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Waverley

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> Waverley




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.

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