Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  CASTLE-BUILDING

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

  He was in his sixteenth year, when his habits of abstraction and love ofsolitude became so much marked, as to excite Sir Everard's affectionateapprehension. He tried to counterbalance these propensities, by engaginghis nephew in field sports, which had been the chief pleasure of hisown youthful days. But although Edward eagerly carried the gun for oneseason, yet when practice had given him some dexterity, the pastimeceased to afford him amusement.

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

  There were a few other youths of better education, and a more liberalcharacter; but from their society also our hero was in some degreeexcluded. Sir Everard had, upon the death of Queen Anne, resigned hisseat in Parliament, and, as his age increased and the number of hiscontemporaries diminished, had gradually withdrawn himself fromsociety; so that when, upon any particular occasion, Edward mingledwith accomplished and well-educated young men of his own rank andexpectations, he felt an inferiority in their company, not so much fromdeficiency of information, as from the want of the skill to command andto arrange that which he possessed. A deep and increasing sensibilityadded to this dislike of society. The idea of having committed theslightest solecism in politeness, whether real or imaginary, was agonyto him; for perhaps even guilt itself does not impose upon some mindsso keen a sense of shame and remorse, as a modest, sensitive, andinexperienced youth feels from the consciousness of having neglectedetiquette, or excited ridicule. Where we are not at ease, we cannot behappy; and therefore it is not surprising, that Edward Waverley supposedthat he disliked and was unfitted for society, merely because he hadnot yet acquired the habit of living in it with ease and comfort, and ofreciprocally giving and receiving pleasure.

  The hours he spent with his uncle and aunt were exhausted in listeningto the oft-repeated tale of narrative old age. Yet even there hisimagination, the predominant faculty of his mind, was frequentlyexcited. Family tradition and genealogical history, upon which much ofSir Everard's discourse turned, is the very reverse of amber, which,itself a valuable substance, usually includes flies, straws, and othertrifles; whereas these studies, being themselves very insignificant andtrifling, do nevertheless serve to perpetuate a great deal of what israre and valuable in ancient manners, and to record many curious andminute facts, which could have been preserved and conveyed through noother medium. If, therefore, Edward Waverley yawned at times overthe dry deduction of his line of ancestors, with their variousintermarriages, and inwardly deprecated the remorseless and protractedaccuracy with which the worthy Sir Everard rehearsed the various degreesof propinquity between the house of Waverley-Honour and thedoughty barons, knights, and squires, to whom they stood allied; if(notwithstanding his obligations to the three ermines passant) hesometimes cursed in his heart the jargon of heraldry, its griffins,its moldwarps, its wyverns, and its dragons with all the bitterness ofHotspur himself, there were moments when these communications interestedhis fancy and rewarded his attention.

  The deeds of Wilibert of Waverley in the Holy Land, his long absence andperilous adventures, his supposed death, and his return in the eveningwhen the betrothed of his heart had wedded the hero who had protectedher from insult and oppression during his absence; the generosity withwhich the Crusader relinquished his claims, and sought in a neighbouringcloister that peace which passeth not away; [1]--to theseand similar tales he would hearken till his heart glowed and hiseye glistened. Nor was he less affected, when his aunt, Mrs. Rachel,narrated the sufferings and fortitude of Lady Alice Waverley duringthe Great Civil War. The benevolent features of the venerable spinsterkindled into more majestic expression, as she told how Charles had,after the field of Worcester, found a day's refuge at Waverley-Honour;and how, when a troop of cavalry were approaching to search the mansion,Lady Alice dismissed her youngest son with a handful of domestics,charging them to make good with their lives an hour's diversion, thatthe king might have that space for escape, 'And, God help her,' wouldMrs. Rachel continue, fixing her eyes upon the heroine's portrait as shespoke, 'full dearly did she purchase the safety of her prince with thelife of her darling child. They brought him here a prisoner, mortallywounded; and you may trace the drops of his blood from the great halldoor along the little gallery, and up to the saloon, where they laidhim down to die at his mother's feet. But there was comfort exchangedbetween them; for he knew from the glance of his mother's eye, thatthe purpose of his desperate defence was attained. Ah! I remember,' shecontinued, 'I remember well to have seen one that knew and loved him.Miss Lucy St. Aubin lived and died a maid for his sake, though one ofthe most beautiful and wealthy matches in this country; all the worldran after her, but she wore widow's mourning all her life for poorWilliam, for they were betrothed though not married, and died in--Icannot think of the date; but I remember, in the November of that veryyear, when she found herself sinking, she desired to be brought toWaverley-Honour once more, and visited all the places where she had beenwith my grand-uncle, and caused the carpets to be raised that she mighttrace the impression of his blood, and if tears could have washed itout, it had not been there now; for there was not a dry eye in thehouse. You would have thought, Edward, that the very trees mourned forher, for their leaves dropped around her without a gust of wind; and,indeed, she looked like one that would never see them green again.'

