Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
WAVERLEY or 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE
by SIR WALTER SCOTT BART.
CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION
WAVERLEY or 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE
NOTES
GLOSSARY
[Note:
Characters that were in italics in the printed text have been written in
capital letters in this Etext. Accents in quotations in French and other
accented languages have been omitted.
Footnotes in the printed text that were at the bottom of the page have
been placed in square brackets, as near as possible to the place where
they were originally referred to by a suffix.
Numbered notes at the end of the book are referred to by the insertion
of references to those notes in square brackets.]
Under which King, Bezonian? speak, or die! Henry IV, Part II.
INTRODUCTION--(1829)
The plan of this Edition leads me to insert in this place some account
of the incidents on which the Novel of WAVERLEY is founded. They have
been already given to the public, by my late lamented friend, William
Erskine, Esq. (afterwards Lord Kinneder), when reviewing the 'Tales of
My Landlord' for the QUARTERLY REVIEW, in 1817. The particulars were
derived by the Critic from the Author's information. Afterwards they
were published in the Preface to the CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. They
are now inserted in their proper place.
The mutual protection afforded by Waverley and Talbot to each other,
upon which the whole plot depends, is founded upon one of those
anecdotes which soften the features even of civil war; and as it is
equally honourable to the memory of both parties, we have no hesitation
to give their names at length. When the Highlanders, on the morning of
the battle of Preston, 1745, made their memorable attack on Sir John
Cope's army, a battery of four field-pieces was stormed and carried by
the Camerons and the Stewarts of Appine. The late Alexander Stewart
of Invernahyle was one of the foremost in the charge, and observing an
officer of the King's forces, who, scorning to join the flight of all
around, remained with his sword in his hand, as if determined to the
very last to defend the post assigned to him, the Highland gentleman
commanded him to surrender, and received for reply a thrust, which
he caught in his target. The officer was now defenceless, and the
battle-axe of a gigantic Highlander (the miller of Invernahyle's mill)
was uplifted to dash his brains out, when Mr. Stewart with difficulty
prevailed on him to yield. He took charge of his enemy's property,
protected his person, and finally obtained him liberty on his parole.
The officer proved to be Colonel Whitefoord, an Ayrshire gentleman
of high character and influence, and warmly attached to the House
of Hanover; yet such was the confidence existing between these two
honourable men, though of different political principles, that while
the civil war was raging, and straggling officers from the Highland army
were executed without mercy, Invernahyle hesitated not to pay his
late captive a visit, as he returned to the Highlands to raise fresh
recruits, on which occasion he spent a day or two in Ayrshire among
Colonel Whitefoord's Whig friends, as pleasantly and as good-humouredly
as if all had been at peace around him.
After the battle of Culloden had ruined the hopes of Charles Edward, and
dispersed his proscribed adherents, it was Colonel Whitefoord's turn to
strain every nerve to obtain Mr. Stewart's pardon. He went to the Lord
Justice-Clerk, to the Lord-Advocate, and to all the officers of state,
and each application was answered by the production of a list, in which
Invernahyle (as the good old gentleman was wont to express it) appeared
'marked with the sign of the beast!' as a subject unfit for favour or
pardon.
At length Colonel Whitefoord applied to the Duke of Cumberland in
person. From him, also, he received a positive refusal. He then limited
his request, for the present, to a protection for Stewart's house, wife,
children, and property. This was also refused by the Duke; on which
Colonel Whitefoord, taking his commission from his bosom, laid it on the
table before his Royal Highness with much emotion, and asked permission
to retire from the service of a sovereign who did not know how to spare
a vanquished enemy. The Duke was struck, and even affected. He bade the
Colonel take up his commission, and granted the protection he required.
If was issued just in time to save the house, corn, and cattle at
Invernahyle, from the troops who were engaged in laying waste what it
was the fashion to call 'the country of the enemy.' A small encampment
of soldiers was formed on Invernahyle's property, which they spared
while plundering the country around, and searching in every direction
for the leaders of the insurrection, and for Stewart in particular. He
was much nearer them than they suspected; for, hidden in a cave (like
the Baron of Bradwardine), he lay for many days so near the English
sentinels, that he could hear their muster-roll called, His food was
brought to him by one of his daughters, a child of eight years old, whom
Mrs. Stewart was under the necessity of entrusting with this commission;
for her own motions, and those of all her elder inmates, were closely
watched. With ingenuity beyond her years, the child used to stray about
among the soldiers, who were rather kind to her, and thus seize the
moment when she was unobserved, and steal into the thicket, when she
deposited whatever small store of provisions she had in charge at some
marked spot, where her father might find it. Invernahyle supported life
for several weeks by means of these precarious supplies; and as he had
been wounded in the battle of Culloden, the hardships which he endured
were aggravated by great bodily pain. After the soldiers had removed
their quarters, he had another remarkable escape.
