Sir Walter Scott's Waverley E-Book

Walter Scott

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 450

Beschreibung

It seemed like a dream to Waverley that these deeds of violence should be familiar to men's minds and currently talked of as happening daily in the immediate neighbourhood, without his having crossed the seas. Scotland, 1745: Edward Waverley is a naïve English soldier drawn into the heart of the Jacobite rebellion. Charmed by clan leader Fergus MacIvor and his sister Flora, he allies himself with the Jacobite cause - a bold and dangerous move. He finds himself caught between two women - feisty Flora and demure Rose - proving that love can be just as powerful as politics. First published in 1814, Waverley is widely regarded as the first historical novel in the western tradition. This new edition celebrates the 200th anniversary of its publication, and has been expertly reworked for modern readers by Jenni Calder. Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has Fame and Profit enough as a Poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths. I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it - but fear I must. JANE AUSTEN The best book by Sir Walter Scott. GOETHE One of the things I have always admired about him is that he goes for the big picture. He deals with society at moments of big change and looks at how those moments of historical change affect individual people. JAMES ROBERTSON

Leseprobe

JENNI CALDER was born in Chicago, educated in the United States and England, and has lived in or near Edinburgh since 1971. After several years of part- time teaching and freelance writing, including three years in Kenya, she worked at the National Museums of Scotland from 1978 to 2001 successively as education officer, Head of Publications, script editor for the Museum of Scotland, and latterly as Head of Museum of Scotland International. In the latter capacity her main interest was in emigration and the Scottish diaspora. She has written and lectured widely on Scottish, English and American literary and historical subjects, and writes fiction and poetry as Jenni Daiches. She has two daughters, a son and a dog.

Also by Jenni Calder:

Not Nebuchadnezzar, Luath Press, 2004Letters from the Great Wall, Luath Press, 2006 (as Jenni Daiches)Frontier Scots, Luath Press, 2010Scots in Canada, Luath Press, 2013Scots in the USA, Luath Press, 2013

Other Walter Scott novels newly adapted for the modern reader:

Ivanhoe, adapted by David Purdie, Luath Press, 2012Heart of Midlothian, adapted by David Purdie, Luath Press, 2014

Sir Walter Scott’s

WAVERLEY

Newly adapted for the modern reader byJenni Calder

Luath Press Limited

EDINBURGH

www.luath.co.uk

Contents

Author Bio

Title Page

Copyright

acknowledgements

introduction

volume I

chapter one

chapter two

chapter three

chapter four

chapter five

chapter six

chapter seven

chapter eight

chapter nine

chapter ten

chapter eleven

chapter twelve

chapter thirteen

chapter fourteen

chapter fifteen

chapter sixteen

chapter seventeen

chapter eighteen

chapter nineteen

chapter twenty

chapter twenty-one

chapter twenty-two

chapter twenty-three

volume II

chapter one

chapter two

chapter three

chapter four

chapter five

chapter six

chapter seven

chapter eight

chapter nine

chapter ten

chapter eleven

chapter twelve

chapter thirteen

chapter fourteen

chapter fifteen

chapter sixteen

chapter seventeen

chapter eighteen

chapter nineteen

chapter twenty

chapter twenty-one

chapter twenty-two

chapter twenty-three

chapter twenty-four

volume III

chapter one

chapter two

chapter three

chapter four

chapter five

chapter six

chapter seven

chapter eight

chapter nine

chapter ten

chapter eleven

chapter twelve

chapter thirteen

chapter fourteen

chapter fifteen

chapter sixteen

chapter seventeen

chapter eighteen

chapter nineteen

chapter twenty

chapter twenty-one

chapter twenty-two

chapter twenty-three

chapter twenty-four

chapter twenty-five

Glossary of Scots, Gaelic, dialect and unusual words

Luath

First published 2014

ISBN: 978-1-910021-25-5

ISBN (EBK): 978-1-910324-19-6

The publishers acknowledge the support of Creative Scotland towards the publication of this volume.

