Chương Chương 32 · A CONFERENCE AND THE CONSEQUENCE

. A CONFERENCE AND THE CONSEQUENCE

Major Melville had detained Mr. Morton during his examination of

Waverley, both because he thought he might derive assistance from his

practical good sense and approved loyalty, and also because it was

agreeable to have a witness of unimpeached candour and veracity to

proceedings which touched the honour and safety of a young Englishman

of high rank and family, and the expectant heir of a large fortune.

Every step he knew would be rigorously canvassed, and it was his

business to place the justice and integrity of his own conduct beyond

the limits of question.

When Waverley retired, the laird and clergyman of Cairnvreckan sat down

in silence to their evening meal. While the servants were in attendance

neither chose to say anything on the circumstances which occupied their

minds, and neither felt it easy to speak upon any other. The youth and

apparent frankness of Waverley stood in strong contrast to the shades

of suspicion which darkened around him, and he had a sort of _naïveté_

and openness of demeanour that seemed to belong to one unhackneyed in

the ways of intrigue, and which pleaded highly in his favour.

Each mused over the particulars of the examination, and each viewed it

through the medium of his own feelings. Both were men of ready and

acute talent, and both were equally competent to combine various parts

of evidence, and to deduce from them the necessary conclusions. But the

wide difference of their habits and education often occasioned a great

discrepancy in their respective deductions from admitted premises.

Major Melville had been versed in camps and cities; he was vigilant by

profession and cautious from experience, had met with much evil in the

world, and therefore, though himself an upright magistrate and an

honourable man, his opinions of others were always strict, and

sometimes unjustly severe. Mr. Morton, on the contrary, had passed from

the literary pursuits of a college, where he was beloved by his

companions and respected by his teachers, to the ease and simplicity of

his present charge, where his opportunities of witnessing evil were

few, and never dwelt upon but in order to encourage repentance and

amendment; and where the love and respect of his parishioners repaid

his affectionate zeal in their behalf by endeavouring to disguise from

him what they knew would give him the most acute pain, namely, their

own occasional transgressions of the duties which it was the business

of his life to recommend. Thus it was a common saying in the

neighbourhood (though both were popular characters), that the laird

knew only the ill in the parish and the minister only the good.

A love of letters, though kept in subordination to his clerical studies

and duties, also distinguished the pastor of Cairnvreckan, and had

tinged his mind in earlier days with a slight feeling of romance, which

no after incidents of real life had entirely dissipated. The early loss

of an amiable young woman whom he had married for love, and who was

quickly followed to the grave by an only child, had also served, even

after the lapse of many years, to soften a disposition naturally mild

and contemplative. His feelings on the present occasion were therefore

likely to differ from those of the severe disciplinarian, strict

magistrate, and distrustful man of the world.

When the servants had withdrawn, the silence of both parties continued,

until Major Melville, filling his glass and pushing the bottle to Mr.

Morton, commenced—

“A distressing affair this, Mr. Morton. I fear this youngster has

brought himself within the compass of a halter.”

“God forbid!” answered the clergyman.

“Marry, and amen,” said the temporal magistrate; “but I think even your

merciful logic will hardly deny the conclusion.”

“Surely, Major,” answered the clergyman, “I should hope it might be

averted, for aught we have heard tonight?”

“Indeed!” replied Melville. “But, my good parson, you are one of those

who would communicate to every criminal the benefit of clergy.”

“Unquestionably I would. Mercy and long-suffering are the grounds of

the doctrine I am called to teach.”

“True, religiously speaking; but mercy to a criminal may be gross

injustice to the community. I don’t speak of this young fellow in

particular, who I heartily wish may be able to clear himself, for I

like both his modesty and his spirit. But I fear he has rushed upon his

fate.”

“And why? Hundreds of misguided gentlemen are now in arms against the

government, many, doubtless, upon principles which education and early

prejudice have gilded with the names of patriotism and heroism;

Justice, when she selects her victims from such a multitude (for surely

all will not be destroyed), must regard the moral motive. He whom

ambition or hope of personal advantage has led to disturb the peace of

a well-ordered government, let him fall a victim to the laws; but

surely youth, misled by the wild visions of chivalry and imaginary

loyalty, may plead for pardon.”

“If visionary chivalry and imaginary loyalty come within the

predicament of high treason,” replied the magistrate, “I know no court

in Christendom, my dear Mr. Morton, where they can sue out their Habeas

Corpus.”

“But I cannot see that this youth’s guilt is at all established to my

satisfaction,” said the clergyman.

“Because your good-nature blinds your good sense,” replied Major

Melville. “Observe now: This young man, descended of a family of

hereditary Jacobites, his uncle the leader of the Tory interest in the

county of ——, his father a disobliged and discontented courtier, his

tutor a nonjuror and the author of two treasonable volumes—this youth,

I say, enters into Gardiner’s dragoons, bringing with him a body of

young fellows from his uncle’s estate, who have not stickled at avowing

in their way the High-Church principles they learned at

Waverley-Honour, in their disputes with their comrades. To these young

men Waverley is unusually attentive; they are supplied with money

beyond a soldier’s wants and inconsistent with his discipline; and are

under the management of a favourite sergeant, through whom they hold an

unusually close communication with their captain, and affect to

consider themselves as independent of the other officers, and superior

to their comrades.”

“All this, my dear Major, is the natural consequence of their

attachment to their young landlord, and of their finding themselves in

a regiment levied chiefly in the north of Ireland and the west of

Scotland, and of course among comrades disposed to quarrel with them,

both as Englishmen and as members of the Church of England.”

