DULCE DOMUM
The impression of horror with which Waverley left Carlisle
softened by degrees into melancholy, a gradation which was
accelerated by the painful yet soothing task of writing to Rose;
and, while he could not suppress his own feelings of the calamity,
he endeavoured to place it in a light which might grieve her
without shocking her imagination. The picture which he drew for
her benefit he gradually familiarised to his own mind, and his
next letters were more cheerful, and referred to the prospects of
peace and happiness which lay before them. Yet, though his first
horrible sensations had sunk into melancholy, Edward had reached
his native country before he could, as usual on former occasions,
look round for enjoyment upon the face of nature.
He then, for the first time since leaving Edinburgh, began to
experience that pleasure which almost all feel who return to a
verdant, populous, and highly cultivated country from scenes of
waste desolation or of solitary and melancholy grandeur. But how
were those feelings enhanced when he entered on the domain so long
possessed by his forefathers; recognised the old oaks of Waverley-
Chace; thought with what delight he should introduce Rose to all
his favourite haunts; beheld at length the towers of the venerable
hall arise above the woods which embowered it, and finally threw
himself into the arms of the venerable relations to whom he owed
so much duty and affection!
The happiness of their meeting was not tarnished by a single word
of reproach. On the contrary, whatever pain Sir Everard and Mrs.
Rachel had felt during Waverley's perilous engagement with the
young Chevalier, it assorted too well with the principles in which
they had been brought up to incur reprobation, or even censure.
Colonel Talbot also had smoothed the way with great address for
Edward's favourable reception by dwelling upon his gallant
behaviour in the military character, particularly his bravery and
generosity at Preston; until, warmed at the idea of their nephew's
engaging in single combat, making prisoner, and saving from
slaughter so distinguished an officer as the Colonel himself, the
imagination of the Baronet and his sister ranked the exploits of
Edward with those of Wilibert, Hildebrand, and Nigel, the vaunted
heroes of their line.
The appearance of Waverley, embrowned by exercise and dignified by
the habits of military discipline, had acquired an athletic and
hardy character, which not only verified the Colonel's narration,
but surprised and delighted all the inhabitants of Waverley-
Honour. They crowded to see, to hear him, and to sing his praises.
Mr. Pembroke, who secretly extolled his spirit and courage in
embracing the genuine cause of the Church of England, censured his
pupil gently, nevertheless, for being so careless of his
manuscripts, which indeed, he said, had occasioned him some
personal inconvenience, as, upon the Baronet's being arrested by a
king's messenger, he had deemed it prudent to retire to a
concealment called 'The Priest's Hole,' from the use it had been
put to in former days; where, he assured our hero, the butler had
thought it safe to venture with food only once in the day, so that
he had been repeatedly compelled to dine upon victuals either
absolutely cold or, what was worse, only half warm, not to mention
that sometimes his bed had not been arranged for two days
together. Waverley's mind involuntarily turned to the Patmos of
the Baron of Bradwardine, who was well pleased with Janet's fare
and a few bunches of straw stowed in a cleft in the front of a
sand-cliff; but he made no remarks upon a contrast which could
only mortify his worthy tutor.
All was now in a bustle to prepare for the nuptials of Edward, an
event to which the good old Baronet and Mrs. Rachel looked forward
as if to the renewal of their own youth. The match, as Colonel
Talbot had intimated, had seemed to them in the highest degree
eligible, having every recommendation but wealth, of which they
themselves had more than enough. Mr. Clippurse was therefore
summoned to Waverley-Honour, under better auspices than at the
commencement of our story. But Mr. Clippurse came not alone; for,
being now stricken in years, he had associated with him a nephew,
a younger vulture (as our English Juvenal, who tells the tale of
Swallow the attorney, might have called him), and they now carried
on business as Messrs. Clippurse and Hookem. These worthy
gentlemen had directions to make the necessary settlements on the
most splendid scale of liberality, as if Edward were to wed a
peeress in her own right, with her paternal estate tacked to the
fringe of her ermine.