The author’s right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

© Jenni Calder 2014

acknowledgements

With grateful thanks to Craig Galbraith, who read the newly adapted text for continuity and checked for errors, and to all those who encouraged the enterprise.

introduction

Waverley was Walter Scott’s first novel, and gave its name to all his fiction that followed – the Waverley Novels. It was published anonymously in July 1814, but Scott was already well-known and much-read as the author of narrative poems which celebrated Scottish history, myth and landscape. The novel’s full title was Waverley or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since which at once signalled to his readers that this was fiction set in the past, and in 1814 this was a new and adventurous notion. Although it was many years before he admitted authorship of the Waverley Novels, acquaintances and attentive readers were not slow to identify him.

In his own time Scott was enormously popular, translated into many languages and read all over the world. His influence on 19th century fiction was without parallel. More recently, although his achievements are acknowledged, he has not been much read. There is considerable academic interest, in Scotland and overseas, but there is a perception that his narratives are too entangled and his prose too dense and idiosyncratic for the modern reader. But Scott is a wonderful story teller, creating unforgettable characters and vividly illuminating the past. His intention was to capture for his readers in the first decades of the century a Scotland that was fast disappearing, if not already disappeared. He is equally precise and evocative in describing the interior of a crumbling Highland cottage and the furnishings of a grand castle, the movement of Highland cattle thieves through mountain passes and the clash of troops on a Lowland battlefield. He wants us to know how people dressed, how they spoke, the songs they sang, the weapons they carried, the food they ate.

Waverley is set at the time of the Jacobite Rising of 1745–46. Its full title

signals the novel’s perspective – Scott is looking back to the past and attempting to picture and explain it for the benefit of the present. The ‘sixty years’ is a reminder that Scott began the novel in 1805, the year in which his first long poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel was published, then set it aside. Years later, he rediscovered the manuscript and finished the novel. He is telling a story that is intrinsically dramatic, but it is important for his purpose that the past is explained as well as dramatised. To help achieve this, he uses the device of a young English hero of romantic inclinations, ignorant of Scotland, naïve about politics, and highly susceptible to environment and events. For reasons which Scott is at great pains to elucidate – it’s worth remembering that he was a lawyer as well as a natural story teller – Edward Waverley is caught up in the Rising, and narrowly escapes the drastic consequences of its failure. In the course of describing his adventures, Scott provides an account of the Rising, its background, and genesis, as well as incident and outcome, which is both compelling and balanced.

Edward Waverley’s innocence and ignorance invite a vivid portrayal of Highland life and landscape, and of the clan system, which, by the time Scott was writing, had largely disintegrated. He was writing for readers, even Scottish readers, for whom Scotland beyond the Highland Line was an almost unknown, wild country inhabited by wild people. He conveys that wildness, but also the many positive qualities – loyalty, hospitality, cultural richness. His portrayal of Fergus MacIvor, the handsome, courageous and ambitious chieftain, his beautiful, sophisticated and equally ambitious sister Flora, his steadfast foster brother Evan Dhu, and sly, impetuous henchman Callum Beg, are strikingly memorable. The Baron of Bradwardine is a finely observed blend of the noble and the ridiculous, and his compliant daughter Rose turns out to have more spirit than first appears. Scott’s subtle and dynamic portrayal of Charles Edward Stuart conveys a real understanding of what drew so many to his cause. Waverley himself is engaging and compassionate, and learns from his exposure to the harsh realities of war and politics.

Along the way are many comic characters and episodes, which leaven the narrative without undermining its historic force. Scott’s use of both Gaelic and Scots adds to the novel’s richness and contributes to our appreciation of time and place. He is an intensely visual writer, in his recreation of landscape and the figures that move over it, in his description of Edinburgh, in his careful depiction of the Jacobite troops mustering in the shadow of Arthur’s Seat, and wrapping themselves in their plaids on the eve of the battle of Prestonpans with the campfires of the sidier roy (redcoats) glowing through the fog.

