CHAPTER IV

THE WAVERLEY NOVELS

You have heard at times a strain of music far away. A band, perhaps, is playing the air of some martial song that you know well. The music comes nearer, nearer. You can almost imagine that you see the players marching down the street. And here they are. As stirring, as romantic, as beautiful as the distant music, are the spirit, scenes, and happenings of The Waverley Novels by Sir Walter Scott.

Scott did not begin by writing novels; his first writing was poetical; he wrote stories in verse. If you do not already know these poetical stories, you probably will some day soon, because they are charming and delightful, and so easy to read that one almost feels one must have read them before in a dream. The novels are, perhaps, a little more difficult to follow, but not after we once get fairly started. They are wonderful books to read. Some of them are world novels. This means that in many countries, and in many different languages, people may be found reading the Waverley Novels. This statement is true of Dickens' novels also. When we learn to know Dickens' work and Scott's work intimately, we will perceive that there is a difference.

Let us begin with _Rob Roy_, one of the Waverley Novels which is a great favourite with boys {22} and girls. Francis Osbaldistone is sent by his father to visit his uncle, Sir Hildebrand, at the family seat, Osbaldistone Hall, in the north of England. Frank does not want to go into business and become his father's successor. The visit to Osbaldistone Hall is by way of punishment. His father means to choose one of Frank's six cousins to inherit his place in the business. Frank goes north, meets all the six cousins, his uncle, Sir Hildebrand, Andrew Fairservice, a serving man, who is as notable a character after his own way of life as Sam Weller; and above all he meets a cousin of his cousins, Die Vernon, beautiful, spirited, altogether charming and lovable Die.

Owing to a business matter, Frank has to go further north from Osbaldistone Hall into Scotland. In the city of Glasgow, he is directed to Bailie Nicol Jarvie. He is given a mysterious warning in Glasgow Cathedral, and goes up to the Highlands with Bailie Nicol Jarvie, seeking to recover a debt. Now we are fully set in the midst of the scenes of Sir Walter Scott's enchantment. The wild, romantic, beautiful scenery of Scotland, painted by a master's hand; the Highlanders themselves, proud, devoted, chivalrous, faithful; the cause of the royal Stuarts whose adherents loved them and sacrificed for them without stint; the glamour of old Scots songs; romantic stories of love and conflict, all these delights you will find in _Rob Roy_ and in other of the Waverley Novels. The mysterious Mr. Campbell of the highroad and the drove of cattle, turns out to be Rob Roy MacGregor himself. His wife, Helen, who is as fierce as she is heroic, is the central figure of one of the {23} most dramatic actions of the story. Escape, danger, flight, battle, the allurement of a lost cause, striking characters for whom one forms a romantic attachment, are all gathered within the pages of this novel.

_Kenilworth_ and _Ivanhoe_ will prove themselves as fascinating as _Rob Roy_. _Kenilworth_ is written of the time of Queen Elizabeth and tells the story of the beautiful, unfortunate Amy Robsart, the wife of the Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth's favourite. Amy, who had made a secret, runaway match, is sought by Tressilian on behalf of her father. She lives in hiding at Cumnor Hall, waited on by Janet Foster and her father, Anthony Foster. Seeking redress for Amy, we go with Tressilian to find Leicester at the great castle of Kenilworth to which Elizabeth makes one of her royal progresses. On the way we meet Wayland Smith, and Flibbertigibbet, and we learn what black magic means.

At Kenilworth are stirring scenes. We encounter Raleigh, Spenser, an astrologer, and scores of brightly coloured, romantic figures. We are present at a pageant, and see Elizabeth conferring knighthood on some of Leicester's men. All the while, Amy Robsart is to be vindicated, later Amy is to be saved. But, partly through misunderstanding, yet also by cowardice, cruelty and falsehood, Amy is betrayed. _Kenilworth_ is notable for its scenes from English history, but the story of Amy Robsart, after we read it for the first time, leaves something in our memories that in all likelihood had not been there before, something gentle, full of pity, and precious.

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_Ivanhoe_ is more robust and exciting. Read the opening scene between Gurth, the swineherd, and Wamba, the jester. This is Merrie England of long ago, when Saxons and Normans were still hostile and separate, although living together in the heart of England. John had usurped the throne from King Richard, his brother, who had been fighting on Crusade in the Holy Land. Here in the greenwood we meet Friar Tuck, and various knights. We visit Rotherwood, and listen to Cedric, the Saxon master of Gurth and Wamba. We see the beautiful Rowena. We meet the Jew, Isaac of York and his lovely daughter Rebecca. There are great combats for knights to prove their knighthood at Ashby-de-la-Zouche. There is the thrilling siege of the castle, Torquilstone. We discover who the Black Knight is, and, best of all, we encounter, in many disguises and lastly as himself, Robin Hood. Read the account of the archery contest in chapter thirteen. Every word is thrilling. If we could go back through the centuries, we, too, would visit Merrie England, walk in the greenwood and taste the venison pasty in Friar Tuck's cell, watch while Locksley shot his arrows, and with Rebecca on the ramparts, follow the course of the great siege of Torquilstone. But, thanks to the genius of Sir Walter, we can see these happenings in imagination without leaving the twentieth century, although the novel Ivanhoe was published more than a hundred years ago.

