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-The Project Gutenberg EBook The Antiquary, By Sir Walter Scott, Complete
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-Title: The Antiquary, Complete
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-Author: Sir Walter Scott
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-Release Date: December 2004  [EBook #7005]
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-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANTIQUARY, COMPLETE ***
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-This eBook was produced by David Widger  [widger@cecomet.net]
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-
-
-                              THE ANTIQUARY
-
-                       BY SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.
-
-
-           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 narratives, 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 eighteenth
-century. I have, in the two last narratives especially, sought my
-principal personages in the class of society who are the last to feel the
-influence of that general 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 eloquence of Scripture, in the mouths
-of those of an elevated understanding, give pathos to their grief, and
-dignity to their resentment.
-
-I have been more solicitous to describe manners minutely than to arrange
-in any case an artificial and combined 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 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,
-respecting the character of Jonathan Oldbuck.
-
-"I may here state generally, that although I have deemed historical
-personages free subjects of delineation, 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, followed 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 resemblance to real
-individuals. Yet I must own my attempts 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 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 character of a
-very intimate friend* of my father's family."
-
-* [The late George Constable of Wallace Craigie, near Dundee.]
-
-I have only farther to request the reader not to suppose that my late
-respected friend resembled Mr. Oldbuck, 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 soundness
-of thought, rendered more forcible by an occasional quaintness of
-expression, were, the author conceives, the only qualities in which the
-creature of his imagination 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 remarks of 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
-_Reliquiae Divi Sancti Andreae,_ 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. Oldbuck 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 ancient surnames of Scotland, from old
-experience and observation. Some of them I have discoursed, and found to
-have reason and discretion. One of then 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, 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
-delighted in the amusement their discourse afforded, seems to have looked
-forward with gloomy firmness to the possibility 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 considered 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 lie 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
-counterbalance the hardship and uncertainty of the life, 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 life of a Scottish mendicant of the eighteenth century seems to
-have been contemplated without much 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, intact, some privileges. 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 "twalpenny,"
-or English penny, which was expended in snuff or whiskey. 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 mendicant 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 parson 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 Catholic Church, and who where 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 number of years which his Majesty
-has lived; and one Blue-Gown additional is put on the roll for every
-returning royal birth-day. On the same auspicious era, each Bedesman
-receives a new cloak, or gown of coarse cloth, the 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 birth-day, 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 Johnson'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.
-
-
-
-                              BLEW GOWNIS.
-
-In the Account of Sir Robert Melvill of Murdocarney,
-Treasurer-Depute of King James IV., there are the following 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 viii xx viii elnis clayth; price of the elne
-xxiiij _s. _                             Inde, ij _c_j _li. _xij _s. _
-
-"Item, for sextene elnis bukrum to the saidis gownis, price of the elne x
-_s. _                                    Inde,viij _li. _
-
-"Item, twentie four pursis, and in ilk purse twentie four schelling
-                                        Inde, xxciij _li. _ xvj _s. _
-
-"Item, the price of ilk purse iiij _d. _      Inde, viij _s. _
-
-"Item, for making of the saidis gownis       viij _li. _"
-
-
-In the Account of John, Earl of Mar, Great Treasurer of Scotland, and of
-Sir Gideon Murray of Enbank, Treasurer-Depute, the Blue-Gowns also appear
-thus:--
-
-                              "Junij 1617.
-
-"Item, to James Murray, merchant, for fyftene scoir sex elnis and aine
-half elne of blew claith to be gownis to fyftie ane aigeit men, according
-to the yeiris of his Majesteis age, at xl _s. _ the elne
-                                        Inde,vj _c_ xiij _li. _
-
-"Item, to workmen for careing the blewis to James Aikman, tailyeour, his
-hous xiij _s. _ iiij _d. _
-
-"Item, for sex elnis and ane half of harden to the saidis gownis, at vj
-_s. _ viij _d. _ the elne                 Inde,xliij _s. _iiij _d. _
-
-"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 _s. _ the peice
-                                        Inde,xxx _li. _xij _s. _
-
-"Item, for fyftie ane pursis to the said puire menlj _s. _
-
-"Item, to Sir Peter Young,li _s. _ to be put in everie ane of the saidis
-ljpursis to the said poore men j _c_xxxl jj _s. _
-
-"Item, to the said Sir Peter, to buy breid and drink to the said puir men
-vj _li. _xiij _s. _iiij _d. _
-
-"Item, to the said Sir Peter, to be delt amang uther puire folk j _c_li.
-
-"Item, upoun the last day of Junii 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 conversed 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 soldierlike or
-military manner and address. His features were intelligent, with a
-powerful expression of sarcasm. His motions 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. Andrew 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 Shakespeare's jesters, though without using, like them,
-the cloak of insanity. It was some fear of Andrew's satire, as much as a
-feeling 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 established character for wit glides through the fashionable world,
-Many of his good things are held in remembrance, 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 Doctor 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 window 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, Dr. Douglas observed, that the laird was no
-doubt a humourist 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 supposed to have, much
-money about his person, as would have been thought the value of his life
-among modern foot-pads. On one occasion, a country gentleman, generally
-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 profession, the modern
-degradation which mendicity has undergone 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; considering 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 Potterrow-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 Andrew
-Gemmells' sarcastic humour and stately deportment. 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 where 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
-Saturday, "on a shoulder of mutton and potatoes," adding, "ye'll 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, considering the character and circumstances of
-the old man, to decline the invitation.
-
-Such are a few traits of Scottish mendicity, designed to throw light 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
-importance assigned him; and have shown, that we have known one beggar
-take a hand at cards with a person of distinction, and another give
-dinner parties.
-
-I know not if it be worth while to observe, that the Antiquary,* was not
-so well received on its first appearance as either of its predecessors,
-though in course of time it rose to equal, and, with some readers,
-superior popularity.
-
-* Note A. Mottoes.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-                          EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
-
-                                    TO
-
-                              THE ANTIQUARY.
-
-
-"THE ANTIQUARY" was begun in 1815; the bargain for its publication by
-Constable was made in the October of that year. On December 22 Scott
-wrote to Morritt: "I shall set myself seriously to 'The Antiquary,' of
-which I have only a very general sketch at present; but when once I get
-my pen to the paper it will walk fast enough. I am sometimes tempted to
-leave it alone, and try whether it will not write as well without the
-assistance of my head as with it,--a hopeful prospect for the reader!'"
-It is amazing enough that he even constructed "a general sketch," for to
-such sketches he confesses that he never could keep constant. "I have
-generally written to the middle of one of these novels without having the
-least idea how it was to end,--in short, in the _hab nab at a venture
-style_ of composition" (Journal, Feb. 24, 1828). Yet it is almost
-impossible but that the plot of "The Antiquary" should have been duly
-considered. Scott must have known from the first who Lovel was to turn
-out to be, and must have recognised in the hapless bride of Lord
-Glenallan the object of the Antiquary's solitary and unfortunate passion.
-To introduce another Wandering Heir immediately after the Harry Bertram
-of "Guy Mannering" was rather audacious. But that old favourite, the Lost
-Heir, is nearly certain to be popular. For the Antiquary's immortal
-sorrow Scott had a model in his own experience. "What a romance to tell!
---and told, I fear, it will one day be. And then my three years of
-dreaming and my two years of wakening will be chronicled doubtless. But
-the dead will feel no pain." The dead, as Aristotle says, if they care
-for such things at all, care no more than we do for what has passed in a
-dream.
-
-The general sketch probably began to take full shape about the last day
-of 1815. On December 29 Scott wrote to Ballantyne:--
-
-DEAR JAMES,--
-
-               I've done, thank'God, with the long yarns
-                   Of the most prosy of Apostles--Paul,1
-               And now advance, sweet heathen of Monkbarns,
-                  Step out, old quizz, as fast as I can scrawl.
