WAVERLEY-HONOUR---A RETROSPECT
It is, then, sixty years since Edward Waverley, the hero of the
following pages, took leave of his family, to join the regiment
of dragoons in which he had lately obtained a commission. It was a
melancholy day at Waverley-Honour when the young officer parted with
Sir Everard, the affectionate old uncle to whose title and estate he was
presumptive heir.
A difference in political opinions had early separated the Baronet
from his younger brother, Richard Waverley, the father of our hero.
Sir Everard had inherited from his sires the whole train of Tory or
High-Church predilections and prejudices, which had distinguished the
house of Waverley since the Great Civil War. Richard, on the contrary,
who was ten years younger, beheld himself born to the fortune of a
second brother, and anticipated neither dignity nor entertainment in
sustaining the character of Will Wimble. He saw early, that, to succeed
in the race of life, it was necessary he should carry as little weight
as possible. Painters talk of the difficulty of expressing the existence
of compound passions in the same features at the same moment: it would
be no less difficult for the moralist to analyse the mixed motives which
unite to form the impulse of our actions. Richard Waverley read and
satisfied himself, from history and sound argument, that, in the words
of the old song,
Passive obedience was a jest,
And pshaw! was non-resistance;
yet reason would have probably been unable to combat and remove
hereditary prejudice, could Richard have anticipated that his elder
brother, Sir Everard, taking to heart an early disappointment, would
have remained a batchelor at seventy-two. The prospect of succession,
however remote, might in that case have led him to endure dragging
through the greater part of his life as 'Master Richard at the Hall,
the baronet's brother,' in the hope that ere its conclusion he should be
distinguished as Sir Richard Waverley of Waverley-Honour, successor to
a princely estate, and to extended political connexions as head of the
county interest in the shire where it lay. But this was a consummation
of things not to be expected at Richard's outset, when Sir Everard was
in the prime of life, and certain to be an acceptable suitor in almost
any family, whether wealth or beauty should be the object of his
pursuit, and when, indeed, his speedy marriage was a report which
regularly amused the neighbourhood once a year. His younger brother saw
no practicable road to independence save that of relying upon his own
exertions, and adopting a political creed more consonant both to reason
and his own interest than the hereditary faith of Sir Everard in High
Church and in the house of Stewart. He therefore read his recantation
at the beginning of his career, and entered life as an avowed Whig, and
friend of the Hanover succession.
The ministry of George the First's time were prudently anxious to
diminish the phalanx of opposition. The Tory nobility, depending for
their reflected lustre upon the sunshine of a court, had for some
time been gradually reconciling themselves to the new dynasty. But the
wealthy country gentlemen of England, a rank which retained, with
much of ancient manners and primitive integrity, a great proportion of
obstinate and unyielding prejudice, stood aloof in haughty and sullen
opposition, and cast many a look of mingled regret and hope to Bois de
Duc, Avignon, and Italy. [Where the Chevalier Saint George, or, as he
was termed, the Old Pretender, held his exiled court, as his situation
compelled him to shift his place of residence.] The accession of the
near relation of one of those steady and inflexible opponents was
considered as a means of bringing over more converts, and therefore
Richard Waverley met with a share of ministerial favour more than
proportioned to his talents or his political importance. It was however,
discovered that he had respectable talents for public business, and the
first admittance to the minister's levee being negotiated, his success
became rapid. Sir Everard learned from the public NEWS-LETTER,--first,
that Richard Waverley, Esquire, was returned for the ministerial borough
of Barterfaith; next, that Richard Waverley, Esquire, had taken a
distinguished part in the debate upon the Excise bill in the support
of government; and, lastly, that Richard Waverley, Esquire, had been
honoured with a seat at one of those boards, where the pleasure of
serving the country is combined with other important gratifications,
which, to render them the more acceptable, occur regularly once a
quarter.
Although these events followed each other so closely that the sagacity
of the editor of a modern newspaper would have presaged the last two
even while he announced the first, yet they came upon Sir Everard
gradually, and drop by drop, as it were, distilled through the cool and
procrastinating alembic of DYER'S WEEKLY LETTER. [Long the oracle of the
country gentlemen of the high Tory party. The ancient NEWS-LETTER was
written in manuscript and copied by clerks, who addressed the copies to
the subscribers. The politician by whom they were compiled picked up
his intelligence at coffee-houses, and often pleaded for an additional
gratuity, in consideration of the extra expense attached to frequenting
such places of fashionable resort.] For it may be observed in passing,
that instead of those mail-coaches, by means of which every mechanic at
his sixpenny club may nightly learn from twenty contradictory channels
the yesterday's news of the capital, a weekly post brought, in those
days, to Waverley-Honour, a WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER, which, after it had
gratified Sir Everard's curiosity, his sister's, and that of his aged
butler, was regularly transferred from the Hall to the Rectory, from
the Rectory to Squire Stubbs' at the Grange, from the Squire to the
Baronet's steward at his neat white house on the heath, from the steward
to the bailiff, and from him through a huge circle of honest dames and
gaffers, by whose hard and horny hands it was generally worn to pieces
in about a month after its arrival.
