Waverley

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This degenerate scion had committed a further offence against the
head and source of their gentility, by the intermarriage of their
representative with Judith, heiress of Oliver Bradshawe, of Highley
Park, whose arms, the same with those of Bradshawe the regicide,
they had quartered with the ancient coat of Waverley. These offences,
however, had vanished from Sir Everard's recollection in the heat of his
resentment; and had Lawyer Clippurse, for whom his groom was dispatched
express, arrived but an hour earlier, he might have had the benefit of
drawing a new settlement of the lordship and manor of Waverley-Honour,
with all its dependencies. But an hour of cool reflection is a great
matter, when employed in weighing the comparative evil of two measures,
to neither of which we are internally partial. Lawyer Clippurse found
his patron involved in a deep study, which he was too respectful to
disturb, otherwise than by producing his paper and leathern ink-case, as
prepared to minute his honour's commands. Even this slight manoeuvre
was embarrassing to Sir Everard, who felt it as a reproach to his
indecision. He looked at the attorney with some desire to issue his
fiat, when the sun, emerging from behind a cloud, poured at once its
chequered light through the stained window of the gloomy cabinet in
which they were seated. The Baronet's eye, as he raised it to the
splendour, fell right upon the central scutcheon, impressed with the
same device which his ancestor was said to have borne in the field of
Hastings; three ermines passant, argent, in a field azure, with its
appropriate motto, SANS LACHE. 'May our name rather perish,' exclaimed
Sir Everard, 'than that ancient and loyal symbol should be blended with
the dishonoured insignia of a traitorous Roundhead!'

All this was the effect of the glimpse of a sunbeam, just sufficient to
light Lawyer Clippurse to mend his pen. The pen was mended in vain. The
attorney was dismissed, with directions to hold himself in readiness on
the first summons.

The apparition of Lawyer Clippurse at the Hall occasioned much
speculation in that portion of the world to which Waverley-Honour formed
the centre: but the more judicious politicians of this microcosm augured
yet worse consequences to Richard Waverley from a movement which shortly
followed his apostasy. This was no less than an excursion of the Baronet
in his coach-and-six, with four attendants in rich liveries, to make a
visit of some duration to a noble peer on the confines of the shire, of
untainted descent, steady Tory principles, and the happy father of six
unmarried and accomplished daughters.

Sir Everard's reception in this family was, as it may be easily
conceived, sufficiently favourable; but of the six young ladies,
his taste unfortunately determined him in favour of Lady Emily, the
youngest, who received his attentions with an embarrassment which showed
at once that she durst not decline them, and that they afforded her
anything but pleasure.

Sir Everard could not but perceive something uncommon in the restrained
emotions which the young lady testified at the advances he hazarded;
but, assured by the prudent Countess that they were the natural effects
of a retired education, the sacrifice might have been completed, as
doubtless has happened in many similar instances, had it not been for
the courage of an elder sister, who revealed to the wealthy suitor that
Lady Emily's affections were fixed upon a young soldier of fortune,
a near relation of her own. Sir Everard manifested great emotion on
receiving this intelligence, which was confirmed to him, in a private
interview, by the young lady herself, although under the most dreadful
apprehensions of her father's indignation.

Honour and generosity were hereditary attributes of the house of
Waverley. With a grace and delicacy worthy the hero of a romance, Sir
Everard withdrew his claim to the hand of Lady Emily. He had even,
before leaving Blandeville Castle, the address to extort from her father
a consent to her union with the object of her choice. What arguments he
used on this point cannot exactly be known, for Sir Everard was never
supposed strong in the powers of persuasion; but the young officer,
immediately after this transaction, rose in the army with a rapidity far
surpassing the usual pace of unpatronized professional merit, although,
to outward appearance, that was all he had to depend upon.

