Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since — Volume 2

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER LXIII

  DESOLATION

  Waverley riding post, as was the usual fashion of the period,without any adventure save one or two queries, which the talismanof his passport sufficiently answered, reached the borders ofScotland. Here he heard the tidings of the decisive battle ofCulloden. It was no more than he had long expected, though thesuccess at Falkirk had thrown a faint and setting gleam over thearms of the Chevalier. Yet it came upon him like a shock, by whichhe was for a time altogether unmanned. The generous, thecourteous, the noble-minded adventurer was then a fugitive, with aprice upon his head; his adherents, so brave, so enthusiastic, sofaithful, were dead, imprisoned, or exiled. Where, now, was theexalted and high-souled Fergus, if, indeed, he had survived thenight at Clifton? Where the pure-hearted and primitive Baron ofBradwardine, whose foibles seemed foils to set off thedisinterestedness of his disposition, the genuine goodness of hisheart, and his unshaken courage? Those who clung for support tothese fallen columns, Rose and Flora, where were they to besought, and in what distress must not the loss of their naturalprotectors have involved them? Of Flora he thought with the regardof a brother for a sister; of Rose with a sensation yet more deepand tender. It might be still his fate to supply the want of thoseguardians they had lost. Agitated by these thoughts heprecipitated his journey.

  When he arrived in Edinburgh, where his inquiries must necessarilycommence, he felt the full difficulty of his situation. Manyinhabitants of that city had seen and known him as EdwardWaverley; how, then, could he avail himself of a passport asFrancis Stanley? He resolved, therefore, to avoid all company, andto move northward as soon as possible. He was, however, obliged towait a day or two in expectation of a letter from Colonel Talbot,and he was also to leave his own address, under his feignedcharacter, at a place agreed upon. With this latter purpose hesallied out in the dusk through the well-known streets, carefullyshunning observation, but in vain: one of the first persons whomhe met at once recognised him. It was Mrs. Flockhart, Fergus Mac-Ivor's good-humoured landlady.

  'Gude guide us, Mr. Waverley, is this you? na, ye needna be fearedfor me. I wad betray nae gentleman in your circumstances. Eh,lack-a-day! lack-a-day! here's a change o' markets; how merryColonel MacIvor and you used to be in our house!' And the good-natured widow shed a few natural tears. As there was no resistingher claim of acquaintance, Waverley acknowledged it with a goodgrace, as well as the danger of his own situation. 'As it's nearthe darkening, sir, wad ye just step in by to our house and tak adish o' tea? and I am sure if ye like to sleep in the little room,I wad tak care ye are no disturbed, and naebody wad ken ye; forKate and Matty, the limmers, gaed aff wi' twa o' Hawley'sdragoons, and I hae twa new queans instead o' them.'

  Waverley accepted her invitation, and engaged her lodging for anight or two, satisfied he should be safer in the house of thissimple creature than anywhere else. When he entered the parlourhis heart swelled to see Fergus's bonnet, with the white cockade,hanging beside the little mirror.

  'Ay,' said Mrs. Flockhart, sighing, as she observed the directionof his eyes, 'the puir Colonel bought a new ane just the daybefore they marched, and I winna let them tak that ane doun, butjust to brush it ilka day mysell; and whiles I look at it till Ijust think I hear him cry to Callum to bring him his bonnet, as heused to do when he was ganging out. It's unco silly--theneighbours ca' me a Jacobite, but they may say their say--I amsure it's no for that--but he was as kind-hearted a gentleman asever lived, and as weel-fa'rd too. Oh, d'ye ken, sir, when he isto suffer?'

  'Suffer! Good heaven! Why, where is he?'

