Waverley

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Edward, as may well be believed, pledged his word; which he afterwards
so amply redeemed, that his memory still lives in these glens by the
name of the Friend of the Sons of Ivor.

'Would to God,' continued the Chieftain, 'I could bequeath to you my
rights to the love and obedience of this primitive and brave race:--or
at least, as I have striven to do, persuade poor Evan to accept of
his life upon their terms, and be to you what he has been to me, the
kindest,--the bravest,--the most devoted--'

The tears which his own fate could not draw forth, fell fast for that of
his foster-brother.

'But,' said he, drying them, 'that cannot be. You cannot be to them Vich
Ian Vohr; and these three magic words,' said he, half smiling, 'are the
only Open Sesame to their feelings and sympathies, and poor Evan must
attend his foster-brother in death, as he has done through his whole
life.'

'And I am sure,' said Maccombich, raising himself from the floor, on
which, for fear of interrupting their conversation, he had lain so
still, that, in the obscurity of the apartment, Edward was not aware of
his presence,--'I am sure Evan never desired or deserved a better end
than just to die with his Chieftain.'

'And now,' said Fergus, 'while we are upon the subject of clanship--what
think you now of the prediction of the Bodach Glas?'--Then, before
Edward could answer, 'I saw him again last night--he stood in the slip
of moonshine, which fell from that high and narrow window towards my
bed. Why should I fear him, I thought--to-morrow, long ere this time, I
shall be as immaterial as he. "False Spirit!" I said, "art thou come to
close thy walks on earth, and to enjoy thy triumph in the fall of the
last descendant of thine enemy?" The spectre seemed to beckon and to
smile as he faded from my sight. What do you think of it?--I asked the
same question of the priest, who is a good and sensible man; he admitted
that the Church allowed that such apparitions were possible, but urged
me not to permit my mind to dwell upon it, as imagination plays us such
strange tricks. What do you think of it?'

'Much as your confessor,' said Waverley, willing to avoid dispute upon
such a point at such a moment. A tap at the door now announced that good
man, and Edward retired while he administered to both prisoners the last
rites of religion, in the mode which the Church of Rome prescribes.

In about an hour he was re-admitted; soon after, a file of soldiers
entered with a blacksmith, who struck the fetters from the legs of the
prisoners.

'You see the compliment they pay to our Highland strength and
courage--we have lain chained here like wild beasts, till our legs are
cramped into palsy, and when they free us, they send six soldiers with
loaded muskets to prevent our taking the castle by storm!'

Edward afterwards learned that these severe precautions had been taken
in consequence of a desperate attempt of the prisoners to escape, in
which they had very nearly succeeded.

Shortly afterwards the drums of the garrison beat to arms. 'This is the
last turn-out,' said Fergus, 'that I shall hear and obey. And now, my
dear, dear Edward, ere we part let us speak of Flora--a subject which
awakes the tenderest feeling that yet thrills within me.'

'We part not here!' said Waverley.

'Oh yes, we do; you must come no farther. Not that I fear what is to
follow for myself,' he said proudly: 'Nature has her tortures as well as
art; and how happy should we think the man who escapes from the throes
of a mortal and painful disorder, in the space of a short half hour? And
this matter, spin it out as they will, cannot last longer, But what
a dying man can suffer firmly, may kill a living friend to look
upon.--This same law of high treason,' he continued, with astonishing
firmness and composure, 'is one of the blessings, Edward, with
which your free country has accommodated poor old Scotland: her own
jurisprudence, as I have heard, was much milder. But I suppose one day
or other--when there are no longer any wild Highlanders to benefit by
its tender mercies--they will blot it from their records, as levelling
them with a nation of cannibals. The mummery, too, of exposing the
senseless head--they have not the wit to grace mine with a paper
coronet; there would be some satire in that, Edward. I hope they will
set it on the Scotch gate though, that I may look, even after death,
to the blue hills of my own country, which I love so dearly. The Baron
would have added,

MORITUR, ET MORIENS DULCES REMINISCITUR ARGOS.'

A bustle, and the sound of wheels and horses' feet, was now heard in the
courtyard of the Castle. 'As I have told you why you must not follow me,
and these sounds admonish me that my time flies fast, tell me how you
found poor Flora?'

Waverley, with a voice interrupted by suffocating sensations, gave some
account of the state of her mind.

