a I E) RA FlY OF THE U N I VLR^S ITY or ILLINOIS Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. University of Illinois Library ■M -71 JUL 3 018: AUG 1 2 1976 w L161— H41 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https ://arch i ve . o rg/detai I s/wo r ksof si rwalte r56scot THE ANTIQUARY AND THE BLACK DWARF BY SIR WALTER SCOTT BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 191 2 BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE ANTIQUARY VOLUME I I knew Anselmo. He was shrewd and prudent, Wisdom and cunning had their shares of him ; But he was shrewish as a wayward child, And pleased again by toys which childhood please ; As — book of fables, graced with print of wood, Or else the jingling of a rusty medal, Or the rare melody of some old ditty, That first was sung to please King Pepin's cradle. INTRODUCTION The present Work completes a series of fictitious narra- tives intended to illustrate the manners of Scotland at three different periods. Waverley embraced the age of our fathers, Guy Mannering that of our own youth, and the Antiquary refers to the last ten years of the eight- eenth century. I have, in the two last narratives es- pecially, sought my principal personages in the class of society who are the last to feel the influence of that gen- eral polish which assimilates to each other the manners of different nations. Among the same class I have placed some of the scenes in which I have endeavoured to illustrate the operation of the higher and more violent passions ; both because the lower orders are less restrained by the habit of suppressing their feelings, and because I agree with my friend Wordsworth that they seldom fail to express them in the strongest and most powerful language. This is, I think, peculiarly the case with the peasantry of my own country, a class with whom I have long been familiar. The antique force and simplicity of their language, often tinctured with the Oriental elo- quence of Scripture, in the mouths of those of an ele- vated understanding, give pathos to their grief and dignity to their resentment. I have been more solicitous to describe manners mi-| ,^ . . nutely than to arrange in any case an artificial and com-j ^^'^^ bined narrative, and have but to regret that I felt myself unable to unite these two requisites of a good Novel. The knavery of the Adept in the following sheets may K ^ ix INTRODUCTION appear forced and improbable; but we have had very late instances of the force of superstitious credulity to a much greater extent, and the reader may be assured that this part of the narrative is founded on a fact of actual occurrence. I have now only to express my gratitude to the public for the distinguished reception which they have given to works that have little more than some truth of colouring to recommend them, and to take my respectful leave, as one who is not likely again to solicit their favour. To the above advertisement, which was prefixed to the first edition of the Antiquary ^ it is necessary in the present edition to add a few words, transferred from the Introduction to the Chronicles of the Canongate, respect- ing the character of Jonathan Oldbuck. *I may here state generally that, although I have deemed historical personages free subjects of delinea- tion, I have never on any occasion violated the respect due to private life. It was indeed impossible that traits proper to persons, both living and dead, with whom I have had intercourse in society should not have risen to my pen in such works as Waverley and those which fol- lowed it. But I have always studied to generalise the portraits, so that they should still seem, on the whole, the productions of fancy, though possessing some re- semblance to real individuals. Yet I must own my at- tempts have not in this last particular been uniformly successful. There are men whose characters are so peculiarly marked that the delineation of some leading and principal feature inevitably places the whole person before you in his individuality. Thus the character of INTRODUCTION Jonathan Oldbuck in the Antiquary was partly founded on that of an old friend of my youth, to whom I am indebted for introducing me to Shakspeare and other invaluable favours; but I thought I had so completely disguised the likeness that it could not be recognised by any one now alive. I was mistaken, however, and indeed had endangered what I desired should be considered as a secret; for I afterwards learned that a highly respectable gentleman, one of the few surviving friends of my father, and an acute critic, had said, upon the appearance of the work, that he was now convinced who was the author of it, as he recognised in the Antiquary traces of the char- acter of a very intimate friend of my father's family.' I have only farther to request the reader not to sup- pose that my late respected friend resembled Mr. Old- buck either in his pedigree or the history imputed to the ideal personage. There is not a single incident in the Novel which is borrowed from his real circumstances, excepting the fact that he resided in an old house near a flourishing seaport, and that the Author chanced to witness a scene betwixt him and the female proprietor of a stage-coach very similar to that which commences the history of the Antiquary. An excellent temper, with a slight degree of subacid humour; learning, wit, and drollery the more poignant that they were a little marked by the peculiarities of an old bachelor; a soxmd- ness of thought, rendered more forcible by an occasional quaintness of expression, were, the Author conceives, the only qualities in which the creature of his imagina- tion resembled his benevolent and excellent old friend. The prominent part performed by the Beggar in the following narrative induces the Author to prefix a few xi INTRODUCTION remarks on that character, as it formerly existed in Scotland, though it is now scarcely to be traced. Many of the old Scottish mendicants were by no means to be confounded with the utterly degraded class of beings who now practise that wandering trade. Such of them as were in the habit of travelling through a particular district were usually well received both in the farmer's ha' and in the kitchens of the country gentlemen. Martin, author of the Reliquice Divi Sancti Andrea J written in 1683, gives the following account of one class of this order of men in the seventeenth century, in terms which would induce an antiquary like Mr. Old- buck to regret its extinction. He conceives them to be descended from the ancient bards, and proceeds: ^They are called by others and by themselves Jockies, who go about begging, and use still to recite the Sloggorne (gathering-words or war-cries) of most of the true an- cient surnames of Scotland, from old experience and observation. Some of them I have discoursed, and found to have reason and discretion. One of them told me there were not now above twelve of them in the whole isle; but he remembered when they abounded, so as at one time he was one of five that usually met at St. Andrews.' The race of Jockies (of the above description) has, I suppose, been long extinct in Scotland; but the old remembered beggar, even in my own time, like the Baccoch, or travelling cripple of Ireland, was expected to merit his quarters by something beyond an exposition of his distresses. He was often a talkative, facetious fellow, prompt at repartee, and not withheld from exercising his powers that way by any respect of persons, xii INTRODUCTION his patched cloak giving him the privilege of the ancient jester. To be a ^gude crack/ that is, to possess talents for conversation, was essential to the trade of a *puir body' of the more esteemed class; and Burns, who de- lighted in the amusement their discourse afforded, seems to have looked forward with gloomy firmness to the pos- sibility of himself becoming one day or other a member of their itinerant society. In his poetical works it is alluded to so often as perhaps to indicate that he con- sidered the consummation as not utterly impossible. Thus, in the fine dedication of his works to Gavin Hamilton, he says — And when I downa yoke a naig, Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg. Again, in his Epistle to Davie, a brother poet^ he states, that in their closing career — The last o^t, the warst o't, Is only just to beg. And after having remarked that To He in kilns and barns at e'en, When banes are crazed and blude is thin, Is doubtless great distress; the bard reckons up, with true poetical spirit, the free enjoyment of the beauties of nature, which might coun- terbalance the hardship and uncertainty of the Ufe even of a mendicant. In one of his prose letters, to which I have lost the reference, he details this idea yet more seriously, and dwells upon it as not ill adapted to his habits and powers. As the Hfe of a Scottish mendicant of the eighteenth century seems to have been contemplated without much xiii INTRODUCTION horror by Robert Burns, the Author can hardly have erred in giving to Edie Ochiltree something of poetical character and personal dignity above the more abject of his miserable calling. The class had, in fact, some priv- ileges. A lodging, such as it was, was readily granted to them in some of the out-houses, and the usual 'awmous' (alms) of a handful of meal (called a ^gowpen') was scarce denied by the poorest cottager. The mendicant disposed these, according to their different quality, in various bags around his person, and thus carried about with him the principal part of his sustenance, which he literally received for the asking. At the houses of the gentry his cheer was mended by scraps of broken meat, and perhaps a Scottish Hwal-penny,' or English penny, which was expended in snuff or whisky. In fact these indolent peripatetics suffered much less real hardship and want of food than the poor peasants from whom they received alms. If, in addition to his personal qualifications, the men- dicant chanced to be a King's Bedesman, or Blue-Gown, he belonged, in virtue thereof, to the aristocracy of his order, and was esteemed a person of great importance. These Bedesmen are an order of paupers to whom the kings of Scotland were in the custom of distributing a certain alms, in conformity with the ordinances of the CathoUc Church, and who were expected in return to pray for the royal welfare and that of the state. This order is still kept up. Their number is equal to the num- ber of years which his Majesty has lived; and one Blue- Gown additional is put on the roll for every returning royal birthday. On the same auspicious era each Bedes- man receives a new cloak or gown of coarse cloth, the xiv INTRODUCTION colour light blue, with a pewter badge, which confers on them the general privilege of asking alms through all Scotland, all laws against sorning, masterful beggary, and every other species of mendicity being suspended in favour of this privileged class. With his cloak each receives a leathern purse containing as many shillings Scots (videlicet, pennies sterling) as the sovereign is years old; the zeal of their intercession for the king's long life receiving, it is to be supposed, a great stimulus from their own present and increasing interest in the object of their prayers. On the same occasion one of the royal chaplains preaches a sermon to the Bedesmen, who (as one of the reverend gentlemen expressed himself) are the most impatient and inattentive audience in the world. Something of this may arise from a feeling on the part of the Bedesmen that they are paid for their own devotions, not for listening to those of others. Or more probably it arises from impatience, natural though indecorous in men bearing so venerable a character, to arrive at the conclusion of the ceremonial of the royal birthday, which, so far as they are concerned, ends in a lusty breakfast of bread and ale; the whole moral and religious exhibition terminating in the advice of John- son's 'Hermit hoar' to his proselyte, — Come, my lad, and drink some beer. Of the charity bestowed on these aged Bedesmen in money and clothing, there are many records in the Treasurer's accompts. The following extract, kindly supplied by Mr. MacDonald of the Register House, may interest those whose taste is akin to that of Jonathan Oldbuck of Monkbarns: — XV INTRODUCTION BLEW GOWNIS In the Account of Sir Robert Melvill of Murdocarny, Treasurer-Depute of King James VI, there are the fol- lowing payments: — 'Junij 1590 *Item, to Mr. Peter Young, elimosinar, twentie four gownis of blew clayth, to be gevin to xxiiij auld men, according to the yeiris of his hienes age, extending to viij^ viij elnis clayth; price of the elne xxiiij s. . . . Inde, ij c j li. xij §. 'Item, for sextene elnis bukrum to the saidis gownis, price of the elne x §. . . . . . Inde, viij li. *Item, twentie four pursis, and in ilk purse twentie four schilling, . . . Inde, xxviij li. xvj §. *Item, the price of ilk purse iiij 3. . Inde, viij §. *Item, for making of the saidis gownis, . . viij K.* In the Account of John, Earl of Mar, Great Treasurer of Scotland, and of Sir Gideon Murray of Elibank, Treasurer- Depute, the Blue Gowns also appear, thus: — *Junij 1617 'Item, to James Murray, merchant, for fyftene scoir sex elnis and ane half elne of blew claith to be gownis to fyftie ane aigeit men, according to the yeiris of his Majesteis age, at xl §. the elne, ..... Inde, vj c xiij K. 'Item, to workmen for careing the blewis to James Aikman, tailyeour, his hous, . . . xiij §. iiij 3. 'Item, for sex elnis and ane half of harden to the saidis gownis, at vj s. viij d. the elne, . . Inde, xliij §. iiij 3. 'Item, to the said workmen for careing of the gownis fra the said James Aikman's hous to the palace of Halyrudehous, xviij s. 'Item, for making the saidis fyftie ane gownis, at xij §. the peice, .... Inde, xxx li. xij §. ' Item, for fyftie ane pursis to the said puire men, Ij s. 'Item, to Sir Peter Young, Ij §. to be put in everie ane of the saidis Ij pursis to the said poore men. . j c xxx Ij j s. 'Item, to the said Sir Peter, to buy breid and drink to the said puir men, . . . . vj K. xiij s iiij d. 'Item, to the said Sir Peter, to be delt amang uther puire folk, . . . • • i c Ij. xvi INTRODUCTION 'Item, upoun the last day of Junij to Doctor Young, Deane of Winchester, Elimozinar Deput to his Majestic, twentie fyve pund sterling, to be gevin to the puir be the way in his Majesteis progress, . . . . Inde, iij c li.' I have only to add that, although the institution of King^s Bedesmen still subsists, they are now seldom to be seen on the streets of Edinburgh, of which their peculiar dress made them rather a characteristic feature. Having thus given an account of the genus and species to which Edie Ochiltree appertains, the Author may add, that the individual he had in his eye was Andrew Gemmells, an old mendicant of the character described, who was many years since well known, and must still be remembered, in the vales of Gala, Tweed, Ettrick, Yarrow, and the adjoining country. The Author has in his youth repeatedly seen and con- versed with Andrew, but cannot recollect whether he held the rank of Blue-Gown. He was a remarkably fine old figure, very tall, and maintaining a soldier-like or military manner and address. His features were intel- ligent, with a pov/erful expression of sarcasm. His mo- tions were always so graceful that he might almost have been suspected of having studied them; for he might on any occasion have served as a model for an artist, so remarkably striking were his ordinary attitudes. An- drew Gemmells had little of the cant of his calling; his wants were food and shelter, or a trifle of money, which he always claimed, and seemed to receive, as his due. He sung a good song, told a good story, and could crack a severe jest with all the acumen of Shakspeare's jesters, though without using, like them, the cloak of insanity. It was some fear of Andrew's satire, as much as a feeling xvii INTRODUCTION of kindness or charity, which secured him the general good reception which he enjoyed everywhere. In fact, a jest of Andrew Gemmells, especially at the expense of a person of consequence, flew round the circle which he frequented as surely as the bon-mot of a man of estab- lished character for wit glides through the fashionable world. Many of his good things are held in remem- brance, but are generally too local and personal to be introduced here. Andrew had a character peculiar to himself among his tribe for aught I ever heard. He was ready and willing to play at cards or dice with any one who desired such amusement. This was more in the character of the Irish itinerant gambler, called in that country a ^carrow,' than of the Scottish beggar. But the late Reverend Doc- tor Robert Douglas, minister of Galashiels, assured the Author that the last time he saw Andrew Gemmells he was engaged in a game at brag with a gentleman of fortune, distinction, and birth. To preserve the due gradations of rank, the party was made at an open win- dow of the chateau, the laird sitting on his chair in the inside, the beggar on a stool in the yard; and they played on the window-sill. The stake was a considerable parcel of silver. The Author expressing some surprise. Doctor Douglas observed, that the laird was no doubt a humor- ist or original; but that many decent persons in those times would, like him, have thought there was nothing extraordinary in passing an hour, either in card-playing or conversation, with Andrew Gemmells. This singular mendicant had generally, or was sup- posed to have, as much money about his person as would have been thought the value of his life among modern xviii INTRODUCTION foot-pads. On one occasion a country gentleman, gen- erally esteemed a very narrow man, happening to meet Andrew, expressed great regret that he had no silver in his pocket, or he would have given him sixpence. 'I can give you change for a note, laird,' replied Andrew. Like most who have arisen to the head of their profes- sion, the modern degradation which mendicity has un- dergone was often the subject of Andrew's lamentations. As a trade, he said, it was forty pounds a year worse since he had first practised it. On another occasion he observed, begging was in modern times scarcely the profession of a gentleman, and that if he had twenty sons he would not easily be induced to breed one of them up in his own line. When or where this laudator temporis acti closed his wanderings the Author never heard with certainty; but most probably, as Burns says, He died a cadger-powny^s death At some dike side. The Author may add another picture of the same kind as Edie Ochiltree and Andrew Gemmells; consider- ing these illustrations as a sort of gallery, open to the reception of anything which may elucidate former manners or amuse the reader. The Author's contemporaries at the university of Edinburgh will probably remember the thin wasted form of a venerable old Bedesman who stood by the Potter Row Port, now demolished, and, without speaking a syllable, gently inclined his head and offered his hat, but with the least possible degree of urgency, towards each individual who passed. This man gained, by silence and the extenuated and wasted appearance of a palmer from a remote country, the same tribute which was yielded to xix INTRODUCTION Andrew Gemmells's sarcastic humour and stately de- portment. He was understood to be able to maintain a son a student in the theological classes of the University, at the gate of which the father was a mendicant. The young man was modest and inclined to learning, so that a student of the same age, and whose parents were rather of the lower order, moved by seeing him excluded from the society of other scholars when the secret of his birth was suspected, endeavoured to console him by offering him some occasional civilities. The old mendicant was grateful for this attention to his son, and one day, as the friendly student passed, he stooped forward more than usual, as if to intercept his passage. The scholar drew out a halfpenny, which he concluded was the beggar's object, when he was surprised to receive his thanks for the kindness he had shown to Jemmie, and at the same time a cordial invitation to dine with them next Satur- day, ^on a shoulder of mutton and potatoes,' adding, 'ye '11 put on your clean sark, as I have company.' The student was strongly tempted to accept this hospitable proposal, as many in his place would probably have done; but, as the motive might have been capable of misrepresentation, he thought it most prudent, con- sidering the character and circumstances of the old man, to decline the invitation. Such are a few traits of Scottish mendicity, designed to throw Ught on a Novel in which a character of that description plays a prominent part. We conclude that we have vindicated Edie Ochiltree's right to the import- ance assigned him ; and have shown that we have known one beggar take a hand at cards with a person of disv. tinction and another give dinner parties. XX INTRODUCTION I know not if it be worth while to observe that the Antiquary was not so well received on its first appear- ance as either of its predecessors, though in course of time it rose to equal, and with some readers superior, popularity. THE ANTIQjUARY CHAPTER I Go call a coach, and let a coach be call'd, And let the man who calleth be the caller; And in his calling let him nothing call But Coach! Coach! Coach! O for a coach, ye gods! Chrononhotonthologos, It was early on a fine summer's day, near the end of the eighteenth century, when a young man of genteel appearance, journeying towards the north-east of Scot- land, provided himself with a ticket in one of those pub- lic carriages which travel between Edinburgh and the Queensferry, at which place, as the name implies, and as is well known to all my northern readers, there is a passage-boat for crossing the Firth of Forth. The coach was calculated to carry six regular passengers, besides such interlopers as the coachman could pick up by the way and intrude upon those who were legally in posses- sion. The tickets which conferred right to a seat in this vehicle of little ease were dispensed by a sharp-looking old dame, with a pair of spectacles on a very thin nose, who inhabited a 'laigh shop,' anglice, a cellar, opening to the High Street by a strait and steep stair, at the bottom of which she sold tape, thread, needles, skeans of worsted, coarse Hnen cloth, and such feminine gear, to those who had the courage and skill to descend to the profundity of her dwelling without falling headlong themselves or throwing down any of the nimierous 5 I WAVERLEY NOVELS articles which, piled on each side of the descent, indic- ated the profession of the trader below. The written handbill which, pasted on a projecting board, announced that the Queensferry diligence, or Hawes fly, departed precisely at twelve o'clock on Tues- day the fifteenth July 17 — , in order to secure for travel- lers the opportunity of passing the Firth with the flood- tide, Ked on the present occasion like a bulletin; for, although that hour was pealed from Saint Giles's steeple and repeated by the Tron, no coach appeared upon the appointed stand. It is true, only two tickets had been taken out, and possibly the lady of the subterranean mansion might have an understanding with her Auto- medon that in such cases a little space was to be allowed for the chance of filling up the vacant places; or the said Automedon might have been attending a funeral, and be delayed by the necessity of stripping his vehicle of its lugubrious trappings; or he might have staid to take a half-mutchkin extraordinary with his crony the hostler; or — in short, he did not make his appearance. The young gentleman, who began to grow somewhat impatient, was now joined by a companion in this petty misery of himian life — the person who had taken out the other place. He who is bent upon a journey is usu- ally easily to be distinguished from his fellow-citizens. The boots, the great-coat, the umbrella, the little bundle in his hand, the hat pulled over his resolved brows, the determined importance of his pace, his brief answers to the salutations of lounging acquaintances, are all marks by which the experienced traveller in mail-coach or diligence can distinguish at a distance the companion of his future journey, as he pushes onward to the place 2 THE ANTIQUARY of rendezvous. It is then that, with worldly wisdom, the first comer hastens to secure the best berth in the coach for himself, and to make the most convenient arrange- ment for his baggage before the arrival of his compet- itors. Our youth, who was gifted with little prudence of any sort, and who was, moreover, by the absence of the coach deprived of the power of availing himself of his priority of choice, amused himself instead by speculating upon the occupation and character of the personage who was now come to the coach-office. He was a good-looking man of the age of sixty, per- haps older, but his hale complexion and firm step an- nounced that years had not impaired his strength or health. His countenance was of the true Scottish cast, strongly marked, and rather harsh in features, with a shrewd and penetrating eye, and a countenance in which habitual gravity was enhvened by a cast of ironical humour. His dress was uniform, and of a colour becom- ing his age and gravity; a wig, well dressed and pow- dered, surmounted by a slouched hat, had something of a professional air. He might be a clergyman, yet his appearance was more that of a man of the world than usually belongs to the Kirk of Scotland, and his first ejaculation put the matter beyond question. He arrived with a hurried pace, and, casting an alarmed glance towards the dial-plate of the church, then looking at the place where the coach should have been, exclaimed, ^Deil's in it, I am too late after all!^ The young man relieved his anxiety by telling him the coach had not yet appeared. The old gentleman, appar- ently conscious of his own want of punctuality, did not 3 WAVERLEY NOVELS at first feel courageous enough to censure that of the coachman. He took a parcel, containing apparently a large folio, from a little boy who followed him, and, patting him on the head, bid him go back and tell Mr. B that, if he had known he was to have had so much time, he would have put another word or two to their bargain; then told the boy to mind his business, and he would be as thriving a lad as ever dusted a duode- cimo. The boy lingered, perhaps in hopes of a penny to buy marbles; but none was forthcoming. Our senior leaned his little bundle upon one of the posts at the head of the staircase, and, facing the traveller who had first arrived, waited in silence for about five minutes the arrival of the expected diligence. At length, after one or two impatient glances at the progress of the minute-hand of the clock, having com- pared it with his own watch, a huge and antique gold repeater, and having twitched about his features to give due emphasis to one or two peevish pshaws, he hailed the old lady of the cavern. ' Good woman — what the d — 1 is her name? — Mrs. Macleuchar!' Mrs. Macleuchar, aware that she had a defensive part to sustain in the encounter which was to follow, was in no hurry to hasten the discussion by returning a ready answer. ^Mrs. Macleuchar — good woman' (with an elevated voice) — then apart, ^ Old doited hag, she 's as deaf as a post. I say, Mrs. Macleuchar!' am just serving a customer. Indeed, hinny, it will no be a bodle cheaper than I tell ye.' ^ Woman,' reiterated the traveller, ^do you think we 4 THE ANTIQUARY can stand here all day till you have cheated that poor servant wench out of her half-year's fee and bountith? ' Cheated!' retorted Mrs. Macleuchar, eager to take up the quarrel upon a defensible ground; scorn your words, sir; you are an uncivil person, and I desire you will not stand there to slander me at my ain stairhead.' ^The woman,' said the senior, looking with an arch glance at his destined travelling companion, Moes not understand the words of action. Woman,' again turning to the vault, 'I arraign not thy character, but I desire to know what is become of thy coach?' 'What's your wull?' answered Mrs. Macleuchar, re- lapsing into deafness. 'We have taken places, ma'am,' said the younger stranger, 'in your diligence for Queensferry.' 'Which should have been half-way on the road before now,' con- tinued the elder and more impatient traveller, rising in wrath as he spoke; 'and now in all likelihood we shall miss the tide, and I have business of importance on the other side; and your cursed coach — ' 'The coach! Gude guide us, gentlemen, is it no on the stand yet?' answered the old lady, her shrill tone of expostulation sinking into a kind of apologetic whine. 'Is it the coach ye hae been waiting for?' 'What else could have kept us broiling in the sun by the side of the gutter here, you — you faithless woman? eh?' Mrs. Macleuchar now ascended her trap stair (for such it might be called, though constructed of stone), until her nose came upon a level with the pavement; then, after wiping her spectacles to look for that which she well knew was not to be found, she exclaimedj with S WAVERLEY NOVELS well-feigned astonishment, ^ Gude guide us, saw ever ony body the like o' that!' * Yes, you abominable woman,' vociferated the travel- ler, 'many have seen the Uke of it, and all will see the like of it that have anything to do with your troUoping sex'; then, pacing with great indignation before the door of the shop, still as he passed and repassed, hke a vessel who gives her broadside as she comes abreast of a hostile fortress, he shot down complaints, threats, and re- proaches on the embarrassed Mrs. Macleuchar. He would take a post-chaise — he would call a hackney- coach — he would take four horses — he must — he would be on the north side to-day — and all the expense of his journey, besides damages, direct and consequen- tial, arising from delay, should be accumulated on the devoted head of Mrs. Macleuchar. There was something so comic in his pettish resent- ment that the younger traveller, who was in no such pressing hurry to depart, could not help being amused with it, especially as it was obvious that every now and then the old gentleman, though very angry, could not help laughing at his own vehemence. But when Mrs. Macleuchar began also to join in the laughter, he quickly put a stop to her ill-timed merriment. 'Woman,' said he, 'is that advertisement thine?' showing a bit of crumpled printed paper. 'Does it not set forth that, God willing, as you hypocritically express it, the Hawes fly, or Queensferry diligence, would set forth to-day at twelve o'clock; and is it not, thou falsest of creatures, now a quarter past twelve, and no such fly or diligence to be seen? Dost thou know the conse- quence of seducing the lieges by false reports? Dost thou 6 THE ANTIQUARY know it might be brought under the statute of leasing- making? Answer — and for once in thy long, useless, and evil life let it be in the words of truth and sincerity — hast thou such a coach? Is it in rerum natura? or is this base annunciation a mere swindle on the incautious, to beguile them of their time, their patience, and three shillings of sterling money of this realm? Hast thou, I say, such a coach? ay or no?' dear, yes, sir; the neighbours ken the diligence weel — green picked out wi' red, three yellow wheels and a black ane.' 'Woman, thy special description will not serve; it may be only a He with a circumstance.' '0, man, man!' said the overwhelmed Mrs. Macleu- char, totally exhausted by having been so long the butt of his rhetoric, * take back your three shillings and mak me quit o' ye.' 'Not so fast, not so fast, woman. Will three shillings transport me to Queensferry, agreeably to thy treacher- ous program? or will it requite the damage I may sus- tain by leaving my business undone, or repay the ex- penses which I must disburse if I am obliged to tarry a day at the South Ferry for lack of tide? Will it hire, I say, a pinnace, for which alone the regular price is five shillings?' Here his argument was cut short by a lumbering noise, which proved to be the advance of the expected vehicle, pressing forward with all the despatch to which the broken-winded jades that drew it could possibly be urged. With ineffable pleasure Mrs. Macleuchar saw her tormentor deposited in the leathern convenience; but still, as it was driving off, his head thrust out of the win- 7 WAVERLEY NOVELS dow reminded her, in words drowned amid the rumbling of the wheels, that, if the diligence did not attain the ferry in time to save the flood-tide, she, Mrs. Macleu- char, should be held responsible for all the consequences that might ensue. The coach had continued in motion for a mile or two before the stranger had completely repossessed himself of his equanimity, as was manifested by the doleful ejaculations which he made from time to time on the too great probability, or even certainty, of their missing the flood- tide. By degrees, however, his wrath subsided; he wiped his brows, relaxed his frown, and, undoing the parcel in his hand, produced his folio, on which he gazed from time to time with the knowing look of an amateur, admiring its height and condition, and ascertaining, by a minute and individual inspection of each leaf, that the volume was uninjured and entire from title-page to colo- phon. His fellow-traveller took the liberty of inquiring the subject of his studies. He lifted up his eyes with something of a sarcastic glance, as if he supposed the young querist would not reHsh, or perhaps understand, his answer, and pronounced the book to be Sandy Gor- don's * Itinerarium Septentrionale,' a book illustrative of the Roman remains in Scotland. The querist, unap- palled by this learned title, proceeded to put several questions, which indicated that he had made good use of a good education, and, although not possessed of minute information on the subject of antiquities, had yet ac- quaintance enough with the classics to render him an interested and intelligent auditor when they were en- larged upon. The elder traveller, observing with pleas- ure the capacity of his temporary companion to under- 8 THE ANTIQUARY stand and answer him, plunged, nothing loth, into a sea of discussion concerning urns, vases, votive altars, Roman camps, and the rules of castrametation. The pleasure of this discourse had such a dulcifying tendency that, although two causes of delay occurred, each of much more serious duration than that which had drawn down his wrath upon the unlucky Mrs. Mac- leuchar, our Antiquary only bestowed on the delay the honour of a few episodical poohs and pshaws, which rather seemed to regard the interruption of his disquisi- tion than the retardation of his journey. The first of these stops was occasioned by the breaking of a spring, which half an hour's labour hardly repaired. To the second the Antiquary was himself accessory, if not the principal cause of it; for, observing that one of the horses had cast a fore-foot shoe, he apprised the coachman of this important deficiency. ^It's Jamie Martingale that furnishes the naigs on contract, and up- hauds them,' answered John, ^and I am not entitled to make any stop or to suffer prejudice by the like of these accidents.' 