Scott saw himself as an interpreter of the past, and in his fiction often turns aside to provide explanations and background material. Again, we often see the lawyer’s mind at work. It may be paradoxical, but two hundred years after Waverley’s first publication some of this explanation seems less necessary. Most of the time, the narrative itself provides what we need to know. For this reason, in undertaking the adaptation of Waverley, I have pruned some of Scott’s lengthier filling in of background. Where further explanation is helpful, I have added footnotes. I have also trimmed Scott’s prose – his delight in language can sometimes lead to an over-enthusiasm which can impede the modern reader. His love of diversion into interesting and entertaining byways can slow the impetus of the plot. His writing is full of literary allusions and quotations, often in Latin, which would have resonated with his contemporaries but much less so with today’s readers: many of these have been removed. Except in cases of direct quotation I have not referenced those that remain. I have modernised spelling and slimmed down the original’s profusion of punctuation. A glossary of Scots, Gaelic and unusual words is provided at the back. Words and phrases explained in the text are not included.

Waverley was the start of the career of an extraordinary novelist who brought Scotland’s contentious and difficult past within the horizons of millions of readers, most of whom had little awareness of the small northern nation’s distinctive history. It was followed by many more novels that dramatised and illuminated Scottish events, people, places, character and culture. In his own words, ‘What makes Scotland Scotland need not be lost’ – and he did his utmost to ensure that this was indeed the case. Generations have enjoyed Scott’s fiction as tales of adventure, romance and conflict, and as invitations to enter a vividly illuminated and illuminating past. To read Waverley is to start out on an enticing journey.

Jenni CalderSeptember 2014

volume I

chapter one

Introductory

The title of this work has not been chosen without grave deliberation. I have assumed for my hero, WAVERLEY, an uncontaminated name, bearing with its sound little of good or evil, excepting what the reader shall be hereafter pleased to affix to it. But my supplemental title was a matter of more difficult election, since that may be held as pledging the author to some special mode of laying his scene, drawing his characters and managing his adventures. By fixing 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.

The object of my tale is more a description of men than of manners. The force of narrative is 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. Upon these passions it is no doubt true that the state of manners and laws casts a necessary colouring; but the deep ruling impulse is the same. The proud peer, who can now only ruin his neighbour according to law, 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. 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 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 two

Waverley Honour. A Retrospect

It is sixty years since Edward Waverley 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, who was ten years younger, beheld himself born to the fortune of a second brother, and saw early that to succeed in the race of life it was necessary he should carry as little weight as possible.

Yet reason would have probably been unable to remove hereditary prejudice, could Richard have anticipated that Sir Everard would have remained a bachelor at seventy-two. The prospect of succession might in that case have led him to endure the greater part of his life as ‘Master Richard at the Hall, the baronet’s brother,’ in hopes 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. But when Sir Everard was in the prime of life, and certain to be an acceptable suitor in almost any family, and when, indeed, his speedy marriage was a report which regularly amused the neighbourhood, his brother saw no 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 the house of Stuart. He therefore entered life as an avowed whig, and friend of the Hanover succession.1

The tory nobility had for some time been gradually reconciling themselves to the new dynasty. But the wealthy country gentlemen of England, a rank which retained a great proportion of unyielding prejudice, stood aloof in haughty opposition. The accession of a near relation of one of these 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 political importance. His success became rapid. Sir Everard learned that Richard Waverley, Esquire, had been returned for the ministerial borough of Barterfaith, that he had taken a distinguished part in the debate upon the Excise Bill in the support of government, and that he had been honoured with a seat at one of those boards where the pleasure of serving the country is combined with other important gratifications.2