'Poor Flora!' answered the Chief, 'she could have borne her own sentence
of death, but not mine. You, Waverley, will soon know the happiness of
mutual affection in the married state--long, long may Rose and you enjoy
it!--but you can never know the purity of feeling which combines two
orphans, like Flora and me, left alone as it were in the world, and
being all in all to each other from our very infancy. But her strong
sense of duty, and predominant feeling of loyalty, will give new nerve
to her mind after the immediate and acute sensation of this parting has
passed away. She will then think of Fergus as of the heroes of our race,
upon whose deeds she loved to dwell.'

'Shall she not see you, then?' asked Waverley. 'She seemed to expect
it.'

'A necessary deceit will spare her the last dreadful parting. I could
not part with her without tears, and I cannot bear that these men should
think they have power to extort them. She was made to believe she
would see me at a later hour, and this letter, which my confessor will
deliver, will apprize her that all is over.'

An officer now appeared, and intimated that the High Sheriff and his
attendants waited before the gate of the Castle, to claim the bodies of
Fergus Mac-Ivor and Evan Maccombich. 'I come,' said Fergus. Accordingly,
supporting Edward by the arm, and followed by Evan Dhu and the priest,
he moved down the stairs of the tower, the soldiers bringing up the
rear. The court was occupied by a squadron of dragoons and a battalion
of infantry, drawn up in hollow square. Within their ranks was the
sledge, or hurdle, on which the prisoners were to be drawn to the place
of execution, about a mile distant from Carlisle. It was painted
black, and drawn by a white horse. At one end of the vehicle sat the
Executioner, a horrid-looking fellow, as beseemed his trade, with the
broad axe in his hand; at the other end, next the horse, was an empty
seat for two persons. Through the deep and dark Gothic archway that
opened on the drawbridge, were seen on horseback the High Sheriff and
his attendants, whom the etiquette betwixt the civil and military powers
did not permit to come farther. 'This is well GOT UP for a closing
scene,' said Fergus, smiling disdainfully as he gazed around upon the
apparatus of terror. Evan Dhu exclaimed with some eagerness, after
looking at the dragoons, 'These are the very chields that galloped
off at Gladsmuir, before we could kill a dozen o' them. They look bold
enough now, however.' The priest entreated him to be silent.

The sledge now approached, and Fergus, turning round, embraced Waverley,
kissed him on each side of the face, and stepped nimbly into his place.
Evan sat down by his side. The priest was to follow in a carriage
belonging to his patron, the Catholic gentleman at whose house Flora
resided. As Fergus waved his hand to Edward, the ranks closed around
the sledge, and the whole procession began to move forward. There was a
momentary stop at the gateway, while the governor of the Castle and the
High Sheriff went through a short ceremony, the military officer there
delivering over the persons of the criminals to the civil power. 'God
save King George!' said the High Sheriff. When the formality concluded,
Fergus stood erect in the sledge, and with a firm and steady voice,
replied, 'God save King James!' These were the last words which Waverley
heard him speak.

The procession resumed its march, and the sledge vanished from beneath
the portal, under which it had stopped for an instant. The dead-march
was then heard, and its melancholy sounds were mingled with those of a
muffled peal, tolled from the neighbouring cathedral. The sound of the
military music died away as the procession moved on--the sullen clang of
the bells was soon heard to sound alone.

The last of the soldiers had now disappeared from under the vaulted
archway through which they had been filing for several minutes; the
courtyard was now totally empty, but Waverley still stood there as if
stupefied, his eyes fixed upon the dark pass where he had so lately
seen the last glimpse of his friend. At length, a female servant of the
governor's, struck with compassion at the stupefied misery which his
countenance expressed, asked him if he would not walk into her master's
house and sit down? She was obliged to repeat her question twice ere he
comprehended her, but at length it recalled him to himself. Declining
the courtesy by a hasty gesture, he pulled his hat over his eyes, and,
leaving the Castle, walked as swiftly as he could through the empty
streets, till he regained his inn, then rushed into an apartment, and
bolted the door.

In about an hour and a half, which seemed an age of unutterable
suspense, the sound of the drums and fifes, performing a lively air, and
the confused murmur of the crowd which now filled the streets, so lately
deserted, apprized him that all was finished, and that the military and
populace were returning from the dreadful scene. I will not attempt to
describe his sensations.

