WAVERLEY-HONOUR--A RETROSPECT
It is, then, sixty years since Edward Waverley, the hero of the
following pages, took leave of his family, to join the regiment of
dragoons in which he had lately obtained a commission. It was a
melancholy day at Waverley-Honour when the young officer parted
with Sir Everard, the affectionate old uncle to whose title and
estate he was presumptive heir.
A difference in political opinions had early separated the Baronet
from his younger brother Richard Waverley, the father of our hero.
Sir Everard had inherited from his sires the whole train of Tory
or High-Church predilections and prejudices which had
distinguished the house of Waverley since the Great Civil War.
Richard, on the contrary, who was ten years younger, beheld
himself born to the fortune of a second brother, and anticipated
neither dignity nor entertainment in sustaining the character of
Will Wimble. He saw early that, to succeed in the race of life, it
was necessary he should carry as little weight as possible.
Painters talk of the difficulty of expressing the existence of
compound passions in the same features at the same moment; it
would be no less difficult for the moralist to analyse the mixed
motives which unite to form the impulse of our actions. Richard
Waverley read and satisfied himself from history and sound
argument that, in the words of the old song,
Passive obedience was a jest,
And pshaw! was non-resistance;
yet reason would have probably been unable to combat and remove
hereditary prejudice could Richard have anticipated that his elder
brother, Sir Everard, taking to heart an early disappointment,
would have remained a bachelor at seventy-two. The prospect of
succession, however remote, might in that case have led him to
endure dragging through the greater part of his life as 'Master
Richard at the Hall, the Baronet's brother,' in the hope that ere
its conclusion he should be distinguished as Sir Richard Waverley
of Waverley-Honour, successor to a princely estate, and to
extended political connections as head of the county interest in
the shire where it lay.
But this was a consummation of things not to be expected at
Richard's outset, when Sir Everard was in the prime of life, and
certain to be an acceptable suitor in almost any family, whether
wealth or beauty should be the object of his pursuit, and when,
indeed, his speedy marriage was a report which regularly amused
the neighbourhood once a year. His younger brother saw no
practicable road to independence save that of relying upon his own
exertions, and adopting a political creed more consonant both to
reason and his own interest than the hereditary faith of Sir
Everard in High-Church and in the house of Stuart. He therefore
read his recantation at the beginning of his career, and entered
life as an avowed Whig and friend of the Hanover succession.
The ministry of George the First's time were prudently anxious to
diminish the phalanx of opposition. The Tory nobility, depending
for their reflected lustre upon the sunshine of a court, had for
some time been gradually reconciling themselves to the new
dynasty. But the wealthy country gentlemen of England, a rank
which retained, with much of ancient manners and primitive
integrity, a great proportion of obstinate and unyielding
prejudice, stood aloof in haughty and sullen opposition, and cast
many a look of mingled regret and hope to Bois le Due, Avignon,
and Italy. [Footnote: Where the Chevalier St. George, or, as he was
termed, the Old Pretender, held his exiled court, as his situation
compelled him to shift his place of residence.] The accession of
the near relation of one of those steady and inflexible opponents
was considered as a means of bringing over more converts, and
therefore Richard Waverley met with a share of ministerial favour
more than proportioned to his talents or his political importance.
It was, however, discovered that he had respectable talents for
public business, and the first admittance to the minister's levee
being negotiated, his success became rapid. Sir Everard learned
from the public 'News-Letter,' first, that Richard Waverley,
Esquire, was returned for the ministerial borough of Barterfaith;
next, that Richard Waverley, Esquire, had taken a distinguished
part in the debate upon the Excise Bill in the support of
government; and, lastly, that Richard Waverley, Esquire, had been
honoured with a seat at one of those boards where the pleasure of
serving the country is combined with other important
gratifications, which, to render them the more acceptable, occur
regularly once a quarter.
Although these events followed each other so closely that the
sagacity of the editor of a modern newspaper would have presaged
the two last even while he announced the first, yet they came upon
Sir Everard gradually, and drop by drop, as it were, distilled
through the cool and procrastinating alembic of Dyer's 'Weekly
Letter.' [Footnote: See Note I. ] For it may be observed in
passing, that instead of those mail-coaches, by means of which
every mechanic at his six-penny club, may nightly learn from
twenty contradictory channels the yesterday's news of the capital,
a weekly post brought, in those days, to Waverley-Honour, a
Weekly Intelligencer, which, after it had gratified Sir Everard's
curiosity, his sister's, and that of his aged butler, was
regularly transferred from the Hall to the Rectory, from the
Rectory to Squire Stubbs's at the Grange, from the Squire to the
Baronet's steward at his neat white house on the heath, from the
steward to the bailiff, and from him through a huge circle of
honest dames and gaffers, by whose hard and horny hands it was
generally worn to pieces in about a month after its arrival.
