Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since by Walter Scott (best color ebook reader txt) 📖

'My father—my uncle—this paragraph,'—he handed the paper to Colonel Talbot.

'I wish to Heaven' these scoundrels were condemned to be squeezed to death in their own presses,' said Talbot. 'I am told there are not less than a dozen of their papers now published in town, and no wonder that they are obliged to invent lies to find sale for their journals. It is true, however, my dear Edward, that you have lost your father; but as to this flourish of his unpleasant situation having grated upon his spirits, and hurt his health—the truth is—for though it is harsh to say so now, yet it will relieve your mind from the idea of weighty responsibility—the truth then is, that Mr. Richard Waverley, through this whole business, showed great want of sensibility, both to your situation and that of your uncle; and the last time I saw him, he told me, with great glee, that, as I was so good as to take charge of your interests, he had thought it best to patch up a separate negotiation for himself, and make his peace with Government through some channels which former connexions left still open to him.'

'And my uncle—my dear uncle?'

'Is in no danger whatever. It is true' (looking at the date of the paper) 'there was a foolish report some time ago to the purport here quoted, but it is entirely false. Sir Everard is gone down to Waverley-Honour, freed from all uneasiness, unless upon your own account. But you are in peril yourself—your name is in every proclamation—warrants are out to apprehend you. How and when did you come here?'

Edward told his story at length, suppressing his quarrel with Fergus; for being himself partial to Highlanders, he did not wish to give any advantage to the Colonel's national prejudice against them.

'Are you sure it was your friend Glen's footboy you saw dead in Clifton Moor?'

'Quite positive.'

'Then that little limb of the devil has cheated the gallows, for cut-throat was written in his face; though' (turning to Lady Emily) 'it was a very handsome face too.—But for you, Edward, I wish you would go down again to Cumberland, or rather I wish you had never stirred from thence, for there is an embargo on all the seaports, and a strict search for the adherents of the Pretender; and the tongue of that confounded woman will wag in her head like the clack of a mill, till somehow or other she will detect Captain Butler to be a feigned personage,'

'Do you know anything,' asked Waverley, 'of my fellow traveller?'

'Her husband was my sergeant-major for six years; she was a buxom widow, with a little money—he married her—was steady, and got on by being a good drill. I must send Spontoon to see what she is about; he will find her out among the old regimental connexions. To-morrow you must be indisposed, and keep your room from fatigue. Lady Emily is to be your nurse, and Spontoon and I your attendants. You bear the name of a near relation of mine, whom none of my present people ever saw, except Spontoon; so there will be no immediate danger. So pray feel your head ache and your eyes grow heavy as soon as possible, that you may be put upon the sick list; and, Emily, do you order an apartment for Frank Stanley, with all the attention which an invalid may require.'

In the morning the Colonel visited his guest.—'Now,' said he, 'I have some good news for you. Your reputation as a gentleman and officer is effectually cleared of neglect of duty, and accession to the mutiny in Gardiner's regiment. I have had a correspondence on this subject with a very zealous friend of yours, your Scottish parson, Morton; his first letter was addressed to Sir Everard; but I relieved the good Baronet of the trouble of answering it. You must know, that your freebooting acquaintance; Donald of the Cave, has at length fallen into the hands of the Philistines. He was driving off the cattle of a certain proprietor, called Killan—something or other—'

'Killancureit?'

'The same. Now, the gentleman being, it seems, a great farmer, and having a special value for his breed of cattle—being, moreover, rather of a timid disposition, had got a party of soldiers to protect his property. So Donald ran his head unawares into the lion's mouth, and was defeated and made prisoner. Being ordered for execution, his conscience was assailed on the one hand by a Catholic priest,—on the other by your friend Morton. He repulsed the Catholic chiefly on account of the doctrine of extreme unction, which this economical gentleman considered as an excessive waste of oil. So his conversion from a state of impenitence fell to Mr. Morton's share, who, I dare say, acquitted himself excellently, though, I suppose, Donald made but a queer kind of Christian after all. He confessed, however, before a magistrate—one Major Melville, who seems to have been a correct, friendly sort of person—his full intrigue with Houghton, explaining particularly how it was carried on, and fully acquitting you of the least accession to it. He also mentioned his rescuing you from the hands of the volunteer officer, and sending you, by orders of the Pret—Chevalier, I mean as a prisoner to Doune, from whence he understood you were carried prisoner to Edinburgh. These are particulars which cannot but tell in your favour. He hinted that he had been employed to deliver and protect you, and rewarded for doing so; but he would not confess by whom, alleging, that, though he would not have minded breaking any ordinary oath to satisfy the curiosity of Mr. Morton, to whose pious admonitions he owed so much, yet in the present case he had been sworn to silence upon the edge of his dirk, 33 which, it seems, constituted, in his opinion, an inviolable obligation.'

'And what has become of him?'

'Oh, he was hanged at Stirling after the rebels raised the siege, with his lieutenant, and four plaids besides; he having the advantage of a gallows more lofty than his friends.'

'Well, I have little cause either to regret or rejoice at his death; and yet he has done me both good and harm to a very considerable extent.'