'And when you go to — I mean to the place you de- serve to go to, you scoundrel — who do you think will uphold you on contract? If you don't stop directly and carry the poor brute to the next smithy I'll have you punished, if there 's a justice of peace in Mid-Lothian ' ; and, opening the coach door, out he jumped, while the coachman obeyed his orders, muttering, that 'if the gentlemen lost the tide now, they could not say but it was their ain fault, since he was willing to get on.' I Hke so little to analyse the complication of the causes which influence actions, that I will not venture to 9 WAVERLEY NOVELS ascertain whether our Antiquary's humanity to the poor horse was not in some degree aided by his desire of show- ing his companion a Pict's camp, or roundabout, a sub- ject which he had been elaborately discussing, and of which a specimen, ^very curious and perfect indeed,' happened to exist about a hundred yards distant from the spot where this interruption took place. But were I compelled to decompose the motives of my worthy friend (for such was the gentleman in the sober suit, with powdered wig and slouched hat), I should say that, although he certainly would not in any case have suf- fered the coachman to proceed while the horse was unfit for service, and likely to suffer by being urged forward, yet the man of whipcord escaped some severe abuse and reproach by the agreeable mode which the traveller found out to pass the interval of delay. So much time was consumed by these interruptions of their journey that, when they descended the hill above the Hawes (for so the inn on the southern side of the Queensferry is denominated), the experienced eye of the Antiquary at once discerned, from the extent of wet sand, and the number of black stones and rocks, covered with seaweed, which were visible along the skirts of the shore, that the hour of tide was past. The young travel- ler expected a burst of indignation; but whether, as Croaker says in ' The Good-natured Man,' our hero had exhausted himself in fretting away his misfortunes beforehand, so that he did not feel them when they actu- ally arrived, or whether he found the company in which he was placed too congenial to lead him to repine at anything which delayed his journey, it is certain that he submitted to his lot with much resignation. lO THE ANTIQUARY ^The d — I 's in the diligence and the old hag it belongs to! Diligence, quoth I! Thou shouldst have called it the Sloth. Fly, quoth she! Why, it moves like a fly through a glue-pot, as the Irishman says. But, however, time and tide tarry for no man; and so, my young friend, we '11 have a snack here at the Hawes, which is a very decent sort of a place, and I '11 be very happy to finish the ac- count I was giving you of the difference between the mode of entrenching castra stativa and castra (Bstiva, things confounded by too many of our historians. Lack- a-day, if they had ta'en the pains to satisfy their own eyes, instead of following each other's blind guidance! Well! we shall be pretty comfortable at the Hawes; and besides, after all, we must have dined somewhere, and it will be pleasanter sailing with the tide of ebb and the evening breeze.' In this Christian temper of making the best of all occurrences our travellers alighted at the Hawes. CHAPTER n Sir, they do scandal me upon the road here! A poor quotidian rack of mutton roasted Dry to be grated! and that driven down With beer and buttermilk, mingled together. It is against my freehold, my inheritance. Wine is the word that glads the heart of man, And mine's the house of wine. Sack, says my bush, Be merry and drink sherry, that 's my posie. Ben Jonson's New Inn, As the senior traveller descended the crazy steps of the diligence at the inn, he was greeted by the fat, gouty, pursy landlord with that mixture of familiarity and respect which the Scotch innkeepers of the old school used to assume towards their more valued customers. *Have a care o' us, Monkbarns (distinguishing him by his territorial epithet, always most agreeable to the ear of a Scottish proprietor), is this you? I little thought to have seen your honour here till the summer session was ower.' ^Ye donnard auld deevil,' answered his guest, his Scottish accent predominating when in anger, though otherwise not particularly remarkable — ^ye donnard auld crippled idiot, what have I to do with the session, or the geese that flock to it, or the hawks that pick their pinions for them?' 'Troth, and that's true,' said mine host, who, in fact, only spoke upon a very general recollection of the stranger's original education, yet would have been sorry not to have been supposed accurate as to the station and profession of him or any other occasional guest — * that's very true; but I thought ye had some law affair 12 THE ANTIQUARY of your ain to look after. I have ane mysell — a ganging plea that my father left me, and his father afore left to him. It's about our back-yard. Ye '11 maybe hae heard of it in the Parliament House, Hutchinson agains^ Mackitchinson: it's a weel-kenn'd plea; it's been four times in afore the Fifteen, and deil ony thing the wisest o' them could make o 't, but just to send it out again to the Outer House. O it's a beautiful thing to see how lang and how carefully justice is considered in this country!' ^Hold your tongue, you fool,' said the traveller, but in great good-humour, ^and tell us what you can give this young gentleman and me for dinner.' ^Ou there's fish nae doubt — that's sea- trout and caller haddocks,' said Mackitchinson, twisting his nap- kin; ^and ye '11 be for a mutton-chop, and there's cran- berry tarts very weel preserved, and — and there's just ony thing else ye like.' 'Which is to say, there is nothing else whatever? Well, well, the fish and the chop and the tarts will do very well. But don't imitate the cautious delay that you praise in the courts of justice. Let there be no remits from the inner to the outer house, hear ye me?' ^Na, na,' said Mackitchinson, whose long and heedful perusal of volumes of printed session papers had made him acquainted with some law phrases — ' the denner shall be served quamprimum, and that peremptorie,^ And with the flattering laugh of a promising host, he left them in his sanded parlour, hung with prints of the Four Seasons. As, notwithstanding his pledge to the contrary, the glorious delays of the law were not without their parallel 13 WAVERLEY NOVELS in the kitchen of the inn, our younger traveller had an opportunity to step out and make some inquiry of the people of the house concerning the rank and station of his companion. The information which he received was of a general and less authentic nature, but quite suf- ficient to make him acquainted with the name, history, and circumstances of the gentleman, whom we shall endeavour in a few words to introduce more accurately to our readers. Jonathan Oldenbuck, or Oldinbuck, by popular con- traction Oldbuck, of Monkbams, was the second son of a gentleman possessed of a small property in the neigh- bourhood of a thriving seaport town on the north-east- ern coast of Scotland, which, for various reasons, we shall denominate F airport. They had been estabHshed for several generations as landholders in the county, and in most shires of England would have been accounted a family of some standing. But the shire of was filled with gentlemen of more ancient descent and larger fortune. In the last generation also the neighbouring gentry had been almost uniformly Jacobites, while the proprietors of Monkbarns, Hke the burghers of the town near which they were settled, were steady assertors of the Protest- ant succession. The latter had, however, a pedigree of their own, on which they prided themselves as much as those who despised them valued their respective Saxon, Norman, or Celtic genealogies. The first Oldenbuck, who had settled in their family mansion shortly after the Reformation, was, they asserted, descended from one of the original printers of Germany, and had left his coun- try in consequence of the persecutions directed against the professors of the Reformed religion. He had found 14 THE ANTIQUARY a refuge in the town near which his posterity dwelt, the more readily that he was a sufferer in the Protestant cause, and certainly not the less so that he brought with him money enough to purchase the small estate of Monkbams, then sold by a dissipated laird, to whose father it had been gifted, with other church lands, on the dissolution of the great and wealthy monastery to which it had belonged. The Oldenbucks were therefore loyal subjects on all occasions of insurrection; and, as they kept up a good intelligence with the borough, it chanced that the Laird of Monkbarns who flourished in 1745 was provost of the town during that ill-fated year, and had exerted himself with much spirit in favour of King George, and even been put to expenses on that score, which, according to the liberal conduct of the existing government towards their friends, had never been repaid him. By dint of solicitation, however, and borough in- terest, he contrived to gain a place in the customs, and, being a frugal, careful man, had found himself enabled to add considerably to his paternal fortune. He had only two sons, of whom, as we have hinted, the present laird was the younger, and two daughters, one of whom still flourished in single blessedness, and the other, who was greatly more juvenile, made a love-match with a captain in the 'Forty-twa,' who had no other fortune but his commission and a Highland pedigree. Poverty dis- turbed a union which love would otherwise have made happy, and Captain M' In tyre, in justice to his wife and two children, a boy and girl, had found himself obliged to seek his fortune in the East Indies. Being ordered upon an expedition against Hyder Ally, the detachment to which he belonged was cut oflf, and no news ever IS WAVERLEY NOVELS reached his unfortunate wife whether he fell in battle, or was murdered in prison, or survived in what the habits of the Indian tyrant rendered a hopeless captivity. She sunk under the accumulated load of grief and uncer- tainty, and left a son and daughter to the charge of her brother, the existing laird of Monkbarns. The history of that proprietor himself is soon told. Being, as we have said, a second son, his father destined him to a share in a substantial mercantile concern carried on by some of his maternal relations. From this Jonathan's mind revolted in the most irreconcilable manner. He was then put apprentice to the profession of a writer or attorney, in which he profited so far that he made himself master of the whole forms of feudal investitures, and showed such pleasure in reconciling, their incongruities and tracing their origin that his master had great hope he would one day be an able conveyancer. But he halted upon the threshold, and, though he acquired some knowledge of the origin and system of the law of his country, he could never be per- suaded to apply it to lucrative and practical purposes. It was not from any inconsiderate neglect of the ad- vantages attending the possession of money that he thus deceived the hopes of his master. ^ Were he thoughtless or Hght-headed, or rei suce prodigus,^ said his instructor, ' I would know what to make of him. But he never pays away a shilling without looking anxiously after the change, makes his sixpence go farther than another lad's half-crown, and will ponder over an old black- letter copy of the Acts of Parliament for days, rather than go to the golf or the change-house; and yet he will not bestow one of these days on a little business of i6 THE ANTIQUARY routine that would put twenty shillings in his pocket — a strange mixture of frugality and industry and neg- ligent indolence; I don't know what to make of him.' But in process of time his pupil gained the means of making what he pleased of himself; for, his father having died was not long survived by his eldest son, an arrant fisher and fowler, who departed this life in con- sequence of a cold caught in his vocation, while shooting ducks in the swamp called Klittlefitting Moss, notwith- standing his having drunk a bottle of brandy that very night to keep the cold out of his stomach. Jonathan, therefore, succeeded to the estate, and with it to the means of subsisting without the hated drudgery of the law. His wishes were very moderate; and, as the rent of his small property rose with the improvement of the country, it soon greatly exceeded his wants and expend- iture; and, though too indolent to make money, he was by no means insensible to the pleasure of beholding it accumulate. The burghers of the town near which he lived regarded him with a sort of envy, as one who af- fected to divide himself from their rank in society, and whose studies and pleasures seemed to them alike in- comprehensible. Still, however, a sort of hereditary respect for the Laird of Monkbarns, augmented by the knowledge of his being a ready-money man, kept up his consequence with this class of his neighbours. The country gentlemen were generally above him in fortune and beneath him in intellect, and, excepting one with whom he lived in habits of intimacy, had Kttle inter- course with Mr. Oldbuck of Monkbarns. He had, how- ever, the usual resources, the company of the clergyman and of the doctor, when he chose to request it, and also 5 17 WAVERLEY NOVELS his own pursuits and pleasures, being in correspondence with most of the virtuosi of his time, who, Uke himself, measured decayed entrenchments, made plans of ruined castles, read illegible inscriptions, and wrote essays on medals in the proportion of twelve pages to each letter of the legend. Some habits of hasty irritation he had contracted, partly, it was said in the borough of Fair- port, from an early disappointment in love, in virtue of which he had commenced misogynist, as he called it, but yet more by the obsequious attention paid to him by his maiden sister and his orphan niece, whom he had trained to consider him as the greatest man upon earth, and whom he used to boast of as the only women he had ever seen who were well broke in and bitted to obedience; though, it must be owned, Miss Grizzy Oldbuck was sometimes apt to jibb when he pulled the reins too tight. The rest of his character must be gathered from the story, and we dismiss with pleasure the tiresome task of recapitulation. During the time of dinner Mr. Oldbuck, actuated by the same curiosity which his fellow-traveller had enter- tained on his account, made some advances, which his age and station entitled him to do in a more direct man- ner, towards ascertaining the name, destination, and quality of his young companion. His name, the young gentleman said, was Lovel. 'What! the cat, the rat, and Lovel our dog? Was he descended from King Richard's favourite?' 'He had no pretensions,' he said, 'to call himself a whelp of that Utter; his father was a North of England gentleman. He was at present travelling to Fairport (the town near to which Monkbarns was situated), and, i8 THE ANTIQUARY if he found the place agreeable, might perhaps remain there for some weeks/ 'Was Mr. LoveFs excursion solely for pleasure?' 'Not entirely.' 'Perhaps on business with some of the commercial people of Fairport? ' 'It was partly on business, but had no reference to commerce.' Here he paused; and Mr. Oldbuck, having pushed his inquiries as far as good manners permitted, was obliged to change the conversation. The Antiquary, though by no means an enemy to good cheer, was a determined foe to all unnecessary expense on a journey; and, upon his companion giving a hint concerning a bottle of port wine, he drew a direful picture of the mixture which, he said, was usually sold under that denomination, and, afl&rming that a little punch was more genuine and bet- ter suited for the season, he laid his hand upon the bell to order the materials. But Mackitchinson had, in his own mind, settled their beverage otherwise, and ap- peared bearing in his hand an immense double quart bottle, or magnum, as it is called in Scotland, covered with sawdust and cobwebs, the warrants of its antiquity. 'Punch!' said he, catching that generous sound as he entered the parlour, ' the deil a drap punch ye'se get here the day, Monkbarns, and that ye may lay your account wi'.' ' What do you mean, you impudent rascal? ^ 'Ay, ay, it's nae matter for that; but do you mind the trick ye served me the last time ye were here? ' ' I trick you ! ' 'Ay, just yoursell, Monkbarns. The Laird o' Tam- 19 WAVERLEY NOVELS lowrie, and Sir Gilbert Grizzlecleugh, and Auld Ross- balloh, and the Bailie were just setting in to make an afternoon o't, and you, wi' some your auld warld stories, that the mind o' man canna resist, whirl'd them to the back o' beyont to look at the auld Roman camp — ah, sir!' turning to Lovel, 'he wad wile the bird aff the tree wi' the tales he tells about folk lang syne — and did not I lose the drinking o' sax pints o' gude claret, for the deil ane wad hae stirred till he had seen that out at the least?' ' D ' ye hear the impudent scoundrel ! ' said Monkbarns, but laughing at the same time; for the worthy landlord, as he used to boast, knew the measure of a guest's foot as well as e'er a souter on this side Solway; Veil, well, you may send us in a bottle of port.' 'Port! na, na! ye maun leave port and punch to the like o' us, it's claret that's fit for you lairds; and I dare- say nane of the folk ye speak so much o' ever drank either of the twa.' 'Do you hear how absolute the knave is? Well, my young friend, we must for once prefer the Falernian to the vile Sabinum.^ The ready landlord had the cork instantly extracted, decanted the wine into a vessel of suitable capacious- ness, and, declaring it 'parfumed' the very room, left his guests to make the most of it. Mackitchinson's wine was really good, and had its effect upon the spirits of the elder guest, who told some good stories, cut some sly jokes, and at length entered into a learned discussion concerning the ancient drama- tists; a ground on which he found his new acquaintance so strong that at length he began to suspect he had made 20 THE ANTIQUARY them his professional study. 'A traveller partly for business and partly for pleasure? Why, the stage par- takes of both; it is a labour to the performers, and af- fords, or is meant to afford, pleasure to the spectators. He seems in manner and rank above the class of young men who take that turn; but I remember hearing them say that the little theatre at Fairport was to open with the performance of a young gentleman, being his first appearance on any stage. If this should be thee, Lovel? Lovel ! Yes, Lovel or Belville are just the names which youngsters are apt to assume on such occasions. On my life, I am sorry for the lad.' Mr. Oldbuck was habitually parsimonious, but in no respects mean; his first thought was to save his fellow- traveller any part of the expense of the entertainment, which he supposed must be in his situation more or less inconvenient. He therefore took an opportunity of settling privately with Mr. Mackitchinson. The young traveller remonstrated against his Hberahty, and only acquiesced in deference to his years and respectabihty. The mutual satisfaction which they found in each other's society induced Mr. Oldbuck to propose, and Lovel willingly to accept, a scheme for traveUing to- gether to the end of their journey. Mr. Oldbuck intim- ated a wish to pay two-thirds of the hire of a post- chaise, saying, that a proportional quantity of room was necessary to his accommodation; but this Mr. Lovel resolutely declined. Their expense then was mutual, unless when Lovel occasionally slipt a shilKng into the hand of a growling postilion ; for Oldbuck, tenacious of ancient customs, never extended his guerdon beyond eighteenpence a stage. In this manner they travelled, 21 WAVERLEY NOVELS until they arrived at Fairport about two o'clock on the following day. Lovel probably expected that his travelling compan- ion would have invited him to dinner on his arrival; but his consciousness of a want of ready preparation for unexpected guests, and perhaps some other reasons, prevented Oldbuck from paying him that attention. He only begged to see him as early as he could make it con- venient to call in a forenoon, recommended him to a widow who had apartments to let, and to a person who kept a decent ordinary; cautioning both of them apart that he only knew Mr. Lovel as a pleasant companion in a post-chaise, and did not mean to guarantee any bills which he might contract while residing at Fairport. The young gentleman's figure and manners, not to mention a well-furnished trunk which soon arrived by sea to his address at Fairport, probably went as far in his favour as the limited recommendation of his fellow-traveller. CHAPTER III He had a routh o* auld nick-nackets, Rusty aim caps, and jinglio jackets, » Would held the Loudons three in tackets A towmond gude; And parritch-pats, and auld saut-backets, Afore the flude. Burns. After he had settled himself in his new apartments at Fairport, Mr. Lovel bethought him of paying the re- quested visit to his fellow-traveller. He did not make it earlier because, with all the old gentleman's good- humour and information, there had sometimes glanced forth in his language and manner towards him an air of superiority which his companion considered as being fully beyond what the difference of age warranted. He therefore waited the arrival of his baggage from Edin- burgh, that he might arrange his dress according to the fashion of the day, and make his exterior corresponding to the rank in society which he supposed or felt himself entitled to hold. It was the fifth day after his arrival that, having made the necessary inquiries concerning the road, he went forth to pay his respects at Monkbarns. A footpath leading over a heathy hill and through two or three meadows conducted him to this mansion, which stood on the opposite side of the hill aforesaid, and com- manded a fine prospect of the bay and shipping. Se- cluded from the town by the rising ground, which also screened it from the north-west wind, the house had a solitary and sheltered appearance. The exterior had 23 WAVERLEY NOVELS Httle to recommend it. It was an irregular old-fashioned building, some part of which had belonged to a grange or solitary farm-house, inhabited by the bailiff or stew- ard of the monastery when the place was in possession of the monks. It was here that the community stored up the grain which they received as ground-rent from their vassals; for, with the prudence belonging to their order, all their conventional revenues were made payable in kind, and hence, as the present proprietor loved to tell, came the name of Monkbarns. To the remains of the bailiff's house the succeeding lay inhabitants had made various additions in proportion to the accommodation required by their families; and, as this was done with an equal contempt of convenience within and architectural regularity without, the whole bore the appearance of a hamlet which had suddenly stood still when in the act of leading down one of Amphion's or Orpheus's country- dances. It was surrounded by tall clipped hedges of yew and holly, some of which still exhibited the skill of the Hopiarian' artist, and presented curious arm-chairs, towers, and the figures of Saint George and the dragon. The taste of Mr. Oldbuck did not disturb these monu- ments of an art now unknown, and he was the less tempted so to do as it must necessarily have broken the heart of the old gardener. One tall embowering holly was, however, sacred from the shears; and on a garden seat beneath its shade Lovel beheld his old friend, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side, busily employed in perusing the * London Chronicle ' — soothed by the summer breeze through the rustling leaves and the distant dash of the waves as they rippled upon the sand. Mr. Oldbuck immediately rose and advanced to greet 24 THE ANTIQUARY his travelling acquaintance with a hearty shake of the hand. *By my faith/ said he, *I began to think you had changed your mind, and found the stupid people of Fairport so tiresome that you judged them unworthy of your talents, and had taken French leave, as my old friend and brother antiquary Mac-Cribb did, when he went off with one of my Syrian medals/ *I hope, my good sir, I should have fallen under no such imputation.' ' ^ Quite as bad, let me tell you, if you had stolen your- self away without giving me the pleasure of seeing you again. I had rather you had taken my copper Otho himself. But come, let me show you the way into my sanctum sanctorum, my cell I may call it, for, except two idle hussies of womankind (by this contemptuous phrase, borrowed from his brother antiquary the cynic Anthony a' Wood, Mr. Oldbuck was used to denote the fair sex in general, and his sister and niece in particular), that, on some idle pretext of relationship, have estab- lished themselves in my premises, I live here as much a ccenobite as my predecessor John o' the Girnell, whose grave I will show you by and by.' Thus speaking, the old gentleman led the way through a low door; but, before entrance, suddenly stopped short to point out some vestiges of what he called an inscrip- tion, and, shaking his head as he pronounced it totally illegible, *Ah! if you but knew, Mr. Lovel, the time and trouble that these mouldering traces of letters have cost me! No mother ever travailed so for a child, and all to no purpose; although I am almost positive that these two last marks imply the figures or letters LV, and may give us a good guess at the real date of the building, since 25 WAVERLEY NOVELS we know, aliunde, that it was founded by Abbot Waldi- mir about the middle of the fourteenth century. And, I profess, I think that centre ornament might be made out by better eyes than mine/ think,' answered Lovel, wiUing to humour the old man, 'it has something the appearance of a mitre/ * I protest you are right ! you are right ! it never struck me before. See what it is to have younger eyes. A mitre — a mitre ! it corresponds in every respect.' The resemblance was not much nearer than that of Polonius's cloud to a whale or an owzel; it was sufficient, however, to set the Antiquary's brains to work. 'A mitre, my dear sir,' continued he, as he led the way through a labyrinth of inconvenient and dark passages, and accompanied his disquisition with certain necessary cautions to his guest — 'a mitre, my dear sir, will suit our abbot as well as a bishop; he was a mitred abbot, and at the very top of the roll — take care of these three steps — I know Mac-Cribb denies this, but it is as certain as that he took away my Antigonus, no leave asked. You'll see the name of the Abbot of Trotcosey, Abbas Trottocosiensis, at the head of the rolls of parliament in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries — there is very little light here, and these cursed womankind always leave their tubs in the passage. Now take care of the corner; ascend twelve steps and ye are safe!' Mr. Oldbuck had by this time attained the top of the winding stair which led to his own apartment, and, opening a door and pushing aside a piece of tapestry with which it was covered, his first exclamation was, 'What are you about here, you sluts?' A dirty bare- footed chambermaid threw down her duster, detected in 26 THE ANTIQUARY the heinous fact of arranging the sanctum sanctorum , and fled out of an opposite door from the face of her incensed master. A genteel-looking young woman, who was su- perintending the operation, stood her ground, but with some timidity. 'Indeed, uncle, your room was not fit to be seen, and I just came to see that Jenny laid everything down where she took it up.' ^And how dare you, or Jenny either, presume to meddle with my private matters? ' (Mr. Oldbuck hated 'putting to rights' as much as Dr. Orkborne or any other professed student.) ^ Go sew your sampler, you monkey, and do not let me find you here again, as you value your ears. I assure you, Mr. Lovel, that the last inroad of these pretended friends to cleanliness was almost as fatal to my collection as Hudibras's visit to that of Sidrophel; and I have ever since missed My copperplate, with almanacks Engraved upon 't, and other knacks; My moon-dial, with Napier's bones, And several constellation stones; My flea, my morpion, and punaise, I purchased for my proper ease. And so forth, as old Butler has it.' The young lady, after curtsying to Lovel, had taken the opportunity to make her escape during this enumer- ation of losses. ^You'll be poisoned here with the vol- umes of dust they have raised,' continued the Anti- quary; *but I assure you the dust was very ancient, peaceful, quiet dust about an hour ago, and would have remained so for a hundred years had not these gipsies disturbed it, as they do everything else in the world.' 27 WAVERLEY NOVELS It was, indeed, some time before Lovel could, through the thick atmosphere, perceive in what sort of den his friend had constructed his retreat. It was a lofty room of middling size, obscurely hghted by high narrow lat- ticed windows. One end was entirely occupied by book- shelves, greatly too limited in space for the number of volumes placed upon them, which were, therefore, drawn up in ranks of two or three files deep, while numberless others Uttered the floor and the tables, amid a chaos of maps, engravings, scraps of parchment, bundles of papers, pieces of old armour, swords, dirks, helmets, and Highland targets. Behind Mr. Oldbuck's seat (which was an ancient leathern-covered easy-chair, worn smooth by constant use) was a huge oaken cabinet, decorated at each corner with Dutch cherubs, having their little duck-wings displayed and great jolter-headed visages placed between thern. The top of this cabinet was covered with busts and Roman lamps and paterae, intermingled with one or two bronze figures. The walls of the apartment were partly clothed with grim old tapestry, representing the memorable story of Sir Gawaine's wedding, in which full justice was done to the ugliness of the Lothely Lady; although, to judge from his own looks, the gentle knight had less reason to be disgusted with the match on account of disparity of outward favour than the romancer has given us to under- stand. The rest of the room was panelled or wainscotted with black oak, against which hung two or three por- traits in armour, being characters in Scottish history, favourites of Mr. Oldbuck, and as many in tie-wigs and laced coats, staring representatives of his own ancestors. A large old-fashioned oaken table was covered with a 28 THE ANTIQUARY profusion of papers, parchments, books, and nondescript trinkets and gewgaws, which seemed to have httle to recommend them besides rust and the antiquity which it indicates. In the midst of this wreck of ancient books and utensils, with a gravity equal to Marius among the ruins of Carthage, sat a large black cat, which to a su- perstitious eye might have presented the genius lociy the tutelar demon of the apartment. The floor, as well as the table and chairs, was overflowed by the same mare magnum of miscellaneous trumpery, where it would have been as impossible to find any individual article wanted as to put it to any use when discovered. Amid this medley it was no easy matter to find one's way to a chair without stumbling over a prostrate folio, or the still more awkward mischance of overturning some piece of Roman or ancient British pottery. And when the chair was attained, it had to be disencumbered with a careful hand of engravings which might have re- ceived damage, and of antique spurs and buckles which would certainly have occasioned it to any sudden occu- pant. Of this the Antiquary made Lovel particularly aware, adding, that his friend, the Rev. Doctor Heavy- sterne from the Low Countries, had sustained much in- jury by sitting down suddenly and incautiously on three ancient calthrops or ' craw-taes' which had been lately dug up in the bog near Bannockburn, and which, dis- persed by Robert Bruce to lacerate the feet of the Eng- lish chargers, came thus in process of time to endamage the sitting part of a learned professor of Utrecht. Having at length fairly settled himself, and being nothing loath to make inquiry concerning the strange objects around him, which his host was equally ready, 29 WAVERLEY NOVELS as far as possible, to explain, Lovel was introduced to a large club or bludgeon, with an iron spike at the end of it, which, it seems, had been lately found in a field on the Monkbarns property, adjacent to an old burying- ground. It had mightily the air of such a stick as the Highland reapers use to walk with on their annual pere- grinations from their mountains; but Mr. Oldbuck was strongly tempted to believe that, as its shape was singu- lar, it might have been one of the clubs with which the monks armed their peasants in Heu of more martial weapons, whence, he observed, the villains were called 'Colve-carles,' or ^Kolb-kerls,' that is, clavigeri, or club- bearers. For the truth of this custom he quoted the ^Chronicle' of Antwerp and that of Saint Martin; against Which authorities Lovel had nothing to oppose, having never heard of them till that moment. Mr. Oldbuck next exhibited thumb-screws, which had given the Covenanters of former days the cramp in their joints, and a collar with the name of a fellow convicted of theft, whose services, as the inscription bore, had been adjudged to a neighbouring baron in Heu of the modern Scottish punishment, which, as Oldbuck said, sends such culprits to enrich England by their labour and themselves by their dexterity. Many and various were the other curiosities which he showed; but it was chiefly upon his books that he prided himself, repeating with a complacent air, as he led the way to the crowded and dusty shelves, the verses of old Chaucer — 'For he would rather have, at his bed-head, A twenty books, clothed in black or red, Of Aristotle, or his philosophy, Than robes rich, rebeck, or saltery.' 