This slow succession of intelligence was of some advantage to
Richard Waverley in the case before us; for, had the sum total of
his enormities reached the ears of Sir Everard at once, there can
be no doubt that the new commissioner would have had little reason
to pique himself on the success of his politics. The Baronet,
although the mildest of human beings, was not without sensitive
points in his character; his brother's conduct had wounded these
deeply; the Waverley estate was fettered by no entail (for it had
never entered into the head of any of its former possessors that
one of their progeny could be guilty of the atrocities laid by
Dyer's 'Letter' to the door of Richard), and if it had, the
marriage of the proprietor might have been fatal to a collateral
heir. These various ideas floated through the brain of Sir Everard
without, however, producing any determined conclusion.
He examined the tree of his genealogy, which, emblazoned with many
an emblematic mark of honour and heroic achievement, hung upon the
well-varnished wainscot of his hall. The nearest descendants of
Sir Hildebrand Waverley, failing those of his eldest son Wilfred,
of whom Sir Everard and his brother were the only representatives,
were, as this honoured register informed him (and, indeed, as he
himself well knew), the Waverleys of Highley Park, com. Hants;
with whom the main branch, or rather stock, of the house had
renounced all connection since the great law-suit in 1670.
This degenerate scion had committed a farther offence against the
head and source of their gentility, by the intermarriage of their
representative with Judith, heiress of Oliver Bradshawe, of
Highley Park, whose arms, the same with those of Bradshawe the
regicide, they had quartered with the ancient coat of Waverley.
These offences, however, had vanished from Sir Everard's
recollection in the heat of his resentment; and had Lawyer
Clippurse, for whom his groom was despatched express, arrived but
an hour earlier, he might have had the benefit of drawing a new
settlement of the lordship and manor of Waverley-Honour, with all
its dependencies. But an hour of cool reflection is a great matter
when employed in weighing the comparative evil of two measures to
neither of which we are internally partial. Lawyer Clippurse found
his patron involved in a deep study, which he was too respectful
to disturb, otherwise than by producing his paper and leathern
ink-case, as prepared to minute his honour's commands. Even this
slight manoeuvre was embarrassing to Sir Everard, who felt it as a
reproach to his indecision. He looked at the attorney with some
desire to issue his fiat, when the sun, emerging from behind a
cloud, poured at once its chequered light through the stained
window of the gloomy cabinet in which they were seated. The
Baronet's eye, as he raised it to the splendour, fell right upon
the central scutcheon, inpressed with the same device which his
ancestor was said to have borne in the field of Hastings,--three
ermines passant, argent, in a field azure, with its appropriate
motto, Sans tache. 'May our name rather perish,' exclaimed Sir
Everard, 'than that ancient and loyal symbol should be blended
with the dishonoured insignia of a traitorous Roundhead!'
All this was the effect of the glimpse of a sunbeam, just
sufficient to light Lawyer Clippurse to mend his pen. The pen was
mended in vain. The attorney was dismissed, with directions to
hold himself in readiness on the first summons.
The apparition of Lawyer Clippurse at the Hall occasioned much
speculation in that portion of the world to which Waverley-Honour
formed the centre. But the more judicious politicians of this
microcosm augured yet worse consequences to Richard Waverley from
a movement which shortly followed his apostasy. This was no less
than an excursion of the Baronet in his coach-and-six, with four
attendants in rich liveries, to make a visit of some duration to a
noble peer on the confines of the shire, of untainted descent,
steady Tory principles, and the happy father of six unmarried and
accomplished daughters.
Sir Everard's reception in this family was, as it may be easily
conceived, sufficiently favourable; but of the six young ladies,
his taste unfortunately determined him in favour of Lady Emily,
the youngest, who received his attentions with an embarrassment
which showed at once that she durst not decline them, and that
they afforded her anything but pleasure.
Sir Everard could not but perceive something uncommon in the
restrained emotions which the young lady testified at the advances
he hazarded; but, assured by the prudent Countess that they were
the natural effects of a retired education, the sacrifice might
have been completed, as doubtless has happened in many similar
instances, had it not been for the courage of an elder sister, who
revealed to the wealthy suitor that Lady Emily's affections were
fixed upon a young soldier of fortune, a near relation of her own.
Sir Everard manifested great emotion on receiving this
intelligence, which was confirmed to him, in a private interview,
by the young lady herself, although under the most dreadful
apprehensions of her father's indignation.
Honour and generosity were hereditary attributes of the house of
Waverley. With a grace and delicacy worthy the hero of a romance,
Sir Everard withdrew his claim to the hand of Lady Emily. He had
even, before leaving Blandeville Castle, the address to extort
from her father a consent to her union with the object of her
choice. What arguments he used on this point cannot exactly be
known, for Sir Everard was never supposed strong in the powers of
persuasion; but the young officer, immediately after this
transaction, rose in the army with a rapidity far surpassing the
usual pace of unpatronised professional merit, although, to
outward appearance, that was all he had to depend upon.
