Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since, Walter Scott [important of reading books TXT] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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The affectionate simplicity of Rose and her anxiety for his safety, his sense too of her unprotected state, and of the terror and actual dangers to which she might be exposed, made an impression upon his mind, and he instantly wrote to thank her in the kindest terms for her solicitude on his account, to express his earnest good wishes for her welfare and that of her father, and to assure her of his own safety. The feelings which this task excited were speedily lost in the necessity which he now saw of bidding farewell to Flora Mac-Ivor, perhaps for ever. The pang attending this reflection was inexpressible; for her high-minded elevation of character, her self-devotion to the cause which she had embraced, united to her scrupulous rectitude as to the means of serving it, had vindicated to his judgment the choice adopted by his passions. But time pressed, calumny was busy with his fame, and every hour’s delay increased the power to injure it. His departure must be instant.
With this determination he sought out Fergus, and communicated to him the contents of Rose’s letter, with his own resolution instantly to go to Edinburgh, and put into the hands of some one or other of those persons of influence to whom he had letters from his father his exculpation from any charge which might be preferred against him.
“You run your head into the lion’s mouth,” answered Mac-Ivor. “You do not know the severity of a government harassed by just apprehensions, and a consciousness of their own illegality and insecurity. I shall have to deliver you from some dungeon in Stirling or Edinburgh Castle.”
“My innocence, my rank, my father’s intimacy with Lord M—, General G—, etc., will be a sufficient protection,” said Waverley.
“You will find the contrary,” replied the Chieftain, “these gentlemen will have enough to do about their own matters. Once more, will you take the plaid, and stay a little while with us among the mists and the crows, in the bravest cause ever sword was drawn in?”[*]
[* A Highland rhyme on Glencairn’s Expedition, in 1650, has these lines—
We’ll bide a while amang ta crows,
We’ll wiske ta sword and bend ta bows]
“For many reasons, my dear Fergus, you must hold me excused.”
“Well then,” said Mac-Ivor, “I shall certainly find you exerting your poetical talents in elegies upon a prison, or your antiquarian researches in detecting the Oggam[*] character or some Punic hieroglyphic upon the keystones of a vault, curiously arched. Or what say you to un petit pendement bien joli? against which awkward ceremony I don’t warrant you, should you meet a body of the armed West-Country Whigs.”
[* The Oggam is a species of the old Irish character. The idea of the correspondence betwixt the Celtic and Punic, founded on a scene in Plautus, was not started till General Vallancey set up his theory, long after the date of Fergus Mac-Ivor]
“And why should they use me so?” said Waverley.
“For a hundred good reasons,” answered Fergus. “First, you are an Englishman; secondly, a gentleman; thirdly, a prelatist abjured; and, fourthly, they have not had an opportunity to exercise their talents on such a subject this long while. But don’t be cast down, beloved; all will be done in the fear of the Lord.”
“Well, I must run my hazard.”
“You are determined, then?”
“I am.”
“Wilful will do’t” said Fergus. “But you cannot go on foot, and I shall want no horse, as I must march on foot at the head of the children of Ivor; you shall have brown Dermid.”
“If you will sell him, I shall certainly be much obliged.”
“If your proud English heart cannot be obliged by a gift or loan, I will not refuse money at the entrance of a campaign: his price is twenty guineas. [Remember, reader, it was Sixty Years Since.] And when do you propose to depart?”
“The sooner the better,” answered Waverley.
“You are right, since go you must, or rather, since go you will. I will take Flora’s pony and ride with you as far as Bally-Brough. Callum Beg, see that our horses are ready, with a pony for yourself, to attend and carry Mr. Waverley’s baggage as far as—(naming a small town), where he can have a horse and guide to Edinburgh. Put on a Lowland dress, Callum, and see you keep your tongue close, if you would not have me cut it out. Mr. Waverley rides Dermid.” Then turning to Edward, “You will take leave of my sister?”
“Surely—that is, if Miss Mac-Ivor will honour me so far.”
“Cathleen, let my sister know Mr. Waverley wishes to bid her farewell before he leaves us. But Rose Bradwardine, her situation must be thought of; I wish she were here. And why should she not? There are but four red-coats at Tully-Veolan, and their muskets would be very useful to us.”
To these broken remarks Edward made no answer; his ear indeed received them, but his soul was intent upon the expected entrance of Flora. The door opened. It was but Cathleen, with her lady’s excuse, and wishes for Captain Waverley’s health and happiness.
WAVERLEY’S RECEPTION IN THE LOWLANDS AFTER HIS HIGHLAND TOUR
It was noon when the two friends stood at the top of the pass of Bally-Brough. “I must go no farther,” said Fergus Mac-Ivor, who during the journey had in vain endeavoured to raise his friend’s spirits. “If my cross-grained sister has any share in your dejection, trust me she thinks highly of you, though her present anxiety about the public cause prevents her listening to any other subject. Confide your interest to me; I will not betray it, providing you do not again assume that vile cockade.”
“No fear of that, considering the manner in which it has been recalled. Adieu, Fergus; do not permit your sister to forget me.”
“And adieu, Waverley; you may soon hear of her with a prouder title. Get home, write letters, and make friends as many and as fast as you can; there will speedily be unexpected guests on the coast of Suffolk, or my news from France has deceived me.”[*]
[* The sanguine Jacobites, during the eventful years 1745–46, kept up the spirits of their party by the rumour of descents from France on behalf of the Chevalier St. George.]