30 THE ANTIQUARY This pithy motto he delivered, shaking his head, and giving each guttural the true Anglo-Saxon enunciation, which is now forgotten in the southern parts of this realm. The collection was, indeed, a curious one, and might well be envied by an amateur. Yet it was not collected at the enormous prices of modern times, which are suffi- cient to have appalled the most determined, as well as earliest, bibliomaniac upon record, whom we take to have been none else than the renowned Don Quixote de la Mancha, as, among other slight indications of an infirm understanding, he is stated by his veracious historian Cid Hamet Benengeli to have exchanged fields and farms for folios and quartos of chivalry. In this species of exploit the good knight-errant has been imi- tated by lords, knights, and squires of our own day, though we have not yet heard of any that has mistaken an inn for a castle, or laid his lance in rest against a windmill. Mr. Oldbuck did not follow these collectors in such excess of expenditure; but, taking a pleasure in the personal labour of forming his library, saved his purse at the expense of his time and toil. He was no encourager of that ingenious race of peripatetic middlemen, who, trafficking between the obscure keeper of a stall and the eager amateur, make their profit at once of the ignorance of the former and the dear-bought skill and taste of the latter. When such were mentioned in his hearing, he seldom failed to point out how necessary it was to arrest the object of your curiosity in its first transit, and to tell his favourite story of Snuffy Davie and Caxton's ' Game at Chess.' * Davie Wilson,' he said, 'commonly called Snuffy Davie, from his inveterate addiction to 31 WAVERLEY NOVELS black rappee, was the very prince of scouts for searching blind alleys, cellars, and stalls for rare volumes. He had the scent of a slow-hound, sir, and the snap of a bull-dog. He would detect you an old black-letter ballad among the leaves of a law-paper, and find an editio princeps under the mask of a school Corderius. Snufify Davie bought the "Game of Chess, 1474/' the first book ever printed in England, from a stall in Holland for about two groschen, or twopence of our money. He sold it to Osborne for twenty pounds and as many books as came to twenty pounds more. Osborne resold this in- imitable windfall to Dr. Askew for sixty guineas. At Dr. Askew's sale,' continued the old gentleman, kindling as he spoke, ^ this inestimable treasure blazed forth in its full value, and was purchased by Royalty itself for one hundred and seventy pounds! Could a copy now occur, Lord only knows,' he ejaculated, with a deep sigh and lif ted-up hands — 'Lord only knows what would be its ransom; and yet it was originally secured, by skill and research, for the easy equivalent of twopence sterling.^ Happy, thrice happy, Snuffy Davie! and blessed were the times when thy industry could be so rewarded! Even I, sir,' he went on, though far inferior in industry and discernment and presence of mind to that great man, can show you a few, a very few things, which I have col- lected, not by force of money, as any wealthy man might, although, as my friend Lucian says, he might chance to throw away his coin only to illustrate his ignorance, but gained in a manner that shows I know something of the matter. See this bundle of ballads, not one of them later 1 This bibliomaniacal anecdote is literally true; and David Wilson, the author need not tell his brethren of the Roxburghe and Bannatyne Clubs, was a real personage. 32 THE ANTIQUARY than 1700, and some of them an hundred years older. I wheedled an old woman out of these, who loved them better than her psalm-book. Tobacco, sir, snuff, and the Complete Syren ^' were the equivalent! For that muti- lated copy of the ^^Complaynt of Scotland " I sat out the drinking of two dozen bottles of strong ale with the late learned proprietor, who, in gratitude, bequeathed it to me by his last will. These little Elzevirs are the memo- randa and trophies of many a walk by night and morn- ing through the Cowgate, the Canongate, the Bow, Saint Mary's Wynd — wherever, in fine, there were to be found brokers and trokers, those miscellaneous dealers in things rare and curious. How often have I stood haggling on a halfpenny, lest, by a too ready acquiescence in the dealer's first price, he should be led to suspect the value I set upon the article! How have I trembled lest some passing stranger should chop in between me and the prize, and regarded each poor stu- dent of divinity that stopped to turn over the books at the stall as a rival amateur or prowling bookseller in dis- guise! And then, Mr. Lovel, the sly satisfaction with which one pays the consideration and pockets the article, affecting a cold indifference while the hand is trembling with pleasure! Then to dazzle the eyes of our wealthier and emulous rivals by showing them such a treasure as this (displaying a little black smoked book about the size of a primer), to enjoy their surprise and envy, shroud- ing meanwhile under a veil of mysterious consciousness our own superior knowledge and dexterity — these, my young friend, these are the white moments of life, that repay the toil and pains and sedulous attention which our profession, above all others, so peculiarly demands! ' 5 33 WAVERLEY NOVELS Lovel was not a little amused at hearing the old gen- tleman run on in this manner, and, however incapable of entering into the full merits of what he beheld, he ad- mired, as much as could have been expected, the various treasures which Oldbuck exhibited. Here were editions esteemed as being the first, and there stood those scarcely less regarded as being the last and best; here was a book valued because it had the author's final im- provements, and there another which (strange to tell!) was in request because it had them not. One was precious because it was a folio, another because it was a duodecimo; some because they were tall, some because they were short; the merit of this lay in the title-page, of that in the arrangement of the letters in the word ^ Finis.' There was, it seemed, no peculiar distinction, however trifling or minute, which might not give value to a volume, providing the indispensable quahty of scarcity or rare occurrence was attached to it. Not the least fascinating was the original broadside — the D)dng Speech, Bloody Murder, or Wonderful Won- der of Wonders — in its primary tattered guise, as it was hawked through the streets and sold for the cheap and easy price of one penny, though now worth the weight of that penny in gold. On these the Antiquary dilated with transport, and read with a rapturous voice the elaborate titles, which bore the same proportion to the contents that the painted signs without a showman's booth do to the animals within. Mr. Oldbuck, for ex- ample, piqued himself especially in possessing an unique broadside, entitled and called * Strange and Wonderful News from Chipping-Norton, in the County of Oxon. Of certain dreadful Apparitions which were seen in the 34 THE ANTIQUARY Air on the 26th of July 16 10, at Half an Hour after Nine o'Clock at Noon, and continued till Eleven, in which Time was seen Appearances of several flaming Swords, strange Motions of the superior Orbs, with the unusual Sparkling of the Stars, with their dreadful Con- tinuations. With the Account of the Opening of the Heavens, and strange Appearances therein disclosing themselves, with several other prodigious Circumstances not heard of in any Age, to the great Amazement of the Beholders, as it was communicated in a Letter to one Mr. CoUey, living in West Smithfield, and attested by Thomas Brown, Elizabeth Greenaway, and Anne Gutheridge, who were Spectators of the dreadful Ap- paritions. And if any one would be further satisfied of the Truth of this Relation, let them repair to Mr. Nightingale's, at the Bear Inn, in West Smithfield, and they may be satisfied.' ^ 'You laugh at this,' said the proprietor of the collec- tion, 'and I forgive you. I do acknowledge that the charms on which we doat are not so obvious to the eyes of youth as those of a fair lady; but you will grow wiser, and see more justly, when you come to wear spectacles. Yet stay, I have one piece of antiquity which you, per- haps, will prize more highly.' So saying, Mr. Oldbuck unlocked a drawer and took out a bundle of keys, then pulled aside a piece of the tapestry which concealed the door of a small closet, int( which he descended by four stone steps, and, after some tinkling among bottles and cans, produced two long- stalked wine-glasses with bell mouths, such as are seen 1 Of this thrice and four times rare broadside the author possesses an exemplar. 35 WAVERLEY NOVELS in Teniers's pieces, and a small bottle of what he called rich racy canary, with a little bit of diet-cake, on a small silver server of exquisite old workmanship. will say nothing of the server,' he remarked, ^though it is said to have been wrought by the old mad Florentine Benven- uto Cellini. But, Mr. Lovel, our ancestors drunk sack; you, who admire the drama, know where that's to be found. Here's success to your exertions at Fairport, sir!' 'And to you, sir, and an ample increase to your treas- ure, with no more trouble on your part than is just neces- sary to make the acquisitions valuable.' After a hbation so suitable to the amusement in which they had been engaged, Lovel rose to take his leave, and Mr. Oldbuck prepared to give him his company a part of the way, and show him something worthy of his curios- ity on his return to Fairport. CHAPTER IV The pawky auld carle cam ower the lea, Wi' mony good-e'ens and good-morrows to me, Saying, Kind sir, for your courtesy, Will ye lodge a silly poor man ? The Gaberlunzie Man. Our two friends moved through a little orchard, where the aged apple-trees, well loaded with fruit, showed, as is usual in the neighbourhood of monastic buildings, that the days of the monks had not always been spent in indolence, but often dedicated to horticulture and gar- dening. Mr. Oldbuck failed not to make Lovel remark that the planters of those days were possessed of the modern secret of preventing the roots of the fruit-trees from penetrating the till, and compelling them to spread in a lateral direction, by placing paving-stones beneath the trees when first planted, so as to interpose between their fibres and the subsoil. ^This old fellow,' he said, Vhich was blown down last summer, and still, though half reclined on the ground, is covered with fruit, has been, as you may see, accommodated with such a barrier between his roots and the unkindly till. That other tree has a story: the fruit is called the Abbot's Apple. The lady of a neighbouring baron was so fond of it that she would often pay a visit to Monkbarns to have the pleas- ure of gathering it from the tree. The husband, a jealous man belike, suspected that a taste so nearly resembling that of Mother Eve prognosticated a similar fall. As the honour of a noble family is concerned, I will say no more on the subject, only that the lands of Lochard and Crin- 37 WAVERLEY NOVELS glecut still pay a fine of six bolls of barley annually to atone the guilt of their audacious owner, who intruded himself and his worldly suspicions upon the seclusion of the abbot and his penitent. Admire the little belfry ris- ing above the ivy-mantled porch; there was here a hos- pitium, hospitale, or hospitamentum (for it is written all these various ways in the old writings and evidents), in which the monks received pilgrims. I know our minister has said, in the Statistical Account " that the hospitium was situated either on the lands of Haltweary or upon those of Half-starvet; but he is incorrect, Mr. Lovel: that is the gate called still the Palmer's Port, and my gardener found many hewn stones when he was trench- ing the ground for winter celery, several of which I have sent as specimens to my learned friends, and to the various antiquarian societies of which I am an unworthy member. But I will say no more at present; I reserve something for another visit, and we have an object of real curiosity before us.' While he was thus speaking he led the way briskly through one or two rich pasture meadows to an open heath or common, and so to the top of a gentle eminence. ^Here,' he said, 'Mr. Lovel, is a truly remarkable spot.' 'It commands a fine view,' said his companion, look- ing around him. 'True; but it is not for the prospect I brought you hither. Do you see nothing else remarkable? nothing on the surface of the ground?' 'Why, yes; I do see something like a ditch, indistinctly marked.' 'Indistinctly! pardon me, sir, but the indistinctness must be in your powers of vision: nothing can be more 38 THE ANTIQUARY plainly traced — a proper agger or vallum, with its cor- responding ditch or fossa. Indistinctly! why, Heaven help you, the lassie, my niece, as light-headed a goose as womankind affords, saw the traces of the ditch at once. Indistinct! why, the great station at Ardoch, or that at Burnswark in Annandale, may be clearer, doubtless, because they are stative forts, whereas this was only an occasional encampment. Indistinct! why, you must suppose that fools, boors, and idiots have ploughed up the land, and, Hke beasts and ignorant savages, have thereby obliterated two sides of the square, and greatly / injured the third; but you see yourself the fourth side is quite entire!' Lovel endeavoured to apologise, and to explain away his ill-timed phrase, and pleaded his inexperience. But he was not at once quite successful. His first expression had come too frankly and naturally not to alarm the Antiquary, and he could not easily get over the shock it had given him. ^My dear sir,' continued the senior, 'your eyes are not inexperienced; you know a ditch from level ground, I presume, when you see them? Indistinct! why, the very common people, the very least boy that can herd a cow, calls it the Kaim of Kinprunes; and if that does not imply an ancient camp, I am ignorant what does.' Lovel having again acquiesced, and at length lulled to J sleep the irritated and suspicious vanity of the Anti- quary, he proceeded in his task of cicerone. 'You must know,' he said, 'our Scottish antiquaries have been greatly divided about the local situation of the final conflict between Agricola and the Caledonians: some contend for Ardoch in Strathallan, some for Inner- 39 WAVERLEY NOVELS peffry, some for the Raedykes in the Mearns, and some are for carrying the scene of action as far north as Blair in Athole. Now, after all this discussion/ continued the old gentleman, with one of his slyest and most compla- cent looks, %hat would you think, Mr. Lovel — I say, what would you think, if the memorable scene of con- flict should happen to be on the very spot called the Kaim of Kinprunes, the property of the obscure and \ humble individual who now speaks to you?' Then, having paused a little to suffer his guest to digest a com- munication so important, he resumed his disquisition in a higher tone. * Yes, my good friend, I am indeed greatly deceived if this place does not correspond with all the marks of that celebrated place of action. It was near to the Grampian Mountains; lo! yonder they are, mixing and contending with the sky on the skirts of the horizon! It was in conspectu classis — in sight of the Roman fleet; and would any admiral, Roman or British, wish a fairer bay to ride in than that on your right hand? It is aston- ishing how blind we professed antiquaries sometimes are; Sir Robert Sibbald, Saunders Gordon, General Roy, Doctor Stukeley, why, it escaped all of them. I was unwilling to say a word about it till I had secured the ground, for it belonged to auld Johnnie Howie, a bonnet- laird hard by, and many a communing we had before he and I could agree. At length — I am almost ashamed to say it — but I even brought my mind to give acre for acre of my good corn-land for this barren spot. But then it was a national concern; and when the scene of so cele- brated an event became my own I was overpaid. Whose patriotism would not grow warmer, as old Johnson says, on the plains of Marathon? I began to trench the 40 THE ANTIQUARY ground, to see what might be discovered; and the third day, sir, we found a stone, which I have transported to Monkbarns, in order to have the sculpture taken o& with plaster of Paris; it bears a sacrificing vessel, and the letters A.D.L.L., which may stand, without much \do- lence, for Agricola Dicavit Libens Lubens,^ Certainly, sir; for the Dutch antiquaries claim Caligula as the founder of a lighthouse on the sole au- thority of the letters C.C.P.F., which they interpret Caius Caligula Pharum Fecit, ^ ^True, and it has ever been recorded as a sound exposi- tion. I see we shall make something of you even before you wear spectacles, notwithstanding you thought the traces of this beautiful camp indistinct when you first observed them.' *In time, sir, and by good instruction — ' * — You will become more apt? I doubt it not. You shall peruse, upon your next visit to Monkbarns, my trivial Essay upon Castrametation, with some Par- ticular Remarks upon the Vestiges of Ancient Fortifica- tions lately discovered by the Author at the Kaim of Kinprunes.'' I think I have pointed out the infallible touchstone of supposed antiquity. I premise a few gen- eral rules on that point, on the nature, namely, of the evidence to be received in such cases. Meanwhile be pleased to observe, for example, that I could press into my service Claudian's famous Une, lUe Caledoniis posuit qui castra pruinis. For pruinis, though interpreted to mean "hoar frosts,"" to which I own we are somewhat subject in this north- eastern sea-coast, may also signify a locality, namely, 41 WAVERLEY NOVELS Prunes; the castra Pruinis posita would therefore be the Kaim of Kinprunes. But I waive this, for I am sensible it might be laid hold of by cavillers as carrying down my castra to the time of Theodosius, sent by Valentinian into Britain as late as the year 367 or thereabout. No, my good friend, I appeal to people's eye-sight — is not here the decuman gate? and there, but for the ravage of the horrid plough, as a learned friend calls it, would be the praetorian gate. On the left hand you may see some slight vestiges of the porta sinistra, and on the right one side of the porta dextra well-nigh entire. Here, then, let us take our stand, on this tumulus, exhibiting the foundation of ruined buildings — the central point, the prcEtorium, doubtless, of the camp. From this place, now scarce to be distinguished but by its slight elevation and its greener turf from the rest of the fortification, we may suppose Agricola to have looked forth on the immense army of Caledonians, occupying the declivities of yon opposite hill, the infantry rising rank over rank as the form of ground displayed their array to its utmost advan- tage, the cavalry and covinarii, by which I understand the charioteers — another guise of folks from your Bond Street four-in-hand men, I trow — scouring the more level space below — See, then, Lovel, see — See that huge battle moving from the mountains, Their gilt coats shine like dragon scales, their march V Like a rough tumbling storm. See them, and view them, And then see Rome no more! Yes, my dear friend, from this stance it is probable — nay, it is nearly certain — that Julius Agricola beheld what our Beaumont has so admirably described! From this very prcetorium — * 42 THE ANTIQUARY A voice from behind interrupted his ecstatic descrip- tion — ^Praetorian here, praetorian there, I mind the bigging o't.' Both at once turned round, Lovel with surprise and Oldbuck with mingled surprise and indignation, at so uncivil an interruption. An auditor had stolen upon them, unseen and unheard, amid the energy of the Antiquary's enthusiastic declamation and the attentive civility of Lovel. He had the exterior appearance of a mendicant. A slouched hat of huge dimensions; a long white beard, which mingled with his grizzled hair; an aged, but strongly marked and expressive countenance, hardened by climate and exposure to a right brick-dust complexion; a long blue gown, with a pewter badge on the right arm; two or three wallets or bags slung across his shoulder for holding the different kinds of meal when he received his charity in kind from those who were but a degree richer than himself — all these marked at once a beggar by profession and one of that privileged class which are called in Scotland the King's Bedesmen, or, vulgarly, Blue-Gowns. 'What is that you say, Edie?' said Oldbuck, hoping, perhaps, that his ears had betrayed their duty; 'what were you speaking about? ' 'About this bit bourock, your honour,' answered the undaunted Edie; 'I mind the bigging o't.' 'The devil you do! Why, you old fool, it was here before you were born, and will be after you are hanged, man!' 'Hanged or drowned, here or awa, dead or alive, I mind the bigging o't.' 'You — you — you,' said the Antiquary, stammering 43 WAVERLEY NOVELS between confusion and anger — *you strolling old vaga- bond, what the devil do you know about it? ' ^Ou, I ken this about it, Monkbarns — and what profit have I for telling ye a lie? — I just ken this about it, that about twenty years syne I and a wheen hallen- shakers Uke mysell, and the mason-lads that built the lang dyke that gaes down the loaning, and twa or three herds maybe, just set to wark and built this bit thing here that ye ca' the — the — prsetorian, and a' just for a bield at auld Aiken Drum's bridal, and a bit blythe gae- down we had in 't some sair rainy weather. Mair by token, Monkbarns, if ye howk up the bourock, as ye seem to have begun, ye '11 find, if ye hae not fund it al- ready, a stane that ane o' the mason-callants cut a ladle on to have a bourd at the bridegroom, and he put four letters on't, that's A.D.LX. — Aiken Drum's Lang Ladle; for Aiken was ane o' the kale-suppers o' Fife.' 'This,' thought Lovel to himself, 'is a famous counter- part to the story of ^'Keip on this syde."' He then ven- tured to steal a glance at our Antiquary, but quickly withdrew it in sheer compassion. For, gentle reader, if thou hast ever beheld the visage of a damsel of sixteen whose romance of true love has been blown up by an untimely discovery, or of a child of ten years whose castle of cards has been blown down by a malicious com- panion, I can safely aver to you that Jonathan Oldbuck of Monkbarns looked neither more wise nor less dis- concerted. 'There is some mistake about this,' he said, abruptly turning away from the mendicant. 'Deil a bit on my side o' the wa',' answered the sturdy beggar; 'I never deal in mistakes, they aye bring mis- 44 THE ANTIQUARY chances. Now, Monkbarns, that young gentleman that's wi' your honour thinks little of a carle Hke me; and yet I'll wager I'll tell him whar he was yestreen at the gloamin, only he maybe wadna like to hae 't spoken o' in company.' Lovel's soul rushed to his cheeks with the vivid blush of two-and-twenty. v 'Never mind the old rogue/ said Mr. Oldbuck. * Don't suppose I think the worse of you for your pro- fession; they are only prejudiced fools and coxcombs that do so. You remember what old TuUy says in his oration "Pro Archia poeta" concerning one of your con- fraternity — Quis nostrum tarn animo agresti ac duro fuit — ut — ut — I forget the Latin; the meaning is, which of us was so rude and barbarous as to remain un- moved at the death of the great Roscius, whose ad- vanced age was so far from preparing us for his death that we rather hoped one so graceful, so excellent in his art, ought to be exempted from the common lot of mor- tality? So the Prince of Orators spoke of the stage and its professors.^ The words of the old man fell upon Lovel's ears, but without conveying any precise idea to his mind, which was then occupied in thinking by what means the old j beggar, who still continued to regard him with a coun- J tenance provokingly sly and intelligent, had contrived to thrust himself into any knowledge of his affairs. He put his hand in his pocket as the readiest mode of inti- mating his desire of secrecy and securing the concur- rence of the person whom he addressed; and while he bestowed him an alms, the amount of which rather bore proportion to his fears than to his charity, looked at 45 WAVERLEY NOVELS. him with a marked expression, which the mendicant, a physiognomist by profession, seemed perfectly to under- stand. — ^ Never mind me, sir, I am no tale-pyet; but there are mair een in the warld than mine,' answered he as he pocketed Lovel's bounty, but in a tone to be heard by him alone, and with an expression which amply filled up what was left unspoken. Then turning to Old- buck — * I am awa to the manse, your honour. Has your honour ony word there, or to Sir Arthur, for I'll come in by Knockwinnock Castle again e'en?' Oldbuck started as from a dream; and in a hurried tone, where vexation strove with a wish to conceal it, paying at the same time a tribute to Edie's smooth, greasy, unHned hat, he said, 'Go down, go down to Monkbarns; let them give you some dinner. Or stay; if you do go to the manse, or to Knockwinnock, ye need say nothing about that foolish story of yours.' 'Who, I?' said the mendicant. 'Lord bless your hon- our, naebody sail ken a word about it frae me, mair than if the bit bourock had been there since Noah's flood. But, Lord, they tell me your honour has gien Johnnie Howie acre for acre of the laigh crofts for this heathery knowe ! Now, if he has really imposed the bourock on ye for an ancient wark, it 's my real opinion the bargain will never hand gude, if you would just bring down your heart to try it at the law, and say that he beguiled ye.' 'Provoking scoundrel,' muttered the indignant Anti- quary between his teeth; 'I'll have the hangman's lash and his back acquainted for this!' And then in a louder tone, 'Never mind, Edie; it is all a mistake.' 'Troth, I am thinking sae,' continued his tormentor, who seemed to have pleasure in rubbing the galled 46 THE ANTIQUARY wound — Hroth, I aye thought sae; and it's no sae lang since I said to Luckie Gemmels, Never think you, luckie/' said I, ^Hhat his honour, Monkbarns, would hae done sic a daft-like thing as to gie grund weel worth fifty shillings an acre for a mailing that would be dear o' a pund Scots. Na, na," quo' I, depend upon't the Laird 's been imposed upon wi' that wily do-little deevil, Johnnie Howie." ^^But Lord haud a care o' us, sirs, how can that be," quo' she again, ^^when the Laird's sae book-learned there 's no the like o' him in the country- side, and Johnnie Howie has hardly sense eneugh to ca' the cows out o' his kale-yard?" ^^Aweel, aweel," quo' I, "but ye '11 hear he's circumvented him with some of his auld-warld stories," — for ye ken. Laird, yon other time about the bodle that ye thought was an auld coin — ' 'Go to the devil!' said Oldbuck; and then in a more mild tone, as one that was conscious his reputation lay at the mercy of his antagonist, he added — * Away with you down to Monkbarns, and when I come back I'll send ye a bottle of ale to the kitchen.' ' Heaven reward your honour ! ' This was uttered with the true mendicant whine, as, setting his pike-staff be- fore him, he began to move in the direction of Monk- barns. 'But did your honour,' turning round, 'ever get back the siller ye gae to the travelling packman for the bodle?' 'Curse thee, go about thy business!' 'Aweel, aweel, sir, God bless your honour! I hope ye '11 ding Johnnie Howie yet, and that I'll live to see it.' And so saying, the old beggar moved off, relieving Mr. Oldbuck of recollections which were anything rather than agreeable. 47 WAVERLEY NOVELS ^Who is this familiar old gentleman?' said Lovel, when the mendicant was out of hearing. *0, one of the plagues of the country. I have been always against poor's-rates and a workhouse; I think I 'U vote for them now, to have that scoundrel shut up. O, your old-remembered guest of a beggar becomes as well acquainted with you as he is with his dish, as inti- mate as one of the beasts familiar to man which signify love, and with which his own trade is especially conver- sant. Who is he? why, he has gone the vole — has been soldier, ballad-singer, travelling tinker, and is now a beggar. He is spoiled by our foolish gentry, who laugh at his jokes and rehearse Edie Ochiltree's good things as regularly as Joe Miller's.' ^Why, he uses freedom apparently, which is the soul of wit,' answered Lovel. '0 ay, freedom enough,' said the Antiquary; ^he gen- erally invents some damned improbable lie or another to provoke you, like that nonsense he talked just now; not that I '11 publish my tract till I have examined the thing to the bottom.' 'In England,' said Lovel, 'such a mendicant would get a speedy check.' 'Yes, your churchwardens and dog- whips would make slender allowance for his vein of humour! But here, curse him, he is a sort of privileged nuisance — one of the last specimens of the old-fashioned Scottish mendi- cant, who kept his rounds within a particular space, and was the news-carrier, the minstrel, and sometimes the historian of the district. That rascal, now, knows more old ballads and traditions than any other man in this and the four next parishes. And after all,' continued he, 48 THE ANTIQUARY softening as he went on describing Edie's good gifts, ^the dog has some good-humour. He has borne his hard fate with unbroken spirits, and it's cruel to deny him the comfort of a laugh at his betters. The pleasure of having quizzed me, as you gay folk would call it, will be meat and drink to him for a day or two. But I must go back and look after him, or he will spread his d — d nonsensical story over half the country.' So saying, our heroes parted, Mr. Oldbuck to return to his hospitium at Monkbarns, and Lovel to pursue his way to Fairport^ where he arrived without farther adventure. 0 CHAPTER V Launcdot Gobbo. Mark me now: now will I raise the waters. Merchant of Venice, The theatre at Fairport had opened, but no Mr. Lovel appeared on the boards, nor was there anything in the habits or deportment of the young gentleman so named which authorised Mr. Oldbuck's conjecture that his fellow-traveller was a candidate for the public favour. Regular were the Antiquary's inquiries at an old-fash- ioned barber who dressed the only three wigs in the parish, which, in defiance of taxes and times, were still subjected to the operation of powdering and frizzling, and who for that purpose divided his time among the three employers whom fashion had yet left him — regu- lar, I say, were Mr. Oldbuck's inquiries at this personage concerning the news of the Httle theatre at Fairport, expecting every day to hear of Mr. Lovel's appearance, on which occasion the old gentleman had determined to put himself to charges in honour of his young friend, and not only to go to the play himself, but to carry his wo- mankind along with him. But old Jacob Caxon con- veyed no information which warranted his taking so decisive a step as that of securing a box. He brought information, on the contrary, that there was a young man residing at Fairport of whom the town (by which he meant all the gossips, who, having no business of their own, fiJl up their leisure moments by attending to that of other people) could make nothing. He sought no society, but rather avoided that which the SO THE ANTIQUARY apparent gentleness of his manners, and some degree of curiosity, induced many to offer him. Nothing could be more regular, or less resembHng an adventurer, than his mode of living, which was simple, but so completely well 9 arranged that all who had any transactions with him were loud in their approbation. 'These are not the virtues of a stage-struck hero,* thought Oldbuck to himself; and, however habitually pertinacious in his opinions, he must have been com- pelled to abandon that which he had formed in the pre- sent instance but for a part of Caxon's communication. 'The young gentleman,' he said, 'was sometimes heard speaking to himsell, and rampauging about in his room, just as if he was ane o' the player folk.' Nothing, however, excepting this single circumstance, occurred to confirm Mr. Oldbuck's supposition, and it remained a high and doubtful question what a well- informed young man, without friends, connexions, or employment of any kind, could have to do as a resident at Fairport. Neither port wine nor whist had apparently any charms for him. He declined dining with the mess of the volunteer cohort, which had been lately embodied, and shunned joining the convivialities of either of the two parties which then divided Fairport, as they did more important places. He was too little of an aristocrat to join the club of Royal True Blues, and too little of a democrat to fraternise with an affiliated society of the soi-disant Friends of the People, which the borough had also the happiness of possessing. A coffee-room was his detestation; and, I grieve to say it, he had as few sym- " pathies with the tea-table. In short, since the name was fashionable in novel-writing, and that is a great while SI WAVERLEY NOVELS agone, there was never a Master Lovel of whom so little positive was known, and who was so universally de- scribed by negatives. One negative, however, was important: nobody knew any harm of Lovel. Indeed, had such existed, it would have been speedily made public; for the natural desire of speaking evil of our neighbour could in his case have been checked by no feelings of sympathy for a being so unsocial. On one account alone he fell somewhat under suspicion. As he made free use of his pencil in his soli- tary walks, and had drawn several views of the harbour, in which the signal-tower, and even the four-gun bat- tery, were introduced, some zealous friends of the public sent abroad a whisper that this mysterious stranger must certainly be a French spy. The sheriff paid his respects to Mr. Lovel accordingly, but in the interview which followed it would seem that he had entirely re- moved that magistrate's suspicions, since he not only suffered him to remain undisturbed in his retirement, but, it was credibly reported, sent him two invitations to dinner parties, both which were civilly declined. But what the nature of the explanation was, the magistrate kept a profound secret, not only from the pubhc at large, but from his substitute, his clerk, his wife, and his two daughters, who formed his privy council on all questions of official duty. All these particulars being faithfully reported by Mr. Caxon to his patron at Monkbarns, tended much to raise Lovel in the opinion of his former fellow-traveller. 