Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since Read online

  CHAPTER X

  ROSE BRADWARDINE AND HER FATHER

  Miss Bradwardine was but seventeen; yet, at the last races of the countytown of--, upon her health being proposed among a round of beauties,the Laird of Bumperquaigh, permanent feast-master and croupier of theBautherwhillery Club, not only said MORE to the pledge in a pint bumperof Bourdeaux, but, ere pouring forth the libation, denominated thedivinity to whom it was dedicated, 'the Rose of Tully-Veolan;' uponwhich festive occasion, three cheers were given by all the sittingmembers of that respectable society, whose throats the wine had leftcapable of such exertion. Nay, I am well assured, that the sleepingpartners of the company snorted applause, and that although strongbumpers and weak brains had consigned two or three to the floor, yeteven these, fallen as they were from their high estate, and weltering--Iwill carry the parody no further--uttered divers inarticulate sounds,intimating their assent to the motion.

  Such unanimous applause could not be extorted but by acknowledged merit;and Rose Bradwardine not only deserved it, but also the approbationof much more rational persons than the Bautherwhillery Club could havemustered, even before discussion of the first MAGNUM. She was indeed avery pretty girl of the Scotch cast of beauty, that is, with a profusionof hair of paley gold, and a skin like the snow of her own mountains inwhiteness. Yet she had not a pallid or pensive cast of countenance;her features, as well as her temper, had a lively expression; hercomplexion, though not florid, was so pure as to seem transparent, andthe slightest emotion sent her whole blood at once to her face and neck.Her form, though under the common size, was remarkably elegant, and hermotions light, easy, and unembarrassed. She came from another partof the garden to receive Captain Waverley, with a manner that hoveredbetween bashfulness and courtesy.

  The first greetings past, Edward learned from her that the dark hag,which had somewhat puzzled him in the butler's account of his master'savocations, had nothing to do either with a black cat or a broomstick,but was simply a portion of oak copse which was to be felled that day.She offered, with diffident civility, to show the stranger the way tothe spot, which, it seems, was not far distant; but they were preventedby the appearance of the Baron of Bradwardine in person, who, summonedby David Gellatley, now appeared, 'on hospitable thoughts intent,'clearing the ground at a prodigious rate with swift and long strides,which reminded Waverley of the seven-league boots of the nursery fable.He was a tall, thin, athletic figure; old indeed, and grey-haired, butwith every muscle rendered as tough as whip-cord by constant exercise.He was dressed carelessly, and more like a Frenchman than an Englishmanof the period, while, from his hard features and perpendicular rigidityof stature, he bore some resemblance to a Swiss officer of the guards,who had resided some time at Paris, and caught the costume, but not theease or manner of its inhabitants. The truth was, that his language andhabits were as heterogeneous as his external appearance.

  Owing to his natural disposition to study, or perhaps to a very generalScottish fashion of giving young men of rank a legal education, hehad been bred with a view to the Bar. But the politics of his familyprecluding the hope of his rising in that profession, Mr. Bradwardinetravelled with high reputation for several years, and made somecampaigns in foreign service. After his DEMELE with the law of hightreason in 1715, he had lived in retirement, conversing almost entirelywith those of his own principles in the vicinage. The pedantry of thelawyer, superinduced upon the military pride of the soldier, mightremind a modern of the days of the zealous volunteer service, when thebar-gown of our pleaders was often hung over a blazing uniform. To thismust be added the prejudices of ancient birth and Jacobite politics,greatly strengthened by habits of solitary and secluded authority,which, though exercised only within the bounds of his half-cultivatedestate, was there indisputable and undisputed. For, as he used toobserve, 'the lands of Bradwardine, Tully-Veolan, and others, hadbeen erected into a free barony by a charter from David the First, CUMLIBERALI POTEST. HABENDI CURIAS ET JUSTICIAS, CUM FOSSA ET FURCA (LIEpit and gallows) ET SAKA ET SOKA, ET THOL ET THEAM, ET INFANG-THIEF ETOUTFANG-THIEF, SIVE HAND-HABEND. SIVE BAK-BARAND.' The peculiar meaningof all these cabalistical words few or none could explain; but theyimplied, upon the whole, that the Baron of Bradwardine might, in caseof delinquency, imprison, try, and execute his vassals at his pleasure.Like James the First, however, the present possessor of this authoritywas more pleased in talking about prerogative than in exercising it;and, excepting that he imprisoned two poachers in the dungeon of the oldtower of Tully-Veolan, where they were sorely frightened by ghosts,and almost eaten by rats, and that he set an old woman in the JOUGS (orScottish pillory) for saying 'there were mair fules in the laird'sha' house than Davie Gellatley,' I do not learn that he was accusedof abusing his high powers. Still, however, the conscious prideof possessing them gave additional importance to his language anddeportment.

  At his first address to Waverley, it would seem that the hearty pleasurehe felt to behold the nephew of his friend had somewhat discomposed thestiff and upright dignity of the Baron of Bradwardine's demeanour, forthe tears stood in the old gentleman's eyes, when, having first shakenEdward heartily by the hand in the English fashion, he embraced him ALA MODE FRANCAISE, and kissed him on both sides of his face; whilethe hardness of his grip, and the quantity of Scotch snuff which hisACCOLADE communicated, called corresponding drops of moisture to theeyes of his guest.

