บทที่ บทที่ 15 · A CREAGH, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

. A CREAGH, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

When Edward had been a guest at Tully-Veolan nearly six weeks, he

descried, one morning, as he took his usual walk before the breakfast

hour, signs of uncommon perturbation in the family. Four bare-legged

dairy-maids, with each an empty milk-pail in her hand, ran about with

frantic gestures, and uttering loud exclamations of surprise, grief,

and resentment. From their appearance, a pagan might have conceived

them a detachment of the celebrated Belides, just come from their

baling penance. As nothing was to be got from this distracted chorus,

excepting “Lord guide us!” and “Eh sirs!” ejaculations which threw no

light upon the cause of their dismay, Waverley repaired to the

fore-court, as it was called, where he beheld Bailie Macwheeble

cantering his white pony down the avenue with all the speed it could

muster. He had arrived, it would seem, upon a hasty summons, and was

followed by half a score of peasants from the village who had no great

difficulty in keeping pace with him.

The Bailie, greatly too busy and too important to enter into

explanations with Edward, summoned forth Mr. Saunderson, who appeared

with a countenance in which dismay was mingled with solemnity, and they

immediately entered into close conference. Davie Gellatley was also

seen in the group, idle as Diogenes at Sinope while his countrymen were

preparing for a siege. His spirits always rose with anything, good or

bad, which occasioned tumult, and he continued frisking, hopping,

dancing, and singing the burden of an old ballad,—

“Our gear’s a’ gane,”

until, happening to pass too near the Bailie, he received an admonitory

hint from his horse-whip, which converted his songs into lamentation.

Passing from thence towards the garden, Waverley beheld the Baron in

person, measuring and re-measuring, with swift and tremendous strides,

the length of the terrace; his countenance clouded with offended pride

and indignation, and the whole of his demeanour such as seemed to

indicate, that any inquiry concerning the cause of his discomposure

would give pain at least, if not offence. Waverley therefore glided

into the house, without addressing him, and took his way to the

breakfast-parlour, where he found his young friend Rose, who, though

she neither exhibited the resentment of her father, the turbid

importance of Bailie Macwheeble, nor the despair of the handmaidens,

seemed vexed and thoughtful. A single word explained the mystery. “Your

breakfast will be a disturbed one, Captain Waverley. A party of

Caterans have come down upon us last night, and have driven off all our

milch cows.”

“A party of Caterans?”

“Yes; robbers from the neighbouring Highlands. We used to be quite free

from them while we paid blackmail to Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich Ian Vohr; but

my father thought it unworthy of his rank and birth to pay it any

longer, and so this disaster has happened. It is not the value of the

cattle, Captain Waverley, that vexes me; but my father is so much hurt

at the affront, and is so bold and hot, that I fear he will try to

recover them by the strong hand; and if he is not hurt himself, he will

hurt some of these wild people, and then there will be no peace between

them and us perhaps for our life-time; and we cannot defend ourselves

as in old times, for the government have taken all our arms; and my

dear father is so rash—O what will become of us!”—Here poor Rose lost

heart altogether, and burst into a flood of tears.

The Baron entered at this moment, and rebuked her with more asperity

than Waverley had ever heard him use to any one. “Was it not a shame,”

he said, “that she should exhibit herself before any gentleman in such

a light, as if she shed tears for a drove of horned nolt and milch

kine, like the daughter of a Cheshire yeoman!—Captain Waverley, I must

request your favourable construction of her grief, which may, or ought

to proceed, solely from seeing her father’s estate exposed to spulzie

and depredation from common thieves and sornars, while we are not

allowed to keep half a score of muskets, whether for defence or

rescue.”

Bailie Macwheeble entered immediately afterwards, and by his report of

arms and ammunition confirmed this statement, informing the Baron, in a

melancholy voice, that though the people would certainly obey his

honour’s orders, yet there was no chance of their following the gear to

ony guid purpose, in respect there were only his honour’s body servants

who had swords and pistols, and the depredators were twelve

Highlanders, completely armed after the manner of their country. Having

delivered this doleful annunciation, he assumed a posture of silent

dejection, shaking his head slowly with the motion of a pendulum when

it is ceasing to vibrate, and then remained stationary, his body

stooping at a more acute angle than usual, and the latter part of his

person projecting in proportion.

