Waverley · Chapter
XV: A Creagh, and Its Consequences explained
A party of Highland Caterans steals the Baron's milch cows, causing consternation at Tully-Veolan.
What happens
A party of Highland Caterans steals the Baron's milch cows, causing consternation at Tully-Veolan. The Baron fumes over the affront and considers military retaliation, while Bailie Macwheeble and others counsel caution. Rose explains the system of blackmail and the power of Fergus MacIvor, and reveals the feud between her father and the Highland chief. Waverley learns about the local politics and the precarious security of the Lowland estate.
Themes in this chapter
Honor and Duty
The Baron's refusal to pay blackmail or compromise stems from his sense of honor and family pride, even at the cost of practical security.
Social Class and Hierarchy
The conflict highlights the tension between Lowland gentry and Highland chiefs, and the ambiguous social status of a figure like Fergus MacIvor who is both a gentleman and a leader of reivers.
Loyalty and Allegiance
Rose's loyalty to her father conflicts with her desire for peace, and the blackmail system itself is a form of purchased allegiance that blurs the line between protection and extortion.
Characters to notice
- Edward Waverley
Observes the commotion, learns about Highland raiding and blackmail, and is drawn into the local conflict.
- Rose Bradwardine
Vexed and tearful over the raid, she explains the blackmail system and her fear of escalating violence between her father and Fergus MacIvor.
- Baron of Bradwardine
Enraged by the theft and the affront to his honor, he rejects compromise and contemplates raising a force to pursue the Caterans.
- Bailie Macwheeble
Arrives hastily, reports the lack of arms, and counsels against direct confrontation, suggesting indirect negotiation.
- Davie Gellatley
Seen frisking and singing amid the turmoil, until the Bailie's horsewhip silences him.
- Fergus MacIvor
Discussed as the powerful Highland chieftain who collects blackmail and could restore the cattle, but is currently at odds with the Baron.
Key passages
“A party of Caterans have come down upon us last night, and have driven off all our milch cows.”
Highland raiders stole all the dairy cows last night.
Rose explains the immediate crisis to Waverley.
“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.”
The Bailie suggested secretly negotiating a ransom for the cattle to avoid the Baron's public involvement in what would be a form of compounding a felony.
Macwheeble's pragmatic but legally dubious advice.
“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.”
Blackmail is protection money paid to a Highland chief to prevent theft and ensure recovery of stolen goods, sometimes by stealing from others.
Rose explains the blackmail system to the puzzled Waverley.