“Can this poor fellow deliver a letter?” asked Edward.
“With all fidelity, sir, to anyone whom he respects. I would hardly trust him with a long message by word of mouth—though he is more knave than fool.”
Waverley delivered his credentials to Mr. Gellatley, who seemed to confirm the butler’s last observation, by twisting his features at him, when he was looking another way, into the resemblance of the grotesque face on the bole of a German tobacco pipe; after which, with an odd congé to Waverley, he danced off to discharge his errand.
“He is an innocent, sir,” said the butler; “there is one such in almost every town in the country, but ours is brought far ben. He used to work a day’s turn weel enough; but he helped Miss Rose when she was flemit with the Laird of Killancureit’s new English bull, and since that time we ca’ him Davie Do-little; indeed we might ca’ him Davie Do-naething, for since he got that gay clothing, to please his honour and my young mistress (great folks will have their fancies), he has done naething but dance up and down about the toun, without doing a single turn, unless trimming the laird’s fishing-wand or busking his flies, or may be catching a dish of trouts at an orra time. But here comes Miss Rose, who, I take burden upon me for her, will be especial glad to see one of the house of Waverley at her father’s mansion of Tully-Veolan.”
But Rose Bradwardine deserves better of her unworthy historian than to be introduced at the end of a chapter.
In the mean while it may be noticed, that Waverley learned two things from this colloquy: that in Scotland a single house was called a “town,” and a natural fool an “innocent.”29
X
Rose Bradwardine and Her Father
Miss Bradwardine was but seventeen; yet, at the last races of the county town of—, upon her health being proposed among a round of beauties, the Laird of Bumperquaigh, permanent toastmaster and croupier of the Bautherwhillery Club, not only said “More” to the pledge in a pint bumper of Bourdeaux, but, ere pouring forth the libation, denominated the divinity to whom it was dedicated, “the Rose of Tully-Veolan”; upon which festive occasion three cheers were given by all the sitting members of that respectable society, whose throats the wine had left capable of such exertion. Nay, I am well assured, that the sleeping partners of the company snorted applause, and that although strong bumpers and weak brains had consigned two or three to the floor, yet even these, fallen as they were from their high estate, and weltering—I will carry the parody no farther—uttered divers inarticulate sounds, intimating their assent to the motion.
Such unanimous applause could not be extorted but by acknowledged merit; and Rose Bradwardine not only deserved it, but also the approbation of much more rational persons than the Bautherwhillery Club could have mustered, even before discussion of the first magnum. She was indeed a very pretty girl of the Scotch cast of beauty, that is, with a profusion of hair of paley gold, and a skin like the snow of her own mountains in whiteness. Yet she had not a pallid or pensive cast of countenance; her features, as well as her temper, had a lively expression; her complexion, though not florid, was so pure as to seem transparent, and the slightest emotion sent her whole blood at once to her face and neck. Her form, though under the common size, was remarkably elegant, and her motions light, easy, and unembarrassed. She came from another part of the garden to receive Captain Waverley, with a manner that hovered between bashfulness and courtesy.
The first greetings past, Edward learned from her that the “dark hag,” which had somewhat puzzled him in the butler’s account of his master’s avocations, had nothing to do either with a black cat or a broomstick, but was simply a portion of oak copse which was to be felled that day. She offered, with diffident civility, to show the stranger the way to the spot, which, it seems, was not far distant; but they were prevented by the appearance of the Baron of Bradwardine in person, who, summoned by David Gellatley, now appeared, “on hospitable thoughts intent,” clearing the ground at a prodigious rate with swift and long strides, which reminded Waverley of the seven-league boots of the nursery fable. He was a tall, thin, athletic figure, old indeed and grey-haired, but with every muscle rendered as tough as whipcord by constant exercise. He was dressed carelessly, and more like a Frenchman than an Englishman of the period, while, from his hard features and perpendicular rigidity of stature, he bore some resemblance to a Swiss officer of the guards, who had resided some time at Paris, and caught the costume, but not the ease or manner, of its inhabitants. The truth was, that his language and habits were as heterogeneous as his external appearance.
Owing to his natural disposition to study, or perhaps to a very general Scottish fashion of giving young men of rank a legal education, he had been bred with a view to the bar. But the politics of his family precluding the hope of his rising in that profession, Mr. Bradwardine travelled with high reputation for several years, and made some campaigns in foreign service. After his démelee with the law of high treason in , he had lived in retirement, conversing almost entirely with those of his own principles in the vicinage. The pedantry of the lawyer, superinduced upon the military pride of the soldier, might remind a modern of the days of the zealous volunteer
