Waverley; Or 'Tis Sixty Years Since — Complete by Walter Scott (free novels to read TXT) 📗

but a kind of rub-a-dub-dub, like that with which the fire-drum startles the slumbering artizans of a Scotch burgh. It is the object of this history to do justice to all men; I must therefore record, in justice to the drummer, that he protested he could beat any known march or point of war known in the British army, and had accordingly commenced with 'Dumbarton's Drums,' when he was silenced by Gifted Gilfillan, the commander of the party, who refused to permit his followers to move to this profane, and even, as he said, persecutive tune, and commanded the drummer to beat the 119th Psalm. As this was beyond the capacity of the drubber of sheepskin, he was fain to have recourse to the inoffensive row-de-dow as a harmless substitute for the sacred music which his instrument or skill were unable to achieve. This may be held a trifling anecdote, but the drummer in question was no less than town-drummer of Anderton. I remember his successor in office, a member of that enlightened body, the British Convention. Be his memory, therefore, treated with due respect. CHAPTER XXXV A VOLUNTEER SIXTY YEARS SINCE

On hearing the unwelcome sound of the drum, Major Melville hastily opened a sashed door and stepped out upon a sort of terrace which divided his house from the highroad from which the martial music proceeded. Waverley and his new friend followed him, though probably he would have dispensed with their attendance. They soon recognised in solemn march, first, the performer upon the drum; secondly, a large flag of four compartments, on which were inscribed the words, COVENANT, KIRK, KING, KINGDOMS. The person who was honoured with this charge was followed by the commander of the party, a thin, dark, rigid-looking man, about sixty years old. The spiritual pride, which in mine host of the Candlestick mantled in a sort of supercilious hypocrisy, was in this man's face elevated and yet darkened by genuine and undoubting fanaticism. It was impossible to behold him without imagination placing him in some strange crisis, where religious zeal was the ruling principle. A martyr at the stake, a soldier in the field, a lonely and banished wanderer consoled by the intensity and supposed purity of his faith under every earthly privation, perhaps a persecuting inquisitor, as terrific in power as unyielding in adversity; any of these seemed congenial characters to this personage. With these high traits of energy, there was something in the affected precision and solemnity of his deportment and discourse that bordered upon the ludicrous; so that, according to the mood of the spectator's mind and the light under which Mr. Gilfillan presented himself, one might have feared, admired, or laughed at him. His dress was that of a West-Country peasant, of better materials indeed than that of the lower rank, but in no respect affecting either the mode of the age or of the Scottish gentry at any period. His arms were a broadsword and pistols, which, from the antiquity of their appearance, might have seen the rout of Pentland or Bothwell Brigg.

As he came up a few steps to meet Major Melville, and touched solemnly, but slightly, his huge and over-brimmed blue bonnet, in answer to the Major, who had courteously raised a small triangular gold-laced hat, Waverley was irresistibly impressed with the idea that he beheld a leader of the Roundheads of yore in conference with one of Marlborough's captains.

The group of about thirty armed men who followed this gifted commander was of a motley description. They were in ordinary Lowland dresses, of different colours, which, contrasted with the arms they bore, gave them an irregular and mobbish appearance; so much is the eye accustomed to connect uniformity of dress with the military character. In front were a few who apparently partook of their leader's enthusiasm, men obviously to be feared in a combat, where their natural courage was exalted by religious zeal. Others puffed and strutted, filled with the importance of carrying arms and all the novelty of their situation, while the rest, apparently fatigued with their march, dragged their limbs listlessly along, or straggled from their companions to procure such refreshments as the neighbouring cottages and alehouses afforded. Six grenadiers of Ligonier's, thought the Major to himself, as his mind reverted to his own military experience, would have sent all these fellows to the right about.

Greeting, however, Mr. Gilfillan civilly, he requested to know if he had received the letter he had sent to him upon his march, and could undertake the charge of the state prisoner whom he there mentioned as far as Stirling Castle. 'Yea,' was the concise reply of the Cameronian leader, in a voice which seemed to issue from the very penetralia of his person.

'But your escort, Mr. Gilfillan, is not so strong as I expected,' said
Major Melville.

'Some of the people,' replied Gilfillan, 'hungered and were athirst by the way, and tarried until their poor souls were refreshed with the word.'

'I am sorry, sir,' replied the Major, 'you did not trust to your refreshing your men at Cairnvreckan; whatever my house contains is at the command of persons employed in the service.'

'It was not of creature-comforts I spake,' answered the Covenanter, regarding Major Melville with something like a smile of contempt; 'howbeit, I thank you; but the people remained waiting upon the precious Mr. Jabesh Rentowel for the out-pouring of the afternoon exhortation.'

'And have you, sir,' said the Major, 'when the rebels are about to spread themselves through this country, actually left a great part of your command at a fieldpreaching?'

Gilfillan again smiled scornfully as he made this indirect answer —'Even thus are the children of this world wiser in their generation than the children of light!'

