COMPARING OF NOTES
Thearon's story was short, when divested of the adages and
commonplaces, Latin, English, and Scotch, with which his erudition
garnished it. He insisted much upon his grief at the loss of
Edward and of Glennaquoich, fought the fields of Falkirk and
Culloden, and related how, after all was lost in the last battle,
he had returned home, under the idea of more easily finding
shelter among his own tenants and on his own estate than
elsewhere. A party of soldiers had been sent to lay waste his
property, for clemency was not the order of the day. Their
proceedings, however, were checked by an order from the civil
court. The estate, it was found, might not be forfeited to the
crown to the prejudice of Malcolm Bradwardine of Inch-Grabbit, the
heir-male, whose claim could not be prejudiced by the Baron's
attainder, as deriving no right through him, and who, therefore,
like other heirs of entail in the same situation, entered upon
possession. But, unlike many in similar circumstances, the new
laird speedily showed that he intended utterly to exclude his
predecessor from all benefit or advantage in the estate, and that
it was his purpose to avail himself of the old Baron's evil
fortune to the full extent. This was the more ungenerous, as it
was generally known that, from a romantic idea of not prejudicing
this young man's right as heir-male, the Baron had refrained from
settling his estate on his daughter.
This selfish injustice was resented by the country people, who
were partial to their old master, and irritated against his
successor. In the Baron's own words, 'The matter did not coincide
with the feelings of the commons of Bradwardine, Mr. Waverley; and
the tenants were slack and repugnant in payment of their mails and
duties; and when my kinsman came to the village wi' the new
factor, Mr. James Howie, to lift the rents, some wanchancy person
--I suspect John Heatherblutter, the auld gamekeeper, that was out
wi' me in the year fifteen--fired a shot at him in the gloaming,
whereby he was so affrighted, that I may say with Tullius In
Catilinam, "Abiit, evasit, erupit, effugit." He fled, sir, as one
may say, incontinent to Stirling. And now he hath advertised the
estate for sale, being himself the last substitute in the entail.
And if I were to lament about sic matters, this would grieve me
mair than its passing from my immediate possession, whilk, by the
course of nature, must have happened in a few years; whereas now
it passes from the lineage that should have possessed it in
scecula saculorum. But God's will be done, humana perpessi sumus.
Sir John of Bradwardine--Black Sir John, as he is called--who was
the common ancestor of our house and the Inch-Grabbits, little
thought such a person would have sprung from his loins. Mean time,
he has accused me to some of the primates, the rulers for the
time, as if I were a cut-throat, and an abettor of bravoes and
assassinates and coupe-jarrets. And they have sent soldiers here
to abide on the estate, and hunt me like a partridge upon the
mountains, as Scripture says of good King David, or like our
valiant Sir William Wallace--not that I bring myself into
comparison with either. I thought, when I heard you at the door,
they had driven the auld deer to his den at last; and so I e'en
proposed to die at bay, like a buck of the first head. But now,
Janet, canna ye gie us something for supper?' 'Ou ay, sir, I'll
brander the moor-fowl that John Heatherblutter brought in this
morning; and ye see puir Davie's roasting the black hen's eggs. I
daur say, Mr. Wauverley, ye never kend that a' the eggs that were
sae weel roasted at supper in the Ha'-house were aye turned by our
Davie? there's no the like o' him ony gate for powtering wi' his
fingers amang the het peat-ashes and roasting eggs.' Davie all
this while lay with his nose almost in the fire, nuzzling among
the ashes, kicking his heels, mumbling to himself, turning the
eggs as they lay in the hot embers, as if to confute the proverb,
that 'there goes reason to roasting of eggs,' and justify the
eulogium which poor Janet poured out upon
Him whom she loved, her idiot boy.
'Davie's no sae silly as folk tak him for, Mr. Wauverley; he wadna
hae brought you here unless he had kend ye was a friend to his
Honour; indeed the very dogs kend ye, Mr. Wauverley, for ye was
aye kind to beast and body. I can tell you a story o' Davie, wi'
his Honour's leave. His Honour, ye see, being under hiding in thae
sair times--the mair's the pity--he lies a' day, and whiles a'
night, in the cove in the dern hag; but though it's a bieldy
eneugh bit, and the auld gudeman o' Corse-Cleugh has panged it wi'
a kemple o' strae amaist, yet when the country's quiet, and the
night very cauld, his Honour whiles creeps doun here to get a warm
at the ingle and a sleep amang the blankets, and gangs awa in the
morning. And so, ae morning, siccan a fright as I got! Twa unlucky
red-coats were up for black-fishing, or some siccan ploy--for the
neb o' them's never out o' mischief--and they just got a glisk o'
his Honour as he gaed into the wood, and banged aff a gun at him.
