The Surgeon\'s Daughter
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Sir Walter Scott >> The Surgeon\'s Daughter
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16 Produced by D Garcia, David Moynihan, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
THE SURGEON'S DAUGHTER.
CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.
SIC ITUR AD ASTRA.
INTRODUCTION.--(1831.)
The tale of the Surgeon's Daughter formed part of the second series of
Chronicles of the Canongate, published in 1827; but has been separated
from the stories of the Highland Widow, &c., which it originally
accompanied, and deferred to the close of this collection, for reasons
which printers and publishers will understand, and which would hardly
interest the general reader.
The Author has nothing to say now in reference to this little Novel, but
that the principal incident on which it turns, was narrated to him one
morning at breakfast by his worthy friend, Mr. Train, of Castle Douglas,
in Galloway, whose kind assistance he has so often had occasion to
acknowledge in the course of these prefaces; and that the military friend
who is alluded to as having furnished him with some information as to
Eastern matters, was Colonel James Ferguson of Huntly Burn, one of the
sons of the venerable historian and philosopher of that name--which name
he took the liberty of concealing under its Gaelic form of _Mac-Erries_.
Abbotsford, _September_ 1831.
* * * * *
APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION.
[Mr. Train was requested by Sir Walter Scott to give him in writing the
story as nearly as possible in the shape in which he had told it; but
the following narrative, which he drew up accordingly, did not reach
Abbotsford until July 1832]
In the old Stock of Fife, there was not perhaps an individual whose
exertions were followed by consequences of such a remarkable nature as
those of Davie Duff, popularly called "The Thane of Fife," who, from a
very humble parentage, rose to fill one of the chairs of the magistracy of
his native burgh. By industry and economy in early life, he obtained the
means of erecting, solely on his own account, one of those ingenious
manufactories for which Fifeshire is justly celebrated. From the day on
which the industrious artisan first took his seat at the Council Board,
he attended so much to the interests of the little privileged community,
that civic honours were conferred on him as rapidly as the Set of the
Royalty [Footnote: The Constitution of the Borough.] could legally
admit.
To have the right of walking to church on holy-days, preceded by a
phalanx of halberdiers, in habiliments fashioned as in former times,
seems, in the eyes of many a guild brother, to be a very enviable pitch
of worldly grandeur. Few persons were ever more proud of civic honours
than the Thane of Fife, but he knew well how to turn his political
influence to the best account. The council, court, and other business of
the burgh, occupied much of his time, which caused him to intrust the
management of his manufactory to a near relation, whose name was
D------, a young man of dissolute habits; but the Thane, seeing at
last, that by continuing that extravagant person in that charge, his
affairs would, in all probability, fall into a state of bankruptcy,
applied to the member of Parliament for that district to obtain a
situation for his relation in the civil department of the state. The
knight, whom it is here unnecessary to name, knowing how effectually the
Thane ruled the little burgh, applied in the proper quarter, and
actually obtained an appointment for D------ in the civil service of
the East India Company.
A respectable surgeon, whose residence was in a neighbouring village,
had a beautiful daughter named Emma, who had long been courted by
D------. Immediately before his departure to India, as a mark of mutual
affection, they exchanged miniatures, taken by an eminent artist in
Fife, and each set in a locket, for the purpose of having the object of
affection always in view.
The eyes of the old Thane were now turned towards Hindostan with much
anxiety; but his relation had not long arrived in that distant quarter
of the globe before he had the satisfaction of receiving a letter,
conveying the welcome intelligence of his having taken possession of his
new station in a large frontier town of the Company's dominions, and
that great emoluments were attached to the situation; which was
confirmed by several subsequent communications of the most gratifying
description to the old Thane, who took great pleasure in spreading the
news of the reformed habits and singular good fortune of his intended
heir. None of all his former acquaintances heard with such joy the
favourable report of the successful adventurer in the East, as did the
fair and accomplished daughter of the village surgeon; but his previous
character caused her to keep her own correspondence with him secret from
her parents, to whom even the circumstance of her being acquainted with
D------ was wholly unknown, till her father received a letter from him,
in which he assured him of his attachment to Emma long before his
departure from Fife; that having been so happy as to gain her
affections, he would have made her his wife before leaving his native
country, had he then had the means of supporting her in a suitable rank
through life; and that, having it now in his power to do so, he only
waited the consent of her parents to fulfil the vow he had formerly made.
