A SCOTTISH MANOR-HOUSE SIXTY YEARS SINCE
It was about noon when Captain Waverley entered the straggling
village, or rather hamlet, of Tully-Veolan, close to which was
situated the mansion of the proprietor. The houses seemed
miserable in the extreme, especially to an eye accustomed to the
smiling neatness of English cottages. They stood, without any
respect for regularity, on each side of a straggling kind of
unpaved street, where children, almost in a primitive state of
nakedness, lay sprawling, as if to be crushed by the hoofs of the
first passing horse. Occasionally, indeed, when such a
consummation seemed inevitable, a watchful old grandam, with her
close cap, distaff, and spindle, rushed like a sibyl in frenzy out
of one of these miserable cells, dashed into the middle of the
path, and snatching up her own charge from among the sunburnt
loiterers, saluted him with a sound cuff, and transported him back
to his dungeon, the little white-headed varlet screaming all the
while, from the very top of his lungs, a shrilly treble to the
growling remonstrances of the enraged matron. Another part in this
concert was sustained by the incessant yelping of a score of idle
useless curs, which followed, snarling, barking, howling, and
snapping at the horses' heels; a nuisance at that time so common
in Scotland, that a French tourist, who, like other travellers,
longed to find a good and rational reason for everything he saw,
has recorded, as one of the memorabilia of Caledonia, that the
state maintained, in each village a relay of curs, called collies,
whose duty it was to chase the chevaux de poste (too starved and
exhausted to move without such a stimulus) from one hamlet to
another, till their annoying convoy drove them to the end of their
stage. The evil and remedy (such as it is) still exist.--But this
is remote from our present purpose, and is only thrown out for
consideration of the collectors under Mr. Dent's Dog Bill.
As Waverley moved on, here and there an old man, bent as much by
toil as years, his eyes bleared with age and smoke, tottered to
the door of his hut, to gaze on the dress of the stranger and the
form and motions of the horses, and then assembled, with his
neighbours, in a little group at the smithy, to discuss the
probabilities of whence the stranger came and where he might be
going. Three or four village girls, returning from the well or
brook with pitchers and pails upon their heads, formed more
pleasing objects, and, with their thin short-gowns and single
petticoats, bare arms, legs, and feet, uncovered heads and braided
hair, somewhat resembled Italian forms of landscape. Nor could a
lover of the picturesque have challenged either the elegance of
their costume or the symmetry of their shape; although, to say the
truth, a mere Englishman in search of the COMFORTABLE, a word
peculiar to his native tongue, might have wished the clothes less
scanty, the feet and legs somewhat protected from the weather, the
head and complexion shrouded from the sun, or perhaps might even
have thought the whole person and dress considerably improved by a
plentiful application of spring water, with a quantum sufficit of
soap. The whole scene was depressing; for it argued, at the first
glance, at least a stagnation of industry, and perhaps of
intellect. Even curiosity, the busiest passion of the idle, seemed
of a listless cast in the village of Tully-Veolan: the curs
aforesaid alone showed any part of its activity; with the
villagers it was passive. They stood, and gazed at the handsome
young officer and his attendant, but without any of those quick
motions and eager looks that indicate the earnestness with which
those who live in monotonous ease at home look out for amusement
abroad. Yet the physiognomy of the people, when more closely
examined, was far from exhibiting the indifference of stupidity;
their features were rough, but remarkably intelligent; grave, but
the very reverse of stupid; and from among the young women an
artist might have chosen more than one model whose features and
form resembled those of Minerva. The children also, whose skins
were burnt black, and whose hair was bleached white, by the
influence of the sun, had a look and manner of life and interest.
It seemed, upon the whole, as if poverty, and indolence, its too
frequent companion, were combining to depress the natural genius
and acquired information of a hardy, intelligent, and reflecting
peasantry.
Some such thoughts crossed Waverley's mind as he paced his horse
slowly through the rugged and flinty street of Tully-Veolan,
interrupted only in his meditations by the occasional caprioles
which his charger exhibited at the reiterated assaults of those
canine Cossacks, the collies before mentioned. The village was
more than half a mile long, the cottages being irregularly divided
from each other by gardens, or yards, as the inhabitants called
them, of different sizes, where (for it is Sixty Years Since) the
now universal potato was unknown, but which were stored with
gigantic plants of kale or colewort, encircled with groves of
nettles, and exhibited here and there a huge hemlock, or the
national thistle, overshadowing a quarter of the petty inclosure.
The broken ground on which the village was built had never been
levelled; so that these inclosures presented declivities of every
degree, here rising like terraces, there sinking like tan-pits.
The dry-stone walls which fenced, or seemed to fence (for they
were sorely breached), these hanging gardens of Tully-Veolan were
intersected by a narrow lane leading to the common field, where
the joint labour of the villagers cultivated alternate ridges and
patches of rye, oats, barley, and pease, each of such minute
extent that at a little distance the unprofitable variety of the
surface resembled a tailor's book of patterns. In a few favoured
instances, there appeared behind the cottages a miserable wigwam,
compiled of earth, loose stones, and turf, where the wealthy might
perhaps shelter a starved cow or sorely galled horse. But almost
every hut was fenced in front by a huge black stack of turf on one
side of the door, while on the other the family dunghill ascended
in noble emulation.