The Baron, meanwhile, paced the room in silent indignation, and at

length fixing his eye upon an old portrait, whose person was clad in

armour, and whose features glared grimly out of a huge bush of hair,

part of which descended from his head to his shoulders, and part from

his chin and upper-lip to his breast-plate,—“That gentleman, Captain

Waverley, my grandsire,” he said, “with two hundred horse,—whom he

levied within his own bounds, discomfited and put to the rout more than

five hundred of these Highland reivers, who have been ever _lapis

offensionis et petra scandali_, a stumbling-block and a rock of

offence, to the Lowland vicinage—he discomfited them, I say, when they

had the temerity to descend to harry this country, in the time of the

civil dissensions, in the year of grace sixteen hundred forty and two.

And now, sir, I, his grandson, am thus used at such unworthy hands.”

Here there was an awful pause; after which all the company, as is usual

in cases of difficulty, began to give separate and inconsistent

counsel. Alexander ab Alexandro proposed they should send some one to

compound with the Caterans, who would readily, he said, give up their

prey for a dollar a head. The Bailie opined that this transaction would

amount to theft-boot, or composition of felony; and he recommended that

some _canny hand_ should be sent up to the glens to make the best

bargain he could, as it were for himself, so that the Laird might not

be seen in such a transaction. Edward proposed to send off to the

nearest garrison for a party of soldiers and a magistrate’s warrant;

and Rose, as far as she dared, endeavoured to insinuate the course of

paying the arrears of tribute money to Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich Ian Vohr,

who, they all knew, could easily procure restoration of the cattle, if

he were properly propitiated.

None of these proposals met the Baron’s approbation. The idea of

composition, direct or implied, was absolutely ignominious; that of

Waverley only showed that he did not understand the state of the

country, and of the political parties which divided it; and, standing

matters as they did with Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich Ian Vohr, the Baron would

make no concession to him, were it, he said, “to procure restitution

_in integrum_ of every stirk and stot that the chief, his forefathers,

and his clan, had stolen since the days of Malcolm Canmore.”

In fact his voice was still for war, and he proposed to send expresses

to Balmawhapple, Killancureit, Tulliellum, and other lairds, who were

exposed to similar depredations, inviting them to join in the pursuit;

“and then, sir, shall these _nebulones nequissimi_, as Leslæus calls

them, be brought to the fate of their predecessor Cacus,

“Elisos oculos, et siccum sanguine guttur.”

The bailie, who by no means relished these warlike counsels, here

pulled forth an immense watch, of the colour, and nearly of the size,

of a pewter warming-pan, and observed it was now past noon, and that

the Caterans had been seen in the pass of Ballybrough soon after

sunrise; so that, before the allied forces could assemble, they and

their prey would be far beyond the reach of the most active pursuit,

and sheltered in those pathless deserts, where it was neither advisable

to follow, nor indeed possible to trace them.

This proposition was undeniable. The council therefore broke up without

coming to any conclusion, as has occurred to councils of more

importance; only it was determined that the Bailie should send his own

three milkcows down to the mains for the use of the Baron’s family, and

brew small ale, as a substitute for milk, in his own. To this

arrangement, which was suggested by Saunderson, the Bailie readily

assented, both from habitual deference to the family, and an internal

consciousness that his courtesy would, in some mode or other, be repaid

tenfold.

The Baron having also retired to give some necessary directions,

Waverley seized the opportunity to ask, whether this Fergus, with the

unpronounceable name, was the chief thief-taker of the district?

“Thief-taker!” answered Rose, laughing; “he is a gentleman of great

honour and consequence, the chieftain of an independent branch of a

powerful Highland clan, and is much respected, both for his own power

and that of his kith, kin, and allies.”

“And what has he to do with the thieves, then? Is he a magistrate, or

in the commission of the peace?” asked Waverley.

“The commission of war rather, if there be such a thing,” said Rose;

“for he is a very unquiet neighbour to his unfriends, and keeps a

greater _following_ on foot than many that have thrice his estate. As

to his connection with the thieves, that I cannot well explain; but the

boldest of them will never steal a hoof from any one that pays

black-mail to Vich Ian Vohr.”

“And what is black-mail?”

“A sort of protection-money that Low-Country gentlemen and heritors,

lying near the Highlands, pay to some Highland chief, that he may

neither do them harm himself, nor suffer it to be done to them by

others; and then if your cattle are stolen, you have only to send him

word, and he will recover them; or it may be, he will drive away cows

from some distant place, where he has a quarrel, and give them to you

to make up your loss.”

“And is this sort of Highland Jonathan Wild admitted into society, and

called a gentleman?”

