With the first dawn of day, old Janet was scuttling about the house to wake the Baron, who usually slept sound and heavily.
‘I must go back,’ he said to Waverley,‘to my cove; will you walk down the glen wi’ me?’ They went out together, and followed a narrow and entangled foot-path, which the occasional passage of anglers or wood-cutters had traced by the side of the stream. On their way the Baron explained to Waverley that he would be under no danger in remaining a day or two at Tully-Veolan, and even in being seen walking about, if he used the precaution of pretending that he was looking at the estate as agent or surveyor for an English gentleman who designed to be purchaser. With this view he recommended to him to visit the Bailie, who still lived at the factor’s house, called Little Veolan, about a mile from the village, though he was to remove at next term. Stanley’s passport would be an answer to the officer who commanded the military; and as to any of the country people who might recognise Waverley, the Baron assured him he was in no danger of being betrayed by them.
‘I believe,’ said the old man, ‘half the people of the barony know that their poor auld laird is somewhere hereabout; for I see they do not suffer a single bairn to come here a bird-nesting; a practice whilk, when I was in full possession of my power as baron, I was unable totally to inhibit. Nay, I often find bits of things in my way, that the poor bodies, God help them! leave there, because they think they may be useful to me. I hope they will get a wiser master, and as kind a one as I was.’
A natural sigh closed the sentence; but the quiet equanimity with which the Baron endured his misfortunes had something in it venerable and even sublime. There was no fruitless repining, no turbid melancholy; he bore his lot, and the hardships which it involved, with a good-humored, though serious composure, and used no violent language against the prevailing party.
‘I did what I thought my duty,’ said the good old man, ‘and questionless they are doing what they think theirs. It grieves me sometimes to look upon these blackened walls of the house of my ancestors; but doubtless officers cannot always keep the soldier’s hand from depredation and spuilzie, and Gustavus Adolphus himself, as ye may read in Colonel Munro his “Expedition with the Worthy Scotch Regiment called Mackay’s Regiment” did often permit it. Indeed I have myself seen as sad sights as Tully-Veolan now is when I served with the Marechal Duke of Berwick. To be sure we may say with Virgilius Maro, Fuimus Troes — and there’s the end of an auld sang. But houses and families and men have a’ stood lang eneugh when they have stood till they fall with honour; and now I hae gotten a house that is not unlike a domus ultima’ — they were now standing below a steep rock. ‘We poor Jacobites,’ continued the Baron, looking up, ‘are now like the conies in Holy Scripture (which the great traveller Pococke calleth Jerboa), a feeble people, that make our abode in the rocks. So, fare you well, my good lad, till we meet at Janet’s in the even; for I must get into my Patmos, which is no easy matter for my auld stiff limbs.’
With that he began to ascend the rock, striding, with the help of his hands, from one precarious footstep to another, till he got about half-way up, where two or three bushes concealed the mouth of a hole, resembling an oven, into which the Baron insinuated, first his head and shoulders, and then, by slow gradation, the rest of his l ong body; his legs and feet finally disappearing, coiled up like a huge snake entering his retreat, or a long pedigree introduced with care and difficulty into the narrow pigeon-hole of an old cabinet. Waverley had the curiosity to clamber up and look in upon him in his den, as the lurking-place might well be termed. Upon the whole, he looked not unlike that ingenious puzzle called ‘a reel in a bottle,’ the marvel of children (and of some grown people too, myself for one), who can neither comprehend the mysteryhowit has got in or how it is to be taken out. The cave was very narrow, too low in the roof to admit of his standing, or almost of his sitting up, though he made some awkward attempts at the latter posture. His sole amusement was the perusal of his old friend Titus Livius, varied by occasionally scratching Latin proverbs and texts of Scripture with his knife on the roof and walls of his fortalice, which were of sandstone. As the cave was dry, and filled with clean straw and withered fern, ‘it made,’ as he said, coiling himself up with an air of snugness and comfort which contrasted strangely with his situation, ‘unless when the wind was due north, a very passable gite for an old soldier.’ Neither, as he observed, was he without sentries for the purpose of reconnoitring. Davie and his mother were constantly on the watch to discover and avert danger; and it was singular what instances of address seemed dictated by the instinctive attachment of the poor simpleton when his patron’s safety was concerned.
