Chương Chương 53 · FERGUS A SUITOR

. FERGUS A SUITOR

Waverley had, indeed, as he looked closer into the state of the

Chevalier’s court, less reason to be satisfied with it. It contained,

as they say an acorn includes all the ramifications of the future oak,

as many seeds of _tracasserie_ and intrigue as might have done honour

to the court of a large empire. Every person of consequence had some

separate object, which he pursued with a fury that Waverley considered

as altogether disproportioned to its importance. Almost all had their

reasons for discontent, although the most legitimate was that of the

worthy old Baron, who was only distressed on account of the common

cause.

“We shall hardly,” said he one morning to Waverley when they had been

viewing the Castle—“we shall hardly gain the obsidional crown, which

you wot well was made of the roots or grain which takes root within the

place besieged, or it may be of the herb woodbind, _parietaria_, or

pellitory; we shall not, I say, gain it by this same blockade or

leaguer of Edinburgh Castle.” For this opinion he gave most learned and

satisfactory reasons, that the reader may not care to hear repeated.

Having escaped from the old gentleman, Waverley went to Fergus’s

lodgings by appointment, to await his return from Holyrood House. “I am

to have a particular audience to-morrow,” said Fergus to Waverley

overnight, “and you must meet me to wish me joy of the success which I

securely anticipate.”

The morrow came, and in the Chief’s apartment he found Ensign

Maccombich waiting to make report of his turn of duty in a sort of

ditch which they had dug across the Castle-hill and called a trench. In

a short time the Chief’s voice was heard on the stair in a tone of

impatient fury: “Callum! why, Callum Beg! _Diaoul!_” He entered the

room with all the marks of a man agitated by a towering passion; and

there were few upon whose features rage produced a more violent effect.

The veins of his forehead swelled when he was in such agitation; his

nostril became dilated; his cheek and eye inflamed; and his look that

of a demoniac. These appearances of half-suppressed rage were the more

frightful because they were obviously caused by a strong effort to

temper with discretion an almost ungovernable paroxysm of passion, and

resulted from an internal conflict of the most dreadful kind, which

agitated his whole frame of mortality.

As he entered the apartment he unbuckled his broadsword, and throwing

it down with such violence that the weapon rolled to the other end of

the room, “I know not what,” he exclaimed, “withholds me from taking a

solemn oath that I will never more draw it in his cause. Load my

pistols, Callum, and bring them hither instantly—instantly!” Callum,

whom nothing ever startled, dismayed, or disconcerted, obeyed very

coolly. Evan Dhu, upon whose brow the suspicion that his Chief had been

insulted called up a corresponding storm, swelled in sullen silence,

awaiting to learn where or upon whom vengeance was to descend.

“So, Waverley, you are there,” said the Chief, after a moment’s

recollection. “Yes, I remember I asked you to share my triumph, and you

have come to witness my disappointment we shall call it.” Evan now

presented the written report he had in his hand, which Fergus threw

from him with great passion. “I wish to God,” he said, “the old den

would tumble down upon the heads of the fools who attack and the knaves

who defend it! I see, Waverley, you think I am mad. Leave us, Evan, but

be within call.”

“The Colonel’s in an unco kippage,” said Mrs. Flockhart to Evan as he

descended; “I wish he may be weel,—the very veins on his brent brow are

swelled like whipcord; wad he no tak something?”

“He usually lets blood for these fits,” answered the Highland ancient

with great composure.

When this officer left the room, the Chieftain gradually reassumed some

degree of composure. “I know, Waverley,” he said, “that Colonel Talbot

has persuaded you to curse ten times a day your engagement with us;

nay, never deny it, for I am at this moment tempted to curse my own.

Would you believe it, I made this very morning two suits to the Prince,

and he has rejected them both; what do you think of it?”

“What can I think,” answered Waverley, “till I know what your requests

were?”

“Why, what signifies what they were, man? I tell you it was I that made

them—I to whom he owes more than to any three who have joined the

standard; for I negotiated the whole business, and brought in all the

Perthshire men when not one would have stirred. I am not likely, I

think, to ask anything very unreasonable, and if I did, they might have

stretched a point. Well, but you shall know all, now that I can draw my

breath again with some freedom. You remember my earl’s patent; it is

dated some years back, for services then rendered; and certainly my

merit has not been diminished, to say the least, by my subsequent

behaviour. Now, sir, I value this bauble of a coronet as little as you

can, or any philosopher on earth; for I hold that the chief of such a

clan as the Sliochd nan Ivor is superior in rank to any earl in

Scotland. But I had a particular reason for assuming this cursed title

at this time. You must know that I learned accidentally that the Prince

has been pressing that old foolish Baron of Bradwardine to disinherit

his male heir, or nineteenth or twentieth cousin, who has taken a

command in the Elector of Hanover’s militia, and to settle his estate

upon your pretty little friend Rose; and this, as being the command of

his king and overlord, who may alter the destination of a fief at

pleasure, the old gentleman seems well reconciled to.”

