine then gave Waverley to understand that this poor
simpleton was dotingly fond of music, deeply affected by that which was
melancholy, and transported into extravagant gaiety by light and lively
airs. He had in this respect a prodigious memory, stored with
miscellaneous snatches and fragments of all tunes and songs, which he
sometimes applied, with considerable address, as the vehicles of
remonstrance, explanation, or satire. Davie was much attached to the few
who showed him kindness; and both aware of any slight or ill usage which
he happened to receive, and sufficiently apt, where he saw opportunity,
to revenge it. The common people, who often judge hardly of each other as
well as of their betters, although they had expressed great compassion
for the poor innocent while suffered to wander in rags about the village,
no sooner beheld him decently clothed, provided for, and even a sort of
favourite, than they called up all the instances of sharpness and
ingenuity, in action and repartee, which his annals afforded, and
charitably bottomed thereupon a hypothesis that David Gellatley was no
farther fool than was necessary to avoid hard labour. This opinion was
not better founded than that of the Negroes, who, from the acute and
mischievous pranks of the monkeys, suppose that they have the gift of
speech, and only suppress their powers of elocution to escape being set
to work. But the hypothesis was entirely imaginary; David Gellatley was
in good earnest the half-crazed simpleton which he appeared, and was
incapable of any constant and steady exertion. He had just so much
solidity as kept on the windy side of insanity, so much wild wit as saved
him from the imputation of idiocy, some dexterity in field-sports (in
which we have known as great fools excel), great kindness and humanity in
the treatment of animals entrusted to him, warm affections, a prodigious
memory, and an ear for music.
The stamping of horses was now heard in the court, and Davie's voice
singing to the two large deer greyhounds,
Hie away, hie away,
Over bank and over brae,
Where the copsewood is the greenest,
Where the fountains glisten sheenest,
Where the lady-fern grows strongest,
Where the morning dew lies longest,
Where the black-cock sweetest sips it,
Where the fairy latest trips it.
Hie to haunts right seldom seen,
Lovely, lonesome, cool, and green,
Over bank and over brae,
Hie away, hie away.
'Do the verses he sings,' asked Waverley, 'belong to old Scottish poetry,
Miss Bradwardine?'
'I believe not,' she replied. 'This poor creature had a brother, and
Heaven, as if to compensate to the family Davie's deficiencies, had given
him what the hamlet thought uncommon talents. An uncle contrived to
educate him for the Scottish kirk, but he could not get preferment
because he came from our GROUND. He returned from college hopeless and
brokenhearted, and fell into a decline. My father supported him till his
death, which happened before he was nineteen. He played beautifully on
the flute, and was supposed to have a great turn for poetry. He was
affectionate and compassionate to his brother, who followed him like his
shadow, and we think that from him Davie gathered many fragments of songs
and music unlike those of this country. But if we ask him where he got
such a fragment as he is now singing, he either answers with wild and
long fits of laughter, or else breaks into tears of lamentation; but was
never heard to give any explanation, or to mention his brother's name
since his death.'
'Surely,' said Edward, who was readily interested by a tale bordering on
the romantic, 'surely more might be learned by more particular inquiry.'
'Perhaps so,' answered Rose; 'but my father will not permit any one to
practise on his feelings on this subject.'
By this time the Baron, with the help of Mr. Saunderson, had indued a
pair of jack-boots of large dimensions, and now invited our hero to
follow him as he stalked clattering down the ample stair-case, tapping
each huge balustrade as he passed with the butt of his massive
horse-whip, and humming, with the air of a chasseur of Louis Quatorze,--
Pour la chasse ordonnee il faut preparer tout.
Ho la ho! Vite! vite debout!
CHAPTER XIII
A MORE RATIONAL DAY THAN THE LAST
The Baron of Bradwardine, mounted on an active and well-managed horse,
and seated on a demi-pique saddle, with deep housings to agree with his
livery, was no bad representative of the old school. His light-coloured
embroidered coat, and superbly barred waistcoat, his brigadier wig,
surmounted by a small gold-laced cocked-hat, completed his personal
costume; but he was attended by two well-mounted servants on horseback,
armed with holster-pistols.