The shock which Sir Everard encountered upon this occasion, although
diminished by the consciousness of having acted virtuously and
generously, had its effect upon his future life. His resolution of
marriage had been adopted in a fit of indignation; the labour of
courtship did not quite suit the dignified indolence of his habits; he
had but just escaped the risk of marrying a woman who could never love
him; and his pride could not be greatly flattered by the termination of
his amour, even if his heart had not suffered. The result of the whole
matter was his return to Waverley-Honour without any transfer of his
affections, notwithstanding the sighs and languishments of the fair
tell-tale, who had revealed, in mere sisterly affection, the secret
of Lady Emily's attachment, and in despite of the nods, winks, and
innuendoes of the officious lady mother, and the grave eulogiums which
the Earl pronounced successively on the prudence, and good sense, and
admirable dispositions, of his first, second, third, fourth, and fifth
daughters. The memory of his unsuccessful amour was with Sir Everard,
as with many more of his temper, at once shy, proud, sensitive, and
indolent, a beacon against exposing himself to similar mortification,
pain, and fruitless exertion for the time to come. He continued to
live at Waverley-Honour in the style of an old English gentleman, of an
ancient descent and opulent fortune. His sister, Miss Rachel Waverley,
presided at his table; and they became, by degrees, an old bachelor
and an ancient maiden lady, the gentlest and kindest of the votaries of
celibacy.

The vehemence of Sir Everard's resentment against his brother was but
short-lived; yet his dislike to the Whig and the placeman, though unable
to stimulate him to resume any active measures prejudicial to Richard's
interest in the succession to the family estate, continued to maintain
the coldness between them. Richard knew enough of the world, and of his
brother's temper, to believe that by any ill-considered or precipitate
advances on his part, he might turn passive dislike into a more active
principle. It was accident, therefore, which at length occasioned a
renewal of their intercourse. Richard had married a young woman of rank,
by whose family interest and private fortune he hoped to advance his
career. In her right, he became possessor of a manor of some value, at
the distance of a few miles from Waverley-Honour.

Little Edward, the hero of our tale, then in his fifth year, was their
only child. It chanced that the infant with his maid had strayed one
morning to a mile's distance from the avenue of Brere-wood Lodge, his
father's seat. Their attention was attracted by a carriage drawn by six
stately long-failed black horses, and with as much carving and gilding
as would have done honour to my lord mayor's. It was waiting for
the owner, who was at a little distance inspecting the progress of a
half-built farm-house. I know not whether the boy's nurse had been
a Welsh or a Scotch woman, or in what manner he associated a shield
emblazoned with three ermines with the idea of personal property, but
he no sooner beheld this family emblem, than he stoutly determined on
vindicating his right to the splendid vehicle on which it was displayed.
The Baronet arrived while the boy's maid was in vain endeavouring to
make him desist from his determination to appropriate the gilded coach
and six. The rencontre was at a happy moment for Edward, as his uncle
had been just eyeing wistfully, with something of a feeling like envy,
the chubby boys of the stout yeoman whose mansion was building by his
direction. In the round-faced rosy cherub before him, bearing his eye
and his name, and vindicating a hereditary title to his family affection
and patronage, by means of a tie which Sir Everard held as sacred as
either Garter or Blue Mantle, Providence seemed to have granted to him
the very object best calculated to fill up the void in his hopes and
affections. Sir Everard returned to Waverley Hall upon a led horse which
was kept in readiness for him, while the child and his attendant were
sent home in the carriage to Brere-wood Lodge, with such a message
as opened to Richard Waverley a door of reconciliation with his elder
brother.

Their intercourse, however, though thus renewed, continued to be rather
formal and civil, than partaking of brotherly cordiality; yet it was
sufficient to the wishes of both parties. Sir Everard obtained, in the
frequent society of his little nephew, something on which his hereditary
pride might found the anticipated pleasure of a continuation of his
lineage, and where his kind and gentle affections could at the same
time fully exercise themselves. For Richard Waverley, he beheld in the
growing attachment between the uncle and nephew the means of securing
his son's, if not his own, succession to the hereditary estate, which he
felt would be rather endangered than promoted by any attempt on his own
part towards a closer intimacy with a man of Sir Everard's habits and
opinions.

Thus, by a sort of tacit compromise, little Edward was permitted to pass
the greater part of the year at the Hall, and appeared to stand in
the same intimate relation to both families, although their mutual
intercourse was otherwise limited to formal messages, and more formal
visits. The education of the youth was regulated alternately by the
taste and opinions of his uncle and of his father. But more of this in a
subsequent chapter.



