Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since by Walter Scott (e novels to read TXT) 📗

A CREAGH, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES [A CREAGH was an incursion for plunder, termed on the Borders a raid.]

When Edward had been a guest at Tully-Veolan nearly six weeks, he descried one morning, as he took his usual walk before the breakfast-hour, signs of uncommon perturbation in the family. Four bare-legged dairymaids, with each an empty milk-pail in her hand, ran about with frantic gestures, and uttering loud exclamations of surprise, grief, and resentment. From their appearance, a pagan might have conceived them a detachment of the celebrated Belides, just come from their baling penance. As nothing was to be got from this distracted chorus, excepting 'Lord guide us!' and 'Eh, sirs!' ejaculations which threw no light upon the cause of their dismay, Waverley repaired to the forecourt, as it was called, where he beheld Bailie Macwheeble cantering his white pony down the avenue with all the speed it could muster. He had arrived, it would seem, upon a hasty summons and was followed by half a score of peasants from the village, who had no great difficulty in keeping pace with him.

The Bailie, greatly too busy, and too important, to enter into explanations with Edward, summoned forth Mr. Saunderson, who appeared with a countenance in which dismay was mingled with solemnity, and they immediately entered into close conference. Davie Gellatley was also seen in the group, idle as Diogenes at Sinope, while his countrymen were preparing for a siege. His spirits always rose with anything, good or bad, which occasioned tumult, and he continued frisking, hopping, dancing, and singing the burden of an old ballad,

until, happening to pass too near the Bailie, he received an admonitory hint from his horsewhip, which converted his songs into lamentation.

Passing from thence towards the garden, Waverley beheld the Baron in person, measuring and re-measuring, with swift and tremendous strides, the length of the terrace; his countenance clouded with offended pride and indignation, and the whole of his demeanour such as seemed to indicate, that any inquiry concerning the cause of his discomposure would give pain at least, if not offence. Waverley therefore glided into the house, without addressing him, and took his way to the breakfast parlour, where he found his young friend Rose, who, though she neither exhibited the resentment of her father, the turbid importance of Bailie Macwheeble, nor the despair of the hand-maidens, seemed vexed and thoughtful. A single word explained the mystery. 'Your breakfast will be a disturbed one, Captain Waverley, A party of Caterans have come down upon us, last night, and have driven off all our milch cows.'

'A party of Caterans?'

'Yes; robbers from the neighbouring Highlands. We used to be quite free from them while we paid blackmail to Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich Ian Vohr; but my father thought it unworthy of his rank and birth to pay it any longer, and so this disaster has happened. It is not the value of the cattle, Captain Waverley, that vexes me; but my father is so much hurt at the affront, and is so bold and hot, that I fear he will try to recover them by the strong hand; and if he is not hurt himself, he will hurt some of these wild people, and then there will be no peace between them and us perhaps for our lifetime; and we cannot defend ourselves as is old times, for the government have taken all our arms; and my dear father is so rash—Oh, what will become of us!'—Here poor Rose lost heart altogether, and burst into a flood of tears.

The Baron entered at this moment, and rebuked her with more asperity than Waverley had ever heard him use to any one. 'Was it not a shame,' he said, 'that she should exhibit herself before any gentleman in such a light, as if she shed tears for a drove of horned nolt and milch kine, like the daughter of a Cheshire yeoman! Captain Waverley, I must request your favourable construction of her grief, which may, or ought to proceed, solely from seeing her father's estate exposed to spulzie and depredation from common thieves and sornars, [Sornars may be translated sturdy beggars, more especially indicating those unwelcome visitors who exact lodgings and victuals by force, or something approaching to it.] while we are not allowed to keep half a score of muskets, whether for defence or rescue.'

Bailie Macwheeble entered immediately afterwards, and by his report of arms and ammunition confirmed this statement, informing the Baron, in a melancholy voice, that though the people would certainly obey his honour's orders, yet there was no chance of their following the gear to ony guid purpose, in respect there were only his honour's body servants who had swords and pistols, and the depredators were twelve Highlanders, completely armed after the manner of their country.—Having delivered this doleful annunciation, he assumed a posture of silent dejection, shaking his head slowly with the motion of a pendulum when it is ceasing to vibrate, and then remained stationary, his body stooping at a more acute angle than usual, and the latter part of his person projecting in proportion.

The Baron, meanwhile, paced the room in silent indignation, and at length fixing his eye upon an old portrait, whose person was clad in armour, and whose features glared grimly out of a huge bush of hair, part of which descended from his head to his shoulders, and part from his chin and upper-lip to his breastplate,—'That gentleman, Captain Waverley, my grandsire,' he said, 'with two hundred horse, whom he levied within his own bounds, discomfited and put to the rout more than five hundred of these Highland reivers, who have been ever LAPIS OFFENSIONIS, ET PETRA SCANDALI, a stumbling-block and a rock of offence to the Lowland vicinage—he discomfited them, I say, when they had the temerity to descend to harry this country, in the time of the civil dissensions, in the year of grace sixteen hundred forty and two. And now, sir, I, his grandson, am thus used at such unworthy hands!'