  From such legends our hero would steal away to indulge the fancies theyexcited. In the corner of the large and sombre library, with no otherlight than was afforded by the decaying brands on its ponderous andample hearth, he would exercise for hours that internal sorcery, bywhich past or imaginary events are presented in action, as it were, tothe eye of the muser. Then arose in long and fair array the splendour ofthe bridal feast at Waverley Castle; the tall and emaciated form of itsreal lord, as he stood in his pilgrim's weeds, an unnoticed spectator ofthe festivities of his supposed heir and intended bride; the electricalshock occasioned by the discovery; the springing of the vassals to arms;the astonishment of the bridegroom; the terror and confusion of thebride; the agony with which Wilibert observed that her heart as well asconsent was in these nuptials; the air of dignity, yet of deep feeling,with which he flung down the half-drawn sword, and turned away for everfrom the house of his ancestors. Then would he change the scene, andfancy would at his wish represent Aunt Rachel's tragedy. He saw the LadyWaverley seated in her bower, her ear strained to every sound, her heartthrobbing with double agony, now listening to the decaying echo of thehoofs of the king's horse, and when that had died away, hearing inevery breeze that shook the trees of the park, the noise of the remoteskirmish. A distant sound is heard like the rushing of a swollen stream;it comes nearer, and Edward can plainly distinguish the gallopingof horses, the cries and shouts of men, with straggling pistol-shotsbetween, rolling forwards to the Hall. The lady starts up--a terrifiedmenial rushes in--but why pursue such a description?

  As living in this ideal world became daily more delectable to our hero,interruption was disagreeable in proportion. The extensive domain thatsurrounded the Hall, which, far exceeding the dimensions of a park, wasusually termed W
averley-Chase, had originally been forest ground, andstill, though broken by extensive glades, in which the young deer weresporting, retained its pristine and savage character. It was traversedby broad avenues, in many places half grown up with brushwood, where thebeauties of former days used to take their stand to see the stag coursewith greyhounds, or to gain an aim at him with the crossbow. In onespot, distinguished by a moss-grown Gothic monument, which retained thename of Queen's Standing, Elizabeth herself was said to have piercedseven bucks with her own arrows. This was a very favourite haunt ofWaverley. At other times, with his gun and his spaniel, which servedas an apology to others, and with a book in his pocket, which perhapsserved as an apology to himself, he used to pursue one of these longavenues, which, after an ascending sweep of four miles, graduallynarrowed into a rude and contracted path through the cliffy and woodypass called Mirkwood Dingle, and opened suddenly upon a deep, dark, andsmall lake, named, from the same cause, Mirkwood Mere. There stood,in former times, a solitary tower upon a rock almost surrounded by thewater, which had acquired the name of the Strength of Waverley, because,in perilous times, it had often been the refuge of the family. There, inthe wars of York and Lancaster, the last adherents of the Red Rosewho dared to maintain her cause, carried on a harassing and predatorywarfare, till the stronghold was reduced by the celebrated Richard ofGloucester. Here, too, a party of cavaliers long maintained themselvesunder Nigel Waverley, elder brother of that William whose fate AuntRachel commemorated. Through these scenes it was that Edward loved to'chew the cud of sweet and bitter fancy,' and, like a child among histoys, culled and arranged, from the splendid yet useless imagery andemblems with which his imagination was stored, visions as brilliant andas fading as those of an evening sky. The effect of this indulgence uponhis temper and character will appear in the next chapter.