In this guise he ambled forth over hill and valley, the admiration of
every farm-yard which they passed in their progress, till, 'low down in a
grassy vale,' they found David Gellatley leading two very tall deer
greyhounds, and presiding over half a dozen curs, and about as many
bare-legged and bare-headed boys, who, to procure the chosen distinction
of attending on the chase, had not failed to tickle his ears with the
dulcet appellation of Maister Gellatley, though probably all and each had
hooted him on former occasions in the character of daft Davie. But this
is no uncommon strain of flattery to persons in office, nor altogether
confined to the barelegged villagers of Tully-Veolan; it was in fashion
Sixty Years Since, is now, and will be six hundred years hence, if this
admirable compound of folly and knavery, called the world, shall be then
in existence.
These Gillie-wet-foots, as they were called, were destined to beat the
bushes, which they performed with so much success, that, after half an
hour's search, a roe was started, coursed, and killed; the Baron
following on his white horse, like Earl Percy of yore, and magnanimously
flaying and embowelling the slain animal (which, he observed, was called
by the French chasseurs, faire la curee) with his own baronial couteau de
chasse. After this ceremony, he conducted his guest homeward by a
pleasant and circuitous route, commanding an extensive prospect of
different villages and houses, to each of which Mr. Bradwardine attached
some anecdote of history or genealogy, told in language whimsical from
prejudice and pedantry, but often respectable for the good sense and
honourable feelings which his narrative displayed, and almost always
curious, if not valuable, for the information they contained.
The truth is, the ride seemed agreeable to both gentlemen, because they
found amusement in each other's conversation, although their characters
and habits of thinking were in many respects totally opposite. Edward, we
have informed the reader, was warm in his feelings, wild and romantic in
his ideas and in his taste of reading, with a strong disposition towards
poetry. Mr Bradwardine was the reverse of all this, and piqued himself
upon stalking through life with the same upright, starched, stoical
gravity which distinguished his evening promenade upon the terrace of
Tully-Veolan, where for hours together--the very model of old
Hardyknute--
Stately stepp'd he east the wa',
And stately stepp'd he west
As for literature, he read the classic poets, to be sure, and the
'Epithalamium' of Georgius Buchanan and Arthur Johnston's Psalms, of a
Sunday; and the 'Deliciae Poetarum Scotorum,' and Sir David Lindsay's
'Works', and Barbour's 'Brace', and Blind Harry's 'Wallace', and 'The
Gentle Shepherd', and 'The Cherry and The Slae.'
But though he thus far sacrificed his time to the Muses, he would, if the
truth must be spoken, have been much better pleased had the pious or
sapient apothegms, as well as the historical narratives, which these
various works contained, been presented to him in the form of simple
prose. And he sometimes could not refrain from expressing contempt of the
'vain and unprofitable art of poem-making', in which, he said,'the only
one who had excelled in his time was Allan Ramsay, the periwigmaker.'
[Footnote: The Baron ought to have remembered that the joyous Allan
literally drew his blood from the house of the noble earl whom he terms--
Dalhousie of an old descent
My stoup, my pride, my ornament.]
But although Edward and he differed TOTO COELO, as the Baron would have
said, upon this subject, yet they met upon history as on a neutral
ground, in which each claimed an interest. The Baron, indeed, only
cumbered his memory with matters of fact, the cold, dry, hard outlines
which history delineates. Edward, on the contrary, loved to fill up and
round the sketch with the colouring of a warm and vivid imagination,
which gives light and life to the actors and speakers in the drama of
past ages. Yet with tastes so opposite, they contributed greatly to each
other's amusement. Mr. Bradwardine's minute narratives and powerful
memory supplied to Waverley fresh subjects of the kind upon which his
fancy loved to labour, and opened to him a new mine of incident and of
character. And he repaid the pleasure thus communicated by an earnest
attention, valuable to all story-tellers, more especially to the Baron,
who felt his habits of self-respect flattered by it; and sometimes also
by reciprocal communications, which interested Mr. Bradwardine, as
confirming or illustrating his own favourite anecdotes. Besides, Mr.
