A MORE RATIONAL DAY THAN THE LAST
The Baron of Bradwardine, mounted on an active and well-managed
horse, and seated on a demi-pique saddle, with deep housings to
agree with his livery, was no bad representative of the old
school. His light-coloured embroidered coat, and superbly barred
waistcoat, his brigadier wig, surmounted by a small gold-laced
cocked-hat, completed his personal costume; but he was attended by
two well-mounted servants on horseback, armed with holster-
pistols.
In this guise he ambled forth over hill and valley, the admiration
of every farm-yard which they passed in their progress, till, 'low
down in a grassy vale,' they found David Gellatley leading two
very tall deer greyhounds, and presiding over half a dozen curs,
and about as many bare-legged and bare-headed boys, who, to
procure the chosen distinction of attending on the chase, had not
failed to tickle his ears with the dulcet appellation of Maister
Gellatley, though probably all and each had hooted him on former
occasions in the character of daft Davie. But this is no uncommon
strain of flattery to persons in office, nor altogether confined
to the barelegged villagers of Tully-Veolan; it was in fashion
Sixty Years Since, is now, and will be six hundred years hence, if
this admirable compound of folly and knavery, called the world,
shall be then in existence.
These Gillie-wet-foots, as they were called, were destined to beat
the bushes, which they performed with so much success, that, after
half an hour's search, a roe was started, coursed, and killed; the
Baron following on his white horse, like Earl Percy of yore, and
magnanimously flaying and embowelling the slain animal (which, he
observed, was called by the French chasseurs, faire la curee) with
his own baronial couteau de chasse. After this ceremony, he
conducted his guest homeward by a pleasant and circuitous route,
commanding an extensive prospect of different villages and houses,
to each of which Mr. Bradwardine attached some anecdote of history
or genealogy, told in language whimsical from prejudice and
pedantry, but often respectable for the good sense and honourable
feelings which his narrative displayed, and almost always curious,
if not valuable, for the information they contained.
The truth is, the ride seemed agreeable to both gentlemen, because
they found amusement in each other's conversation, although their
characters and habits of thinking were in many respects totally
opposite. Edward, we have informed the reader, was warm in his
feelings, wild and romantic in his ideas and in his taste of
reading, with a strong disposition towards poetry. Mr Bradwardine
was the reverse of all this, and piqued himself upon stalking
through life with the same upright, starched, stoical gravity
which distinguished his evening promenade upon the terrace of
Tully-Veolan, where for hours together--the very model of old
Hardyknute--
Stately stepp'd he east the wa',
And stately stepp'd he west
As for literature, he read the classic poets, to be sure, and the
'Epithalamium' of Georgius Buchanan and Arthur Johnston's Psalms,
of a Sunday; and the 'Deliciae Poetarum Scotorum,' and Sir David
Lindsay's 'Works', and Barbour's 'Brace', and Blind Harry's
'Wallace', and 'The Gentle Shepherd', and 'The Cherry and The
Slae.'
But though he thus far sacrificed his time to the Muses, he would,
if the truth must be spoken, have been much better pleased had the
pious or sapient apothegms, as well as the historical narratives,
which these various works contained, been presented to him in the
form of simple prose. And he sometimes could not refrain from
expressing contempt of the 'vain and unprofitable art of poem-
making', in which, he said,'the only one who had excelled in his
time was Allan Ramsay, the periwigmaker.'
[Footnote: The Baron ought to have remembered that the joyous
Allan literally drew his blood from the house of the noble earl
whom he terms--
Dalhousie of an old descent
My stoup, my pride, my ornament.]
But although Edward and he differed TOTO COELO, as the Baron would
have said, upon this subject, yet they met upon history as on a
neutral ground, in which each claimed an interest. The Baron,
indeed, only cumbered his memory with matters of fact, the cold,
dry, hard outlines which history delineates. Edward, on the
contrary, loved to fill up and round the sketch with the colouring
of a warm and vivid imagination, which gives light and life to the
actors and speakers in the drama of past ages. Yet with tastes so
opposite, they contributed greatly to each other's amusement. Mr.
Bradwardine's minute narratives and powerful memory supplied to
Waverley fresh subjects of the kind upon which his fancy loved to
labour, and opened to him a new mine of incident and of character.
And he repaid the pleasure thus communicated by an earnest
attention, valuable to all story-tellers, more especially to the
Baron, who felt his habits of self-respect flattered by it; and
sometimes also by reciprocal communications, which interested Mr.
Bradwardine, as confirming or illustrating his own favourite
anecdotes. Besides, Mr. Bradwardine loved to talk of the scenes of
his youth, whichl had been spent in camps and foreign lands, and
had many interesting particulars to tell of the generals under
whom he had served and the actions he had witnessed.