  'Eh, Lord's sake! d'ye no ken? The poor Hieland body, DugaldMahony, cam here a while syne, wi' ane o' his arms cuttit off, anda sair clour in the head--ye'll mind Dugald, he carried aye an axeon his shouther--and he cam here just begging, as I may say, forsomething to eat. Aweel, he tauld us the Chief, as they ca'd him(but I aye ca' him the Colonel), and Ensign Maccombich, that yemind weel, were ta'en somewhere beside the English border, when itwas sae dark that his folk never missed him till it was ower late,and they were like to gang clean daft. And he said that littleCallum Beg (he was a bauld mischievous callant that) and yourhonour were killed that same night in the tuilzie, and mony maebraw men. But he grat when he spak o' the Colonel, ye never sawthe like. And now the word gangs the Colonel is to be tried, andto suffer wi' them that were ta'en at Carlisle.'

  'And his sister?'

  'Ay, that they ca'd the Lady Flora--weel, she's away up toCarlisle to him, and lives wi' some grand Papist lady thereaboutsto be near him.'

  'And,' said Edward,'the other young lady?'

  'Whilk other? I ken only of ae sister the Colonel had.'

  'I mean Miss Bradwardine,' said Edward.

  'Ou, ay; the laird's daughter' said his landlady. 'She was a verybonny lassie, poor thing, but far shyer than Lady Flora.'

  'Where is she, for God's sake?'

  'Ou, wha kens where ony o' them is now? puir things, they're sairta'en doun for their white cockades and their white roses; but shegaed north to her father's in Perthshire, when the governmenttroops cam back to Edinbro'. There was some prettymen amang them,and ane Major Whacker was quartered on me, a very ceevilgentleman,--but O, Mr. Waverley, he was naething sae weel fa'rdas the puir Colonel.'

  'Do you know what is become of Miss Bradwardine's father?'

  'The auld laird? na, naebody kens that. But they say he foughtvery hard in that bluidy battle at Inverness; and Deacon Clank,the whit-iron smith, says that the government folk are sair aganehim for having been out twice; and troth he might hae ta'enwarning, but there's nae Me like an auld fule. The puir Colonelwas only out ance.'

  Such conversation contained almost all the good-natured widow knewof the fate of her late lodgers and acquaintances; but it wasenough to determine Edward, at all hazards, to proceed instantlyto Tully-Veolan, where he concluded he should see, or at leasthear, something of Rose. He therefore left a letter for ColonelTalbot at the place agreed upon, signed by his assumed name, andgiving for his address the post-town next to the Baron'sresidence.

  From Edinburgh to Perth he took post-horses, resolving to make therest of his journey on foot; a mode of travelling to which he waspartial, and which had the advantage of permitting a deviationfrom the road when he saw parties of military at a distance. Hiscampaign had considerably strengthened his constitution andimproved his habits of enduring fatigue. His baggage he sentbefore him as opportunity occurred.

  As he advanced northward, the traces of war became visible. Brokencarriages, dead horses, unroofed cottages, trees felled forpalisades, and bridges destroyed or only partially repaired--allindicated the movements of hostile armies. In those places wherethe gentry were attached to the Stuart cause, their houses seemeddismantled or deserted, the usual course of what may be calledornamental labour was totally interrupted, and the inhabitantswere seen gliding about, with fear, sorrow, and dejection on theirfaces.

  It was evening when he approached the village of Tully-Veolan,with feelings and sentiments--how different from those whichattended his first entrance! Then, life was so new to him that adull or disagreeable day was one of the greatest misfortunes whichhis imagination anticipated, and it seemed to him that his timeought only to be consecrated to elegant or amusing study, andrelieved by social or youthful frolic. Now, how changed! howsaddened, yet how elevated was his character, within the course ofa very few months! Danger and misfortune are rapid, though severeteachers. 'A sadder and a wiser man,' he felt in internalconfidence and mental dignity a compensation for the gay dreamswhich in his case experience had so rapidly dissolved.

  As he approached the village he saw, with surprise and anxiety,that a party of soldiers were quartered near it, and, what wasworse, that they seemed stationary there. This he conjectured froma few tents which he beheld glimmering upon what was called theCommon Moor. To avoid the risk of being stopped and questioned ina place where he was so likely to be recognised, he made a largecircuit, altogether avoiding the hamlet, and approaching the uppe
rgate of the avenue by a by-path well known to him. A single glanceannounced that great changes had taken place. One half of thegate, entirely destroyed and split up for firewood, lay in piles,ready to be taken away; the other swung uselessly about upon itsloosened hinges. The battlements above the gate were broken andthrown down, and the carved bears, which were said to have donesentinel's duty upon the top for centuries, now, hurled from theirposts, lay among the rubbish. The avenue was cruelly wasted.Several large trees were felled and left lying across the path;and the cattle of the villagers, and the more rude hoofs ofdragoon horses, had poached into black mud the verdant turf whichWaverley had so much admired.