The Doctor having a large family, with a very limited income to support
them, and understanding that D------ had at last become a person of
sober and industrious habits, he gave his consent, in which Emma's
mother fully concurred.
Aware of the straitened circumstances of the Doctor, D------ remitted a
sum of money to complete at Edinburgh Emma's Oriental education, and fit
her out in her journey to India; she was to embark at Sheerness, on
board one of the Company's ships, for a port in India, at which place,
he said, he would wait her arrival, with a retinue suited to a person of
his rank in society.
Emma set out from her father's house just in time to secure a passage,
as proposed by her intended husband, accompanied by her only brother,
who, on their arrival at Sheerness, met one C------, an old schoolfellow,
captain of the ship by which Emma was to proceed to India.
It was the particular desire of the Doctor that his daughter should be
committed to the care of that gentleman, from the time of her leaving
the shores of Britain, till the intended marriage ceremony was duly
performed on her arrival in India; a charge that was frankly undertaken
by the generous sea-captain.
On the arrival of the fleet at the appointed port, D------, with a large
cavalcade of mounted Pindarees, was, as expected, in attendance, ready
to salute Emma on landing, and to carry her direct into the interior of
the country. C------, who had made several voyages to the shores of
Hindostan, knowing something of Hindoo manners and customs, was
surprised to see a private individual in the Company's service with so
many attendants; and when D------ declined having the marriage ceremony
performed according to the rites of the Church, till he returned to the
place of his abode, C------, more and more confirmed in his suspicion
that all was not right, resolved not to part with Emma till he had
fulfilled, in the most satisfactory manner, the promise he had made
before leaving England, of giving her duly away in marriage. Not being
able by her entreaties to alter the resolution of D------, Emma
solicited her protector C------ to accompany her to the place of her
intended destination, to which he most readily agreed, taking with him
as many of his crew as he deemed sufficient to ensure the safe custody
of his innocent protege, should any attempt be made to carry her away by
force.
Both parties journeyed onwards till they arrived at a frontier town,
where a native Rajah was waiting the arrival of the fair maid of Fife,
with whom he had fallen deeply in love, from seeing her miniature
likeness in the possession of D------, to whom he had paid a large sum
of money for the original, and had only intrusted him to convey her in
state to the seat of his government.
No sooner was this villanous action of D------ known to C------, than he
communicated the whole particulars to the commanding officer of a regiment
of Scotch Highlanders that happened to be quartered in that part of India,
begging at the same time, for the honour of Caledonia, and protection of
injured innocence, that he would use the means in his power, of resisting
any attempt that might be made by the native chief to wrest from their
hands the virtuous female who had been so shamefully decoyed from her
native country by the worst of mankind. Honour occupies too large a space
in the heart of the Gael to resist such a call of humanity.
The Rajah, finding his claim was not to be acceded to, and resolving to
enforce the same, assembled his troops, and attacked with great fury the
place where the affrighted Emma was for a time secured by her
countrymen, who fought in her defence with all their native valour,
which at length so overpowered their assailants, that they were forced
to retire in every direction, leaving behind many of their slain, among
whom was found the mangled corpse of the perfidious D------.
C------ was immediately afterwards married to Emma, and my informant
assured me he saw them many years afterwards, living happily together in
the county of Kent, on the fortune bequeathed by the "Thane of Fife."
J. T.
CASTLE DOUGLAS, _July_, 1832.
MR. CROFTANGRY'S PREFACE.
Indite, my muse indite,
Subpoena'd is thy lyre,
The praises to requite
Which rules of court require.
PROBATIONARY ODES.
The concluding a literary undertaking, in whole or in part, is, to the
inexperienced at least, attended with an irritating titillation, like
that which attends on the healing of a wound--a prurient impatience, in
short, to know what the world in general, and friends in particular,
will say to our labours. Some authors, I am told, profess an oyster-like
indifference upon this subject; for my own part, I hardly believe in
their sincerity. Others may acquire it from habit; but, in my poor
opinion, a neophyte like myself must be for a long time incapable of
such _sang froid_.