The baronet, although the mildest of human beings, was not without sensitive points in his character; his brother’s conduct had wounded these deeply. He examined the tree of his genealogy which, emblazoned with many a mark of heroic achievement, hung upon the wainscot of his hall. Had Lawyer Clippurse, for whom his groom was dispatched, arrived but an hour earlier he might have had the benefit of drawing a new settlement of the lordship and manor of Waverley Honour on a representative of the family associated with regicide. But an hour of cool reflection is a great matter. 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. 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, impressed with the same device his ancestor was said to have borne in the field of Hastings; three ermines passant, argent, in a field azure, with an appropriate motto, sans tache.3 ‘May our name rather perish,’ thought 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 a sun-beam just sufficient to light Lawyer Clippurse to mend his pen.4 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 of 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. This was no less than an excursion of the baronet in his coach and six to make a visit 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 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 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 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. Sir Everard manifested great emotion on receiving this intelligence. Honour and generosity were hereditary attributes of the house of Waverley. With a grace worthy the hero of a romance, Sir Everard withdrew his claim to the hand of Lady Emily. He had even the address to extort from her father a consent to her union with the object of her choice. The officer immediately after this transaction rose in the army with a rapidity far surpassing the usual pace of unpatronized professional merit.

The shock which Sir Everard encountered upon this occasion 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 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 memory of his unsuccessful amour was with Sir Everard, at once proud and sensitive, a beacon against expressing himself in fruitless exertion for the time to come. He continued to live at Waverley Honour in the style of an old English gentleman of ancient descent and opulent fortune. His sister, Miss Rachael 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 he continued to maintain the coldness between them. Accident 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 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 he with his keeper 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 carved and gilded carriage drawn by six stately black horses. It was waiting for the owner, who was at a little distance inspecting a half-built farm-house. I know not 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 in 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 coach and six. The rencontre was at a happy moment for Edward, as his uncle had just been eyeing wistfully the chubby boys of the stout yeoman whose mansion was building by his direction. In the rosy cherub before him, bearing his eye and his name and vindicating a hereditary title to his family and patronage, Providence seemed to have granted him the very object best calculated to fill up the void in his hopes and affections. The child and his attendant were sent home in the carriage with such a message as opened to Richard Waverley a door of reconciliation with his elder brother. Their intercourse, however, continued to be rather formal 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 pride might found the continuation of his lineage, and on which his gentle affections could at the same time fully exercise themselves. Richard Waverley beheld in the growing attachment between the uncle and nephew the means of securing his son’s succession to the estate.

Thus, by a sort of tacit compromise, little Edward was permitted to pass the greater part of the year at the Hall.

FOOTNOTES

1 George, Elector of Hanover, a Protestant, succeeded to the throne in 1714. The 1701 Act of Settlement’s exclusion of Catholics from the throne brought an end to the reign of the Stuarts, who went into exile. There were several attempts to restore the Stuarts to the throne, most notably in 1715 and 1745, the year in which Waverley begins.

2 The Excise Bill introduced in 1733 which proposed an excise duty on wine and tobacco. It was defeated.

3 In heraldry, three silver ermines walking towards the right with right forepaw raised, against a bright blue background. The French motto means ‘without stain’.

4 Sharpen his quill pen.

chapter three

Education

The education of Edward Waverley was somewhat desultory. In infancy his health suffered by the air of London. As soon, therefore, as official duties called his father to town, his usual residence for eight months in the year, Edward was transferred to Waverley Honour, and experienced a change 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 Sir Everard’s selection 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 accomplishment, 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 at the Hall.

Sir Everard’s chaplain, Mr Pembroke, 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 youth was permitted, in great measure, to learn what he pleased and when he pleased. The looseness of rule would have been ruinous to a boy of slow understanding, and equally dangerous to a youth whose animal spirits were more powerful than his feelings. But the character of Edward Waverley was remote from these. His powers of apprehen- sion were so quick as almost to resemble intuition, and the chief care of his preceptor was to prevent him from acquiring his knowledge in a slight and inadequate manner. And here the instructor had to combat another propensity too often united with brilliance of fancy and vivacity of talent, that indolence of disposition which renounces study so soon as curiosity is gratified and novelty is at an end. Edward would throw himself with spirit upon any classical author which his preceptor proposed, and if it interested him he finished the volume. But it was in vain to attempt fixing his attention on critical distinctions, beauty of expression, or combinations of syntax. Alas, while he was thus permitted to read only for his own amusement, he foresaw not that he was losing the opportunity of gaining the art of concentrating the powers of his own mind for earnest investi- gation, an art far more essential than even that learning which is the primary object of study.