In the evening the priest made him a visit, and informed him that he
did so by directions of his deceased friend, to assure him that Fergus
Mac-Ivor had died as he lived, and remembered his friendship to the
last. He added, he had also seen Flora, whose state of mind seemed more
composed since all was over. With her and Sister Theresa, the priest
proposed next day to leave Carlisle, for the nearest seaport from which
they could embark for France. Waverley forced on this good man a ring
of some value, and a sum of money to be employed (as he thought might
gratify Flora) in the services of the Catholic Church, for the memory of
his friend. 'FUNGARQUE INANI MUNERE,' he repeated, as the ecclesiastic
retired. 'Yet why not class these acts of remembrance with other
honours, with which affection, in all sects, pursues the memory of the
dead?'

The next morning, ere daylight, he took leave of the town of Carlisle,
promising to himself never again to enter its walls. He dared hardly
look back towards the Gothic battlements of the fortified gate under
which he passed (for the place is surrounded with an old wall). 'They're
no there,' said Alick Polwarth, who guessed the cause of the dubious
look which Waverley cast backward, and who, with the vulgar appetite for
the horrible, was master of each detail of the butchery--'the heads are
ower the Scotch yate, as they ca' it. It's a great pity of Evan Dhu,
who was a very weel-meaning, good-natured man, to be a Hielandman; and
indeed so was the Laird o' Glennaquoich too, for that matter, when he
wasna in ane o' his tirrivies.



CHAPTER LXX

DOLCE DOMUM

The impression of horror with which Waverley left Carlisle softened
by degrees into melancholy--a gradation which was accelerated by the
painful, yet soothing, task of writing to Rose; and, while he could not
suppress his own feelings of the calamity, he endeavoured to place it
in a light which might grieve her without shocking her imagination. The
picture which he drew for her benefit he gradually familiarized to his
own mind; and his next letters were more cheerful, and referred to the
prospects of peace and happiness which lay before them. Yet, though his
first horrible sensations had sunk into melancholy, Edward had reached
his native county before he could, as usual on former occasions, look
round for enjoyment upon the face of nature.

He then, for the first time since leaving Edinburgh, began to experience
that pleasure which almost all feel who return to a verdant, populous,
and highly cultivated country, from scenes of waste desolation, or of
solitary and melancholy grandeur. But how were those feelings enhanced
when he entered on the domain so long possessed by his forefathers;
recognized the old oaks of Waverley-Chase; thought with what delight he
should introduce Rose to all his favourite haunts; beheld at length the
towers of the venerable hall arise above the woods which embowered it,
and finally threw himself into the arms of the venerable relations to
whom he owed so much duty and affection!

The happiness of their meeting was not tarnished by a single word of
reproach. On the contrary, whatever pain Sir Everard and Mrs. Rachel had
felt during Waverley's perilous engagement with the young Chevalier, it
assorted too well with the principles in which they had been brought up,
to incur reprobation, or even censure. Colonel Talbot also had smoothed
the way, with great address, for Edward's favourable reception,
by dwelling upon his gallant behaviour in the military character,
particularly his bravery and generosity at Preston; until, warmed at the
idea of their nephew's engaging in single combat, making prisoner,
and saving from slaughter, so distinguished an officer as the Colonel
himself, the imagination of the Baronet and his sister ranked the
exploits of Edward with those of Wilibert, Hildebrand, and Nigel, the
vaunted heroes of their line.

The appearance of Waverley, embrowned by exercise, and dignified by
the habits of military discipline, had acquired an athletic and
hardy character, which not only verified the Colonel's narration, but
surprised and delighted all the inhabitants of Waverley-Honour. They
crowded to see, to hear him, and to sing his praises. Mr. Pembroke, who
secretly extolled his spirit and courage in embracing the genuine cause
of the Church of England, censured his pupil gently, nevertheless,
for being so careless of his manuscripts, which indeed, he said, had
occasioned him some personal inconvenience, as, upon the Baronet's being
arrested by a king's messenger, he had deemed it prudent to retire to a
concealment called 'The Priest's Hole,' from the use it had been put to
in former days; where, he assured our hero, the butler had thought it
safe to venture with food only once in the day, so that he had been
repeatedly compelled to dine upon victuals either absolutely cold, or,
what was worse, only half warm, not to mention that sometimes his
bed had not been arranged for two days together. Waverley's mind
involuntarily turned to the Patmos of the Baron of Bradwardine, who was
well pleased with Janet's fare, and a few bunches of straw stowed in
a cleft in the front of a sand-cliff: but he made no remarks upon a
contrast which could only mortify his worthy tutor.

