CHOICE OF A PROFESSION
From the minuteness with which I have traced Waverley's pursuits, and
the bias which these unavoidably communicated to his imagination, the
reader may perhaps anticipate, in the following tale, an imitation of
the romance of Cervantes. But he will do my prudence injustice in the
supposition. My intention is not to follow the steps of that inimitable
author, in describing such total perversion of intellect as misconstrues
the objects actually presented to the senses, but that more common
aberration from sound judgement, which apprehends occurrences indeed in
their reality, but communicates to them a tincture of its own romantic
tone and colouring. So far was Edward Waverley from expecting general
sympathy with his own feelings, or concluding that the present state of
things was calculated to exhibit the reality of those visions in which
he loved to indulge, that he dreaded nothing more than the detection
of such sentiments as were dictated by his musings, he neither had nor
wished to have a confidant, with whom to communicate his reveries; and
so sensible was he of the ridicule attached to them, that, had he been
to choose between any punishment short of ignominy, and the necessity of
giving a cold and composed account of the ideal world in which he lived
the better part of his days, I think he would not have hesitated to
prefer the former infliction. This secrecy became doubly precious, as he
felt in advancing life the influence of the awakening passions. Female
forms of exquisite grace and beauty began to mingle in his mental
adventures; nor was he long without looking abroad to compare the
creatures of his own imagination with the females of actual life.
The list of the beauties who displayed their hebdomadal finery at the
parish church of Waverley was neither numerous nor select. By far the
most passable was Miss Sissly, or, as she rather chose to be called,
Miss Cecilia Stubbs, daughter of Squire Stubbs at the Grange. I know not
whether it was by the 'merest accident in the world,' a phrase which,
from female lips, does not always exclude MALICE PREPENSE, or whether it
was from a conformity of taste, that Miss Cecilia more than once crossed
Edward in his favourite walks through Waverley-Chase. He had not as yet
assumed courage to accost her on these occasions; but the meeting was
not without its effect. A romantic lover is a strange idolater,
who sometimes cares not out of what log he frames the object of his
adoration; at least, if nature has given that object any passable
proportion of personal charms, he can easily play the jeweller and
Dervise in the Oriental tale, [See Hoppner's tale of The Seven Lovers.]
and supply her richly, out of the stores of his own imagination, with
supernatural beauty, and all the properties of intellectual wealth.
But ere the charms of Miss Cecilia Stubbs had erected her into a
positive goddess, or elevated her at least to a level with the saint her
namesake, Mrs. Rachel Waverley gained some intimation which determined
her to prevent the approaching apotheosis. Even the most simple and
unsuspicious of the female sex have (God bless them!) an instinctive
sharpness of perception in such matters, which sometimes goes the length
of observing partialities that never existed, but rarely misses to
detect such as pass actually under their observation. Mrs. Rachel
applied herself with great prudence, not to combat, but to elude, the
approaching danger, and suggested to her brother the necessity that
the heir of his house should see something more of the world than was
consistent with constant residence at Waverley-Honour.
Sir Everard would not at first listen to a proposal which went to
separate his nephew from him. Edward was a little bookish, he admitted;
but youth, he had always heard, was the season for learning, and, no
doubt, when his rage for letters was abated, and his head fully stocked
with knowledge, his nephew would take to field sports and country
business. He had often, he said, himself regretted that he had not spent
some time in study during his youth: he would neither have shot nor
hunted with less skill, and he might have made the roof of St. Stephen's
echo to longer orations than were comprised in those zealous Noes, with
which, when a member of the House during Godolphin's administration, he
encountered every measure of government.
Aunt Rachel's anxiety, however, lent her address to carry her point.
Every representative of their house had visited foreign parts, or served
his country in the army, before he settled for life at Waverley-Honour,
and she appealed for the truth of her assertion to the genealogical
pedigree, an authority which Sir Everard was never known to contradict.
