Waverley; Or 'Tis Sixty Years Since — Complete

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER XIII

  A MORE RATIONAL DAY THAN THE LAST

  The Baron of Bradwardine, mounted on an active and well-managed horse,and seated on a demi-pique saddle, with deep housings to agree with hislivery, was no bad representative of the old school. His light-colouredembroidered coat, and superbly barred waistcoat, his brigadier wig,surmounted by a small gold-laced cocked-hat, completed his personalcostume; but he was attended by two well-mounted servants on horseback,armed with holster-pistols.

  In this guise he ambled forth over hill and valley, the admiration ofevery farm-yard which they passed in their progress, till, 'low down ina grassy vale,' they found David Gellatley leading two very tall deergreyhounds, and presiding over half a dozen curs, and about as manybare-legged and bare-headed boys, who, to procure the chosendistinction of attending on the chase, had not failed to tickle hisears with the dulcet appellation of Maister Gellatley, though probablyall and each had hooted him on former occasions in the character ofdaft Davie. But this is no uncommon strain of flattery to persons inoffice, nor altogether confined to the barelegged villagers ofTully-Veolan; it was in fashion Sixty Years Since, is now, and will besix hundred years hence, if this admirable compound of folly andknavery, called the world, shall be then in existence.

  These Gillie-wet-foots, as they were called, were destined to beat thebushes, which they performed with so much success, that, after half anhour's search, a roe was started, coursed, and killed; the Baronfollowing on his white horse, like Earl Percy of yore, andmagnanimously flaying and embowelling the slain animal (which, heobserved, was called by the French chasseurs, faire la curee) with hisown baronial couteau de chasse. After this ceremony, he conducted hisguest homeward by a pleasant and circuitous route, commanding anextensive prospect of different villages and houses, to each of whichMr. Bradwardine attached some anecdote of history or genealogy, told inlanguage whimsical from prejudice and pedantry, but often respectablefor the good sense and honourable feelings which his narrativedisplayed, and almost always curious, if not valuable, for theinformation they contained.

  The truth is, the ride seemed agreeable to both gentlemen, because theyfound amusement in each other's conversation, although their charactersand habits of thinking were in many respects totally opposite. Edward,we have informed the reader, was warm in his feelings, wild andromantic in his ideas and in his taste of reading, with a strongdisposition towards poetry. Mr Bradwardine was the reverse of all this,and piqued himself upon stalking through life with the same upright,starched, stoical gravity which distinguished his evening promenadeupon the terrace of Tully-Veolan, where for hours together--the verymodel of old Hardyknute--

  Stately stepp'd he east the wa', And stately stepp'd he west

  As for literature, he read the classic poets, to be sure, and the'Epithalamium' of Georgius Buchanan and Arthur Johnston's Psalms, of aSunday; and the 'Deliciae Poetarum Scotorum,' and Sir David Lindsay's'Works', and Barbour's 'Brace', and Blind Harry's 'Wallace', and 'TheGentle Shepherd', and 'The Cherry and The Slae.'

  But though he thus far sacrificed his time to the Muses, he would, ifthe truth must be spoken, have been much better pleased had the piousor sapient apothegms, as well as the historical narratives, which thesevarious works contained, been presented to him in the form of simpleprose. And he sometimes could not refrain from expressing contempt ofthe 'vain and unprofitable art of poem-making', in which, he said,'theonly one who had excelled in his time was Allan Ramsay, theperiwigmaker.'

  [Footnote: The Baron ought to have remembered that the joyous Allanliterally drew his blood from the house of the noble earl whom heterms--

  Dalhousie of an old descent My stoup, my pride, my ornament.]

  But although Edward and he differed TOTO COELO, as the Baron would havesaid, upon this subject, yet they met upon history as on a neutralground, in which each claimed an interest. The Baron, indeed, onlycumbered his memory with matters of fact, the cold, dry, hard outlineswhich history delineates. Edward, on the contrary, loved to fill up andround the sketch with the colouring of a warm and vivid imagination,which gives light and life to the actors and speakers in the drama ofpast ages. Yet with tastes so opposite, they contributed greatly toeach other's amusement. Mr. Bradwardine's minute narratives andpowerful memory supplied to Waverley fresh subjects of the kind uponwhich his fancy loved to labour, and opened to him a new mine ofincident and of character. And he repaid the pleasure thus communicatedby an earnest attention, valuable to all story-tellers, more especiallyto the Baron, who felt his habits of self-respect flattered by it; andsometimes also by reciprocal communications, which interested Mr.Bradwardine, as confirming or illustrating his own favourite anecdotes.Besides, Mr. Bradwardine loved to talk of the scenes of his youth,whichl had been spent in camps and foreign lands, and had manyinteresting particulars to tell of the generals under whom he hadserved and the actions he had witnessed.

