FERGUS A SUITOR
Waverley had, indeed, as he looked closer into the state of the
Chevalier's court, less reason to be satisfied with it. It contained,
as they say an acorn includes all the ramifications of the future oak,
as many seeds of tracasserie and intrigue as might have done honour to
the court of a large empire. Every person of consequence had some
separate object, which he pursued with a fury that Waverley considered
as altogether disproportioned to its importance. Almost all had their
reasons for discontent, although the most legitimate was that of the
worthy old Baron, who was only distressed on account of the common
cause.
'We shall hardly,' said he one morning to Waverley when they had been
viewing the Castle--'we shall hardly gain the obsidional crown, which
you wot well was made of the roots or grain which takes root within the
place besieged, or it may be of the herb woodbind, parietaria, or
pellitory; we shall not, I say, gain it by this same blockade or
leaguer of Edinburgh Castle.' For this opinion he gave most learned and
satisfactory reasons, that the reader may not care to hear repeated.
Having escaped from the old gentleman, Waverley went to Fergus's
lodgings by appointment, to await his return from Holyrood House. 'I am
to have a particular audience to-morrow,' said Fergus to Waverley
overnight, 'and you must meet me to wish me joy of the success which I
securely anticipate.'
The morrow came, and in the Chief's apartment he found Ensign
Maccombich waiting to make report of his turn of duty in a sort of
ditch which they had dug across the Castle-hill and called a trench. In
a short time the Chief's voice was heard on the stair in a tone of
impatient fury: 'Callum! why, Callum Beg! Diaoul!' He entered the room
with all the marks of a man agitated by a towering passion; and there
were few upon whose features rage produced a more violent effect. The
veins of his forehead swelled when he was in such agitation; his
nostril became dilated; his cheek and eye inflamed; and hislook that of
a demoniac. These appearances of half-suppressed rage were the more
frightful because they were obviously caused by a strong effort to
temper with discretion an almost ungovernable paroxysm of passion, and
resulted from an internal conflict of the most dreadful kind, which
agitated his whole frame of mortality.
As he entered the apartment he unbuckled his broadsword, and throwing
it down with such violence that the weapon rolled to the other end of
the room, 'I know not what,' he exclaimed, 'withholds me from taking a
solemn oath that I will never more draw it in his cause. Load my
pistols, Callum, and bring them hither instantly--instantly!' Callum,
whom nothing ever startled, dismayed, or disconcerted, obeyed very
coolly. Evan Dhu, upon whose brow the suspicion that his Chief had been
insulted called up a corresponding storm, swelled in sullen silence,
awaiting to learn where or upon whom vengeance was to descend.
'So, Waverley, you are there,' said the Chief, after a moment's
recollection. 'Yes, I remember I asked you to share my triumph, and you
have come to witness my disappointment we shall call it.' Evan now
presented the written report he had in his hand, which Fergus threw
from him with great passion. 'I wish to God,' he said, 'the old den
would tumble down upon the heads of the fools who attack and the knaves
who defend it! I see, Waverley, you think I am mad. Leave us, Evan, but
be within call.'
'The Colonel's in an unco kippage,' said Mrs. Flockhart to Evan as he
descended; 'I wish he may be weel,--the very veins on his brent brow
are swelled like whipcord; wad he no tak something?'
'He usually lets blood for these fits,' answered the Highland ancient
with great composure.
When this officer left the room, the Chieftain gradually reassumed some
degree of composure. 'I know, Waverley,' he said, 'that Colonel Talbot
has persuaded you to curse ten times a day your engagement with us;
nay, never deny it, for I am at this moment tempted to curse my own.
Would you believe it, I made this very morning two suits to the Prince,
and he has rejected them both; what do you think of it?'
'What can I think,' answered Waverley,'till I know what your requests
were?' 'Why, what signifies what they were, man? I tell you it was I
that made them--I to whom he owes more than to any three who have
joined the standard; for I negotiated the whole business, and brought
in all the Perthshire men when not one would have stirred. I am not
likely, I think, to ask anything very unreasonable, and if I did, they
might have stretched a point. Well, but you shall know all, now that I
can draw my breath again with some freedom. You remember my earl's
patent; it is dated some years back, for services then rendered; and
certainly my merit has not been diminished, to say the least, by my
subsequent behaviour. Now, sir, I value this bauble of a coronet as
little as you can, or any philosopher on earth; for I hold that the
chief of such a clan as the Sliochd nan Ivor is superior in rank to any
earl in Scotland. But I had a particular reason for assuming this
cursed title at this time. You must know that I learned accidentally
that the Prince has been pressing that old foolish Baron of Bradwardine
to disinherit his male heir, or nineteenth or twentieth cousin, who has
taken a command in the Elector of Hanover's militia, and to settle his
estate upon your pretty little friend Rose; and this, as being the
command of his king and overlord, who may alter the destination of a
fief at pleasure, the old gentleman seems well reconciled to.'
