Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since — Volume 1

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER XXXII

  A CONFERENCE AND THE CONSEQUENCE

  Major Melville had detained Mr. Morton during his examination ofWaverley, both because he thought he might derive assistance fromhis practical good sense and approved loyalty, and also because itwas agreeable to have a witness of unimpeached candour andveracity to proceedings which touched the honour and safety of ayoung Englishman of high rank and family, and the expectant heirof a large fortune. Every step he knew would be rigorouslycanvassed, and it was his business to place the justice andintegrity of his own conduct beyond the limits of question.

  When Waverley retired, the laird and clergyman of Cairnvreckan satdown in silence to their evening meal. While the servants were inattendance neither chose to say anything on the circumstanceswhich occupied their minds, and neither felt it easy to speak uponany other. The youth and apparent frankness of Waverley stood instrong contrast to the shades of suspicion which darkened aroundhim, and he had a sort of naivete and openness of demeanour thatseemed to belong to one unhackneyed in the ways of intrigue, andwhich pleaded highly in his favour.

  Each mused over the particulars of the examination, and eachviewed it through the medium of his own feelings. Both were men ofready and acute talent, and both were equally competent to combinevarious parts of evidence, and to deduce from them the necessaryconclusions. But the wide difference of their habits and educationoften occasioned a great discrepancy in their respectivedeductions from admitted premises.

  Major Melville had been versed in camps and cities; he wasvigilant by profession and cautious from experience, had met withmuch evil in the world, and therefore, though himself an uprightmagistrate and an honourable man, his opinions of others werealways strict, and sometimes unjustly severe. Mr. Morton, on thecontrary, had passed from the literary pursuits of a college,where he was beloved by his companions and respected by histeachers, to the ease and simplicity of his present charge, wherehis opportunities of witnessing evil were few, and never dweltupon but in order to encourage repentance and amendment; and wherethe love and respect of his parishioners repaid his affectionatezeal in their behalf by endeavouring to disguise from him whatthey knew would give him the most acute pain, namely, their ownoccasional transgressions of the duties which it was the businessof his life to recommend. Thus it was a common saying in theneighbourhood (though both were popular characters), that thelaird knew only the ill in the parish and the minister only thegood.

  A love of letters, though kept in subordination to his clericalstudies and duties, also distinguished the pastor of Cairnvreckan,and had tinged his mind in earlier days with a slight feeling ofromance, which no after incidents of real life had entirelydissipated. The early loss of an amiable young woman whom he hadmarried for love, and who was quickly followed to the grave by anonly child, had also served, even after the lapse of many years,to soften a disposition naturally mild and contemplative. Hisfeelings on the present occasion were therefore likely to differfrom those of the severe disciplinarian, strict magistrate, anddistrustful man of the world.

  When the servants had withdrawn, the silence of both partiescontinued, until Major Melville, filling his glass and pushing thebottle to Mr. Morton, commenced--

  'A distressing affair this, Mr. Morton. I fear this youngster hasbrought himself within the compass of a halter.'

  'God forbid!' answered the clergyman.

  'Marry, and amen,' said the temporal magistrate; 'but I think evenyour merciful logic will hardly deny the conclusion.'

  'Surely, Major,' answered the clergyman, 'I should hope it mightbe averted, for aught we have heard tonight?'

  'Indeed!' replied Melville. 'But, my good parson, you are one ofthose who would communicate to every criminal the benefit ofclergy.'

  'Unquestionably I would. Mercy and long-suffering are the groundsof the doctrine I am called to teach.'

  'True, religiously speaking; but mercy to a criminal may be grossinjustice to the community. I don't speak of this young fellow inparticular, who I heartily wish may be able to clear himself, forI like both his modesty and his spirit. But I fear he has rushedupon his fate.'

  'And why? Hundreds of misguided gentlemen are now in arms againstthe government, many, doubtless, upon principles which educationand early prejudice have gilded with the names of patriotism andheroism; Justice, when she selects her victims from such amultitude (for surely all will not be destroyed), must regard themoral motive. He whom ambition or hope of personal advantage hasled to disturb the peace of a well-ordered government, let himfall a victim to the laws; but surely youth, misled by the wildvisions of chivalry and imaginary loyalty, may plead for pardon.'

  'If visionary chivalry and imaginary loyalty come within thepredicament of high treason,' replied the magistrate, 'I know nocourt in Christendom, my dear Mr. Morton, where they can sue outtheir Habeas Corpus.'

  'But I cannot see that this youth's guilt is at all established tomy satisfaction,' said the clergyman.

  'Because your good-nature blinds your good sense,' replied MajorMelville. 'Observe now: This young man, descended of a family ofhereditary Jacobites, his uncle the leader of the Tory interest inthe county of ----, his father a disobliged and discontentedcourtier, his tutor a nonjuror and the author of two treasonablevolumes--this youth, I say, enters into Gardiner's dragoons,bringing with him a body of young fellows from his uncle's estate,who have not stickled at avowing in their way the High-Churchprinciples they learned at Waverley-Honour, in their disputes withtheir comrades. To these young men Waverley is unusuallyattentive; they are supplied with money beyond a soldier's wantsand inconsistent with his discipline; and are under the managementof a favourite sergeant, through whom they hold an unusually closecommunication with their captain, and affect to considerthemselves as independent of the other officers, and superior totheir comrades.'

  'All this, my dear Major, is the natural consequence of theirattachment to their young landlord, and of their findingthemselves in a regiment levied chiefly in the north of Irelandand the west of Scotland, and of course among comrades disposed toquarrel with them, both as Englishmen and as members of the Churchof England.'