I out like a jer-falcon, and cried--"Wad they shoot an honest
woman's poor innocent bairn?" And I fleyt at them, and threepit it
was my son; and they damned and swuir at me that it was the auld
rebel, as the villains ca'd his Honour; and Davie was in the wood,
and heard the tuilzie, and he, just out o' his ain head, got up
the auld grey mantle that his Honour had flung off him to gang the
faster, and he cam out o' the very same bit o' the wood, majoring
and looking about sae like his Honour, that they were clean
beguiled, and thought they had letten aff their gun at crack-
brained Sawney, as they ca' him; and they gae me saxpence, and twa
saumon fish, to say naething about it. Na, na, Davie's no just
like other folk, puir fallow; but he's no sae silly as folk tak
him for. But, to be sure, how can we do eneugh for his Honour,
when we and ours have lived on his ground this twa hundred years;
and when he keepit my puir Jamie at school and college, and even
at the Ha'-house, till he gaed to a better place; and when he
saved me frae being ta'en to Perth as a witch--Lord forgi'e them
that would touch sic a puir silly auld body!--and has maintained
puir Davie at heck and manger maist feck o' his life?'
Waverley at length found an opportunity to interrupt Janet's
narrative by an inquiry after Miss Bradwardine.
'She's weel and safe, thank God! at the Duchran,' answered the
Baron; 'the laird's distantly related to us, and more nearly to my
chaplain, Mr. Rubrick; and, though he be of Whig principles, yet
he's not forgetful of auld friendship at this time. The Bailie's
doing what he can to save something out of the wreck for puir
Rose; but I doubt, I doubt, I shall never see her again, for I
maun lay my banes in some far country.'
'Hout na, your Honour,' said old Janet, 'ye were just as ill aff
in the feifteen, and got the bonnie baronie back, an' a'. And now
the eggs is ready, and the muir-cock's brandered, and there's ilk
ane a trencher and some saut, and the heel o' the white loaf that
cam frae the Bailie's, and there's plenty o' brandy in the
greybeard that Luckie Maclearie sent doun, and winna ye be
suppered like princes?'
'I wish one Prince, at least, of our acquaintance may be no worse
off,' said the Baron to Waverley, who joined him in cordial hopes
for the safety of the unfortunate Chevalier.
They then began to talk of their future prospects. The Baron's
plan was very simple. It was, to escape to France, where, by the
interest of his old friends, he hoped to get some military
employment, of which he still conceived himself capable. He
invited Waverley to go with him, a proposal in which he
acquiesced, providing the interest of Colonel Talbot should fail
in procuring his pardon. Tacitly he hoped the Baron would sanction
his addresses to Rose, and give him a right to assist him in his
exile; but he forbore to speak on this subject until his own fate
should be decided. They then talked of Glennaquoich, for whom the
Baron expressed great anxiety, although, he observed, he was 'the
very Achilles of Horatius Flaccus,--
Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer; which,' he continued, 'has
been thus rendered (vernacularly) by Struan Robertson:--
A fiery etter-cap, a fractious chiel,
As het as ginger, and as stieve as steel.'
Flora had a large and unqualified share of the good old man's
sympathy.
It was now wearing late. Old Janet got into some kind of kennel
behind the hallan; Davie had been long asleep and snoring between
Ban and Buscar. These dogs had followed him to the hut after the
mansion-house was deserted, and there constantly resided; and
their ferocity, with the old woman's reputation of being a witch,
contributed a good deal to keep visitors from the glen. With this
view, Bailie Macwheeble provided Janet underhand with meal for
their maintenance, and also with little articles of luxury for his
patron's use, in supplying which much precaution was necessarily
used. After some compliments, the Baron occupied his usual couch,
and Waverley reclined in an easy chair of tattered velvet, which
had once garnished the state bed-room of Tully-Veolan (for the
furniture of this mansion was now scattered through all the
cottages in the vicinity), and went to sleep as comfortably as if
he had been in a bed of down.