DESOLATION
Waverley riding post, as was the usual fashion of the period,
without any adventure save one or two queries, which the talisman
of his passport sufficiently answered, reached the borders of
Scotland. Here he heard the tidings of the decisive battle of
Culloden. It was no more than he had long expected, though the
success at Falkirk had thrown a faint and setting gleam over the
arms of the Chevalier. Yet it came upon him like a shock, by which
he was for a time altogether unmanned. The generous, the
courteous, the noble-minded adventurer was then a fugitive, with a
price upon his head; his adherents, so brave, so enthusiastic, so
faithful, were dead, imprisoned, or exiled. Where, now, was the
exalted and high-souled Fergus, if, indeed, he had survived the
night at Clifton? Where the pure-hearted and primitive Baron of
Bradwardine, whose foibles seemed foils to set off the
disinterestedness of his disposition, the genuine goodness of his
heart, and his unshaken courage? Those who clung for support to
these fallen columns, Rose and Flora, where were they to be
sought, and in what distress must not the loss of their natural
protectors have involved them? Of Flora he thought with the regard
of a brother for a sister; of Rose with a sensation yet more deep
and tender. It might be still his fate to supply the want of those
guardians they had lost. Agitated by these thoughts he
precipitated his journey.
When he arrived in Edinburgh, where his inquiries must necessarily
commence, he felt the full difficulty of his situation. Many
inhabitants of that city had seen and known him as Edward
Waverley; how, then, could he avail himself of a passport as
Francis Stanley? He resolved, therefore, to avoid all company, and
to move northward as soon as possible. He was, however, obliged to
wait a day or two in expectation of a letter from Colonel Talbot,
and he was also to leave his own address, under his feigned
character, at a place agreed upon. With this latter purpose he
sallied out in the dusk through the well-known streets, carefully
shunning observation, but in vain: one of the first persons whom
he met at once recognised him. It was Mrs. Flockhart, Fergus Mac-
Ivor's good-humoured landlady.
'Gude guide us, Mr. Waverley, is this you? na, ye needna be feared
for me. I wad betray nae gentleman in your circumstances. Eh,
lack-a-day! lack-a-day! here's a change o' markets; how merry
Colonel MacIvor and you used to be in our house!' And the good-
natured widow shed a few natural tears. As there was no resisting
her claim of acquaintance, Waverley acknowledged it with a good
grace, as well as the danger of his own situation. 'As it's near
the darkening, sir, wad ye just step in by to our house and tak a
dish o' tea? and I am sure if ye like to sleep in the little room,
I wad tak care ye are no disturbed, and naebody wad ken ye; for
Kate and Matty, the limmers, gaed aff wi' twa o' Hawley's
dragoons, and I hae twa new queans instead o' them.'
Waverley accepted her invitation, and engaged her lodging for a
night or two, satisfied he should be safer in the house of this
simple creature than anywhere else. When he entered the parlour
his heart swelled to see Fergus's bonnet, with the white cockade,
hanging beside the little mirror.
'Ay,' said Mrs. Flockhart, sighing, as she observed the direction
of his eyes, 'the puir Colonel bought a new ane just the day
before they marched, and I winna let them tak that ane doun, but
just to brush it ilka day mysell; and whiles I look at it till I
just think I hear him cry to Callum to bring him his bonnet, as he
used to do when he was ganging out. It's unco silly--the
neighbours ca' me a Jacobite, but they may say their say--I am
sure it's no for that--but he was as kind-hearted a gentleman as
ever lived, and as weel-fa'rd too. Oh, d'ye ken, sir, when he is
to suffer?'
'Suffer! Good heaven! Why, where is he?'
'Eh, Lord's sake! d'ye no ken? The poor Hieland body, Dugald
Mahony, cam here a while syne, wi' ane o' his arms cuttit off, and
a sair clour in the head--ye'll mind Dugald, he carried aye an axe
on his shouther--and he cam here just begging, as I may say, for
something to eat. Aweel, he tauld us the Chief, as they ca'd him
(but I aye ca' him the Colonel), and Ensign Maccombich, that ye
mind weel, were ta'en somewhere beside the English border, when it
was sae dark that his folk never missed him till it was ower late,
and they were like to gang clean daft. And he said that little
Callum Beg (he was a bauld mischievous callant that) and your
honour were killed that same night in the tuilzie, and mony mae
braw men. But he grat when he spak o' the Colonel, ye never saw
the like. And now the word gangs the Colonel is to be tried, and
to suffer wi' them that were ta'en at Carlisle.'