CHAPTER III

EDUCATION

The education of our hero, Edward Waverley, was of a nature somewhat
desultory. In infancy, his health suffered, or was supposed to suffer
(which is quite the same thing), by the air of London. As soon,
therefore, as official duties, attendance on Parliament, or the
prosecution of any of his plans of interest or ambition, called his
father to town, which was his usual residence for eight months in the
year, Edward was transferred to Waverley-Honour, and experienced a total
change of instructors and of lessons, as well as of residence.
This might have been remedied, had his father placed him under the
superintendence of a permanent tutor. But he considered that one of his
choosing would probably have been unacceptable at Waverley-Honour, and
that such a selection as Sir Everard might have made, were the matter
left to him, would have burdened him with a disagreeable inmate, if not
a political spy, in his family. He therefore prevailed upon his private
secretary, a young man of taste and accomplishments, to bestow an hour
or two on Edward's education while at Brere-wood Lodge, and left his
uncle answerable for his improvement in literature while an inmate at
the Hall.

This was in some degree respectably provided for. Sir Everard's
chaplain, an Oxonian, who had lost his fellowship for declining to
take the oaths at the accession of George I, was not only an excellent
classical scholar, but reasonably skilled in science, and master of most
modern languages. He was, however, old and indulgent, and the recurring
interregnum, during which Edward was entirely freed from his discipline,
occasioned such a relaxation of authority, that the youth was permitted,
in a great measure, to learn as he pleased, what he pleased, and when he
pleased. This slackness of rule might have been ruinous to a boy of
slow understanding, who, feeling labour in the acquisition of
knowledge, would have altogether neglected it, save for the command of a
task-master; and it might have proved equally dangerous to a youth whose
animal spirits were more powerful than his imagination or his feelings,
and whom the irresistible influence of Alma would have engaged in field
sports from morning till night. But the character of Edward Waverley
was remote from either of these. His powers of apprehension were so
uncommonly quick, as almost to resemble intuition, and the chief care of
his preceptor was to prevent him, as a sportsman would phrase it, from
overrunning his game, that is, from acquiring his knowledge in a slight,
flimsy, and inadequate manner. And here the instructor had to combat
another propensity too often united with brilliancy of fancy and
vivacity of talent,--that indolence, namely, of disposition, which
can only be stirred by some strong motive of gratification, and which
renounces study as soon as curiosity is gratified, the pleasure of
conquering the first difficulties exhausted, and the novelty of pursuit
at an end. Edward would throw himself with spirit upon any classical
author of which his preceptor proposed the perusal, make himself master
of the style so far as to understand the story, and if that pleased or
interested him, he finished the volume. But it was in vain to attempt
fixing his attention on critical distinctions of philology, upon
the difference of idiom, the beauty of felicitous expression, or the
artificial combinations of syntax. 'I can read and understand a Latin
author,' said young Edward, with the self-confidence and rash reasoning
of fifteen, 'and Scaliger or Bentley could not do much more.' Alas!
while he was thus permitted to read only for the gratification of his
amusement, he foresaw not that he was losing for ever the opportunity of
acquiring habits of firm and assiduous application, of gaining the art
of controlling, directing, and concentrating the powers of his mind
for earnest investigation,--an art far more essential than even that
intimate acquaintance with classical learning, which is the primary
object of study.