To our young hero the indulgence of his tutors was attended with evil conse- quences, which long continued to influence his character and utility. Edward’s power of imagination and love of literature inflamed this peculiar evil. The library at Waverley Honour contained a miscellaneous and extensive collection of volumes assembled during the course of two hundred years by a family inclined to furnish their shelves with the literature of the day without much discrimination. Through this ample realm Edward was permitted to roam. Sir Everard had never been himself a student, and held that idleness is incompatible with reading, and that the mere tracing the alphabetical characters with the eye is in itself meritorious, without considering what ideas they may convey. With a desire of amusement therefore, which better discipline might have converted into a thirst for know- ledge, young Waverley drove through the sea of books like a vessel without a pilot or a rudder. Edward read no volume a moment after it ceased to excite his interest, and the habit of seeking only this sort of gratification rendered it daily more difficult of attainment, till the passion for reading produced 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 information. 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 an elevated situation in society.

The occasional attention of his parents might have prevented the dissipation of mind incidental to such a desultory course of reading. But Mrs Richard Waverley died in the seventh year after the reconciliation of the brothers, and Waverley himself 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 four

Castle-Building

Edward was in his sixteenth year when his habits of abstraction and love of solitude became so marked as to excite Sir Everard’s affectionate apprehen- sion. He tried to counterbalance these propensities by engaging his nephew in field-sports, but although Edward eagerly carried the gun for one season, when practice had given him some dexterity the pastime ceased to afford him amuse- ment. Society and example might have had their usual effect, but the neighbour- hood was thinly inhabited, and the home-bred young squires were not of a class to form Edward’s usual companions, far less to excite him to emulate them in those pastimes which composed the serious business of their lives. Sir Everard had resigned his seat in parliament, and as his age increased and the number of his contemporaries diminished, gradually withdrew himself from society, so that when Edward mingled with well-educated young men of his own rank he felt inferior, not so much from deficiency of information as from the want of the skill to command that which he possessed. An increasing sensibility added to this dislike of society. The idea of having committed the slightest solecism, whether real or imaginary, was agony to him; for perhaps even guilt itself does not impose so keen a sense of shame as a sensitive youth feels from having neglected etiquette or excited ridicule. It is not surprising that Edward Waverley supposed that he was unfitted for society, merely because he had not yet acquired the habit of living in it with ease and comfort.

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 was frequ- ently excited. Family tradition and genealogical history, themselves insignificant, serve to perpetuate a great deal of what is rare and valuable in ancient manners and to record many curious facts. Our hero would steal away to indulge the fancies they excited. In the corner of the large and sombre library he would exercise for hours that internal sorcery by which past or imaginary events are presented.

As living in this ideal world became daily more delectable, interruption was disagreeable in proportion. The extensive domain that surrounded the Hall, usually termed Waverley Chase, had originally been forest and still retained its pristine and savage character. It was traversed by broad avenues, in many places half- grown up with brushwood. With his gun and his spaniel, and with a book in his pocket, 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 cliff and wooded pass, and opened suddenly upon a deep, dark lake. There stood in former times a solitary tower upon a rock almost surrounded by 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 carried on a harassing and predatory warfare till the stronghold was reduced by the celebrated Richard of Gloucester.1

Through these scenes it was that Edward, like a child amongst his toys, culled from the splendid yet useless imagery with which his imagination was stored visions as brilliant and as fading as those of an evening sky.