'And his sister?'
'Ay, that they ca'd the Lady Flora--weel, she's away up to
Carlisle to him, and lives wi' some grand Papist lady thereabouts
to be near him.'
'And,' said Edward,'the other young lady?'
'Whilk other? I ken only of ae sister the Colonel had.'
'I mean Miss Bradwardine,' said Edward.
'Ou, ay; the laird's daughter' said his landlady. 'She was a very
bonny lassie, poor thing, but far shyer than Lady Flora.'
'Where is she, for God's sake?'
'Ou, wha kens where ony o' them is now? puir things, they're sair
ta'en doun for their white cockades and their white roses; but she
gaed north to her father's in Perthshire, when the government
troops cam back to Edinbro'. There was some prettymen amang them,
and ane Major Whacker was quartered on me, a very ceevil
gentleman,--but O, Mr. Waverley, he was naething sae weel fa'rd
as the puir Colonel.'
'Do you know what is become of Miss Bradwardine's father?'
'The auld laird? na, naebody kens that. But they say he fought
very hard in that bluidy battle at Inverness; and Deacon Clank,
the whit-iron smith, says that the government folk are sair agane
him for having been out twice; and troth he might hae ta'en
warning, but there's nae Me like an auld fule. The puir Colonel
was only out ance.'
Such conversation contained almost all the good-natured widow knew
of the fate of her late lodgers and acquaintances; but it was
enough to determine Edward, at all hazards, to proceed instantly
to Tully-Veolan, where he concluded he should see, or at least
hear, something of Rose. He therefore left a letter for Colonel
Talbot at the place agreed upon, signed by his assumed name, and
giving for his address the post-town next to the Baron's
residence.
From Edinburgh to Perth he took post-horses, resolving to make the
rest of his journey on foot; a mode of travelling to which he was
partial, and which had the advantage of permitting a deviation
from the road when he saw parties of military at a distance. His
campaign had considerably strengthened his constitution and
improved his habits of enduring fatigue. His baggage he sent
before him as opportunity occurred.
As he advanced northward, the traces of war became visible. Broken
carriages, dead horses, unroofed cottages, trees felled for
palisades, and bridges destroyed or only partially repaired--all
indicated the movements of hostile armies. In those places where
the gentry were attached to the Stuart cause, their houses seemed
dismantled or deserted, the usual course of what may be called
ornamental labour was totally interrupted, and the inhabitants
were seen gliding about, with fear, sorrow, and dejection on their
faces.
It was evening when he approached the village of Tully-Veolan,
with feelings and sentiments--how different from those which
attended his first entrance! Then, life was so new to him that a
dull or disagreeable day was one of the greatest misfortunes which
his imagination anticipated, and it seemed to him that his time
ought only to be consecrated to elegant or amusing study, and
relieved by social or youthful frolic. Now, how changed! how
saddened, yet how elevated was his character, within the course of
a very few months! Danger and misfortune are rapid, though severe
teachers. 'A sadder and a wiser man,' he felt in internal
confidence and mental dignity a compensation for the gay dreams
which in his case experience had so rapidly dissolved.
As he approached the village he saw, with surprise and anxiety,
that a party of soldiers were quartered near it, and, what was
worse, that they seemed stationary there. This he conjectured from
a few tents which he beheld glimmering upon what was called the
Common Moor. To avoid the risk of being stopped and questioned in
a place where he was so likely to be recognised, he made a large
circuit, altogether avoiding the hamlet, and approaching the upper
gate of the avenue by a by-path well known to him. A single glance
announced that great changes had taken place. One half of the
gate, entirely destroyed and split up for firewood, lay in piles,
ready to be taken away; the other swung uselessly about upon its
loosened hinges. The battlements above the gate were broken and
thrown down, and the carved bears, which were said to have done
sentinel's duty upon the top for centuries, now, hurled from their
posts, lay among the rubbish. The avenue was cruelly wasted.