The shock which Sir Everard encountered upon this occasion,
although diminished by the consciousness of having acted
virtuously and generously had its effect upon his future life. His
resolution of marriage had been adopted in a fit of indignation;
the labour of courtship did not quite suit the dignified indolence
of his habits; he had but just escaped the risk of marrying a
woman who could never love him, and his pride could not be greatly
flattered by the termination of his amour, even if his heart had
not suffered. The result of the whole matter was his return to
Waverley-Honour without any transfer of his affections,
notwithstanding the sighs and languishments of the fair tell-tale,
who had revealed, in mere sisterly affection, the secret of Lady
Emily's attachment, and in despite of the nods, winks, and
innuendos of the officious lady mother, and the grave eulogiums
which the Earl pronounced successively on the prudence, and good
sense, and admirable dispositions, of his first, second, third,
fourth, and fifth daughters.
The memory of his unsuccessful amour was with Sir Everard, as with
many more of his temper, at once shy, proud, sensitive, and
indolent, a beacon against exposing himself to similar
mortification, pain, and fruitless exertion for the time to come.
He continued to live at Waverley-Honour in the style of an old
English gentleman, of an ancient descent and opulent fortune. His
sister, Miss Rachel Waverley, presided at his table; and they
became, by degrees, an old bachelor and an ancient maiden lady,
the gentlest and kindest of the votaries of celibacy.
The vehemence of Sir Everard's resentment against his brother was
but short-lived; yet his dislike to the Whig and the placeman,
though unable to stimulate him to resume any active measures
prejudicial to Richard's interest, in the succession to the family
estate, continued to maintain the coldness between them. Richard
knew enough of the world, and of his brother's temper, to believe
that by any ill-considered or precipitate advances on his part, he
might turn passive dislike into a more active principle. It was
accident, therefore, which at length occasioned a renewal of their
intercourse. Richard had married a young woman of rank, by whose
family interest and private fortune he hoped to advance his
career. In her right he became possessor of a manor of some value,
at the distance of a few miles from Waverley-Honour.
Little Edward, the hero of our tale, then in his fifth year, was
their only child. It chanced that the infant with his maid had
strayed one morning to a mile's distance from the avenue of
Brerewood Lodge, his father's seat. Their attention was attracted
by a carriage drawn by six stately long-tailed black horses, and
with as much carving and gilding as would have done honour to my
lord mayor's. It was waiting for the owner, who was at a little
distance inspecting the progress of a half-built farm-house. I
know not whether the boy's nurse had been a Welsh--or a Scotch-
woman, or in what manner he associated a shield emblazoned with
three ermines with the idea of personal property, but he no sooner
beheld this family emblem than he stoutly determined on
vindicating his right to the splendid vehicle on which it was
displayed. The Baronet arrived while the boy's maid was in vain
endeavouring to make him desist from his determination to
appropriate the gilded coach-and-six. The rencontre was at a happy
moment for Edward, as his uncle had been just eyeing wistfully,
with something of a feeling like envy, the chubby boys of the
stout yeoman whose mansion was building by his direction. In the
round-faced rosy cherub before him, bearing his eye and his name,
and vindicating a hereditary title to his family, affection, and
patronage, by means of a tie which Sir Everard held as sacred as
either Garter or Blue-mantle, Providence seemed to have granted to
him the very object best calculated to fill up the void in his
hopes and affections. Sir Everard returned to Waverley-Hall upon a
led horse, which was kept in readiness for him, while the child
and his attendant were sent home in the carriage to Brerewood
Lodge, with such a message as opened to Richard Waverley a door of
reconciliation with his elder brother.
Their intercourse, however, though thus renewed, continued to be
rather formal and civil than partaking of brotherly cordiality;
yet it was sufficient to the wishes of both parties. Sir Everard
obtained, in the frequent society of his little nephew, something
on which his hereditary pride might found the anticipated pleasure
of a continuation of his lineage, and where his kind and gentle
affections could at the same time fully exercise themselves. For
Richard Waverley, he beheld in the growing attachment between the
uncle and nephew the means of securing his son's, if not his own,
succession to the hereditary estate, which he felt would be rather
endangered than promoted by any attempt on his own part towards a
closer intimacy with a man of Sir Everard's habits and opinions.
Thus, by a sort of tacit compromise, little Edward was permitted
to pass the greater part of the year at the Hall, and appeared to
stand in the same intimate relation to both families, although
their mutual intercourse was otherwise limited to formal messages
and more formal visits. The education of the youth was regulated
alternately by the taste and opinions of his uncle and of his
father. But more of this in a subsequent chapter.