CHOICE OF A PROFESSION
From the minuteness with which I have traced Waverley's pursuits,
and the bias which these unavoidably communicated to his
imagination, the reader may perhaps anticipate, in the following
tale, an imitation of the romance of Cervantes. But he will do my
prudence injustice in the supposition. My intention is not to
follow the steps of that inimitable author, in describing such
total perversion of intellect as misconstrues the objects actually
presented to the senses, but that more common aberration from
sound judgment, which apprehends occurrences indeed in their
reality, but communicates to them a tincture of its own romantic
tone and colouring. So far was Edward Waverley from expecting
general sympathy with his own feelings, or concluding that the
present state of things was calculated to exhibit the reality of
those visions in which he loved to indulge, that he dreaded
nothing more than the detection of such sentiments as were
dictated by his musings. He neither had nor wished to have a
confidant, with whom to communicate his reveries; and so sensible
was he of the ridicule attached to them, that, had he been to
choose between any punishment short of ignominy, and the necessity
of giving a cold and composed account of the ideal world in which
he lived the better part of his days, I think he would not have
hesitated to prefer the former infliction. This secrecy became
doubly precious as he felt in advancing life the influence of the
awakening passions. Female forms of exquisite grace and beauty
began to mingle in his mental adventures; nor was he long without
looking abroad to compare the creatures of his own imagination
with the females of actual life.
The list of the beauties who displayed their hebdomadal finery at
the parish church of Waverley was neither numerous nor select. By
far the most passable was Miss Sissly, or, as she rather chose to
be called, Miss Cecilia Stubbs, daughter of Squire Stubbs at the
Grange. I know not whether it was by the 'merest accident in the
world,' a phrase which, from female lips, does not always exclude
malice prepense, or whether it was from a conformity of taste,
that Miss Cecilia more than once crossed Edward in his favourite
walks through Waverley-Chase. He had not as yet assumed courage to
accost her on these occasions; but the meeting was not without its
effect. A romantic lover is a strange idolater, who sometimes
cares not out of what log he frames the object of his adoration;
at least, if nature has given that object any passable proportion
of personal charms, he can easily play the Jeweller and Dervise in
the Oriental tale, [Footnote: See Hoppner's tale of The Seven
Lovers.] and supply her richly, out of the stores of his own
imagination, with supernatural beauty, and all the properties of
intellectual wealth.
But ere the charms of Miss Cecilia Stubbs had erected her into a
positive goddess, or elevated her at least to a level with the
saint her namesake, Mrs. Rachel Waverley gained some intimation
which determined her to prevent the approaching apotheosis. Even
the most simple and unsuspicious of the female sex have (God bless
them!) an instinctive sharpness of perception in such matters,
which sometimes goes the length of observing partialities that
never existed, but rarely misses to detect such as pass actually
under their observation. Mrs. Rachel applied herself with great
prudence, not to combat, but to elude, the approaching danger, and
suggested to her brother the necessity that the heir of his house
should see something more of the world than was consistent with
constant residence at Waverley-Honour.
Sir Everard would not at first listen to a proposal which went to
separate his nephew from him. Edward was a little bookish, he
admitted, but youth, he had always heard, was the season for
learning, and, no doubt, when his rage for letters was abated, and
his head fully stocked with knowledge, his nephew would take to
field-sports and country business. He had often, he said, himself
regretted that he had not spent some time in study during his
youth: he would neither have shot nor hunted with less skill, and
he might have made the roof of Saint Stephen's echo to longer
orations than were comprised in those zealous Noes, with which,
when a member of the House during Godolphin's administration, he
encountered every measure of government.