FOOTNOTE

1 The Wars of the Roses, 1455–85, in which the houses of York and Lancaster contended for the English throne. Lancastrian Richard, Duke of Gloucester, became King Richard III in 1483.

chapter five

Choice of a Profession

So far was Edward Waverley from expecting sympathy with his own feelings that he dreaded nothing more than the detection of the sentiments 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 to choose between any punishment short of ignominy and the necessity of giving a composed account of the ideal world in which he lived the better part of his days, he would not have hesitated to choose the former infliction. This secrecy became doubly precious as he felt the influence of awakening passions. Female forms of exquisite grace and beauty began to mingle in his mental adventures, nor was he long without comparing the creatures of his imagination with the females of actual life. The list of the beauties who displayed their finery at the parish church was neither numerous nor select. By far the most passable was Miss Cecilia Stubbs, daughter of Squire Stubbs at the Grange, who more than once crossed Edward in his favourite walks through Waverley Chase. Ere the charms of Miss Cecilia Stubbs had erected her into a positive goddess, Mrs Rachael Waverley gained some intimation which determined her to prevent the approaching apotheosis. Even the most unsuspicious of the female sex have an instinctive sharpness of perception in such matters. Mrs Rachael applied herself not to combat but to elude the approaching danger, and suggested to her brother 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 was the season for learning, and no doubt when his rage for letters was abated his nephew would take to field-sports and country business.

Aunt Rachael’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. A proposal was made to Mr Richard Waverley that his son should travel, under the direction of his present tutor. He saw no objection to this, but on mentioning it casually at the table of the minister, the great man looked grave. Sir Everard’s politics, the minister observed, 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. 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?1

If Mr Richard Waverley’s son adopted the army, a troop, he believed, might be reckoned upon in one of the dragoon regiments. A hint thus conveyed was not to be neglected with impunity, and Richard Waverley deemed he could not avoid accepting the commission thus offered him for his son. Two letters announced this determination to the baronet and his nephew. Edward was now (the interme- diate steps of cornet and lieutenant being overleapt with great agility) Captain Waverley of the Gardiner’s regiment of dragoons, which he must join at their quarters at Dundee in Scotland, in the course of a month.2

Sir Everard received this intimation with a mixture of feelings. At the period of the Hanoverian accession 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 cases of carbines and pistols addressed to the baronet. But there was no overt act to be founded on, and government, contented with suppressing the insurrec- tion of 1715, felt it neither prudent nor safe to push their vengeance farther than against those who actually took up arms. It was well known that Sir Everard supplied with money several of the distressed Northumbrians and Scotchmen who were imprisoned in Newgate and the Marshalsea, and it was his solicitor and counsel who conducted the defence of some of these unfortunate gentlemen at their trial.3 It was generally supposed, that had ministers possessed any real proof of Sir Everard’s accession to the rebellion, he would not have ventured thus to brave the existing government.

Since that time Sir Everard’s Jacobitism had been gradually decaying, like a fire which burns out for lack of fuel. His tory principles were kept up by some occasional exercise at elections, but those respecting hereditary right were fallen into a sort of abeyance. Yet it jarred severely that his nephew should go into the army under the Brunswick dynasty. But he concluded that when war was at hand, although it were shame to be on any side but one, it was worse shame to be idle than to be on the worst side. As for Aunt Rachael, her scheme had not exactly terminated according to her wishes, but she submitted to circumstances, and her mortification was greatly consoled by the prospect of beholding her nephew blaze in complete uniform.

FOOTNOTES

1 The Pretender and his sons: the exiled James VIII and III was called by the Hanoverians the Pretender, from French pretender, to claim. James’s sons were Charles Edward, the ‘Young Pretender’, and Henry, who became a cardinal.

2 James Gardiner, who was killed at the battle of Prestonpans, 1745, was in 1743 based in East Lothian. Scott described him as ‘this gallant and excellent man’.

3 Newgate and the Marshalsea were prisons in London, the former on the site of the Old Bailey, the latter in Southwark.

chapter six

The Adieus of Waverley

It was upon a Sunday evening 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 brand of old Sir Hildebrand, which usually hung over the chimney in the library beneath a picture of the knight and his horse. Sir Everard entered, and after a glance at the picture and another at his nephew, began a little speech.

