Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since Read online

  CHAPTER II

  WAVERLEY-HONOUR---A RETROSPECT

  It is, then, sixty years since Edward Waverley, the hero of thefollowing pages, took leave of his family, to join the regimentof dragoons in which he had lately obtained a commission. It was amelancholy day at Waverley-Honour when the young officer parted withSir Everard, the affectionate old uncle to whose title and estate he waspresumptive heir.

  A difference in political opinions had early separated the Baronetfrom his younger brother, Richard Waverley, the father of our hero.Sir Everard had inherited from his sires the whole train of Tory orHigh-Church predilections and prejudices, which had distinguished thehouse of Waverley since the Great Civil War. Richard, on the contrary,who was ten years younger, beheld himself born to the fortune of asecond brother, and anticipated neither dignity nor entertainment insustaining the character of Will Wimble. He saw early, that, to succeedin the race of life, it was necessary he should carry as little weightas possible. Painters talk of the difficulty of expressing the existenceof compound passions in the same features at the same moment: it wouldbe no less difficult for the moralist to analyse the mixed motives whichunite to form the impulse of our actions. Richard Waverley read andsatisfied himself, from history and sound argument, that, in the wordsof the old song,

  Passive obedience was a jest, And pshaw! was non-resistance;

  yet reason would have probably been unable to combat and removehereditary prejudice, could Richard have anticipated that his elderbrother, Sir Everard, taking to heart an early disappointment, wouldhave remained a batchelor at seventy-two. The prospect of succession,however remote, might in that case have led him to endure draggingthrough the greater part of his life as 'Master Richard at the Hall,the baronet's brother,' in the hope that ere its conclusion he should bedistinguished as Sir Richard Waverley of Waverley-Honour, successor toa princely estate, and to extended political connexions as head of thecounty interest in the shire where it lay. But this was a consummationof things not to be expected at Richard's outset, when Sir Everard wasin the prime of life, and certain to be an acceptable suitor in almostany family, whether wealth or beauty should be the object of hispursuit, and when, indeed, his speedy marriage was a report whichregularly amused the neighbourhood once a year. His younger brother sawno practicable road to independence save that of relying upon his ownexertions, and adopting a political creed more consonant both to reasonand his own interest than the hereditary faith of Sir Everard in HighChurch and in the house of Stewart. He therefore read his recantationat the beginning of his career, and entered life as an avowed Whig, andfriend of the Hanover succession.

  The ministry of George the First's time were prudently anxious todiminish the phalanx of opposition. The Tory nobility, depending fortheir reflected lustre upon the sunshine of a court, had for sometime been gradually reconciling themselves to the new dynasty. But thewealthy country gentlemen of England, a rank which retained, withmuch of ancient manners and primitive integrity, a great proportion ofobstinate and unyielding prejudice, stood aloof in haughty and sullenopposition, and cast many a look of mingled regret and hope to Bois deDuc, Avignon, and Italy. [Where the Chevalier Saint George, or, as hewas termed, the Old Pretender, held his exiled court, as his situationcompelled him to shift his place of residence.] The accession of thenear relation of one of those steady and inflexible opponents wasconsidered as a means of bringing over more converts, and thereforeRichard Waverley met with a share of ministerial favour more thanproportioned to his talents or his political importance. It was however,discovered that he had respectable talents for public business, and thefirst admittance to the minister's levee being negotiated, his successbecame rapid. Sir Everard learned from the public NEWS-LETTER,--first,that Richard Waverley, Esquire, was returned for the ministerial boroughof Barterfaith; next, that Richard Waverley, Esquire, had taken adistinguished part in the debate upon the Excise bill in the supportof government; and, lastly, that Richard Waverley, Esquire, had beenhonoured with a seat at one of those boards, where the pleasure ofserving the country is combined with other important gratifications,which, to render them the more acceptable, occur regularly once aquarter.