I am aware I may be here reminded of the necessity of rendering
instruction agreeable to youth, and of Tasso's infusion of honey into
the medicine prepared for a child; but an age in which children are
taught the driest doctrines by the insinuating method of instructive
games, has little reason to dread the consequences of study being
rendered too serious or severe. The history of England is now reduced
to a game at cards,--the problems of mathematics to puzzles and
riddles,--and the doctrines of arithmetic may, we are assured, be
sufficiently acquired, by spending a few hours a week at a new and
complicated edition of the Royal Game of the Goose. There wants but one
step further, and the Creed and Ten Commandments may be taught in the
same manner, without the necessity of the grave face, deliberate tone of
recital, and devout attention, hitherto exacted from the well governed
childhood of this realm. It may, in the meantime, be subject of
serious consideration, whether those who are accustomed only to acquire
instruction through the medium of amusement, may not be brought to
reject that which approaches under the aspect of study; whether those
who learn history by the cards, may not be led to prefer the means to
the end; and whether, were we to teach religion in the way of sport,
our pupils may not thereby be gradually induced to make sport of their
religion. To our young hero, who was permitted to seek his instruction
only according to the bent of his own mind, and who, of consequence,
only sought it so long as it afforded him amusement, the indulgence of
his tutors was attended with evil consequences, which long continued
to influence his character, happiness, and utility. Edward's power of
imagination and love of literature, although the former was vivid, and
the latter ardent, were so far from affording a remedy to this peculiar
evil, that they rather inflamed and increased its violence. The library
at Waverley-Honour, a large Gothic room, with double arches and a
gallery, contained such a miscellaneous and extensive collection of
volumes as had been assembled together, during the course of two hundred
years, by a family which had been always wealthy, and inclined, of
course, as a mark of splendour, to furnish their shelves with the
current literature of the day, without much scrutiny, or nicety of
discrimination. Throughout this ample realm Edward was permitted to
roam at large. His tutor had his own studies; and church politics and
controversial divinity, together with a love of learned ease, though
they did not withdraw his attention at stated times from the progress
of his patron's presumptive heir, induced him readily to grasp at any
apology for not extending a strict and regulated survey towards his
general studies. Sir Everard had never been himself a student, and,
like his sister Miss Rachel Waverley, he held the common doctrine, that
idleness is incompatible with reading of any kind, and that the mere
tracing the alphabetical characters with the eye is in itself a useful
and meritorious task, without scrupulously considering what ideas
or doctrines they may happen to convey. With a desire of amusement,
therefore, which better discipline might soon have converted into a
thirst for knowledge, young Waverley drove through the sea of books,
like a vessel without a pilot or a rudder. Nothing perhaps increases by
indulgence more than a desultory habit of reading, especially under such
opportunities of gratifying it. I believe one reason why such numerous
instances of erudition occur among the lower ranks is, that, with the
same powers of mind, the poor student is limited to a narrow circle
for indulging his passion for books, and must necessarily make himself
master of the few he possesses ere he can acquire more. Edward, on the
contrary, like the epicure who only deigned to take a single morsel from
the sunny side of a peach, read no volume a moment after it ceased to
excite his curiosity or interest; and it necessarily happened, that the
habit of seeking only this sort of gratification rendered it daily more
difficult of attainment, till the passion for reading, like other strong
appetites, produced by indulgence a sort of satiety.

Ere he attained this indifference, however, he had read, and stored in
a memory of uncommon tenacity, much curious, though ill-arranged and
miscellaneous information. In English literature he was master of
Shakespeare and Milton, of our earlier dramatic authors; of many
picturesque and interesting passages from our old historical chronicles;
and was particularly well acquainted with Spenser, Drayton, and other
poets who have exercised themselves on romantic fiction, of all themes
the most fascinating to a youthful imagination, before the passions have
roused themselves, and demand poetry of a more sentimental description.
In this respect his acquaintance with Italian opened him yet a wider
range. He had perused the numerous romantic poems, which, from the days
of Pulci, have been a favourite exercise of the wits of Italy; and had
sought gratification in the numerous collections of NOVELLE, which were
brought forth by the genius of that elegant though luxurious nation, in
emulation of the DECAMERON. In classical literature, Waverley had made
the usual progress, and read the usual authors; and the French had
afforded him an almost exhaustless collection of memoirs, scarcely more
faithful than romances, and of romances so well written as hardly to be
distinguished from memoirs. The splendid pages of Froissart, with his
heart-stirring and eye-dazzling descriptions of war and of tournaments,
were among his chief favourites; and from those of Brantome and de
la Noue he learned to compare the wild and loose yet superstitious
character of the nobles of the League, with the stern, rigid, and
sometimes turbulent disposition of the Huguenot party. The Spanish had
contributed to his stock of chivalrous and romantic lore. The earlier
literature of the northern nations did not escape the study of one who
read rather to awaken the imagination than to benefit the understanding.
And yet, knowing much that is known but to few, Edward Waverley might
justly be considered as ignorant, since he knew little of what adds
dignify to man, and qualifies him to support and adorn an elevated
situation in society.

