THE MYSTERY BEGINS TO BE CLEARED UP
'How do you like him?' was Fergus's first question, as they
descended the large stone staircase.
'A prince to live and die under' was Waverley's enthusiastic
answer.
'I knew you would think so when you saw him, and I intended you
should have met earlier, but was prevented by your sprain. And yet
he has his foibles, or rather he has difficult cards to play, and
his Irish officers, [Footnote: See Note 5.] who are much about
him, are but sorry advisers: they cannot discriminate among the
numerous pretensions that are set up. Would you think it--I have
been obliged for the present to suppress an earl's patent, granted
for services rendered ten years ago, for fear of exciting the
jealousy, forsooth, of C----and M----? But you were very right,
Edward, to refuse the situation of aide-de-camp. There are two
vacant, indeed, but Clanronald and Lochiel, and almost all of us,
have requested one for young Aberchallader, and the Lowlanders and
the Irish party are equally desirous to have the other for the
master of F--. Now, if either of these candidates were to be
superseded in your favour, you would make enemies. And then I am
surprised that the Prince should have offered you a majority, when
he knows very well that nothing short of lieutenant-colonel will
satisfy others, who cannot bring one hundred and fifty men to the
field. "But patience, cousin, and shuffle the cards!" It is all
very well for the present, and we must have you properly equipped
for the evening in your new costume; for, to say truth, your
outward man is scarce fit for a court.'
'Why,' said Waverley, looking at his soiled dress,'my shooting
jacket has seen service since we parted; but that probably you, my
friend, know as well or better than I.'
'You do my second-sight too much honour,' said Fergus. 'We were so
busy, first with the scheme of giving battle to Cope, and
afterwards with our operations in the Lowlands, that I could only
give general directions to such of our people as were left in
Perthshire to respect and protect you, should you come in their
way. But let me hear the full story of your adventures, for they
have reached us in a very partial and mutilated manner.'
Waverley then detailed at length the circumstances with which the
reader is already acquainted, to which Fergus listened with great
attention. By this time they had reached the door of his quarters,
which he had taken up in a small paved court, retiring from the
street called the Canongate, at the house of a buxom widow of
forty, who seemed to smile very graciously upon the handsome young
Chief, she being a person with whom good looks and good-humour
were sure to secure an interest, whatever might be the party's
"political opinions". Here Callum Beg received them with a smile
of recognition. 'Callum,' said the Chief, 'call Shemus an Snachad'
(James of the Needle). This was the hereditary tailor of Vich lan
Vohr. 'Shemus, Mr. Waverley is to wear the cath dath (battle
colour, or tartan); his trews must be ready in four hours. You
know the measure of a well-made man--two double nails to the small
of the leg--'
'Eleven from haunch to heel, seven round the waist. I give your
honour leave to hang Shemus, if there's a pair of sheers in the
Highlands that has a baulder sneck than her's ain at the cumadh an
truais' (shape of the trews).
'Get a plaid of Mac-Ivor tartan and sash,' continued the
Chieftain, 'and a blue bonnet of the Prince's pattern, at Mr.
Mouat's in the Crames. My short green coat, with silver lace and
silver buttons, will fit him exactly, and I have never worn it.
Tell Ensign Maccombich to pick out a handsome target from among
mine. The Prince has given Mr. Waverley broadsword and pistols, I
will furnish him with a dirk and purse; add but a pair of low-
heeled shoes, and then, my dear Edward (turning to him), you will
be a complete son of Ivor.'
These necessary directions given, the Chieftain resumed the
subject of Waverley's adventures. 'It is plain,' he said,'that you
have been in the custody of Donald Bean Lean. You must know that,
when I marched away my clan to join the Prince, I laid my
injunctions on that worthy member of society to perform a certain
piece of service, which done, he was to join me with all the force
he could muster. But, instead of doing so, the gentleman, finding
the coast clear, thought it better to make war on his own account,
and has scoured the country, plundering, I believe, both friend
and foe, under pretence of levying blackmail, sometimes as if by
my authority, and sometimes (and be cursed to his consummate
impudence) in his own great name! Upon my honour, if I live to see
the cairn of Benmore again, I shall be tempted to hang that
fellow! I recognise his hand particularly in the mode of your
rescue from that canting rascal Gilfillan, and I have little doubt
that Donald himself played the part of the pedlar on that
occasion; but how he should not have plundered you, or put you to
ransom, or availed himself in some way or other of your captivity
for his own advantage, passes my judgment.'
