Chương Chương 61 · A JOURNEY TO LONDON

. A JOURNEY TO LONDON

The family at Fasthwaite were soon attached to Edward. He had, indeed,

that gentleness and urbanity which almost universally attracts

corresponding kindness; and to their simple ideas his learning gave him

consequence, and his sorrows interest. The last he ascribed, evasively,

to the loss of a brother in the skirmish near Clifton; and in that

primitive state of society, where the ties of affection were highly

deemed of, his continued depression excited sympathy, but not surprise.

In the end of January his more lively powers were called out by the

happy union of Edward Williams, the son of his host, with Cicely

Jopson. Our hero would not cloud with sorrow the festivity attending

the wedding of two persons to whom he was so highly obliged. He

therefore exerted himself, danced, sung, played at the various games of

the day, and was the blithest of the company. The next morning,

however, he had more serious matters to think of.

The clergyman who had married the young couple was so much pleased with

the supposed student of divinity, that he came next day from Penrith on

purpose to pay him a visit. This might have been a puzzling chapter had

he entered into any examination of our hero’s supposed theological

studies; but fortunately he loved better to hear and communicate the

news of the day. He brought with him two or three old newspapers, in

one of which Edward found a piece of intelligence that soon rendered

him deaf to every word which the Reverend Mr. Twigtythe was saying upon

the news from the north, and the prospect of the Duke’s speedily

overtaking and crushing the rebels. This was an article in these, or

nearly these words:—

“Died at his house, in Hill Street, Berkeley Square, upon the 10th

inst., Richard Waverley, Esq., second son of Sir Giles Waverley of

Waverley-Honour, etc. etc. He died of a lingering disorder, augmented

by the unpleasant predicament of suspicion in which he stood, having

been obliged to find bail to a high amount to meet an impending

accusation of high-treason. An accusation of the same grave crime hangs

over his elder brother, Sir Everard Waverley, the representative of

that ancient family; and we understand the day of his trial will be

fixed early in the next month, unless Edward Waverley, son of the

deceased Richard, and heir to the Baronet, shall surrender himself to

justice. In that case we are assured it is his Majesty’s gracious

purpose to drop further proceedings upon the charge against Sir

Everard. This unfortunate young gentleman is ascertained to have been

in arms in the Pretender’s service, and to have marched along with the

Highland troops into England. But he has not been heard of since the

skirmish at Clifton, on the 18th December last.”

Such was this distracting paragraph. “Good God!” exclaimed Waverley,

“am I then a parricide? Impossible! My father, who never showed the

affection of a father while he lived, cannot have been so much affected

by my supposed death as to hasten his own; no, I will not believe it,

it were distraction to entertain for a moment such a horrible idea. But

it were, if possible, worse than parricide to suffer any danger to hang

over my noble and generous uncle, who has ever been more to me than a

father, if such evil can be averted by any sacrifice on my part!”

While these reflections passed like the stings of scorpions through

Waverley’s sensorium, the worthy divine was startled in a long

disquisition on the battle of Falkirk by the ghastliness which they

communicated to his looks, and asked him if he was ill? Fortunately the

bride, all smirk and blush, had just entered the room. Mrs. Williams

was none of the brightest of women, but she was good-natured, and

readily concluding that Edward had been shocked by disagreeable news in

the papers, interfered so judiciously, that, without exciting

suspicion, she drew off Mr. Twigtythe’s attention, and engaged it until

he soon after took his leave. Waverley then explained to his friends

that he was under the necessity of going to London with as little delay

as possible.

One cause of delay, however, did occur, to which Waverley had been very

little accustomed. His purse, though well stocked when he first went to

Tully-Veolan, had not been reinforced since that period; and although

his life since had not been of a nature to exhaust it hastily, for he

had lived chiefly with his friends or with the army, yet he found that,

after settling with his kind landlord, he should be too poor to

encounter the expense of travelling post. The best course, therefore,

seemed to be to get into the great north road about Boroughbridge, and

there take a place in the northern diligence, a huge old-fashioned tub,

drawn by three horses, which completed the journey from Edinburgh to

London (God willing, as the advertisement expressed it) in three weeks.

Our hero, therefore, took an affectionate farewell of his Cumberland

friends, whose kindness he promised never to forget, and tacitly hoped

one day to acknowledge by substantial proofs of gratitude. After some

petty difficulties and vexatious delays, and after putting his dress

into a shape better befitting his rank, though perfectly plain and

simple, he accomplished crossing the country, and found himself in the

desired vehicle _vis-à-vis_ to Mrs. Nosebag, the lady of Lieutenant

Nosebag, adjutant and riding-master of the —— dragoons, a jolly woman

of about fifty, wearing a blue habit, faced with scarlet, and grasping

a silver-mounted horse-whip.