As he now ventured to his own house at night, and left it in the
morning, he was espied during the dawn by a party of the enemy, who
fired at and pursued him. The fugitive being fortunate enough to escape
their search, they returned to the house, and charged the family with
harbouring one of the proscribed traitors. An old woman had presence
of mind enough to maintain that the man they had seen was the shepherd.
'Why did he not stop when we called to him?' said the soldier.--'He
is as deaf, poor man, as a peat-stack,' answered the ready-witted
domestic.--'Let him be sent for, directly.' The real shepherd
accordingly was brought from the hill, and as there was time to tutor
him by the way, he was as deaf when he made his appearance, as was
necessary to sustain his character. Invernahyle was afterwards pardoned
under the Act of Indemnity.
The Author knew him well, and has often heard these circumstances
from his own mouth. He was a noble specimen of the old Highlander, far
descended, gallant, courteous, and brave, even to chivalry. He had been
OUT, I believe, in 1715 and 1745; was an active partaker in all the
stirring scenes which passed in the Highlands betwixt these memorable
eras; and, I have heard, was remarkable, among other exploits, for
having fought a duel with the broadsword with the celebrated Rob Roy
MacGregor, at the Clachan of Balquhidder.
Invernahyle chanced to be in Edinburgh when Paul Jones came into the
Frith of Forth, and though then an old man, I saw him in arms, and
heard him exult (to use his own words) in the prospect of 'drawing his
claymore once more before he died.' In fact, on that memorable occasion,
when the capital of Scotland was menaced by three trifling sloops or
brigs, scarce fit to have sacked a fishing village, he was the only
man who seemed to propose a plan of resistance. He offered to the
magistrates, if broadswords and dirks could be obtained, to find as many
Highlanders among the lower classes, as would cut off any boat's-crew
who might be sent into a town full of narrow and winding passages, in
which they were like to disperse in quest of plunder. I know not if
his plan was attended to; I rather think it seemed too hazardous to the
constituted authorities, who might not, even at that time, desire to
see arms in Highland hands. A steady and powerful west wind settled the
matter, by sweeping Paul Jones and his vessels out of the Frith.
If there is something degrading in this recollection, it is not
unpleasant to compare it with those of the last war, when Edinburgh,
besides regular forces and militia, furnished a volunteer brigade of
cavalry, infantry, and artillery, to the amount of six thousand men and
upwards, which was in readiness to meet and repel a force of a far more
formidable description than was commanded by the adventurous American.
Time and circumstances change the character of nations and the fate
of cities; and it is some pride to a Scotchman to reflect, that the
independent and manly character of a country willing to entrust its own
protection to the arms of its children, after having been obscured for
half a century, has, during the course of his own lifetime, recovered
its lustre.
Other illustrations of Waverley will be found in the Notes at the foot
of the pages to which they belong. [In this etext they are embedded in
the text in square brackets.] Those which appeared too long to be so
placed are given at the end of the volume.
WAVERLEY or 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
The title of this work has not been chosen without the grave and solid
deliberation, which matters of importance demand from the prudent. Even
its first, or general denomination, was the result of no common research
or selection, although, according to the example of my predecessors,
I had only to seize upon the most sounding and euphonic surname that
English history or topography affords, and elect it at once as the title
of my work, and the name of my hero. But, alas! what could my readers
have expected from the chivalrous epithets of Howard, Mordaunt,
Mortimer, or Stanley, or from the softer and more sentimental sounds of
Belmour, Belville, Belfield, and Belgrave, but pages of inanity, similar
to those which have been so christened for half a century past? I
must modestly admit I am too diffident of my own merit to place it in
unnecessary opposition to preconceived associations; I have, therefore,
like a maiden knight with his white shield, assumed for my hero,
WAVERLEY, an uncontaminated name, bearing with its sound little of good
or evil, excepting what the reader shall hereafter be pleased to affix
to it. But my second or supplemental title was a matter of much more
difficult election, since that, short as it is, may be held as pledging
the author to some special mode of laying his scene, drawing his
characters, and managing his adventures. Had I, for example, announced
in my frontispiece, 'Waverley, a Tale of other Days,' must not every
novel reader have anticipated a castle scarce less than that of Udolpho,
of which the eastern wing had long been uninhabited, and the keys either
lost, or consigned to the care of some aged butler or housekeeper, whose
trembling steps, about the middle of the second volume, were doomed to
guide the hero, or heroine, to the ruinous precincts? Would not the owl
have shrieked and the cricket cried in my very title-page? and could
it have been possible for me, with a moderate attention to decorum, to
introduce any scene more lively than might be produced by the jocularity
of a clownish but faithful valet, or the garrulous narrative of the
heroine's fille-de-chambre, when rehearsing the stories of blood and
horror which she had heard in the servants' hall? Again, had my title
borne 'Waverley, a Romance from the German,' what head so obtuse as
not to image forth a profligate abbot, an oppressive duke, a secret and
mysterious association of Rosycrucians and Illuminati, with all their
properties of black cowls, caverns, daggers, electrical machines,
trap-doors, and dark-lanterns? Or if I had rather chosen to call my work
a 'Sentimental Tale,' would it not have been a sufficient presage of a
heroine with a profusion of auburn hair, and a harp, the soft solace
of her solitary hours, which she fortunately finds always the means of
transporting from castle to cottage, although she herself be sometimes
obliged to jump out of a two-pair-of-stairs window, and is more than
once bewildered on her journey, alone and on foot, without any guide but
a blowzy peasant girl, whose jargon she hardly can understand? Or again,
if my WAVERLEY had been entitled 'A Tale of the Times,' wouldst thou
not, gentle reader, have demanded from me a dashing sketch of the
fashionable world, a few anecdotes of private scandal thinly veiled,
and if lusciously painted, so much the better? a heroine from Grosvenor
Square, and a hero from the Barouche Club or the Four-in-hand, with a
set of subordinate characters from the elegantes of Queen Anne Street
East, or the dashing heroes of the Bow Street Office? I could proceed in
proving the importance of a title-page, and displaying at the same time
my own intimate knowledge of the particular ingredients necessary to the
composition of romances and novels of various descriptions: but it
is enough, and I scorn to tyrannize longer over the impatience of my
reader, who is doubtless already anxious to know the choice made by an
author so profoundly versed in the different branches of his art.