-
-In "The Antiquary" Scott had a subject thoroughly to his mind. He had
-been an antiquary from his childhood. His earliest pence had been devoted
-to that collection of printed ballads which is still at Abbotsford. These
-he mentions in the unfinished fragment of his "Reliquiae Trotcosienses,"
-in much the same words as in his manuscript note on one of the seven
-volumes.
-
-"This little collection of Stall tracts and ballads was formed by me,
-when a boy, from the baskets of the travelling pedlars. Until put into
-its present decent binding it had such charms for the servants that it
-was repeatedly, and with difficulty, recovered from their clutches. It
-contains most of the pieces that were popular about thirty years since,
-and, I dare say, many that could not now be procured for any price
-(1810)."
-
-Nor did he collect only--
-
-                      "The rare melody of some old ditties
-          That first were sung to please King Pepin's cradle.
-
-"Walter had soon begun to gather out-of-the-way things of all sorts. He
-had more books than shelves [sic]; a small painted cabinet with Scotch
-and Roman coins in it, and so forth. A claymore and Lochaber axe, given
-him by old Invernahyle, mounted guard on a little print of Prince
-Charlie; and Broughton's Saucer was hooked up on the wall below it."
-He had entered literature through the ruined gateway of archleology, in
-the "Border Minstrelsy," and his last project was an edition of
-Perrault's "Contes de Ma Mere l'Oie." As pleasant to him as the purchase
-of new lands like Turn Again, bought dearly, as in Monkbarns's case, from
-"bonnet lauds," was a fresh acquisition of an old book or of old armour.
-Yet, with all his enthusiasm, he did not please the antiquaries of his
-own day. George Chalmers, in Constable's "Life and Correspondence" (i.
-431), sneers at his want of learning. "His notes are loose and unlearned,
-as they generally are." Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, his friend in life,
-disported himself in jealous and ribald mockery of Scott's archaeological
-knowledge, when Scott was dead. In a letter of the enigmatic Thomas
-Allen, or James Stuart Hay, father of John Sobieski and Charles Edward
-Stuart, this mysterious person avers that he never knew Scott's opinion
-to be held as of any value by antiquaries (1829). They probably missed in
-him "a sort of pettifogging intimacy with dates, names, and trifling
-matters of fact,--a tiresome and frivolous accuracy of memory" which Sir
-Arthur Wardour reproves in Monkbarns. Scott, in brief, was not a Dry-as-
-dust; all the dead bones that he touches come to life. He was as great an
-archeologist as a poet can be, and, with Virgil, was the greatest
-antiquary among poets. Like Monkbarns, he was not incapable of being
-beguiled. As Oldbuck bought the bodle from the pedlar at the price of a
-rare coin, so Scott took Surtees's "Barthram's Dirge," and his Latin
-legend of the tourney with the spectre knight, for genuine antiquities.
-No Edie Ochiltree ever revealed to him the truth about these forgeries,
-and the spectre knight, with the ballad of "Anthony Featherstonhaugh,"
-hold their own in "Marmion," to assure the world that this antiquary was
-gullible when the sleight was practised by a friend. "Non est tanti," he
-would have said, had he learned the truth; for he was ever conscious of
-the humorous side of the study of the mouldering past. "I do not know
-anything which relieves the mind so much from the sullens as a trifling
-discourse about antiquarian oldwomanries. It is like knitting a
-stocking,--diverting the mind without occupying it." ("Journal,"
-March 9, 1828).
-
-Begun about Jan. 1, 1816, "The Antiquary" was published before May 16,
-1816, when Scott writes to say that he has sent Mr. Morritt the novel
-"some time since." "It is not so interesting as its predecessors; the
-period does not admit of so much romantic situation. But it has been more
-fortunate than any of them in the sale, for six thousand went off in the
-first six days, and it is now at press again." The Preface of the first
-edition ends with the melancholy statement that the author "takes his
-respectful leave, as one who is not likely again to solicit favour."
-Apparently Scott had already determined not to announce his next novels
-("The Black Dwarf" and "Old Mortality") as "by the Author of Waverley."
-Mr. Constable, in the biography of his father, says (iii. 84): "Even
-before the publication of 'The Antiquary,' John Ballantyne had been
-impowered by the Author to negotiate with Mr. Murray and Mr. Blackwood
-for the first series of the 'Tales of my Landlord.'" The note of
-withdrawal from the stage, in the first edition of "The Antiquary," was
-probably only a part of another experiment on public sagacity. As
-Lockhart says, Mr. Murray and Mr. Blackwood thought that the consequent
-absence of the Author of "Waverley's" name from the "Tales of my
-Landlord" would "check very much the first success of the book;" but they
-risked this, "to disturb Constable's tenure."
-
-Scott's temporary desertion of Constable in the "Tales of my Landlord"
-may have had various motives. There was a slight grudge against
-Constable, born of some complications of the Ballantynes' affairs.
-Perhaps the mere amusement of the experiment on public sagacity was one
-of the more powerful reasons for the change. In our day Lord Lytton and
-Mr. Trollope made similar trials of their popularity when anonymous, the
-former author with the greater success. The idea of these masquerades and
-veils of the incognito appears to have bewitched Constable. William
-Godwin was writing for him his novel "Mandeville," and Godwin had
-obviously been counselled to try a disguise. He says (Jan. 30, 1816) "I
-have amused my imagination a thousand times since last we parted with the
-masquerade you devised for me. The world is full of wonder. An old
-favourite is always reviewed with coldness. . . . 'Pooh,' they say;
-'Godwin has worn his pen to the stump!' . . . But let me once be equipped
-with a significant mask and an unknown character from your masquerade
-shop, and admitted to figure in with the 'Last Minstrel,' the 'Lady of
-the Lake,' and 'Guy Mannering' in the Scottish carnival, Gods! how the
-boys and girls will admire me! 'Here is a new wonder!' they will say.
-'Ah, this is something like! Here is Godwin beaten on his own ground. . .
-Here is for once a Scottish writer that they cannot say has anything of
-the Scotchman about him.'"
-
-However, Mr. Godwin did not don the mask and domino. "Mandeville" came
-out about the same time as "Rob Roy;" but the "craziness of the public"
-for the Author of "Waverley" was not changed into a passion for the
-father-in-law of Shelley.
-
-"'The Antiquary,' after a little pause of hesitation, attained popularity
-not inferior to 'Guy Mannering,' and though the author appears for a
-moment to have shared the doubts which he read in the countenance of
-James Ballantyne, it certainly was, in the sequel, his chief favourite
-among all his novels.'"
-
-As Scott said to Terry, "If a man will paint from nature, he will be
-likely to amuse those who are daily looking at it." The years which saw
-the first appearance of "Guy Mannering" also witnessed that of "Emma." By
-the singular chance, or law, which links great authors closely in time,
-giving us novelists in pairs, Miss Austen was "drawing from nature" at
-the very moment when Scott was wedding nature with romance. How
-generously and wisely he admired her is familiar, and it may, to some,
-seem curious that he never deliberately set himself to a picture of
-ordinary life, free from the intrusion of the unusual, of the heroic.
-Once, looking down at the village which lies on the Tweed, opposite
-Melrose, he remarked that under its roofs tragedies and tales were
-doubtless being lived. 'I undertake to say there is some real romance at
-this moment going on down there, that, if it could have justice done to
-it, would be well worth all the fiction that was ever spun out of human
-brains.'"  But the example he gave was terrible,--"anything more dreadful
-was never conceived by Crabbe;" yet, adds Lockhart, "it would never have
-entered into his head to elaborate such a tale." He could not dwell in
-the unbroken gloom dear to some modern malingerers. But he could easily
-have made a tale of common Scotch life, dark with the sorrow of
-Mucklebackit, and bright with the mirth of Cuddie Headrigg. There was,
-however, this difficulty,--that Scott cared not to write a story of a
-single class. "From the peer to the ploughman," all society mingles in
-each of his novels. A fiction of middle-class life did not allure him,
-and he was not at the best, but at his worst, as Sydney Smith observed,
-in the light talk of society. He could admire Miss Austen, and read her
-novels again and again; but had he attempted to follow her, by way of
-variety, then inevitably wild as well as disciplined humour would have
-kept breaking in, and his fancy would have wandered like the old knights
-of Arthur's Court, "at adventure." "St. Ronan's Well" proved the truth of
-all this. Thus it happens that, in "The Antiquary," with all his sympathy
-for the people, with all his knowledge of them, he does not confine
-himself to their cottages. As Lockhart says, in his admirable piece of
-criticism, he preferred to choose topics in which he could display "his
-highest art, that of skilful contrast."