The occasional attention of his parents might indeed have been of
service, to prevent the dissipation of mind incidental to such a
desultory course of reading. But his mother died in the seventh year
after the reconciliation between the brothers, and Richard Waverley
himself, who, after this event, resided more constantly in London, was
too much interested in his own plans of wealth and ambition, to notice
more respecting Edward, than that he was of a very bookish turn, and
probably destined to be a bishop. If he could have discovered and
analysed his son's waking dreams, he would have formed a very different
conclusion.



CHAPTER IV

CASTLE-BUILDING

I have already hinted, that the dainty, squeamish, and fastidious taste
acquired by a surfeit of idle reading, had not only rendered our hero
unfit for serious and sober study, it had even disgusted him in some
degree with that in which he had hitherto indulged.

He was in his sixteenth year, when his habits of abstraction and love of
solitude became so much marked, as to excite Sir Everard's affectionate
apprehension. He tried to counterbalance these propensities, by engaging
his nephew in field sports, which had been the chief pleasure of his
own youthful days. But although Edward eagerly carried the gun for one
season, yet when practice had given him some dexterity, the pastime
ceased to afford him amusement.

In the succeeding spring, the perusal of old Isaac Walton's fascinating
volume determined Edward to become 'a brother of the angle.' But of
all diversions which ingenuity ever devised for the relief of idleness,
fishing is the worst qualified to amuse a man who is at once indolent
and impatient; and our hero's rod was speedily flung aside. Society and
example, which, more than any other motives, master and sway the
natural bent of our passions, might have had their usual effect upon the
youthful visionary: but the neighbourhood was thinly inhabited, and the
homebred young squires whom it afforded, were not of a class fit to form
Edward's usual companions, far less to excite him to emulation in the
practice of those pastimes which composed the serious business of their
lives.

There were a few other youths of better education, and a more liberal
character; but from their society also our hero was in some degree
excluded. Sir Everard had, upon the death of Queen Anne, resigned his
seat in Parliament, and, as his age increased and the number of his
contemporaries diminished, had gradually withdrawn himself from
society; so that when, upon any particular occasion, Edward mingled
with accomplished and well-educated young men of his own rank and
expectations, he felt an inferiority in their company, not so much from
deficiency of information, as from the want of the skill to command and
to arrange that which he possessed. A deep and increasing sensibility
added to this dislike of society. The idea of having committed the
slightest solecism in politeness, whether real or imaginary, was agony
to him; for perhaps even guilt itself does not impose upon some minds
so keen a sense of shame and remorse, as a modest, sensitive, and
inexperienced youth feels from the consciousness of having neglected
etiquette, or excited ridicule. Where we are not at ease, we cannot be
happy; and therefore it is not surprising, that Edward Waverley supposed
that he disliked and was unfitted for society, merely because he had
not yet acquired the habit of living in it with ease and comfort, and of
reciprocally giving and receiving pleasure.

The hours he spent with his uncle and aunt were exhausted in listening
to the oft-repeated tale of narrative old age. Yet even there his
imagination, the predominant faculty of his mind, was frequently
excited. Family tradition and genealogical history, upon which much of
Sir Everard's discourse turned, is the very reverse of amber, which,
itself a valuable substance, usually includes flies, straws, and other
trifles; whereas these studies, being themselves very insignificant and
trifling, do nevertheless serve to perpetuate a great deal of what is
rare and valuable in ancient manners, and to record many curious and
minute facts, which could have been preserved and conveyed through no
other medium. If, therefore, Edward Waverley yawned at times over
the dry deduction of his line of ancestors, with their various
intermarriages, and inwardly deprecated the remorseless and protracted
accuracy with which the worthy Sir Everard rehearsed the various degrees
of propinquity between the house of Waverley-Honour and the
doughty barons, knights, and squires, to whom they stood allied; if
(notwithstanding his obligations to the three ermines passant) he
sometimes cursed in his heart the jargon of heraldry, its griffins,
its moldwarps, its wyverns, and its dragons with all the bitterness of
Hotspur himself, there were moments when these communications interested
his fancy and rewarded his attention.