Both parties returned to Tully-Veolan in great good-humour with
each other; Waverley desirous of studying more attentively what he
considered as a singular and interesting character, gifted with a
memory containing a curious register of ancient and modern
anecdotes; and Bradwardine disposed to regard Edward as puer (or
rather juvenis) bonae spei et magnae indolis, a youth devoid of
that petulant volatility which is impatient of, or vilipends, the
conversation and advice of his seniors, from which he predicted
great things of his future success and deportment in life. There
was no other guest except Mr. Rubrick, whose information and
discourse, as a clergyman and a scholar, harmonised very well with
that of the Baron and his guest.
Shortly after dinner, the Baron, as if to show that his temperance
was not entirely theoretical, proposed a visit to Rose's
apartment, or, as he termed it, her troisieme etage. Waverley was
accordingly conducted through one or two of those long awkward
passages with which ancient architects studied to puzzle the
inhabitants of the houses which they planned, at the end of which
Mr. Bradwardine began to ascend, by two steps at once, a very
steep, narrow, and winding stair, leaving Mr. Rubrick and Waverley
to follow at more leisure, while he should announce their approach
to his daughter.
After having climbed this perpendicular corkscrew until their
brains were almost giddy, they arrived in a little matted lobby,
which served as an anteroom to Rose's sanctum sanctorum, and
through which they entered her parlour. It was a small, but
pleasant apartment, opening to the south, and hung with tapestry;
adorned besides with two pictures, one of her mother, in the dress
of a shepherdess, with a bell-hoop; the other of the Baron, in his
tenth year, in a blue coat, embroidered waistcoat, laced hat, and
bag-wig, with a bow in his hand. Edward could not help smiling at
the costume, and at the odd resemblance between the round, smooth,
red-cheeked, staring visage in the portrait, and the gaunt,
bearded, hollow-eyed, swarthy features, which travelling, fatigues
of war, and advanced age, had bestowed on the original. The Baron
joined in the laugh. 'Truly,' he said,'that picture was a woman's
fantasy of my good mother's (a daughter of the Laird of
Tulliellum, Captain Waverley; I indicated the house to you when we
were on the top of the Shinnyheuch; it was burnt by the Dutch
auxiliaries brought in by the Government in 1715); I never sate
for my pourtraicture but once since that was painted, and it was
at the special and reiterated request of the Marechal Duke of
Berwick.'
The good old gentleman did not mention what Mr. Rubrick afterwards
told Edward, that the Duke had done him this honour on account of
his being the first to mount the breach of a fort in Savoy during
the memorable campaign of 1709, and his having there defended
himself with his half-pike for nearly ten minutes before any
support reached him. To do the Baron justice, although
sufficiently prone to dwell upon, and even to exaggerate, his
family dignity and consequence, he was too much a man of real
courage ever to allude to such personal acts of merit as he had
himself manifested.
Miss Rose now appeared from the interior room of her apartment, to
welcome her father and his friends. The little labours in which
she had been employed obviously showed a natural taste, which
required only cultivation. Her father had taught her French and
Italian, and a few of the ordinary authors in those languages
ornamented her shelves. He had endeavoured also to be her
preceptor in music; but as he began with the more abstruse
doctrines of the science, and was not perhaps master of them
himself, she had made no proficiency farther than to be able to
accompany her voice with the harpsichord; but even this was not
very common in Scotland at that period. To make amends, she sung
with great taste and feeling, and with a respect to the sense of
what she uttered that might be proposed in example to ladies of
much superior musical talent. Her natural good sense taught her
that, if, as we are assured by high authority, music be 'married
to immortal verse,' they are very often divorced by the performer
in a most shameful manner. It was perhaps owing to this
sensibility to poetry, and power of combining its expression with
those of the musical notes, that her singing gave more pleasure to
all the unlearned in music, and even to many of the learned, than
could have been communicated by a much finer voice and more
brilliant execution unguided by the same delicacy of feeling.
A bartizan, or projecting gallery, before the windows of her
parlour, served to illustrate another of Rose's pursuits; for it
was crowded with flowers of different kinds, which she had taken
under her special protection. A projecting turret gave access to
this Gothic balcony, which commanded a most beautiful prospect.
The formal garden, with its high bounding walls, lay below,
contracted, as it seemed, to a mere parterre; while the view
extended beyond them down a wooded glen, where the small river was
sometimes visible, sometimes hidden in copse. The eye might be
delayed by a desire to rest on the rocks, which here and there
rose from the dell with massive or spiry fronts, or it might dwell
on the noble, though ruined tower, which was here beheld in all
its dignity, frowning from a promontory over the river. To the
left were seen two or three cottages, a part of the village, the
brow of the hill concealed the others. The glen, or dell, was
terminated by a sheet of water, called Loch Veolan, into which the
brook discharged itself, and which now glistened in the western
sun. The distant country seemed open and varied in surface, though
not wooded; and there was nothing to interrupt the view until the
scene was bounded by a ridge of distant and blue hills, which
formed the southern boundary of the strath or valley. To this
pleasant station Miss Bradwardine had ordered coffee.
The view of the old tower, or fortalice, introduced some family
anecdotes and tales of Scottish chivalry, which the Baron told
with great enthusiasm. The projecting peak of an impending crag
which rose near it had acquired the name of Saint Swithin's Chair.