-
-Even the tragic romance of "Waverley" does not set off its Macwheebles
-and Callum Begs better than the oddities of Jonathan Oldbuck and his
-circle are relieved, on the one hand by the stately gloom of the
-Glenallans, on the other by the stern affliction of the poor fisherman,
-who, when discovered repairing "the auld black bitch of a boat," in which
-his boy had been lost, and congratulated by his visitors on being capable
-of the exertion, makes answer, "And what would you have me to do, unless
-I wanted to see four children starve, because one is drowned? It 's weel
-with you gentles, that can sit in the house with handkerchers at your
-een, when ye lose a friend; but the like o' us maun to our work again,
-if our hearts were beating as hard as ony hammer." And to his work again
-Scott had to go when he lost the partner of his life.
-
-The simple unsought charm which Lockhart notes in "The Antiquary" may
-have passed away in later works, when what had been the amusement of
-happy days became the task of sadness. But this magic "The Antiquary"
-keeps perhaps beyond all its companions,--the magic of pleasant memories
-and friendly associations. The sketches of the epoch of expected
-invasion, with its patriotic musters and volunteer drillings, are
-pictures out of that part in the author's life which, with his early
-Highland wanderings ("Waverley") and his Liddesdale raids ("Guy
-Mannering"), was most dear to him. In "Redgauntlet," again, he makes, as
-Alan Fairford, a return on his youth and his home, and in "Rob Roy" he
-revives his Highland recollections, his Highland lairds of "the blawing,
-bleezing stories." None of the rest of the tales are so intimate in their
-connection with Scott's own personal history. "The Antiquary" has always,
-therefore, been held in the very first rank of his novels.
-
-As far as plot goes, though Godwin denied that it had any story, "The
-Antiquary" may be placed among the most careful. The underplot of the
-Glenallans, gloomy almost beyond endurance, is very ingeniously made to
-unravel the mystery of Lovel. The other side-narrative, that of
-Dousterswivel, is the weak point of the whole; but this Scott justifies
-by "very late instances of the force of superstitious credulity, to a
-much greater extent." Some occurrence of the hour may have suggested the
-knavish adept with his divining-rod. But facts are never a real excuse
-for the morally incredible, or all but incredible, in fiction. On the
-wealth and vraisemblance and variety of character it were superfluous to
-dilate. As in Shakspeare, there is not even a minor person but lives and
-is of flesh and blood, if we except, perhaps, Dousterswivel and Sir
-Arthur Wardour. Sir Arthur is only Sir Robert Hazlewood over again, with
-a slightly different folly and a somewhat more amiable nature. Lovel's
-place, as usual, is among the shades of heroes, and his love-affair is
-far less moving, far more summarily treated, than that of Jenny Caxon.
-The skilful contrasts are perhaps most remarkable when we compare Elspeth
-of the Burnfoot with the gossiping old women in the post-office at
-Fairport,--a town studied perhaps from Arbroath. It was the opinion of
-Sydney Smith that every one of the novels, before "The Fortunes of
-Nigel," contained a Meg Merrilies and a Dominie Sampson. He may have
-recognized a male Meg in Edie Ochiltree,--the invaluable character who is
-always behind a wall, always overhears everything, and holds the threads
-of the plot. Or he may have been hypercritical enough to think that
-Elspeth of the Burnfoot is the Meg of the romance. Few will agree with
-him that Meg Merrilies, in either of these cases, is "good, but good too
-often."
-
-The supposed "originals" of certain persons in the tale have been topics
-of discussion. The character of Oldbuck, like most characters in fiction,
-is a combination of traits observed in various persons. Scott says, in a
-note to the Ashiestiel fragment of Autobiography, that Mr. George
-Constable, an old friend of his father's, "had many of those
-peculiarities of character which long afterwards I tried to develop in
-the character of Jonathan Oldbuck." Sir Walter, when a child, made Mr.
-Constable's acquaintance at Prestonpans in 1777, where he explored the
-battle-field "under the learned guidance of Dalgetty." Mr. Constable
-first introduced him to Shakspeare's plays, and gave him his first German
-dictionary. Other traits may have been suggested by John Clerk of Eldin,
-whose grandfather was the hero of the story "Praetorian here, Praetorian
-there, I made it wi' a flaughter spade." Lockhart is no doubt right in
-thinking that Oldbuck is partly a caricature of Oldbuck's creator,--Sir
-Walter indeed frankly accepted the kinship; and the book which he began
-on his own collection he proposed to style "Reliquim Trotcosienses; or,
-the Gabions of Jonathan Oldbuck."
-
-Another person who added a few points to Oldbuck was "Sandy Gordon,"
-author of the "Itinerarium Septentrionale" (1726), the very folio which
-Monkbarns carried in the dilatory coach to Queensferry. Gordon had been
-a student in the University of Aberdeen; he was an amateur in many arts,
-but antiquarianism was his favourite hobby. He was an acquaintance of Sir
-John Clerk of Eldin, the hero of the Praetorium. The words of Gordon in
-his "Itinerarium," where he describes the battle of the Grampians, have
-supplied, or suggested, the speech of Monkbarns at the Kaim of Kinprunes.
-The great question was, Where is the Mons Grampius of Tacitus? Dismissing
-Camden's Grantsbain, because he does not know where it is, Gordon says,
-"As for our Scotch Antiquaries, they are so divided that some will have
-it to be in the shire of Angus, or in the Mearns, some at the Blair of
-Athol in Perthshire, or Ardoch in Strathallan, and others at
-Inverpeffery." Gordon votes for Strathern, "half a mile short of the Kirk
-of Comrie." This spot is both at the foot of the Montes Grampii, "and
-boasts a Roman camp capable of holding an army fit to encounter so
-formidable a number as thirty thousand Caledonians. . . . Here is the
-Porta Decumana, opposite the Prcetoria, together with the dextra and
-sinistra gates," all discovered by Sandy Gordon. "Moreover, the situation
-of the ground is so very exact with the description given by Tacitus,
-that in all my travels through Britain I never beheld anything with more
-pleasure. . . . Nor is it difficult, in viewing this ground, to say where
-the Covinarii, or Charioteers, stood. In fine, to an Antiquary, this is a
-ravishing scene." He adds the argument "that Galgacus's name still
-remains on this ground, for the moor on which the camp stood is called to
-this day Galdachan, or Galgachan Rosmoor." All this lore Gordon
-illustrates by an immense chart of a camp, and a picture of very small
-Montes Grampii, about the size and shape of buns. The plate is dedicated
-to his excellency General Wade.
-
-In another point Monkbapns borrows from Gordon. Sandy has a plate (page
-20) of "The Roman Sacellum of Mars Signifer, vulgarly called 'Arthur's
-Oon.' With regard to its shape, it is not unlike the famous Pantheon at
-Rome before the noble Portico was added to it by Marcus Agrippa." Gordon
-agrees with Stukeley in attributing Arthur's Oon to Agricola, and here
-Monkbarns and Lovel adopt almost his words. "Time has left Julius
-Agricola's very name on the place; . . . and if ever those initial
-letters J. A. M. P. M. P. T., mentioned by Sir Robert Sibbald, were
-engraven on a stone in this building, it may not be reckoned altogether
-absurd that they should bear this reading, JULIUS AGRICOLA MAGNUS
-PIETATIS MONUMENTUM POSUIT TEMPLUM; but this my reader may
-either accept or reject as he pleases. However, I think it may be as
-probably received as that inscription on Caligula's Pharos in Holland,
-which having these following letters, C. C. P. F., is read Caius Caligula
-Pharum Fecit." "This," Monkbarns adds, "has ever been recorded as a sound
-exposition."