'A decent sensible lad,' said he to himself, 'who scorns to enter into the fooleries and nonsense of these idiot people at Fairport. I must do something for him — I must give 52 THE ANTIQUARY him a dinner; and I will write Sir Arthur to come to Monkbarns to meet him. I must consult my woman- kind/ Accordingly, such consultation having been previ- ously held, a special messenger, being no other than Caxon himself, was ordered to prepare for a walk to Knockwinnock Castle with a letter, *For the honoured Sir Arthur Wardour of Knockwinnock, Bart.' The con- tents ran thus — Dear Sir Arthur, On Tuesday the 17th curt. sHlo novo, I hold a coeno- bitical symposion at Monkbarns, and pray you to assist thereat, at four o'clock precisely. If my fair enemy Miss Isabel can and will honour us by accompanying you, my womankind will be but too proud to have the aid of such an auxiliary in the cause of resistance to lawful rule and right supremacy. If not, I will send the womankind to the manse for the day. I have a young acquaintance to make known to you, who is touched with some strain of a better spirit than belongs to these giddy-paced times — reveres his elders, and has a pretty notion of the classics — and, as such a youth must have a natural contempt for the people about Fairport, I wish to show him some rational as well as worshipful society. — I am, dear Sir Arthur, etc. etc. etc. *Fly with this letter, Caxon,' said the senior, holding out his missive, signatum atque sigUlatum — 'fly to Knockwinnock and bring me back an answer. Go as fast as if the town-council were met, and waiting for the provost, and the provost was waiting for his new- powdered wig.' S3 WAVERLEY NOVELS *Ah! sir/ answered the messenger, with a deep sigh, * thae days hae lang gane by. Deil a wig has a provost of Fairport worn sin' auld Provost Jervie's time; and he had a quean of a servant-lass that dressed it hersell, wi' the doup o' a candle and a drudging-box. But I hae seen the day, Monkbarns, when the town-council of Fairport wad hae as soon wanted their town-clerk, or their gill of brandy ower-head after the baddies, as they wad hae wanted ilk ane a weel-favoured, sonsy, decent periwig on his pow. Hegh, sirs! nae wonder the commons will be discontent and rise against the law, when they see magis- trates and bailies and deacons, and the provost himsell, wi' heads as bald and as bare as ane o' my blocks! ' ^ And as well furnished within, Caxon. But away with you; you have an excellent view of public affairs, and, I daresay, have touched the cause of our popular discon- tent as closely as the provost could have done himself. But away with you, Caxon.' And off went Caxon upon his walk of three miles — He hobbled, but his heart was good; Could he go faster than he could? While he is engaged in his journey and return, it may not be impertinent to inform the reader to whose man- sion he was bearing his embassy. We have said that Mr. Oldbuck kept little company with the surrounding gentlemen, excepting with one person only. This was Sir Arthur Wardour, a baronet of ancient descent, and of a large but embarrassed for- tune. His father, Sir Anthony, had been a Jacobite, and had displayed all the enthusiasm of that party while it could be served with words only. No man squeezed the 54 THE ANTIQUARY orange with more significant gesture; no one could more dexterously intimate a dangerous health without coming under the penal statutes; and, above all, none drank success to the cause more deeply and devoutly. But, on the approach of the Highland army in 1745, it would appear that the worthy baronet's zeal became a little more moderate just when its warmth was of most con- sequence. He talked much, indeed, of taking the field for the rights of Scotland and Charles Stuart; but his demi- pique saddle would suit only one of his horses, and that horse could by no means be brought to stand fire. Per- haps the worshipful owner sympathised in the scruples of this sagacious quadruped, and began to think that what was so much dreaded by the horse could not be very wholesome for the rider. At any rate, while Sir Anthony Wardour talked and drank and hesitated, the sturdy provost of Fairport (who, as we before noticed, was the father of our Antiquary) sallied from his ancient burgh, heading a body of Whig burghers, and seized at once, in the name of George II, upon the Castle of Knockwinnock and on the four carriage-horses and per- son of the proprietor. Sir Anthony was shortly after sent off to the Tower of London by a secretary of state's warrant, and with him went his son Arthur, then a youth. But as nothing appeared like an overt act of treason, both father and son were soon set at Uberty, and returned to their own mansion of Knockwinnock to drink healths five fathoms deep and talk of their suffer- ings in the royal cause. This became so much a matter of habit with Sir Arthur that, even after his father's death, the nonjuring chaplain used to pray regularly for the restoration of the rightful sovereign, for the down- 55 WAVERLEY NOVELS fall of the usurper, and for deliverance from their cruel and bloodthirsty enemies; although all idea of serious opposition to the house of Hanover had long mouldered away, and this treasonable liturgy was kept up rather as a matter of form than as conveying any distinct meaning. So much was this the case that, about the year 1770, upon a disputed election occurring in the county, the worthy knight fairly gulped down the oaths of abjuration and allegiance, in order to serve a candi- date in whom he was interested; thus renouncing the heir for whose restoration he weekly petitioned Heaven, and acknowledging the usurper, whose dethronement he had never ceased to pray for. And to add to this melancholy instance of human inconsistency. Sir Arthur continued to pray for the house of Stuart even after the family had been extinct, and when, in truth, though in his theoretical loyalty he was pleased to regard them as aHve, yet in all actual service and practical exertion he was a most zealous and devoted subject of George IH. In other respects Sir Arthur Wardour lived Hke most country gentlemen in Scotland — hunted and fished, gave and received dinners, attended races and county meetings, was a deputy-lieutenant and trustee upon turnpike acts. But in his more advanced years, as he became too lazy or unwieldy for field-sports, he supplied them by now and then reading Scottish history; and, having gradually acquired a taste for antiquities, though neither very deep nor very correct, he became a crony of his neighbour, Mr. Oldbuck of Monkbarns, and a joint labourer with him in his antiquarian pursuits. There were, however, points of difference between these two humourists which sometimes occasioned dis- 56 THE ANTIQUARY cord. The faith of Sir Arthur, as an antiquary, was boundless, and Mr. Oldbuck (notwithstanding the affair of the prcetorium at the Kaim of Kinprunes) was much more scrupulous in receiving legends as current and authentic coin. Sir Arthur would have deemed himself guilty of the crime of leze-majesty had he doubted the existence of any single individual of that formidable bead-roll of one hundred and four kings of Scotland, received by Boethius, and rendered classical by Bu- chanan, in virtue of whom James VI claimed to rule his ancient kingdom, and whose portraits still frown grimly upon the walls of the gallery of Holyrood. Now Old- buck, a shrewd and suspicious man, and no respecter of divine hereditary right, was apt to cavil at this sacred list, and to affirm that the procession of the posterity of Fergus through the pages of Scottish history was as vain and unsubstantial as the gleamy pageant of the descend- ants of Banquo through the cavern of Hecate. Another tender topic was the good fame of Queen Mary, of which the knight was a most chivalrous as- sertor, while the esquire impugned it, in spite both of her beauty and misfortunes. When, unhappily, their con- versation turned on yet later times, motives of discord occurred in almost every page of history. Oldbuck was upon principle a stanch Presbyterian, a ruling elder of the kirk, and a friend to revolution principles and Pro- testant succession, while Sir Arthur was the very reverse of all this. They agreed, it is true, in dutiful love and allegiance to the sovereign who now fills ^ the throne; but this was their only point of union. It therefore often ^ The reader will understand that this refers to the reign of our late Gracious Sovereign, George the Third. 57 WAVERLEY NOVELS happened that bickerings hot broke out between them, in which Oldbuck was not always able to suppress his caustic humour, while it would sometimes occur to the Baronet that the descendant of a German printer, whose sires had ^sought the base fellowship of paltry burghers/ forgot himself, and took an unUcensed freedom of de- bate, considering the rank and ancient descent of his antagonist. This, with the old feud of the coach-horses, and the seizure of his manor-place and tower of strength by Mr. Oldbuck's father, would at times rush upon his mind, and inflame at once his cheeks and his arguments. And, lastly, as Mr. Oldbuck thought his worthy friend and compeer was in some respects Httle better than a fool, he was apt to come more near communicating to him that unfavorable opinion than the rules of modern pohteness warrant. In such cases they often parted in deep dudgeon, and with something Hke a resolution to forbear each other's company in future: — But with the morning calm reflection came; and as each was sensible that the society of the other had become, through habit, essential to his comfort, the breach was speedily made up between them. On such occasions Oldbuck, considering that the Baronet's pet- tishness resembled that of a child, usually showed his superior sense by compassionately making the first ad- vances to reconciliation. But it once or twice happened that the aristocratic pride of the far-descended knight took a flight too offensive to the feehngs of the repre- sentative of the typographer. In these cases the breach between these two originals might have been immortal but for the kind exertions and interposition of the Bar- S8 THE ANTIQUARY onet's daughter, Miss Isabella Wardour, who, with a son, now absent upon foreign and military service, formed his whole surviving family. She was well aware how neces- sary Mr. Oldbuck was to her father's amusement and comfort, and seldom failed to interpose with effect when the office of a mediator between them was rendered necessary by the satirical shrewdness of the one or the assumed superiority of the other. Under Isabella's mild influence the wrongs of Queen Mary were forgotten by her father, and Mr. Oldbuck forgave the blasphemy which reviled the memory of King William. However, as she used in general to take her father's part playfully in these disputes, Oldbuck was wont to call Isabella his fair enemy, though in fact he made more account of her than any other of her sex, of whom, as we have seen, he was no admirer. There existed another connexion betwixt these wor- thies, which had alternately a repelling and attractive influence upon their intimacy. Sir Arthur always wished to borrow; Mr. Oldbuck was not always willing to lend. Mr. Oldbuck, per contra^ always wished to be repaid with regularity; Sir Arthur was not always, nor indeed often, prepared to gratify this reasonable desire; and, in accomplishing an arrangement between tendencies so opposite, Httle ^miffs' would occasionally take place. Still there was a spirit of mutual accommodation upon the whole, and they dragged on like dogs in couples, with some difficulty and occasional snarling, but without absolutely coming to a standstill or throttling each other. Some little disagreement such as we have mentioned, arising out of business or politics, had divided the houses of Knockwinnock and Monkbarns when the emissary of 59 WAVERLEY NOVELS the latter arrived to discharge his errand. In his ancient Gothic parlour, whose windows on one side looked out upon the restless ocean, and on the other upon the long straight avenue, was the Baronet seated, now turning over the leaves of a folio, now casting a weary glance where the sun quivered on the dark-green foliage and smooth trunks of the large and branching limes with which the avenue was planted. At length, sight of joy! a moving object is seen, and it gives rise to the usual inquiries. Who is it? and what can be his errand? The old whitish-grey coat, the hobbling gait, the hat, half- slouched, half-cocked, announced the forlorn maker of periwigs, and left for investigation only the second query. This was soon solved by a servant entering the parlour — ^A letter from Monkbarns, Sir Arthur.' Sir Arthur took the epistle with a due assumption of consequential dignity. 'Take the old man into the kitchen and let him get some refreshment,' said the young lady, whose compas- sionate eye had remarked his thin grey hair and wearied gait. 'Mr. Oldbuck, my love, invites us to dinner on Tues- day the 17th,' said the Baronet, pausing; 'he really seems to forget that he has not of late conducted himself so civilly towards me as might have been expected.' 'Dear sir, you have so many advantages over poor Mr. Oldbuck that no wonder it should put him a Httle out of humour; but I know he has much respect for your person and your conversation; nothing would give him more pain than to be wanting in any real attention.' 'True, true, Isabella; and one must allow for the orig- inal descent: something of the German boorishness still 60 THE ANTIQUARY flows in the blood, something of the Whiggish and per- verse opposition to established rank and privilege. You may observe that he never has any advantage of me in dispute unless when he avails himself of a sort of petti- fogging intimacy with dates, names, and trifling matters of fact, a tiresome and frivolous accuracy of memory which is entirely owing to his mechanical descent.' 'He must find it convenient in historical investigation, I should think, sir? ' said the young lady. 'It leads to an uncivil and positive mode of disputing; and nothing seems more unreasonable than to hear him impugn even Bellenden's rare translation of Hector Boece, which I have the satisfaction to possess, and which is a black-letter folio of great value, upon the authority of some old scrap of parchment which he has saved from its deserved destiny of being cut up into tailors' measures. And, besides, that habit of minute and troublesome accuracy leads to a mercantile manner of doing business, which ought to be beneath a landed proprietor whose family has stood two or three genera- tions. I question if there's a dealer's clerk in Fairport that can sum an account of interest better than Monk- barns.' 'But you'll accept his invitation, sir?* 'Why, ye — yes; we have no other engagement on hand, I think. Who can the young man be he talks of? he seldom picks up new acquaintance; and he has no relation that I ever heard of.' 'Probably some relation of his brother-in-law, Cap- tain M'Intyre.' 'Very possibly. Yes, we will accept; the M'ln tyres are of a very ancient Highland family. You may answer 6i WAVERLEY NOVELS his card in the affirmative, Isabella; I believe I have no leisure to be "Dear Sirring" myself.' So this important matter being adjusted, Miss Ward- our intimated ^her own and Sir Arthur's compliments, and that they would have the honour of waiting upon Mr. Oldbuck. Miss Wardour takes this opportunity to renew her hostility with Mr. Oldbuck, on account of his late long absence from Knockwinnock, where his visits give so much pleasure.' With this placebo she concluded her note, with which old Caxon, now refreshed in Umbs and wind, set out on his return to the Antiquary's mansion. CHAPTER VI Moth. By Woden, God of Saxons, From whence comes Wensday, that is Wednesday, Truth is a thing that I will ever keep Unto thylke day in which I creep into My sepulcre. Cartwright's Ordinary, Our young friend Lovel, who had received a corre- sponding invitation, punctual to the hour of appoint- ment, arrived at Monkbarns about five minutes before four o'clock on the 17th of July. The day had been re- markably sultry, and large drops of rain had occasion- ally fallen, though the threatened showers had as yet passed away. Mr. Oldbuck received him at the Palmer's Port in his complete brown suit, grey silk stockings, and wig pow- dered with all the skill of the veteran Caxon, who, hav- ing smelt out the dinner, had taken care not to finish his job till the hour of eating approached. 'You are welcome to my symposion, Mr. Lovel; and now let me introduce you to my Clogdogdo's, as Tom Otter calls them — my unlucky and good-for-nothing womankind — malce besticB, Mr. Lovel.' *I shall be disappointed, sir, if I do not find the ladies very undeserving of your satire.' 'Tilley- valley, Mr. Lovel — which, by the way, one commentator derives from tiUivillitium and another from talley-ho — but tilley- valley, I say, a truce with your politeness. You will find them but samples of womankind. But here they be, Mr. Lovel. I present to you, in due order, my most discreet sister Griselda, who 63 WAVERLEY NOVELS disdains the simplicity, as well as patience, annexed to the poor old name of Grizel; and my most exquisite niece Maria, whose mother was called Mary, and sometimes Molly.' The elderly lady rustled in silks and satins, and bore upon her head a structure resembling the fashion in the ladies' memorandum-book for the year 1770, a superb piece of architecture not much less than a modern Gothic castle, of which the curls might represent the turrets, the black pins the chevaux de frisCf and the lappets the banners. The face which, like that of the ancient statues of Vesta, was thus crowned with towers, was large and long, and peaked at nose and chin, and bore in other respects such a ludicrous resemblance to the physiog- nomy of Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck that Lovel, had they not appeared at once, hke Sebastian and Viola in the last scene of the * Twelfth Night,' might have supposed that the figure before him was his old friend masquerading in female attire. An antique flowered silk gown graced the extraordinary person to whom belonged this unpar- alleled tete, which her brother was wont to say was fitter for a turban for Mahound or Termagant than a head- gear for a reasonable creature or Christian gentlewoman. Two long and bony arms were terminated at the elbows by triple blond rufHes, and, being folded saltire-wa;ys in front of her person, and decorated with long gloves of a bright vermilion colour, presented no bad resemblance to a pair of gigantic lobsters. High-heeled shoes, and a short silk cloak, thrown in easy negligence over her shoulders, completed the exterior of Miss Griselda Old- buck. 64 THE ANTIQUARY Her niece, the same whom Lovel had seen transiently during his first visit, was a pretty young woman, gen- teelly dressed according to the fashion of the day, with an air of espieglerie which became her very well, and which was perhaps derived from the caustic humour peculiar to her uncle's family, though softened by transmission. Mr. Lovel paid his respects to both ladies, and was answered by the elder with the prolonged curtsy of 1760, drawn from the righteous period When folks conceived a grace Of half an hour's space, And rejoiced in a Friday's capon, and by the younger with a modern reverence, which, like the festive benediction of a modern divine, was of much shorter duration. While this salutation was exchanging. Sir Arthur, with his fair daughter hanging upon his arm, having dismissed his chariot, appeared at the garden door, and in all due form paid his respects to the ladies. 'Sir Arthur,' said the Antiquary, 'and you, my fair foe, let me make known to you my young friend Mr. Lovel, a gentleman who, during the scarlet-fever which is epidemic at present in this our island, has the virtue and decency to appear in a coat of a civil complexion. You see, however, that the fashionable colour has mus- tered in his cheeks which appears not in his garments. Sir Arthur, let me present to you a young gentleman whom your farther knowledge will find grave, wise, courtly, and scholar-hke, well seen, deeply read, and thoroughly grounded in all the hidden mysteries of the greenroom and stage, from the days of Davie Lindsay 6 65 WAVERLEY NOVELS down to those of Dibdin, — he blushes again, which is a sign of grace.' ^My brother/ said Miss Griselda, addressing Lovel, 'has a humorous way of expressing himself, sir; nobody thinks anything of what Monkbarns says; so I beg you will not be so confused for the matter of his nonsense. But you must have had a warm walk beneath this broil- ing sun; would you take ony thing? — a glass of balm wine?' Ere Lovel could answer, the Antiquary interposed, 'Aroint thee, witch! wouldst thou poison my guests with thy infernal decoctions? Dost thou not remember how it fared with the clergyman whom you seduced to par- take of that deceitful beverage?' 'O fie, fie, brother. Sir Arthur, did you ever hear the like! He must have everything his ain way, or he will invent such stories. But there goes Jenny to ring the old bell to tell us that the dinner is ready.' Rigid in his economy, Mr. Oldbuck kept no male ser- vant. This he disguised under the pretext that the mas- culine sex was too noble to be employed in those acts of personal servitude which, in all early periods of society, were uniformly imposed on the female. ' Why,' would he say, 'did the boy Tam Rintherout, whom, at my wise sister's instigation, I, with equal wisdom, took upon trial — why did he pilfer apples, take birds' nests, break glasses, and ultimately steal my spectacles, except that he felt that noble emulation which swells in the bosom of the masculine sex, which has conducted him to Flanders with a musket on his shoulder, and doubtless will pro- mote him to a glorious halbert, or even to the gallows? And why does this girl, his full sister, Jenny Rintherout, 66 THE ANTIQUARY move in the same vocation with safe and noiseless step, shod or unshod, soft as the pace of a cat, and docile as a spaniel — why? but because she is in her vocation. Let them minister to us. Sir Arthur — let them minister, I say; it's the only thing they are fit for. All ancient legis- lators, from Lycurgus to Mahommed, corruptly called Mahomet, agree in putting them in their proper and subordinate rank, and it is only the crazy heads of our old chivalrous ancestors that erected their Dulcineas into despotic princesses.' Miss Wardour protested loudly against this ungallant doctrine; but the bell now rung for dinner. ^Let me do all the offices of fair courtesy to so fair an antagonist,' said the old gentleman, offering his arm. *I remember. Miss Wardour, Mahommed (vulgarly Ma- homet) had some hesitation about the mode of summon- ing his Moslemah to prayer. He rejected bells as used by Christians, trumpets as the summons of the Guebres, and finally adopted the human voice. I have had equal doubt concerning my dinner-call. Gongs, now in present use, seemed a newfangled and heathenish invention, and the voice of the female womankind I rejected as equally shrill and dissonant; wherefore, contrary to the said Mahommed, or Mahomet, I have resumed the bell. It has a local propriety, since it was the conventual signal for spreading the repast in their refectory, and it has the advantage over the tongue of my sister's prime minister Jenny, that, though not quite so loud and shrill, it ceases ringing the instant you drop the bell-rope; whereas we know by sad experience that any attempt to silence Jenny only wakes the sympathetic chime of Miss Oldbuck and Mary M'Intyre to join in chorus.' 67 WAVERLEY NOVELS With this discourse he led the way to his dining- parlour, which Lovel had not yet seen; it was wain- scotted, and contained some curious paintings. The dining- table was attended by Jenny; but an old super- intendent, a sort of female butler, stood by the side- board, and underwent the burden of bearing several reproofs from Mr. Oldbuck, and innuendos, not so much marked but not less cutting, from his sister. The dinner was such as suited a professed antiquary, comprehending many savoury specimens of Scottish viands now disused at the tables of those who affect elegance. There was the relishing solan goose, whose smell is so powerful that he is never cooked within doors. Blood-raw he proved to be on this occasion, so that Old- buck half-threatened to throw the greasy sea-fowl at the head of the negligent housekeeper, who acted as priest- ess in presenting this odoriferous offering. But, by good hap, she had been most fortunate in the hotchpotch, which was unanimously pronounced to be inimitable. knew we should succeed here,' said Oldbuck exult- ingly , ^ for Davie Dibble, the gardener — an old bache- lor like myself — takes care the rascally women do not dishonour our vegetables. And here is fish and sauce and crappit-heads. I acknowledge our womankind excel in that dish; it procures them the pleasure of scolding, for half an hour at least, twice a week, with auld Maggy Mucklebackit, our fishwife. The chicken-pie, Mr. Lovel, is made after a recipe bequeathed to me by my departed grandmother of happy memory. And if you will venture on a glass of wine you will find it worthy of one who pro- fesses the maxim of King Alphonso of Castile — Old wood to burn, old books to read, old wine to drink, and 68 THE ANTIQUARY old friends, Sir Arthur — ay, Mr. Lovel, and young friends too — to converse with.' ^And what news do you bring us from Edinburgh, Monkbarns? ' said Sir Arthur; 'how wags the world in Auld Reekie?' ^Mad, Sir Arthur, mad — irretrievably frantic — far beyond dipping in the sea, shaving the crown, or drink- ing hellebore. The worst sort of frenzy, a military frenzy, hath possessed man, woman, and child.' 'And high time, I think,' said Miss Wardour, 'when we are threatened with invasion from abroad and insur- rection at home.' 'O, I did not doubt you would join the scarlet host against me: women, like turkeys, are always subdued by a red rag. But what says Sir Arthur, whose dreams are of standing armies and German oppression?' 'Why, I say, Mr. Oldbuck,' replied the knight, 'that, so far as I am capable of judging, we ought to resist cum toto cor pore regni, as the phrase is, unless I have alto- gether forgotten my Latin, an enemy who comes to propose to us a Whiggish sort of government, a repub- lican system, and who is aided and abetted by a sort of fanatics of the worst kind in our own bowels. I have taken some measures, I assure you, such as become my rank in the community; for I have directed the con- stables to take up that old scoundrelly beggar, Edie Ochiltree, for spreading disaffection against church and state through the whole parish. He said plainly to old Caxon that Johnnie Howie's Kilmarnock cowl covered more sense than all the three wigs in the parish. I think it is easy to make out that innuendo. But the rogue shall be taught better manners.' 69 WAVERLEY NOVELS '0 no, my dear sir/ exclaimed Miss Wardour, ^not old Edie, that we have known so long. I assure you no con- stable shall have my good graces that executes such a warrant/ ^Ay, there it goes/ said the Antiquary; ^you, to be a stanch Tory, Sir Arthur, have nourished a fine sprig of Whiggery in your bosom. Why, Miss Wardour is alone sufficient to control a whole quarter-session — a quarter- session? ay, a general assembly or convocation to boot — a Boadicea she, an Amazon, a Zenobia.' ^And yet, with all my courage, Mr. Oldbuck, I am glad to hear our people are getting under arms.' ^ Under arms. Lord love thee! didst thou ever read the history of Sister Margaret, which flowed from a head that, though now old and somedele grey, has more sense and political intelligence than you find nowadays in a whole synod? Dost thou remember the Nurse's dream in that exquisite work, which she recounts in such agony to Hubble Bubble? When she would have taken up a piece of broadcloth in her vision, lo ! it exploded like a great iron cannon; when she put out her hand to save a pirn, it perked up in her face in the form of a pistol. My own vision in Edinburgh has been something similar. I called to consult my lawyer; he was clothed in a dra- goon's dress, belted and casqued, and about to mount a charger, which his writing-clerk (habited as a sharp- shooter) walked to and fro before his door. I went to scold my agent for having sent me to advise with a mad- man; he had stuck into his head the plume which in more sober days he wielded between his fingers, and figured as an artillery officer. My mercer had his spontoon in his hand, as if he measured his cloth by that implement 70 THE ANTIQUARY instead of a legitimate yard. The banker's clerk, who was directed to sum my cash-account, blundered it three times, being disordered by the recollection of his military tellings-off " at the morning drill. I was ill, and sent for a surgeon — He came; but valour so had fired his eye, And such a falchion glittered on his thigh, That, by the gods, with such a load of steel, I thought he came to murder, not to heal! I had recourse to a physician, but he also was practising a more wholesale mode of slaughter than that which his profession had been supposed at all times to open to him. And now, since I have returned here, even our wise neighbours of Fairport have caught the same valiant humour. I hate a gun like a hurt wild duck, I detest a drum like a Quaker; and they thunder and rattle out yonder upon the town's common so that every volley and roll goes to my very heart.' 'Dear brother, dinna speak that gate o' the gentlemen volunteers; I am sure they have a most becoming uni- form. Weel I wot they have been wet to the very skin twice last week; I met them marching in terribly drou- kit, an mony a sair hoast was amang them. And the trouble they take, I am sure it claims our gratitude.' 'And I am sure,' said Miss MTntyre, 'that my uncle sent twenty guineas to help out their equipments.* 'It was to buy liquorice and sugar-candy,' said the > cynic, 'to encourage the trade of the place, and to re- fresh the throats of the officers who had bawled them- selves hoarse in the service of their country.' 'Take care, Monkbarns! we shall set you down among the black-nebs by and by.' 71 WAVERLEY NOVELS *No, Sir Arthur, a tame grumbler I. I only claim the privilege of croaking in my own corner here, without uniting my throat to the grand chorus of the marsh. Ni quito rey, ni pongo rey — I neither make king nor mar king, as Sancho says, but pray heartily for our own sovereign, pay scot and lot, and grumble at the excise- man. But here comes the ewe-milk cheese in good time; it is a better digestive than pohtics.' When dinner was over and the decanters placed on the table, Mr. Oldbuck proposed the King's health in a bumper, which was readily acceded to both by Lovel and the Baronet, the Jacobitism of the latter being now a sort of speculative opinion merely — the shadow of a shade. After the ladies had left the apartment, the landlord and Sir Arthur entered into several exquisite discussions, in which the younger guest, either on account of the abstruse erudition which they involved, or for some other reason, took but a slender share, till at length he was suddenly started out of a profound reverie by an unexpected appeal to his judgment. 'I will stand by what Mr. Lovel says; he was born in the north of England, and may know the very spot.' Sir Arthur thought it unlikely that so young a gentle- man should have paid much attention to matters of that sort. am advised of the contrary,' said Oldbuck. 'How say you, Mr. Lovel? Speak up for your own credit, man.' Lovel was obliged to confess himself in the ridiculous situation of one alike ignorant of the subject of conver- sation and controversy which had engaged the company for an hour. 72 THE ANTIQUARY ^Lord help the lad, his head has been wool-gathering! I thought how it would be when the womankind were admitted — no getting a word of sense out of a young fellow for six hours after. Why, man, there was once a people called the Piks — ' ^More properly Picts,' interrupted the Baronet. *I say the Pikar, Pihar, Piochtar, Piaghter, or Peughtar/ vociferated Oldbuck; Hhey spoke a Gothic dialect — ' ^ Genuine Celtic,' again asseverated the knight. 'Gothic! Gothic, I'll go to death upon it!' counter- asseverated the squire. 'Why, gentlemen,' said Lovel, 'I conceive that is a dispute which may be easily settled by philologists, if there are any remains of the language.' 'There is but one word,' said the Baronet, 'but, in spite of Mr. Oldbuck's pertinacity, it is decisive of the question.' 'Yes, in my favour,' said Oldbuck. 'Mr. Lovel, you shall be judge. I have the learned Pinkerton on my side.' 'I, on mine, the indefatigable and erudite Chalmers.' 'Gordon comes into my opinion.' 'Sir Robert Sibbald holds mine.' ' Innes is with me ! ' vociferated Oldbuck. 'Ritson has no doubt!' shouted the Baronet. 'Truly, gentlemen,' said Lovel, 'before you muster your forces and overwhelm me with authorities I should like to know the word in dispute.' ^Benval,^ said both the disputants at once. 'Which signifies caput valli/ said Sir Arthur. 'The head of the wall,' echoed Oldbuck. 73 WAVERLEY NOVELS There was a deep pause. *It is rather a narrow foun- dation to build a hypothesis upon/ observed the arbiter. ^Not a whit, not a whit/ said Oldbuck; ^men fight best in a narrow ring: an inch is as good as a mile for a home- thrust.^ ^It is decidedly Celtic/ said the Baronet; ^every hill in the Highlands begins with "ben.'" 'But what say you to "val/' Sir Arthur? is it not decidedly the Saxon "wall"?' 'It is the Roman vallum,'^ said Sir Arthur; 'the Picts borrowed that part of the word.' 'No such thing; if they borrowed anything, it must have been your "ben," which they might have from the neighbouring Britons of Strath Cluyd.' 'The Piks, or Picts,' said Lovel, 'must have been singularly poor in dialect, since in the only remaining word of their vocabulary, and that consisting only of two syllables, they have been confessedly obliged to borrow one of them from another language; and, me- thinks, gentlemen, with submission, the controversy is not unlike that which the two knights fought concerning the shield that had one side white and the other black. Each of you claim one-half of the word, and seem to resign the other. But what strikes me most is the pov- erty of the language which has left such slight vestiges behind it.' 'You are in an error,' said Sir Arthur; 'it was a copious language, and they were a great and powerful people; built two steeples — one at Brechin, one at Abernethy. The Pictish maidens of the blood royal were kept in Edinburgh Castle, thence called Castrum Puellarum.^ 'A childish legend,' said Oldbuck, 'invented to give 74 THE ANTIQUARY consequence to trumpery womankind. It was called the Maiden Castle, quasi lucus a non lucendo, because it re- sisted every attack, and women never do.' 'There is a list of the Pictish kings,' persisted Sir Arthur, Veil authenticated, from Crentheminachcryme (the date of whose reign is somewhat uncertain) down to Drusterstone, whose death concluded their dynasty. Half of them have the Celtic patronymic Mac prefixed — Mac, id est filius; what do you say to that, Mr. Old- buck? There is Drust Macmorachin, Trynel Maclachlin (first of that ancient clan, as it may be judged), and Gormach Macdonald, Alpin Macmetegus, Drust Mac- tallargam (here he was interrupted by a fit of coughing), ugh, ugh, ugh — Golarge Macchan — ugh, ugh — Macchanan — ugh — Macchananail — Kenneth — ugh — ugh — Macferedith, Eachan Macfungus — and twenty more, decidedly Celtic names, which I could repeat if this damned cough would let me.' 'Take a glass of wine. Sir Arthur, and drink down that beadroll of unbaptised jargon, that would choke the devil; why, that last fellow has the only intelligible name you have repeated. They are all of the tribe of Mac- fungus, mushroom monarchs every one of them, sprung up from the fumes of conceit, folly, and falsehood fer- menting in the brains of some mad Highland seannachie.' 'I am surprised to hear you, Mr. Oldbuck; you know, or ought to know, that the list of these potentates was copied by Henry Maule of Melgum from the Chronicles of Loch-Leven " and Saint Andrews," and put forth by him in his short but satisfactory "History of the Picts," printed by Robert Freebairn of Edinburgh, and sold by him at his shop in the Parliament Close, in the year 7S WAVERLEY NOVELS of God seventeen hundred and five, or six, I am not pre- cisely certain which; but I have a copy at home that stands next to my twelvemo copy of the Scots Acts, and ranges on the shelf with them very well. What say you to that, Mr. Oldbuck?' ^Say? Why, I laugh at Harry Maule and his history,' answered Oldbuck, 'and thereby comply with his re- quest, of giving it entertainment according to its merits.' 'Do not laugh at a better man than yourself,' said Sir Arthur, somewhat scornfully. 'I do not conceive I do. Sir Arthur, in laughing either at him or his history.' 'Henry Maule of Melgum was a gentleman, Mr. Oldbuck.' 'I presume he had no advantage of me in that par- ticular,' replied the Antiquary, somewhat tartly. 