Aunt Rachel's anxiety, however, lent her address to carry her
point. Every representative of their house had visited foreign
parts, or served his country in the army, before he settled for
life at Waverley-Honour, and she appealed for the truth of her
assertion to the genealogical pedigree, an authority which Sir
Everard was never known to contradict. In short, a proposal was
made to Mr. Richard Waverley, that his son should travel, under
the direction of his present tutor Mr. Pembroke, with a suitable
allowance from the Baronet's liberality. The father himself saw no
objection to this overture; but upon mentioning it casually at the
table of the minister, the great man looked grave. The reason was
explained in private. The unhappy turn of Sir Everard's politics,
the minister observed, was such as would render it highly improper
that a young gentleman of such hopeful prospects should travel on
the Continent with a tutor doubtless of his uncle's choosing, and
directing his course by his instructions. What might Mr. Edward
Waverley's society be at Paris, what at Rome, where all manner of
snares were spread by the Pretender and his sons--these were
points for Mr. Waverley to consider. This he could himself say,
that he knew his Majesty had such a just sense of Mr. Richard
Waverley's merits, that, if his son adopted the army for a few
years, a troop, he believed, might be reckoned upon in one of the
dragoon regiments lately returned from Flanders.
A hint thus conveyed and enforced was not to be neglected with
impunity; and Richard Waverley, though with great dread of
shocking his brother's prejudices, deemed he could not avoid
accepting the commission thus offered him for his son. The truth
is, he calculated much, and justly, upon Sir Everard's fondness
for Edward, which made him unlikely to resent any step that he
might take in due submission to parental authority. Two letters
announced this determination to the Baronet and his nephew. The
latter barely communicated the fact, and pointed out the necessary
preparations for joining his regiment. To his brother, Richard was
more diffuse and circuitous. He coincided with him, in the most
flattering manner, in the propriety of his son's seeing a little
more of the world, and was even humble in expressions of gratitude
for his proposed assistance; was, however, deeply concerned that
it was now, unfortunately, not in Edward's power exactly to comply
with the plan which had been chalked out by his best friend and
benefactor. He himself had thought with pain on the boy's
inactivity, at an age when all his ancestors had borne arms; even
Royalty itself had deigned to inquire whether young Waverley was
not now in Flanders, at an age when his grandfather was already
bleeding for his king in the Great Civil War. This was accompanied
by an offer of a troop of horse. What could he do? There was no
time to consult his brother's inclinations, even if he could have
conceived there might be objections on his part to his nephew's
following the glorious career of his predecessors. And, in short,
that Edward was now (the intermediate steps of cornet and
lieutenant being overleapt with great agility) Captain Waverley,
of Gardiner's regiment of dragoons, which he must join in their
quarters at Dundee in Scotland, in the course of a month.
Sir Everard Waverley received this intimation with a mixture of
feelings. At the period of the Hanoverian succession he had
withdrawn from parliament, and his conduct in the memorable year
1715 had not been altogether unsuspected. There were reports of
private musters of tenants and horses in Waverley-Chase by
moonlight, and of cases of carbines and pistols purchased in
Holland, and addressed to the Baronet, but intercepted by the
vigilance of a riding officer of the excise, who was afterwards
tossed in a blanket on a moonless night, by an association of
stout yeomen, for his officiousness. Nay, it was even said, that
at the arrest of Sir William Wyndham, the leader of the Tory
party, a letter from Sir Everard was found in the pocket of his
night-gown. But there was no overt act which an attainder could be
founded on, and government, contented with suppressing the
insurrection of 1715, felt it neither prudent nor safe to push
their vengeance farther than against those unfortunate gentlemen
who actually took up arms.
Nor did Sir Everard's apprehensions of personal consequences seem
to correspond with the reports spread among his Whig neighbours.