With Janet, Edward now sought an interview. He had recognised her at first sight as the old woman who had nursed him during his sickness after his delivery from Gifted Gilfillan. The hut also, although a little repaired and somewhat better furnished, was certainly the place of his confinement; and he now recollected on the common moor of Tully-Veolan the trunk of a large decayed tree, called the try sting-tree, which he had no doubt was the same at which the Highlanders rendezvoused on that memorable night. All this he had combined in his imagination the night before; but reasons which may probably occur to the reader prevented him from catechising Janet in the presence of the Baron.
He now commenced the task in good earnest; and the first question was, Who was the young lady that visited the hut during his illness? Janet paused for a little; and then observed, that to keep the secret now would neither do good nor ill to anybody.
‘ It was just a leddy that hasna her equal in the world — Miss Rose Bradwardine!’
‘Then Miss Rose was probably also the author of my deliverance,’ inferred Waverley, delighted at the confirmation of an idea which local circumstances had already induced him to entertain.
‘I wot weel, Mr. Wauverley, and that was she e’en; but sair, sair angry and affronted wad she hae been, puir thing, if she had thought ye had been ever to ken a word about the matter; for she gar’d me speak aye Gaelic when ye was in hearing, to mak ye trow we were in the Hielands. I can speak it weil eneugh, for my mother was a Hieland woman.’
A few more questions now brought out the whole mystery respecting Waverley’s deliverance from the bondage in which he left Cairnvreckan. Never did music sound sweeter to an amateur than the drowsy tautology with which old Janet detailed every circumstance thrilled upon the ears of Waverley. But my reader is not a lover and I must spare his patience, by attempting to condense within reasonable compass the narrative which old Janet spread through a harangue of nearly two hours.
When Waverley communicated to Fergus the letter he had received from Rose Bradwardine by Davie Gellatley, giving an account of Tully-Veolan being occupied by a small party of soldiers, that circumstance had struck upon the busy and active mind of the Chieftain. Eager to distress and narrow the posts of the enemy, desirous to prevent their establishing a garrison so near him, and willing also to oblige the Baron — for he often had the idea of marriage with Rose floating through his brain — he resolved to send some of his people to drive out the red-coats and to bring Rose to Glennaquoich. But just as he had ordered Evan with a small party on this duty, the news of Cope’s having marched into the Highlands, to meet and disperse the forces of the Chevalier ere they came to a head, obliged him to join the standard with his whole forces.
He sent to order Donald Bean to attend him; but that cautious freebooter, who well understood the value of a separate command, instead of joining, sent various apologies which the pressure of the times compelled Fergus to admit as current, though not without the internal resolution of being revenged on him for his procrastination, time and place convenient. However, as he could not amend the matter, he issued orders to Donald to descend into the Low Country, drive the soldiers from Tully-Veolan, and, paying all respect to the mansion of the Baron, to take his abode somewhere near it, for protection of his daughter and family, and to harass and drive away any of the armed volunteers or small parties of military which he might find moving about the vicinity. As this charge formed a sort of roving commission, which Donald proposed to interpret in the way most advantageous to himself, as he was relieved from the immediate terrors of Fergus, and as he had, from former secret services, some interest in the councils of the Chevalier, he resolved to make hay while the sun shone. He achieved without difficulty the task of driving the soldiers from Tully-Veolan; but, although he did not venture to encroach upon the interior of the family, or to disturb Miss Rose, being unwilling to make himself a powerful enemy in the Chevalier’s army,
For well he knew the Baron’s wrath was deadly;
yet he set about to raise contributions and exactions upon the tenantry, and otherwise to turn the war to his own advantage. Meanwhile he mounted the white cockade, and waited upon Rose with a pretext of great devotion for the service in which her father was engaged, and many apologies for the freedom he must necessarily use for the support of his people. It was at this moment that Ros............