Frankly, I was ashamed to feel how childishly I felt on the occasion. No
person could have said prettier things than myself upon the importance
of stoicism concerning the opinion of others, when their applause or
censure refers to literary character only; and I had determined to lay
my work before the public, with the same unconcern with which the
ostrich lays her eggs in the sand, giving herself no farther trouble
concerning the incubation, but leaving to the atmosphere to bring forth
the young, or otherwise, as the climate shall serve. But though an
ostrich in theory, I became in practice a poor hen, who has no sooner
made her deposit, but she runs cackling about, to call the attention of
every one to the wonderful work which she has performed.
As soon as I became possessed of my first volume, neatly stitched up and
boarded, my sense of the necessity of communicating with some one became
ungovernable. Janet was inexorable, and seemed already to have tired of
my literary confidence; for whenever I drew near the subject, after
evading it as long as she could, she made, under some pretext or other,
a bodily retreat to the kitchen or the cockloft, her own peculiar and
inviolate domains. My publisher would have been a natural resource; but
he understands his business too well, and follows it too closely, to
desire to enter into literary discussions, wisely considering, that he
who has to sell books has seldom leisure to read them. Then my
acquaintance, now that I have lost Mrs. Bethune Baliol, are of that
distant and accidental kind, to whom I had not face enough to communicate
the nature of my uneasiness, and who probably would only have laughed
at me had I made any attempt to interest them in my labours.
Reduced thus to a sort of despair, I thought of my friend and man of
business, Mr. Fairscribe. His habits, it was true, were not likely to
render him indulgent to light literature, and, indeed, I had more than
once noticed his daughters, and especially my little songstress, whip
into her reticule what looked very like a circulating library volume, as
soon as her father entered the room. Still he was not only my assured,
but almost my only friend, and I had little doubt that he would take an
interest in the volume for the sake of the author, which the work itself
might fail to inspire. I sent him, therefore, the book, carefully sealed
up, with an intimation that I requested the favour of his opinion upon
the contents, of which I affected to talk in the depreciatory style,
which calls for point-blank contradiction, if your correspondent possess
a grain of civility.
This communication took place on a Monday, and I daily expected (what I
was ashamed to anticipate by volunteering my presence, however sure of a
welcome) an invitation to eat an egg, as was my friend's favourite
phrase, or a card to drink tea with Misses Fairscribe, or a provocation
to breakfast, at least, with my hospitable friend and benefactor, and to
talk over the contents of my enclosure. But the hours and days passed on
from Monday till Saturday, and I had no acknowledgment whatever that my
packet had reached its destination. "This is very unlike my good
friend's punctuality," thought I; and having again and again vexed
James, my male attendant, by a close examination concerning the time,
place, and delivery, I had only to strain my imagination to conceive
reasons for my friend's silence. Sometimes I thought that his opinion of
the work had proved so unfavourable that he was averse to hurt my
feelings by communicating it--sometimes, that, escaping his hands to
whom it was destined, it had found its way into his writing-chamber, and
was become the subject of criticism to his smart clerks and conceited
apprentices. "'Sdeath!" thought I, "if I were sure of this, I would"--
"And what would you do?" said Reason, after a few moment's reflection.
"You are ambitious of introducing your book into every writing and
reading-chamber in Edinburgh, and yet you take fire at the thoughts of
its being criticised by Mr. Fairscribe's young people? Be a little
consistent--for shame!"
"I will be consistent," said I, doggedly; "but for all that, I will call
on Mr. Fairscribe this evening."
I hastened my dinner, donn'd my great-coat (for the evening threatened
rain,) and went to Mr. Fairscribe's house. The old domestic opened the
door cautiously, and before I asked the question, said, "Mr. Fairscribe
is at home, sir; but it is Sunday night." Recognising, however, my face
and voice, he opened the door wider, admitted me, and conducted me to
the parlour, where I found Mr. Fairscribe and the rest of his family
engaged in listening to a sermon by the late Mr. Walker of Edinburgh,
[Footnote: Robert Walker, the colleague and rival of Dr. Hugh Blair, in
St. Giles's Church Edinburgh] which was read by Miss Catherine with
unusual distinctness, simplicity, and judgment. Welcomed as a friend of
the house, I had nothing for it but to take my seat quietly, and making
a virtue of necessity, endeavour to derive my share of the benefit
arising from an excellent sermon. But I am afraid Mr. Walker's force of
logic and precision of expression were somewhat lost upon me. I was
sensible I had chosen an improper time to disturb Mr. Fairscribe, and
when the discourse was ended, I rose to take my leave, somewhat hastily,
I believe. "A cup of tea, Mr. Croftangry?" said the young lady. "You
will wait and take part of a Presbyterian supper?" said Mr.