Bradwardine loved to talk of the scenes of his youth, which had been
spent in camps and foreign lands, and had many interesting particulars to
tell of the generals under whom he had served and the actions he had
witnessed.
Both parties returned to Tully-Veolan in great good-humour with each
other; Waverley desirous of studying more attentively what he considered
as a singular and interesting character, gifted with a memory containing
a curious register of ancient and modern anecdotes; and Bradwardine
disposed to regard Edward as puer (or rather juvenis) bonae spei et
magnae indolis, a youth devoid of that petulant volatility which is
impatient of, or vilipends, the conversation and advice of his seniors,
from which he predicted great things of his future success and deportment
in life. There was no other guest except Mr. Rubrick, whose information
and discourse, as a clergyman and a scholar, harmonised very well with
that of the Baron and his guest.
Shortly after dinner, the Baron, as if to show that his temperance was
not entirely theoretical, proposed a visit to Rose's apartment, or, as he
termed it, her troisieme etage. Waverley was accordingly conducted
through one or two of those long awkward passages with which ancient
architects studied to puzzle the inhabitants of the houses which they
planned, at the end of which Mr. Bradwardine began to ascend, by two
steps at once, a very steep, narrow, and winding stair, leaving Mr.
Rubrick and Waverley to follow at more leisure, while he should announce
their approach to his daughter.
After having climbed this perpendicular corkscrew until their brains were
almost giddy, they arrived in a little matted lobby, which served as an
anteroom to Rose's sanctum sanctorum, and through which they entered her
parlour. It was a small, but pleasant apartment, opening to the south,
and hung with tapestry; adorned besides with two pictures, one of her
mother, in the dress of a shepherdess, with a bell-hoop; the other of the
Baron, in his tenth year, in a blue coat, embroidered waistcoat, laced
hat, and bag-wig, with a bow in his hand. Edward could not help smiling
at the costume, and at the odd resemblance between the round, smooth,
red-cheeked, staring visage in the portrait, and the gaunt, bearded,
hollow-eyed, swarthy features, which travelling, fatigues of war, and
advanced age, had bestowed on the original. The Baron joined in the
laugh. 'Truly,' he said,'that picture was a woman's fantasy of my good
mother's (a daughter of the Laird of Tulliellum, Captain Waverley; I
indicated the house to you when we were on the top of the Shinnyheuch; it
was burnt by the Dutch auxiliaries brought in by the Government in 1715);
I never sate for my pourtraicture but once since that was painted, and it
was at the special and reiterated request of the Marechal Duke of
Berwick.'
The good old gentleman did not mention what Mr. Rubrick afterwards told
Edward, that the Duke had done him this honour on account of his being
the first to mount the breach of a fort in Savoy during the memorable
campaign of 1709, and his having there defended himself with his
half-pike for nearly ten minutes before any support reached him. To do
the Baron justice, although sufficiently prone to dwell upon, and even to
exaggerate, his family dignity and consequence, he was too much a man of
real courage ever to allude to such personal acts of merit as he had
himself manifested.
Miss Rose now appeared from the interior room of her apartment, to
welcome her father and his friends. The little labours in which she had
been employed obviously showed a natural taste, which required only
cultivation. Her father had taught her French and Italian, and a few of
the ordinary authors in those languages ornamented her shelves. He had
endeavoured also to be her preceptor in music; but as he began with the
more abstruse doctrines of the science, and was not perhaps master of
them himself, she had made no proficiency farther than to be able to
accompany her voice with the harpsichord; but even this was not very
common in Scotland at that period. To make amends, she sung with great
taste and feeling, and with a respect to the sense of what she uttered
that might be proposed in example to ladies of much superior musical
talent. Her natural good sense taught her that, if, as we are assured by
high authority, music be 'married to immortal verse,' they are very often
divorced by the performer in a most shameful manner. It was perhaps owing
to this sensibility to poetry, and power of combining its expression with
those of the musical notes, that her singing gave more pleasure to all
the unlearned in music, and even to many of the learned, than could have
been communicated by a much finer voice and more brilliant execution
unguided by the same delicacy of feeling.