It was the scene of a peculiar superstition, of which Mr. Rubrick
mentioned some curious particulars, which reminded Waverley of a
rhyme quoted by Edgar in King Lear; and Rose was called upon to
sing a little legend, in which they had been interwoven by some
village poet,
Who, noteless as the race from which he sprung,
Saved others' names, but left his own unsung.
The sweetness of her voice, and the simple beauty of her music,
gave all the advantage which the minstrel could have desired, and
which his poetry so much wanted. I almost doubt if it can be read
with patience, destitute of these advantages, although I
conjecture the following copy to have been somewhat corrected by
Waverley, to suit the taste of those who might not relish pure
antiquity.
Saint Swithin's Chair
On Hallow-Mass Eve, ere ye boune ye to rest,
Ever beware that your couch be bless'd;
Sign it with cross, and sain it with bead,
Sing the Ave, and say the Creed.
For on Hallow-Mass Eve the Night-Hag will ride,
And all her nine-fold sweeping on by her side,
Whether the wind sing lowly or loud,
Sailing through moonshine or swath'd in the cloud.
The Lady she sat in Saint Swithin's Chair,
The dew of the night has damp'd her hair:
Her cheek was pale; but resolved and high
Was the word of her lip and the glance of her eye.
She mutter'd the spell of Swithin bold,
When his naked foot traced the midnight wold,
When he stopp'd the Hag as she rode the night,
And bade her descend, and her promise plight.
He that dare sit on Saint Swithin's Chair,
When the Night-Hag wings the troubled air,
Questions three, when he speaks the spell,
He may ask, and she must tell.
The Baron has been with King Robert his liege
These three long years in battle and siege;
News are there none of his weal or his woe,
And fain the Lady his fate would know.
She shudders and stops as the charm she speaks;--
Is it the moody owl that shrieks?
Or is it that sound, betwixt laughter and scream,
The voice of the Demon who haunts the stream?
The moan of the wind sunk silent and low,
And the roaring torrent had ceased to flow;
The calm was more dreadful than raging storm,
When the cold grey mist brought the ghastly Form!
'I am sorry to disappoint the company, especially Captain
Waverley, who listens with such laudable gravity; it is but a
fragment, although I think there are other verses, describing the
return of the Baron from the wars, and how the lady was found
"clay-cold upon the grounsill ledge.'"
'It is one of those figments,' observed Mr. Bradwardine, 'with
which the early history of distinguished families was deformed in
the times of superstition; as that of Rome, and other ancient
nations, had their prodigies, sir, the which you may read in
ancient histories, or in the little work compiled by Julius
Obsequens, and inscribed by the learned Scheffer, the editor, to
his patron, Benedictus Skytte, Baron of Dudershoff.'
'My father has a strange defiance of the marvellous, Captain
Waverley,' observed Rose, 'and once stood firm when a whole synod
of Presbyterian divines were put to the rout by a sudden
apparition of the foul fiend.'
Waverley looked as if desirous to hear more.
'Must I tell my story as well as sing my song? Well--Once upon a
time there lived an old woman, called Janet Gellatley, who was
suspected to be a witch, on the infallible grounds that she was
very old, very ugly, very poor, and had two sons, one of whom was
a poet and the other a fool, which visitation, all the
neighbourhood agreed, had come upon her for the sin of witchcraft.
And she was imprisoned for a week in the steeple of the parish
church, and sparely supplied with food, and not permitted to sleep
until she herself became as much persuaded of her being a witch as
her accusers; and in this lucid and happy state of mind was
brought forth to make a clean breast, that is, to make open
confession of her sorceries, before all the Whig gentry and
ministers in the vicinity, who were no conjurors themselves. My
father went to see fair play between the witch and the clergy; for
the witch had been born on his estate. And while the witch was
confessing that the Enemy appeared, and made his addresses to her
as a handsome black man,--which, if you could have seen poor old
blear-eyed Janet, reflected little honour on Apollyon's taste,--
and while the auditors listened with astonished ears, and the
clerk recorded with a trembling hand, she, all of a sudden,
changed the low mumbling tone with which she spoke into a shrill
yell, and exclaimed, "Look to yourselves! look to yourselves! I
see the Evil One sitting in the midst of ye." The surprise was
general, and terror and flight its immediate consequences. Happy
were those who were next the door; and many were the disasters
that befell hats, bands, cuffs, and wigs, before they could get
out of the church, where they left the obstinate prelatist to
settle matters with the witch and her admirer at his own peril or
pleasure.'
'Risu solvuntur tabulae,' said the Baron; 'when they recovered
their panic trepidation they were too much ashamed to bring any
wakening of the process against Janet Gellatley.' [Footnote: See
Note 11]
This anecdote led to a long discussion of
All those idle thoughts and fantasies,
Devices, dreams, opinions unsound,
Shows, visions, soothsays, and prophecies,
And all that feigned is, as leasings, tales, and lies.
With such conversation, and the romantic legends which it
introduced, closed our hero's second evening in the house of
Tully-Veolan.