'Permit me, Mr. Oldbuck; he was a gentleman of high family and ancient descent, and therefore — ' 'The descendant of a Westphalian printer should speak of him with deference? Such may be your opinion, Sir Arthur; it is not mine. I conceive that my descent from that painful and industrious typographer. Wolf- brand Oldenbuck, who, in the month of December 1493, under the patronage, as the colophon tells us, of Sebal- dus Scheyter and Sebastian Kammermaister, accom- plished the printing of the great Chronicle of Nurem- berg" — I conceive, I say, that my descent from that great restorer of learning is more creditable to me as a man of letters than if I had numbered in my genealogy all the brawhng, bullet-headed, iron-fisted old Gothic barons since the days of Crentheminachcryme, not one of whom, I suppose, could write his own name.' 76 THE ANTIQUARY ^If you mean the observation as a sneer at my ances- try/ said the knight, with an assumption of dignified superiority and composure, have the pleasure to in- form you that the name of my ancestor Gamelyn de Guardover, miles, is written fairly with his own hand in the earliest copy of the Ragman Roll.' * Which only serves to show that he was one of the earliest who set the mean example of submitting to Ed- ward !• What have you to say for the stainless loyalty of your family, Sir Arthur, after such a backsUding as that?' 'It's enough, sir,' said Sir Arthur, starting up fiercely and pushing back his chair; 'I shall hereafter take care how I honour with my company one who shows himself so ungrateful for my condescension.' 'In that you will do as you find most agreeable, Sir Arthur; I hope that, as I was not aware of the extent of the obligation which you have done me by visiting my poor house, I may be excused for not having carried my gratitude to the extent of servility.' 'Mighty well — mighty well, Mr. Oldbuck; I wish you a good evening. Mr. a — a — a — Shovel, I wish you a very good evening.' ^ Out of the parlour door flounced the incensed Sir Arthur, as if the spirit of the whole Round Table in- flamed his single bosom, and traversed with long strides the labyrinth of passages which conducted to the draw- ing-room. ' 'Did you ever hear such an old tup-headed ass?' said Oldbuck, briefly apostrophising Lovel; 'but I must not let him go in this mad-like way neither.' So saying, he pushed off after the retreating Baronet, 77 WAVERLEY NOVELS whom he traced by the clang of several doors which he opened in search of the apartment for tea, and slammed with force behind him at every disappointment. * You '11 do yourself a mischief/ roared the Antiquary. ^Qui ambulat in tenebris, nescit quo vadit — you'll tumble down the backs tair.' Sir Arthur had now got involved in darkness, of which the sedative efifect is well known to nurses and govern- esses who have to deal with pettish children. It retarded the pace of the irritated Baronet if it did not abate his resentment, and Mr. Oldbuck, better acquainted with the locaky got up with him as he had got his grasp upon the handle of the drawing-room door. 'Stay a minute. Sir Arthur,' said Oldbuck, opposing his abrupt entrance; Mon't be quite so hasty, my good old friend. I was a little too rude with you about Sir Gamelyn. Why, he is an old acquaintance of mine, man, and a favourite; he kept company with Bruce and Wal- lace, and, I'll be sworn on a black-letter Bible, only subscribed the Ragman Roll with the legitimate and justifiable intention of circumventing the false Southern. 'T was right Scottish craft, my good knight; hundreds did it. Come, come, forget and forgive; confess we have given the young fellow here a right to think us two testy old fools.' 'Speak for yourself, Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck,' said Sir Arthur, with much majesty. 'Awell, awell! a wilful man must have his way.' With that the door opened, and into the drawing- room marched the tall gaunt form of Sir Arthur, fol- lowed by Lovel and Mr. Oldbuck, the countenances of all three a little discomposed. 78 THE ANTIQUARY *I have been waiting for you, sir/ said Miss Wardour, ' to propose we should walk forward to meet the carriage, as the evening is so fine.' Sir Arthur readily assented to this proposal, which suited the angry mood in which he found himself; and having, agreeably to the established custom in cases of pet, refused the refreshment of tea and coffee, he tucked his daughter under his arm, and, after taking a ceremon- ious leave of the ladies and a very dry one of Oldbuck, off he marched. 'I think Sir Arthur has got the black dog on his back again,' said Miss Oldbuck. 'Black dog! black devil! he's more absurd than womankind. What say you, Lovel? Why, the lad's gone too.' 'He took his leave, uncle, while Miss Wardour was putting on her things; but I don't think you observed him.' ' The devil 's in the people ! This is all one gets by fuss- ing and bustling and putting one's self out of one's way in order to give dinners, besides all the charges they are put to. 0 Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia!' said he, taking up a cup of tea in the one hand and a volume of the "Rambler" in the other — for it was his regular custom to read while he was eating or drinking in presence of his sister, being a practice which served at once to evince his contempt for the society of womankind and his resolution to lose no moment of instruction — '0 Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia! well hast thou spoken — "No man should presume to say. This shall be a day of happiness."' Oldbuck proceeded in his studies for the best part of an hour, uninterrupted by the ladies, who each in pro- 79 WAVERLEY NOVELS found silence pursued some female employment. At length a light and modest tap was heard at the parlour door. * Is that you, Caxon? Come in, come in, man.' The old man opened the door, and, thrusting in his meagre face, thatched with thin grey locks, and one sleeve of his white coat, said in a subdued and mysteri- ous tone of voice, 'I was wanting to speak to you, sir.' ' Come in then, you old fool, and say what you have got to say.' 'I'll maybe frighten the ladies,' said the ex-friseur. 'Frighten!' answered the Antiquary, 'what do you mean? never mind the ladies. Have you seen another ghaist at the Humlock Knowe?' 'Na, sir; it's no a ghaist this turn,' replied Caxon; 'but I'm no easy in my mind.' 'Did you ever hear of anybody that was?' answered Oldbuck; 'what reason has an old battered powder-puflf like you to be easy in your mind, more than all the rest of the world besides? ' 'It's no for mysell, sir; but it threatens an awfu' night; and Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour, poor thing — ' 'Why, man, they must have met the carriage at the head of the loaning or thereabouts; they must be home long ago.' 'Na, sir; they didna gang the road by the turnpike to meet the carriage, they gaed by the sands.' The word operated like electricity on Oldbuck. 'The sands ! ' he exclaimed ; ' impossible ! ' 'Ou, sir, that's what I said to the gardener; but he says he saw them turn down by the Mussel Craig. "In troth," says I to him, "an that be the case, Davie, I am misdoubting — "' .80 THE ANTIQUARY 'An almanack! an almanack!' said Oldbuck, starting up in great alarm, 'not that bauble!' flinging away a little pocket almanack which his niece offered him. 'Great God! my poor dear Miss Isabella! Fetch me instantly the Fairport Almanack.' It was brought, con- sulted, and added greatly to his agitation. 'I'll go my- self; call the gardener and ploughman, bid them bring ropes and ladders, bid them raise more help as they come along; keep the top of the cliffs, and halloo down to them; I'll go myself.' *What is the matter?' inquired Miss Oldbuck and Miss MTntyre. ' The tide ! the tide ! ' answered the alarmed Antiquary. 'Had not Jenny better — but no, I'll run myself,' said the younger lady, partaking in all her uncle^s terrors — 'I'll run myself to Saunders Mucklebackit and make him get out his boat.' 'Thank you, my dear, that's the wisest word that has been spoken yet; run! run! To go by the sands!' seizing his hat and cane; 'was there ever such madness heard of?' 8 CHAPTER VII Pleased awhile to view The watery waste, the prospect wild and new; The now receding waters gave them space. On either side, the growing shores to trace; And then, returning, they contract the scene. Till small and smaller grows the walk between. Crabbe. The information of Davie Dibble, which had spread such general alarm at Monkbarns, proved to be strictly correct. Sir Arthur and his daughter had set out, accord- ing to their first proposal, to return to Knockwinnock by the turnpike road; but, when they reached the head of the loaning, as it was called, or great lane, which on one side made a sort of avenue to the house of Monkbarns, they discerned a little way before them Lovel, who seemed to linger on the way as if to give him an oppor- tunity to join them. Miss Wardour immediately pro- posed to her father that they should take another direc- tion; and, as the weather was fine, walk home by the sands, which, stretching below a picturesque ridge of rocks, afforded at almost all times a pleasanter passage between Knockwinnock and Monkbarns than the high- road. Sir Arthur acquiesced willingly. *It would be un- pleasant,' he said, ^to be joined by that young fellow, whom Mr. Oldbuck had taken the freedom to introduce them to.' And his old-fashioned politeness had none of the ease of the present day, which permits you, if you have a mind, to ^cut' the person you have associated with for a week the instant you feel or suppose yourself 82 THE ANTIQUARY in a situation which makes it disagreeable to own him. Sir Arthur only stipulated that a little ragged boy, for the guerdon of one penny sterling, should run to meet his coachman and turn his equipage back to Knock- winnock. When this was arranged, and the emissary despatched, the knight and his daughter left the highroad, and, fol- lowing a wandering path among sandy hillocks, partly grown over with furze and the long grass called bent, soon attained the side of the ocean. The tide was by no means so far out as they had computed; but this gave them no alarm: there were seldom ten days in the year when it approached so near the cliffs as not to leave a dry passage. But, nevertheless, at periods of spring- tide, or even when the ordinary flood was accelerated by high winds, this road was altogether covered by the sea; and tradition had recorded several fatal accidents which had happened on such occasions. Still, such dangers were considered as remote and improbable; and rather served, with other legends, to amuse the hamlet fireside than to prevent any one from going between Knockwinnock and Monkbarns by the sands. As Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour paced along, enjoy- ing the pleasant footing afforded by the cool moist hard sand, Miss Wardour could not help observing that the last tide had risen considerably above the usual water- mark. Sir Arthur made the same observation, but with- out its occurring to either of them to be alarmed at the circumstance. The sun was now resting his huge disk upon the edge of the level ocean, and gilded the accumu- lation of towering clouds through which he had travelled the livelong day, and which now assembled on all sides, . 83 WAVERLEY NOVELS like misfortunes and disasters around a sinking empire and falling monarch. Still, however, his dying splendour gave a sombre magnificence to the massive congregation of vapours, forming out of their unsubstantial gloom the show of pyramids and towers, some touched with gold, some with purple, some with a hue of deep and dark red. The distant sea, stretched beneath this varied and gor- geous canopy, lay almost portentously still, reflecting back the dazzling and level beams of the descending luminary, and the splendid colouring of the clouds amidst which he was setting. Nearer to the beach, the ( 0 tide rippled onward in waves of sparkling silver, that imperceptibly, yet rapidly, gained upon the sand. With a mind employed in admiration of the romantic ^ ^ scene, or perhaps on some more agitating topic. Miss Wardour advanced in silence by her father's side, whose recently offended dignity did not stoop to open any con- versation. Following the windings of the beach, they passed one projecting point or headland of rock after another, and now found themselves under a huge and continued extent of the precipices by which that iron- bound coast is in most places defended. Long projecting reefs of rock, extending under water, and only evincing their existence by here and there a peak entirely bare, or by the breakers which foamed over those that were partially covered, rendered Knockwinnock Bay dreaded by pilots and shipmasters. The crags which rose be- tween the beach and the mainland, to the height of two or three hundred feet, afforded in their crevices shelter for unnumbered sea-fowl, in situations seemingly se- cured by their dizzy height from the rapacity of man. Many of these wild tribes, with the instinct which sends 84 THE ANTIQUARY them to seek the land before a storm arises, were now winging towards their nests with the shrill and dissonant clang which announces disquietude and fear. The disk of the sun became almost totally obscured ere he had altogether sunk below the horizon, and an early and lurid shade of darkness blotted the serene twihght of a summer evening. The wind began next to arise; but its wild and moaning sound was heard for some time, and its effects became visible on the bosom of the sea, before the gale was felt on shore. The mass of waters, now dark and threatening, began to hft itself in larger ridges and sink in deeper furrows, forming waves that rose high in foam upon the breakers, or burst upon the beach with a sound resembling distant thunder. Appalled by this sudden change of weather, Miss Wardour drew close to her father and held his arm fast. wish,' at length she said, but almost in a whisper, as if ashamed to express her increasing apprehensions — *I wish we had kept the road we intended, or waited at Monkbarns for the carriage.' Sir Arthur looked round, but did not see, or would not acknowledge, any signs of an immediate storm. They would reach Knockwinnock, he said, long before the tempest began. But the speed with which he walked, and with which Isabella could hardly keep pace, indi- cated a feeling that some exertion was necessary to accomplish his consolatory prediction. They were now near the centre of a deep but narrow bay or recess, formed by two projecting capes of high and inaccessible rock, which shot out into the sea like the horns of a crescent; and neither durst communicate the apprehension which each began to entertain, that, . 8s WAVERLEY NOVELS from the unusually rapid advance of the tide, they might be deprived of the power of proceeding by doubling the promontory which lay before them, or of retreating by the road which brought them thither. As they thus pressed forward, longing doubtless to exchange the easy curving line which the sinuosities of the bay compelled them to adopt for a straighter and more expeditious path, though less conformable to the line of beauty, Sir Arthur observed a human figure on the beach advancing to meet them. * Thank God,' he exclaimed, Ve shall get round Halket Head! that person must have passed it'; thus giving vent to the feeling of hope, though he had suppressed that of apprehension. * Thank God indeed!' echoed his daughter, half audi- bly, half internally, as expressing the gratitude which she strongly felt. The figure which advanced to meet them made many signs, which the haze of the atmosphere, now disturbed by wind and by a drizzling rain, prevented them from seeing or comprehending distinctly. Some time before they met, Sir Arthur could recognise the old blue- gowned beggar, Edie Ochiltree. It is said that even the brute creation lay aside their animosities and antipathies when pressed by an instant and common danger. The beach under Halket Head, rapidly diminishing in extent by the encroachments of a spring-tide and a north-west wind, was in like manner a neutral field where even a justice of peace and a strolling mendicant might meet upon terms of mutual forbearance. * Turn back! turnback!' exclaimed the vagrant; ^why did ye not turn when I waved to you?' 86 THE ANTIQUARY 'We thought/ replied Sir Arthur, in great agitation — 'we thought we could get round Halket Head.' 'Halket Head! The tide will be running on Halket Head by this time like the Fall of Fyers! It was a' I could do to get round it twenty minutes since; it was coming in three feet abreast. We will maybe get back by Ballyburgh Ness Point yet. The Lord help us, it's our only chance. We can but try/ 'My God! my child!' 'My father, my dear father!' exclaimed the parent and daughter, as, fear lending them strength and speed, they turned to retrace their steps, and endeavoured to double the point, the pro- jection of which formed the southern extremity of the bay. 'I heard ye were here frae the bit callant ye sent to meet your carriage,' said the beggar, as he trudged stoutly on a step or two behind Miss Wardour, 'and I couldna bide to think o' the dainty young leddy's peril, that has aye been kind to ilka forlorn heart that cam near her. Sae I lookit at the lift and the rin o' the tide, till I settled it that, if I could get down time eneugh to gie you warning, we wad do weel yet. But I doubt, I doubt, I have been beguiled! for what mortal ee ever saw sic a race as the tide is rinning e'en now? See, yon- der 's the Ratton's Skerry; he aye held his neb abune the water in my day, but he's aneath it now.' Sir Arthur cast a look in the direction in which the old man pointed. A huge rock, which in general, even in spring-tides, displayed a hulk hke the keel of a large vessel, was now quite under water, and its place only indicated by the boiling and breaking of the eddying waves which encountered its submarine resistance. 87 WAVERLEY NOVELS ^ Mak haste, mak haste, my bonny leddy,' continued the old man — 'mak haste, and we may do yet! Take haud o' my arm; an auld and frail arm it's now, but it's been in as sair stress as this is yet. Take haud o' my arm, my winsome leddy! D' ye see yon wee black speck amang the wallowing waves yonder? This morning it was as high as the mast o' a brig; it's sma' eneugh now, but, while I see as muckle black about it as the crown o' my hat, I winna believe but we '11 get round the Bally- burgh Ness, for a' that's come and gane yet.' Isabella, in silence, accepted from the old man the assistance which Sir Arthur was less able to afiford her. The waves had now encroached so much upon the beach that the firm and smooth footing which they had hitherto had on the sand must be exchanged for a rougher path close to the foot of the precipice, and in some places even raised upon its lower ledges. It would have been utterly impossible for Sir Arthur Wardour or his daughter to have found their way along these shelves without the guidance and encouragement of the beggar, who had been there before in high tides, though never, he acknowledged, 'in sae awsome a night as this.' It was indeed a dreadful evening. The howling of the storm mingled with the shrieks of the sea-fowl, and sounded like the dirge of the three devoted beings who, pent between two of the most magnificent yet most dreadful objects of nature — a raging tide and an insur- mountable precipice — toiled along their painful and dangerous path, often lashed by the spray of some giant billow which threw itself higher on the beach than those that had preceded it. Each minute did their enemy gain ground perceptibly upon them ! Still, however, loth 88 THE ANTIQUARY to relinquish the last hopes of life, they bent their eyes on the black rock pointed out by Ochiltree. It was yet distinctly visible among the breakers, and continued to be so, until they came to a turn in their precarious path where an intervening projection of rock hid it from their sight. Deprived of the view of the beacon on which they had relied, they now experienced the double agony of terror and suspense. They struggled forward, however; but, when they arrived at the point from which they ought to have seen the crag, it was no longer visible. The signal of safety was lost among a thousand white breakers, which, dashing upon the point of the promon- tory, rose in prodigious sheets of snowy foam as high as the mast of a first-rate man-of-war against the dark brow of the precipice. The countenance of the old man fell. Isabella gave a faint shriek, and ^God have mercy upon us!' which her guide solemnly uttered, was piteously echoed by Sir Arthur — ^ My child ! my child ! to die such a death ! ' ^My father! my dear father!' his daughter exclaimed, clinging to him; 'and you too, who have lost your own life in endeavouring to save ours ! ' 'That's not worth the counting,' said the old man. 'I hae lived to be weary o' life; and here or yonder — at the back o' a dyke, in a wreath o' snaw, or in the wame o' a wave, what signifies how the auld gaberlunzie dies?' ' Good man,' said Sir Arthur, 'can you think of no- thing? — of no help? I'll make you rich; I'll give you a farm; I'll—' 'Our riches will be soon equal,' said the beggar, look- ing out upon the strife of the waters; 'they are sae al- ready, for I hae nae land, and you would give your fair 89 WAVERLEY NOVELS bounds and barony for a square yard of rock that would be dry for twal hours.' While they exchanged these words they paused upon the highest ledge of rock to which they could attain; for it seemed that any further attempt to move forward could only serve to anticipate their fate. Here, then, they were to await the sure though slow progress of the raging element, something in the situation of the martyrs of the early church, who, exposed by heathen tyrants to be slain by wild beasts, were compelled for a time to witness the impatience and rage by which the animals were agitated, while awaiting the signal for undoing their grates and letting them loose upon the victims. Yet even this fearful pause gave Isabella time to col- lect the powers of a mind naturally strong and courage- ous, and which ralHed itself at this terrible juncture. ^ Must we yield Ufe,' she said, 'without a struggle? Is there no path, however dreadful, by which we could climb the crag, or at least attain some height above the tide, where we could remain till morning, or till help comes? They must be aware of our situation, and will raise the country to relieve us.' Sir Arthur, who heard but scarcely comprehended his daughter's question, turned, nevertheless, instinctively and eagerly to the old man, as if their lives were in his gift. Ochiltree paused. 'I was a bauld craigsman,' he said, 'ance in my life, and mony a kitty wake's and lungie's nest hae I harried up amang thae very black rocks; but it's lang, lang syne, and nae mortal could speel them without a rope; and if I had ane, my ee-sight and my footstep and my hand-grip hae a' failed mony a day sinsyne; and then how could I save you ? But there 90 THE ANTIQUARY was a path here ance, though maybe, if we could see it, ye would rather bide where we are. His name be praised!^ he ejaculated suddenly, 'there's ane coming down the crag e'en now!' Then, exalting his voice, he hilloa'd out to the daring adventurer such instructions as his former practice, and the remembrance of local circumstances, suddenly forced upon his mind: 'Ye 're right, ye 're right! that gate, that gate! Fasten the rope weel round Crummie's Horn, that's the muckle black stane; cast twa plies round it, that's it. Now, weize yoursell a wee easelward, a wee mair yet to that ither stane — we ca 'd it the Cat's Lug. There used to be the root o' an aik-tree there. That will do ! canny now, lad, canny now; tak tent and tak time, Lord bless ye, tak time. Vera weel! Now ye maun get to Bessy's Apron, that's the muckle braid flat blue stane; and then I think, wi' your help and the tow thegither, I'll win at ye, and then we'll be able to get up the young leddy and Sir Arthur.' The adventurer, following the directions of old Edie, flung him down the end of the rope, which he secured around Miss Wardour, wrapping her previously in his own blue gown, to preserve her as much as possible from injury. Then, availing himself of the rope, which was made fast at the other end, he began to ascend the face of the crag — a most precarious and dizzy undertaking, which, however, after one or two perilous escapes, placed him safe on the broad flat stone beside our friend Lovel. Their joint strength was able to raise Isabella to the place of safety which they had attained. Lovel then descended in order to assist Sir Arthur, around whom he adjusted the rope; and again mounting to their place of 91 WAVERLEY NOVELS refuge, with the assistance of old Ochiltree, and such aid as Sir Arthur himself could afford, he raised himself beyond the reach of the billows. The sense of reprieve from approaching and appar- ently inevitable death had its usual effect. The father and daughter threw themselves into each other's arms, kissed and wept for joy, although their escape was con- nected with the prospect of passing a tempestuous night upon a precipitous ledge of rock, which scarce afforded footing for the four shivering beings who now, like the sea-fowl around them, clung there in hopes of some shelter from the devouring element which raged beneath. The spray of the billows, which attained in fearful suc- cession the foot of the precipice, overflowing the beach ^m-Ci^ pn which they so lately stood, flew as high as their place ^^pf temporary refuge ; and the stunning sound with which they dashed against the rocks beneath seemed as if they still demanded the fugitives in accents of thunder as their destined prey. It was a summer night doubtless; yet the probability was slender that a frame so delicate as that of Miss Wardour should survive till morning the drenching of the spray; and the dashing of the rain, which now burst in full violence, accompanied with deep and heavy gusts of wind, added to the constrained and perilous circumstances of their situation. 'The lassie — the puir sweet lassie,' said the old man; 'mony such a night have I weathered at hame and abroad; but, God guide us! how can she ever win through it!' His apprehension was communicated in smothered accents to Lovel; for, with the sort of freemasonry by which bold and ready spirits correspond in moments of 92 THE ANTIQUARY danger, and become almost instinctively known to each other, they had established a mutual confidence. ^I'U climb up the cliff again,' said Lovel, there's daylight enough left to see my footing — I'll climb up and call for more assistance.' ^Do so, do so, for Heaven's sake!' said Sir Arthur, eagerly. * Are ye mad? ' said the mendicant. ' Francie o' Fowls- heugh, and he was the best craigsman that ever speel'd heugh (mair by token, he brake his neck upon the Dun- buy of Slaines), wadna hae ventured upon the Halket Head craigs after sundown. It's God's grace, and a great wonder besides, that ye are not in the middle o' that roaring sea wi' what ye hae done already. I didna think there was the man left alive would hae come down the craigs as ye did. I question an I could hae done it mysell, at this hour and in this weather, in the youngest and yauldest of my strength. But to venture up again — it's a mere and a clear tempting o' Providence.' *I have no fear,' answered Lovel, ^I marked all the stations perfectly as I came down, and there is still light enough left to see them quite well. I am sure I can do it with perfect safety. Stay here, my good friend, by Sir Arthur and the young lady.' 'Deil be in my feet then,' answered the bedesman sturdily; ^if ye gang, I'll gang too; for between the twa o' us we '11 hae mair than wark eneugh to get to the tap o' the heugh.' 'No, no; stay you here and attend to Miss Wardour; you see Sir Arthur is quite exhausted.' 'Stay yoursell then and I'll gae,' said the old man; 'let death spare the green corn and take the ripe.' 93 WAVERLEY NOVELS ' Stay both of you, I charge you/ said Isabella, faintly; *I am well, and can spend the night very well here; I feel quite refreshed.' So saying, her voice failed her; she sunk down, and would have fallen from the crag had she not been supported by Lovel and Ochiltree, who placed her in a posture half sitting, half reclining, beside her father, who, exhausted by fatigue of body and mind so extreme and unusual, had already sat down on a stone in a sort of stupor. *It is impossible to leave them,' said Lovel. 'What is to be done? Hark! hark! Did I not hear a halloo?' 'The skreigh of a Tammie Norie,' answered Ochiltree; *I ken the skirl weel.' 'No, by Heaven,' repHed Lovel, 'it was a human voice.' A distant hail was repeated, the sound plainly dis- tinguishable among the various elemental noises and the clang of the seamews by which they were sur- rounded. The mendicant and Lovel exerted their voices in a loud halloo, the former waving Miss Wardour's handkerchief on the end of his staff to make them con- spicuous from above. Though the shouts were repeated, it was some time before they were in exact response to their own, leaving the unfortunate sufferers uncertain whether, in the darkening twihght and increasing storm, they had made the persons who apparently were travers- ing the verge of the precipice to bring them assistance sensible of the place in which they had found refuge. At length their halloo was regularly and distinctly an- swered, and their courage confirmed by the assurance that they were within hearing, if not within reach, of friendly assistance. CHAPTER VIII There is a cliff, whose high and bending head " Looks fearfully in the confined deep ; Bring me but to the very brim of it, And I '11 repair the misery thou dost bear. King Lear, TiiE shout of human voices from above was soon aug- mented, and the gleam of torches mingled with those lights of evening which still remained amidst the dark- ness of the storm. Some attempt was made to hold com- munication between the assistants above and the suffer- ers beneath, who were still clinging to their precarious place of safety; but the howling of the tempest limited their intercourse to cries as inarticulate as those of the winged denizens of the crag, which shrieked in chorus, alarmed by the reiterated sound of human voices where they had seldom been heard. On the verge of the precipice an anxious group had now assembled. Oldbuck was the foremost and most earnest, pressing forward with unwonted desperation to the very brink of the crag, and extending his head (his hat and wig secured by a handkerchief under his chin) over the dizzy height, with an air of determination which made his more timorous assistants tremble. 'Hand a care, baud a care, Monkbarns!' cried Caxon, clinging to the skirts of his patron, and withholding him from danger as far as his strength permitted. * God's sake, baud a care ! Sir Arthur 's drowned already, and an ye fa' over the cleugh too, there will be but ae wig left in the parish, and that's the minister's.' 95 WAVERLEY NOVELS *Mmd the peak there/ cried Mucklebackit, an old fisherman and smuggler — ^mind the peak. Steenie, Steenie Wilks, bring up the tackle. I 'se warrant we '11 sune heave them on board, Monkbarns, wad ye but stand out o' the gate.' *I see them/ said Oldbuck — see them low down on that flat stone. Hilli-hilloa, hilli-ho-a!' see them mysell weel eneugh/ said Mucklebackit; 'they are sitting down yonder Hke hoodiecraws in a mist; but d' ye think ye '11 help them wi' skirling that gate like an auld skart before a flaw o' weather? Steenie, lad, bring up the mast. Od, I 'se hae them up as we used to bouse up the kegs o' gin and brandy lang syne. Get up the pickaxe, make a step for the mast, make the chair fast with the rattlin, haul taught and belay!' The fishers had brought with them the mast of a boat, and as half of the country fellows about had now ap- peared, either out of zeal or curiosity, it was soon sunk in the ground and sufficiently secured. A yard across the upright mast, and a rope stretched along it, and reeved through a block at each end, formed an extempore crane, which afforded the means of lowering an arm-chair, well secured and fastened, down to the flat shelf on which the sufferers had roosted. Their joy at hearing the prepara- tions going on for their deliverance was considerably qualified when they beheld the precarious vehicle by means of which they were to be conveyed to upper air. It swung about a yard free of the spot which they oc- cupied, obeying each impulse of the tempest, the empty air all around it, and depending upon the security of a rope which in the increasing darkness had dwindled to an almost imperceptible thread. Besides the hazard of 96 THE ANTIQUARY committing a human being to the vacant atmosphere in such a slight means of conveyance, there was the fear- ful danger of the chair and its occupant being dashed, either by the wind or the vibrations of the cord, against the rugged face of the precipice. But, to diminish the risk as much as possible, the experienced seamen had let down with the chair another line, which, being attached to it and held by the persons beneath, might serve by way of ^gy,' as Mucklebackit expressed it, to render its descent in some measure steady and regular. Still, to commit one's self in such a vehicle, through a howling tempest of wind and rain, with a beetHng precipice above and a raging abyss below, required that courage which despair alone can inspire. Yet, wild as the sounds and sights of danger were, both above, beneath, and around, and doubtful and dangerous as the mode of escaping appeared to be, Lovel and the old mendicant agreed, after a moment's consultation, and after the former, by a sudden strong pull, had at his own immi- nent risk ascertained the security of the rope, that it would be best to secure Miss Wardour in the chair, and trust to the tenderness and care of those above for her being safely craned up to the top of the crag- ^Let my father go first,' exclaimed Isabella; *for God's sake, my friends, place him first in safety.' ^It cannot be. Miss Wardour,' said Lovel; 'your life must be first secured; the rope which bears your weight may — ' 'I will not listen to a reason so selfish!' 'But ye maun listen to it, my bonny lassie,' said Ochiltree, 'for a' our lives depend on it; besides, when ye get on the tap o' the heugh yonder, ye can gie them a 6 97 WAVERLEY NOVELS round guess o' what's gangmg on in this Patmos o' ours; and Sir Arthur 's far by that, as I am thinking.' Struck with the truth of this reasoning, she ex- claimed, 'True, most true; I am ready and willing to undertake the first risk! What shall I say to our friends above?' * Just to look that their tackle does not graze on the face o' the craig, and to let the chair down, and draw it up hooly and fairly; we will halloo when we are ready.' With the sedulous attention of a parent to a child, Lovel bound Miss Wardour with his handkerchief, neck- cloth, and the mendicant's leathern belt to the back and arms of the chair, ascertaining accurately the security of each knot, while Ochiltree kept Sir Arthur quiet. ' What are ye doing wi' my bairn? What are ye doing? She shall not be separated from me. Isabel, stay with me, I command you.' 