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 roundof beauties, the Laird of Bumperquaigh, permanent toast-master andcroupier of the Bautherwhillery Club, not only said MORE to thepledge in a pint bumper of Bourdeaux, but, ere pouring forth thelibation, denominated the divinity to whom it was dedicated, 'theRose of Tully-Veolan'; upon which festive occasion three cheerswere given by all the sitting members of that respectable society,whose throats the wine had left capable of such exertion. Nay, Iam well assured, that the sleeping partners of the company snortedapplause, and that although strong bumpers and weak brains hadconsigned two or three to the floor, yet even these, fallen asthey were from their high estate, and weltering--I will carry theparody no farther--uttered divers inarticulate sounds, intimatingtheir 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 BautherwhilleryClub could have mustered, even before discussion of the firstmagnum. She was indeed a very pretty girl of the Scotch cast ofbeauty, that is, with a profusion of hair of paley gold, and askin like the snow of her own mountains in whiteness. Yet she hadnot a pallid or pensive cast of countenance; her features, as wellas her temper, had a lively expression; her complexion, though notflorid, was so pure as to seem transparent, and the slightestemotion sent her whole blood at once to her face and neck. Herform, though under the common size, was remarkably elegant, andher motions light, easy, and unembarrassed. She came from anotherpart of the garden to receive Captain Waverley, with a manner thathovered between bashfulness and courtesy.
The first greetings past, Edward learned from her that the darkhag, which had somewhat puzzled him in the butler's account of hismaster's avocations, had nothing to do either with a black cat ora broomstick, but was simply a portion of oak copse which was tobe felled that day. She offered, with diffident civility, to showthe stranger the way to the spot, which, it seems, was not fardistant; but they were prevented by the appearance of the Baron ofBradwardine in person, who, summoned by David Gellatley, nowappeared, 'on hospitable thoughts intent,' clearing the ground ata prodigious rate with swift and long strides, which remindedWaverley of the seven-league boots of the nursery fable. He was atall, thin, athletic figure, old indeed and grey-haired, but withevery muscle rendered as tough as whip-cord by constant exercise.He was dressed carelessly, and more like a Frenchman than anEnglishman of the period, while, from his hard features andperpendicular rigidity of stature, he bore some resemblance to aSwiss officer of the guards, who had resided some time at Paris,and caught the costume, but not the ease or manner, of itsinhabitants. The truth was, that his language and habits were asheterogeneous as his external appearance.
Owing to his natural disposition to study, or perhaps to a verygeneral Scottish fashion of giving young men of rank a legaleducation, he had been bred with a view to the bar. But thepolitics of his family precluding the hope of his rising in thatprofession, Mr. Bradwardine travelled with high reputation forseveral years, and made some campaigns in foreign service. Afterhis demele with the law of high treason in 1715, he had lived inretirement, conversing almost entirely with those of his ownprinciples in the vicinage. The pedantry of the lawyer,superinduced upon the military pride of the soldier, might reminda modern of the days of the zealous volunteer service, when thebar-gown of our pleaders was often flung over a blazing uniform.To this 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, as he used to observe, 'the lands of Bradwardine, Tully-Veolan, and others, had been erected into a free barony by acharter from David the First, cum liberali potest. habendi curiaset justicias, cum fossa et furca (LIE, pit and gallows) et saka etsoka, et thol et theam, et infang-thief et outfang-thief, sivehand-habend. sive bak-barand.' The peculiar meaning of all thesecabalistical words few or none could explain; but they implied,upon the whole, that the Baron of Bradwardine might, in case ofdelinquency, imprison, try, and execute his vassals at hispleasure. Like James the First, however, the present possessor ofthis authority was more pleased in talking about prerogative thanin exercising it; and excepting that he imprisoned two poachers inthe dungeon of the old tower of Tully-Veolan, where they weresorely frightened by ghosts, and almost eaten by rats, and that heset an old woman in the jougs (or Scottish pillory) for saying'there were mair fules in the laird's ha' house than DavieGellatley,' I do not learn that he was accused of abusing his highpowers. Still, however, the conscious pride of possessing themgave additional importance 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 ofBradwardine's demeanour, for the tears stood in the oldgentleman's eyes, when, having first shaken Edward heartily by thehand in the English fashion, he embraced him a la mode Francoise,and kissed him on both sides of his face; while the hardness ofhis gripe, and the quantity of Scotch snuff which his accoladecommunicated, called corresponding drops of moisture to the eyesof his guest.