“So much so,” said Rose, “that the quarrel between my father and Fergus

Mac-Ivor began at a county meeting, where he wanted to take precedence

of all the Lowland gentlemen then present, only my father would not

suffer it. And then he upbraided my father that he was under his

banner, and paid him tribute; and my father was in a towering passion,

for Bailie Macwheeble, who manages such things his own way, had

contrived to keep this black-mail a secret from him, and passed it in

his account for cess-money. And they would have fought; but Fergus

Mac-Ivor said, very gallantly, he would never raise his hand against a

grey head that was so much respected as my father’s.—O I wish, I wish

they had continued friends!”

“And did you ever see this Mr. Mac-Ivor, if that be his name, Miss

Bradwardine?”

“No, that is not his name; and he would consider _master_ as a sort of

affront, only that you are an Englishman, and know no better. But the

Lowlanders call him, like other gentlemen, by the name of his estate,

Glennaquoich; and the Highlanders call him Vich Ian Vohr, that is, the

son of John the Great; and we upon the braes here call him by both

names indifferently.”

“I am afraid I shall never bring my English tongue to call him by

either one or other.”

“But he is a very polite, handsome man,” continued Rose; “and his

sister Flora is one of the most beautiful and accomplished young ladies

in this country; she was bred in a convent in France, and was a great

friend of mine before this unhappy dispute. Dear Captain Waverley, try

your influence with my father to make matters up. I am sure this is but

the beginning of our troubles; for Tully-Veolan has never been a safe

or quiet residence when we have been at feud with the Highlanders. When

I was a girl about ten, there was a skirmish fought between a party of

twenty of them and my father and his servants behind the mains; and the

bullets broke several panes in the north windows, they were so near.

Three of the Highlanders were killed, and they brought them in wrapped

in their plaids, and laid them on the stone floor of the hall; and next

morning, their wives and daughters came, clapping their hands, and

crying the coronach, and shrieking, and carried away the dead bodies,

with the pipes playing before them. I could not sleep for six weeks

without starting and thinking I heard these terrible cries, and saw the

bodies lying on the steps, all stiff and swathed up in their bloody

tartans. But since that time there came a party from the garrison at

Stirling, with a warrant from the Lord Justice Clerk, or some such

great man, and took away all our arms; and now, how are we to protect

ourselves if they come down in any strength?”

Waverley could not help starting at a story which bore so much

resemblance to one of his own day-dreams. Here was a girl scarce

seventeen, the gentlest of her sex, both in temper and appearance, who

had witnessed with her own eyes such a scene as he had used to conjure

up in his imagination, as only occurring in ancient times, and spoke of

it coolly, as one very likely to recur. He felt at once the impulse of

curiosity, and that slight sense of danger which only serves to

heighten its interest. He might have said with Malvolio, ““I do not now

fool myself, to let imagination jade me!” I am actually in the land of

military and romantic adventures, and it only remains to be seen what

will be my own share in them.”

The whole circumstances now detailed concerning the state of the

country seemed equally novel and extraordinary. He had indeed often

heard of Highland thieves, but had no idea of the systematic mode in

which their depredations were conducted; and that the practice was

connived at, and even encouraged, by many of the Highland chieftains,

who not only found the creaghs, or forays, useful for the purpose of

training individuals of their clan to the practice of arms, but also of

maintaining a wholesome terror among their Lowland neighbours, and

levying, as we have seen, a tribute from them, under colour of

protection-money.

Bailie Macwheeble, who soon afterwards entered, expatiated still more

at length upon the same topic. This honest gentleman’s conversation was

so formed upon his professional practice, that Davie Gellatley once

said his discourse was like a “charge of horning.” He assured our hero,

that “from the maist ancient times of record, the lawless thieves,

limmers, and broken men of the Highlands, had been in fellowship

together by reason of their surnames, for the committing of divers

thefts, reifs, and herships upon the honest men of the Low Country,

when they not only intromitted with their whole goods and gear, corn,

cattle, horse, nolt, sheep, outsight and insight plenishing, at their

wicked pleasure, but moreover made prisoners, ransomed them, or

concussed them into giving borrows (pledges) to enter into captivity

again;—all which was directly prohibited in divers parts of the Statute

Book, both by the act one thousand five hundred and sixty-seven, and

various others; the whilk statutes, with all that had followed and

might follow thereupon, were shamefully broken and vilipended by the

said sorners, limmers, and broken men, associated into fellowships, for

the aforesaid purposes of theft, stouthreef, fire-raising, murther,

_raptus mulierum_, or forcible abduction of women, and such like as

aforesaid.”

It seemed like a dream to Waverley that these deeds of violence should

be familiar to men’s minds, and currently talked of as falling within

the common order of things, and happening daily in the immediate

vicinity, without his having crossed the seas, and while he was yet in

the otherwise well-ordered island of Great Britain.[13]