'And what becomes of the homage?'
'Curse the homage! I believe Rose is to pull off the queen's slipper on
her coronation-day, or some such trash. Well, sir, as Rose Bradwardine
would always have made a suitable match for me but for this idiotical
predilection of her father for the heir-male, it occurred to me there
now remained no obstacle unless that the Baron might expect his
daughter's husband to take the name of Bradwardine (which you know
would be impossible in my case), and that this might be evaded by my
assuming the title to which I had so good a right, and which, of
course, would supersede that difficulty. If she was to be also
Viscountess Bradwardine in her own right after her father's demise, so
much the better; I could have no objection.'
'But, Fergus,' said Waverley, 'I had no idea that you had any affection
for Miss Bradwardine, and you are always sneering at her father.'
'I have as much affection for Miss Bradwardine, my good friend, as I
think it necessary to have for the future mistress of my family and the
mother of my children. She is a very pretty, intelligent girl, and is
certainly of one of the very first Lowland families; and, with a little
of Flora's instructions and forming, will make a very good figure. As
to her father, he is an original, it is true, and an absurd one enough;
but he has given such severe lessons to Sir Hew Halbert, that dear
defunct the Laird of Balmawhapple, and others, that nobody dare laugh
at him, so his absurdity goes for nothing. I tell you there could have
been no earthly objection--none. I had settled the thing entirely in my
own mind.'
'But had you asked the Baron's consent,' said Waverley, 'or Rose's?'
'To what purpose? To have spoke to the Baron before I had assumed my
title would have only provoked a premature and irritating discussion on
the subject of the change of name, when, as Earl of Glennaquoich, I had
only to propose to him to carry his d--d bear and bootjack party per
pale, or in a scutcheon of pretence, or in a separate shield
perhaps--any way that would not blemish my own coat of arms. And as to
Rose, I don't see what objection she could have made if her father was
satisfied.'
'Perhaps the same that your sister makes to me, you being satisfied.'
Fergus gave a broad stare at the comparison which this supposition
implied, but cautiously suppressed the answer which rose to his tongue.
'O, we should easily have arranged all that. So, sir, I craved a
private interview, and this morning was assigned; and I asked you to
meet me here, thinking, like a fool, that I should want your
countenance as bride's-man. Well, I state my pretension--they are not
denied; the promises so repeatedly made and the patent granted--they
are acknowledged. But I propose, as a natural consequence, to assume
the rank which the patent bestowed. I have the old story of the
jealousy of C---- and M---- trumped up against me. I resist this
pretext, and offer to procure their written acquiescence, in virtue of
the date of my patent as prior to their silly claims; I assure you I
would have had such a consent from them, if it had been at the point of
the sword. And then out comes the real truth; and he dares to tell me
to my face that my patent must be suppressed for the present, for fear
of disgusting that rascally coward and faineant (naming the rival chief
of his own clan), who has no better title to be a chieftain than I to
be Emperor of China, and who is pleased to shelter his dastardly
reluctance to come out, agreeable to his promise twenty times pledged,
under a pretended jealousy of the Prince's partiality to me. And, to
leave this miserable driveller without a pretence for his cowardice,
the Prince asks it as a personal favour of me, forsooth, not to press
my just and reasonable request at this moment. After this, put your
faith in princes!'
'And did your audience end here?'
'End? O no! I was determined to leave him no pretence for his
ingratitude, and I therefore stated, with all the composure I could
muster,--for I promise you I trembled with passion,--the particular
reasons I had for wishing that his Royal Highness would impose upon me
any other mode of exhibiting my duty and devotion, as my views in life
made what at any other time would have been a mere trifle at this
crisis a severe sacrifice; and then I explained to him my full plan.'
'And what did the Prince answer?'
'Answer? why--it is well it is written, "Curse not the king, no, not in
thy thought!"--why, he answered that truly he was glad I had made him
my confidant, to prevent more grievous disappointment, for he could
assure me, upon the word of a prince, that Miss Bradwardine's
affections were engaged, and he was under a particular promise to
favour them. "So, my dear Fergus," said he, with his most gracious cast
of smile, "as the marriage is utterly out of question, there need be no
hurry, you know, about the earldom." And so he glided off and left me
plante la.'
'And what did you do?'
'I'll tell you what I COULD have done at that moment--sold myself to
the devil or the Elector, whichever offered the dearest revenge.
However, I am now cool. I know he intends to marry her to some of his
rascally Frenchmen or his Irish officers, but I will watch them close;
and let the man that would supplant me look well to himself. Bisogna
coprirsi, Signor.'
After some further conversation, unnecessary to be detailed, Waverley
took leave of the Chieftain, whose fury had now subsided into a deep
and strong desire of vengeance, and returned home, scarce able to
analyse the mixture of feelings which the narrative had awakened in his
own bosom.