'However, sir,' said the Major, 'as you are to take charge of this gentleman to Stirling, and deliver him, with these papers, into the hands of Governor Blakeney, I beseech you to observe some rules of military discipline upon your march. For example, I would advise you to keep your men more closely together, and that each in his march should cover his file-leader, instead of straggling like geese upon a common; and, for fear of surprise, I further recommend to you to form a small advance-party of your best men, with a single vidette in front of the whole march, so that when you approach a village or a wood'—(here the Major interrupted himself)—'But as I don't observe you listen to me, Mr. Gilfillan, I suppose I need not give myself the trouble to say more upon the subject. You are a better judge, unquestionably, than I am of the measures to be pursued; but one thing I would have you well aware of, that you are to treat this gentleman, your prisoner, with no rigour nor incivility, and are to subject him to no other restraint than is necessary for his security.'

'I have looked into my commission,' said Mr. Gilfillan,' subscribed by a worthy and professing nobleman, William, Earl of Glencairn; nor do I find it therein set down that I am to receive any charges or commands anent my doings from Major William Melville of Cairnvreckan.'

Major Melville reddened even to the well-powdered ears which appeared beneath his neat military sidecurls, the more so as he observed Mr. Morton smile at the same moment. 'Mr. Gilfillan,' he answered, with some asperity, 'I beg ten thousand pardons for interfering with a person of your importance. I thought, however, that as you have been bred a grazier, if I mistake not, there might be occasion to remind you of the difference between Highlanders and Highland cattle; and if you should happen to meet with any gentleman who has seen service, and is disposed to speak upon the subject, I should still imagine that listening to him would do you no sort of harm. But I have done, and have only once more to recommend this gentleman to your civility as well as to your custody. Mr. Waverley, I am truly sorry we should part in this way; but I trust, when you are again in this country, I may have an opportunity to render Cairnvreckan more agreeable than circumstances have permitted on this occasion.'

So saying, he shook our hero by the hand. Morton also took an affectionate farewell, and Waverley, having mounted his horse, with a musketeer leading it by the bridle and a file upon each side to prevent his escape, set forward upon the march with Gilfillan and his party. Through the little village they were accompanied with the shouts of the children, who cried out, 'Eh! see to the Southland gentleman that's gaun to be hanged for shooting lang John Mucklewrath, the smith!

APPENDICES TO THE GENERAL PREFACE NO. I

FRAGMENT [Footnote: It is not to be supposed that these fragments are given in possessing any intrinsic value of themselves; but there may be some curiosity attached to them, as to the first etchings of a plate, which are accounted interesting by those who have, in any degree, been interested in the more finished works of the artist.] OF A ROMANCE WHICH WAS TO HAVE BEEN ENTITLED

THOMAS THE RHYMER CHAPTER I

THE sun was nearly set behind the distant mountains of Liddesdale, when a few of the scattered and terrified inhabitants of the village of Hersildoune, which had four days before been burned by a predatory band of English Borderers, were now busied in repairing their ruined dwellings. One high tower in the centre of the village alone exhibited no appearance of devastation. It was surrounded with court walls, and the outer gate was barred and bolted. The bushes and brambles which grew around, and had even insinuated their branches beneath the gate, plainly showed that it must have been many years since it had been opened. While the cottages around lay in smoking ruins, this pile, deserted and desolate as it seemed to be, had suffered nothing from the violence of the invaders; and the wretched beings who were endeavouring to repair their miserable huts against nightfall seemed to neglect the preferable shelter which it might have afforded them without the necessity of labour.

Before the day had quite gone down, a knight, richly armed and mounted upon an ambling hackney, rode slowly into the village. His attendants were a lady, apparently young and beautiful, who rode by his side upon a dappled palfrey; his squire, who carried his helmet and lance, and led his battlehorse, a noble steed, richly caparisoned. A page and four yeomen bearing bows and quivers, short swords, and targets of a span breadth, completed his equipage, which, though small, denoted him to be a man of high rank.

He stopped and addressed several of the inhabitants whom curiosity had withdrawn from their labour to gaze at him; but at the sound of his voice, and still more on perceiving the St. George's Cross in the caps of his followers, they fled, with a loud cry, 'that the Southrons were returned.' The knight endeavoured to expostulate with the fugitives, who were chiefly aged men, women, and children; but their dread of the English name accelerated their flight, and in a few minutes, excepting the knight and his attendants, the place was deserted by all. He paced through the village to seek a shelter for the night, and, despairing to find one either in the inaccessible tower or the plundered huts of the peasantry, he directed his course to the left hand, where he spied a small decent habitation, apparently the abode of a man considerably above the common rank. After much knocking, the proprietor at length showed himself at the window, and speaking in the English dialect, with great signs of apprehension, demanded their business. The warrior replied that his quality was an English knight and baron, and that he was travelling to the court of the King of Scotland on affairs of consequence to both kingdoms.

'Pardon my hesitation, noble Sir Knight,' said the old man, as he unbolted and unbarred his doors—'Pardon my hesitation, but we are here exposed to too many intrusions to admit of our exercising unlimited and unsuspicious hospitality. What I have is yours; and God send your mission may bring back peace and the good days of our old Queen Margaret!'

'Amen, worthy Franklin,' quoth the Knight—'Did you know her?'

'I came to this country in her train,' said the Franklin; 'and the care of some of her jointure lands which she devolved on me occasioned my settling here.'

'And how do you, being an Englishman,' said the Knight, 'protect your life and property here, when one of your nation cannot obtain a single night's lodging, or a draught of water were he thirsty?'

'Marry, noble sir,' answered the Franklin, 'use, as they say, will make a man live in a lion's den; and as I settled here in a