This slow succession of intelligence was of some advantage to Richard
Waverley in the case before us; for, had the sum total of his enormities
reached the ears of Sir Everard at once, there can be no doubt that the
new commissioner would have had little reason to pique himself on the
success of his politics. The Baronet, although the mildest of human
beings, was not without sensitive points in his character; his brother's
conduct had wounded these deeply; the Waverley estate was fettered by
no entail (for it had never entered into the head of any of its former
possessors that one of their progeny could be guilty of the atrocities
laid by DYER'S LETTER to the door of Richard), and if it had, the
marriage of the proprietor might have been fatal to a collateral heir.
These various ideas floated through the brain of Sir Everard, without,
however, producing any determined conclusion.
He examined the tree of his genealogy, which, emblazoned with many
an emblematic mark of honour and heroic achievement, hung upon the
well-varnished wainscot of his hall. The nearest descendants of Sir
Hildebrand Waverley, failing those of his eldest son Wilfred, of whom
Sir Everard and his brother were the only representatives, were, as this
honoured register informed him (and, indeed, as he himself well knew),
the Waverleys of Highley Park, com. Hants; with whom the main branch, or
rather stock, of the house had renounced all connexion, since the great
lawsuit in 1670.
This degenerate scion had committed a further offence against the
head and source of their gentility, by the intermarriage of their
representative with Judith, heiress of Oliver Bradshawe, of Highley
Park, whose arms, the same with those of Bradshawe the regicide,
they had quartered with the ancient coat of Waverley. These offences,
however, had vanished from Sir Everard's recollection in the heat of his
resentment; and had Lawyer Clippurse, for whom his groom was dispatched
express, arrived but an hour earlier, he might have had the benefit of
drawing a new settlement of the lordship and manor of Waverley-Honour,
with all its dependencies. But an hour of cool reflection is a great
matter, when employed in weighing the comparative evil of two measures,
to neither of which we are internally partial. Lawyer Clippurse found
his patron involved in a deep study, which he was too respectful to
disturb, otherwise than by producing his paper and leathern ink-case, as
prepared to minute his honour's commands. Even this slight manoeuvre
was embarrassing to Sir Everard, who felt it as a reproach to his
indecision. He looked at the attorney with some desire to issue his
fiat, when the sun, emerging from behind a cloud, poured at once its
chequered light through the stained window of the gloomy cabinet in
which they were seated. The Baronet's eye, as he raised it to the
splendour, fell right upon the central scutcheon, impressed with the
same device which his ancestor was said to have borne in the field of
Hastings; three ermines passant, argent, in a field azure, with its
appropriate motto, SANS LACHE. 'May our name rather perish,' exclaimed
Sir Everard, 'than that ancient and loyal symbol should be blended with
the dishonoured insignia of a traitorous Roundhead!'
All this was the effect of the glimpse of a sunbeam, just sufficient to
light Lawyer Clippurse to mend his pen. The pen was mended in vain. The
attorney was dismissed, with directions to hold himself in readiness on
the first summons.
The apparition of Lawyer Clippurse at the Hall occasioned much
speculation in that portion of the world to which Waverley-Honour formed
the centre: but the more judicious politicians of this microcosm augured
yet worse consequences to Richard Waverley from a movement which shortly
followed his apostasy. This was no less than an excursion of the Baronet
in his coach-and-six, with four attendants in rich liveries, to make a
visit of some duration to a noble peer on the confines of the shire, of
untainted descent, steady Tory principles, and the happy father of six
unmarried and accomplished daughters.
Sir Everard's reception in this family was, as it may be easily
conceived, sufficiently favourable; but of the six young ladies,
his taste unfortunately determined him in favour of Lady Emily, the
youngest, who received his attentions with an embarrassment which showed
at once that she durst not decline them, and that they afforded her
anything but pleasure.
Sir Everard could not but perceive something uncommon in the restrained
emotions which the young lady testified at the advances he hazarded;
but, assured by the prudent Countess that they were the natural effects
of a retired education, the sacrifice might have been completed, as
doubtless has happened in many similar instances, had it not been for
the courage of an elder sister, who revealed to the wealthy suitor that
Lady Emily's affections were fixed upon a young soldier of fortune,
a near relation of her own. Sir Everard manifested great emotion on
receiving this intelligence, which was confirmed to him, in a private
interview, by the young lady herself, although under the most dreadful
apprehensions of her father's indignation.