‘My dear Edward, it is God’s will, and also the will of your father, that you should leave us to take up the profession of arms. I have made such arrangements that will enable you to take the field 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 unnecessary danger and keep no company with rakes, gamblers and whigs, of whom 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 with the word king, but as unfortunately the word conveyed a double and embarrassing sense, the knight filled up the blank otherwise) – the church of England, and all constituted authorities.’ Then he carried his nephew to the stables to see the horses he destined for his campaign. Two were black, 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. ‘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.’ Sir Everard 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 indivi- dual 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 sealed with the Waverley coat-of-arms. It was addressed, ‘For Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine, Esq. of Bradwardine, at his principal mansion of Tully Veolan, in Perthshire, North Britain. These – By the hand of Captain Edward Waverley, nephew of Sir Everard Waverley of Waverley Honour, Bart.’ The gentleman to whom this ceremonious greeting was addressed had been in arms for the exiled family of Stuart in the year 1715, and was made prisoner at Preston, Lancashire.1 He was a man 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. Sir Everard accomplished the final deliverance of Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine from certain very awkward conseq- uences of a plea before the king at Westminster. The baron of Bradwardine posted down to pay his respects at Waverley Honour. A congenial passion for field-sports and a coincidence in political opinions cemented his friendship with Sir Everard; and having spent several weeks at Waverley Honour he 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.

Sir Everard’s habits of indolence interfered with his wish to pay a visit to Perthshire, but there was still maintained a yearly intercourse of a hamper or 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 grouse, white hares, pickled salmon and usquebaugh, all which were meant and received as pledges of constant friendship between these 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 settled, Mr Pembroke expressed his wish to take a private leave of his dear pupil. It had pleased Heaven, he said, to place Scotlandin a more deplorable state of darkness than even this unhappy kingdom of England.

Here, at least, the church of England yet afforded a glimmering light. There was a hierarchy, there was a liturgy. But in Scotland it was utter darkness, and excepting a sorrowful, scattered and persecuted remnant, the pulpits were abandoned to presbyterians and to sectaries of every description. It should be his duty to fortify his dear pupil to resist such 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. His destined proselyte, seeing nothing very inviting in the titles of the tracts and appalled by the bulk of the manuscript, quietly consigned them to a corner of his travelling trunk.

Aunt Rachael’s farewell was brief and affectionate. She 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 there could be no great delicacy among the ladies where the gentlemen’s usual attire was, to say the least, very singular and not at all decorous. She concluded her farewell with a moving benediction, and gave the young officer a valuable diamond ring and a purse of broad gold pieces.

FOOTNOTE

1 At Preston, Lancashire in November 1715 a Jacobite army was besieged and defeated by government forces.

chapter seven

A Horse-Quarter in Scotland

The next morning Edward Waverley departed from the Hall amid the blessings and tears of all the domestics and the inhabitants of the village. He proceeded on horseback to Edinburgh, and from thence to Dundee, a sea-port on the eastern coast of Angus-shire where his regiment was 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 the romantic and inquisitive youth. In person he was tall, handsome and active, though somewhat advanced in life. In his early years he had been a very gay young man, and strange stories were circulated about his sudden conversion from doubt, if not infidelity, to a serious turn of mind. It may be easily imagined that the officers of a regiment commanded by so respectable a person composed a society more sedate 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 received instructions in field duty; but when his first ardour was passed his progress fell short of what he wished and expected. The duty of an officer, accompanied with so much pomp and circumstance, is in its essence a very dry study depending chiefly upon arithmetical combinations requiring much attention and a cool 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. 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 movements necessary to execute a particular evolution, and why his memory did not always retain technical phrases and minute points of field discipline. Waverley was naturally modest, and therefore did not fall into the egregious mistake of supposing such 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 had given him that wavering habit of mind which is most averse to study and riveted attention. Time in the meanwhile hung heavy on his hands. The gentry of the neighbourhood 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. He travelled on horseback with a single attendant, and passed his first night at a miserable inn where the landlady had neither shoes nor stockings, and the landlord was disposed to be rude to his guest because he had not bespoke the pleasure of his society to supper. The next day, traversing an open and unenclosed 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 there had dwelt his ancestors since the days of the gracious King Duncan.1