Here there was an awful pause; after which all the company, as is usual in cases of difficulty, began to give separate and inconsistent counsel. Alexander ab Alexandro proposed they should send some one to compound with the Caterans, who would readily, he said, give up their prey for a dollar a head. The Bailie opined that this transaction would amount to theft-boot, or composition of felony; and he recommended that some CANNY HAND should be sent up to the glens to make the best bargain he could, as it were for himself, so that the laird might not be seen in such a transaction. Edward proposed to send off to the nearest garrison for a party of soldiers and a magistrate's warrant; and Rose, as far as she dared, endeavoured to insinuate the course of paying the arrears of tribute money to Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich Ian Vohr, who, they all knew, could easily procure restoration of the cattle, if he were properly propitiated.

None of these proposals met the Baron's approbation. The idea of composition, direct or implied, was absolutely ignominious; that of Waverley only showed that he did not understand the state of the country, and of the political parties which divided it; and, standing matters as they did with Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich Ian Vohr, the Baron would make no concession to him, were it, he said, to procure restitution IN INTEGRUM of every stirk and stot that the chief, his forefathers, and his clan, had stolen since the days of Malcolm Canmore.'

In fact, his voice was still for war, and he proposed to send expresses to Balmawhapple, Killancureit, Tulliellum, and other lairds, who were exposed to similar depredations, inviting them to join in the pursuit; 'and then, sir, shall these NEBULONES NEQUISSIMI, as Leslaeus calls them, be brought to the fate of their predecessor Cacus,

The Bailie, who by no means relished these warlike counsels, here pulled forth an immense watch, of the colour, and nearly of the size, of a pewter warming-pan, and observed it was now past noon, and that the Caterans had been seen in the pass of Bally-Brough soon after sunrise; so that before the allied forces could assemble, they and their prey would be far beyond the reach of the most active pursuit, and sheltered in those pathless deserts where it was neither advisable to follow, nor indeed possible to trace them.

This proposition was undeniable. The council therefore broke up without coming to any conclusion, as has occurred to councils of more importance; only it was determined that the Bailie should send his own three milk-cows down to the Mains for the use of the Baron's family, and brew small ale, as a substitute for milk, in his own. To this arrangement, which was suggested by Saunderson, the Bailie readily assented, both from habitual deference to the family, and an internal consciousness that his courtesy would, in some mode or other, be repaid tenfold.

The Baron having also retired to give some necessary directions, Waverley seized the opportunity to ask, whether this Fergus, with the unpronounceable name, was the chief thief-taker of the district.

'Thief-taker!' answered Rose, laughing; 'he is a gentleman of great honour and consequence; the chieftain of an independent branch of a powerful Highland clan, and is much respected, both for his own power, and that of his kith, kin, and allies.'

'And what has he to do with the thieves, then? is he a magistrate, or in the commission of the peace?' asked Waverley.

The commission of war rather, if there be such a thing,' said Rose; 'for he is a very unquiet neighbour to his un-friends, and keeps a greater FOLLOWING on foot than many that have thrice his estates. As to his connexion with the thieves, that I cannot well explain; but the boldest of them will never steal a hoof from any one that pays blackmail to Vich Ian Vohr.'

'And what is blackmail?'

'A sort of protection-money that Low-country gentlemen and heritors, lying near the Highlands, pay to some Highland chief, that he may neither do them harm himself, nor suffer it to be done to them by others; and then, if your cattle are stolen, you have only to send him word, and he will recover them; or it may be, he will drive away cows from some distant place, where he has a quarrel, and give them to you to make up your loss.'

'And is this sort of Highland Jonathan Wild admitted into society, and called a gentleman?'

'So much so,' said Rose, 'that the quarrel between my father and Fergus Mac-Ivor began at a county meeting, where he wanted to take precedence of all the Lowland gentlemen then present, only my father would not suffer it. And then he upbraided my father that he was under his banner, and paid him tribute; and my father was in a towering passion, for Bailie Macwheeble, who manages such things his own way, had contrived to keep this blackmail a secret from him, and passed it in his account for cess-money. And they would have fought; but Fergus Mac-Ivor said, very gallantly, he would never raise his hand against a grey head that was so much respected as my father's. Oh, I wish, I wish they had continued friends!'

'And did you ever see this Mr. Mac-Ivor, if that be his name, Miss Bradwardine?'

'No, that is not his name; and he would consider MASTER as a sort of affront, only that you are an Englishman, and know no better. But the Lowlanders call him, like other gentlemen, by the name of his estate, Glennaquoich; and the Highlanders call him Vich Ian Vohr, that is, the son of John the Great; and we upon the braes here call him by both names indifferently.'

I am afraid I shall never bring my English tongue to call him by either one or other.'

'But he is a very polite, handsome man,' continued Rose; 'and his sister Flora is one of the most beautiful and accomplished young ladies in this country: she was bred in a convent in France, and was a great friend of mine before this unhappy dispute. Dear Captain Waverley, try your influence with my father to make matters up. I am sure this is but the beginning of our