Several large trees were felled and left lying across the path;
and the cattle of the villagers, and the more rude hoofs of
dragoon horses, had poached into black mud the verdant turf which
Waverley had so much admired.
Upon entering the court-yard, Edward saw the fears realised which
these circumstances had excited. The place had been sacked by the
King's troops, who, in wanton mischief, had even attempted to burn
it; and though the thickness of the walls had resisted the fire,
unless to a partial extent, the stables and out-houses were
totally consumed. The towers and pinnacles of the main building
were scorched and blackened; the pavement of the court broken and
shattered, the doors torn down entirely, or hanging by a single
hinge, the windows dashed in and demolished, and the court strewed
with articles of furniture broken into fragments. The accessaries
of ancient distinction, to which the Baron, in the pride of his
heart, had attached so much importance and veneration, were
treated with peculiar contumely. The fountain was demolished, and
the spring which had supplied it now flooded the court-yard. The
stone basin seemed to be destined for a drinking-trough for
cattle, from the manner in which it was arranged upon the ground.
The whole tribe of bears, large and small, had experienced as
little favour as those at the head of the avenue, and one or two
of the family pictures, which seemed to have served as targets for
the soldiers, lay on the ground in tatters. With an aching heart,
as may well be imagined, Edward viewed this wreck of a mansion so
respected. But his anxiety to learn the fate of the proprietors,
and his fears as to what that fate might be, increased with every
step. When he entered upon the terrace new scenes of desolation
were visible. The balustrade was broken down, the walls destroyed,
the borders overgrown with weeds, and the fruit-trees cut down or
grubbed up. In one compartment of this old-fashioned garden were
two immense horse-chestnut trees, of whose size the Baron was
particularly vain; too lazy, perhaps, to cut them down, the
spoilers, with malevolent ingenuity, had mined them and placed a
quantity of gunpowder in the cavity. One had been shivered to
pieces by the explosion, and the fragments lay scattered around,
encumbering the ground it had so long shadowed. The other mine had
been more partial in its effect. About one-fourth of the trunk of
the tree was torn from the mass, which, mutilated and defaced on
the one side, still spread on the other its ample and undiminished
boughs. [Footnote: A pair of chestnut trees, destroyed, the one
entirely and the other in part, by such a mischievous and wanton
act of revenge, grew at Invergarry Castle, the fastness of
MacDonald of Glengarry.]
Amid these general marks of ravage, there were some which more
particularly addressed the feelings of Waverley. Viewing the front
of the building thus wasted and defaced, his eyes naturally sought
the little balcony which more properly belonged to Rose's
apartment, her troisieme, or rather cinquieme, etage. It was
easily discovered, for beneath it lay the stage-flowers and shrubs
with which it was her pride to decorate it, and which had been
hurled from the bartizan; several of her books were mingled with
broken flower-pots and other remnants. Among these Waverley
distinguished one of his own, a small copy of Ariosto, and
gathered it as a treasure, though wasted by the wind and rain.
While, plunged in the sad reflections which the scene excited, he
was looking around for some one who might explain the fate of the
inhabitants, he heard a voice from the interior of the building
singing, in well-remembered accents, an old Scottish song:--
They came upon us in the night,
And brake my bower and slew my knight;
My servants a' for life did flee,
And left us in extremitie.
They slew my knight, to me sae dear;
They slew my knight, and drave his gear;
The moon may set, the sun may rise,
But a deadly sleep has closed his eyes.
[Footnote: The first three couplets are from an old ballad, called
the Border Widow's Lament.]
'Alas,' thought Edward, 'is it thou? Poor helpless being, art thou
alone left, to gibber and moan, and fill with thy wild and
unconnected scraps of minstrelsy the halls that protected thee?'
He then called, first low, and then louder, 'Davie--Davie
Gellatley!'
