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Waverley, Volume I

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> Waverley, Volume I




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, whichl 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.

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