'When and how did you hear the intelligence of my confinement?'
asked Waverley.
'The Prince himself told me,' said Fergus, 'and inquired very
minutely into your history. He then mentioned your being at that
moment in the power of one of our northern parties--you know I
could not ask him to explain particulars--and requested my opinion
about disposing of you. I recommended that you should be brought
here as a prisoner, because I did not wish to prejudice you
farther with the English government, in case you pursued your
purpose of going southward. I knew nothing, you must recollect, of
the charge brought against you of aiding and abetting high
treason, which, I presume, had some share in changing your
original plan. That sullen, good-for-nothing brute, Balmawhapple,
was sent to escort you from Doune, with what he calls his troop of
horse. As to his behaviour, in addition to his natural antipathy
to everything that resembles a gentleman, I presume his adventure
with Bradwardine rankles in his recollection, the rather that I
daresay his mode of telling that story contributed to the evil
reports which reached your quondam regiment.'
'Very likely,' said Waverley; 'but now surely, my dear Fergus, you
may find time to tell me something of Flora.'
'Why,' replied Fergus, 'I can only tell you that she is well, and
residing for the present with a relation in this city. I thought
it better she should come here, as since our success a good many
ladies of rank attend our military court; and I assure you that
there is a sort of consequence annexed to the near relative of
such a person as Flora Mac-Ivor, and where there is such a
justling of claims and requests, a man must use every fair means
to enhance his importance.'
There was something in this last sentence which grated on
Waverley's feelings. He could not bear that Flora should be
considered as conducing to her brother's preferment by the
admiration which she must unquestionably attract; and although it
was in strict correspondence with many points of Fergus's
character, it shocked him as selfish, and unworthy of his sister's
high mind and his own independent pride. Fergus, to whom such
manoeuvres were familiar, as to one brought up at the French
court, did not observe the unfavourable impression which he had
unwarily made upon his friend's mind, and concluded by saying,'
that they could hardly see Flora before the evening, when she
would be at the concert and ball with which the Prince's party
were to be entertained. She and I had a quarrel about her not
appearing to take leave of you. I am unwilling to renew it by
soliciting her to receive you this morning; and perhaps my doing
so might not only be ineffectual, but prevent your meeting this
evening.'
While thus conversing, Waverley heard in the court, before the
windows of the parlour, a well-known voice. 'I aver to you, my
worthy friend,' said the speaker, 'that it is a total dereliction
of military discipline; and were you not as it were a tyro, your
purpose would deserve strong reprobation. For a prisoner of war is
on no account to be coerced with fetters, or debinded in
ergastulo, as would have been the case had you put this gentleman
into the pit of the peel-house at Balmawhapple. I grant, indeed,
that such a prisoner may for security be coerced in carcere, that
is, in a public prison.'
The growling voice of Balmawhapple was heard as taking leave in
displeasure, but the word 'land-louper' alone was distinctly
audible. He had disappeared before Waverley reached the house in
order to greet the worthy Baron of Bradwardine. The uniform in
which he was now attired, a blue coat, namely, with gold lace, a
scarlet waistcoat and breeches, and immense jack-boots, seemed to
have added fresh stiffness and rigidity to his tall, perpendicular
figure; and the consciousness of military command and authority
had increased, in the same proportion, the self-importance of his
demeanour and the dogmatism of his conversation.
He received Waverley with his usual kindness, and expressed
immediate anxiety to hear an explanation of the circumstances
attending the loss of his commission in Gardiner's dragoons;
'not,' he said, 'that he had the least apprehension of his young
friend having done aught which could merit such ungenerous
treatment as he had received from government, but because it was
right and seemly that the Baron of Bradwardine should be, in point
of trust and in point of power, fully able to refute all calumnies
against the heir of Waverley-Honour, whom he had so much right to
regard as his own son.'