All was now in a bustle to prepare for the nuptials of Edward, an event
to which the good old Baronet and Mrs. Rachel looked forward as if
to the renewal of their own youth. The match, as Colonel Talbot had
intimated, had seemed to them in the highest degree eligible, having
every recommendation but wealth, of which they themselves had more than
enough. Mr. Clippurse was therefore summoned to Waverley-Honour, under
better auspices than at the commencement of our story. But Mr. Clippurse
came not alone; for, being now stricken in years, he had associated with
him a nephew, a younger vulture (as our English Juvenal, who tells
the tale of Swallow the attorney, might have called him), and they
now carried on business as Messrs. Clippurse and Hookem. These worthy
gentlemen had directions to make the necessary settlements on the most
splendid scale of liberality, as if Edward were to wed a peeress in her
own right, with her paternal estate tacked to the fringe of her ermine.

But before entering upon a subject of proverbial delay, I must remind my
reader of the progress of a stone rolled down hill by an idle truant boy
(a pastime at which I was myself expert in my more juvenile years):
it moves at first slowly, avoiding by inflection every obstacle of the
least importance; but when it has attained its full impulse, and draws
near the conclusion of its career, it smokes and thunders down, taking
a rood at every spring, clearing hedge and ditch like a Yorkshire
huntsman, and becoming most furiously rapid in its course when it is
nearest to being consigned to rest for ever. Even such is the course
of a narrative like that which you are perusing. The earlier events are
studiously dwelt upon, that you, kind reader, may be introduced to
the character rather by narrative, than by the duller medium of direct
description; but when the story draws near its close, we hurry over
the circumstances, however important, which your imagination must have
forestalled, and leave you to suppose those things which it would be
abusing your patience to relate at length.

We are, therefore, so far from attempting to trace the dull progress of
Messrs. Clippurse and Hookem, or that of their worthy official brethren,
who had the charge of suing out the pardons of Edward Waverley and
his intended father-in-law, that we can but touch upon matters more
attractive. The mutual epistles, for example, which were exchanged
between Sir Everard and the Baron upon this occasion, though matchless
specimens of eloquence in their way, must be consigned to merciless
oblivion. Nor can I tell you at length, how worthy Aunt Rachel, not
without a delicate and affectionate allusion to the circumstances which
had transferred Rose's maternal diamonds to the hands of Donald Bean
Lean, stocked her casket with a set of jewels that a duchess might have
envied. Moreover, the reader will have the goodness to imagine that Job
Houghton and his dame were suitably provided for, although they could
never be persuaded that their son fell otherwise than fighting by the
young squire's side; so that Alick, who, as a lover of truth, had made
many needless attempts to expound the real circumstances to them, was
finally ordered to say not a word more upon the subject. He indemnified
himself, however, by the liberal allowance of desperate battles,
grisly executions, and rawhead and bloody-bone stories, with which he
astonished the servants' hall.

But although these important matters may be briefly told in narrative,
like a newspaper report of a Chancery suit, yet, with all the urgency
which Waverley could use, the real time which the law proceedings
occupied, joined to the delay occasioned by the mode of travelling at
that period, rendered it considerably more than two months ere Waverley,
having left England, alighted once more at the mansion of the Laird of
Duchran to claim the hand of his plighted bride.

The day of his marriage was fixed for the sixth after his arrival. The
Baron of Bradwardine, with whom bridals, christenings, and funerals,
were festivals of high and solemn import, felt a little hurt, that,
including the family of the Duchran, and all the immediate vicinity who
had title to be present on such an occasion, there could not be above
thirty persons collected. 'When he was married,' he observed, 'three
hundred horse of gentlemen born, besides servants, and some score or
two of Highland lairds, who never got on horseback, were present on the
occasion.'

But his pride found some consolation in reflecting, that he and his
son-in-law having been so lately in arms against Government, it, might
give matter of reasonable fear and offence to the ruling powers, if
they were to collect together the kith, kin, and allies of their houses,
arrayed in effeir of war, as was the ancient custom of Scotland on these
occasions--'And, without dubitation,' he concluded with a sigh, 'many of
those who would have rejoiced most freely upon these joyful espousals,
are either gone to a better place, or are now exiles from their native
land.'