  Upon entering the court-yard, Edward saw the fears realised whichthese circumstances had excited. The place had been sacked by theKing's troops, who, in wanton mischief, had even attempted to burnit; and though the thickness of the walls had resisted the fire,unless to a partial extent, the stables and out-houses weretotally consumed. The towers and pinnacles of the main buildingwere scorched and blackened; the pavement of the court broken andshattered, the doors torn down entirely, or hanging by a singlehinge, the windows dashed in and demolished, and the court strewedwith articles of furniture broken into fragments. The accessariesof ancient distinction, to which the Baron, in the pride of hisheart, had attached so much importance and veneration, weretreated with peculiar contumely. The fountain was demolished, andthe spring which had supplied it now flooded the court-yard. Thestone basin seemed to be destined for a drinking-trough forcattle, from the manner in which it was arranged upon the ground.The whole tribe of bears, large and small, had experienced aslittle favour as those at the head of the avenue, and one or twoof the family pictures, which seemed to have served as targets forthe soldiers, lay on the ground in tatters. With an aching heart,as may well be imagined, Edward viewed this wreck of a mansion sorespected. But his anxiety to learn the fate of the proprietors,and his fears as to what that fate might be, increased with everystep. When he entered upon the terrace new scenes of desolationwere visible. The balustrade was broken down, the walls destroyed,the borders overgrown with weeds, and the fruit-trees cut down orgrubbed up. In one compartment of this old-fashioned garden weretwo immense horse-chestnut trees, of whose size the Baron wasparticularly vain; too lazy, perhaps, to cut them down, thespoilers, with malevolent ingenuity, had mined them and placed aquantity of gunpowder in the cavity. One had been shivered topieces by the explosion, and the fragments lay scattered around,encumbering the ground it had so long shadowed. The other mine hadbeen more partial in its effect. About one-fourth of the trunk ofthe tree was torn from the mass, which, mutilated and defaced onthe one side, still spread on the other its ample and undiminishedboughs. [Footnote: A pair of chestnut trees, destroyed, the oneentirely and the other in part, by such a mischievous and wantonact of revenge, grew at Invergarry Castle, the fastness ofMacDonald of Glengarry.]

  Amid these general marks of ravage, there were some which moreparticularly addressed the feelings of Waverley. Viewing the frontof the building thus wasted and defaced, his eyes naturally soughtthe little balcony which more properly belonged to Rose'sapartment, her troisieme, or rather cinquieme, etage. It waseasily discovered, for beneath it lay the stage-flowers and shrubswith which it was her pride to decorate it, and which had beenhurled from the bartizan; several of her books were mingled withbroken flower-pots and other remnants. Among these Waverleydistinguished one of his own, a small copy of Ariosto, andgathered it as a treasure, though wasted by the wind and rain.

  While, plunged in the sad reflections which the scene excited, hewas looking around for some one who might explain the fate of theinhabitants, he heard a voice from the interior of the buildingsinging, in well-remembered accents, an old Scottish song:--

  They came upon us in the night, And brake my bower and slew my knight; My servants a' for life did flee, And left us in extremitie.

  They slew my knight, to me sae dear; They slew my knight, and drave his gear; The moon may set, the sun may rise, But a deadly sleep has closed his eyes.

  [Footnote: The first three couplets are from an old ballad, calledthe Border Widow's Lament.]

  'Alas,' thought Edward, 'is it thou? Poor helpless being, art thoualone left, to gibber and moan, and fill with thy wild andunconnected scraps of minstrelsy the halls that protected thee?'He then called, first low, and then louder, 'Davie--DavieGellatley!'