This lady was one of those active members of society who take upon them

_faire le frais de conversation_. She had just returned from the north,

and informed Edward how nearly her regiment had cut the petticoat

people into ribands at Falkirk, “only somehow there was one of those

nasty, awkward marshes, that they are never without in Scotland, I

think, and so our poor dear little regiment suffered something, as my

Nosebag says, in that unsatisfactory affair. You, sir, have served in

the dragoons?” Waverley was taken so much at unawares that he

acquiesced.

“O, I knew it at once; I saw you were military from your air, and I was

sure you could be none of the foot-wobblers, as my Nosebag calls them.

What regiment, pray?” Here was a delightful question. Waverley,

however, justly concluded that this good lady had the whole army-list

by heart; and, to avoid detection by adhering to truth, answered,

“Gardiner’s dragoons, ma’am; but I have retired some time.”

“O aye, those as won the race at the battle of Preston, as my Nosebag

says. Pray, sir, were you there?”

“I was so unfortunate, madam,” he replied, “as to witness that

engagement.”

“And that was a misfortune that few of Gardiner’s stood to witness, I

believe, sir—ha! ha! ha! I beg your pardon; but a soldier’s wife loves

a joke.”

“Devil confound you,” thought Waverley: “what infernal luck has penned

me up with this inquisitive hag!”

Fortunately the good lady did not stick long to one subject. “We are

coming to Ferrybridge now,” she said, “where there was a party of

_ours_ left to support the beadles, and constables, and justices, and

these sort of creatures that are examining papers and stopping rebels,

and all that.” They were hardly in the inn before she dragged Waverley

to the window, exclaiming, “Yonder comes Corporal Bridoon, of our poor

dear troop; he’s coming with the constable man. Bridoon’s one of my

lambs, as Nosebag calls ’em. Come, Mr.—a—a—pray, what’s your name,

sir?”

“Butler, ma’am,” said Waverley, resolved rather to make free with the

name of a former fellow-officer than run the risk of detection by

inventing one not to be found in the regiment.

“O, you got a troop lately, when that shabby fellow, Waverley, went

over to the rebels? Lord, I wish our old cross Captain Crump would go

over to the rebels, that Nosebag might get the troop! Lord, what can

Bridoon be standing swinging on the bridge for? I’ll be hanged if he

a’nt hazy, as Nosebag says. Come, sir, as you and I belong to the

service, we’ll go put the rascal in mind of his duty.”

Waverley, with feelings more easily conceived than described, saw

himself obliged to follow this doughty female commander. The gallant

trooper was as like a lamb as a drunk corporal of dragoons, about six

feet high, with very broad shoulders, and very thin legs, not to

mention a great scar across his nose, could well be. Mrs. Nosebag

addressed him with something which, if not an oath, sounded very like

one, and commanded him to attend to his duty.

“You be d—d for a——,” commenced the gallant cavalier; but, looking up

in order to suit the action to the words, and also to enforce the

epithet which he meditated with an adjective applicable to the party,

he recognised the speaker, made his military salaam, and altered his

tone. “Lord love your handsome face, Madam Nosebag, is it you? Why, if

a poor fellow does happen to fire a slug of a morning, I am sure you

were never the lady to bring him to harm.”

“Well, you rascallion, go mind your duty; this gentleman and I belong

to the service; but be sure you look after that shy cock in the

slouched hat that sits in the corner of the coach. I believe he’s one

of the rebels in disguise.”

“D—n her gooseberry wig,” said the corporal, when she was out of

hearing, “that gimlet-eyed jade—mother adjutant, as we call her—is a

greater plague to the regiment than prévôt-marshal, sergeant-major, and

old Hubble-de-Shuff, the colonel, into the bargain. Come, Master

Constable, let’s see if this shy cock, as she calls him (who, by the

way, was a Quaker from Leeds, with whom Mrs. Nosebag had had some tart

argument on the legality of bearing arms), will stand godfather to a

sup of brandy, for your Yorkshire ale is cold on my stomach.”

The vivacity of this good lady, as it helped Edward out of this scrape,

was like to have drawn him into one or two others. In every town where

they stopped she wished to examine the _corps de garde_, if there was

one, and once very narrowly missed introducing Waverley to a

recruiting-sergeant of his own regiment. Then she Captain’d and

Butler’d him till he was almost mad with vexation and anxiety; and

never was he more rejoiced in his life at the termination of a journey

than when the arrival of the coach in London freed him from the

attentions of Madam Nosebag.