THE supernatural machinery in Sir Walter Scott’s _Monastery_ is generally
and, no doubt, correctly, set down as a mistake. Sir Walter fails, not
because the White Lady of Avenel is a miracle, but because being
miraculous, she is made to do what sometimes is not worthy of her. This,
however, is not always true, for nothing can be finer than the change in
Halbert Glendinning after he has seen the spirit, and the great master
himself has never drawn a nobler stroke than that in which he describes
the effect which intercourse with her has had upon Mary. Halbert, on the
morning of the duel between himself and Sir Piercie Shafton, is trying to
persuade her that he intends no harm, and that he and Sir Piercie are
going on a hunting expedition. “Say not thus,” said the maiden,
interrupting him, “say not thus to me. Others thou may’st deceive, but
me thou can’st not. There has been that in me from the earliest youth
which fraud flies from, and which imposture cannot deceive.” The
transforming influence of the Lady is here just what it should be, and
the consequence is that she becomes a reality.
But it is in the _Bride of Lammermoor_ more particularly that the use of
the supernatural is not only blameless but indispensable. We begin to
rise to it in that scene in which the Master of Ravenswood meets Alice.
“Begone from among them,” she says, “and if God has destined vengeance on
the oppressor’s house, do not you be the instrument. . . . If you remain
here, her destruction or yours, or that of both, will be the inevitable
consequence of her misplaced attachment.” A little further on, with
great art, Scott having duly prepared us by what has preceded, adds
intensity and colour. He apologises for the “tinge of superstition,”
but, not believing, he evidently believes, and we justly surrender
ourselves to him. The Master of Ravenswood after the insult received
from Lady Ashton wanders round the Mermaiden’s Well on his way to Wolf’s
Crag and sees the wraith of Alice. Scott makes horse as well as man
afraid so that we may not immediately dismiss the apparition as a mere
ordinary product of excitement. Alice at that moment was dying, and had
“prayed powerfully that she might see her master’s son and renew her
warning.” Observe the difference between this and any vulgar ghost
story. From the very first we feel that the Superior Powers are against
this match, and that it will be cursed. The beginning of the curse lies
far back in the hereditary temper of the Ravenswoods, in the intrigues of
the Ashtons, and in the feuds of the times. When Love intervenes we
discover in an instant that he is not sent by the gods to bring peace,
but that he is the awful instrument of destruction. The spectral
appearance of Alice at the hour of her departure, on the very spot “on
which Lucy Ashton had reclined listening to the fatal tale of woe . . .
holding up her shrivelled hand as if to prevent his coming more near,” is
necessary in order to intimate that the interdict is pronounced not by a
mortal human being but by a dread, supernal authority.