'Lordsake, Sir Arthur, haud your tongue, and be thankful to God that there's wiser folk than you to manage this job,' cried the beggar, worn out by the un- reasonable exclamations of the poor Baronet. 'Farewell, my father,' murmured Isabella; 'farewell, my — my friends'; and, shutting her eyes, as Edie's ex- perience recommended, she gave the signal to Lovel, and he to those who were above. She rose, while the chair in which she sate was kept steady by the line which Lovel managed beneath. With a beating heart he watched the flutter of her white dress, until the vehicle was on a level with the brink of the precipice. ' Canny now, lads, canny now ! ' exclaimed old Muckle- backit, who acted as commodore; ' swerve the yard a bit. Now — there ! there she sits safe on dry land ! ' 98 THE ANTIQUARY A loud shout announced the successful experiment to her fellow-sufferers beneath, who replied with a ready and cheerful halloo. Monkbarns, in his ecstasy of joy, stripped his great-coat to wrap up the young lady, and would have pulled off his coat and waistcoat for the same purpose, had he not been withheld by the cautious Caxon. ^Haud a care o' us, your honour will be killed wi' the hoast; ye '11 no get out o' your night-cowl this fortnight; and that will suit us unco ill. Na, na, there's the chariot down by, let twa o' the folk carry the young leddy there.' 'You're right,' said the Antiquary, readjusting the sleeves and collar of his coat — 'you're right, Caxon; this is a naughty night to swim in. Miss Wardour, let me convey you to the chariot.' 'Not for worlds, till I see my father safe.' In a few distinct words, evincing how much her reso- lution had surmounted even the mortal fear of so agi- tating a hazard, she explained the nature of the situation beneath, and the wishes of Lovel and Ochiltree. 'Right, right, that's right too; I should like to see the son of Sir Gamelyn de Guardover on dry land myself. I have a notion he would sign the abjuration oath, and the Ragman Roll to boot, and acknowledge Queen Mary to be nothing better than she should be, to get alongside my bottle of old port that he ran away from, and left scarce begun. But he's safe now, and here a' comes — (for the chair was again lowered, and Sir Arthur made fast in it, without much consciousness on his own part) — here a' comes; bowse away, my boys, canny wi' him. A pedigree of a hundred links is hanging on a tenpenny tow; the whole barony of Knockwinnock depends on 99 WAVERLEY NOVELS three plies of hemp ; respice finem, respice funem — look to your end, look to a rope's end. Welcome, welcome, my good old friend, to firm land, though I cannot say to warm land or to dry land. A cord for ever against fifty fathom of water, though not in the sense of the base proverb; a fico for the phrase, better sus. per funem than sus. per coll.^ While Oldbuck ran on in this way. Sir Arthur was safely wrapped in the close embraces of his daughter, who, assuming that authority which the circumstances demanded, ordered some of the assistants to convey him to the chariot, promising to follow in a few minutes. She lingered on the cliff, holding an old countryman's arm, to witness probably the safety of those whose dangers she had shared. ^What have we here?' said Oldbuck, as the vehicle once more ascended. * What patched and weather-beaten matter is this?' Then, as the torches illumined the rough face and grey hairs of old Ochiltree — ^ What! is it thou? Come, old mocker, I must needs be friends with thee; but who the devil makes up your party besides?' ^ Ane that 's weel worth ony twa o' us, Monkbarns : it 's the young stranger lad they ca' Lovel; and he's behaved this blessed night as if he had three lives to rely on, and was willing to waste them a' rather than endanger ither folk's. Ca' hooly, sirs, as ye wad win an auld man's blessing! Mind there's naebody below now to haud the gy. Hae a care o' the Cat's Lug corner; bide weel afl Crummie's Horn!' ^Have a care indeed,' echoed Oldbuck. ^What! is it my rara avis, my black swan, my phoenix of companions in a post-chaise? Take care of him, Mucklebackit.' lOO THE ANTIQUARY ^As muckle care as if he were a greybeard o' brandy; and I canna take mair if his hair were like John Har- lowe's. Yo ho, my hearts, bowse away with him ! ' Lovel did, in fact, run a much greater risk than any of his precursors. His weight was not sufficient to render his ascent steady amid such a storm of wind, and he swung Uke an agitated pendulum at the mortal risk of being dashed against the rocks. But he was young, bold, and active, and, with the assistance of the beggar^s stout piked staff, which he had retained by advice of the proprietor, contrived to bear himself from the face of the precipice, and the yet more hazardous projecting cliffs which varied its surface. Tossed in empty space like an idle and unsubstantial feather, with a motion that agi- tated the brain at once with fear and with dizziness, he retained his alertness of exertion and presence of mind; and it was not until he was safely grounded upon the summit of the cliff that he felt temporary and giddy sickness. As he recovered from a sort of half swoon he cast his eyes eagerly around. The object which they would most willingly have sought was already in the act of vanishing. Her white garment was just discernible as she followed on the path which her father had taken. She had lingered till she saw the last of their company rescued from danger, and until she had been assured by the hoarse voice of Mucklebackit that ' the callant had come off wi' unbrizzed banes, and that he was but in a kind of dwam.' But Lovel was not aware that she had expressed in his fate even this degree of interest, which, though nothing more than was due to a stranger who had assisted her in such an hour of peril, he would have gladly purchased by braving even more imminent danger lOI WAVERLEY NOVELS than he had that evening been exposed to. The beggar she had already commanded to come to Knockwinnock that night. He made an excuse. — 'Then to-morrow let me see you.' The old man promised to obey. Oldbuck thrust some- thing into his hand. Ochiltree looked at it by the torch- light and returned it. ' Na, na ! I never tak gowd ; besides, Monkbarns, ye wad maybe be rueing it the morn.' Then turning to the group of fishermen and peasants — ' Now, sirs, wha will gie me a supper and some clean pease-strae? ^ 'I,' * And I,' 'And I,' answered many a ready voice. ^ Aweel, since sae it is, and I can only sleep in ae barn at ance, I'll gae down wi' Saunders Mucklebackit; he has aye a soup o' something comfortable about his big- ging; and, bairns, I'll maybe live to put ilka ane o' ye in mind some ither night that ye hae promised me quarters and my awmous ' ; and away he went with the fisherman. Oldbuck laid the hand of strong possession on Lovel. — 'Deil a stride ye's go to Fairport this night, young man; you must go home with me to Monkbarns. Why, man, you have been a hero — a perfect Sir William Wallace by all accounts. Come, my good lad, take hold of my arm ; I am not a prime support in such a wind, but Caxon shall help us out. Here, you old idiot, come on the other side of me. And how the deil got you down to that infernal Bessy's Apron, as they call it? Bess, said they — why, curse her, she has spread out that vile pennon or banner of womankind, like all the rest of her sex, to allure her votaries to death and headlong ruin.' 'I have been pretty well accustomed to climbing, and I have long observed fowlers practise that pass down the cliff.' I02 THE ANTIQUARY *But how, in the name of all that is wonderful, came you to discover the danger of the pettish Baronet and his far more deserving daughter? ' ' I saw them from the verge of the precipice.' ^From the verge! umph. And what possessed you, dumosa pendere procul de rupe? though dumosa is not the appropriate epithet — what the deil, man, tempted ye to the verge of the craig? ' *Why, I like to see the gathering and growHng of a coming storm; or, in your own classical language, Mr. Oldbuck, suave est mari magno, and so forth. But here we reach the turn to Fairport; I must wish you good- night.' ^Not a step, not a pace, not an inch, not a shathmont, as I may say; the meaning of which word has puzzled > many that think themselves antiquaries. I am clear we should read salmon length" for ^'shathmont's length." - , You are aware that the space allotted for the passage of a salmon through a dam, dike, or weir, by statute, is the ^ length within which a full-grown pig can turn himself . ' /g_ round. Now I have a scheme to prove that, as terrestrial objects were thus appealed to for ascertaining submarine measurement, so it must be supposed that the produc- tions of the water were established as gages of the extent of land. Shathmont, salmont — you see the close alli- ance of the sounds; dropping out two h's and a /, and assuming an /, makes the whole difference. I wish to Heaven no antiquarian derivation had demanded heav- ier concessions.' ^But, my dear sir, I really must go home; I am wet to the skin.' * Shalt have my nightgown, man, and slippers, and 103 WAVERLEY NOVELS catch the antiquarian fever, as men do the plague, by wearing infected garments. Nay, I know what you would be at; you are afraid to put the old bachelor to charges. But is there not the remains of that glorious chicken-pie, which, meo arbitrio, is better cold than hot, and that bottle of my oldest port, out of which the silly brain-sick Baronet (whom I cannot pardon, since he has escaped breaking his neck) had just taken one glass when his infirm noddle went a wool-gathering after Gamelyn de Guardover? ' So saying, he dragged Lovel forward, till the Palmer's Port of Monkbarns received them. Never, perhaps, had it admitted two pedestrians more needing rest; for Monkbarns's fatigue had been in a degree very contrary to his usual habits, and his more young and robust com- panion had that evening undergone agitation of mind which had harassed and wearied him even more than his extraordinary exertions of body. CHAPTER IX *Be brave,* she cried, *you yet may be our guest, Our haunted room was ever held the best. If, then, your valour can the sight sustain Of rustling curtains and the clinking chain; If your courageous tongue have powers to talk, When round your bed the horrid ghost shall walk; If you dare ask it why it leaves its tomb, I'll see your sheets well air'd, and show the room/ True Story, They reached the room in which they had dined, and were clamorously welcomed by Miss Oldbuck. 'Where's the younger womankind?' said the Anti- quary. 'Indeed, brother, amang a' the steery Maria wadna be guided by me; she set away to the Halket Craig-head. I wonder ye didna see her.' 'Eh! what — what's that you say, sister? Did the girl go out in a night like this to the Halket Head? Good God! the misery of the night is not ended yet!' 'But ye winna wait, Monkbarns; ye are so imperative and impatient — ' 'Tittle-tattle, woman,' said the impatient and agi- tated Antiquary, 'where is my dear Mary?' 'Just where ye suld be yoursell, Monkbarns — up- stairs and in her warm bed.' 'I could have sworn it,' said Oldbuck, laughing, but obviously much relieved — 'I could have sworn it; the lazy monkey did not care if we were all drowned to- gether. Why did you say she went out?' ' But ye wadna wait to hear out my tale, Monkbarns. She gaed out, and she came in again with the gardener 105 WAVERLEY NOVELS sae sune as she saw that nane o' ye were clodded ower the craig, and that Miss Wardour was safe in the char- iot; she was hame a quarter of an hour syne, for it 's now ganging ten; sair droukit was she, puir thing, sae I e'en put a glass o' sherry in her water-gruel.' ^ Right, Grizel, right; let womankind alone for cod- dling each other. But hear ye, my venerable sister. Start not at the word venerable; it implies many praise- worthy quaUties besides age; though that too is honour- able, albeit it is the last quality for which womankind would wish to be honoured. But perpend my words; let Lovel and me have forthwith the relics of the chicken- pie and the reversion of the port.' ^The chicken-pie! the port! Ou dear! brother, there was but a wheen banes and scarce a drap o' the wine.' The Antiquary's countenance became clouded, though he was too well-bred to give way, in the presence of a stranger, to his displeased surprise at the disappear- ance of the viands on which he had reckoned with abso- lute certainty. But his sister understood these looks of ire. 'Ou dear! Monkbarns, what's the use of making a wark? ' 'I make no wark, as ye call it, woman.' 'But what's the use o' looking sae glum and glunch about a pickle banes? An ye will hae the truth, ye maun ken the minister came in, worthy man; sair distressed he was, nae doubt, about your precarious situation, as he ca'd it (for ye ken how weel he's gifted wi' words), and here he wad bide till he could hear wi' certainty how the matter was hkely to gang wi' ye a'. He said fine things on the duty of resignation to Providence's will, worthy man! that did he.' io6 THE ANTIQUARY Oldbuck replied, catching the same tone, ^Worthy man! he cared not how soon Monkbarns had devolved on an heir female, I've a notion. And while he was occupied in this Christian office of consolation against impending evil, I reckon that the chicken-pie and my good port disappeared? ' 'Dear brother, how can you speak of sic frivolities, when you have had sic an escape from the craig?' 'Better than my supper has had from the minister's craig, Grizzy; it's all discussed, I suppose?' 'Hout, Monkbarns, ye speak as if there was nae mair meat in the house. Wad ye not have had me offer the honest man some slight refreshment after his walk frae the manse? ' Oldbuck half-whistled, half-hummed, the end of the old Scottish ditty, O, first they eated the white puddings, And then they eated the black, O, And thought the gudeman unto himsell, The deil clink down wi^ that, O! His sister hastened to silence his murmurs, by propos- ing some of the relics of the dinner. He spoke of another bottle of wine, but recommended in preference a glass of brandy which was really excellent. As no entreaties could prevail on Lovel to indue the velvet nightcap and branched morning-gown of his host, Oldbuck, who pre- tended to a little knowledge of the medical art, insisted on his going to bed as soon as possible, and proposed to despatch a messenger (the indefatigable Caxon) to Fair- port early in the morning to procure him a change of clothes. 107 WAVERLEY NOVELS This was the first intimation Miss Oldbuck had re- ceived that the young stranger was to be their guest for the night; and such was the surprise with which she was struck by a proposal so uncommon that, had the super- incumbent weight of her head-dress, such as we before described, been less preponderant, her grey locks must have started up on end and hurled it from its position. 'Lord haud a care o' us!' exclaimed the astounded maiden. ' What 's the matter now, Grizel? ' ' Wad ye but just speak a moment, Monkbarns? ' 'Speak! What should I speak about? I want to get to \ my bed; and this poor young fellow — let a bed be made ready for him instantly.' ' A bed ! The Lord preserve us, ' again ejaculated Grizel. 'Why, what's the matter now? are there not beds and rooms enough in the house? Was it not an ancient hospitium, in which I am warranted to say beds were nightly made down for a score of pilgrims?' '0 dear, Monkbarns! wha kens what they might do lang syne? But in our time — beds! ay, troth, there's beds enow sic as they are, and rooms enow too; but ye ken yoursell the beds haena been sleepit in. Lord kens the time, nor the rooms aired. If I had kenn'd, Mary and me might hae gane down to the manse. Miss Beckie is aye fond to see us; and sae is the minister, brother. But now, gude save us — !' 'Is there not the Green Room, Grizel?'^ 'Troth is there, and it is in decent order too, though naebody has sleepit there since Dr. Heavysterne, and — ' 'And what?' 'And what! I'm sure ye ken yoursell what a night he io8 THE ANTIQUARY had; ye wadna expose the young gentleman to the like o' that, wad ye?' Lovel interfered upon hearing this altercation, and protested he would far rather walk home than put them to the least inconvenience; that the exercise would be of service to him; that he knew the road perfectly, by night or day, to Fairport; that the storm was abating, and so forth; adding all that civility could suggest as an excuse for escaping from a hospitality which seemed more in- convenient to his host than he could possibly have anti- cipated. But the howling of the wind and pattering of the rain against the windows, with his knowledge of the preceding fatigues of the evening, must have prohibited* Oldbuck, even had he entertained less regard for his young friend than he really felt, from permitting him to depart. Besides, he was piqued in honour to show that he himself was not governed by womankind. ^Sit ye down, sit ye down, sit ye down, man,' he reiterated; *an ye part so, I would I might never draw a cork again, and here comes out one from a prime bottle of — strong ale, right anno domini; none of your wassia quassia decoc- tions, but brewed of Monkbarns barley. John of the Girnel never drew a better flagon to entertain a wander- ing minstrel or palmer with the freshest news from Palestine. And to remove from your mind the slightest wish to depart, know, that if you do so your character as a- gallant knight is gone for ever. Why, 't is an adventure, man, to sleep in the Green Room at Monk- barns. Sister, pray see it got ready. And, although the bold adventurer, Heavysterne, dree'd pain and dolour in that charmed apartment, it is no reason why a gallant knight like you, nearly twice as tall, and not 109 WAVERLEY NOVELS half so heavy, should not encounter and break the spell.' ^What! a haunted apartment, I suppose?' ^To be sure, to be sure; every mansion in this country of the slightest antiquity has its ghosts and its haunted chamber, and you must not suppose us worse off than our neighbours. They are going, indeed, somewhat out of fashion. I have seen the day when, if you had doubted the reaUty of the ghost in an old manor-house, you ran the risk of being made a ghost yourself, as Hamlet says. Yes, if you had challenged the existence of Redcowl in the castle of Glenstirym, old Sir Peter Pepperbrand would have had ye out to his courtyard, made you be- take yourself to your weapon, and if your trick of fence were not the better, would have sticked you like a pad- dock on his own baronial middenstead. I once narrowly escaped such an affray; but I humbled myself and apologised to Redcowl; for, even in my younger days, I was no friend to the monomachia or duel, and would rather walk with Sir Priest than with Sir Knight; I care not who knows so much of my valour. Thank God ! I am old now, and can indulge my irritabilities without the necessity of supporting them by cold steel.' Here Miss Oldbuck reentered with a singularly sage expression of countenance. ^Mr. Lovel's bed's ready, brother — clean sheets, weel aired, a spunk of fire in the chimney. I am sure, Mr. Lovel (addressing him), it's no for the trouble; and I hope you will have a good night's rest. But — ' 'You are resolved,' said the Antiquary, Ho do what you can to prevent it.' ' Me? I am sure I have said naething, Monkbarns.' no THE ANTIQUARY *My dear madam/ said Lovel, 'allow me to ask you the meaning of your obliging anxiety on my account.' 'Ou, Monkbarns does not like to hear of it; but he kens himsell that the room has an ill name. It's weel minded that it was there auld Rab TuU, the town-clerk, was sleeping when he had that marvellous communica- tion about the grand law-plea between us and the feuars at the Mussel Craig. It had cost a hantle siller, Mr. Lovel — for law-pleas were no carried on without siller lang syne mair than they are now — and the Monkbarns of that day — our gudesire, Mr. Lovel, as I said before — was Hke to be waured afore the Session for want of a paper. Monkbarns there kens weel what paper it was, but I'se warrant he'll no help me out wi' my tale, — but it was a paper of great significance to the plea, and we were to be waured for want o't. Aweel, the cause was to come on before the Fifteen — in presence, as they ca't — and auld Rab Tull, the town-clerk, he cam ower to make a last search for the paper that was wanting, before our gudesire gaed into Edinburgh to look after his plea; so there was Kttle time to come and gang on. He was but a doited snuffy body, Rab, as I've heard; but then he was the town-clerk of Fairport, and the Monk- barns heritors aye employed him on account of their connexion wi' the burgh, ye ken.' ^Sister Grizel, this is abominable,' interrupted Old- buck; 'I vow to Heaven ye might have raised the ghosts of every abbot of Trotcosey since the days of Waldimir in the time you have been detaiHng the introduction to this single spectre. Learn to be succinct in your narra- tive. Imitate the concise style of old Aubrey, an experi- enced ghost-seer, who entered his memoranda on these III WAVERLEY NOVELS subjects in a terse businesslike manner; exempli gratia — ^'At Cirencester, 5th March 1670, was an apparition. Being demanded whether good spirit or bad, made no answer, but instantly disappeared with a curious per- fume and a melodious twang." — Vide his ''Miscella- nies," p. 18, as well as I can remember, and near the middle of the page.' 'O, Monkbarns, man! do ye think everybody is as book-learned as yoursell? But ye like to gar folk look like fools; ye can do that to Sir Arthur, and the minister his very sell.' 'Nature has been beforehand with me, Grizel, in both these instances, and in another which shall be nameless; but take a glass of ale, Grizel, and proceed with your story, for it waxes late.' 'Jenny 's just warming your bed, Monkbarns, and ye maun e'en wait till she 's done. Weel, I was at the search that our gudesire, Monkbarns that then was, made wi' auld Rab TulFs assistance; but ne'er-be-licket could they find that was to their purpose. And sae after they had touzled out mony a leather poke-full o' papers, the town-clerk had his drap punch at e'en to wash the dust out of his throat; we never were glass-breakers in this house, Mr. Lovel, but the body had got sic a trick of sippling and tippUng wi' the baihes and deacons when they met (which was amaist ilka night) concerning the common gude o' the burgh, that he couldna weel sleep without it. But his punch he gat, and to bed he gaed; and in the middle of the night he gat a f earf u' wakening ! He was never just himsell after it, and he was strucken wi' the dead palsy that very day four years. He thought, Mr. Lovel, that he heard the curtains o' his bed fissil, THE ANTIQUARY and out he lookit, fancying, puir man, it might hae been the cat. But he saw — God hae a care o' us, it gars my flesh aye creep, though I hae tauld the story twenty times — he saw a weel-fa'ard auld gentleman standing by his bedside in the moonlight, in a queer-fashioned dress, wi' mony a button and band-string about it, and that part o' his garments which it does not become a leddy to particulareeze was baith side and wide, and as mony plies o't as of ony Hamburgh skipper's. He had a beard too, and whiskers turned upwards on his upper- lip, as lang as baudrons'; and mony mair particulars there were that Rab TuU tauld o', but they are forgotten now; it's an auld story. Aweel, Rab was a just-living man for a country writer, and he was less fear'd than maybe might just hae been expected, and he asked in the name o' goodness what the apparition wanted. And the spirit answered in an unknown tongue. Then Rab said he tried him wi' Erse, for he cam in his youth frae the braes of GlenUvat; but it wadna do. Aweel, in this strait he bethought him of the twa or three words o' Latin that he used in making out the town's deeds, and he had nae sooner tried the spirit wi' that than out cam sic a blatter o' Latin about his lugs that poor Rab TuU, wha was nae great scholar, was clean owerwhelmed. Od, but he was a bauld body, and he minded the Latin name for the deed that he was wanting. It was something about a cart I fancy, for the ghaist cried aye, Carter y carter — ' 'Carta, you transformer of languages,' cried Oldbuck; *if my ancestor had learned no other language in the other world, at least he would not forget the Latinity for which he was so famous while in this.' fi ' 113 WAVERLEY NOVELS Weel, weel, carta be it then, but they ca'd it carter that teird me the story. It cried aye carta, if sae be that it was carta, and made a sign to Rab to follow it. Rab TuU keepit a Highland heart, and bang'd out o' bed, and till some of his readiest claes; and he did follow the thing upstairs and downstairs to the place we ca' the high dow-cot (a sort of a Httle tower in the corner of the auld house, where there was a rickle o' useless boxes and trunks), and there the ghaist gae Rab a kick wi' the tae foot, and a kick wi' the tother, to that very auld east- country tabernacle of a cabinet that my brother has standing beside his Kbrary table, and then disappeared like a fuff o' tobacco, leaving Rab in a very pitiful condition.' 'Tenues secessit in auras, quoth Oldbuck. ^ Marry, sir, mansit odor. But, sure enough, the deed was there found in a drawer of this forgotten repository, which contained many other curious old papers, now properly labelled and arranged, and which seem to have belonged to my ancestor, the first possessor of Monkbarns. The deed thus strangely recovered was the original charter of erection of the abbey, abbey lands, and so forth, of Trotcosey, comprehending Monkbarns and others, into a lordship of regality in favour of the first Earl of Glen- gibber, a favourite of James the Sixth. It is subscribed by the King at Westminster, the seventeenth day of January, A.D. one thousand six hundred and twelve - thirteen. It's not worth while to repeat the witnesses' names.' ^I would rather,' said Lovel, with awakened curiosity — ^I would rather hear your opinion of the way in which the deed was discovered.' 114 THE ANTIQUARY 'Why, if I wanted a patron for my legend, I could find no less a one than Saint Augustine, who tells the story of a deceased person appearing to his son, when sued for a debt which had been paid, and directing him where to find the discharge.^ But I rather opine with Lord Bacon, who says that imagination is much akin to miracle- working faith. There was always some idle story of the room being haunted by the spirit of Aldobrand Olden- buck, my great-great-great-grandfather, — it's a shame to the English language that we have not a less clumsy way of expressing a relationship of which we have occa- sion to think and speak so frequently. He was a for- eigner, and wore his national dress, of which tradition had preserved an accurate description; and indeed there is a print of him, supposed to be by Reginald Elstracke, pulling the press with his own hand, as it works off the sheets of his scarce edition of the Augsburg Confession. He was a chemist as well as a good mechanic, and either of these qualities in this country was at that time suffi- cient to constitute a white witch at least. This supersti- tious old writer had heard all this, and probably beheved it, and in his sleep the image and idea of my ancestor recalled that of his cabinet, which, with the grateful attention to antiquities and the memory of our ancestors not unusually met with, had been pushed into the pigeon-house to be out of the way. Add a quantum f ^ sufficit of exaggeration, and you have a key to the whole mystery.' ^Oh, brother, brother! But Dr. Heavysteme, brother, whose sleep was so sore broken that he declared he wadna pass another night in the Green Room to get all ^ See Note i. IIS WAVERLEY NOVELS Monkbarns, so that Mary and I were forced to yield our — ' ^Why, Grizel, the doctor is a good, honest, pudding- headed German, of much merit in his own way, but fond of the mystical, like many of his countrymen. You and he had a traffic the whole evening, in which you re- ceived tales of Mesmer, Schropfer, Cagliostro, and other modern pretenders to the mystery of raising spirits, discovering hidden treasure, and so forth, in ex- change for your legends of the green bedchamber; and considering that the illustrissimus ate a pound and a half of Scotch collops to supper, smoked six pipes, and drank ale and brandy in proportion, I am not surprised at his having a fit of the nightmare. But everything is now ready. Permit me to Ught you to your apartment, Mr. Lovel; I am sure you have need of rest, and I trust my ancestor is too sensible of the duties of hospitality to interfere with the repose which you have so well merited by your manly and gallant behaviour.' So saying, the Antiquary took up a bedroom candle- stick of massive silver and antique form, which, he ob- served, was wrought out of the silver found in the mines of the Harz Mountains, and had been the property of the very personage who had supplied them with a sub- ject for conversation. And having so said, he led the way through many a dusky and winding passage, now ascending and anon descending again, until he came to the apartment destined for his young guest. CHAPTER X When midnight o'er the moonless skies Her pall of transient death has spread, When mortals sleep, when spectres rise, And none are wakeful but the dead; No bloodless shape my way pursues. No sheeted ghost my couch annoys, Visions more sad my fancy views, — Visions of long-departed joys. W. R. Spenser. When they reached the Green Room, as it was called, Oldbuck placed the candle on the toilet-table, before a huge mirror with a black japanned frame, surrounded by dressing-boxes of the same, and looked around him with something of a disturbed expression of countenance. am seldom in this apartment,' he said, ^and never without yielding to a melancholy feeling; not, of course, on account of the childish nonsense that Grizel was tell- ing you, but owing to circumstances of an early and un- happy attachment. It is at such moments as these, Mr. Lovel, that we feel the changes of time. The same ob- jects are before us — those inanimate things which we have gazed on in wayward infancy and impetuous youth, in anxious and scheming manhood — they are perma- nent and the same; but when we look upon them in cold unfeeling old age, can we, changed in our temper, our pursuits, our feehngs — changed in our form, our Hmbs, and our strength — can we be ourselves called the same? or do we not rather look back with a sort of wonder upon our former selves, as beings separate and distinct from what we now are? The philosopher who appealed from 117 WAVERLEY NOVELS Philip inflamed with wine to Philip in his hours of so- briety did not choose a judge so different as if he had appealed from Philip in his youth to Philip in his old age. I cannot but be touched with the feeling so beauti- fully expressed in a poem which I have heard repeated: ^ My eyes are dim with childish tears, My heart is idly stirr'd, For the same sound is in my ears Which in those days I heard. Thus fares it still in our decay; And yet the wiser mind Mourns less for what time takes away Than what he leaves behind. Well, time cures every wound, and though the scar may remain and occasionally ache, yet the earliest agony of its recent infliction is felt no more.' So saying, he shook Lovel cordially by the hand, wished him good-night, and took his leave. Step after step Lovel could trace his host's retreat along the various passages, and each door which he closed behind him fell with a sound more distant and dead. The guest, thus separated from the living world, took up the candle and surveyed the apartment. The fire blazed cheerfully. Mrs. GrizePs attention had left some fresh wood, should he choose to continue it, and the apartment had a comfortable, though not a lively ap- pearance. It was hung with tapestry, which the looms of Arras had produced in the sixteenth century, and which the learned typographer, so often mentioned, had ^ Probably Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads had not as yet been pub- lished. Il8 THE ANTIQUARY brought with him as a sample of the arts of the Conti- nent. The subject was a hunting-piece; and as the leafy boughs of the forest-trees, branching over the tapestry, formed the predominant colour, the apartment had thence acquired its name of the Green Chamber. Grim figures, in the old Flemish dress, with slashed doublets covered with ribbands, short cloaks, and trunk-hose, were engaged in holding greyhounds or staghounds in the leash, or cheering them upon the objects of their game. Others, with boar-spears, swords, and old-fash- ioned guns, were attacking stags or boars whom they had brought to bay. The branches of the woven forest were crowded with fowls of various kinds, each depicted with its proper plumage. It seemed as if the proHfic and rich invention of old Chaucer had animated the Flemish artist with its profusion, and Oldbuck had accordingly caused the following verses from that ancient and excel- lent poet to be embroidered in Gothic letters on a sort of border which he had added to the tapestry: — Lo ! here be oakis grete, straight as a lime, Under the which the grass, so fresh of line, Be'th newly sprung — at eight foot or nine. Everich tree well from his fellow grew With branches broad laden with leaves new, That sprongen out against the sonne sheene, Some golden red, and some a glad bright green. \ And in another canton was the following similar legend: And many an hart and many an hind Was both before me and behind. Of fawns, sownders, bucks, and does, Was full the wood, and many roes, And many squirrells that ysate High on the trees, and nuts ate. 119 WAVERLEY NOVELS The bed was of a dark and faded green, wrought to correspond with the tapestry , but by a more modern and less skilful hand. The large and heavy stuff-bottomed chairs, with black ebony backs, were embroidered after the same pattern, and a lofty mirror over the antique chimney-piece corresponded in its mounting with that on the old-fashioned toilet. *I have heard,' muttered Lovel, as he took a cursory view of the room and its furniture, Hhat ghosts often chose the best room in the mansion to which they at- tached themselves; and I cannot disapprove of the taste of the disembodied printer of the Augsburg Confession.' But he found it so difficult to fix his mind upon the stories which had been told him, of an apartment with which they seemed so singularly to correspond, that he almost regretted the absence of those agitated feelings, half fear, half curiosity, which sympathise with the old legends of awe and wonder from which the anxious real- ity of his own hopeless passion at present detached him. For he now only felt emotions like those expressed in the lines — Ah! cruel maid, how hast thou changed The temper of my mind! My heart, by thee from all estranged, Becomes like thee unkind. He endeavoured to conjure up something hke the feelings which would at another time have been congen- ial to his situation, but his heart had no room for these vagaries of imagination. The recollection of Miss Wardour, determined not to acknowledge him when compelled to endure his society, and evincing her pur- pose to escape from it, would have alone occupied his 1 20 THE ANTIQUARY imagination exclusively. But with this were united recollections more agitating if less painful — her hair- breadth escape, the fortunate assistance which he had been able to render her. Yet, what was his requital? She left the cHff while his fate was yet doubtful, while it was uncertain whether her preserver had not lost the life which he had exposed for her so freely. Surely grati- tude, at least, called for some little interest in his fate. But no — she could not be selfish or unjust; it was no part of her nature. She only desired to shut the door against hope, and, even in compassion to him, to extin- guish a passion which she could never return. But this lover-like mode of reasoning was not likely to reconcile him to his fate, since the more amiable his imagination presented Miss Wardour, the more incon- solable he felt he should be rendered by the extinction of his hopes. He was, indeed, conscious of possessing the power of removing her prejudices on some points; but, even in extremity, he determined to keep the original determination which he had formed of ascertaining that she desired an explanation ere he intruded one upon her. And, turn the matter as he would, he could not regard his suit as desperate. There was something of embarrassment as well as of grave surprise in her look when Oldbuck presented him, and perhaps, upon second thoughts, the one was assumed to cover the other. He would not relinquish a pursuit which had already cost him such pains. Plans, suiting the romantic temper of the brain that entertained them, chased each other through his head, thick and irregular as the motes of the sunbeam, and long after he had laid himself to rest con- tinued to prevent the repose which he greatly needed. 