  'Well said, parson!' replied the magistrate. 'I would some of yoursynod heard you. But let me go on. This young man obtains leave ofabsence, goes to Tully-Veolan--the principles of the Baron ofBradwardine are pretty well known, not to mention that this lad'suncle brought him off in the year fifteen; he engages there in abrawl, in which he is said to have disgraced the commission hebore; Colonel Gardiner writes to him, first mildly, then moresharply--I think you will not doubt his having done so, since hesays so; the mess invite him to explain the quarrel in which he issaid to have been involved; he neither replies to his commandernor his comrades. In the meanwhile his soldiers become mutinousand disorderly, and at length, when the rumour of this unhappyrebellion becomes general, his favourite Sergeant Houghton andanother fellow are detected in correspondence with a Frenchemissary, accredited, as he says, by Captain Waverley, who urgeshim, according to the men's confession, to desert with the troopand join their captain, who was with Prince Charles. In themeanwhile this trusty captain is, by his own admission, residingat Glennaquoich with the most active, subtle, and desperateJacobite in Scotland; he goes with him at least as far as theirfamous hunting rendezvous, and I fear a little farther. Meanwhiletwo other summonses are sent him; one warning him of thedisturbances in his troop, another peremptorily ordering him torepair to the regiment, which, indeed, common sense might havedictated, when he observed rebellion thickening all round him. Hereturns an absolute refusal, and throws up his commission.'

  'He had been already deprived of it,' said Mr. Morton.

  'But he regrets,' replied Melville, 'that the measure hadanticipated his resignation. His baggage is seized at his quartersand at Tully-Veolan, and is found to contain a stock of pestilentJacobitical pamphlets, enough to poison a whole country, besidesthe unprinted lucubrations of his worthy friend and tutor Mr.Pembroke.'

  'He says he
never read them,' answered the minister.

  'In an ordinary case I should believe him,' replied themagistrate, 'for they are as stupid and pedantic in composition asmischievous in their tenets. But can you suppose anything butvalue for the principles they maintain would induce a young man ofhis age to lug such trash about with him? Then, when news arriveof the approach of the rebels, he sets out in a sort of disguise,refusing to tell his name; and, if yon old fanatic tell truth,attended by a very suspicious character, and mounted on a horseknown to have belonged to Glennaquoich, and bearing on his personletters from his family expressing high rancour against the houseof Brunswick, and a copy of verses in praise of one Wogan, whoabjured the service of the Parliament to join the Highlandinsurgents, when in arms to restore the house of Stuart, with abody of English cavalry--the very counterpart of his own plot--andsummed up with a "Go thou and do likewise" from that loyalsubject, and most safe and peaceable character, Fergus Mac-Ivor ofGlennaquoich, Vich Ian Vohr, and so forth. And, lastly,' continuedMajor Melville, warming in the detail of his arguments, 'where dowe find this second edition of Cavalier Wogan? Why, truly, in thevery track most proper for execution of his design, and pistollingthe first of the king's subjects who ventures to question hisintentions.'

  Mr. Morton prudently abstained from argument, which he perceivedwould only harden the magistrate in his opinion, and merely askedhow he intended to dispose of the prisoner?

  'It is a question of some difficulty, considering the state of thecountry,' said Major Melville.

  'Could you not detain him (being such a gentleman-like young man)here in your own house, out of harm's way, till this storm blowover?'

  'My good friend,' said Major Melville, 'neither your house normine will be long out of harm's way, even were it legal to confinehim here. I have just learned that the commander-in-chief, whomarched into the Highlands to seek out and disperse theinsurgents, has declined giving them battle at Coryarrick, andmarched on northward with all the disposable force of governmentto Inverness, John-o'-Groat's House, or the devil, for what Iknow, leaving the road to the Low Country open and undefended tothe Highland army.'

  'Good God!' said the clergyman. 'Is the man a coward, a traitor,or an idiot?'

  'None of the three, I believe,' answered Melville. 'Sir John hasthe commonplace courage of a common soldier, is honest enough,does what he is commanded, and understands what is told him, butis as fit to act for himself in circumstances of importance as I,my dear parson, to occupy your pulpit.'

  This important public intelligence naturally diverted thediscourse from Waverley for some time; at length, however, thesubject was resumed.

  'I believe,' said Major Melville, 'that I must give this young manin charge to some of the detached parties of armed volunteers whowere lately sent out to overawe the disaffected districts. Theyare now recalled towards Stirling, and a small body comes this wayto-morrow or next day, commanded by the westland man--what's hisname? You saw him, and said he was the very model of one ofCromwell's military saints.'

  'Gilfillan, the Cameronian,' answered Mr. Morton. 'I wish theyoung gentleman may be safe with him. Strange things are done inthe heat and hurry of minds in so agitating a crisis, and I fearGilfillan is of a sect which has suffered persecution withoutlearning mercy.'

  'He has only to lodge Mr. Waverley in Stirling Castle,' said theMajor; 'I will give strict injunctions to treat him well. I reallycannot devise any better mode for securing him, and I fancy youwould hardly advise me to encounter the responsibility of settinghim at liberty.'

  'But you will have no objection to my seeing him tomorrow inprivate?' said the minister.

  'None, certainly; your loyalty and character are my warrant. Butwith what view do you make the request?'

  'Simply,' replied Mr. Morton, 'to make the experiment whether hemay not be brought to communicate to me some circumstances whichmay hereafter be useful to alleviate, if not to exculpate, hisconduct.'

  The friends now parted and retired to rest, each filled with themost anxious reflections on the state of the country.