Scott wrote more than twenty novels, and other books as well. The chief of the Waverley Novels, beside the three already named, are _Waverley_, {25} _Guy Mannering_, _The Antiquary_, _Old Mortality_, _The Bride of Lammermoor_, _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_, _The Fortunes of Nigel_, _Redgauntlet_, _Anne of Geierstein_, _Woodstock_, and _The Fair Maid of Perth_.

Thrilling and romantically beautiful as _Rob Roy_, _Kenilworth_ and _Ivanhoe_ are, and exciting as it is to read them, Scott has achieved even greater scenes in some of the novels appearing in the list above. Rob Roy, Die Vernon, Locksley, Rebecca of York, are splendid and memorable characters, but they are not as wonderful as Edie Ochiltree in _The Antiquary_, or as Jeanie Deans in _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_. We delight in Rob Roy and Locksley and we love Die Vernon dearly, and yet somehow we know that Edie Ochiltree and Jeanie Deans are greater. We respect them profoundly, and think more of human nature because of what they say and do. We wonder why this should be so. Puzzling out the way we feel about Edie Ochiltree and Jeanie Deans, we come to a conclusion somewhat like the following. In the case of the first dearly loved characters, Scott was writing about people he had never met or known. He was in reality describing the beautiful dreams we have of romantic people who do not actually belong to everyday life. But Edie Ochiltree is such a man as Scott himself must have known. He is alive and so vivid in his not too highly coloured perfection, that one can imagine him strolling along a country road in Scotland. Edie is a wandering beggar and wears a blue gown. The neighbours give him food and shelter, and in return he does for them various little services. But Edie {26} at the same time is a remarkable man. When greatness comes in ordinary people, they are greater than it is possible to make a romantic character. We cannot tell why this is so; but so it is.

Turn to chapter seven in _The Antiquary_ and read what Edie says in answer to Sir Arthur Wardour's offer of a reward if he will save his daughter and himself from drowning. Such a character as Edie shows himself to be is an example of Sir Walter's genius at its highest. You will find other remarkable scenes in which Edie speaks in chapter twenty. But from his final appearance in chapter forty-four we must quote a few lines. There is a rumour that the country is to be invaded, and someone says to Edie that he has not much to fight for. Read carefully what follows for it is written in one of the dialects of Scotland, as is the case with a good part of what Sir Walter has written.

"_Me_ no muckle to fight for, sir?--isna there the country to fight for, and the burnsides that I gang daundering beside, and the hearths of the gudewives that gie me my bit bread, and the bits o' weans that come toddling to play wi' me when I come about a landward town?--"

Here love of country and love of people,--little children and men and women--are joined, and Edie's words express the highest feelings for home and country that we have. There is something in every boy and every girl that thrills to this reply of Edie Ochiltree, who had no money and no land, but who was rich in his spirit nevertheless. It is for such reasons as this that we {27} judge Edie's character to be one of Scott's greatest achievements.

Some day you may read in _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_ of how Jeanie Deans walked many weary miles to London to plead with Queen Caroline for the life of her sister. You will learn to admire and reverence Jeanie when at the last she says to the Queen that "when the hour of trouble comes to the mind or to the body ... then it isna what we hae dune for oursells, but what we hae dune for others, that we think on maist pleasantly." Jeanie's is a sad story, and yet it turns out happily. Scott's genius for story telling, as well as for the delineation of character, was singularly rich and ample.

To the contents of these novels, Scott added occasionally a short story, and often beautiful songs. In _Redgauntlet_, chapter eleven, you will find Wandering Willie's Tale, one of the greatest short stories that ever has been written. The Ballad of the Red Harlaw is in _The Antiquary_, the same novel in which Edie Ochiltree appears. One of the most beautiful songs in Scottish literature, which is rich in exquisite songs, is "Proud Maisie"; this song is to be found in _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_, chapter thirty-nine. Those of you who are fond of learning poetry by heart will find time well spent in learning "Proud Maisie". Only when genius is most richly endowed can it be so generous in its giving as Scott is in his novels with his songs.

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