Fairscribe.--"Nine o'clock--I make it a point of keeping my father's
hours on Sunday at e'en. Perhaps Dr.----(naming an excellent clergyman)
may look in."
I made my apology for declining his invitation; and I fancy my unexpected
appearance, and hasty retreat, had rather surprised my friend, since,
instead of accompanying me to the door, he conducted me into his own
apartment.
"What is the matter," he said, "Mr. Croftangry? This is not a night for
secular business, but if any thing sudden or extraordinary has happened"--
"Nothing in the world," said I, forcing myself upon confession, as the
best way of clearing myself out of the scrape,--"only--only I sent you a
little parcel, and as you are so regular in acknowledging letters and
communications, I--I thought it might have miscarried--that's all."
My friend laughed heartily, as if he saw into and enjoyed my motives and
my confusion. "Safe?--it came safe enough," he said. "The wind of the
world always blows its vanities into haven. But this is the end of the
session, when I have little time to read any thing printed except
Inner-House papers; yet if you will take your kail with us next
Saturday, I will glance over your work, though I am sure I am no
competent judge of such matters."
With this promise I was fain to take my leave, not without half
persuading myself that if once the phlegmatic lawyer began my
lucubrations, he would not be able to rise from them till he had
finished the perusal, nor to endure an interval betwixt his reading the
last page, and requesting an interview with the author.
No such marks of impatience displayed themselves. Time, blunt or keen,
as my friend Joanna says, swift or leisurely, held his course; and on
the appointed Saturday, I was at the door precisely as it struck four.
The dinner hour, indeed, was five punctually; but what did I know but my
friend might want half an hour's conversation with me before that time?
I was ushered into an empty drawing-room, and, from a needle-book and
work-basket hastily abandoned, I had some reason to think I interrupted
my little friend, Miss Katie, in some domestic labour more praiseworthy
than elegant. In this critical age, filial piety must hide herself in a
closet, if she has a mind to darn her father's linen.
Shortly after, I was the more fully convinced that I had been too early
an intruder when a wench came to fetch away the basket, and recommend to
my courtesies a red and green gentleman in a cage, who answered all my
advances by croaking out, "You're a fool--you're a fool, I tell you!"
until, upon my word, I began to think the creature was in the right. At
last my friend arrived, a little overheated. He had been taking a turn
at golf, to prepare him for "colloquy sublime." And wherefore not? since
the game, with its variety of odds, lengths, bunkers, tee'd balls, and
so on, may be no inadequate representation of the hazards attending
literary pursuits. In particular, those formidable buffets, which make
one ball spin through the air like a rifle-shot, and strike another down
into the very earth it is placed upon, by the mal-adroitness, or the
malicious purpose of the player--what are they but parallels to the
favourable or depreciating notices of the reviewers, who play at golf
with the publications of the season, even as Altisidora, in her approach
to the gates of the infernal regions, saw the devils playing at racket
with the new books of Cervantes' days.
Well, every hour has its end. Five o'clock came, and my friend, with his
daughters, and his handsome young son, who, though fairly buckled to the
desk, is every now and then looking over his shoulder at a smart
uniform, set seriously about satisfying the corporeal wants of nature;
I, stimulated by a nobler appetite after fame, wished that the touch of
a magic wand could, without all the ceremony of picking and choosing,
carving and slicing, masticating and swallowing, have transported a
_quantum sufficit_ of the good things on my friend's hospitable board,
into the stomachs of those who surrounded it, to be there at leisure
converted into chyle, while their thoughts were turned on higher
matters. At length all was over. But the young ladies sat still, and
talked of the music of the Freischutz, for nothing else was then thought
of; so we discussed the wild hunter's song, and the tame hunter's song,
&c. &c., in all which my young friends were quite at home. Luckily for
me, all this horning and hooping drew on some allusion to the Seventh
Hussars, which gallant regiment, I observe, is a more favourite theme
with both Miss Catherine and her brother than with my old friend, who
presently looked at his watch, and said something significantly to Mr.