-
-The character of Edie Ochiltree, Scott himself avers to have been
-suggested by Andrew Gemmells, pleasantly described in the Introduction.
-Mr. Chambers, in "Illustrations of the Author of 'Waverley," clears up a
-point doubtful in Scott's memory, by saying that Geimells really was a
-Blue-Gown. He rode a horse of his own, and at races was a bookmaker. He
-once dropped at Rutherford, in Teviotdale, a clue of yarn containing
-twenty guineas. Like Edie Ochiltree, he had served at Fontenoy. He died
-at Roxburgh Newton in 1793, at the age of one hundred and five, according
-to his own reckoning. "His wealth was the means of enriching a nephew in
-Ayrshire, who is now (1825) a considerable landholder there, and belongs
-to a respectable class of society."
-
-An old Irus of similar character patrolled Teviotdale, while Andrew
-Gemmells was attached to Ettrick and Yarrow. This was Blind Willie Craw.
-Willie was the Society Journal of Hawick, and levied blackmail on the
-inhabitants. He is thus described by Mr. Grieve, in the Diary already
-quoted: "He lived at Branxholme Town, in a free house set apart for the
-gamekeeper, and for many a year carried all the bread from Hawick used in
-my father's family. He came in that way at breakfast-time, and got a
-wallet which he put it in, and returned at dinner-time with the 'bawbee
-rows' and two loaves. He laid the town of Hawick under contribution for
-bawbees, and he knew the history of every individual, and went rhyming
-through the town from door to door; and as he knew something against
-every one which they would rather wish should not be rehearsed, a bawbee
-put a stop to the paragraph which they wished suppressed. Willie Craw was
-the son of a gamekeeper of the duke's, and enjoyed a free house at
-Branxholme Town as long as he lived."
-
-Had Burns ever betaken himself to the gaberlunzie's life, which he speaks
-of in one of his poems as "the last o't, the worst o't," he would have
-proved a much more formidable satirist than poor Willie Craw, the last of
-the "blind crowders." Burns wrote, of course, in a spirit of reckless
-humour; but he could not, even in sport, have alluded to the life as
-"suited to his habits and powers," had gaberlunzies been mere mendicants.
-In Herd's collection of Ballads is one on the ancient Scottish beggar:--
-
-                In Scotland there lived a humble beggar,
-                  He had nor house, nor hald, nor hame;
-                  But he was well liked by ilk a body,
-                And they gave him sunkets to rax his wame.
-
-                A sieve fu' o' meal, a handfu' o' groats,
-                  A dad o' a bannock, or pudding bree,
-                  Cauld porridge, or the lickings o' plates,
-                Wad make him as blythe as a body could be.
-
-The dress and trade of the beggar are said to have been adopted by James
-V. in his adventures, and tradition attributes to him a song, "The
-Gaberlunzie Man."
-
-One of Edie's most charming traits is his readiness to "fight for his
-dish, like the laird for his land," when a French invasion was expected.
-Scott places the date of "The False Alarm," when he himself rode a
-hundred miles to join his regiment, on Feb. 2, 1804.
-
-Lockhart gives it as an event of 1805 (vol. ii. p. 275). The occasion
-gave great pleasure to Scott, on account of the patriotism and courage
-displayed by all classes. "Me no muckle to fight for?" says Edie. "Isna
-there the country to fight for, and the burns I gang dandering beside,
-and the hearths o' the gudewives that gie me my bit bread, and the bits
-o' weans that come toddling to play wi' me when I come about a landward
-town?" Edie had fought at Fontenoy, and was of the old school. Scott
-would have been less pleased with a recruit from St. Boswells, on the
-Tweed. This man was a shoemaker, John Younger, a very intelligent and
-worthy person, famous as an angler and writer on angling, who has left an
-account of the "False Alarm" in his memoirs. His view was that the
-people, unlike Edie, had nothing to fight for, that only the rich had any
-reason to be patriotic, that the French had no quarrel with the poor. In
-fact, Mr. Younger was a cosmopolitan democrat, and sneered at the old
-Border glories of the warlike days. Probably, however, he would have done
-his duty, had the enemy landed, and, like Edie, might have remembered the
-"burns he dandered beside," always with a fishingrod in his hand.
-
-     The Editor cannot resist the temptation to add that the patriotic
-     lady mentioned in Scott's note, who "would rather have seen her son
-     dead on that hearth than hear that he had been a horse's length
-     behind his companions," was his paternal great-grandmother, Mrs.
-     John Lang. Her husband, who died shortly afterwards, so that she was
-     a widow when Scott conversed with her, chanced to be chief
-     magistrate of Selkirk. His family was aroused late one night by the
-     sound of a carriage hurrying down the steep and narrow street. Lord
-     Napier was bringing, probably from Hawick, the tidings that the
-     beacons were ablaze. The town-bell was instantly rung, the
-     inhabitants met in the marketplace, where Scott's statue now stands,
-     and the whole force, with one solitary exception, armed and marched
-     to Dalkeith. According to the gentleman whose horse and arms were
-     sent on to meet him, it was intended, if the French proved
-     victorious, that the population of the Border towns should abandon
-     their homes and retire to the hills.
-
-No characters in the "Antiquary," except Monkbarns and Edie Ochiltree,
-seem to have been borrowed from notable originals. The frauds of
-Dousterswivel, Scott says, are rendered plausible by "very late instances
-of the force of superstitious credulity to a much greater extent." He can
-hardly be referring to the career of Cagliostro, but he may have had in
-his memory some unsuccessful mining speculations by Charles Earl of
-Traquair, who sought for lead and found little or none in Traquair hills.
-The old "Statistical Account of Scotland" (vol. xii. p. 370) says nothing
-about imposture, and merely remarks that "the noble family of Traquair
-have made several attempts to discover lead mines, and have found
-quantities of the ore of that metal, though not adequate to indemnify the
-expenses of working, and have therefore given up the attempt." This was
-published in 1794, so twenty years had passed when "The Antiquary" was
-written. If there was here an "instance of superstitious credulity," it
-was not "a very late instance." The divining, or "dowsing," rod of
-Dousterswivel still keeps its place in mining superstition and in the
-search for wells.
-
-With "The Antiquary" most contemporary reviews of the novels lose their
-interest. Their author had firmly established his position, at least till
-"The Monastery" caused some murmurings. Even the "Quarterly Review" was
-infinitely more genial in its reception of "The Antiquary" than of "Guy
-Mannering." The critic only grumbled at Lovel's feverish dreams, which,
-he thought, showed an intention to introduce the marvellous. He
-complained of "the dark dialect of Anglified Erse," but found comfort in
-the glossary appended. The "Edinburgh Review" pronounced the chapter on
-the escape from the tide to be "I the very best description we have ever
-met, inverse or in prose, in ancient or in modern writing." No reviewer
-seems to have noticed that the sun is made to set in the sea, on the east
-coast of Scotland. The "Edinburgh," however, declared that the Antiquary,
-"at least in so far as he is an Antiquary," was the chief blemish on the
-book. The "sweet heathen of Monkbarns" has not suffered from this
-disparagement. The "British Critic" pledged its reputation that Scott was
-the author. If an argument were wanted, "it would be that which has been
-applied to prove the authenticity of the last book of the Iliad,--that
-Homer must have written it, because no one else could." Alas! that
-argument does not convince German critics.
-                                            ANDREW LANG.
-
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER FIRST.
-
-
-               Go call a coach, and let a coach be called,
-               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 Scotland, provided himself with a ticket in one of those
-public 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 possession. 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 straight and steep stair, at the bottom of which she sold
-tape, thread, needles, skeins of worsted, coarse linen 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 numerous articles which, piled on each side of
-the descent, indicated the profession of the trader below.