In short, a proposal was made to Mr. Richard Waverley that his son
should travel, under the direction of his present tutor, Mr. Pembroke,
with a suitable allowance from the baronet's liberality. The father
himself saw no objection to this overture; but upon mentioning it
casually at the table of the Minister, the great man looked grave.
The reason was explained in private. The unhappy turn of Sir Everard's
politics, the Minister observed, was such as would render it highly
improper that a young gentleman of such hopeful prospects should travel
on the Continent with a tutor doubtless of his uncle's choosing,
and directing his course by his instructions. What might Mr. Edward
Waverley's society be at Paris, what at Rome, where all manner of snares
were spread by the Pretender and his sons--these were points for Mr.
Waverley to consider. This he could himself say, that he knew his
Majesty had such a just sense of Mr. Richard Waverley's merits, that if
his son adopted the army for a few years, a troop, he believed, might
be reckoned upon in one of the dragoon regiments lately returned from
Flanders.
A hint thus conveyed and enforced was not to be neglected with impunity;
and Richard Waverley, though with great dread of shocking his brother's
prejudices, deemed he could not avoid accepting the commission thus
offered him for his son. The truth is, he calculated much, and justly,
upon Sir Everard's fondness for Edward, which made him unlikely to
resent any step that he might take in due submission to parental
authority. Two letters announced this determination to the Baronet and
his nephew. The latter barely communicated the fact, and pointed out the
necessary preparation for joining his regiment. To his brother, Richard
was more diffuse and circuitous. He coincided with him in the most
flattering manner, in the propriety of his son's seeing a little more
of the world, and was even humble in expressions of gratitude for his
proposed assistance; was, however, deeply concerned that it was now,
unfortunately, not in Edward's power exactly to comply with the plan
which had been chalked out by his best friend and benefactor. He himself
had thought with pain on the boy's inactivity, at an age when all his
ancestors had borne arms; even Royalty itself had deigned to inquire
whether young Waverley was not now in Flanders, at an age when his
grandfather was already bleeding for his king in the Great Civil War.
This was accompanied by an offer of a troop of horse. What could he
do? There was no time to consult his brother's inclinations, even if he
could have conceived there might be objections on his part to his
nephew's following the glorious career of his predecessors. And, in
short, that Edward was now (the intermediate steps of cornet and
lieutenant being overleapt with great agility) Captain Waverley, of
Gardiner's regiment of dragoons, which he must join in their quarters
at Dundee in Scotland, in the course of a month.
Sir Everard Waverley received this intimation with a mixture of
feelings. At the period of the Hanoverian succession he had withdrawn
from Parliament, and his conduct, in the memorable year 1715, had not
been altogether unsuspected. There were reports of private musters
of tenants and horses in Waverley-Chase by moonlight, and of cases of
carbines and pistols purchased in Holland, and addressed to the Baronet,
but intercepted by the vigilance of a riding officer of the excise,
who was afterwards tossed in a blanket on a moonless night, by an
association of stout yeomen, for his officiousness. Nay, it was even
said, that at the arrest of Sir William Wyndham, the leader of the
Tory party, a letter from Sir Everard was found in the pocket of his
night-gown. But there was no overt act which an attainder could be
founded on; and government, contented with suppressing the insurrection
of 1715, felt it neither prudent nor safe to push their vengeance
further than against those unfortunate gentlemen who actually took up
arms.