His confession, at least, will serve you materially, since it wipes from your character all those suspicions which gave the accusation against you a complexion of a nature different from that with which so many unfortunate gentlemen, now or lately in arms against the Government, may be justly charged. Their treason—I must give it its name, though you participate in its guilt—is an action arising from mistaken virtue, and therefore cannot be classed as a disgrace, though it be doubtless highly criminal. Where the guilty are so numerous, clemency must be extended to far the greater number; and I have little doubt of procuring a remission for you, provided we can keep you out of the claws of justice till she has selected and gorged upon her victims; for in this, as in other cases, it will be according to the vulgar proverb, 'First come, first served.' Besides, Government are desirous at present to intimidate the English Jacobites, among whom they can find few examples for punishment. This is a vindictive and timid feeling which will soon wear off, for, of all nations, the English are least bloodthirsty by nature. But it exists at present, and you must therefore be kept out of the way in the meantime.'

Now entered Spontoon with an anxious countenance. By his regimental acquaintances he had traced out Madam Nosebag, and found her full of ire, fuss, and fidget, at discovery of an impostor, who had travelled from the north with her under the assumed name of Captain Butler of Gardiner's dragoons. She was going to lodge an information on the subject, to have him sought for as an emissary of the Pretender; but Spontoon (an old soldier), while he pretended to approve, contrived to make her delay her intention. No time, however, was to be lost: the accuracy of this good dame's description might probably lead to the discovery that Waverley was the pretended Captain Butler; an identification fraught with danger to Edward, perhaps to his uncle, and even to Colonel Talbot. Which way to direct his course was now, therefore, the question.

'To Scotland,' said Waverley.

'To Scotland!' said the Colonel; 'with what purpose?—not to engage again with the rebels, I hope?'

'No—I considered my campaign ended, when, after all my efforts, I could not rejoin them; and now, by all accounts, they are gone to make a winter campaign in the Highlands, where such adherents as I am would rather be burdensome than useful. Indeed, it seems likely that they only prolong the war to place the Chevalier's person out of danger, and then to make some terms for themselves. To burden them with my presence would merely add another party, whom they would not give up, and could not defend. I understand they left almost all their English adherents in garrison at Carlisle, for that very reason: and on a more general view, Colonel, to confess the truth, though it may lower me in your opinion, I am heartily tired of the trade of war, and am, as Fletcher's Humorous Lieutenant says, "even as weary of this fighting"—'

'Fighting! pooh, what have you seen but a skirmish or two?-Ah! if you saw war on the grand scale—sixty or a hundred thousand men in the field on each side!'

'I am not at all curious, Colonel.—"Enough," says our homely proverb, "is as good as a feast." The plumed troops and the big war used to enchant me in poetry; but the night marches, vigils, couched under the wintry sky, and such accompaniments of the glorious trade, are not at all to my taste in practice:—then for dry blows, I had my fill of fighting at Clifton, where I escaped by a hair's-breadth half a dozen times; and you, I should think—' He stopped.

'Had enough of it at Preston? you mean to say,' answered the Colonel, laughing; 'but, "'tis my vocation, Hal."'

'It is not mine, though,' said Waverley; 'and having honourably got rid of the sword, which I drew only as a volunteer, I am quite satisfied with my military experience, and shall be in no hurry to take it up again.'

'I am very glad you are of that mind—but then, what would you do in the North?'

'In the first place, there are some seaports on the eastern coast of Scotland still in the hands of the Chevalier's friends; should I gain any of them, I can easily embark for the Continent.'

'Good—your second reason?'

'Why, to speak the very truth, there is a person in Scotland upon whom I now find my happiness, depends more than I was always aware, and about whose situation I am very anxious.'

'Then Emily was right, and there is a love affair in the case after all?—And which of these two pretty Scotchwomen, whom you insisted upon my admiring, is the distinguished fair?—not Miss Glen—I hope.'

'No.'

'Ah, pass for the other: simplicity may be improved, but pride and conceit never. Well, I don't discourage you; I think it will please Sir Everard, from what he said when I jested with him about it; only I hope that intolerable papa, with his brogue, and his snuff, and his Latin, and his insufferable long stories about the Duke of Berwick, will find it necessary hereafter to be an inhabitant of foreign parts. But as to the daughter, though I think you might find as fitting a match in England, yet if your heart be really set upon this Scotch rosebud, why, the Baronet has a great opinion of her father and of his family, and he wishes much to see you married and settled, both for your own sake and for that of the three ermines passant, which may otherwise pass away altogether. But I will bring you his mind fully upon the subject, since you are debarred correspondence for the present, for I think you will not be long in Scotland before me.

Indeed! and what can induce you to think of returning to Scotland? No relenting longings towards the land of mountains and floods, I am afraid.'

'None, on my word; but Emily's health is now, thank God, re-established, and, to tell you the truth, I have little hopes of concluding the business which I have at present most at heart, until I can have a personal interview with his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief; for, as Fluellen says, "The duke doth love me well, and I thank Heaven I have deserved some love at his hands." I am now going out for an hour or two to arrange matters for your departure; your liberty extends to the next room, Lady Emily's parlour, where you will find her when you are disposed for music, reading, or conversation. We have taken measures