The poor simpleton showed himself from among the ruins of a sort
of greenhouse, that once terminated what was called the terrace-
walk, but at first sight of a stranger retreated, as if in terror.
Waverley, remembering his habits, began to whistle a tune to which
he was partial, which Davie had expressed great pleasure in
listening to, and had picked up from him by the ear. Our hero's
minstrelsy no more equalled that of Blondel than poor Davie
resembled Coeur de Lion; but the melody had the same effect of
producing recognition. Davie again stole from his lurking-place,
but timidly, while Waverley, afraid of frightening him, stood
making the most encouraging signals he could devise. 'It's his
ghaist,' muttered Davie; yet, coming nearer, he seemed to
acknowledge his living acquaintance. The poor fool himself
appeared the ghost of what he had been. The peculiar dress in
which he had been attired in better days showed only miserable
rags of its whimsical finery, the lack of which was oddly supplied
by the remnants of tapestried hangings, window-curtains, and
shreds of pictures with which he had bedizened his tatters. His
face, too, had lost its vacant and careless air, and the poor
creature looked hollow-eyed, meagre, half-starved, and nervous to
a pitiable degree. After long hesitation, he at length approached
Waverley with some confidence, stared him sadly in the face, and
said, 'A' dead and gane--a' dead and gane.'
'Who are dead?' said Waverley, forgetting the incapacity of Davie
to hold any connected discourse.
'Baron, and Bailie, and Saunders Saunderson, and Lady Rose that
sang sae sweet--a' dead and gane--dead and gane;
But follow, follow me,
While glowworms light the lea,
I'll show ye where the dead should be--
Each in his shroud,
While winds pipe loud,
And the red moon peeps dim through the cloud.
Follow, follow me;
Brave should he be
That treads by night the dead man's lea.'
With these words, chanted in a wild and earnest tone, he made a
sign to Waverley to follow him, and walked rapidly towards the
bottom of the garden, tracing the bank of the stream which, it may
be remembered, was its eastern boundary. Edward, over whom an
involuntary shuddering stole at the import of his words, followed
him in some hope of an explanation. As the house was evidently
deserted, he could not expect to find among the ruins any more
rational informer.
Davie, walking very fast, soon reached the extremity of the
garden, and scrambled over the ruins of the wall that once had
divided it from the wooded glen in which the old tower of Tully-
Veolan was situated. He then jumped down into the bed of the
stream, and, followed by Waverley, proceeded at a great pace,
climbing over some fragments of rock and turning with difficulty
round others. They passed beneath the ruins of the castle;
Waverley followed, keeping up with his guide with difficulty, for
the twilight began to fall. Following the descent of the stream a
little lower, he totally lost him, but a twinkling light which he
now discovered among the tangled copse-wood and bushes seemed a
surer guide. He soon pursued a very uncouth path; and by its
guidance at length reached the door of a wretched hut. A fierce
barking of dogs was at first heard, but it stilled at his
approach. A voice sounded from within, and he held it most prudent
to listen before he advanced.
'Wha hast thou brought here, thou unsonsy villain, thou?' said an
old woman, apparently in great indignation. He heard Davie
Gellatley in answer whistle a part of the tune by which he had
recalled himself to the simpleton's memory, and had now no
hesitation to knock at the door. There was a dead silence
instantly within, except the deep growling of the dogs; and he
next heard the mistress of the hut approach the door, not probably
for the sake of undoing a latch, but of fastening a bolt. To
prevent this Waverley lifted the latch himself.
In front was an old wretched-looking woman, exclaiming, 'Wha comes
into folk's houses in this gate, at this time o' the night?' On
one side, two grim and half-starved deer greyhounds laid aside
their ferocity at his appearance, and seemed to recognise him. On
the other side, half concealed by the open door, yet apparently
seeking that concealment reluctantly, with a cocked pistol in his
right hand and his left in the act of drawing another from his
belt, stood a tall bony gaunt figure in the remnants of a faded
uniform and a beard of three weeks' growth. It was the Baron of
Bradwardine. It is unnecessary to add, that he threw aside his
weapon and greeted Waverley with a hearty embrace.