Nor did Sir Everard's apprehensions of personal consequences seem to
correspond with the reports spread among his Whig neighbours. It was
well known that he had supplied with money several of the distressed
Northumbrians and Scotchmen, who, after being made prisoners at Preston
in Lancashire, were imprisoned in Newgate and the Marshalsea; and it was
his solicitor and ordinary counsel who conducted the defence of some of
these unfortunate gentlemen at their trial. It was generally supposed,
however, that, had ministers possessed any real proof of Sir Everard's
accession to the rebellion, he either would not have ventured thus to
brave the existing government, or at least would not have done so with
impunity. The feelings which then dictated his proceedings, were
those of a young man, and at an agitating period. Since that time Sir
Everard's jacobitism had been gradually decaying, like a fire which
burns out for want of fuel. His Tory and High Church principles were
kept up by some occasional exercise at elections and quarter-sessions:
but those respecting hereditary right were fallen into a sort of
abeyance. Yet it jarred severely upon his feelings, that his nephew
should go into the army under the Brunswick dynasty; and the more
so, as, independent of his high and conscientious ideas of paternal
authority, it was impossible, or at least highly imprudent, to interfere
authoritatively to prevent it. This suppressed vexation gave rise to
many poohs and pshaws, which were placed to the account of an incipient
fit of gout, until, having sent for the Army List, the worthy Baronet
consoled himself with reckoning the descendants of the houses of genuine
loyalty, Mordaunts, Granvilles, and Stanleys, whose names were to be
found in that military record; and, calling up all his feelings of
family grandeur and warlike glory, he concluded, with logic something
like Falstaff's, that when war was at hand, although it were shame to
be on any side but one, it were worse shame to be idle than to be on the
worst side, though blacker than usurpation could make it. As for Aunt
Rachel, her scheme had not exactly terminated according to her wishes,
but she was under the necessity of submitting to circumstances; and her
mortification was diverted by the employment she found in fitting out
her nephew for the campaign, and greatly consoled by the prospect of
beholding him blaze in complete uniform.
Edward Waverley himself received with animated and undefined surprise
this most unexpected intelligence. It was, as a fine old poem expresses
it, 'like a fire to heather set,' that covers a solitary hill with
smoke, and illumines it at the same time with dusky fire. His tutor,
or, I should say, Mr. Pembroke, for he scarce assumed the name of tutor,
picked up about Edward's room some fragments of irregular verse, which
he appeared to have composed under the influence of the agitating
feelings occasioned by this sudden page being turned up to him in the
book of life. The doctor, who was a believer in all poetry which was
composed by his friends, and written out in fair straight lines, with
a capital at the beginning of each, communicated this treasure to Aunt
Rachel, who, with her spectacles dimmed with tears, transferred them to
her commonplace book, among choice receipts for cookery and medicine,
favourite texts, and portions from High Church divines, and a few songs,
amatory and jacobitical, which she had carolled in her younger days,
from whence her nephew's poetical TENTAMINA were extracted, when the
volume itself, with other authentic records of the Waverley family,
were exposed to the inspection of the unworthy editor of this memorable
history. If they afford the reader no higher amusement, they will serve,
at least, better than narrative of any kind, to acquaint him with the
wild and irregular spirit of our hero:--
Late when the Autumn evening fell
On Mirkwood-Mere's romantic dell,
The lake returned, in chastened gleam,
The purple cloud, the golden beam:
Reflected in the crystal pool,
Headand and bank lay fair and cool;
The weather-tinted rock and tower,
Each drooping tree, each fairy flower,
So true, so soft, the mirror gave,
As if there lay beneath the wave,
Secure from trouble, toil, and care,
A world than earthly world more fair.
But distant winds began to wake,
And roused the Genius of the Lake!
He heard the groaning of the oak,
And donned at once his sable cloak,
As warrior, at the battle-cry,
Invests him with his panoply:
Then as the whirlwind nearer pressed,
He 'gan to shake his foamy crest
O'er furrowed brow and blackened cheek,
And bade his surge in thunder speak.
In wild and broken eddies whirled,
Flitted that fond ideal world,
And, to the shore in tumult tost,
The realms of fairy bliss were lost.
Yet, with a stern delight and strange,
I saw the spirit-stirring change,
As warred the wind with wave and wood.
Upon the ruined tower I stood,
And felt my heart more strongly bound,
Responsive to the lofty sound,
While, joying in the mighty roar,
I mourned that tranquil scene no more.