-
-The written hand-bill, which, pasted on a projecting board, announced
-that the Queensferry Diligence, or Hawes Fly, departed precisely at
-twelve o'clock on Tuesday, the fifteenth July 17--, in order to secure
-for travellers the opportunity of passing the Firth with the flood-tide,
-lied 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 Automedon, 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 human life--the person who had
-taken out the other place. He who is bent upon a journey is usually
-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 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 arrangement for his baggage
-before the arrival of his competitors. 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, perhaps older,--but his
-hale complexion and firm step announced 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
-enlivened by a cast of ironical humour. His dress was uniform, and of a
-colour becoming his age and gravity; a wig, well dressed and powdered,
-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, apparently conscious of his own want of
-punctuality, did not 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 duodecimo. 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 compared 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--l 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!"
-
-"I 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 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; "I scorn your words, sir: you are an uncivil person,
-and I desire you will not stand there, to slander me at my ain
-stair-head."
-
-"The woman," said the senior, looking with an arch glance at his destined
-travelling companion, "does 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, relapsing 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," continued 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 exclaimed, with well-feigned
-astonishment, "Gude guide us--saw ever onybody the like o' that?"
-
-"Yes, you abominable woman," vociferated the traveller, "many have seen
-the like of it, and all will see the like of it that have anything to do
-with your trolloping sex;" then pacing with great indignation before the
-door of the shop, still as he passed and repassed, like a vessel who
-gives her broadside as she comes abreast of a hostile fortress, he shot
-down complaints, threats, and reproaches, 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
-consequential, arising from delay, should be accumulated on the devoted
-head of Mrs. Macleuchar.
-
-There, was something so comic in his pettish resentment, 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 consequence of seducing the lieges by false
-reports?--dost thou 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?"
-
-"O dear, yes, sir; the neighbours ken the diligence weel, green picked
-oat wi' red--three yellow wheels and a black ane."
-
-"Woman, thy special description will not serve--it may be only a lie with
-a circumstance."
-
-"O, man, man!" said the overwhelmed Mrs. Macleuchar, totally exhausted at
-having been so long the butt of his rhetoric, "take back your three
-shillings, and make me quit o' ye."
-
-"Not so fast, not so fast, woman--Will three shillings transport me to
-Queensferry, agreeably to thy treacherous program?--or will it requite
-the damage I may sustain by leaving my business undone, or repay the
-expenses 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
-dispatch 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 window 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. Macleuchar, 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 colophon. 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 relish, or perhaps understand, his answer, and pronounced the
-book to be Sandy Gordon's _Itinerarium Septentrionale,_* a book
-illustrative of the Roman remains in Scotland.
-
-* Note B. Sandy Gordon's _Itinerarium._
-
-The querist, unappalled 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 acquaintance enough with the classics to render him
-an interested and intelligent auditor when they were enlarged upon. The
-elder traveller, observing with pleasure the capacity of his temporary
-companion to understand and answer him, plunged, nothing loath, 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.
-Macleuchar, 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 disquisition 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 apprized the
-coachman of this important deficiency." It's Jamie Martingale that
-furnishes the naigs on contract, and uphauds 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 deserve 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 like so little to analyze the complication of the causes which
-influence actions, that I will not venture to ascertain whether our
-Antiquary's humanity to the poor horse was not in some degree aided by
-his desire of showing his companion a Pict's camp, or Round-about, a
-subject 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 suffered 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 sea-weed, which were
-visible along the skirts of the shore, that the hour of tide was past.
-The young traveller 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 actually 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.
-
-"The d--l'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'll have a
-snack here at the Hawes, which is a very decent sort of a place, and I'll
-be very happy to finish the account I was giving you of the difference
-between the mode of entrenching _castra stativa_ and _castra costiva,_
-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 SECOND.
-
-
-              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 butter-milk, 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 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'll maybe hae heard of it in the
-Parliament-house, Hutchison against Mackitchinson--it's a weel-kenn'd
-plea--its 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 napkin; "and ye'll be for a mutton-chop,
-and there's cranberry 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 _quam primum_ 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 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 sufficient 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 contraction Oldbuck, of
-Monkbarns, was the second son of a gentleman possessed of a small
-property in the neighbourhood of a thriving seaport town on the
-north-eastern coast of Scotland, which, for various reasons, we shall
-denominate Fairport. They had been established for several generations,
-as landowners 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, like the burghers of the
-town near which they were settled, were steady assertors of the
-Protestant 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 country in consequence of the
-persecutions directed against the professors of the Reformed religion. He
-had found 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 Monkbarns, 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 interest, 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
-disturbed a union which love would otherwise have made happy, and Captain
-M'Intyre, 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 off, and no news ever 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 uncertainty, 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 persuaded to apply it
-to lucrative and practical purposes. It was not from any inconsiderate
-neglect of the advantages attending the possession of money that he thus
-deceived the hopes of his master."Were he thoughtless or light-headed, or
-_rei suae 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 wilt 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 routine, that would
-put twenty shillings in his pocket--a strange mixture of frugality and
-industry, and negligent 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
-consequence of a cold caught in his vocation, while shooting ducks in the
-swamp called Kittlefittingmoss, notwithstanding 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 expenditure; 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 affected to divide
-himself from their rank in society, and whose studies and pleasures
-seemed to them alike incomprehensible. 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 little intercourse with Mr. Oldbuck of
-Monkbarns. He, had, however, the usual resources, the company of the
-clergyman, and of the doctor, when he chose to request it, and also his
-own pursuits and pleasures, being in correspondence with most of the
-virtuosi of his time, who, like 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 Fairport, 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 entertained on his account, made some
-advances, which his aye and station entitled him to do in a more direct
-manner, 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
-litter; his father was a north-of-England gentleman. He was at present
-travelling to Fairport (the town near to which Monkbarns was situated),
-and, if he found the place agreeable, might perhaps remain there for some
-weeks."
-
-"Was Mr. Lovel's 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 affirming that a little punch was more genuine and better 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
-appeared bearing in his hand an immense double quart bottle, or magnum,
-as it is called in Scotland, covered with saw-dust 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' Tamlowrie and Sir Gilbert
-Grizzlecleuch, and Auld Rossballoh, and the Bailie, were just setting in
-to make an afternoon o't, and you, wi' some o' 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, know the measure
-of a guest's foot as well as e'er a souter on this side Solway; "well,
-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 capaciousness, 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
-dramatists; a ground on which he found his new acquaintance so strong,
-that at length be began to suspect he had made them his professional
-study. "A traveller partly for business and partly for pleasure?--why,
-the stage partakes of both; it is a labour to the performers, and
-affords, 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
-liberality, and only acquiesced in deference to his years and
-respectability.
-
-The mutual satisfaction which they found in each other's society induced
-Mr. Oldbuck to propose, and Lovel willingly to accept, a scheme for
-travelling together to the end of their journey. Mr. Oldbuck intimated 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 shilling into the hand of a growling
-postilion; for Oldbuck, tenacious of ancient customs, never extended his
-guerdon beyond eighteen-pence a stage. In this manner they travelled,
-until they arrived at Fairport* about two o'clock on the following day.
-
-* [The "Fairport" of this novel is supposed to refer to the town of *
-Arbroath, in Forfarshire, and "Musselcrag," _post,_ to the fishing
-village of * Auchmithie, in the same county.]
-
-Lovel probably expected that his travelling companion 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 convenient 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 THIRD.
-
-
-                 He had a routh o' auld nick-nackets,
-                 Rusty airn caps, and jinglin-jackets,
-               Would held the Loudons three in tackets,
-                            A towmond gude;
-               And parritch-pats, and auld sayt-backets,
-                           Afore the flude.
-                                           Burns.
-
-After he had settled himself in his new apartments at Fairport, Mr. Lovel
-bethought him of paying the requested 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 Edinburgh,
-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 commanded a fine prospect of the bay and
-shipping. Secluded 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 little 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 steward, 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 _topiarian_ artist,* and presented
-curious arm-chairs, towers, and the figures of Saint George and the
-Dragon.
-
-* _Ars Topiaria,_ the art of clipping yew-hedges into fantastic figures.