  Both parties returned to Tully-Veolan in great good-humour with eachother; Waverley desirous of studying more attentively what heconsidered as a singular and interesting character, gifted with amemory containing a curious register of ancient and modern anecdotes;and Bradwardine disposed to regard Edward as puer (or rather juvenis)bonae spei et magnae indolis, a youth devoid of that petulantvolatility which is impatient of, or vilipends, the conversation andadvice of his seniors, from which he predicted great things of hisfuture success and deportment in life. There was no other guest exceptMr. Rubrick, whose information and discourse, as a clergyman and ascholar, harmonised very well with that of the Baron and his guest.

  Shortly after dinner, the Baron, as if to show that his temperance wasnot entirely theoretical, proposed a visit to Rose's apartment, or, ashe termed it, her troisieme etage. Waverley was accordingly conductedthrough one or two of those long awkward passages with which ancientarchitects studied to puzzle the inhabitants of the houses which theyplanned, at the end of which Mr. Bradwardine began to ascend, by twosteps at once, a very steep, narrow, and winding stair, leaving Mr.Rubrick and Waverley to follow at more leisure, while he shouldannounce their approach to his daughter.

  After having climbed this perpendicular corkscrew until their brainswere almost giddy, they arrived in a little matted lobby, which servedas an anteroom to Rose's sanctum sanctorum, and through which theyentered her parlour. It was a small, but pleasant apartment, opening tothe south, and hung with tapestry; adorned besides with two pictures,one of her mother, in the dress of a shepherdess, with a bell-hoop; theother of the Baron, in his tenth year, in a blue coat, embroideredwaistcoat, laced hat, and bag-wig, with a bow in his hand. Edward couldnot help smiling at the costume, and at the odd resemblance between theround, smooth, red-cheeked, staring visage in the portrait, and thegaunt, bearded, hollow-eyed, swarthy features, which travelling,fatigues of war, and advanced age, had bestowed on the original. TheBaron joined in the laugh. 'Truly,' he said,'that picture was a woman'sfantasy of my good mother's (a daughter of the Laird of Tulliellum,Captain Waverley; I indicated the house to you when we were on the topof the Shinnyheuch; it was burnt by the Dutch auxiliaries brought in bythe Government in 1715); I never sate for my pourtraicture but oncesince that was painted, and it was at the special and reiteratedrequest of the Marechal Duke of Berwick.'

  The good old gentleman did not mention what Mr. Rubrick afterwards toldEdward, that the Duke had done him this honour on account of his beingthe first to mount the breach of a fort in Savoy during the memorablecampaign of 1709, and his having there defended himself with hishalf-pike for nearly ten minutes before any support reached him. To dothe Baron justice, although sufficiently prone to dwell upon, and evento exaggerate, his family dignity and consequence, he was too much aman of real courage ever to allude to such personal acts of merit as hehad himself manifested.

  Miss Rose now appeared from the interior room of her apartment, towelcome her father and his friends. The little labours in which she hadbeen employed obviously showed a natural taste, which required onlycultivatio
n. Her father had taught her French and Italian, and a few ofthe ordinary authors in those languages ornamented her shelves. He hadendeavoured also to be her preceptor in music; but as he began with themore abstruse doctrines of the science, and was not perhaps master ofthem himself, she had made no proficiency farther than to be able toaccompany her voice with the harpsichord; but even this was not verycommon in Scotland at that period. To make amends, she sung with greattaste and feeling, and with a respect to the sense of what she utteredthat might be proposed in example to ladies of much superior musicaltalent. Her natural good sense taught her that, if, as we are assuredby high authority, music be 'married to immortal verse,' they are veryoften divorced by the performer in a most shameful manner. It wasperhaps owing to this sensibility to poetry, and power of combining itsexpression with those of the musical notes, that her singing gave morepleasure to all the unlearned in music, and even to many of thelearned, than could have been communicated by a much finer voice andmore brilliant execution unguided by the same delicacy of feeling.

  A bartizan, or projecting gallery, before the windows of her parlour,served to illustrate another of Rose's pursuits; for it was crowdedwith flowers of different kinds, which she had taken under her specialprotection. A projecting turret gave access to this Gothic balcony,which commanded a most beautiful prospect. The formal garden, with itshigh bounding walls, lay below, contracted, as it seemed, to a mereparterre; while the view extended beyond them down a wooded glen, wherethe small river was sometimes visible, sometimes hidden in copse. Theeye might be delayed by a desire to rest on the rocks, which here andthere rose from the dell with massive or spiry fronts, or it mightdwell on the noble, though ruined tower, which was here beheld in allits dignity, frowning from a promontory over the river. To the leftwere seen two or three cottages, a part of the village, the brow of thehill concealed the others. The glen, or dell, was terminated by a sheetof water, called Loch Veolan, into which the brook discharged itself,and which now glistened in the western sun. The distant country seemedopen and varied in surface, though not wooded; and there was nothing tointerrupt the view until the scene was bounded by a ridge of distantand blue hills, which formed the southern boundary of the strath orvalley. To this pleasant station Miss Bradwardine had ordered coffee.