“And what becomes of the homage?”

“Curse the homage! I believe Rose is to pull off the queen’s slipper on

her coronation-day, or some such trash. Well, sir, as Rose Bradwardine

would always have made a suitable match for me but for this idiotical

predilection of her father for the heir-male, it occurred to me there

now remained no obstacle unless that the Baron might expect his

daughter’s husband to take the name of Bradwardine (which you know

would be impossible in my case), and that this might be evaded by my

assuming the title to which I had so good a right, and which, of

course, would supersede that difficulty. If she was to be also

Viscountess Bradwardine in her own right after her father’s demise, so

much the better; I could have no objection.”

“But, Fergus,” said Waverley, “I had no idea that you had any affection

for Miss Bradwardine, and you are always sneering at her father.”

“I have as much affection for Miss Bradwardine, my good friend, as I

think it necessary to have for the future mistress of my family and the

mother of my children. She is a very pretty, intelligent girl, and is

certainly of one of the very first Lowland families; and, with a little

of Flora’s instructions and forming, will make a very good figure. As

to her father, he is an original, it is true, and an absurd one enough;

but he has given such severe lessons to Sir Hew Halbert, that dear

defunct the Laird of Balmawhapple, and others, that nobody dare laugh

at him, so his absurdity goes for nothing. I tell you there could have

been no earthly objection—none. I had settled the thing entirely in my

own mind.”

“But had you asked the Baron’s consent,” said Waverley, “or Rose’s?”

“To what purpose? To have spoken to the Baron before I had assumed my

title would have only provoked a premature and irritating discussion on

the subject of the change of name, when, as Earl of Glennaquoich, I had

only to propose to him to carry his d—d bear and bootjack _party per

pale_, or in a scutcheon of pretence, or in a separate shield

perhaps—any way that would not blemish my own coat of arms. And as to

Rose, I don’t see what objection she could have made if her father was

satisfied.”

“Perhaps the same that your sister makes to me, you being satisfied.”

Fergus gave a broad stare at the comparison which this supposition

implied, but cautiously suppressed the answer which rose to his tongue.

“O, we should easily have arranged all that. So, sir, I craved a

private interview, and this morning was assigned; and I asked you to

meet me here, thinking, like a fool, that I should want your

countenance as bride’s-man. Well, I state my pretension—they are not

denied; the promises so repeatedly made and the patent granted—they are

acknowledged. But I propose, as a natural consequence, to assume the

rank which the patent bestowed. I have the old story of the jealousy of

C—— and M—— trumped up against me. I resist this pretext, and offer to

procure their written acquiescence, in virtue of the date of my patent

as prior to their silly claims; I assure you I would have had such a

consent from them, if it had been at the point of the sword. And then

out comes the real truth; and he dares to tell me to my face that my

patent must be suppressed for the present, for fear of disgusting that

rascally coward and _fainéant_ (naming the rival chief of his own

clan), who has no better title to be a chieftain than I to be Emperor

of China, and who is pleased to shelter his dastardly reluctance to

come out, agreeable to his promise twenty times pledged, under a

pretended jealousy of the Prince’s partiality to me. And, to leave this

miserable driveller without a pretence for his cowardice, the Prince

asks it as a personal favour of me, forsooth, not to press my just and

reasonable request at this moment. After this, put your faith in

princes!”

“And did your audience end here?”

“End? O no! I was determined to leave him no pretence for his

ingratitude, and I therefore stated, with all the composure I could

muster,—for I promise you I trembled with passion,—the particular

reasons I had for wishing that his Royal Highness would impose upon me

any other mode of exhibiting my duty and devotion, as my views in life

made what at any other time would have been a mere trifle at this

crisis a severe sacrifice; and then I explained to him my full plan.”

“And what did the Prince answer?”

“Answer? Why—it is well it is written, “Curse not the king, no, not in

thy thought!”—why, he answered that truly he was glad I had made him my

confidant, to prevent more grievous disappointment, for he could assure

me, upon the word of a prince, that Miss Bradwardine’s affections were

engaged, and he was under a particular promise to favour them. “So, my

dear Fergus,” said he, with his most gracious cast of smile, “as the

marriage is utterly out of question, there need be no hurry, you know,

about the earldom.” And so he glided off and left me _planté là_.”

“And what did you do?”

“I’ll tell you what I _could_ have done at that moment—sold myself to

the devil or the Elector, whichever offered the dearest revenge.

However, I am now cool. I know he intends to marry her to some of his

rascally Frenchmen or his Irish officers, but I will watch them close;

and let the man that would supplant me look well to himself. _Bisogna

coprirsi, Signor_.”

After some further conversation, unnecessary to be detailed, Waverley

took leave of the Chieftain, whose fury had now subsided into a deep

and strong desire of vengeance, and returned home, scarce able to

analyse the mixture of feelings which the narrative had awakened in his

own bosom.