It was well known that he had supplied with money several of the
distressed Northumbrians and Scotchmen, who, after being made
prisoners at Preston in Lancashire, were imprisoned in Newgate and
the Marshalsea, and it was his solicitor and ordinary counsel who
conducted the defence of some of these unfortunate gentlemen at
their trial. It was generally supposed, however, that, had
ministers possessed any real proof of Sir Everard's accession to
the rebellion, he either would not have ventured thus to brave the
existing government, or at least would not have done so with
impunity. The feelings which then dictated his proceedings were
those of a young man, and at an agitating period. Since that time
Sir Everard's Jacobitism had been gradually decaying, like a fire
which burns out for want of fuel. His Tory and High-Church
principles were kept up by some occasional exercise at elections
and quarter-sessions; but those respecting hereditary right were
fallen into a sort of abeyance. Yet it jarred severely upon his
feelings, that his nephew should go into the army under the
Brunswick dynasty; and the more so, as, independent of his high
and conscientious ideas of paternal authority, it was impossible,
or at least highly imprudent, to interfere authoritatively to
prevent it. This suppressed vexation gave rise to many poohs and
pshaws which were placed to the account of an incipient fit of
gout, until, having sent for the Army List, the worthy Baronet
consoled himself with reckoning the descendants of the houses of
genuine loyalty, Mordaunts, Granvilles, and Stanleys, whose names
were to be found in that military record; and, calling up all his
feelings of family grandeur and warlike glory, he concluded, with
logic something like Falstaff's, that when war was at hand,
although it were shame to be on any side but one, it were worse
shame to be idle than to be on the worst side, though blacker than
usurpation could make it. As for Aunt Rachel, her scheme had not
exactly terminated according to her wishes, but she was under the
necessity of submitting to circumstances; and her mortification
was diverted by the employment she found in fitting out her nephew
for the campaign, and greatly consoled by the prospect of
beholding him blaze in complete uniform. Edward Waverley himself
received with animated and undefined surprise this most unexpected
intelligence. It was, as a fine old poem expresses it, 'like a
fire to heather set,' that covers a solitary hill with smoke, and
illumines it at the same time with dusky fire. His tutor, or, I
should say, Mr. Pembroke, for he scarce assumed the name of tutor,
picked up about Edward's room some fragments of irregular verse,
which he appeared to have composed under the influence of the
agitating feelings occasioned by this sudden page being turned up
to him in the book of life. The doctor, who was a believer in all
poetry which was composed by his friends, and written out in fair
straight lines, with a capital at the beginning of each,
communicated this treasure to Aunt Rachel, who, with her
spectacles dimmed with tears, transferred them to her commonplace
book, among choice receipts for cookery and medicine, favourite
texts, and portions from High-Church divines, and a few songs,
amatory and Jacobitical, which she had carolled in her younger
days, from whence her nephew's poetical tentamina were extracted
when the volume itself, with other authentic records of the
Waverley family, were exposed to the inspection of the unworthy
editor of this memorable history. If they afford the reader no
higher amusement, they will serve, at least, better than narrative
of any kind, to acquaint him with the wild and irregular spirit of
our hero:--
Late, when the Autumn evening fell
On Mirkwood-Mere's romantic dell,
The lake return'd, in chasten'd gleam,
The purple cloud, the golden beam:
Reflected in the crystal pool,
Headland and bank lay fair and cool;
The weather-tinted rock and tower,
Each drooping tree, each fairy flower,
So true, so soft, the mirror gave,
As if there lay beneath the wave,
Secure from trouble, toil, and care,
A world than earthly world more fair.
But distant winds began to wake,
And roused the Genius of the Lake!
He heard the groaning of the oak,
And donn'd at once his sable cloak,
As warrior, at the battle-cry,
Invests him with his panoply:
Then, as the whirlwind nearer press'd
He 'gan to shake his foamy crest
O'er furrow'd brow and blacken'd cheek,
And bade his surge in thunder speak.
In wild and broken eddies whirl'd.
Flitted that fond ideal world,
And to the shore in tumult tost
The realms of fairy bliss were lost.
Yet, with a stern delight and strange,
I saw the spirit-stirring change,
As warr'd the wind with wave and wood,
Upon the ruin'd tower I stood,
And felt my heart more strongly bound,
Responsive to the lofty sound,
While, joying in the mighty roar,
I mourn'd that tranquil scene no more.