-A Latin poem, entitled _Ars Topiaria,_ contains a curious account of the
-process.
-
-The taste of Mr. Oldbuck did not disturb these monuments 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 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 yourself 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 established themselves
-in my premises, I live here as much a Coenobite 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 inscription, 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 we know,
-_aliunde,_ that it was founded by Abbot Waldimir about the middle of the
-fourteenth century--and, I profess, I think that centre ornament might be
-made out by better eyes than mine."
-
-"I think," answered Lovel, willing 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 barefooted chambermaid threw down
-her duster, detected in 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 superintending
-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 _puttting 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 morpeon, and punaise,
-                      I purchased for my proper ease.
-
-And so forth, as old Butler has it."
-
-The young lady, after courtesying to Lovel, had taken the opportunity to
-make her escape during this enumeration of losses. "You'll be poisoned
-here with the volumes of dust they have raised," continued the Antiquary;
-"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."
-
-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 lighted by high narrow
-latticed 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 littered the floor and the tables, amid a chaos of
-maps, engraving, 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 them. 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 understand. The rest of the
-room was panelled, or wainscotted, with black oak, against which hung two
-or three portraits 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 profusion of papers, parchments, books, and
-nondescript trinkets and gewgaws, which seemed to have little 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
-superstitious eye, might have presented the _genius loci,_ 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 received damage, and of
-antique spurs and buckles, which would certainly have occasioned it to
-any sudden occupant. Of this the Antiquary made Lovel particularly aware,
-adding, that his friend, the Rev. Doctor Heavysterne from the Low
-Countries, had sustained much injury 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, dispersed by Robert
-Bruce to lacerate the feet of the English 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, 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
-peregrinations from their mountains; but Mr. Oldbuck was strongly tempted
-to believe, that, as its shape was singular, it might have been one of
-the clubs with which the monks armed their peasants in lieu 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 St. 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 lieu 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.
-
-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 sufficient 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 imitated 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 middle-men, 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.--"Davy Wilson," he said, "commonly called Snuffy
-Davy, from his inveterate addiction to 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. Snuffy Davy 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 inimitable
-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 lifted-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 two-pence sterling. *
-Happy, thrice happy, Snuffy Davie!--and blessed were the times when thy
-industry could be so rewarded!
-
-* 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.
-
-"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 collected, 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 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, mutilated 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 memoranda and trophies of many a walk
-by night and morning through the Cowgate, the Canongate, the Bow, St.
-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
-student of divinity that stopped to turn over the books at the stall, as
-a rival amateur, or prowling bookseller in disguise!--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, shrouding 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!"
-
-Lovel was not a little amused at hearing the old gentleman run on in this
-manner, and, however incapable of entering into the full merits of what
-he beheld, he admired, 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
-improvements, 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 quality of scarcity, or
-rare occurrence, was attached to it.
-
-Not the least fascinating was the original broadside,--the Dying Speech,
-Bloody Murder, or Wonderful Wonder 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 example, 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 Air on the 26th of July 1610,
-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 Continuations; 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. Colley, living in West Smithfield, and attested by Thomas Brown,
-Elizabeth Greenaway, and Anne Gutheridge, who were Spectators of the
-dreadful Apparitions: 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."*
-
-* Of this thrice and four times rare broadside, the author possesses an
-exemplar.
-
-"You laugh at this," said the proprietor of the collection, "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, perhaps, 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, into 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 in Teniers' pieces, and a
-small bottle of what be called rich racy canary, with a little bit of
-diet cake, on a small silver server of exquisite old workmanship." I will
-say nothing of the server," he remarked, "though it is said to have been
-wrought by the old mad Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini. But, Mr. Lovel, our
-ancestors drank 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 treasure, with no more
-trouble on your part than is just necessary to make the acquisitions
-valuable."
-
-After a libation 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
-curiosity on his return to Fairport.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER FOURTH.
-
-                The pawkie 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 puir 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
-gardening. 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, "which 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 pleasure 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 Cringlecut 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 rising
-above the ivy-mantled porch--there was here a _hospitium, hospitals,_ 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 in 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
-trenching 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, looking 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 plainly traced--a proper _agger_ or
-_vallum,_ with its corresponding 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, like 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 apologize, 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 sleep the
-irritated and suspicious vanity of the Antiquary, 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 Innerpeffry, 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 complacent looks, "what would you think,
-Mr. Lovel,--I say, what would you think,--if the memorable scene of
-conflict 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 communication 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 astonishing how blind we professed antiquaries
-sometimes are! Sir Robert Sibbald, Saunders Gordon, General Roy, Dr.
-Stokely,--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.
-
-* A bonnet-laird signifies a petty proprietor, wearing the dress, along
-with the habits of a yeoman.
-
-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 celebrated 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
-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 off with plaster of Paris; it bears a sacrificing vessel,
-and the letters A. D. L. L. which may stand, without much violence, for
-_Agricola Dicavit Libens Lubens._"
-
-"Certainly, sir; for the Dutch Antiquaries claim Caligula as the founder
-of a light-house, on the sole authority of the letters C. C. P. F., which
-they interpret _Caius Caligula Pharum Fecit._"
-
-"True, and it has ever been recorded as a sound exposition. 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
-particular Remarks upon the Vestiges of Ancient Fortifications 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
-general 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 line,
-
-               Ille 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, _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_ wellnigh entire. Here,
-then, let us take our stand, on this tumulus, exhibiting the foundation
-of ruined buildings,--the central point--the _praetorium,_ 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 advantage,--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
-        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 Praetorium"--
-
-A voice from behind interrupted his ecstatic description--"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 between confusion and
-anger, "you strolling old vagabond, 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?--l just ken this about it, that about twenty years syne, I, and
-a wheen hallenshakers like mysell, and the mason-lads that built the lang
-dike 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--Praetorian,
-and a' just for a bield at auld Aiken Drum's bridal, and a bit blithe
-gae-down wi' had in't, some sair rainy weather. Mair by token, Monkbarns,
-if ye howk up the bourock, as ye seem to have began, yell find, if ye hae
-not fund it already, 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. L. L.--Aiken Drum's Lang Ladle--for Aiken was ane o' the
-kale-suppers o' Fife."
-
-"This," thought Lovel to himself, "is a famous counterpart to the story
-of _Keip on this syde._" He then ventured 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 companion, I can safely aver to you, that Jonathan Oldbuck of
-Monkbarns looked neither more wise nor less disconcerted.
-
-"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 mischances.--Now, Monkbarns, that young
-gentleman, that's wi' your honour, thinks little of a carle like 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.
-
-"Never mind the old rogue," said Mr. Oldbuck; "don't suppose I think the
-worse of you for your profession; they are only prejudiced fools and
-coxcombs that do so. You remember what old Tully says in his oration,
-_pro Archia poeta,_ concerning one of your confraternity--_quis nostrum
-tam anino agresti ac duro fuit--ut--ut_--I forget the Latin--the meaning
-is, which of us was so rude and barbarous as to remain unmoved at the
-death of the great Roscius, whose advanced 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 mortality? So the
-Prince of Orators spoke of the stage and its professor."
-
-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 beggar, who still continued to regard him with a
-countenance 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 intimating his desire of secrecy, and securing
-the concurrence of the person whom he addressed; and while he bestowed on
-him an alms, the amount of which rather bore proportion to his fears than
-to his charity, looked at him with a marked expression, which the
-mendicant, a physiognomist by profession, seemed perfectly to
-understand.--"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 Oldbuck--"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, unlined 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 honour, naebody sall 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 haud 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 Antiquary between his
-teeths--"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 wound, "troth, I aye thought sae; and it's
-no sae lang since I said to Luckie Gemmers, Never think you, luckie' said
-I, that 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 lard'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'll 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 before him, he began to move in the
-direction of Monkbarns.--"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'll 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.
-
-"Who is this familiar old gentleman?" said Lovel, when the mendicant was
-out of hearing.