'Upon the honour of a gentleman,' he said, 'but it makes me youngagain to see you here, Mr. Waverley! A worthy scion of the oldstock of Waverley-Honour--spes altera, as Maro hath it--and youhave the look of the old line, Captain Waverley; not so portly yetas my old friend Sir Everard--mais cela viendra avec le tems, asmy Dutch acquaintance, Baron Kikkitbroeck, said of the sagesse ofMadame son epouse. And so ye have mounted the cockade? Right,right; though I could have wished the colour different, and so Iwould ha' deemed might Sir Everard. But no more of that; I am old,and times are changed. And how does the worthy knight baronet, andthe fair Mrs. Rachel?--Ah, ye laugh, young man! In troth she wasthe fair Mrs. Rachel in the year of grace seventeen hundred andsixteen; but time passes--et singula praedantur anni--that ismost certain. But once again ye are most heartily welcome to mypoor house of Tully-Veolan! Hie to the house, Rose, and see thatAlexander Saunderson looks out the old Chateau Margaux, which Isent from Bourdeaux to Dundee in the year 1713.'
Rose tripped off demurely enough till she turned the first corner,and then ran with the speed of a fairy, that she might gainleisure, after discharging her father's commission, to put her owndress in order, and produce all her little finery, an occupationfor which the approaching dinner-hour left but limited time.
'We cannot rival the luxuries of your English table, CaptainWaverley, or give you the epulae lautiores of Waverley-Honour. Isay epulae rather than prandium, because the latter phrase ispopular: epulae ad senatum, prandium vero ad populum attinet, saysSuetonius Tranquillus. But I trust ye will applaud my Bourdeaux;c'est des deux oreilles, as Captain Vinsauf used to say; vinumprimae notae, the principal of Saint Andrews denominated it. And,once more, Captain Waverley, right glad am I that ye are here todrink the best my cellar can make forthcoming.'
This speech, with the necessary interjectional answers, continuedfrom the lower alley where they met up to the door of the house,where four or five servants in old-fashioned liveries, headed byAlexander Saunderson, the butler, who now bore no token of thesable stains of the 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,without stopping in any intermediate apartment, conducted hisguest through several into the great dining parlour, wainscottedwith black oak, and hung round with the pictures of his ancestry,where a table was set forth in form for six persons, and an old-fashioned beaufet displayed all the ancient and massive plate ofthe Bradwardine family. A bell was now heard at the head of theavenue; for an
old man, who acted as porter upon gala days, hadcaught the alarm given by Waverley's arrival, and, repairing tohis post, announced the arrival of other guests.
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 to field-sports--gaudet equis et canibus--but a very discreet younggentleman. Then there was the Laird of Killancureit, who haddevoted his leisure UNTILL tillage and agriculture, and boastedhimself to be possessed of a bull of matchless merit, brought fromthe county of Devon (the Damnonia of the Romans, if we can trustRobert of Cirencester). He is, as ye may well suppose from such atendency, but of yeoman extraction--servabit odorem testa diu--andI believe, between ourselves, his grandsire was from the wrongside of the Border--one Bullsegg, who came hither as a steward, orbailiff, or ground-officer, or something in that department, tothe last Girnigo of Killancureit, who died of an atrophy. Afterhis master's death, sir,--ye would hardly believe such a scandal,--but this Bullsegg, being portly and comely of aspect,intermarried with the lady dowager, who was young and amorous, andpossessed himself of the estate, which devolved on this unhappywoman by a settlement of her umwhile husband, in directcontravention of an unrecorded taillie, and to the prejudice ofthe disponer's own flesh and blood, in the person of his naturalheir and seventh cousin, Girnigo of Tipperhewit, whose family wasso reduced by the ensuing law-suit, that his representative is nowserving as a private gentleman-sentinel in the Highland BlackWatch. But this gentleman, Mr. Bullsegg of Killancureit that nowis, has good blood in his veins by the mother and grandmother, whowere both of the family of Pickletillim, and he is well liked andlooked upon, and knows his own place. And God forbid, CaptainWaverley, that we of irreproachable lineage should exult over him,when it may be, that in the eighth, ninth, or tenth generation,his progeny may rank, in a manner, with the old gentry of thecountry. Rank and ancestry, sir, should be the last words in themouths of us of unblemished race--vix ea nostra voco, as Nasosaith. There is, besides, a clergyman of the true (thoughsuffering) Episcopal church of Scotland. [Footnote: See Note 9.]He was a confessor in her cause after the year 1715, when aWhiggish mob destroyed his meeting-house, tore his surplice, andplundered his dwelling-house of four silver spoons, intromittingalso with his mart and his mealark, and with two barrels, one ofsingle and one of double ale, besides three bottles of brandy. Mybaron-bailie and doer, Mr. Duncan Macwheeble, is the fourth on ourlist. There is a question, owing to the incertitude of ancientorthography, whether he belongs to the clan of Wheedle or ofQuibble, but both have produced persons eminent in the law.'--
As such he described them by person and name, They enter'd, and dinner was served as they came.
