What sent the messengers to hell,
Was asking what they knew full well. 63
He was about to proceed, but Callum Beg said, rather pertly, as Edward thought, that ‘Ta Tighearnach (i.e. the Chief) did not like ta Sassenagh duinhe-wassel to be pingled wi’ mickle speaking, as she was na tat weel.’ From this Waverley concluded he should disoblige his friend by inquiring of a stranger the object of a journey which he himself had not communicated.
It is unnecessary to trace the progress of our hero’s recovery. The sixth morning had arrived, and he was able to walk about with a staff, when Fergus returned with about a score of his men. He seemed in the highest spirits, congratulated Waverley on his progress towards recovery, and finding he was able to sit on horseback, proposed their immediate return to Glennaquoich. Waverley joyfully acceded, for the form of its fair mistress had lived in his dreams during all the time of his confinement.
Now he has ridden o’er moor and moss,
O’er hill and many a glen,
Fergus, all the while, with his myrmidons, striding stoutly by his side, or diverging to get a shot at a roe or a heath-cock. Waverley’s bosom beat thick when they approached the old tower of Ian nan Chaistel, and could distinguish the fair form of its mistress advancing to meet them.
Fergus began immediately, with his usual high spirits, to exclaim, ‘Open your gates, incomparable princess, to the wounded Moor Abindarez, whom Rodrigo de Narvez, constable of Antiquera, conveys to your castle; or open them, if you like it better, to the renowned Marquis of Mantua, the sad attendant of his half-slain friend Baldovinos of the Mountain. Ah, long rest to thy soul, Cervantes! without quoting thy remnants, how should I frame my language to befit romantic ears!’
Flora now advanced, and welcoming Waverley with much kindness, expressed her regret for his accident, of which she had already heard particulars, and her surprise that her brother should not have taken better care to put a stranger on his guard against the perils of the sport in which he engaged him. Edward easily exculpated the Chieftain, who, indeed, at his own personal risk, had probably saved his life.
This greeting over, Fergus said three or four words to his sister in Gaelic. The tears instantly sprung to her eyes, but they seemed to be tears of devotion and joy, for she looked up to heaven and folded her hands as in a solemn expression of prayer or gratitude. After the pause of a minute, she presented to Edward some letters which had been forwarded from Tully-Veolan during his absence, and at the same time delivered some to her brother. To the latter she likewise gave three or four numbers of the Caledonian Mercury, the only newspaper which was then published to the north of the Tweed.
Both gentlemen retired to examine their despatches, and Edward speedily found that those which he had received contained matters of very deep interest.
57 The thrust from the tynes, or branches, of the stag’s horns was accounted far more dangerous than those of the boar’s tusk: —
If thou be hurt with horn of stag,
it brings thee to thy bier,
But barber’s hand shall boar’s hurt heal,
thereof have thou no fear.
58 This garb, which resembled the dress often put on children in Scotland, called a polonie (i. e. polonaise), is a very ancient modification of the Highland garb. It was, in fact, the hauberk or shirt of mail, only composed of cloth instead of rings of armour.
59 Old Highlanders will still make the deasil around those whom they wish well to. To go round a person in the opposite direction, or withershins (German wider-shins), is unlucky, and a sort of incantation.
60 This metrical spell, or something very like it, is preserved by Reginald Scott in his work on Witchcraft.
61On the morrow they made their biers Of birch and hazel grey. Chevy Chase.
62 The author has been sometimes accused of confounding fiction with reality. He therefore thinks it necessary to state that the circumstance of the hunting described in the text as preparatory to the insurrection of 1745 is, so far as he knows, entirely imaginary. But it is well known such a great hunting was held in the Forest of Brae-Mar, under the auspices of the Earl of Mar, as preparatory to the Rebellion of 1715; and most of the Highland chieftains who afterwards engaged in that civil commotion were present on this occasion.
63 Corresponding to the Lowland saying, ‘Mony ane speirs the gate they ken fu’ weel.’
Chapter XXV
News from England
The letters which Waverley had hitherto received from his relations in England were not such as required any particular notice in this narrative. His father usually wrote to him with the pompous affectation of one who was too much oppressed by public affairs to find leisure to attend to those of his own family. Now and then he mentioned persons of rank in Scotland to whom he wished his son should pay some attention; but Waverley, hitherto occupied by the amusements which he had found at Tully-Veolan and Glennaquoich, dispensed with paying any attention to hints so coldly thrown out, especially as distance, shortness of leave of absence, and so forth furnished a ready apology. But latterly the burden of Mr. Richard Waverley’s paternal epistles consisted in certain mysterious hints of greatness and influence which he was speedily to attain, and which would ensure his son’s obtaining the most rapid promotion, should he remain in the military service. Sir Everard’s letters were of a different tenor. They were short; for the good Baronet was none of your illimitable correspondents, whose manuscript overflows the folds of their large post paper, and leaves no room for the seal; but they were kind and affectionate, and seldom concluded without some allusion to our hero’s stud, some question about the state of his purse, and a special inquiry after such of his recruits as had preceded him from Waverley-Honour. Aunt Rachel charged him to remember his principles of religion, to take care of his health, to beware of Scotch mists, which, she had heard, would wet an Englishman through and through, never to go out at night without his great-coat, and, above all, to wear flannel next to his skin.
Mr. Pembroke only wrote to our hero one letter, but it was of the bulk of six epistles of these degenerate days, containing, in the moderate compass of ten folio pages, closely written, a precis of a supplementary quarto manuscript of addenda, delenda, et corrigenda in reference to the two tracts with which he had presented Waverley. This he considered as a mere sop in the pan to stay the appetite of Edward’s curiosity until he should find an opportunity of sending down the volume itself, which was much too heavy for the post, and which he proposed to accompany with certain interesting pamphlets, lately published by his friend in Little Britain, with whom he had kept up a sort of literary correspondence, in virtue of which the library shelves of Waverley-Honour were loaded with much trash, and a good round bill, seldom summed in fewer than three figures, was yearly transmitted, in which Sir Everard Waverley of Waverley-Honour, Bart., was marked Dr. to Jonathan Grubbet, bookseller and stationer, Little Britain. Such had hitherto been the style of the letters which Edward had received from England; but the packet delivered to him at Glennaquoich was of a different and more interesting complexion. It would be impossible for the reader, even were I to insert the letters at full length, to comprehend the real cause of their being written, without a glance into the interior of the British cabinet at the period in question.
The ministers of the day happened (no very singular event) to be divided into two parties; the weakest of which, making up by assiduity of intrigue their inferiority in real consequence, had of late acquired some new proselytes, and with them the hope of superseding their rivals in the favour