FOOTNOTE

1 Duncan I, king of Scots 1034–1040, murdered by Macbeth.

chapter eight

A Scottish Manor House Sixty Years Since

It was about noon when Captain Waverley entered the straggling 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 on each side of a straggling 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, when such a consummation seemed inevitable, a watchful old granddame rushed out of one of these miserable cells, dashed into the middle of the path, and snatching up her own charge, saluted him with a sound cuff and transported him back to his dungeon, the little white-headed varlet screaming a shrilly treble to the growling remon- strance of the enraged matron. Another part of this concert was sustained by the incessant yelping of a score of idle curs, which followed, snarling and snapping at the horses’ heels.

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 the hut to gaze on the stranger and the horses, and then assembled with his neighbours to discuss 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, with their thin short-gowns and single petticoats, bare arms, legs and feet, uncovered heads and braided hair. Nor could a lover of the picturesque have challenged either the elegance of their costume or the symmetry of their shape, although a mere Englishman might have wished for 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 soap. The whole scene was depressing, for it argued a stagna- tion 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 alone showed any activity. The villagers stood and gazed at the handsome young officer and his attendant, but without those 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 was far from exhibiting stupidity. Their features were rough but remarkably intelligent, and from the young women an artist might have chosen more than one whose features and form resembled those of Minerva.1 The children also, whose skins were burned black and whose hair was bleached white, had a look of life and interest. It seemed as if poverty and indolence, its too frequent companion, were combining to depress the natural genius of a hardy and intelligent peasantry.

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 cabrioles which his charger exhibited at the assaults of the canine Cossacks.2 The village was more than half a mile long, the cottages irregularly divided by yards of different sizes which were stored with gigantic plants of kale encircled with groves of nettles, and here and there a huge hemlock or the national thistle. The dry stone walls were intersected by narrow lanes 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 variety of the surface resembled a tailor’s book of patterns. In a few instances there appeared behind the cottages miserable wigwams 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 bow-shot from the end of the village appeared the parks of Tully Veolan, 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 had once represented two rampant bears, the supporters of the family of Bradwardine. The avenue was straight, running between a double row of ancient horse-chestnuts, planted alternately with sycamores which rose to such huge height and flourished so luxuriantly that their boughs completely over-arched the road beneath. Beyond these venerable ranks were two walls overgrown with ivy, honeysuckle, and other climbing plants. The avenue seemed little trodden, clothed with grass of a deep and rich verdure excepting where a foot-path tracked the way from the upper to the lower gate. This nether portal opened in front of a wall battlemented on the top, over which were seen the high steep roofs and narrow gables of the mansion, with ascending lines cut 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 courtyard behind a long line of brilliancy was flung from the aperture up the dark and sombre avenue.

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 cooling shade and so much pleased with the placid ideas of seclusion excited by this quiet scene that he forgot the misery of the hamlet he had left behind him. The opening into the paved courtyard corresponded with the rest of the scene. The house, which seemed to consist of two or three high, 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 very small. The roof had projections called bartizans and displayed at each angle a small turret, rather resembling a pepper-box than a Gothic watch-tower. Neither did the front indicate absolute security from danger. There were loop-holes for musquetry 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. Above these dungeon-looking stables were granaries, called girnels, and other offices, to which there was access by outside stairs. Two battlemented walls, one of which faced the avenue and the other divided the court from the garden, completed the inclosure. In one corner was a pigeon-house, of great size and rotundity.

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 water. This work of art was the wonder of the country for ten miles round. All sorts of bears, small and large, were carved over the windows, upon the ends of gables, terminated the spouts, and supported the turrets, with the ancient family motto

‘Bewar the Bar’ cut under each. The court was spacious and well paved. Every- thing around appeared solitary, and would have been silent but for the splashing of the fountain, and the whole scene maintained the monastic illusion which the fancy of Waverley had conjured up.

FOOTNOTES

1 Roman goddess of wisdom and handicrafts.

2 Tribal cavalrymen from southeastern Russia.

chapter nine

More of the Manor House and its Environs

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