But before entering upon a subject of proverbial delay, I must
remind my reader of the progress of a stone rolled downhill by an
idle truant boy (a pastime at which I was myself expert in my more
juvenile years), it moves at first slowly, avoiding by inflection
every obstacle of the least importance; but when it has attained
its full impulse, and draws near the conclusion of its career, it
smokes and thunders down, taking a rood at every spring, clearing
hedge and ditch like a Yorkshire huntsman, and becoming most
furiously rapid in its course when it is nearest to being
consigned to rest for ever. Even such is the course of a narrative
like that which you are perusing. The earlier events are
studiously dwelt upon, that you, kind reader, may be introduced to
the character rather by narrative than by the duller medium of
direct description; but when the story draws near its close, we
hurry over the circumstances, however important, which your
imagination must have forestalled, and leave you to suppose those
things which it would be abusing your patience to relate at
length.
We are, therefore, so far from attempting to trace the dull
progress of Messrs. Clippurse and Hookem, or that of their worthy
official brethren who had the charge of suing out the pardons of
Edward Waverley and his intended father-in-law, that we can but
touch upon matters more attractive. The mutual epistles, for
example, which were exchanged between Sir Everard and the Baron
upon this occasion, though matchless specimens of eloquence in
their way, must be consigned to merciless oblivion. Nor can I tell
you at length how worthy Aunt Rachel, not without a delicate and
affectionate allusion to the circumstances which had transferred
Rose's maternal diamonds to the hands of Donald Bean Lean, stocked
her casket with a set of jewels that a duchess might have envied.
Moreover, the reader will have the goodness to imagine that Job
Houghton and his dame were suitably provided for, although they
could never be persuaded that their son fell otherwise than
fighting by the young squire's side; so that Alick, who, as a
lover of truth, had made many needless attempts to expound the
real circumstances to them, was finally ordered to say not a word
more upon the subject. He indemnified himself, however, by the
liberal allowance of desperate battles, grisly executions, and
raw-head and bloody-bone stories with which he astonished the
servants' hall.
But although these important matters may be briefly told in
narrative, like a newspaper report of a Chancery suit, yet, with
all the urgency which Waverley could use, the real time which the
law proceedings occupied, joined to the delay occasioned by the
mode of travelling at that period, rendered it considerably more
than two months ere Waverley, having left England, alighted once
more at the mansion of the Laird of Duchran to claim the hand of
his plighted bride.
The day of his marriage was fixed for the sixth after his arrival.
The Baron of Bradwardine, with whom bridals, christenings, and
funerals were festivals of high and solemn import, felt a little
hurt that, including the family of the Duchran and all the
immediate vicinity who had title to be present on such an
occasion, there could not be above thirty persons collected. 'When
he was married,' he observed,'three hundred horse of gentlemen
born, besides servants, and some score or two of Highland lairds,
who never got on horseback, were present on the occasion.'
But his pride found some consolation in reflecting that, he and
his son-in-law having been so lately in arms against government,
it might give matter of reasonable fear and offence to the ruling
powers if they were to collect together the kith, kin, and allies
of their houses, arrayed in effeir of war, as was the ancient
custom of Scotland on these occasions--'And, without dubitation,'
he concluded with a sigh, 'many of those who would have rejoiced
most freely upon these joyful espousals are either gone to a
better place or are now exiles from their native land.'
The marriage took place on the appointed day. The Reverend Mr.
Rubrick, kinsman to the proprietor of the hospitable mansion where
it was solemnised, and chaplain to the Baron of Bradwardine, had
the satisfaction to unite their hands; and Frank Stanley acted as
bridesman, having joined Edward with that view soon after his
arrival. Lady Emily and Colonel Talbot had proposed being present;
but Lady Emily's health, when the day approached, was found
inadequate to the journey. In amends it was arranged that Edward
Waverley and his lady, who, with the Baron, proposed an immediate
journey to Waverley-Honour, should in their way spend a few days
at an estate which Colonel Talbot had been tempted to purchase in
Scotland as a very great bargain, and at which he proposed to
reside for some time.