Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since by Walter Scott
CHAPTER XXV
NEWS FROM ENGLAND
The letters which Waverley had hitherto received from his relationsin England, were not such as required any particular notice in thisnarrative. His father usually wrote to him with the pompous affectationof one who was too much oppressed by public affairs to find leisure toattend to those of his own family. Now and then he mentioned persons ofrank in Scotland to whom he wished his son should pay some attention;but Waverley, hitherto occupied by the amusements which he had found atTully-Veolan and Glennaquoich, dispensed with paying any attention tohints so coldly thrown out, especially as distance, shortness of leaveof absence, and so forth, furnished a ready apology. But latterly theburden of Mr. Richard Waverley's paternal epistles consisted in certainmysterious hints of greatness and influence which he was speedilyto attain, and which would ensure his son's obtaining the most rapidpromotion, should he remain in the military service. Sir Everard'sletters were of a different tenor. They were short; for the good Baronetwas none of your illimitable correspondents, whose manuscript overflowsthe folds of their large post paper, and leaves no room for the seal;but they were kind and affectionate, and seldom concluded without someallusion 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 himfrom Waverley-Honour. Aunt Rachel charged him to remember his principlesof 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 wearflannel next to his skin.
Mr. Pembroke only wrote to our hero one letter, but it was of the bulkof six epistles of these degenerate days, containing, in the moderatecompass of ten folio pages, closely written, a precis of a supplementaryquarto manuscript of ADDENDA, DELENDA, ET CORRIGENDA, in reference tothe two tracts with which he had presented Waverley. This he consideredas 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 toaccompany with certain interesting pamphlets, lately published by hisfriend in Little Britain, with whom he had kept up a sort ofliterary correspondence, in virtue of which the library shelves ofWaverley-Honour were loaded with much trash, and a good round bill,seldom summed in fewer than three figures, was yearly transmitted, inwhich Sir Everard Waverley, of Waverley-Honour, Bart., was marked Dr.to Jonathan Grubbet, bookseller and stationer, Little Britain. Such hadhitherto been the style of the letters which Edward had received fromEngland; but the packet delivered to him at Glennaquoich was of adifferent and more interesting complexion. It would be impossiblefor the reader, even were I to insert the letters at full length, tocomprehend the real cause of their being written, without a glance intothe interior of the British Cabinet at the period in question.
The Ministers of the day happened (no very singular event) to be dividedinto two parties; the weakest of which, making up by assiduity ofintrigue their inferiority in real consequence, had of late acquiredsome new proselytes, and with them the hope of superseding their rivalsin the favour of their sovereign, and overpowering them in the Houseof Commons. Amongst others, they had thought it worth while to practiseupon Richard Waverley. This honest gentleman, by a grave mysteriousdemeanour, an attention to the etiquette of business, rather more thanto its essence, a facility in making long dull speeches, consisting oftruisms and commonplaces, hashed up with a technical jargon of office,which prevented the inanity of his orations from being discovered, hadacquired a certain name and credit in public life, and even established,with many, the character of a profound politician; none of your shiningorators, indeed, whose talents evaporate in tropes of rhetoric anddashes of wit, but one possessed of steady parts for business, whichwould wear well, as the ladies say in choosing their silks, and oughtin all reason to be good for common and everyday use, since they wereconfessedly formed of no holiday texture.
This faith had become so general, that the insurgent party in theCabinet of which we have made mention, after sounding Mr. RichardWaverley, were so satisfied with his sentiments and abilities, as topropose, that, in case of a certain revolution in the ministry, heshould take an ostensible place in the new order of things, not indeedof the very first rank, but greatly higher, in point both of emolumentand influence, than that which he now enjoyed. There was no resistingso tempting a proposal, notwithstanding that the Great Man, under whosepatronage he had enlisted and by whose banner he had hitherto stoodfirm, was the principal object of the proposed attack by the new allies.Unfortunately this fair scheme of ambition was blighted in the very bud,by a premature movement. All the official gentlemen concerned in it,who hesitated to take the part of a voluntary resignation, were informedthat the king had no further occasion for their services; and, inRichard Waverley's case, which the Minister considered as aggravatedby ingratitude; dismissal was accompanied by something like personalcontempt and contumely. The public, and even the party of whom he sharedthe fall, sympathized little in the disappointment of this selfishand interested statesman; and he retired to the country under thecomfortable reflection, that he had lost, at the same time, character,credit, and,--what he at least equally deplored,--emolument.
Richard Waverley's letter to his son upon this occasion was amasterpiece of its kind. Aristides himself could not have made out aharder case. An unjust monarch, and an ungrateful country, were theburden of each rounded paragraph. He spoke of long services, andunrequited sacrifices; though the former had been overpaid by hissalary, and nobody could guess in what the latter consisted, unless itwere in his deserting, not from conviction, but for the lucre of gain,the Tory principles of his family. In the conclusion, his resentment waswrought to such an excess by the force of his own oratory, that he couldnot repress some threats of vengeance, however vague and impotent, andfinally acquainted his son with his pleasure that he should testifyhis sense of the ill-treatment he had sustained, by throwing up hiscommission as soon as the letter reached him. This, he said, was alsohis uncle's desire, as he would himself intimate in due course.