  'Upon the honour of a gentleman,' he said, 'but it makes me young againto see you here, Mr. Waverley!' A worthy scion of the old stock ofWaverley-Honour--SPES ALTERA, as Maro hath it--and you have the look ofthe old line, Captain Waverley, not so portly yet as my old friend SirEverard--MAIS CELA VIENDRA AVEC LE TEMPS, as my Dutch acquaintance,Baron Kikkitbroeck, said of the SAGESSE of MADAME SON EPOUSE.--And so yehave mounted the cockade? Right, right; though I could have wished thecolour different, and so I would ha' deemed might Sir Everard. But nomore of that; I am old, and times are changed.--And how does the worthyknight baronet, and the fair Mrs. Rachel?--Ah, ye laugh, young man!In troth she was the fair Mrs. Rachel in the year of grace seventeenhundred and sixteen; but time passes--ET SINGULA PRAEDANTUR ANNI--thatis most certain. But once again, ye are most heartily welcome to my poorhouse of Tully-Veolan!--Hie to the house, Rose, and see that AlexanderSaunderson leaks out the old Chateau Margaux, which I sent fromBourdeaux to Dundee in the year 1713.'

  Rose tripped off demurely enough till she turned the first corner, andthen ran with the speed of a fairy, that she might gain leisure, afterdischarging her father's commission, to put her own dress in order, andproduce all her little finery, an occupation for which the approachingdinner hour left but limited time.

  'We cannot rival the luxuries of your English table, Captain Waverley,or give you the EPULAE LAUTIORES of Wavery-Honour--I say EPULAE ratherthan PRANDIUM, because the latter phrase is popular; EPULAE AD SENATUM,PRANDIUM VERO AD POPULUM ATTINET, says Suetonius Tranquillus. But Itrust ye will applaud my Bourdeaux; C'EST D'UNE OREILLE, as CaptainVinsauf used to say--VINUM PRIMAE NOTAE, the Principal of St. Andrewsdenominated it. And, once more, Captain Waverley, right glad am I thatye are here to drink the best my cellar can make forthcoming.'

  This speech, with the necessary interjectional answers, continued fromthe lower alley where they met, up to the door of the house, wherefour or five servants in old-fashioned liveries, headed by AlexanderSaunderson, the butler, who now bore no token of the sable stains of thegarden, received them in grand costume,

  In an old hall hung round with pikes and with bows, With old bucklers and corselets that had borne many shrewd blows.

  With much ceremony, and still more real kindness, the Baron, withoutstopping in any intermediate apartment, conducted his guest throughseveral into the great dining parlour, wainscoted with black oak, andhung round with the pictures of his ancestry, where a table was setforth in form for six persons, and an old-fashioned beaufet displayedall the ancient and massive plate of the Bradwardine family. A bell wasnow heard at the head of the avenue; for an
old man, who acted as porterupon gala days, had caught the alarm given by Waverley's arrival, and,repairing to his post, announced the arrival of other guests.

  These, as the Baron assured his young friend, were very estimablepersons. 'There was the young Laird of Balmawhapple, a Falconer bysurname, of the house of Glenfarquhar, given right much to fieldsports--GAUDAT EQUIS ET CANIBUS--but a very discreet young gentleman.Then there was the Laird of Killancureit, who had devoted his leisureUNTILL tillage and agriculture, and boasted himself to be possessed of abull of matchless merit, brought from the county of Devon (the Damnonia,of the Romans, if we can trust Robert of Cirencester). He is, as ye maywell suppose from such a tendency, but of yeoman extraction--SERVABITODOREM TESTA DIU--and I believe, between ourselves, his grandsire wasfrom the wrong side of the Border--one Bullsegg, who came hither as asteward, or bailiff, or ground-officer, or something in that department,to the last Girnigo of Killancureit, who died of an atrophy. After hismaster's death, sir,--ye would hardly believe such a scandal,--but thisBullsegg, being portly and comely of aspect, intermarried with the ladydowager, who was young and amorous, and possessed himself of the estate,which devolved on this unhappy woman by a settlement of her umwhilehusband, in direct contravention of an unrecorded taillie, and to theprejudice of the disponer's own flesh and blood, in the person of hisnatural heir and seventh cousin, Girnigo of Tipperhewit, whose familywas so reduced by the ensuing lawsuit, that his representative is nowserving as a private gentleman-sentinel in the Highland Black Watch. Butthis gentleman, Mr. Bullsegg of Killancureit that now is, has good bloodin his veins by the mother and grandmother, who were both of the familyof Pickletillim, and he is well liked and looked upon, and knows hisown place. And God forbid, Captain Waverley, that we of irreproachablelineage should exult over him, when it may be, that in the eighth,ninth, or tenth generation, his progeny may rank, in a manner, with theold gentry of the country. Rank and ancestry, sir, should be the lastwords in the mouths of us of unblemished race--VIX EA NOSTRA VOCO,as Naso saith.--There is, besides, a clergyman of the true (thoughsuffering) Episcopal church of Scotland. He was a confessor in her causeafter the year 1715, when a Whiggish mob destroyed his meeting-house,tore his surplice, and plundered his dwelling-house of four silverspoons, intromitting also with his mart and his meal-ark, and with twobarrels, one of single, and one of double ale, besides three bottles ofbrandy. [7] My Baron-Bailie and doer, Mr. Duncan Macwheeble,is the fourth on our list. There is a question, owing to the incertitudeof ancient orthography, whether he belongs to the clan of Wheedle or ofQuibble, but both have produced persons eminent in the law.'--

  As such he described them by person and name, They entered, and dinner was served as they came.