So, on the idle dreams of youth,
Breaks the loud trumpet-call of truth,
Bids each fair vision pass away,
Like landscape on the lake that lay,
As fair, as flitting, and as frail,
As that which fled the Autumn gale.--
For ever dead to fancy's eye
Be each gay form that glided by,
While dreams of love and lady's charms
Give place to honour and to arms!
In sober prose, as perhaps these verses intimate less decidedly, the
transient idea of Miss Cecilia Stubbs passed from Captain Waverley's
heart amid the turmoil which his new destinies excited. She appeared,
indeed, in full splendour in her father's pew upon the Sunday when he
attended service for the last time at the old parish church, upon which
occasion, at the request of his uncle and Aunt Rachel, he was induced
(nothing loth, if the truth must be told) to present himself in full
uniform.
There is no better antidote against entertaining too high an opinion of
others, than having an excellent one of ourselves at the very same time.
Miss Stubbs had indeed summoned up every assistance which art could
afford to beauty; but, alas! hoop, patches, frizzled locks, and a
new mantua of genuine French silk, were lost upon a young officer of
dragoons, who wore, for the first time, his gold-laced hat, jack-boots,
and broadsword. I know not whether, like the champion of an old ballad,
His heart was all on honour bent,
He could not stoop to love;
No lady in the land had power
His frozen heart to move;
or whether the deep and flaming bars of embroidered gold, which now
fenced his breast, defied the artillery of Cecilia's eyes; but every
arrow was launched at him in vain.
Yet did I mark where Cupid's shaft did light;
It lighted not on little western flower,
But on bold yeoman, flower of all the west,
Hight Jonas Culbertfield, the steward's son.
Craving pardon for my heroics (which I am unable in certain cases to
resist giving way to), it is a melancholy fact, that my history must
here take leave of the fair Cecilia, who, like many a daughter of Eve,
after the departure of Edward, and the dissipation of certain idle
visions which she had adopted, quietly contented herself with a
PIS-ALLER, and gave her hand, at the distance of six months, to the
aforesaid Jonas, son of the Baronet's steward, and heir (no unfertile
prospect) to a steward's fortune; besides the snug probability of
succeeding to his father's office. All these advantages moved Squire
Stubbs, as much as the ruddy brow and manly form of the suitor
influenced his daughter, to abate somewhat in the article of their
gentry; and so the match was concluded. None seemed more gratified
than Aunt Rachel, who had hitherto looked rather askance upon the
presumptuous damsel (as much so, peradventure, as her nature would
permit), but who, on the first appearance of the new-married pair
at church, honoured the bride with a smile and a profound curtsy,
in presence of the rector, the curate, the clerk, and the whole
congregation of the united parishes of Waverley CUM Beverley.
I beg pardon, once and for all, of those readers who take up novels
merely for amusement, for plaguing them so long with old-fashioned
politics, and Whig and Tory, and Hanoverians and Jacobites, The truth
is, I cannot promise them that this story shall be intelligible, not
to say probable, without it. My plan requires that I should explain the
motives on which its action proceeded; and these motives necessarily
arose from the feelings, prejudices, and parties of the times. I do not
invite my fair readers, whose sex and impatience give them the greatest
right to complain of these circumstances, into a flying chariot drawn
by hippogriffs, or moved by enchantment. Mine is a humble English
post-chaise, drawn upon four wheels, and keeping his Majesty's highway.
Such as dislike the vehicle may leave it at the next halt, and wait
for the conveyance of Prince Hussein's tapestry, or Malek the Weaver's
flying sentry-box. Those who are contented to remain with me will be
occasionally exposed to the dullness inseparable from heavy roads, steep
hills, sloughs, and other terrestrial retardations; but, with tolerable
horses and a civil driver (as the advertisements have it), I engage to
get as soon as possible into a more picturesque and romantic country,
if my passengers incline to have some patience with me during my first
stages. [These Introductory Chapters have been a good deal censured as
tedious and unnecessary. Yet there are circumstances recorded in them
which the author has not been able to persuade himself to retract or
cancel.]