Accordingly, the next letter which Edward opened was from Sir Everard.His brother's disgrace seemed to have removed from his well-naturedbosom all recollection of their differences, and, remote as he was fromevery means of learning that Richard's disgrace was in reality only thejust, as well as natural consequence, of his own unsuccessful intrigues,the good but credulous Baronet at once set it down as a new and enormousinstance of the injustice of the existing Government. It was true, hesaid, and he must not disguise it even from Edward, that his fathercould not have sustained such an insult as was now, for the first time,offered to one of his house, unless he had subjected himself to it byaccepting of an employment under the present system. Sir Everard had nodoubt that he now both saw and felt the magnitude of this error, and itshould be his (Sir Everard's) business, to take care that the cause ofhis regret should not extend itself to pecuniary consequences. Itwas enough for a Waverley to have sustained the public disgrace; thepatrimonial injury could easily be obviated by the head of their family.But it was both the opinion of Mr. Richard Waverley and his own, thatEdward, the representative of the family of Waverley-Honour, should notremain in a situation which subjected him also to such treatment asthat with which his father had been stigmatized. He requested his nephewtherefore to take the fittest, and, at the same time, the most speedyopportunity, of transmitting his resignation to the War-Office, andhinted, moreover, that little ceremony was necessary where so little hadbeen used to his father. He sent multitudinous greetings to the Baron ofBradwardine.
A letter from Aunt Rachel spoke out even more plainly. She consideredthe disgrace of brother Richard as the just reward of his forfeiting hisallegiance to a lawful, though exiled sovereign, and taking the oathsto an alien; a concession which her grandfather, Sir Nigel Waverley,refused to make, either to the Roundhead Parliament or to Cromwell, whenhis life and fortune stood in the utmost extremity.
These letters, as might have been expected, highly excited Waverley'sindignation. From the desultory style of his studies, he had not anyfixed political opinion to place in opposition to the movements ofindignation which he felt at his father's supposed wrongs. Of the realcause of his disgrace, Edward was totally ignorant; nor had his habitsat all led him to investigate the politics of the period in which helived, or remark the intrigues in which his father had been so activelyengaged. Indeed, any impressions which he had accidentally adoptedconcerning the parties of the times, were (owing to the society in whichhe had lived at Waverley-Honour) of a nature rather unfavourable tothe existing government and dynasty. He entered, therefore, withouthesitation, into the resentful feeling of the relations who had the besttitle to dictate his conduct; and not perhaps the less willingly, whenhe remembered the tedium of his quarters, and the inferior figure whichhe had made among the officers of his regiment. If he could have hadany doubt upon the subject, it would have been decided by the followingletter from his commanding-officer, which, as it is very short, shall beinserted verbatim:--
'SIR,
'Having carried somewhat beyond the line of my duty an indulgence whicheven the lights of nature, and much more those of Christianity, directtowards errors which may arise from youth and inexperience, and thataltogether without effect, I am reluctantly compelled, at the presentcrisis, to use the only remaining remedy which is in my power. You aretherefore, hereby commanded to repair to--, the head-quarters of theregiment, within three days after the date of this letter. If you shallfail to do so, I must report you to the War-Office as absent withoutleave, and also take other steps, which will be disagreeable to you, aswell as to, Sir,
'Your obedient Servant,
'J. GARDINER, Lieut.-Col.
'Commanding the--Regt. Dragoons.'
Edward's blood boiled within him as he read this letter. He had beenaccustomed from his very infancy to possess, in a great measure, thedisposal of his own time, and thus acquired habits which rendered therules of military discipline as unpleasing to him in this as they werein some other respects. An idea that in his own case they would not beenforced in a very rigid manner had also obtained full possession of hismind, and had hitherto been sanctioned by the indulgent conduct of hislieutenant-colonel. Neither had anything occurred, to his knowledge,that should have induced his commanding-officer, without any otherwarning than the hints we noticed at the end of the fourteenth chapter,so suddenly to assume a harsh, and, as Edward deemed it, so insolenta tone of dictatorial authority. Connecting it with the letters he hadjust received from his family, he could not but suppose that it wasdesigned to make him feel, in his present situation, the same pressureof authority which had been exercised in his father's case, and that thewhole was a concerted scheme to depress and degrade every member of theWaverley family.
Without a pause, therefore, Edward wrote a few cold lines, thanking hislieutenant-colonel for past civilities, and expressing regret that heshould have chosen to efface the remembrance of them, by assuming adifferent tone towards him. The strain of his letter, as well as whathe (Edward) conceived to be his duty, in the present crisis, called uponhim to lay down his commission; and he therefore enclosed the formalresignation of a situation which subjected him to so unpleasant acorrespondence, and requested Colonel Gardiner would have the goodnessto forward it to the proper authorities.