  Although these events followed each other so closely that the sagacityof the editor of a modern newspaper would have presaged the last twoeven while he announced the first, yet they came upon Sir Everardgradually, and drop by drop, as it were, distilled through the cool andprocrastinating alembic of DYER'S WEEKLY LETTER. [Long the oracle of thecountry gentlemen of the high Tory party. The ancient NEWS-LETTER waswritten in manuscript and copied by clerks, who addressed the copies tothe subscribers. The politician by whom they were compiled picked uphis intelligence at coffee-houses, and often pleaded for an additionalgratuity, in consideration of the extra expense attached to frequentingsuch places of fashionable resort.] For it may be observed in passing,that instead of those mail-coaches, by means of which every mechanic athis sixpenny club may nightly learn from twenty contradictory channelsthe yesterday's news of the capital, a weekly post brought, in thosedays, to Waverley-Honour, a WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER, which, after it hadgratified Sir Everard's curiosity, his sister's, and that of his agedbutler, was regularly transferred from the Hall to the Rectory, fromthe Rectory to Squire Stubbs' at the Grange, from the Squire to theBaronet's steward at his neat white house on the heath, from the stewardto the bailiff, and from him through a huge circle of honest dames andgaffers, by whose hard and horny hands it was generally worn to piecesin about a month after its arrival.

  This slow succession of intelligence was of some advantage to RichardWaverley in the case before us; for, had the sum total of his enormitiesreached the ears of Sir Everard at once, there can be no doubt that thenew commissioner would have had little reason to pique himself on thesuccess of his politics. The Baronet, although the mildest of humanbeings, was not without sensitive points in his character; his brother'sconduct had wounded these deeply; the Waverley estate was fettered byno entail (for it had never entered into the head of any of its formerpossessors that one of their progeny could be guilty of the atrocitieslaid by DYER'S LETTER to the door of Richard), and if it had, themarriage of the proprietor might have been fatal to a collateral heir.These various ideas floated through the brain of Sir Everard, without,however, producing any determined conclusion.

  He examined the tree of his genealogy, which, emblazoned with manyan emblematic mark of honour and heroic achievement, hung upon thewell-varnished wainscot of his hall. The nearest descendants of SirHildebrand Waverley, failing those of his eldest son Wilfred, of whomSir Everard and his brother were the only representatives, were, as thishonoured register informed him (and, indeed, as he himself well knew),the Waverleys of Highley Park, com. Hants; with whom the main branch, orrather stock, of the house had renounced all connexion, since the greatlawsuit in 1670.

  This degenerate scion had committed a further offence against thehead and source of their gentility, by the intermarriage of theirrepresentative with Judith, heiress of Oliver Bradshawe, of HighleyPark, 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 hisresentment; and had Lawyer Clippurse, for whom his groom was dispatchedexpress, arrived but an hour earlier, he might have had the benefit ofdrawing a new settlement of the lordship and manor of Waverley-Honour,with all its dependencies. But an hour of cool reflection is a greatmatter, when employed in weighing the comparative evil of two measures,to neither of which we are internally partial. Lawyer Clippurse foundhis patron involved in a deep study, which he was too respectful todisturb, otherwise than by producing his paper and leathern ink-case, asprepared to minute his honour's commands. Even this slight manoeuvrewas embarrassing to Sir Everard, who felt it as a reproach to hisindecision. He looked at the attorney with some desire to issue hisfiat, when the sun, emerging from behind a cloud, poured at once itschequered light through the stained window of the gloomy
cabinet inwhich they were seated. The Baronet's eye, as he raised it to thesplendour, fell right upon the central scutcheon, impressed with thesame device which his ancestor was said to have borne in the field ofHastings; three ermines passant, argent, in a field azure, with itsappropriate motto, SANS LACHE. 'May our name rather perish,' exclaimedSir Everard, 'than that ancient and loyal symbol should be blended withthe dishonoured insignia of a traitorous Roundhead!'

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

  The apparition of Lawyer Clippurse at the Hall occasioned muchspeculation in that portion of the world to which Waverley-Honour formedthe centre: but the more judicious politicians of this microcosm auguredyet worse consequences to Richard Waverley from a movement which shortlyfollowed his apostasy. This was no less than an excursion of the Baronetin his coach-and-six, with four attendants in rich liveries, to make avisit of some duration to a noble peer on the confines of the shire, ofuntainted descent, steady Tory principles, and the happy father of sixunmarried and accomplished daughters.