So, on the idle dreams of youth,
Breaks the loud trumpet-call of truth,
Bids each fair vision pass away,
Like landscape on the lake that lay,
As fair, as flitting, and as frail,
As that which fled the Autumn gale.--
For ever dead to fancy's eye
Be each gay form that glided by,
While dreams of love and lady's charms
Give place to honour and to arms!
In sober prose, as perhaps these verses intimate less decidedly,
the transient idea of Miss Cecilia Stubbs passed from Captain
Waverley's heart amid the turmoil which his new destinies excited.
She appeared, indeed, in full splendour in her father's pew upon
the Sunday when he attended service for the last time at the old
parish church, upon which occasion, at the request of his uncle
and Aunt Rachel, he was induced (nothing both, if the truth must
be told) to present himself in full uniform.
There is no better antidote against entertaining too high an
opinion of others than having an excellent one of ourselves at the
very same time. Miss Stubbs had indeed summoned up every
assistance which art could afford to beauty; but, alas! hoop,
patches, frizzled locks, and a new mantua of genuine French silk,
were lost upon a young officer of dragoons who wore for the first
time his gold-laced hat, jack-boots, and broadsword. I know not
whether, like the champion of an old ballad,--
His heart was all on honour bent,
He could not stoop to love;
No lady in the land had power
His frozen heart to move;
or whether the deep and flaming bars of embroidered gold, which
now fenced his breast, defied the artillery of Cecilia's eyes; but
every arrow was launched at him in vain.
Yet did I mark where Cupid's shaft did light;
It lighted not on little western flower,
But on bold yeoman, flower of all the west,
Hight Jonas Culbertfield, the steward's son.
Craving pardon for my heroics (which I am unable in certain cases
to resist giving way to), it is a melancholy fact, that my history
must here take leave of the fair Cecilia, who, like many a
daughter of Eve, after the departure of Edward, and the
dissipation of certain idle visions which she had adopted, quietly
contented herself with a pisaller, and gave her hand, at the
distance of six months, to the aforesaid Jonas, son of the
Baronet's steward, and heir (no unfertile prospect) to a steward's
fortune, besides the snug probability of succeeding to his
father's office. All these advantages moved Squire Stubbs, as much
as the ruddy brown and manly form of the suitor influenced his
daughter, to abate somewhat in the article of their gentry; and so
the match was concluded. None seemed more gratified than Aunt
Rachel, who had hitherto looked rather askance upon the
presumptuous damsel (as much so, peradventure, as her nature would
permit), but who, on the first appearance of the new-married pair
at church, honoured the bride with a smile and a profound curtsy,
in presence of the rector, the curate, the clerk, and the whole
congregation of the united parishes of Waverley cum Beverley.
I beg pardon, once and for all, of those readers who take up
novels merely for amusement, for plaguing them so long with old-
fashioned politics, and Whig and Tory, and Hanoverians and
Jacobites. The truth is, I cannot promise them that this story
shall be intelligible, not to say probable, without it. My plan
requires that I should explain the motives on which its action
proceeded; and these motives necessarily arose from the feelings,
prejudices, and parties of the times. I do not invite my fair
readers, whose sex and impatience give them the greatest right to
complain of these circumstances, into a flying chariot drawn by
hippogriffs, or moved by enchantment. Mine is a humble English
post-chaise, drawn upon four wheels, and keeping his Majesty's
highway. Such as dislike the vehicle may leave it at the next
halt, and wait for the conveyance of Prince Hussein's tapestry, or
Malek the Weaver's flying sentrybox. Those who are contented to
remain with me will be occasionally exposed to the dulness
inseparable from heavy roads, steep hills, sloughs, and other
terrestrial retardations; but with tolerable horses and a civil
driver (as the advertisements have it), I engage to get as soon as
possible into a more picturesque and romantic country, if my
passengers incline to have some patience with me during my first
stages. [Footnote: These Introductory Chapters have been a good
deal censured as tedious and unnecessary. Yet there are
circumstances recorded in them which the author has not been able
to persuade himself to retrench or cancel.]