“Well said, parson!” replied the magistrate. “I would some of your

synod heard you. But let me go on. This young man obtains leave of

absence, goes to Tully-Veolan—the principles of the Baron of

Bradwardine are pretty well known, not to mention that this lad’s uncle

brought him off in the year fifteen; he engages there in a brawl, in

which he is said to have disgraced the commission he bore; Colonel

Gardiner writes to him, first mildly, then more sharply—I think you

will not doubt his having done so, since he says so; the mess invite

him to explain the quarrel in which he is said to have been involved;

he neither replies to his commander nor his comrades. In the meanwhile

his soldiers become mutinous and disorderly, and at length, when the

rumour of this unhappy rebellion becomes general, his favourite

Sergeant Houghton and another fellow are detected in correspondence

with a French emissary, accredited, as he says, by Captain Waverley,

who urges him, according to the men’s confession, to desert with the

troop and join their captain, who was with Prince Charles. In the

meanwhile this trusty captain is, by his own admission, residing at

Glennaquoich with the most active, subtle, and desperate Jacobite in

Scotland; he goes with him at least as far as their famous hunting

rendezvous, and I fear a little farther. Meanwhile two other summonses

are sent him; one warning him of the disturbances in his troop, another

peremptorily ordering him to repair to the regiment, which, indeed,

common sense might have dictated, when he observed rebellion thickening

all round him. He returns an absolute refusal, and throws up his

commission.”

“He had been already deprived of it,” said Mr. Morton.

“But he regrets,” replied Melville, “that the measure had anticipated

his resignation. His baggage is seized at his quarters and at

Tully-Veolan, and is found to contain a stock of pestilent Jacobitical

pamphlets, enough to poison a whole country, besides the unprinted

lucubrations of his worthy friend and tutor Mr. Pembroke.”

“He says he never read them,” answered the minister.

“In an ordinary case I should believe him,” replied the magistrate,

“for they are as stupid and pedantic in composition as mischievous in

their tenets. But can you suppose anything but value for the principles

they maintain would induce a young man of his age to lug such trash

about with him? Then, when news arrive of the approach of the rebels,

he sets out in a sort of disguise, refusing to tell his name; and, if

yon old fanatic tell truth, attended by a very suspicious character,

and mounted on a horse known to have belonged to Glennaquoich, and

bearing on his person letters from his family expressing high rancour

against the house of Brunswick, and a copy of verses in praise of one

Wogan, who abjured the service of the Parliament to join the Highland

insurgents, when in arms to restore the house of Stuart, with a body of

English cavalry—the very counterpart of his own plot—and summed up with

a “Go thou and do likewise” from that loyal subject, and most safe and

peaceable character, Fergus Mac-Ivor of Glennaquoich, Vich Ian Vohr,

and so forth. And, lastly,” continued Major Melville, warming in the

detail of his arguments, “where do we find this second edition of

Cavalier Wogan? Why, truly, in the very track most proper for execution

of his design, and pistolling the first of the king’s subjects who

ventures to question his intentions.”

Mr. Morton prudently abstained from argument, which he perceived would

only harden the magistrate in his opinion, and merely asked how he

intended to dispose of the prisoner?

“It is a question of some difficulty, considering the state of the

country,” said Major Melville.

“Could you not detain him (being such a gentleman-like young man) here

in your own house, out of harm’s way, till this storm blow over?”

“My good friend,” said Major Melville, “neither your house nor mine

will be long out of harm’s way, even were it legal to confine him here.

I have just learned that the commander-in-chief, who marched into the

Highlands to seek out and disperse the insurgents, has declined giving

them battle at Coryarrick, and marched on northward with all the

disposable force of government to Inverness, John-o’-Groat’s House, or

the devil, for what I know, leaving the road to the Low Country open

and undefended to the Highland army.”

“Good God!” said the clergyman. “Is the man a coward, a traitor, or an

idiot?”

“None of the three, I believe,” answered Melville. “Sir John has the

commonplace courage of a common soldier, is honest enough, does what he

is commanded, and understands what is told him, but is as fit to act

for himself in circumstances of importance as I, my dear parson, to

occupy your pulpit.”

This important public intelligence naturally diverted the discourse

from Waverley for some time; at length, however, the subject was

resumed.

“I believe,” said Major Melville, “that I must give this young man in

charge to some of the detached parties of armed volunteers who were

lately sent out to overawe the disaffected districts. They are now

recalled towards Stirling, and a small body comes this way to-morrow or

next day, commanded by the westland man—what’s his name? You saw him,

and said he was the very model of one of Cromwell’s military saints.”

“Gilfillan, the Cameronian,” answered Mr. Morton. “I wish the young

gentleman may be safe with him. Strange things are done in the heat and

hurry of minds in so agitating a crisis, and I fear Gilfillan is of a

sect which has suffered persecution without learning mercy.”

“He has only to lodge Mr. Waverley in Stirling Castle,” said the Major;

“I will give strict injunctions to treat him well. I really cannot

devise any better mode for securing him, and I fancy you would hardly

advise me to encounter the responsibility of setting him at liberty.”

“But you will have no objection to my seeing him tomorrow in private?”

said the minister.

“None, certainly; your loyalty and character are my warrant. But with

what view do you make the request?”

“Simply,” replied Mr. Morton, “to make the experiment whether he may

not be brought to communicate to me some circumstances which may

hereafter be useful to alleviate, if not to exculpate, his conduct.”

The friends now parted and retired to rest, each filled with the most

anxious reflections on the state of the country.