Fergus Mac-Ivor, who had now joined them, went hastily over the
circumstances of Waverley's story, and concluded with the
flattering reception he had met from the young Chevalier. The
Baron listened in silence, and at the conclusion shook Waverley
heartily by the hand and congratulated him upon entering the
service of his lawful Prince. 'For,' continued he, 'although it
has been justly held in all nations a matter of scandal and
dishonour to infringe the sacramentum militare, and that whether
it was taken by each soldier singly, whilk the Romans denominated
per conjurationem, or by one soldier in name of the rest, yet no
one ever doubted that the allegiance so sworn was discharged by
the dimissio, or discharging of a soldier, whose case would be as
hard as that of colliers, salters, and other adscripti glebes, or
slaves of the soil, were it to be accounted otherwise. This is
something like the brocard expressed by the learned Sanchez in his
work "De Jure-jurando" which you have questionless consulted upon
this occasion. As for those who have calumniated you by leasing-
making, I protest to Heaven I think they have justly incurred the
penalty of the "Memnonia Lex," also called "Lex Rhemnia," which is
prelected upon by Tullius in his oration "In Verrem." I should
have deemed, however, Mr. Waverley, that before destining yourself
to any special service in the army of the Prince, ye might have
inquired what rank the old Bradwardine held there, and whether he
would not have been peculiarly happy to have had your services in
the regiment of horse which he is now about to levy.' Edward
eluded this reproach by pleading the necessity of giving an
immediate answer to the Prince's proposal, and his uncertainty at
the moment whether his friend the Baron was with the army or
engaged upon service elsewhere.
This punctilio being settled, Waverley made inquiry after Miss
Bradwardine, and was informed she had come to Edinburgh with Flora
Mac-Ivor, under guard of a party of the Chieftain's men. This step
was indeed necessary, Tully-Veolan having become a very
unpleasant, and even dangerous, place of residence for an
unprotected young lady, on account of its vicinity to the
Highlands, and also to one or two large villages which, from
aversion as much to the caterans as zeal for presbytery, had
declared themselves on the side of government, and formed
irregular bodies of partizans, who had frequent skirmishes with
the mountaineers, and sometimes attacked the houses of the
Jacobite gentry in the braes, or frontier betwixt the mountain and
plain.
'I would propose to you,' continued the Baron,'to walk as far as
my quarters in the Luckenbooths, and to admire in your passage the
High Street, whilk is, beyond a shadow of dubitation, finer than
any street whether in London or Paris. But Rose, poor thing, is
sorely discomposed with the firing of the Castle, though I have
proved to her from Blondel and Coehorn, that it is impossible a
bullet can reach these buildings; and, besides, I have it in
charge from his Royal Highness to go to the camp, or leaguer of
our army, to see that the men do condamare vasa, that is, truss up
their bag and baggage for tomorrow's march.'
'That will be easily done by most of us,' said Mac-Ivor, laughing.
'Craving your pardon, Colonel Mac-Ivor, not quite so easily as ye
seem to opine. I grant most of your folk left the Highlands
expedited as it were, and free from the incumbrance of baggage;
but it is unspeakable the quantity of useless sprechery which they
have collected on their march. I saw one fellow of yours (craving
your pardon once more) with a pier-glass upon his back.'
'Ay,' said Fergus, still in good-humour, 'he would have told you,
if you had questioned him, "a ganging foot is aye getting." But
come, my dear Baron, you know as well as I that a hundred Uhlans,
or a single troop of Schmirschitz's Pandours, would make more
havoc in a country than the knight of the mirror and all the rest
of our clans put together.'
'And that is very true likewise,' replied the Baron; 'they are, as
the heathen author says, ferociores in aspectu, mitiores in actu,
of a horrid and grim visage, but more benign in demeanour than
their physiognomy or aspect might infer. But I stand here talking
to you two youngsters when I should be in the King's Park.'
'But you will dine with Waverley and me on your return? I assure
you, Baron, though I can live like a Highlander when needs must, I
remember my Paris education, and understand perfectly faire la
meilleure chere.'
'And wha the deil doubts it,' quoth the Baron, laughing, 'when ye
bring only the cookery and the gude toun must furnish the
materials? Weel, I have some business in the toun too; but I'll
join you at three, if the vivers can tarry so long.'
So saying, he took leave of his friends and went to look after the
charge which had been assigned him.