Chapter Chapter 5 · CHOICE OF A PROFESSION

. 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 judgment, 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,[*] and supply her richly, out of the

stores of his own imagination, with supernatural beauty, and all the

properties of intellectual wealth.

[* See Hoppner’s tale of The Seven Lovers.]

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 Saint

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 preparations 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

farther 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 return’d, in chasten’d gleam,

The purple cloud, the golden beam:

Reflected in the crystal pool,

Headland 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 donn’d at once his sable cloak,

As warrior, at the battle-cry,

Invests him with his panoply:

Then, as the whirlwind nearer press’d

He ’gan to shake his foamy crest

O’er furrow’d brow and blacken’d cheek,

And bade his surge in thunder speak.

In wild and broken eddies whirl’d.

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 warr’d the wind with wave and wood,

Upon the ruin’d tower I stood,

And felt my heart more strongly bound,

Responsive to the lofty sound,

While, joying in the mighty roar,

I mourn’d 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 loath, 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 brown 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 sentrybox. Those who are contented to remain with me will be

occasionally exposed to the dulness 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 retrench or

cancel.]