Chương Chương 10 · ROSE BRADWARDINE AND HER FATHER

. ROSE BRADWARDINE AND HER FATHER

Miss Bradwardine was but seventeen; yet, at the last races of the

county town of——, upon her health being proposed among a round of

beauties, the Laird of Bumperquaigh, permanent toast-master and

croupier of the Bautherwhillery Club, not only said “More” to the

pledge in a pint bumper of Bourdeaux, but, ere pouring forth the

libation, denominated the divinity to whom it was dedicated, “the Rose

of Tully-Veolan”; upon which festive occasion three cheers were given

by all the sitting members of that respectable society, whose throats

the wine had left capable of such exertion. Nay, I am well assured,

that the sleeping partners of the company snorted applause, and that

although strong bumpers and weak brains had consigned two or three to

the floor, yet even these, fallen as they were from their high estate,

and weltering—I will carry the parody no farther—uttered divers

inarticulate sounds, intimating their assent to the motion.

Such unanimous applause could not be extorted but by acknowledged

merit; and Rose Bradwardine not only deserved it, but also the

approbation of much more rational persons than the Bautherwhillery Club

could have mustered, even before discussion of the first _magnum_. She

was indeed a very pretty girl of the Scotch cast of beauty, that is,

with a profusion of hair of paley gold, and a skin like the snow of her

own mountains in whiteness. Yet she had not a pallid or pensive cast of

countenance; her features, as well as her temper, had a lively

expression; her complexion, though not florid, was so pure as to seem

transparent, and the slightest emotion sent her whole blood at once to

her face and neck. Her form, though under the common size, was

remarkably elegant, and her motions light, easy, and unembarrassed. She

came from another part of the garden to receive Captain Waverley, with

a manner that hovered between bashfulness and courtesy.

The first greetings past, Edward learned from her that the _dark hag_,

which had somewhat puzzled him in the butler’s account of his master’s

avocations, had nothing to do either with a black cat or a broomstick,

but was simply a portion of oak copse which was to be felled that day.

She offered, with diffident civility, to show the stranger the way to

the spot, which, it seems, was not far distant; but they were prevented

by the appearance of the Baron of Bradwardine in person, who, summoned

by David Gellatley, now appeared, “on hospitable thoughts intent,”

clearing the ground at a prodigious rate with swift and long strides,

which reminded Waverley of the seven-league boots of the nursery fable.

He was a tall, thin, athletic figure, old indeed and grey-haired, but

with every muscle rendered as tough as whip-cord by constant exercise.

He was dressed carelessly, and more like a Frenchman than an Englishman

of the period, while, from his hard features and perpendicular rigidity

of stature, he bore some resemblance to a Swiss officer of the guards,

who had resided some time at Paris, and caught the _costume_, but not

the ease or manner, of its inhabitants. The truth was, that his

language and habits were as heterogeneous as his external appearance.

Owing to his natural disposition to study, or perhaps to a very general

Scottish fashion of giving young men of rank a legal education, he had

been bred with a view to the bar. But the politics of his family

precluding the hope of his rising in that profession, Mr. Bradwardine

travelled with high reputation for several years, and made some

campaigns in foreign service. After his _démêlée_ with the law of high

treason in 1715, he had lived in retirement, conversing almost entirely

with those of his own principles in the vicinage. The pedantry of the

lawyer, superinduced upon the military pride of the soldier, might

remind a modern of the days of the zealous volunteer service, when the

bar-gown of our pleaders was often flung over a blazing uniform. To

this must be added the prejudices of ancient birth and Jacobite

politics, greatly strengthened by habits of solitary and secluded

authority, which, though exercised only within the bounds of his

half-cultivated estate, was there indisputable and undisputed. For, as

he used to observe, “the lands of Bradwardine, Tully-Veolan, and

others, had been erected into a free barony by a charter from David the

First, cum liberali potest. habendi curias et justicias, cum fossa et

furca (_lie_, pit and gallows) et saka et soka, et thol et theam, et

infang-thief et outfang-thief, sive hand-habend, sive bak-barand.” The

peculiar meaning of all these cabalistical words few or none could

explain; but they implied, upon the whole, that the Baron of

Bradwardine might, in case of delinquency, imprison, try, and execute

his vassals at his pleasure. Like James the First, however, the present

possessor of this authority was more pleased in talking about

prerogative than in exercising it; and excepting that he imprisoned two

poachers in the dungeon of the old tower of Tully-Veolan, where they

were sorely frightened by ghosts, and almost eaten by rats, and that he

set an old woman in the _jougs_ (or Scottish pillory) for saying “there

were mair fules in the laird’s ha’ house than Davie Gellatley,” I do

not learn that he was accused of abusing his high powers. Still,

however, the conscious pride of possessing them gave additional

importance to his language and deportment.

At his first address to Waverley, it would seem that the hearty

pleasure he felt to behold the nephew of his friend had somewhat

discomposed the stiff and upright dignity of the Baron of Bradwardine’s

demeanour, for the tears stood in the old gentleman’s eyes, when,

having first shaken Edward heartily by the hand in the English fashion,

he embraced him _à la mode Française_, and kissed him on both sides of

his face; while the hardness of his gripe, and the quantity of Scotch

snuff which his accolade communicated, called corresponding drops of

moisture to the eyes of his guest.