About a bowshot from the end of the village appeared the
inclosures proudly denominated the Parks of Tully-Veolan, being
certain square fields, surrounded and divided by stone walls five
feet in height. In the centre of the exterior barrier was the
upper gate of the avenue, opening under an archway, battlemented
on the top, and adorned with two large weather-beaten mutilated
masses of upright stone, which, if the tradition of the hamlet
could be trusted, had once represented, at least had been once
designed to represent, two rampant Bears, the supporters of the
family of Bradwardine. This avenue was straight and of moderate
length, running between a double row of very ancient horse-
chestnuts, planted alternately with sycamores, which rose to such
huge height, and nourished so luxuriantly, that their boughs
completely over-arched the broad road beneath. Beyond these
venerable ranks, and running parallel to them, were two high
walls, of apparently the like antiquity, overgrown with ivy,
honeysuckle, and other climbing plants. The avenue seemed very
little trodden, and chiefly by foot-passengers; so that being very
broad, and enjoying a constant shade, it was clothed with grass of
a deep and rich verdure, excepting where a foot-path, worn by
occasional passengers, tracked with a natural sweep the way from
the upper to the lower gate. This nether portal, like the former,
opened in front of a wall ornamented with some rude sculpture,
with battlements on the top, over which were seen, half-hidden by
the trees of the avenue, the high steep roofs and narrow gables of
the mansion, with lines indented into steps, and corners decorated
with small turrets. One of the folding leaves of the lower gate
was open, and as the sun shone full into the court behind, a long
line of brilliancy was flung upon the aperture up the dark and
gloomy avenue. It was one of those effects which a painter loves
to represent, and mingled well with the struggling light which
found its way between the boughs of the shady arch that vaulted
the broad green alley.
The solitude and repose of the whole scene seemed almost monastic;
and Waverley, who had given his horse to his servant on entering
the first gate, walked slowly down the avenue, enjoying the
grateful and cooling shade, and so much pleased with the placid
ideas of rest and seclusion excited by this confined and quiet
scene, that he forgot the misery and dirt of the hamlet he had
left behind him. The opening into the paved court-yard
corresponded with the rest of the scene. The house, which seemed
to consist of two or three high, narrow, and steep-roofed
buildings, projecting from each other at right angles, formed one
side of the inclosure. It had been built at a period when castles
were no longer necessary, and when the Scottish architects had not
yet acquired the art of designing a domestic residence. The
windows were numberless, but very small; the roof had some
nondescript kind of projections, called bartizans, and displayed
at each frequent angle a small turret, rather resembling a pepper-
box than a Gothic watchtower. Neither did the front indicate
absolute security from danger. There were loop-holes for musketry,
and iron stanchions on the lower windows, probably to repel any
roving band of gypsies, or resist a predatory visit from the
caterans of the neighbouring Highlands. Stables and other offices
occupied another side of the square. The former were low vaults,
with narrow slits instead of windows, resembling, as Edward's
groom observed, 'rather a prison for murderers, and larceners, and
such like as are tried at 'sizes, than a place for any Christian
cattle.' Above these dungeon-looking stables were granaries,
called girnels, and other offices, to which there was access by
outside stairs of heavy masonry. Two battlemented walls, one of
which faced the avenue, and the other divided the court from the
garden, completed the inclosure.
Nor was the court without its ornaments. In one corner was a tun-
bellied pigeon-house, of great size and rotundity, resembling in
figure and proportion the curious edifice called Arthur's Oven,
which would have turned the brains of all the antiquaries in
England, had not the worthy proprietor pulled it down for the sake
of mending a neighbouring dam-dyke. This dove-cot, or columbarium,
as the owner called it, was no small resource to a Scottish laird
of that period, whose scanty rents were eked out by the
contributions levied upon the farms by these light foragers, and
the conscriptions exacted from the latter for the benefit of the
table.
Another corner of the court displayed a fountain, where a huge
bear, carved in stone, predominated over a large stone-basin, into
which he disgorged the water. This work of art was the wonder of
the country ten miles round. It must not be forgotten, that all
sorts of bears, small and large, demi or in full proportion, were
carved over the windows, upon the ends of the gables, terminated
the spouts, and supported the turrets, with the ancient family
motto, 'Beware the Bear', cut under each hyperborean form. The
court was spacious, well paved, and perfectly clean, there being
probably another entrance behind the stables for removing the
litter. Everything around appeared solitary, and would have been
silent, but for the continued plashing of the fountain; and the
whole scene still maintained the monastic illusion which the fancy
of Waverley had conjured up. And here we beg permission to close a
chapter of still life. [Footnote: See Note 7.]