Thus parted the friends; Fergus returning back to his castle, while Edward, followed by Callum Beg, the latter transformed from point to point into a Low-Country groom, proceeded to the little town of—.
Edward paced on under the painful and yet not altogether embittered feelings which separation and uncertainty produce in the mind of a youthful lover. I am not sure if the ladies understand the full value of the influence of absence, nor do I think it wise to teach it them, lest, like the Clelias and Mandanes of yore, they should resume the humour of sending their lovers into banishment. Distance, in truth, produces in idea the same effect as in real perspective. Objects are softened, and rounded, and rendered doubly graceful; the harsher and more ordinary points of character are mellowed down, and those by which it is remembered are the more striking outlines that mark sublimity, grace, or beauty. There are mists too in the mental as well as the natural horizon, to conceal what is less pleasing in distant objects, and there are happy lights, to stream in full glory upon those points which can profit by brilliant illumination.
Waverley forgot Flora Mac-Ivor’s prejudices in her magnanimity, and almost pardoned her indifference towards his affection when he recollected the grand and decisive object which seemed to fill her whole soul. She, whose sense of duty so wholly engrossed her in the cause of a benefactor, what would be her feelings in favour of the happy individual who should be so fortunate as to awaken them? Then came the doubtful question, whether he might not be that happy man,—a question which fancy endeavoured to answer in the affirmative, by conjuring up all she had said in his praise, with the addition of a comment much more flattering than the text warranted. All that was commonplace, all that belonged to the every-day world, was melted away and obliterated in those dreams of imagination, which only remembered with advantage the points of grace and dignity that distinguished Flora from the generality of her sex, not the particulars which she held in common with them. Edward was, in short, in the fair way of creating a goddess out of a high-spirited, accomplished, and beautiful young woman; and the time was wasted in castle-building until, at the descent of a steep hill, he saw beneath him the market-town of ——.
The Highland politeness of Callum Beg—there are few nations, by the way, who can boast of so much natural politeness as the Highlanders[*]—the Highland civility of his attendant had not permitted him to disturb the reveries of our hero. But observing him rouse himself at the sight of the village, Callum pressed closer to his side, and hoped “when they cam to the public, his honour wad not say nothing about Vich Ian Vohr, for ta people were bitter Whigs, deil burst tem.”
[* The Highlander, in former times, had always a high idea of his own gentility, and was anxious to impress the same upon those with whom he conversed. His language abounded in the phrases of courtesy and compliment; and the habit of carrying arms, and mixing with those who did so, made it particularly desirable they should use cautious politeness in their intercourse with each other.]
Waverley assured the prudent page that he would be cautious; and as he now distinguished, not indeed the ringing of bells, but the tinkling of something like a hammer against the side of an old mossy, green, inverted porridge-pot that hung in an open booth, of the size and shape of a parrot’s cage, erected to grace the east end of a building resembling an old barn, he asked Callum Beg if it were Sunday.
“Could na say just preceesely; Sunday seldom cam aboon the pass of Bally-Brough.”
On entering the town, however, and advancing towards the most apparent public-house which presented itself, the numbers of old women, in tartan screens and red cloaks, who streamed from the barn-resembling building, debating as they went the comparative merits of the blessed youth Jabesh Rentowel and that chosen vessel Maister Goukthrapple, induced Callum to assure his temporary master “that it was either ta muckle Sunday hersell, or ta little government Sunday that they ca’d ta fast.”
On alighting at the sign of the Seven-branched Golden Candlestick, which, for the further delectation of the guests, was graced with a short Hebrew motto, they were received by mine host, a tall thin puritanical figure, who seemed to debate with himself whether he ought to give shelter to those who travelled on such a day. Reflecting, however, in all probability, that he possessed the power of mulcting them for this irregularity, a penalty which they might escape by passing into Gregor Duncanson’s, at the sign of the Highlander and the Hawick Gill, Mr. Ebenezer Cruickshanks condescended to admit them into his dwelling.
To this sanctified person Waverley addressed his request that he would procure him a guide, with a saddle-horse, to carry his portmanteau to Edinburgh.
“And whar may ye be coming from?” demanded mine host of the Candlestick.
“I have told you where I wish to go; I do not conceive any further information necessary either for the guide or his saddle-horse.”
“Hem! Ahem!” returned he of the Candlestick, somewhat disconcerted at this rebuff. “It’s the general fast, sir, and I cannot enter into ony carnal transactions on sic a day, when the people should be humbled and the backsliders should return, as worthy Mr. Goukthrapple said; and moreover when, as the precious Mr. Jabesh Rentowel did weel observe, the land was mourning for covenants burnt, broken, and buried.”
“My good friend,” said Waverley, “if you cannot let me have a horse and guide, my servant shall seek them elsewhere.”
“Aweel! Your servant? and what for gangs he not forward wi’ you himsell?”
Waverley had but very little of a captain of horse’s spirit within him—I mean of that sort of spirit which I have been obliged to when I happened, in a mail coach or diligence, to meet some military man who has kindly taken upon him the disciplining of the waiters and the taxing of reckonings. Some of this useful talent our hero had, however, acquired during his military service,
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