Honour and generosity were hereditary attributes of the house of
Waverley. With a grace and delicacy worthy the hero of a romance, Sir
Everard withdrew his claim to the hand of Lady Emily. He had even,
before leaving Blandeville Castle, the address to extort from her father
a consent to her union with the object of her choice. What arguments he
used on this point cannot exactly be known, for Sir Everard was never
supposed strong in the powers of persuasion; but the young officer,
immediately after this transaction, rose in the army with a rapidity far
surpassing the usual pace of unpatronized professional merit, although,
to outward appearance, that was all he had to depend upon.
The shock which Sir Everard encountered upon this occasion, although
diminished by the consciousness of having acted virtuously and
generously, had its effect upon his future life. His resolution of
marriage had been adopted in a fit of indignation; the labour of
courtship did not quite suit the dignified indolence of his habits; he
had but just escaped the risk of marrying a woman who could never love
him; and his pride could not be greatly flattered by the termination of
his amour, even if his heart had not suffered. The result of the whole
matter was his return to Waverley-Honour without any transfer of his
affections, notwithstanding the sighs and languishments of the fair
tell-tale, who had revealed, in mere sisterly affection, the secret
of Lady Emily's attachment, and in despite of the nods, winks, and
innuendoes of the officious lady mother, and the grave eulogiums which
the Earl pronounced successively on the prudence, and good sense, and
admirable dispositions, of his first, second, third, fourth, and fifth
daughters. The memory of his unsuccessful amour was with Sir Everard,
as with many more of his temper, at once shy, proud, sensitive, and
indolent, a beacon against exposing himself to similar mortification,
pain, and fruitless exertion for the time to come. He continued to
live at Waverley-Honour in the style of an old English gentleman, of an
ancient descent and opulent fortune. His sister, Miss Rachel Waverley,
presided at his table; and they became, by degrees, an old bachelor
and an ancient maiden lady, the gentlest and kindest of the votaries of
celibacy.
The vehemence of Sir Everard's resentment against his brother was but
short-lived; yet his dislike to the Whig and the placeman, though unable
to stimulate him to resume any active measures prejudicial to Richard's
interest in the succession to the family estate, continued to maintain
the coldness between them. Richard knew enough of the world, and of his
brother's temper, to believe that by any ill-considered or precipitate
advances on his part, he might turn passive dislike into a more active
principle. It was accident, therefore, which at length occasioned a
renewal of their intercourse. Richard had married a young woman of rank,
by whose family interest and private fortune he hoped to advance his
career. In her right, he became possessor of a manor of some value, at
the distance of a few miles from Waverley-Honour.
Little Edward, the hero of our tale, then in his fifth year, was their
only child. It chanced that the infant with his maid had strayed one
morning to a mile's distance from the avenue of Brere-wood Lodge, his
father's seat. Their attention was attracted by a carriage drawn by six
stately long-failed black horses, and with as much carving and gilding
as would have done honour to my lord mayor's. It was waiting for
the owner, who was at a little distance inspecting the progress of a
half-built farm-house. I know not whether the boy's nurse had been
a Welsh or a Scotch woman, or in what manner he associated a shield
emblazoned with three ermines with the idea of personal property, but
he no sooner beheld this family emblem, than he stoutly determined on
vindicating his right to the splendid vehicle on which it was displayed.
The Baronet arrived while the boy's maid was in vain endeavouring to
make him desist from his determination to appropriate the gilded coach
and six. The rencontre was at a happy moment for Edward, as his uncle
had been just eyeing wistfully, with something of a feeling like envy,
the chubby boys of the stout yeoman whose mansion was building by his
direction. In the round-faced rosy cherub before him, bearing his eye
and his name, and vindicating a hereditary title to his family affection
and patronage, by means of a tie which Sir Everard held as sacred as
either Garter or Blue Mantle, Providence seemed to have granted to him
the very object best calculated to fill up the void in his hopes and
affections. Sir Everard returned to Waverley Hall upon a led horse which
was kept in readiness for him, while the child and his attendant were
sent home in the carriage to Brere-wood Lodge, with such a message
as opened to Richard Waverley a door of reconciliation with his elder
brother.
Their intercourse, however, though thus renewed, continued to be rather
formal and civil, than partaking of brotherly cordiality; yet it was
sufficient to the wishes of both parties. Sir Everard obtained, in the
frequent society of his little nephew, something on which his hereditary
pride might found the anticipated pleasure of a continuation of his
lineage, and where his kind and gentle affections could at the same
time fully exercise themselves. For Richard Waverley, he beheld in the
growing attachment between the uncle and nephew the means of securing
his son's, if not his own, succession to the hereditary estate, which he
felt would be rather endangered than promoted by any attempt on his own
part towards a closer intimacy with a man of Sir Everard's habits and
opinions.
Thus, by a sort of tacit compromise, little Edward was permitted to pass
the greater part of the year at the Hall, and appeared to stand in
the same intimate relation to both families, although their mutual
intercourse was otherwise limited to formal messages, and more formal
visits. The education of the youth was regulated alternately by the
taste and opinions of his uncle and of his father. But more of this in a
subsequent chapter.