James about office hours. The youth got up with the ease of a youngster
that would be thought a man of fashion rather than of business, and
endeavoured, with some success, to walk out of the room, as if the
locomotion was entirely voluntary; Miss Catherine and her sisters left
us at the same time, and now, thought I, my trial comes on.
Reader, did you ever, in the course of your life, cheat the courts of
justice and lawyers, by agreeing to refer a dubious and important
question to the decision of a mutual friend? If so, you may have
remarked the relative change which the arbiter undergoes in your
estimation, when raised, though by your own free choice, from an
ordinary acquaintance, whose opinions were of as little consequence to
you as yours to him, into a superior personage, on whose decision your
fate must depend _pro tanto_, as my friend Mr. Fairscribe would say. His
looks assume a mysterious if not a minatory expression; his hat has a
loftier air, and his wig, if he wears one, a more formidable buckle.
I felt, accordingly, that my good friend Fairscribe, on the present
occasion, had acquired something of a similar increase of consequence.
But a week since, he had, in my opinion, been indeed an
excellent-meaning man, perfectly competent to every thing within his own
profession, but immured, at the same time, among its forms and
technicalities, and as incapable of judging of matters of taste as any
mighty Goth whatsoever, of or belonging to the ancient Senate-House of
Scotland. But what of that? I had made him my judge by my own election;
and I have often observed, that an idea of declining such a reference,
on account of his own consciousness of incompetency, is, as it perhaps
ought to be, the last which occurs to the referee himself. He that has a
literary work subjected to his judgment by the author, immediately
throws his mind into a critical attitude, though the subject be one
which he never before thought of. No doubt the author is well qualified
to select his own judge, and why should the arbiter whom he has chosen
doubt his own talents for condemnation or acquittal, since he has been
doubtless picked out by his friend, from his indubitable reliance on
their competence? Surely, the man who wrote the production is likely to
know the person best qualified to judge of it.
Whilst these thoughts crossed my brain, I kept my eyes fixed on my good
friend, whose motions appeared unusually tardy to me, while he ordered a
bottle of particular claret, decanted it with scrupulous accuracy with
his own hand, caused his old domestic to bring a saucer of olives, and
chips of toasted bread, and thus, on hospitable thoughts intent, seemed
to me to adjourn the discussion which I longed to bring on, yet feared
to precipitate.
"He is dissatisfied," thought I, "and is ashamed to show it, afraid
doubtless of hurting my feelings. What had I to do to talk to him about
any thing save charters and sasines?--Stay, he is going to begin."
"We are old fellows now, Mr. Croftangry," said my landlord; "scarcely so
fit to take a poor quart of claret between us, as we would have been in
better days to take a pint, in the old Scottish liberal acceptation of
the phrase. Maybe you would have liked me to have kept James to help us.
But if it is not a holyday or so, I think it is best he should observe
office hours."
Here the discourse was about to fall. I relieved it by saying, Mr. James
was at the happy time of life, when he had better things to do than to
sit over the bottle. "I suppose," said I, "your son is a reader."
"Um--yes--James may be called a reader in a sense; but I doubt there is
little solid in his studies--poetry and plays, Mr. Croftangry, all
nonsense--they set his head a-gadding after the army, when he should be
minding his business."
"I suppose, then, that romances do not find much more grace in your eyes
than dramatic and poetical compositions?"
"Deil a bit, deil a bit, Mr. Croftangry, nor historical productions
either. There is too much fighting in history, as if men only were
brought into this world to send one another out of it. It nourishes
false notions of our being, and chief and proper end, Mr. Croftangry."
Still all this was general, and I became determined to bring our discourse
to a focus. "I am afraid, then, I have done very ill to trouble you with
my idle manuscripts, Mr. Fairscribe; but you must do me the justice to
remember, that I had nothing better to do than to amuse myself by writing
the sheets I put into your hands the other day. I may truly plead--
'I left no calling for this idle trade.'"
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