by Walter Scott
CHAPTER X
ROSE BRADWARDINE AND HER FATHER
Miss Bradwardine was but seventeen; yet, at the last races of thecounty town of ----, upon her health being proposed among a round ofbeauties, the Laird of Bumperquaigh, permanent toast-master andcroupier of the Bautherwhillery Club, not only said MORE to the pledgein a pint bumper of Bourdeaux, but, ere pouring forth the libation,denominated the divinity to whom it was dedicated, 'the Rose ofTully-Veolan'; upon which festive occasion three cheers were given byall the sitting members of that respectable society, whose throats thewine had left capable of such exertion. Nay, I am well assured, thatthe sleeping partners of the company snorted applause, and thatalthough strong bumpers and weak brains had consigned two or three tothe floor, yet even these, fallen as they were from their high estate,and weltering--I will carry the parody no farther--uttered diversinarticulate sounds, intimating their assent to the motion.
Such unanimous applause could not be extorted but by acknowledgedmerit; and Rose Bradwardine not only deserved it, but also theapprobation of much more rational persons than the Bautherwhillery Clubcould have mustered, even before discussion of the first magnum. Shewas indeed a very pretty girl of the Scotch cast of beauty, that is,with a profusion of hair of paley gold, and a skin like the snow of herown mountains in whiteness. Yet she had not a pallid or pensive cast ofcountenance; her features, as well as her temper, had a livelyexpression; her complexion, though not florid, was so pure as to seemtransparent, and the slightest emotion sent her whole blood at once toher face and neck. Her form, though under the common size, wasremarkably elegant, and her motions light, easy, and unembarrassed. Shecame from another part of the garden to receive Captain Waverley, witha manner that hovered between 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 languageand habits 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, he hadbeen 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 flung over a blazing uniform. Tothis must be added the prejudices of ancient birth and Jacobitepolitics, greatly strengthened by habits of solitary and secludedauthority, which, though exercised only within the bounds of hishalf-cultivated estate, was there indisputable and undisputed. For, ashe used to observe, 'the lands of Bradwardine, Tully-Veolan, andothers, had been erected into a free barony by a charter from David theFirst, cum liberali potest. habendi curias et justicias, cum fossa etfurca (LIE, pit and gallows) et saka et soka, et thol et theam, etinfang-thief et outfang-thief, sive hand-habend. sive bak-barand.' Thepeculiar meaning of all these cabalistical words few or none couldexplain; but they implied, upon the whole, that the Baron ofBradwardine might, in case of delinquency, imprison, try, and executehis vassals at his pleasure. Like James the First, however, the presentpossessor of this authority was more pleased in talking aboutprerogative than in exercising it; and excepting that he imprisoned twopoachers in the dungeon of the old tower of Tully-Veolan, where theywere sorely frightened by ghosts, and almost eaten by rats, and that heset an old woman in the jougs (or Scottish pillory) for saying' therewere mair fules in the laird's ha' house than Davie Gellatley,' I donot learn that he was accused of abusing his high powers. Still,however, the conscious pride of possessing them gave additionalimportance to his language and deportment.
At his first address to Waverley, it would seem that the heartypleasure he felt to behold the nephew of his friend had somewhatdiscomposed the stiff and upright dignity of the Baron of Bradwardine'sdemeanour, for the tears stood in the old gentleman's eyes, when,having first shaken Edward heartily by the hand in the English fashion,he embraced him a la mode Francoise, and kissed him on both sides ofhis face; while the hardness of his gripe, and the quantity of Scotchsnuff which his accolade communicated, called corresponding drops ofmoisture to the eyes 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 tems, 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! Introth 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 looks 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 Waverley-Honour. I say epulaerather than prandium, because the latter phrase is popular: epulae adsenatum, prandium vero ad populum attinet, says Suetonius Tranquillus.But I trust ye will applaud my Bourdeaux; c'est des deux oreilles, asCaptain Vinsauf used to say; vinum primae notae, the principal of SaintAndrews denominated it. And, once more, Captain Waverley, right glad amI that ye 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, where fouror five servants in old-fashioned liveries, headed by AlexanderSaunderson, the butler, who now bore no token of the sable stains ofthe garden, received them in grand COSTUME,
In an old hall hung round with pikes and with bows, With old bucklers and corslets 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, wainscotted 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 asporter upon gala days, had caught the alarm given by Waverley'sarrival, and, repairing to his post, announced the arrival of otherguests.
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 tofield-sports--gaudet equis et canibus--but a very discreet younggentleman. Then there was the Laird of Killancureit, who had devotedhis leisure UNTILL tillage and agriculture, and boasted himself to bepossessed of a bull of matchless merit, brought from the county ofDevon (the Damnonia of the Romans, if we can trust Robert ofCirencester). He is, as ye may well suppose from such a tendency, butof yeoman extraction--servabit odorem testa diu--and I believe, betweenourselves, his grandsire was from the wrong side of the Border--oneBullsegg, who came hither as a steward, or bailiff, or ground-officer,or something in that department, to the last Girnigo of Killancureit,who died of an atrophy. After his master's death, sir,--ye would hardlybelieve such a scandal, --but this Bullsegg, being portly and comely ofaspect, intermarried with the lady dowager, who was young and amorous,and possessed himself of the estate, which devolved on this unhappywoman by a settlement of her umwhile husband, in direct contraventionof an unrecorded taillie, and to the prejudice of the disponer's ownflesh and blood, in the person of his natural heir and seventh cousin,Girnigo of Tipperhewit, whose family was so reduced by the ensuinglaw-suit, that his representative is now serving as a privategentleman-sentinel in the Highland Black Watch. But this gentleman, Mr.Bullsegg of Killancureit that now is, has good blood in his veins bythe mother and grandmother, who were both of the family ofPickletillim, and he is well liked and looked upon, and knows his ownplace. 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, asNaso saith. There is, besides, a clergyman of the true (thoughsuffering) Episcopal church of Scotland. [Footnote: See Note 9.] He wasa confessor in her cause after the year 1715, when a Whiggish mobdestroyed his meeting-house, tore his surplice, and plundered hisdwelling-house of four silver spoons, intromitting also with his martand his mealark, and with two barrels, one of single and one of doubleale, besides three bottles of brandy. My baron-bailie and doer, Mr.Duncan Macwheeble, is the fourth on our list. There is a question,owing to the incertitude of ancient orthography, whether he belongs tothe clan of Wheedle or of Quibble, but both have produced personseminent in the law.'--
As such he described them by person and name, They enter'd, and dinner was served as they came.