A bartizan, or projecting gallery, before the windows of her parlour,
served to illustrate another of Rose's pursuits; for it was crowded with
flowers of different kinds, which she had taken under her special
protection. A projecting turret gave access to this Gothic balcony, which
commanded a most beautiful prospect. The formal garden, with its high
bounding walls, lay below, contracted, as it seemed, to a mere parterre;
while the view extended beyond them down a wooded glen, where the small
river was sometimes visible, sometimes hidden in copse. The eye might be
delayed by a desire to rest on the rocks, which here and there rose from
the dell with massive or spiry fronts, or it might dwell on the noble,
though ruined tower, which was here beheld in all its dignity, frowning
from a promontory over the river. To the left were seen two or three
cottages, a part of the village, the brow of the hill concealed the
others. The glen, or dell, was terminated by a sheet of water, called
Loch Veolan, into which the brook discharged itself, and which now
glistened in the western sun. The distant country seemed open and varied
in surface, though not wooded; and there was nothing to interrupt the
view until the scene was bounded by a ridge of distant and blue hills,
which formed the southern boundary of the strath or valley. To this
pleasant station Miss Bradwardine had ordered coffee.
The view of the old tower, or fortalice, introduced some family anecdotes
and tales of Scottish chivalry, which the Baron told with great
enthusiasm. The projecting peak of an impending crag which rose near it
had acquired the name of Saint Swithin's Chair. It was the scene of a
peculiar superstition, of which Mr. Rubrick mentioned some curious
particulars, which reminded Waverley of a rhyme quoted by Edgar in King
Lear; and Rose was called upon to sing a little legend, in which they had
been interwoven by some village poet,
Who, noteless as the race from which he sprung,
Saved others' names, but left his own unsung.
The sweetness of her voice, and the simple beauty of her music, gave all
the advantage which the minstrel could have desired, and which his poetry
so much wanted. I almost doubt if it can be read with patience, destitute
of these advantages, although I conjecture the following copy to have
been somewhat corrected by Waverley, to suit the taste of those who might
not relish pure antiquity.
Saint Swithin's Chair
On Hallow-Mass Eve, ere ye boune ye to rest,
Ever beware that your couch be bless'd;
Sign it with cross, and sain it with bead,
Sing the Ave, and say the Creed.
For on Hallow-Mass Eve the Night-Hag will ride,
And all her nine-fold sweeping on by her side,
Whether the wind sing lowly or loud,
Sailing through moonshine or swath'd in the cloud.
The Lady she sat in Saint Swithin's Chair,
The dew of the night has damp'd her hair:
Her cheek was pale; but resolved and high
Was the word of her lip and the glance of her eye.
She mutter'd the spell of Swithin bold,
When his naked foot traced the midnight wold,
When he stopp'd the Hag as she rode the night,
And bade her descend, and her promise plight.
He that dare sit on Saint Swithin's Chair,
When the Night-Hag wings the troubled air,
Questions three, when he speaks the spell,
He may ask, and she must tell.
The Baron has been with King Robert his liege
These three long years in battle and siege;
News are there none of his weal or his woe,
And fain the Lady his fate would know.
She shudders and stops as the charm she speaks;--
Is it the moody owl that shrieks?
Or is it that sound, betwixt laughter and scream,
The voice of the Demon who haunts the stream?
The moan of the wind sunk silent and low,
And the roaring torrent had ceased to flow;
The calm was more dreadful than raging storm,
When the cold grey mist brought the ghastly Form!
'I am sorry to disappoint the company, especially Captain Waverley, who
listens with such laudable gravity; it is but a fragment, although I
think there are other verses, describing the return of the Baron from the
wars, and how the lady was found "clay-cold upon the grounsill ledge.'"
'It is one of those figments,' observed Mr. Bradwardine, 'with which the
early history of distinguished families was deformed in the times of
superstition; as that of Rome, and other ancient nations, had their
prodigies, sir, the which you may read in ancient histories, or in the
little work compiled by Julius Obsequens, and inscribed by the learned
Scheffer, the editor, to his patron, Benedictus Skytte, Baron of
Dudershoff.'