Having finished this magnanimous epistle, he felt somewhat uncertainconcerning the terms in which his resignation ought to be expressed,upon which subject he resolved to consult Fergus Mac-Ivor. It maybe observed in passing, that the bold and prompt habits of thinking,acting, and speaking, which distinguished this young Chieftain, hadgiven him a considerable ascendancy over the mind of Waverley. Endowedwith at least equal powers of understanding, and with much finer genius,Edward yet stooped to the bold and decisive activity of an intellectwhich was sharpened by the habit of acting on a preconceived and regularsystem, as well as by extensive knowledge of the world.
When Edward found his friend, the latter had still in his hand thenewspaper which he had perused, and advanced to meet him with theembarrassment of one who has unpleasing news to communicate. 'Do yourletters, Captain Waverley, confirm the unpleasing information which Ifind in this paper?'
He put the paper into his hand, where his father's disgrace wasregistered in the most bitter terms, transferred probably from someLondon journal. At the end of the paragraph was this remarkableinnuendo:--
'We understand, that "this same RICHARD, who hath done all this," isnot the only example of the WAVERING HONOUR of W-v-rl-y H-n-r. See theGAZETTE of this day.'
With hurried and feverish apprehension our hero turned to the placereferred to, and found therein recorded, 'Edward Waverley, captainin--regiment dragoons, superseded for absence without leave:' and inthe list of military promotions, referring to the same regiment, hediscovered this further article, 'Lieut. Julius Butler, to be captain,vice Edward Waverley, superseded.'
Our hero's bosom glowed with the resentment which undeserved andapparently premeditated insult was calculated to excite in the bosomof one who had aspired after honour, and was thus wantonly held up topublic scorn and disgrace. Upon comparing the date of his colonel'sletter with that of the article in the GAZETTE, he perceived that histhreat of making a report upon his absence had been literally fulfilled,and without inquiry, as it seemed, whether Edward had either receivedhis summons, or was disposed to comply with it. The whole, therefore,appeared a formed plan to degrade him in the eyes of the public; and theidea of its having succeeded filled him with such bitter emotions, that,after various attempts to conceal them, he at length threw himself intoMac-Ivor's arms, and gave vent to tears of shame and indignation.
It was none of this Chieftain's faults to be indifferent to the wrongsof his friends; and for Edward, independent of certain plans with whichhe was connected, he felt a deep and sincere interest. The proceedingappeared as extraordinary to him as it had done to Edward. He indeedknew of more motives than Waverley was privy to, for the peremptoryorder that he should join his regiment. But that, without furtherinquiry into the circumstances of a necessary delay, the commandingofficer, in contradiction to his known and established character, shouldhave proceeded in so harsh and unusual a manner, was a mystery which hecould not penetrate. He soothed our hero, however, to the best ofhis power, and began to turn his thoughts on revenge for his insultedhonour.
Edward eagerly grasped at the idea. 'Will you carry a message for me toColonel Gardiner, my dear Fergus, and oblige me for ever?'
Fergus paused. 'It is an act of friendship which you should command,could it be useful, or lead to the righting your honour; but in thepresent case, I doubt if your commanding-officer would give you themeeting on account of his having taken measures, which, however harshand exasperating, were still within the strict bounds of his duty.Besides, Gardiner is a precise Huguenot, and has adopted certainideas about the sinfulness of such rencontres, from which it would beimpossible to make him depart, especially as his courage is beyondall suspicion. And besides, I--I--to say the truth--I dare not at thismoment, for some very weighty reasons, go near any of the militaryquarters or garrisons belonging to this government.'
'And am I,' said Waverley, 'to sit down quiet and contented under theinjury I have received?'
'That will I never advise,
'On the Government!' said Waverley.
'Yes,' replied the impetuous Highlander, 'on the usurping House ofHanover, whom your grandfather would no more have served than he wouldhave taken wages of red-hot gold from the great fiend of hell!'
'But since the time of my grandfather, two generations of this dynastyhave possessed the throne,' said Edward, coolly.
'True,' replied the Chieftain; 'and because we have passively given themso long the means of showing their native character,--because both youand I myself have lived in quiet submission, have even truckled to thetimes so far as to accept commissions under them, and thus have giventhem an opportunity of disgracing us publicly by resuming them,--arewe not on that account to resent injuries which our fathers onlyapprehended, but which we have actually sustained? Or is the cause ofthe unfortunate Stuart family become less just, because their title hasdevolved upon an heir who is innocent of the charges of misgovernmentbrought against his father? Do you remember the lines of your favouritepoet?--
Had Richard unconstrained resigned the throne, A king can give no more than is his own; The title stood entailed had Richard had a son.
You see, my dear Waverley, I can quote poetry as well as Flora andyou. But come, clear your moody brow, and trust to me to show you anhonourable road to a speedy and glorious revenge. Let us seek Flora,who perhaps has more news to tell us of what has occurred duringour absence. She will rejoice to hear that you are relieved of yourservitude. But first add a postcript to your letter, marking the timewhen you received this calvinistical Colonel's first summons, andexpress your regret that the hastiness of his proceedings prevented youranticipating them by sending your resignation. Then let him blush forhis injustice.'
The letter was sealed accordingly, covering a formal resignation of thecommission, and Mac-Ivor dispatched it with some letters of his own by aspecial messenger, with charge to put them into the nearest post officein the Lowlands.