121 WAVERLEY NOVELS Then, wearied by the uncertainty and difficulties with which each scheme appeared to be attended, he bent up his mind to the strong effort of shaking off his love, ^Like dew-drops from the Uon's mane,' and resuming those studies and that career of hf e which his unrequited affection had so long and so fruitlessly interrupted. In this last resolution he endeavoured to fortify himself by every argument which pride , as well as reason, could suggest. ^ She shall not suppose,' he said, ^ that, presum- ing on an accidental service to her or to her father, I am desirous to intrude myself upon that notice to which, personally, she considered me as having no title. I will see her no more. I will return to the land which, if it / (j affords none fairer, has at least many as fair, and less haughty than Miss Wardour. To-morrow I will bid adieu to these northern shores, and to her who is as cold and relentless as her climate.' When he had for some time brooded over this sturdy resolution, exhausted nature at length gave way, and, despite of wrath, doubt, and anxiety, he sunk into slumber. It is seldom that sleep, after such violent agitation, is either sound or refreshing. LoveFs was disturbed by a thousand baseless and confused visions. He was a bird, he was a fish, or he flew like the one and swam like the other — qualities which would have been very essential to his safety a few hours before. Then Miss Wardour was a syren, or a bird of Paradise; her father a triton, or ^ / a sea-gull ; and Oldbuck alternately a porpoise and a cor- morant. These agreeable imaginations were varied by all the usual vagaries of a feverish dream: the air refused to bear the visionary, the water seemed to burn him; the rocks felt like down pillows as he was dashed against 122 THE ANTIQUARY them; whatever he undertook failed in some strange and unexpected manner, and whatever attracted his atten- tion underwent, as he attempted to investigate it, some wild and wonderful metamorphosis, while his mind con- tinued all the while in some degree conscious of the de- lusion, from which it in vain struggled to free itself by awakening — feverish symptoms all, with which those who are haunted by the night-hag, whom the learned call Ephialtes, are but too well acquainted. At length these crude phantasmata arranged themselves into something more regular, if indeed the imagination of Lovel, after he awoke (for it was by no means the faculty in which his mind was least rich), did not gradually, insensibly, and unintentionally arrange in better order the scene of which his sleep presented, it maybe, a less distinct outline. Or it is possible that his feverish agita- tion may have assisted him in forming the vision. Leaving this discussion to the learned, we will say that, after a succession of wild images, such as we have above described, our hero, for such we must acknowledge him, so far regained a consciousness of locality as to remember where he was, and the whole furniture of the Green Chamber was depicted to his slumbering eye. And here, once more, let me protest that, if there should be so much old-fashioned faith left among this shrewd and sceptical generation as to suppose that what follows was an impression conveyed rather by the eye than by the imagination, I do not impugn their doctrine. He was then, or imagined himself, broad awake in the Green Chamber, gazing upon the flickering and occa- sional flame which the unconsumed remnants of the fagots sent forth, as one by one they fell down upon the 123 WAVERLEY NOVELS red embers, into which the principal part of the boughs to which they belonged had crumbled away. Insensibly the legend of Aldobrand Oldenbuck, and his mysterious visits to the inmates of the chamber, awoke in his mind, and with it, as we often feel in dreams, an anxious and fearful expectation, which seldom fails instantly to sum- mon up before our mind's eye the object of our fear. Brighter sparkles of light flashed from the chimney with such intense brilliancy as to enlighten all the room. The tapestry waved wildly on the wall, till its dusky forms seemed to become animated. The hunters blew their horns, the stag seemed to fly, the boar to resist, and the hounds to assail the one and pursue the other; the cry of deer, mangled by throttling dogs, the shouts of men, and the clatter of horses' hoofs, seemed at once to surround him; while every group pursued, with all the fury of the chase, the employment in which the artist had repre- sented them as engaged. Lovel looked on this strange scene devoid of wonder (which seldom intrudes itself upon the sleeping fancy), but with an anxious sensation of awful fear. At length an individual figure among the tissued huntsmen, as he gazed upon them more fixedly, seemed to leave the arras and to approach the bed of the slumberer. As he drew near his figure appeared to alter. His bugle-horn became a brazen clasped volume; his hunting-cap changed to such a furred headgear as graces the burgomasters of Rembrandt; his Flemish garb remained, but his features, no longer agitated with the fury of the chase, were changed to such a state of awful and stern composure as might best pourtray the first proprietor of Monkbarns, such as he had been de- scribed to Lovel by his descendants in the course of the 124 THE ANTIQUARY preceding evening. As this metamorphosis took place the hubbub among the other personages in the arras disappeared from the imagination of the dreamer, which was now exclusively bent on the single figure before him. Lovel strove to interrogate this awful person in the form of exorcism proper for the occasion; but his tongue, as is usual in frightful dreams, refused its ofl&ce and clung palsied to the roof of his mouth. Aldobrand held up his finger, as if to impose silence upon the guest who had intruded on his apartment, and began deliber- ately to unclasp the venerable volume which occupied his left hand. When it was unfolded he turned over the leaves hastily for a short space, and then raising his figure to its full dimensions, and holding the book aloft in his left hand, pointed to a passage in the page which he thus displayed. Although the language was unknown to our dreamer, his eye and attention were both strongly caught by the line which the figure seemed thus to press upon his notice, the words of which appeared to blaze with a supernatural light, and remained riveted upon his memory. As the vision shut his volume a strain of delightful music seemed to fill the apartment. Lovel started and became completely awake. The music, how- ever, was still in his ears, nor ceased till he could dis- tinctly follow the measure of an old Scottish tune. He sate up in bed, and endeavoured to clear his brain of the phantoms which had disturbed it during this weary night. The beams of the morning sun streamed through the half-closed shutters, and admitted a dis- tinct light into the apartment. He looked round upon the hangings, but the mixed groups of silken and worsted huntsmen were as stationary as tenter-hooks 125 WAVERLEY NOVELS could make them, and only trembled slightly as the early breeze, which found its way through an open crev- ice of the latticed window, glided along their surface. Lovel leapt out of bed, and, wrapping himself in a morn- ing-gown that had been considerately laid by his bed- side, stepped towards the window which commanded a view of the sea, the roar of whose billows announced it still disquieted by the storm of the preceding evening, although the morning was fair and serene. The window of a turret, which projected at an angle with the wall, and thus came to be very near Lovel's apartment, was half open, and from that quarter he heard again the same music which had probably broken short his dream. With its visionary character it had lost much of its charms; it was now nothing more than an air on the harpsichord, tolerably well performed — such is the caprice of imagination as affecting the fine arts. A fe- male voice sung, with some taste and great simplicity, something between a song and a hymn, in words to the following effect: — 'Why sit'st thou by that ruin'd hall, Thou aged carle so stern and grey? Dost thou its former pride recall, Or ponder how it passed away? * 'Know'st thou not me!' the Deep Voice cried; * So long enjoyed, so oft misused, Alternate, in thy fickle pride, Desired, neglected, and accused? 'Before my breath, like blazing flax, Man and his marvels pass away, And changing empires wane and wax. Are founded, flourish, and decay. 126 THE ANTIQUARY * Redeem mine hours — the space is brief — While in my glass the sand-grains shiver, And measureless thy joy or grief, When Time and thou shalt part for ever I' While the verses were yet singing, Lovel had returned to his bed; the train of ideas which they awakened was romantic and pleasing, such as his soul delighted in, and, willingly adjourning till more broad day the doubtful task of determining on his future line of conduct, he abandoned himself to the pleasing languor inspired by the music, and fell into a sound and refreshing sleep, from which he was only awakened at a late hour by old Caxon, who came creeping into the room to render the ofl&ces of a mlet-de-chambre, *I have brushed your coat, sir,' said the old man, when he perceived Lovel was awake; Hhe callant brought it f rae Fairport this morning, for that ye had on yesterday is scantly feasibly dry, though it's been a' night at the kitchen fire; and I hae cleaned your shoon. I doubt ye '11 no be wanting me to tie your hair, for (with a gentle sigh) a' the young gentlemen wear crops now, but I hae the curling-tangs here to gie it a bit turn ower the brow, if ye like, before ye gae down to the leddies.' Lovel, who was by this time once more on his legs, declined the old man's professional ofl&ces, but accom- panied the refusal with such a douceur as completely sweetened Caxon's mortification. 'It's a pity he disna get his hair tied and pouthered,' said the ancient friseur, when he had got once more into the kitchen, in which, on one pretence or other, he spent three-parts of his idle time — that is to say, of his whole 127 WAVERLEY NOVELS time — 4t's a great pity, for he's a comely young gen- tleman.' 'Hout awa, ye auld gowk/ said Jenny Rintherout, ^ would ye creesh his bonny brown hair wi' your nasty ulyie, and then moust it like the auld minister's wig? Ye '11 be for your breakfast, I'se warrant? Hae, there's a soup parritch for ye; it will set ye better to be slaistering at them and the lapper-milk than meddling wi' Mr. Lovel's head; ye wad spoil the maist natural and beautifaest head o' hair in a' Fairport, baith burgh and county.' The poor barber sighed over the disrespect into which his art had so universally fallen, but Jenny was a person too important to offend by contradiction; so, sitting quietly down in the kitchen, he digested at once his humiliation and the contents of a bicker which held a Scotch pint of substantial oatmeal porridge* CHAPTER XI Sometimes he thinks that Heaven this pageant sent, And order'd all the pageants as they went; Sometimes that only *t was wild Fancy's play, The loose and scatter'd relics of the day. We must now request our readers to adjourn to the breakfast-parlour of Mr. Oldbuck, who, despising the modern slops of tea and coffee, was substantially regal- ing himself, more majorum, with cold roast-beef and a glass of a sort of beverage called 'mum,' a species of fat ale brewed from wheat and bitter herbs, of which the present generation only know the name by its occur- rence in revenue acts of parliament, coupled with cider, perry, and other excisable commodities. Lovel, who was seduced to taste it, with difficulty refrained from pronouncing it detestable, but did refrain, as he saw he should otherwise give great offence to his host, who had the liquor annually prepared with peculiar care, accord- ing to the approved recipe bequeathed to him by the so often mentioned Aldobrand Oldenbuck. The hospitality of the ladies offered Lovel a breakfast more suited to modern taste, and while he was engaged in partaking of it he was assailed by indirect inquiries concerning the manner in which he had passed the night. *We canna compliment Mr. Lovel on his looks this morning, brother; but he winna condescend on any ground of disturbance he has had in the night-time. I am certain he looks very pale, and when he came here he was as fresh as a rose.' 129 WAVERLEY NOVELS 'Why, sister, consider this rose of yours has been knocked about by sea and wind all yesterday evening, as if he had been a bunch of kelp or tangle, and how the devil would you have him retain his colour? ' *I certainly do still feel somewhat fatigued,' said Lovel, 'notwithstanding the excellent accommodations with which your hospitality so amply supplied me.' 'Ah, sir!' said Miss Oldbuck, looking at him with a knowing smile, or what was meant to be one, 'ye '11 not allow of ony inconvenience, out of civility to us.' ' Really, madam,' replied Lovel, ' I had no disturbance ; for I cannot term such the music with which some kind fairy favoured me.' 'I doubted Mary wad waken you wi' her skreighing; she didna ken I had left open a chink of your window, for, forbye the ghaist, the Green Room disna vent weel in a high wind. But I am judging ye heard mair than Mary's hits yestreen; weel, men are hardy creatures, they can gae through wi' a' thing. I am sure had I been to undergo ony thing of that nature — that's to say, that's beyond nature — I would hae skreigh'd out at once and raised the house, be the consequence what liket; and I daresay the minister wad hae done as mickle, and sae I hae tauld him. I ken naebody but my brother, Monkbarns himsell, wad gae through the Uke o't, if, indeed, it binna you, Mr, Lovel.' 'A man of Mr. Oldbuck's learning, madam,' answered the questioned party, 'would not be exposed to the in- convenience sustained by the Highland gentleman you mentioned last night.' 'Ay! ay! ye understand now where the difl&culty lies — language? He has ways o' his ain wad banish a' thae 130 THE ANTIQUARY sort o' worricows as far as the hindermost parts of Gideon (meaning possibly Midian) , as Mr. Blattergowl says; only ane wadna be uncivil to ane's forebear though he be a ghaist. I am sure I will try that receipt of yours, brother, that ye showed me in a book, if ony body is to sleep in that room again, though I think, in Christian charity, ye should rather fit up the matted room; it's a wee damp and dark, to be sure, but then we hae sae seldom occasion for a spare bed.' 'No, no, sister; dampness and darkness are worse than spectres, ours are spirits of light; and I would rather have you try the spell.' 'I will do that blythely, Monkbarns, an I had the in- gredients, as my cookery book ca's them. There was vervain and dill, I mind that — Davie Dibble will ken about them, though maybe he'll gie them Latin names — and peppercorn, we hae walth o' them, for — ' 'H3^ericon, thou foolish woman!' thundered Old- buck; 'd'ye suppose you're making a haggis; or do you think that a spirit, though he be formed of air, can be expelled by a receipt against wind? This wise Grizel of mine, Mr. Lovel, recollects — with what accuracy you may judge — a charm which I once mentioned to her, and which, happening to hit her superstitious noddle, she remembers better than anything tending to a useful purpose I may chance to have said for this ten years. But many an old woman besides herself — ' 'Auld woman! Monkbarns,' said Miss Oldbuck, roused something above her usual submissive tone, 'ye really are less than civil to me.' 'Not less than just, Grizel; however, I include in the same class many a sounding name, from Jamblichus 131 WAVERLEY NOVELS down to Aubrey, who have wasted their time in devis- ing imaginary remedies for non-existing diseases. But I hope, my young friend, that, charmed or uncharmed, secured by the potency of Hypericon, With vervain and with dill, That hinder witches of their will, or left disarmed and defenceless to the inroads of the in- visible world, you will give another night to the terrors of the haunted apartment, and another day to your faithful and feal friends/ 'I heartily wish I could, but — ' *Nay, "But me no buts"; I have set my heart upon it' 'I am greatly obhged my dear sir, but — ' ^Look ye there now — "but" again! I hate "but''; I know no form of expression in which he can appear that is amiable excepting as a butt of sack. "But" is to me a more detestable combination of letters than "no" itself. "No" is a surly, honest fellow, speaks his mind rough and round at once. "But'' is a sneaking, evasive, half- / bred, exceptions sort of a conjunction, which comes to pull away the cup just when it is at your lips. It does allay The good precedent; fie upon "but yet"! "But yet" is as a jailor to bring forth Some monstrous malefactor.' 'Well, then,' answered Lovel, whose motions were really undetermined at the moment, 'you shall not connect the recollection of my name with so churlish a particle; I must soon think of leaving Fairport, I am 132 THE ANTIQUARY afraid, and I will, since you are good enough to wish it, take this opportunity of spending another day here.' ^ And you shall be rewarded, my boy. First you shall see John o' the Girnel's grave, and then we'll walk gently along the sands, the state of the tide being first ascertained — for we will have no more Peter Wilkins' adventures, no more Glum and Gawrie work, — as far as Knockwinnock Castle, and inquire after the old knight and my fair foe, which will be but barely civil, and then — ' 'I beg pardon, my dear sir; but perhaps you had better adjourn your visit till to-morrow. I am a stranger, you know.' 'And are, therefore, the more bound to show civility, I should suppose. But I beg your pardon for mentioning a word that perhaps belongs only to a collector of anti- quities. I am one of the old school, When courtiers gallop'd o'er four counties The ball's fair partner to behold, And humbly hope she caught no cold.' 'Why, if — if — if — you thought it would be ex- pected; but I believe I had better stay.' 'Nay, nay, my good friend, I am not so old- fashioned as to press you to what is disagreeable, neither; it is sufficient that I see there is some femora, some cause of delay, some mid impediment, which I have no title to inquire into. Or you are still somewhat tired perhaps; I warrant I find means to entertain your intellects without fatiguing your Kmbs. I am no friend to violent exertion myself — a walk in the garden once a day is exercise enough for any thinking 133 WAVERLEY NOVELS being, none but a fool or a fox-hunter would require more. Well, what shall we set about — my ''Essay on Castrametation?'' but I have that in petto for our after- noon cordial. Or I will show you the controversy upon " Ossian's Poems'' between Mac-Cribb and me; I hold with the acute Orcadian, he with the defenders of the authenticity. The controversy began in smooth, oily, lady-like terms, but is now waxing more sour and eager as we get on; it already partakes somewhat of old Scaliger's style. I fear the rogue will get some scent of that story of Ochiltree's; but at worst I have a hard repartee for him on the affair of the abstracted Anti- gonus. I will show you his last epistle, and the scroll of my answer; egad, it is a trimmer!' So saying, the Antiquary opened a drawer and began rummaging among a quantity of miscellaneous papers, ancient and modern. But it was the misfortune of this learned gentleman, as it may be that of many learned and unlearned, that he frequently experienced on such occasions what harlequin calls Vemharras des richesses; in other words, the abundance of his collection often prevented him from finding the article he sought for. ^ Curse the papers! I believe,' said Oldbuck, as he shuffled them to and fro — 'I believe they make them- selves wings Uke grasshoppers and fly away bodily; but here, in the meanwhile, look at that little treasure.' So saying, he put into his hand a case made of oak, fenced at the corner with silver roses and studs. ^Pr'ythee undo this button,' said he, as he observed Lovel fumbling at the clasp. He did so, the hd opened, and discovered a thin quarto curiously bound in black shagreen — * There, Mr. Lovel, there is the work I mentioned to you last 134 THE ANTIQUARY night — the rare quarto of the Augsburg Confession, the foundation at once and the bulwark of the Reforma- tion, drawn up by the learned and venerable Melanc- thon, defended by the Elector of Saxony and the other valiant hearts who stood up for their faith, even against the front of a powerful and victorious emperor, and im- printed by the scarcely less venerable and praiseworthy Aldobrand Oldenbuck, my happy progenitor, during the yet more tyrannical attempts of Philip II to sup- press at once civil and religious Hberty. Yes, sir, for printing this work that eminent man was expelled from his ungrateful country, and driven to establish his house- hold gods even here at Monkbarns, among the ruins of papal superstition and domination. Look upon his ven- erable efl&gies, Mr. Lovel, and respect the honourable occupation in which it presents him, as labouring per- sonally at the press for the diffusion of Christian and political knowledge. And see here his favourite motto, expressive of his independence and self-reliance, which scorned to owe anything to patronage that was not earned by desert — expressive also of that firmness of mind and tenacity of purpose recommended by Horace. He was, indeed, a man who would have stood firm had his whole printing-house, presses, founts, forms, great and small pica, been shivered to pieces around him. Read, I say, his motto; for each printer had his motto or device when that illustrious art was first practised. My ancestor's was expressed, as you see, in the Teutonic phrase, Kunst macht Gunst; that is, skill or prudence in availing ourselves of our natural talents and advan- tages will compel favour and patronage, even where it is withheld from prejudice or ignorance,' 135 WAVERLEY NOVELS ^And that/ said Lovel, after a moment's thoughtful silence — ' that then is the meaning of these German words?' ^Unquestionably; you perceive the appropriate appli- cation to a consciousness of inward worth, and of em- inence in a useful and honourable art. Each printer in those days, as I have already informed you, had his device, his impresa, as I may call it, in the same manner as the doughty chivalry of the age, who frequented tilt and tournament. My ancestor boasted as much in his as if he had displayed it over a conquered field of battle, though it betokened the diffusion of knowledge, not the effusion of blood. And yet there is a family tradition which affirms him to have chosen it from a more roman- tic circumstance.' *And what is that said to have been, my good sir?' inquired his young friend. ^ Why, it rather encroaches on my respected predeces- sor's fame for prudence and wisdom; sed semel insani- vimus omnes — everybody has played the fool in their turn. It is said my ancestor, during his apprenticeship with the descendant of old Fust, whom popular tradi- tion hath sent to the devil under the name of Faustus, was attracted by a paltry slip of womankind, his master's daughter, called Bertha. They broke rings, or went through some idiotical ceremony, as is usual on such idle occasions as the plighting of a true-love troth, and Aldobrand set out on his journey through Germany, as became an honest handwerker; for such was the cus- tom of mechanics at that time, to make a tour through the empire, and work at their trade for a time in each of the most eminent towns, before they finally settled them- 136 THE ANTIQUARY selves for life. It was a wise custom; for, as such travel- lers were received like brethren in each town by those of their own handicraft, they were sure in every case to have the means either of gaining or communicating knowledge. When my ancestor returned to Nurem- berg he is said to have found his old master newly dead, and two or three gallant young suitors, some of them half-starved sprigs of nobility forsooth, in pursuit of the Yungfrau Bertha, whose father was understood to have bequeathed her a dowry which might weigh against sixteen armorial quarters. But Bertha, not a bad sample of womankind, had made a vow she would only marry that man who could work her father's press. The skill at that time was as rare as wonderful: besides that the expedient rid her at once of most of her gentle'' suitors, who would have as soon wielded a conjuring wand as a composing stick. Some of the more ordinary typographers made the attempt; but none were suffi- ciently possessed of the mystery. But I tire you.' 'By no means; pray, proceed, Mr. Oldbuck. I listen with uncommon interest.' 'Ah! it is all folly. However, Aldobrand arrived in the ordinary dress, as we would say, of a journeyman printer — the same with which he had traversed Ger- many, and conversed with Luther, Melancthon, Eras- mus, and other learned men, who disdained not his knowledge, and the power he possessed of diffusing it, though hid under a garb so homely. But what appeared respectable in the eyes of wisdom, religion, learning, and philosophy seemed mean, as might readily be supposed, and disgusting, in those of silly and affected woman- kind, and Bertha refused to acknowledge her former 137 WAVERLEY NOVELS lover in the torn doublet, skin cap, clouted shoes, and leathern apron of a travelling handicraftsman or me- chanic. He claimed his privilege, however, of being ad- mitted to a trial; and when the rest of the suitors had either declined the contest, or made such work as the devil could not read if his pardon depended on it, all eyes were bent on the stranger. Aldobrand stepped gracefully forward, arranged the types without omission of a single letter, hyphen, or comma, imposed them with- out deranging a single space, and pulled off the first proof as clear and free from errors as if it had been a triple revise! All applauded the worthy successor of the immortal Faustus, the blushing maiden acknowledged her error in trusting to the eye more than the intellect, and the elected bridegroom thenceforward chose for his impress or device the appropriate words, Skill wins favour." But what is the matter with you? you are in a brown study? Come, I told you this was but trumpery conversation for thinking people; and now I have my hand on the Ossianic controversy.' beg your pardon,' said Lovel; am going to appear very silly and changeable in your eyes, Mr. Oldbuck, but you seemed to think Sir Arthur might in civility expect a call from me? ' ^ Psha, psha, I can make your apology ; and if you must leave us so soon as you say, what signifies how you stand in his honour's good graces? And I warn you that the * ^ Essay on Castrametation " is something prolix, and will occupy the time we can spare after dinner, so you may lose the'Ossianic controversy if we do not dedicate this morning to it. We will go out to my evergreen bower, my sacred holly tree yonder, and have it fronde super viridi. 138 THE ANTIQUARY Sing hey-ho! hey-ho! for the green holly, Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. But, egad/ continued the old gentleman, 'when I look closer at you I begin to think you may be of a different opinion. Amen, with all my heart; I quarrel with no man's hobby, if he does not run it a tilt against mine; and if he does, let him beware his eyes. What say you? in the language of the world and worldlings base, if you can condescend to so mean a sphere, shall we stay or go? ' 'In the language of selfishness then, which is of course the language of the world, let us go by all means.' '"Amen, amen, quo' the earl marshal,"' answered Oldbuck, as he exchanged his slippers for a pair of stout walking shoes, with 'cutikins,' as he called them, of black cloth. He only interrupted the walk by a slight deviation to the tomb of John o' the Girnel, remembered as the last baihff of the abbey who had resided at Monk- barns. Beneath an old oak tree upon a hillock, sloping pleasantly to the south, and catching a distant view of the sea over two or three rich enclosures and the Mussel Crag, lay a moss-grown stone, and, in memory of the departed worthy, it bore an inscription, of which, as Mr. Oldbuck affirmed (though many doubted), the defaced characters could be distinctly traced to the following effect: — Heir lyeth John o' ye Girnell, Erth has ye nit and heuen ye kirnell. In hys tyme ilk wyfe's hennis clokit, Ilka gud mannis herth wi^ bairnis was stokit, He deled a boll o' bear in firlottis fyve, Four for ye halie kirke, and ane for puir mennis wyvis. 'You see how modest the author of this sepulchral commendation was: he tells us that honest John could 139 WAVERLEY NOVELS make five firlots, or quarters, as you would say, out of the boll, instead of four; that he gave the fifth to the wives of the parish, and accounted for the other four to the abbot and chapter; that in his time the wives' hens always laid eggs, and devil thank them, if they got one- fifth of the abbey rents; and that honest men's hearths were never unblest with offspring — an addition to the miracle which they, as well as I, must have considered as perfectly unaccountable. But come on; leave we Jock o' the Girnel, and let us jog oix to the yellow sands, where the sea, like a repulsed enemy, is now retreating from the ground on which he gave us battle last night.' Thus saying, he led the way to the sands. Upon the links or downs close to them were seen four or five huts inhabited by fishers, whose boats, drawn high upon the beach, lent the odoriferous vapours of pitch melting under a burning sun to contend with those of the offals of fish and other nuisances usually collected round Scot- tish cottages. Undisturbed by these complicated steams of abomination, a middle-aged woman, with a face which had defied a thousand storms, sat mending a net at the door of one of the cottages. A handkerchief close bound about her head, and a coat which had formerly been that of a man, gave her a masculine air, which was in- creased by her strength, uncommon stature, and harsh voice. ' What are ye for the day, your honour? ' she said, or rather screamed, to Oldbuck — ^caller haddocks and whitings, a bannock-fluke and a cock-padle? ' *How much for the bannock-fluke and cock-padle?' demanded the Antiquary. ^Four white shillings and saxpence,' answered the Naiad. 140 THE ANTIQUARY ^Four devils and six of their imps!' retorted the Anti- quary; * do ye think I am mad, Maggie?' 'And div ye think/ rejoined the virago, setting her arms akimbo, Hhat my man and my sons are to gae to the sea in weather Hke yestreen and the day — sic a sea as it's yet outby — and get naething for their fish, and be misca'd into the bargain, Monkbarns? It's no fish ye 're buying: it's men's lives/ 'Well, Maggie, I'll bid you fair: I'll bid you a shilling for the fluke and the cock-padle, or sixpence separately; and if all your fish are as well paid, I think your man, as you call him, and your sons, will make a good voyage.' *Deil gin their boat were knockit against the Bell Rock rather! it wad be better, and the bonnier voyage o' the twa. A shilling for thae twa bonnie fish! Od, that's ane indeed!' 'Well, well, you old beldam, carry your fish up to Monkbarns and see what my sister will give you for them.' 'Na, na, Monkbarns, deil a fit. I'll rather deal wi' yoursell ; for, though you 're near eneugh, yet Miss Grizel has an unco close grip. I'll gie ye them (in a softened tone) for three-and-saxpence.' 'Eighteen-pence, or nothing!' 'Eighteen-pence!!!' in a loud tone of astonishment, which declined into a sort of rueful whine when the dealer turned as if to walk away. 'Ye '11 no be for the fish then? ' Then louder, as she saw him moving off — 'I'll gie them — and — and — and a half-a-dozen o' partans to make the sauce, for three shiUings and a dram.' 'Half-a-crown then, Maggie, and a dram.' 141 WAVERLEY NOVELS ' Aweel, your honour maun hae 't your ain gate, nae doubt; but a dram's worth siller now, the distilleries is no working.' *And I hope they'll never work again in my time/ said Oldbuck. ^Ay, ay; it's easy for your honour and the like you gentlefolks to say sae, that hae stouth and routh, and fire and fending, and meat and claith, and sit dry and canny by the fireside; but an ye wanted fire, and meat, and dry claise, and were deeing o' cauld, and had a sair heart, whilk is warst ava', wi' just tippence in your pouch, wadna ye be glad to buy a dram wi't, to be elid- ing and claise, and a supper and heart's ease into the bargain, till the morn's morning? ' 'It's even too true an apology, Maggie. Is your good- man off to sea this morning, after his exertions last night?' 'In troth is he, Monkbarns; he was awa this morning by four o'clock, when the sea was working like barm wi' yestreen's wind, and our bit coble dancing in't like a cork.' ' Well, he 's an industrious fellow. Carry the fish up to Monkbarns.' 