By fixing, then, the date of my story Sixty Years before the present 1st
November, 1805, I would have my readers understand, that they will meet
in the following pages neither a romance of chivalry, nor a tale of
modern manners; that my hero will neither have iron on his shoulders,
as of yore, nor on the heels of his boots, as is the present fashion of
Bond Street; and that my damsels will neither be clothed 'in purple
and in pall,' like the Lady Alice of an old ballad, nor reduced to the
primitive nakedness of a modern fashionable at a rout. From this my
choice of an era the understanding critic may further presage, that the
object of my tale is more a description of men than manners. A tale of
manners, to be interesting, must either refer to antiquity so great as
to have become venerable, or it must bear a vivid reflection of those
scenes which are passing daily before our eyes, and are interesting
from their novelty. Thus the coat-of-mail of our ancestors, and
the triple-furred pelisse of our modern beaux, may, though for very
different reasons, be equally fit for the array of a fictitious
character; but who, meaning the costume of his hero to be impressive,
would willingly attire him in the court dress of George the Second's
reign, with its no collar, large sleeves, and low pocket-holes? The
same may be urged, with equal truth, of the Gothic hall, which, with its
darkened and tinted windows, its elevated and gloomy roof, and massive
oaken table garnished with boar's-head and rosemary, pheasants and
peacocks, cranes and cygnets, has an excellent effect in fictitious
description. Much may also be gained by a lively display of a modern
fete, such as we have daily recorded in that part of a newspaper
entitled the Mirror of Fashion, if we contrast these, or either of them,
with the splendid formality of an entertainment given Sixty Years since;
and thus it will be readily seen how much the painter of antique or
of fashionable manners gains over him who delineates those of the last
generation.
Considering the disadvantages inseparable from this part of my subject,
I must be understood to have resolved to avoid them as much as possible,
by throwing the force of my narrative upon the characters and passions
of the actors;--those passions common to men in all stages of society,
and which have alike agitated the human heart, whether it throbbed under
the steel corselet of the fifteenth century, the brocaded coat of the
eighteenth, or the blue frock and white dimity waistcoat of the present
day. [Alas! that attire, respectable and gentlemanlike in 1805, or
thereabouts, is now as antiquated as the Author of Waverley has himself
become since that period! The reader of fashion will please to fill up
the costume with an embroidered waistcoat of purple velvet or silk,
and a coat of whatever colour he pleases.] Upon these passions it is
no doubt true that the state of manners and laws casts a necessary
colouring; but the bearings, to use the language of heraldry, remain
the same, though the tincture may be not only different, but opposed in
strong contradistinction. The wrath of our ancestors, for example, was
coloured GULES; it broke forth in acts of open and sanguinary violence
against the objects of its fury. Our malignant feelings, which must
seek gratification through more indirect channels, and undermine the
obstacles which they cannot openly bear down, may be rather said to be
tinctured SABLE. But the deep-ruling impulse is the same in both cases;
and the proud peer who can now only ruin his neighbour according to law,
by protracted suits, is the genuine descendant of the baron who wrapped
the castle of his competitor in flames, and knocked him on the head as
he endeavoured to escape from the conflagration. It is from the great
book of Nature, the same through a thousand editions, whether of
black-letter, or wire-wove and hot-pressed, that I have venturously
essayed to read a chapter to the public. Some favourable opportunities
of contrast have been afforded me, by the state of society in the
northern part of the island at the period of my history, and may serve
at once to vary and to illustrate the moral lessons, which I would
willingly consider as the most important part of my plan; although I
am sensible how short these will fall of their aim, if I shall be found
unable to mix them with amusement,--a task not quite so easy in this
critical generation as it was 'Sixty Years since.'