“Upon the honour of a gentleman,” he said, “but it makes me young again

to see you here, Mr. Waverley! A worthy scion of the old stock of

Waverley-Honour—_spes altera_, as Maro hath it—and you have the look of

the old line, Captain Waverley; not so portly yet as my old friend Sir

Everard—_mais cela viendra avec le temps_, as my Dutch acquaintance,

Baron Kikkitbroeck, said of the _sagesse of madame son épouse_. And so

ye have mounted the cockade? Right, right; though I could have wished

the colour different, and so I would ha’ deemed might Sir Everard. But

no more of that; I am old, and times are changed. And how does the

worthy knight baronet, and the fair Mrs. Rachel?—Ah, ye laugh, young

man! In troth she was the fair Mrs. Rachel in the year of grace

seventeen hundred and sixteen; but time passes—_et singula prædantur

anni_—that is most certain. But once again ye are most heartily welcome

to my poor house of Tully-Veolan! Hie to the house, Rose, and see that

Alexander Saunderson looks out the old Château Margaux, which I sent

from Bourdeaux to Dundee in the year 1713.”

Rose tripped off demurely enough till she turned the first corner, and

then ran with the speed of a fairy, that she might gain leisure, after

discharging her father’s commission, to put her own dress in order, and

produce all her little finery, an occupation for which the approaching

dinner-hour left but limited time.

“We cannot rival the luxuries of your English table, Captain Waverley,

or give you the _epulæ lautiores_ of Waverley-Honour. I say ‘epulæ’

rather than prandium, because the latter phrase is popular: epulae ad

senatum, prandium vero ad populum attinet, says Suetonius Tranquillus.

But I trust ye will applaud my Bourdeaux; _c’est des doux oreilles_, as

Captain Vinsauf used to say; _vinum primæ notæ_, the principal of Saint

Andrews denominated it. And, once more, Captain Waverley, right glad am

I that ye are here to drink the best my cellar can make forthcoming.”

This speech, with the necessary interjectional answers, continued from

the lower alley where they met up to the door of the house, where four

or five servants in old-fashioned liveries, headed by Alexander

Saunderson, the butler, who now bore no token of the sable stains of

the garden, received them in grand _costume_,

In an old hall hung round with pikes and with bows,

With old bucklers and corslets that had borne many shrewd blows.

With much ceremony, and still more real kindness, the Baron, without

stopping in any intermediate apartment, conducted his guest through

several into the great dining parlour, wainscotted with black oak, and

hung round with the pictures of his ancestry, where a table was set

forth in form for six persons, and an old-fashioned beaufet displayed

all the ancient and massive plate of the Bradwardine family. A bell was

now heard at the head of the avenue; for an old man, who acted as

porter upon gala days, had caught the alarm given by Waverley’s

arrival, and, repairing to his post, announced the arrival of other

guests.

These, as the Baron assured his young friend, were very estimable

persons. “There was the young Laird of Balmawhapple, a Falconer by

surname, of the house of Glenfarquhar, given right much to

field-sports—_gaudet equis et canibus_—but a very discreet young

gentleman. Then there was the Laird of Killancureit, who had devoted

his leisure _until_ tillage and agriculture, and boasted himself to be

possessed of a bull of matchless merit, brought from the county of

Devon (the Damnonia of the Romans, if we can trust Robert of

Cirencester). He is, as ye may well suppose from such a tendency, but

of yeoman extraction—_servabit odorem testa diu;_ and I believe,

between ourselves, his grandsire was from the wrong side of the

Border—one Bullsegg, who came hither as a steward, or bailiff, or

ground-officer, or something in that department, to the last Girnigo of

Killancureit, who died of an atrophy. After his master’s death, sir,—ye

would hardly believe such a scandal,—but this Bullsegg, being portly

and comely of aspect, intermarried with the lady dowager, who was young

and amorous, and possessed himself of the estate, which devolved on

this unhappy woman by a settlement of her umwhile husband, in direct

contravention of an unrecorded taillie, and to the prejudice of the

disponer’s own flesh and blood, in the person of his natural heir and

seventh cousin, Girnigo of Tipperhewit, whose family was so reduced by

the ensuing law-suit, that his representative is now serving as a

private gentleman-sentinel in the Highland Black Watch. But this

gentleman, Mr. Bullsegg of Killancureit that now is, has good blood in

his veins by the mother and grandmother, who were both of the family of

Pickletillim, and he is well liked and looked upon, and knows his own

place. And God forbid, Captain Waverley, that we of irreproachable

lineage should exult over him, when it may be, that in the eighth,

ninth, or tenth generation, his progeny may rank, in a manner, with the

old gentry of the country. Rank and ancestry, sir, should be the last

words in the mouths of us of unblemished race—_vix ea nostra voco_, as

Naso saith. There is, besides, a clergyman of the true (though

suffering) Episcopal church of Scotland. He was a confessor in her

cause after the year 1715, when a Whiggish mob destroyed his

meeting-house, tore his surplice, and plundered his dwelling-house of

four silver spoons, intromitting also with his mart and his mealark,

and with two barrels, one of single and one of double ale, besides

three bottles of brandy.[9] My baron-bailie and doer, Mr. Duncan

Macwheeble, is the fourth on our list. There is a question, owing to

the incertitude of ancient orthography, whether he belongs to the clan

of Wheedle or of Quibble, but both have produced persons eminent in the

law.”—

“As such he described them by person and name,

They enter’d, and dinner was served as they came.”