'That I will — or I'll send little Jenny, she'll rin faster; but I'll ca' on Miss Grizzy for the dram myself, and say ye sent me.' A nondescript animal, which might have passed for a mermaid, as it was paddling in a pool among the rocks, was summoned ashore by the shrill screams of its dam; and having been made decent, as her mother called it, which was performed by adding a short red cloak to a petticoat, which was at first her sole covering, and which 142 THE ANTIQUARY reached scantily below her knee, the child was dismissed with the fish in a basket, and a request on the part of Monkbarns that they might be prepared for dinner. * It would have been long,' said Oldbuck, with much self- complacency, 'ere my womankind could have made such a reasonable bargain with that old skinflint, though they sometimes wrangle with her for an hour together under my study window, Uke three sea-gulls screaming and sputtering in a gale of wind. But, come, wend we on our way to Knockwinnock.' CHAPTER XII Beggar! The only freeman of your commonwealth; Free above Scot-free, that observe no laws, Obey no governor, use no religion But what they draw from their own ancient custom, Ot constitute themselves, yet they are no rebels. Brome. With our readers^ permission we will outstep the slow though sturdy pace of the Antiquary, whose halts, as he turned round to his companion at every moment to point out something remarkable in the landscape, or to enforce some favourite topic more emphatically than the exercise of walking permitted, delayed their progress considerably. Notwithstanding the fatigues and dangers of the pre- ceding evening, Miss Wardour was able to rise at her usual hour, and to apply herself to her usual occupa- tions, after she had first satisfied her anxiety concerning her father's state of health. Sir Arthur was no farther indisposed than by the effects of great agitation and unusual fatigue, but these were sufficient to induce him to keep his bedchamber. To look back on the events of the preceding day was to Isabella a very unpleasing retrospect. She owed her life, and that of her father, to the very person by whom, of all others, she wished least to be obliged, because she could hardly even express common gratitude towards him without encouraging hopes which might be injurious to them both. 'Why should it be my fate to receive such benefits, and conferred at so much personal risk, 144 THE ANTIQUARY from one whose romantic passion I have so unceasingly laboured to discourage? Why should chance have given him this advantage over me? and why, oh why, should a half-subdued feeUng in my own bosom, in spite of my sober reason, almost rejoice that he has attained it!' While Miss Wardour thus taxed herself with way- ward caprice, she beheld advancing down the avenue, not her younger and more dreaded preserver, but the old beggar who had made such a capital figure in the melo- drama of the preceding evening. She rang the bell for her maid-servant. ^ Bring the old man upstairs.' The servant returned in a minute or two. 'He will come up at no rate, madam; he says his clouted shoes never were on a carpet in his Ufe, and that, please God, they never shall. Must I take him into the servants* hall?' 'No; stay, I want to speak with him. Where is he?' for she had lost sight of him as he approached the house. 'Sitting in the sun on the stone-bench in the court, beside the window of the flagged parlour.' 'Bid him stay there; I'll come down to the parlour and speak with him at the window.' She came down accordingly, and found the mendicant half-seated, half-reclining upon the bench beside the window. Edie Ochiltree, old man and beggar as he was, had apparently some internal consciousness of the favourable impressions connected with his tall form, commanding features, and long white beard and hair. It used to be remarked of him, that he was seldom seen but in a posture which showed these personal attributes to advantage. At present, as he lay half-reclined, with « I4S WAVERLEY NOVELS his wrinkled yet ruddy cheek and keen grey eye turned up towards the sky, his staff and bag laid beside him, and a cast of homely wisdom and sarcastic irony in the expression of his countenance, while he gazed for a moment around the courtyard, and then resumed his former look upward, he might have been taken by an artist as the model of an old philosopher of the Cynic school, musing upon the frivolity of mortal pursuits, and the precarious tenure of human possessions, and looking up to the source from which aught permanently good can alone be derived. The young lady, as she presented her tall and elegant figure at the open window, but divided from the courtyard by a grating, with which, according to the fashion of ancient times, the lower windows of the castle were secured, gave an interest of a different kind, and might be supposed by a romantic imagination an imprisoned damsel communicating a tale of her durance to a palmer, in order that he might call upon the gallantry of every knight whom he should meet in his wanderings to rescue her from her oppressive thraldom. After Miss Wardour had offered, in the terms she thought would be most acceptable, those thanks which the beggar decKned as far beyond his merit, she began to express herself in a manner which she supposed would speak more feelingly to his apprehension. 'She did not know,' she said, 'what her father intended particularly to do for their preserver, but certainly it would be some- thing that would make him easy for Ufe; if he chose to reside at the castle she would give orders — ' The old man smiled and shook his head. 'I wad be baith a grievance and a disgrace to your fine servants, 146 THE ANTIQUARY my leddy, and I have never been a disgrace to ony body yet, that I ken of/ ^Sir Arthur would give strict orders — ' ^ Ye're very kind, I doubtna, I doubtna; but there are some things a master can command and some he canna. I daresay he wad gar them keep hands aff me — and troth, I think they wad hardly venture on that ony gate — and he wad gar them gie me my soup parritch and bit meat. But trow ye that Sir Arthur's command could forbid the gibe o' the tongue or the blink o' the ee, or gar them gie me my food wi' the look o' kindness that gars it digest sae weel, or that he could make them for- bear a' the shghts and taunts that hurt ane's spirit mair nor downright misca'ing? Besides, I am the idlest auld carle that ever lived; I downa be bound down to hours o' eating and sleeping; and, to speak the honest truth, I wad be a very bad example in ony weel-regulated family.' ^ Well then, Edie, what do you think of a neat cottage and a garden, and a daily dole, and nothing to do but to dig a little in your garden when you pleased yourself? ' * An how often wad that be, trow ye, my leddy? maybe no ance atween Candlemas and Yule. And if a' thing were done to my hand as if I was Sir Arthur himsell, I could never bide the staying still in ae place, and just seeing the same joists and couples aboon my head night after night. And then I have a queer humour o' my ain, that sets a strolling beggar weel eneugh, whase word naebody minds; but ye ken Sir Arthur has odd sort o' ways, and I wad be jesting or scorning at them, and ye wad be angry, and then I wad be just fit to hang mysell/ *0, you are a licensed man,' said Isabella; 'we shall 147 WAVERLEY NOVELS give you all reasonable scope. So you had better be ruled, and remember your age/ 'But I am no that sair failed yet/ replied the mendi- cant. * Od, ance I gat a wee soupled yestreen I was as yauld as an eel. And then what wad a' the country about do for want o' auld Edie Ochiltree, that brings news and country cracks frae ae farm-steading to anither, and gingerbread to the lasses, and helps the lads to mend their fiddles, and the guidwives to clout their pans, and plaits rush-swords and grenadier caps for the weans, and busks the laird's flees, and has skill o' cow-ills and horse-ills, and kens mair auld sangs and tales than a' the barony besides, and gars ilka body laugh wherever he comes? Troth, my leddy , I canna lay down my vocation : it would be a pubUc loss.' ^Well, Edie, if your idea of your importance is so strong as not to be shaken by the prospect of independ- ence — ' 'Na, na. Miss; it's because I am mair independent as I am,' answered the old man. 'I beg nae mair at ony single house than a meal o' meat, or maybe but a mouthfou o't; if it's refused at ae place, I get it at an- ither, sae I canna be said to depend on ony body in par- ticular, but just on the country at large.' 'Well, then, only promise me that you will let me know should you ever wish to settle as you turn old, and more incapable of making your usual rounds; and in the meantime take this.' 'Na, na, my leddy; I downa take muckle siller at anes, it's against our rule; and — though it's maybe no civil to be repeating the like o' that — they say that siller's like to be scarce wi' Sir Arthur himsell, and that he's 148 THE ANTIQUARY run himsell out o' thought wi' his houkings and minings for lead and copper yonder/ Isabella had some anxious anticipations to the same effect, but was shocked to hear that her father's embar- rassments were such public talk; as if scandal ever failed to stoop upon so acceptable a quarry as the failings of the good man, the decline of the powerful, or the decay of the prosperous. Miss Wardour sighed deeply. 'Well, Edie, we have enough to pay our debts, let folks say what they will, and requiting you is one of the foremost; let me press this sum upon you.' 'That I might be robbed and murdered some night between town and town? or, what 's as bad, that I might live in constant apprehension o't? I am no (low- ering his voice to a whisper and looking keenly around him) — I am no that clean unprovided for neither; and though I should die at the back of a dike, they '11 find as muckle quilted in this auld blue gown as will bury me like a Christian, and gie the lads and lasses a blythe lyke-wake too; sae there 's the gaberlunzie's burial pro- vided for, and I need nae mair. Were the like o' me ever to change a note, wha the deil d' ye think wad be sic fules as to gie me charity after that? It wad flee through the country like wild fire that auld Edie suld hae done siccan a like thing, and then I'se warrant I might grane my heart out or ony body wad gie me either a bane or a bodle.' 'Is there nothing, then, that I can do for you?' 'Ou ay! I'll aye come for my awmous as usual; and whiles I wad be fain o' a pickle sneeshin, and ye maun speak to the constable and ground-officer just to ower- look me, and maybe ye '11 gie a gude word for me to 149 WAVERLEY NOVELS Sandie Netherstanes, the miller, that he may chain up his muckle dog; I wadna hae him to hurt the puir beast, for it just does its ofl&ce in barking at a gaberlunzie hke me. And there's ae thing maybe mair, but ye '11 think it's very bauld o' the like o' me to speak o't.' 'What is it, Edie? if it respects you it shall be done, if it is in my power.' *It respects yoursell, and it is in your power, and I maun come out wi't. Ye are a bonny young leddy, and a gude ane, and maybe a weel-tochered ane; but dinna ye sneer awa the lad Lovel, as ye did a while sinsyne on the walk beneath the Brierybank, when I saw ye baith, and heard ye too, though ye saw nae me. Be canny wi' the lad, for he loes ye weel, and it 's to him, and no to ony thing I could have done for you, that Sir Arthur and you wan ower yestreen.' He uttered these words in a low but distinct tone of voice; and, without waiting for an answer, walked towards a low door which led to the apartments of the servants, and so entered the house. Miss Wardour remained for a moment or two in the situation in which she had heard the old man's last ex- traordinary speech, leaning, namely, against the bars of the window, nor could she determine upon saying even a single word relative to a subject so delicate until the beggar was out of sight. It was, indeed, difficult to de- termine what to do. That her having had an interview and private conversation with this young and unknown stranger should be a secret possessed by a person of the last class in which a young lady would seek a confident, and at the mercy of one who was by profession gossip- general to the whole neighbourhood, gave her acute ISO THE ANTIQUARY agony. She had no reason, indeed, to suppose that the old man would wilfully do anything to hurt her feelings, much less to injure her; but the mere freedom of speak- ing to her upon such a subject showed, as might have been expected, a total absence of delicacy; and what he might take it into his head to do or say next, that she was pretty sure so professed an admirer of liberty would not hesitate to do or say without scruple. This idea so much hurt and vexed her that she half- wished the oflBi- cious assistance of Lovel and Ochiltree had been absent upon the preceding evening. While she was in this agitation of spirits, she suddenly observed Oldbuck and Lovel entering the court. She drew instantly so far back from the window that she could, without being seen, observe how the Antiquary paused in front of the building, and, pointing to the va- rious scutcheons of its former owners, seemed in the act of bestowing upon Lovel much curious and erudite in- formation, which, from the absent look of his auditor, Isabella might shrewdly guess was entirely thrown away. The necessity that she should take some resolu- tion became instant and pressing; she rang, therefore, for a servant, and ordered him to show the visitors to the drawing-room, while she, by another staircase, gained her own apartment, to consider, ere she made her appearance, what line of conduct were fittest for her to pursue. The guests, agreeably to her instructions, were introduced into the room where company was usually received. CHAPTER XIII The time was that I hated thee, And yet it is not that I bear thee love. Thy company, which erst was irksome to me, I will endure — But do not look for further recompense. As You Like It. Miss Isabella Wardour's complexion was considerably heightened when, after the delay necessary to arrange her ideas, she presented herself in the drawing-room. am glad you are come, my fair foe,' said the Anti- quary, greeting her with much kindness, ' for I have had a most refractory, or at least negligent, auditor, in my young friend here, while I endeavoured to make him ac- quainted with the history of Knockwinnock Castle. I think the danger of last night has mazed the poor lad. But you, Miss Isabel, why, you look as if flying through the night air had been your natural and most congenial occupation. Your colour is even better than when you honoured my hospitium yesterday. And Sir Arthur — how fares my good old friend?' 'Indifferently well, Mr. Oldbuck; but, I am afraid, not quite able to receive your congratulations, or to pay — to pay — Mr. Lovel his thanks for his unparalleled exertions.' ' I daresay not. A good down pillow for his good white head were more meet than a couch so churlish as Bessy's Apron, plague on her!' *I had no thought of intruding,' said Lovel, looking upon the ground, and speaking with hesitation and sup- 152 THE ANTIQUARY pressed emotion — 'I did not — did not mean to in- trude upon Sir Arthur or Miss Wardour the presence of one who — who must necessarily be unwelcome — as associated, I mean, with painful reflections.' ^Do not think my father so unjust and ungrateful,' said Miss Wardour. daresay,' she continued, partici- pating in LoveFs embarrassment — *I daresay — I am certain — that my father would be happy to show his gratitude — in any way, that is, which Mr. Lovel could consider it as proper to point out.' ^Why, the deuce,' interrupted Oldbuck, 'what sort of a qualification is that? On my word, it reminds me of our minister, who, choosing, like a formal old fop as he is, to drink to my sister's inclinations, thought it necessary to add the saving clause, "Provided, madam, they be virtuous." Come, let us have no more of this nonsense. I daresay Sir Arthur will bid us welcome on some future day. And what news from the kingdom of subterranean darkness and airy hope? What says the swart spirit of the mine? Has Sir Arthur had any good inteUigence of his adventure lately in Glen Withershins? ' Miss Wardour shook her head — 'But indifferent, I fear, Mr. Oldbuck; but there lie some specimens which have lately been sent down.' 'Ah! my poor dear hundred pounds, which Sir Arthur persuaded me to give for a share in that hopeful scheme, would have bought a porter's load of mineralogy. But let me see them.' And so saying, he sat down at the table in the recess, on which the mineral productions were lying, and pro- ceeded to examine them, grumbling and pshawing at each which he took up and laid aside. IS3 WAVERLEY NOVELS In the meantime Lovel, forced as it were by this seces- sion of Oldbuck into a sort of tete-d-tete with Miss Ward- our, took an opportunity of addressing her in a low and interrupted tone of voice. *I trust Miss Wardour will impute to circumstances almost irresistible this intru- sion of a person who has reason to think himself — so unacceptable a visitor.' ^Mr. Lovel/ answered Miss Wardour, observing the same tone of caution, ' I trust you will not — I am sure you are incapable of abusing the advantages given to you by the services you have rendered us, which, as they affect my father, can never be sufficiently acknowledged or repaid. Could Mr. Lovel see me without his own peace being affected — could he see me as a friend — as a sister — no man will be — and, from all I have ever heard of Mr. Lovel, ought to be — more welcome; but Oldbuck's anathema against the preposition 'but' was internally echoed by Lovel. * Forgive me if I interrupt you, Miss Wardour. You need not fear my intruding upon a subject where I have been already severely repressed; but do not add to the severity of repelling my sentiments the rigour of obliging me to disavow them.' 'I am much embarrassed, Mr. Lovel,' replied the young lady, 'by your — I would not willingly use a strong word — your romantic and hopeless pertinacity. It is for yourself I plead, that you would consider the calls which your country has upon your talents, that you will not waste, in an idle and fanciful indulgence of an ill-placed predilection, time which, well redeemed by active exertion, should lay the foundation of future dis- 154 THE ANTIQUARY tinction; let me entreat that you would form a manly resolution — ' ^It is enough, Miss Wardour; I see plainly that — ' ^Mr. Lovel, you are hurt, and, believe me, I sympa- thise in the pain which I inflict; but can I, in justice to myself, in fairness to you, do otherwise? Without my father's consent I never will entertain the addresses of any one, and how totally impossible it is that he should countenance the partiality with which you honour me, you are yourself fully aware; and, indeed — ' 'No, Miss Wardour,' answered Lovel, in a tone of passionate entreaty, ' do not go farther — is it not enough to crush every hope in our present relative situation? — do not carry your resolutions farther; why urge what would be your conduct if Sir Arthur's objections could be removed? ' 'It is indeed vain, Mr. Lovel,' said Miss Wardour, 'because their removal is impossible; and I only wish, as your friend, and as one who is obliged to you for her own and her father's life, to entreat you to suppress this unfortunate attachment, to leave a country which affords no scope for your talents, and to resume the honourable line of the profession which you seem to have abandoned.' 'Well, Miss Wardour, your wishes shall be obeyed. Have patience with me one little month, and if in the course of that space I cannot show you such reasons for continuing my residence at Fairport as even you shall approve of, I will bid adieu to its vicinity, and with the same breath to all my hopes of happiness.' 'Not so, Mr. Lovel; many years of deserved happi- ness, founded on a more rational basis than your present WAVERLEY NOVELS wishes, are, I trust, before you. But it is full time to fin- ish this conversation. I cannot force you to adopt my advice. I cannot shut the door of my father's house against the preserver of his Ufe and mine; but the sooner Mr. Lovel can teach his mind to submit to the inevitable disappointment of wishes which have been so rashly formed, the more highly he will rise in my esteem; and, in the meanwhile, for his sake as well as mine, he must excuse my putting an interdict upon conversation on a subject so painful.' A servant at this moment announced that Sir Arthur desired to speak with Mr. Oldbuck in his dressing-room. ^Let me show you the way,' said Miss Wardour, who apparently dreaded a continuation of her tete-d4ete w^h Lovel, and she conducted the Antiquary accordingly to her father's apartment. Sir Arthur, his legs swathed in flannel, was stretched on the couch. ^Welcome, Mr. Oldbuck,' he said; trust you have come better off than I have done from the inclemency of yesterday evening?' 'Truly, Sir Arthur, I was not so much exposed to it: I kept terra firma; you fairly committed yourself to the cold night-air in the most literal of all senses. But such adventures become a gallant knight better than a humble esquire — to rise on the wings of the night- wind, to dive into the bowels of the earth. What news from our subterranean Good Hope — the terra incog- nita of Glen Withershins? ' 'Nothing good as yet,' said the Baronet, turning him- self hastily, as if stung by a pang of the gout; 'but Dousterswivel does not despair.' 'Does he not?' quoth Oldbuck; 'I do though, under 156 THE ANTIQUARY his favour. Why, old Dr. H told me, when I was in Edinburgh, that we should never find copper enough, judging from the specimens I showed him, to make a pair of sixpenny knee-buckles; and I cannot see that those samples on the table below differ much in quality.' 'The learned doctor is not infallible, I presume?' ' No ; but he is one of our first chemists ; and this tramp- ing philosopher of yours, this Dousterswivel, is, I have a notion, one of those learned adventurers described by Kircher, Artem habent sine artCj partem sine parte ^ quo- rum medium est mentiriy vita eorum mendicatum ire; that is to say. Miss Wardour — ' 'It is unnecessary to translate,' said Miss Wardour, 'I comprehend your general meaning; but I hope Mr. Dousterswivel will turn out a more trustworthy char- acter.' 'I doubt it not a little,' said the Antiquary, 'and we are a foul way out if we cannot discover this infernal vein that he has prophesied about these two years.' ' You have no great interest in the matter, Mr. Old- buck,' said the Baronet. 'Too much, too much, Sir Arthur; and yet, for the sake of my fair foe here, I would consent to lose it all so you had no more on the venture.' There was a painful silence of a few moments, for Sir Arthur was too proud to acknowledge the downfall of his golden dreams, though he could no longer disguise to himself that such was Ukely to be the termination of the adventure. * I understand,' he at length said, 'that the young gentleman to whose gallantry and presence of ^ Probably Dr. Hutton, the celebrated geologist. 157 WAVERLEY NOVELS mind we were so much indebted last night has favoured me with a visit; I am distressed that I am unable to see him, or indeed any one but an old friend like you, Mr. Oldbuck/ A declination of the Antiquary's stiff backbone ac- knowledged the preference. * You made acquaintance with this young gentleman in Edinburgh, I suppose? ' Oldbuck told the circimistances of their becoming known to each other. * Why, then, my daughter is an older acquaintance of Mr. Lovel than you are,' said the Baronet. 'Indeed! I was not aware of that,' answered Oldbuck, somewhat surprised. 'I met Mr. Lovel,' said Isabella, slightly colouring, ' *when I resided this last spring with my aunt, Mrs. Wilmot.' 'In Yorkshire? and what character did he bear then, or how was he engaged?' said Oldbuck; 'and why did not you recognise him when I introduced you?' Isabella answered the least difficult question, and passed over the other. 'He had a commission in the army, and had, I believe, served with reputation; he was much respected as an amiable and promising young man.' 'And pray, such being the case,' replied the Anti- quary, not disposed to take one reply in answer to two distinct questions, 'why did you not speak to the lad at once when you met him at my house? I thought you e>^ had less of the paltry pride of womankind about you, Miss Wardour.' 'There was a reason for it,' said Sir Arthur, with dig- 158 THE ANTIQUARY nity ; 'you know the opinions — prejudices, perhaps you will call them — of our house concerning purity of birth. This young gentleman is, it seems, the illegitimate son of a man of fortune; my daughter did not choose to renew their acquaintance till she should know whether I approved of her holding any intercourse with him.' *If it had been with his mother instead of himself,' answered Oldbuck, with his usual dry causticity of humour, ^ I could see an excellent reason for it. Ah, poor lad! that was the cause then that he seemed so absent and confused while I explained to him the reason of the bend of bastardy upon the shield yonder under the corner turret!' 'True,' said the Baronet with complacency, 'it is the shield of Malcolm the Usurper, as he is called. The tower which he built is termed, after him, Malcolm's Tower, but more frequently Misticot's Tower, which I conceive to be a corruption for '^Misbegot." He is denominated, in the Latin pedigree of our family, Mil- columhus Nothus; and his temporary seizure of our prop- erty, and most unjust attempt to estabhsh his own ille- gitimate hne in the estate of Knockwinnock, gave rise to such family feuds and misfortunes as strongly to found us in that horror and antipathy to defiled blood and illegitimacy which has been handed down to me from my respected ancestry.' ^ 'I know the story,' said Oldbuck, 'and I was telhng it to Lovel this moment, with some of the wise maxims and consequences which it has engrafted on your fam- ily politics. Poor fellow! he must have been much hurt; I took the wavering of his attention for negligence, and was something piqued at it, and it proves to be only 159 WAVERLEY NOVELS an excess of feeling. I hope, Sir Arthur, you will not think the less of your Ufe because it has been preserved by such assistance? ' ^Nor the less of my assistant either,' said the Baronet; 'my doors and table shall be equally open to him as if he had descended of the most unblemished Hneage.' * Come, I am glad of that; he '11 know where he can get a dinner, then, if he wants one. But what views can he have in this neighbourhood? I must catechise him ; and if I find he wants it — or, indeed, whether he does or not — he shall have my best advice.' As the Antiquary made this liberal promise, he took his leave of Miss Wardour and her father, eager to commence operations upon Mr. Lovel. He informed him abruptly that Miss Wardour sent her compKments, and remained in attendance on her father, and then, taking him by the arm, he led him out of the castle. Knockwinnock still preserved much of the external attributes of a baronial castle. It had its drawbridge, though now never drawn up, and its dry moat, the sides of which had been planted with shrubs, chiefly of the i>l&4yt- evergreen tribes. Above these rose the old building, partly from a foundation of red rock scarped down to the sea-beach, and partly from the steep green verge of the moat. The trees of the avenue have been already mentioned, and many others rose around of large size, as if to confute the prejudice that timber cannot be raised near to the ocean. Our walkers paused and looked back upon the castle as they attained the height of a small knoll, over which lay their homeward road, for it is to be supposed they did not tempt the risk of the tide by re- turning along the sands. The building flung its broad i6o THE ANTIQUARY shadow upon the tufted foliage of the shrubs beneath it, while the front windows sparkled in the sun. They were viewed by the gazers with very different feelings. Lovel, with the fond eagerness of that passion which derives its food and nourishment from trifles, as the cameleon is said to live on the air, or upon the invisible insects which it contains, endeavoured to conjecture which of the numerous windows belonged to the apartment now graced by Miss Wardour's presence. The speculations of the Antiquary were of a more melancholy cast, and were partly indicated by the ejaculation of ^ Cito peri- tura / ' as he turned away from the prospect. Lovel, roused from his reverie, looked at him as if to inquire the meaning of an exclamation so ominous. The old man shook his head. ^Yes, my young friend,' said he, 'I doubt greatly — and it wrings my heart to say it — this ancient family is going fast to the ground!' * Indeed ! ' answered Lovel. ' You surprise me greatly ! ' *We harden ourselves in vain,' continued the Anti- quary, pursuing his own train of thought and feeling — 'we harden ourselves in vain to treat with the indiffer- ence they deserve the changes of this trumpery whirligig world. We strive ineffectually to be the self-sufficing invulnerable being, the teres atque rotundus of the poet; the stoical exemption which philosophy affects to give us over the pains and vexations of human life is as im- aginary as the state of mystical quietism and perfection aimed at by some crazy enthusiasts.' *And Heaven forbid that it should be otherwise!' said Lovel, warmly — * Heaven forbid that any process of philosophy were capable so to sear and indurate our feelings that nothing should agitate them but what 5 i6i WAVERLEY NOVELS arose instantly and immediately out of our own selfish interests ! I would as soon wish my hand to be as callous as horn, that it might escape an occasional cut or scratch, as I would be ambitious of the stoicism which should render my heart like a piece of the nether millstone.' The Antiquary regarded his youthful companion with a look half of pity, half of sympathy, and shrugged up his shoulders as he replied, ^Wait, young man — wait till your bark has been battered by the storm of sixty years of mortal vicissitude; you will learn by that time to reef your sails, that she may obey the helm; or, in the language of this world, you will find distresses enough, endured and to endure, to keep your feelings and sympathies in full exercise, without concerning yourself more in the fate of others than you cannot possibly avoid.' 'Well, Mr. Oldbuck, it may be so; but as yet I resem- ble you more in your practice than in your theory, for I cannot help being deeply interested in the fate of the family we have just left.' 'And well you may,' replied Oldbuck; 'Sir Arthur's embarrassments have of late become so many and so pressing that I am surprised you have not heard of them. And then his absurd and expensive operations carried on by this High-German land-louper, Douster- swivel — ' 'I think I have seen that person, when by some rare chance I happened to be in the coffee-room at Fair- port — a tall, beetle-browed, awkward-built man, who entered upon scientific subjects, as it appeared to my ignorance at least, with more assurance than knowledge, was very arbitrary in laying down and asserting his 162 THE ANTIQUARY opinions, and mixed the terms of science with a strange jargon of mysticism ; a simple youth whispered me that he was an Illumine^ and carried on an intercourse with the invisible world.' the same — the same; he has enough of practical knowledge to speak scholarly and wisely to those of whose intelligence he stands in awe; and, to say the truth, this faculty, joined to his matchless impudence, imposed upon me for some time when I first knew him. But I have since understood that, when he is among fools and womankind, he exhibits himself as a perfect charla- tan — talks of the magisterium, of sympathies and anti- pathies, of the cabala, of the divining rod, and all the trumpery with which the Rosicrucians cheated a darker age, and which, to our eternal disgrace, has in some degree revived in our own. My friend Heavysterne knew this fellow abroad, and unintentionally — for he, you must know, is, God bless the mark, a sort of believer — let me into a good deal of his real character. Ah ! were I caHph for a day, as honest Abou Hassan wished to be, I would scourge me these jugglers out of the com- monwealth with rods of scorpions. They debauch the spirit of the ignorant and credulous with mystical trash as effectually as if they had besotted their brains with gin, and then pick their pockets with the same facility. And now has this strolling blackguard and mountebank put the finishing blow to the ruin of an ancient and hon- ourable family!' ^But how could he impose upon Sir Arthur to any ruinous extent?' 'Why, I don't know; Sir Arthur is a good honourable gentleman, but, as you may see from his loose ideas con- 163 WAVERLEY NOVELS ceming the Pikish language, he is by no means very c!^^ strong in the understanding. His estate is strictly en- tailed, and he has been always an embarrassed man. This rapparee promised him mountains of wealth, and an English company was found to advance large sums of money — I fear on Sir Arthur's guarantee. Some gentlemen — I was ass enough to be one — took small shares in the concern, and Sir Arthur himself made great outlay; we were trained on by specious appear- ances and more specious lies, and now, like John Bun- yan, we awake and behold it is a dream.' am surprised that you, Mr. Oldbuck, should have encouraged Sir Arthur by your example.' * Why,' said Oldbuck, dropping his large grizzled eye- brow, ^ I am something surprised and ashamed at it my- self. It was not the lucre of gain: nobody cares less for money, to be a prudent man, than I do; but I thought I might risk this small sum. It will be expected, though I am sure I cannot see why, that I should give something to any one who will be kind enough to rid me of that slip of womankind, my niece, Mary M'Intyre; and per- haps it may be thought I should do something to get that jackanapes, her brother, on in the army. In either case, to treble my venture would have helped me out. And, besides, I had some idea that the Phoenicians had in former times wrought copper in that very spot. That cunning scoundrel, Dousterswivel, found out my blunt side, and brought strange tales, d — n him! of appear- ances of old shafts, and vestiges of mining operations, conducted in a manner quite different from those of modern times; and I — in short, I was a fool, and there is an end. My loss is not much worth speaking about; 164 THE ANTIQUARY but Sir Arthur's engagements are, I understand, very deep, and my heart aches for him, and the poor young lady who must share his distress/ Here the conversation paused, until renewed in the next chapter. CHAPTER XIV If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand. My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne. And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. Romeo and Juliet, The account of Sir Arthur's unhappy adventure had led Oldbuck somewhat aside from his purpose of catechising Lovel concerning the cause of his residence at Fairport. He was now, however, resolved to open the subject. ^ Miss Wardour was formerly known to you, she tells me, Mr. Lovel?' ' He had had the pleasure,' Lovel answered, ^ to see her at Mrs. Wilmot's, in Yorkshire.' ^ Indeed ! you never mentioned that to me before, and you did not accost her as an old acquaintance.' — I did not know,' said Lovel, a good deal em- barrassed, *it was the same lady till we met; and then it was my duty to wait till she should recognise me.' am aware of your dehcacy ; the knight 's a punctili- ous old fool, but I promise you his daughter is above all nonsensical ceremony and prejudice. And now, since you have found a new set of friends here, may I ask if you intend to leave Fairport as soon as you proposed?' ^What if I should answer your question by another,' replied Lovel, ^and ask you what is your opinion of dreams?' ^ Of dreams, you foolish lad ! why, what should I think