'My father has a strange defiance of the marvellous, Captain Waverley,'
observed Rose, 'and once stood firm when a whole synod of Presbyterian
divines were put to the rout by a sudden apparition of the foul fiend.'
Waverley looked as if desirous to hear more.
'Must I tell my story as well as sing my song? Well--Once upon a time
there lived an old woman, called Janet Gellatley, who was suspected to be
a witch, on the infallible grounds that she was very old, very ugly, very
poor, and had two sons, one of whom was a poet and the other a fool,
which visitation, all the neighbourhood agreed, had come upon her for the
sin of witchcraft. And she was imprisoned for a week in the steeple of
the parish church, and sparely supplied with food, and not permitted to
sleep until she herself became as much persuaded of her being a witch as
her accusers; and in this lucid and happy state of mind was brought forth
to make a clean breast, that is, to make open confession of her
sorceries, before all the Whig gentry and ministers in the vicinity, who
were no conjurors themselves. My father went to see fair play between the
witch and the clergy; for the witch had been born on his estate. And
while the witch was confessing that the Enemy appeared, and made his
addresses to her as a handsome black man,--which, if you could have seen
poor old blear-eyed Janet, reflected little honour on Apollyon's
taste,--and while the auditors listened with astonished ears, and the
clerk recorded with a trembling hand, she, all of a sudden, changed the
low mumbling tone with which she spoke into a shrill yell, and exclaimed,
"Look to yourselves! look to yourselves! I see the Evil One sitting in
the midst of ye." The surprise was general, and terror and flight its
immediate consequences. Happy were those who were next the door; and many
were the disasters that befell hats, bands, cuffs, and wigs, before they
could get out of the church, where they left the obstinate prelatist to
settle matters with the witch and her admirer at his own peril or
pleasure.'
'Risu solvuntur tabulae,' said the Baron; 'when they recovered their
panic trepidation they were too much ashamed to bring any wakening of the
process against Janet Gellatley.' [Footnote: See Note 36]
This anecdote led to a long discussion of
All those idle thoughts and fantasies,
Devices, dreams, opinions unsound,
Shows, visions, soothsays, and prophecies,
And all that feigned is, as leasings, tales, and lies.
With such conversation, and the romantic legends which it introduced,
closed our hero's second evening in the house of Tully-Veolan.
CHAPTER XIV
A DISCOVERY--WAVERLEY BECOMES DOMESTICATED AT TULLY-VEOLAN
The next day Edward arose betimes, and in a morning walk around the house
and its vicinity came suddenly upon a small court in front of the
dog-kennel, where his friend Davie was employed about his four-footed
charge. One quick glance of his eye recognised Waverley, when, instantly
turning his back, as if he had not observed him, he began to sing part of
an old ballad:--
Young men will love thee more fair and more fast;
Heard ye so merry the little bird sing?
Old men's love the longest will last,
And the throstle-cock's head is under his wing.
The young man's wrath is like light straw on fire;
Heard ye so merry the little bird sing?
But like red-hot steel is the old man's ire,
And the throstle-cock's head is under his wing.
The young man will brawl at the evening board;
Heard ye so merry the little bird sing?
But the old man will draw at the dawning the sword,
And the throstle-cock's head is under his wing.
Waverley could not avoid observing that Davie laid something like a
satirical emphasis on these lines. He therefore approached, and
endeavoured, by sundry queries, to elicit from him what the innuendo
might mean; but Davie had no mind to explain, and had wit enough to make
his folly cloak his knavery. Edward could collect nothing from him,
excepting that the Laird of Balmawhapple had gone home yesterday morning
'wi' his boots fu' o' bluid.' In the garden, however, he met the old
butler, who no longer attempted to conceal that, having been bred in the
nursery line with Sumack and Co. of Newcastle, he sometimes wrought a
turn in the flower-borders to oblige the Laird and Miss Rose. By a series
of queries, Edward at length discovered, with a painful feeling of
surprise and shame, that Balmawhapple's submission and apology had been
the consequence of a rencontre with the Baron before his guest had
quitted his pillow, in which the younger combatant had been disarmed and
wounded in the sword arm.
Greatly
♥ FINE AREA VOCALIZZATA CON READSPEAKER
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