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

  Sir Everard could not but perceive something uncommon in the restrainedemotions which the young lady testified at the advances he hazarded;but, assured by the prudent Countess that they were the natural effectsof a retired education, the sacrifice might have been completed, asdoubtless has happened in many similar instances, had it not been forthe courage of an elder sister, who revealed to the wealthy suitor thatLady Emily's affections were fixed upon a young soldier of fortune,a near relation of her own. Sir Everard manifested great emotion onreceiving this intelligence, which was confirmed to him, in a privateinterview, by the young lady herself, although under the most dreadfulapprehensions of her father's indignation.

  Honour and generosity were hereditary attributes of the house ofWaverley. With a grace and delicacy worthy the hero of a romance, SirEverard withdrew his claim to the hand of Lady Emily. He had even,before leaving Blandeville Castle, the address to extort from her fathera consent to her union with the object of her choice. What arguments heused on this point cannot exactly be known, for Sir Everard was neversupposed strong in the powers of persuasion; but the young officer,immediately after this transaction, rose in the army with a rapidity farsurpassing 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, althoughdiminished by the consciousness of having acted virtuously andgenerously, had its effect upon his future life. His resolution ofmarriage had been adopted in a fit of indignation; the labour ofcourtship did not quite suit the dignified indolence of his habits; hehad but just escaped the risk of marrying a woman who could never lovehim; and his pride could not be greatly flattered by the termination ofhis amour, even if his heart had not suffered. The result of the wholematter was his return to Waverley-Honour without any transfer of hisaffections, notwithstanding the sighs and languishments of the fairtell-tale, who had revealed, in mere sisterly affection, the secretof Lady Emily's attachment, and in despite of the nods, winks, andinnuendoes of the officious lady mother, and the grave eulogiums whichthe Earl pronounced successively on the prudence, and good sense, andadmirable dispositions, of his first, second, third, fourth, and fifthdaughters. The memory of his unsuccessful amour was with Sir Everard,as with many more of his temper, at once shy, proud, sensitive, andindolent, a beacon against exposing himself to similar mortification,pain, and fruitless exertion for the time to come. He continued tolive at Waverley-Honour in the style of an old English gentleman, of anancient descent and opulent fortune. His sister, Miss Rachel Waverley,presided at his table; and they became, by degrees, an old bachelorand an ancient maiden lady, the gentlest and kindest of the votaries ofcelibacy.

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

  Little Edward, the hero of our tale, then in his fifth year, was theironly child. It chanced that the infant with his maid had strayed onemorning to a mile's distance from the avenue of Brere-wood Lodge, hisfather's seat. Their attention was attracted by a carriage drawn by sixstately long-failed black horses, and with as much carving and gildingas would have done honour to my lord mayor's. It was waiting forthe owner, who was at a little distance inspecting the progress of ahalf-built farm-house. I know not whether the boy's nurse had beena Welsh or a Scotch woman, or in what manner he associated a shieldemblazoned with three ermines with the idea of personal property, buthe no sooner beheld this family emblem, than he stoutly determined onvindicating his right to the splendid vehicle on which it was displayed.The Baronet arrived while the boy's maid was in vain endeavouring tomake him desist from his determination to appropriate the gilded coachand six. The rencontre was at a happy moment for Edward, as his unclehad been just eyeing wistfully, with something of a feeling like envy,the chubby boys of the stout yeoman whose mansion was building by hisdirection. In the round-faced rosy cherub before him, bearing his eyeand his name, and vindicating a hereditary title to his family affectionand patronage, by means of a tie which Sir Everard held as sacred aseither Garter or Blue Mantle, Providence seemed to have granted to himthe very object best calculated to fill up the void in his hopes andaffections. Sir Everard returned to Waverley Hall upon a led horse whichwas kept in readiness for him, while the child and his attendant weresent home in the carriage to Brere-wood Lodge, with such a messageas opened to Richard Waverley a door of reconciliation with his elderbrother.

  Their intercourse, however, though thus renewed, continued to be ratherformal and civil, than partaking of brotherly cordiality; yet it wassufficient to the wishes of both parties. Sir Everard obtained, in thefrequent society of his little nephew, something on which his hereditarypride might found the anticipated pleasure of a continuation of hislineage, and where his kind and gentle affections could at the sametime fully exercise themselves. For Richard Waverley, he beheld in thegrowing attachment between the uncle and nephew the means of securinghis son's, if not his own, succession to the hereditary estate, which hefelt would be rather endangered than promoted by any attempt on his ownpart towards a closer intimacy with a man of Sir Everard's habits andopinions.

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