-
-"O, one of the plagues of the country--I have been always against
-poor's-rates and a work-house--I think I'll 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 intimate as one of
-the beasts familiar to man which signify love, and with which his own
-trade is especially conversant. 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 thing's as regularly as Joe Miller's."
-
-"Why, he uses freedom apparently, which is the, soul of wit," answered
-Lovel.
-
-"O ay, freedom enough," said the Antiquary; "he generally invents some
-damned improbable lie or another to provoke you, like that nonsense he
-talked just now--not that I'll publish my tract till I have examined the
-thing to the bottom."
-
-"In England," said Lovel, "such a mendicant would get a speedy cheek."
-
-"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
-mendicant, 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,
-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."*
-
-* Note C. Praetorium.
-
-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.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER FIFTH.
-
-
-                     _Launcelot 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-fashioned 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; regular, I say, were Mr. Oldbuck's inquiries at this
-personage concerning the news of the little 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 womankind along with him. But old Jacob Caxon conveyed 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, fill up their leisure
-moments by attending to that of other people) could make nothing. He
-sought no society, but rather avoided that which the apparent gentleness
-of his manners, and some degree of curiosity, induced many to offer him.
-Nothing could be more regular, or less resembling an adventurer, than his
-mode of living, which was simple, but so completely well 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 compelled to abandon that which he had formed in the present
-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, connections, 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 sympathies with the tea-table.--In
-short, since the name was fashionable in novel-writing, and that is a
-great while agone, there was never a Master Lovel of whom so little
-positive was known, and who was so universally described 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 solitary walks, and had drawn several views of the
-harbour, in which the signal tower, and even the four-gun battery, 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 removed 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 public 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 him a
-dinner;--and I will write Sir Arthur to come to Monkbarns to meet him. I
-must consult my womankind."
-
-Accordingly, such consultation having been previously 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 contents ran thus:
-
-"Dear Sir Arthur,
-
-"On Tuesday the 17th curt._stilo novo,_ I hold a coenobitical 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 awful 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 sigillatum,_ "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."
-
-"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
-herself, 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 haddies, 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 magistrates 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 dare say, have touched the cause
-of our popular discontent 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 mansion 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 fortune. 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 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 consequence. 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. Perhaps the worshipful owner
-sympathized 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 person 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
-liberty, and returned to their own mansion of Knockwinnock, to drink
-healths five fathoms deep, and talk of their sufferings in the royal
-cause. This became so much a matter of habit with Sir Arthur, that, even
-after his father's death, the non-juring chaplain used to pray regularly
-for the restoration of the rightful sovereign, for the downfall 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 candidate 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 alive, yet, in all
-actual service and practical exertion, he was a most zealous and devoted
-subject of George III.
-
-In other respects, Sir Arthur Wardour lived like 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 discord. The faith of Sir Arthur, as an
-antiquary, was boundless, and Mr. Oldbuck (notwithstanding the affair of
-the Praetorium 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 head-roll of one
-hundred and four kings of Scotland, received by Boethius, and rendered
-classical by Buchanan, 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 Oldbuck, 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 descendants 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 assertor, while the esquire impugned it, in spite
-both of her beauty and misfortunes. When, unhappily, their conversation
-turned on yet later times, motives of discord occurred in almost every
-page of history. Oldbuck was, upon principle, a staunch Presbyterian, a
-ruling elder of the kirk, and a friend to revolution principles and
-Protestant 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.
-
-* The reader will understand that this refers to the reign of our late
-gracious Sovereign, George the Third.
-
-It therefore often 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 unlicensed freedom of debate,
-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
-little better than a fool, he was apt to come more near communicating to
-him that unfavourable opinion, than the rules of modern politeness
-warrant. In such cases they often parted in deep dudgeon, and with
-something like 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 pettishness resembled that of a
-child, usually showed his superior sense by compassionately making the
-first advances to reconciliation. But it once or twice happened that the
-aristocratic pride of the far-descended knight took a flight too
-offensive to the feelings of the representative of the typographer. In
-these cases, the breach between these two originals might have been
-immortal, but for the kind exertion and interposition of the Baronet'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 necessary 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 connection betwixt these worthies, 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, little _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 stand-still 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 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 compassionate eye had remarked his thin grey
-hair and wearied gait.
-
-"Mr. Oldbuck, my love, invites us to dinner on Tuesday 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 little 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 original descent;--
-something of the German boorishness still flows in the blood; something
-of the whiggish and perverse 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 pettifogging 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 tailor's 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 generations. I question if there's a dealer's clerk in Fairport
-that can sum an account of interest better than Monkbarns."
-
-"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 Captain M'Intyre."
-
-"Very possibly--yes, we will accept--the M'Intyres are of a very ancient
-Highland family. You may answer his card in the affirmative, Isabella; I
-believe I have, no leisure to be _Dear Sirring_ myself."
-
-So this important matter being adjusted, Miss Wardour 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
-limbs and wind, set out on his return to the Antiquary's mansion.
-
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER SIXTH.
-
-
-                   _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 corresponding invitation,
-punctual to the hour of appointment, arrived at Monkbarns about five
-minutes before four o'clock on the 17th of July. The day had been
-remarkably sultry, and large drops of rain had occasionally 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 powdered with all the skill of the veteran
-Caxon, who having 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--_malae bestiae,_ 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 _tittivillitium,_ 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 disdains the simplicity, as well as
-patience annexed to the poor old name of Grizzel; 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 frise,_ 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 physiognomy
-of Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, that Lovel, had they not appeared at once, like
-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 unparalleled _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 ruffles, and
-being, folded saltire-ways 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 Oldbuck.
-
-Her niece, the same whom Lovel had seen transiently during his first
-visit, was a pretty young woman, genteelly 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 courtesy 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 mustered 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-like, well seen, deeply read, and thoroughly grounded in all
-the hidden mysteries of the green-room and stage, from the days of Davie
-Lindsay 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 broiling sun--
-would you take anything?--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 partake of
-that deceitful beverage?"
-
-"O fy, fy, 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 servant. This he disguised
-under the pretext that the masculine 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 promote him to a glorious halbert, or even to the gallows?
-And why does this girl, his full sister, Jenny Rintherout, 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 legislators, 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 Mahomet) had some hesitation about the mode of
-summoning 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."
-
-With this discourse he led the way to his dining-parlour, which Lovel had
-not yet seen;--it was wainscotted, and contained some curious paintings.
-The dining-table was attended by Jenny; but an old superintendent, a sort
-of female butler, stood by the sideboard, and underwent the burden of
-bearing several reproofs from Mr. Oldbuck, and inuendos, 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 Oldbuck half threatened to throw the greasy
-sea-fowl at the head of the negligent housekeeper, who acted as priestess
-in presenting this odoriferous offering. But, by good-hap, she had been
-most fortunate in the hotch-potch, which was unanimously pronounced to be
-inimitable. "I knew we should succeed here," said Oldbuck exultingly,
-"for Davie Dibble, the gardener (an old bachelor 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 fish-wife. 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 professes the maxim of King
-Alphonso of Castile,--Old wood to burn--old books to read--old wine to
-drink--and 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 drinking 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 insurrection 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 corpore regni_--as the
-phrase is, unless I have altogether forgotten my Latin--an enemy who
-comes to propose to us a Whiggish sort of government, a republican
-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 constables 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 Willie Howie's Kilmarnock cowl covered more
-sense than all the three wigs in the parish--I think it is easy to make
-out that inuendo--But the rogue shall be taught better manners."
-
-"O no, my dear sir," exclaimed Miss Wardour, "not old Edie, that we have
-known so long;--I assure you no constable shall have my good graces that
-executes such a warrant."
-
-"Ay, there it goes," said the Antiquary; "you, to be a staunch 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 now-a-days
-in the 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 broad-cloth 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 dragoon'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 madman; 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, 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 uniform--Weel I wot they have been wet to
-the very skin twice last week--I met them marching in terribly doukit, 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 M'Intyre, "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 refresh the throats of the officers who
-had bawled themselves hoarse in the service of their country."
-
-"Take care, Monkbarns! we shall set you down among the black-nebs by and
-by."