  The view of the old tower, or fortalice, introduced some familyanecdotes and tales of Scottish chivalry, which the Baron told withgreat enthusiasm. The projecting peak of an impending crag which rosenear it had acquired the name of Saint Swithin's Chair. It was thescene of a peculiar superstition, of which Mr. Rubrick mentioned somecurious particulars, which reminded Waverley of a rhyme quoted by Edgarin King Lear; and Rose was called upon to sing a little legend, inwhich they had been interwoven by some village poet,

  Who, noteless as the race from which he sprung, Saved others' names, but left his own unsung.

  The sweetness of her voice, and the simple beauty of her music, gaveall the advantage which the minstrel could have desired, and which hispoetry so much wanted. I almost doubt if it can be read with patience,destitute of these advantages, although I conjecture the following copyto have been somewhat corrected by Waverley, to suit the taste of thosewho might not relish pure antiquity.

  Saint Swithin's Chair

  On Hallow-Mass Eve, ere ye boune ye to rest, Ever beware that your couch be bless'd; Sign it with cross, and sain it with bead, Sing the Ave, and say the Creed.

  For on Hallow-Mass Eve the Night-Hag will ride, And all her nine-fold sweeping on by her side, Whether the wind sing lowly or loud, Sailing through moonshine or swath'd in the cloud.

  The Lady she sat in Saint Swithin's Chair, The dew of the night has damp'd her hair: Her cheek was pale; but resolved and high Was the word of her lip and the glance of her eye.

  She mutter'd the spell of Swithin bold, When his naked foot traced the midnight wold, When he stopp'd the Hag as she rode the night, And bade her descend, and her promise plight.

  He that dare sit on Saint Swithin's Chair, When the Night-Hag wings the troubled air, Questions three, when he speaks the spell, He may ask, and she must tell.

  The Baron has been with King Robert his liege These three long years in battle and siege; News are there none of his weal or his woe, And fain the Lady his fate would know.

  She shudders and stops as the charm she speaks;-- Is it the moody owl that shrieks? Or is it that sound, betwixt laughter and scream, The voice of the Demon who haunts the stream?

  The moan of the wind sunk silent and low, And the roaring torrent had ceased to flow; The calm was more dreadful than raging storm, When the cold grey mist brought the ghastly Form!

  'I am sorry to disappoint the company, especially Captain Waverley, wholistens with such laudable gravity; it is but a fragment, although Ithink there are other verses, describing the return of the Baron fromthe wars, and how the lady was found "clay-cold upon the grounsillledge.'"

  'It is one of those figments,' observed Mr. Bradwardine, 'with whichthe early history of distinguished families was deformed in the timesof superstition; as that of Rome, and other ancient nations, had theirprodigies, sir, the which you may read in ancient histories, or in thelittle work compiled by Julius Obsequens, and inscribed by the learnedScheffer, the editor, to his patron, Benedictus Skytte, Baron ofDudershoff.'

  'My father has a strange defiance of the marvellous, Captain Waverley,'observed Rose, 'and once stood firm when a whole synod of Presbyteriandivines were put to the rout by a sudden apparition of the foul fiend.'

  Waverley looked as if desirous to hear more.

  'Must I tell my story as well as sing my song? Well--Once upon a timethere lived an old woman, called Janet Gellatley, who was suspected tobe a witch, on the infallible grounds that she was very old, very ugly,very poor, and had two sons, one of whom was a poet and the other afool, which visitation, all the neighbourhood agreed, had come upon herfor the sin of witchcraft. And she was imprisoned for a week in thesteeple of the parish church, and sparely supplied with food, and notpermitted to sleep until she herself became as much persuaded of herbeing a witch as her accusers; and in this lucid and happy state ofmind was brought forth to make a clean breast, that is, to make openconfession of her sorceries, before all the Whig gentry and ministersin the vicinity, who were no conjurors themselves. My father went tosee fair play between the witch and the clergy; for the witch had beenborn on his estate. And while the witch was confessing that the Enemyappeared, and made his addresses to her as a handsome blackman,--which, if you could have seen poor old blear-eyed Janet,reflected little honour on Apollyon's taste,--and while the auditorslistened with astonished ears, and the clerk recorded with a tremblinghand, she, all of a sudden, changed the low mumbling tone with whichshe spoke into a shrill yell, and exclaimed, "Look to yourselves! lookto yourselves! I see the Evil One sitting in the midst of ye." Thesurprise was general, and terror and flight its immediate consequences.Happy were those who were next the door; and many were the disastersthat befell hats, bands, cuffs, and wigs, before they could get out ofthe church, where they left the obstinate prelatist to settle matterswith the witch and her admirer at his own peril or pleasure.'

  'Risu solvuntur tabulae,' said the Baron; 'when they recovered theirpanic trepidation they were too much ashamed to bring any wakening ofthe process against Janet Gellatley.' [Footnote: See Note 11]

  This anecdote led to a long discussion of

  All those idle thoughts and fantasies, Devices, dreams, opinions unsound, Shows, visions, soothsays, and prophecies, And all that feigned is, as leasings, tales, and lies.

  With such conversation, and the romantic legends which it introduced,closed our hero's second evening in the house of Tully-Veolan.