  The poor simpleton showed himself from among the ruins of a sortof greenhouse, that once terminated what was called the terrace-walk, but at first sight of a stranger retreated, as if in terror.Waverley, remembering his habits, began to whistle a tune to whichhe was partial, which Davie had expressed great pleasure inlistening to, and had picked up from him by the ear. Our hero'sminstrelsy no more equalled that of Blondel than poor Davieresembled Coeur de Lion; but the melody had the same effect ofproducing recognition. Davie again stole from his lurking-place,but timidly, while Waverley, afraid of frightening him, stoodmaking the most encouraging signals he could devise. 'It's hisghaist,' muttered Davie; yet, coming nearer, he seemed toacknowledge his living acquaintance. The poor fool himselfappeared the ghost of what he had been. The peculiar dress inwhich he had been attired in better days showed only miserablerags of its whimsical finery, the lack of which was oddly suppliedby the remnants of tapestried hangings, window-curtains, andshreds of pictures with which he had bedizened his tatters. Hisface, too, had lost its vacant and careless air, and the poorcreature looked hollow-eyed, meagre, half-starved, and nervous toa pitiable degree. After long hesitation, he at length approachedWaverley with some confidence, stared him sadly in the face, andsaid, 'A' dead and gane--a' dead and gane.'

  'Who are dead?' said Waverley, forgetting the incapacity of Davieto hold any connected discourse.

  'Baron, and Bailie, and Saunders Saunderson, and Lady Rose thatsang sae sweet--a' dead and gane--dead and gane;

  But follow, follow me, While glowworms light the lea, I'll show ye where the dead should be-- Each in his shroud, While winds pipe loud, And the red moon peeps dim through the cloud. Follow, follow me; Brave should he be That treads by night the dead man's lea.'

  With these words, chanted in a wild and earnest tone, he made asign to Waverley to follow him, and walked rapidly towards thebottom of the garden, tracing the bank of the stream which, it maybe remembered, was its eastern boundary. Edward, over whom aninvoluntary shuddering stole at the import of his words, followedhim in some hope of an explanation. As the house was evidentlydeserted, he could not expect to find among the ruins any morerational informer.

  Davie, walking very fast, soon reached the extremity of thegarden, and scrambled over the ruins of the wall that once haddivided it from the wooded glen in which the old tower of Tully-Veolan was situated. He then jumped down into the bed of thestream, and, followed by Waverley, proceeded at a great pace,climbing over some fragments of rock and turning with difficultyround others. They passed beneath the ruins of the castle;Waverley followed, keeping up with his guide with difficulty, forthe twilight began to fall. Following the descent of the stream alittle lower, he totally lost him, but a twinkling light which henow discovered among the tangled copse-wood and bushes seemed asurer guide. He soon pursued a very uncouth path; and by itsguidance at length reached the door of a wretched hut. A fiercebarking of dogs was at first heard, but it stilled at hisapproach. A voice sounded from within, and he held it most prudentto listen before he advanced.

  'Wha hast thou brought here, thou unsonsy villain, thou?' said anold woman, apparently in great indignation. He heard DavieGellatley in answer whistle a part of the tune by which he hadrecalled himself to the simpleton's memory, and had now nohesitation to knock at the door. There was a dead silenceinstantly within, except the deep growling of the dogs; and henext heard the mistress of the hut approach the door, not probablyfor the sake of undoing a latch, but of fastening a bolt. Toprevent this Waverley lifted the latch himself.

  In f
ront was an old wretched-looking woman, exclaiming, 'Wha comesinto folk's houses in this gate, at this time o' the night?' Onone side, two grim and half-starved deer greyhounds laid asidetheir ferocity at his appearance, and seemed to recognise him. Onthe other side, half concealed by the open door, yet apparentlyseeking that concealment reluctantly, with a cocked pistol in hisright hand and his left in the act of drawing another from hisbelt, stood a tall bony gaunt figure in the remnants of a fadeduniform and a beard of three weeks' growth. It was the Baron ofBradwardine. It is unnecessary to add, that he threw aside hisweapon and greeted Waverley with a hearty embrace.