The marriage took place on the appointed day. The Reverend Mr. Rubrick,
kinsman to the proprietor of the hospitable mansion where it was
solemnized, and chaplain to the Baron of Bradwardine, had the
satisfaction to unite their hands; and Frank Stanley acted as bridesman,
having joined Edward with that view soon after his arrival. Lady Emily
and Colonel Talbot had proposed being present; but Lady Emily's health,
when the day approached, was found inadequate to the journey. In amends,
it was arranged that Edward Waverley and his lady, who, with the Baron,
proposed an immediate journey to Waverley-Honour, should, in their way,
spend a few days at an estate which Colonel Talbot had been tempted to
purchase in Scotland as a very great bargain, and at which he proposed
to reside for some time.



CHAPTER LXXI

This is no mine ain house, I ken by the bigging o't'.
--OLD SONG.

The nuptial party travelled in great style. There was a coach and six
after the newest pattern, which Sir Everard had presented to his nephew,
that dazzled with its splendour the eyes of one half of Scotland; there
was the family coach of Mr. Rubrick;--both these were crowded with
ladies, and there were gentlemen on horseback, with their servants, to
the number of a round score. Nevertheless, without having the fear
of famine before his eyes, Bailie Macwheeble met them in the road, to
entreat that they would pass by his house at Little Veolan. The Baron
stared, and said his son and he would certainly ride by Little Veolan,
and pay their compliments to the Bailie, but could not think of bringing
with them the 'haill COMITATUS NUPTIALIS, or matrimonial procession.'
He added, 'that, as he understood that the barony had been sold by
its unworthy possessor, he was glad to see his old friend Duncan had
regained his situation under the new DOMINUS, or proprietor.' The
Bailie ducked, bowed, and fidgeted, and then again insisted upon his
invitation; until the Baron, though rather piqued at the pertinacity of
his instances, could not nevertheless refuse to consent, without making
evident sensations which he was anxious to conceal.

He fell into a deep study as they approached the top of the avenue,
and was only startled from it by observing that the battlements were
replaced, the ruins cleared sway, and (most wonderful of all) that
the two great stone Bears, those mutilated Dagons of his idolatry, had
resumed their posts over the gateway. 'Now this new proprietor,' said he
to Edward, 'has shown mair gusto, as the Italians call it, in the short
time he has had this domain, than that hound Malcolm, though I bred him
here mysell, has acquired VITA ADHUC DURANTE.--and now I talk of hounds,
is not yon Ban and Buscar, who come scouping up the avenue with Davie
Gallatley?'

'I vote we should go to meet them, sir,' said Waverley, 'for I believe
the present master of the house is Colonel Talbot, who will expect to
see us. We hesitated to mention to you at first that he had purchased
your ancient patrimonial property, and even yet, if you do not incline
to visit him, we can pass on to the Bailie's.'

The Baron had occasion for all his magnanimity. However, he drew a long
breath, took a long snuff, and observed, since they had brought him so
far, he could not pass the Colonel's gate, and he would be happy to see
the new master of his old tenants. He alighted accordingly, as did the
other gentlemen and ladies;--he gave his arm to his daughter, and as
they descended the avenue, pointed out to her how speedily the 'DIVA
PECUNIA of the Southron--their tutelary deity, he might call her--had
removed the marks of spoliation.'

In truth, not only had the felled trees been removed, but, their stumps
being grubbed up, and the earth round them levelled and sown with grass,
every mark of devastation, unless to an eye intimately acquainted
with the spot, was already totally obliterated. There was a similar
reformation in the outward man of Davie Gellatley, who met them, every
now and then stopping to admire the new suit which graced his person, In
the same colours as formerly, but bedizened fine enough to have served
Touchstone himself. He danced up with his usual ungainly frolics, first
to the Baron, and then to Rose, passing his hands over his clothes,
crying, 'BRA', BRA' DAVIE,' and scarce able to sing a bar to an end of
his thousand-and-one songs, for the breathless extravagance of his joy.
The dogs also acknowledged their old master with a thousand gambols.
'Upon my conscience, Rose,' ejaculated the Baron, 'the gratitude o' thae
dumb brutes, and of that puir innocent, brings the tears into my auld
een, while that schellum Malcolm--but I'm obliged to Colonel Talbot for
putting my hounds into such good condition, and likewise for puir Davie.
But, Rose, my dear, we must not permit them to be a liferent burden upon
the estate.'