-
-"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 exciseman--But here comes the ewe-milk cheese
-in good time; it is a better digestive than politics."
-
-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 gentleman should have paid
-much attention to matters of that sort.
-
-"I am avised 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 conversation and controversy which had
-engaged the company for an hour.
-
-"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; "they 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," sad 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.
-
-"Riston 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.
-
-There was a deep pause.--"It is rather a narrow foundation 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, methinks, 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 poverty 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 consequence to
-trumpery womankind. It was called the Maiden Castle, _quasi lucus a non
-lucendo,_ because it resisted every attack, and women never do."
-
-"There is a list of the Pictish kings," persisted Sir Arthur, "well
-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. Oldbuck? There is Drust
-Macmorachin, Trynel Maclachlin (first of that ancient clan, as it may be
-judged), and Gormach Macdonald, Alpin Macmetegus, Drust Mactallargam"
-(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 bead-roll of
-unbaptized 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 Macfungus--mushroom monarchs every one of them; sprung up from the
-fumes of conceit, folly, and falsehood, fermenting 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 Melguin,
-from the Chronicles of Loch Leven and St. 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 of God seventeen hundred and five, or six, I am not
-precisely 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 request, 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_ particular," 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,
-Wolfbrand Oldenbuck, who, in the month of December 1193, under the
-patronage, as the colophon tells us, of Sebaldus Scheyter and Sebastian
-Kammermaister, accomplished the printing of the great Chronicle of
-Nuremberg--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 brawling, bullet-headed, iron-fisted,
-old Gothic barons since the days of Crentheminachcryme--not one of whom,
-I suppose, could write his own name."
-
-"If you mean the observation as a sneer at my ancestry," said the knight,
-with an assumption of dignified superiority and composure, "I have the
-pleasure to inform 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 Edward I. What have, you to say for the
-stainless loyalty of your family, Sir Arthur, after such a backsliding 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 inflamed his single bosom, and traversed
-with long strides the labyrinth of passages which conducted to the
-drawing-room.
-
-"Did you ever hear such an old tup-headed ass?" said Oldbuck, briefly
-apostrophizing Lovel. "But I must not let him go in this mad-like way
-neither."
-
-So saying, he pushed off after the retreating Baronet, 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'll
-do yourself a mischief," roared the Antiquary; "_Qui ambulat in tenebris,
-nescit quo vadit_--You'll tumble down the back-stair."
-
-Sir Arthur had now got involved in darkness, of which the sedative effect
-is well known to nurses and governesses 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
-_locale,_ 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;
-"don'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 Wallace--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
---'twas 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.
-
-"A-well, a-well--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, followed by Lovel and Mr. Oldbuck, the
-countenances of all the three a little discomposed.
-
-"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, agreeable 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 ceremonious 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 fussing 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!--O 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,--"O 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 profound 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 mysterious 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 Caxton;--"but I'm no easy
-in my mind."
-
-"Did you ever hear of any body that was?" answered Oldbuck;--"what reason
-has an old battered powder-puff 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"--
-
-"An almanac! an almanac!" said Oldbuck, starting up in great alarm--"not
-that bauble!" flinging away a little pocket almanac which his niece
-offered him.--"Great God! my poor dear Miss Isabella!--Fetch me instantly
-the Fairport Almanac."--It was brought, consulted, and added greatly to
-his agitation. "I'll go myself--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 M'Intyre.
-
-"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!"
-
-
-
-
-                            CHAPTER SEVENTH.
-
-                       --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, according 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 opportunity to join
-them. Miss Wardour immediately proposed to her father that they should
-take another direction; 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 unpleasant," 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 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 Knockwinnock.
-
-When this was arranged, and the emissary despatched, the knight and his
-daughter left the high-road, and following 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, enjoying 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 without 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 accumulation of towering clouds through which he had travelled
-the livelong day, and which now assembled on all sides, 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 gorgeous 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 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
-conversation. Following the windings of the beach, they passed one
-projecting point of headland or 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 ship-masters. The crags which rose between 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 secured
-by their dizzy height from the rapacity of man. Many of these wild
-tribes, with the instinct which sends 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
-twilight 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 lift 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. "I 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, indicated 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, 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, Sir Arthur observed a human
-figure on the beach advancing to meet them. "Thank God," he exclaimed,
-"we 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 audibly, 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! turn back!" exclaimed the vagrant; "why did ye not turn when
-I waved to you?"
-
-"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
-Bally-burgh 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 projection
-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 risening e'en now? See, yonder'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 like
-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.
-
-"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'll get round the Ballyburgh 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 afford 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 insurmountable
-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 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 promontory, 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 nothing?--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, looking out upon the
-strife of the waters--"they are sae already; for I hae nae land, and you
-would give your fair 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 collect the powers of a
-mind naturally strong and courageous, and which rallied itself at this
-terrible juncture. "Must we yield life," 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 kittywake'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 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 Crummies-horn, that's the muckle black stane--cast twa
-plies round it--that's it!--now, weize yoursell a wee easel-ward--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
-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 apparently 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
-connected 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 succession the foot of
-the precipice, overflowing the beach on which they so lately stood, flew
-as high as their place of 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 danger, and become almost instinctively known to each other,
-they had established a mutual confidence.--"I'll 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' Fowlsheugh, and he was the
-best craigsman that ever speel'd heugh (mair by token, he brake his neck
-upon the Dunbuy of Slaines), wodna hae ventured upon the Halket-head
-craigs after sun-down--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
-hoar and in this weather, in the youngest and yaldest 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."
-
-"Dell be in my feet then," answered the bedesman sturdily; "if ye gang,
-I'll gang too; for between the twa o' us, we'll 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."
-
-"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!" replied Lovel, "it was a human voice."
-
-A distant hail was repeated, the sound plainly distinguishable among the
-various elemental noises, and the clang of the sea-mews by which they
-were surrounded. 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 conspicuous 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 twilight and increasing storm, they had made the persons who
-apparently were traversing 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 answered, and their
-courage confirmed, by the assurance that they were within hearing, if not
-within reach, of friendly assistance.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER EIGHTH.
-
-              There is a cliff, whose high and bending head
-                 Looks fearfully on the confined deep;
-                 Bring me but to the very brim of it,
-              And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear.
-                                    King Lear.
-
-The shout of human voices from above was soon augmented, and the gleam of
-torches mingled with those lights of evening which still remained amidst
-the darkness of the storm. Some attempt was made to hold communication
-between the assistants above and the sufferers 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.
-
-"Haud a care, haud 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, haud 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."
-
-"Mind the peak there," cried Mucklebackit, an old fisherman and smuggler-
--"mind the peak--Steenie, Steenie Wilks, bring up the tackle--I'se
-warrant we'll sune heave them on board, Monkbarns, wad ye but stand out
-o' the gate."
-
-"I see them," said Oldbuck--"I see them low down on that flat stone--
-Hilli-hilloa, hilli-ho-a!"
-
-"I see them mysell weel eneugh," said Mucklebackit; "they are sitting
-down yonder like hoodie-craws in a mist; but d'yo think ye'll 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 appeared, 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 preparations
-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 occupied,
-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
-committing a human being to the vacant atmosphere in such a slight means
-of conveyance, there was the fearful 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 seaman 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 beetling
-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 imminent 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 bonnie 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 round guess o' what's ganging on in this Patmos o'
-ours--and Sir Arthur's far by that, as I'm thinking."
-
-Struck with the truth of this reasoning, she exclaimed, "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 crag,
-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, neckcloth, 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 unreasonable exclamations of the poor Baronet.
-
-"Farewell, my father!" murmured Isabella--"farewell, my--my friends!" and
-shutting her eyes, as Edie's experience 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 Mucklebackit, who acted as
-commodore; "swerve the yard a bit--Now--there! there she sits safe on dry
-land."
-
-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'll 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 resolution had surmounted
-even the mortal fear of so agitating 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
-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
-illumed 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 aff 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."
-
-"As muckle care as if he were a graybeard o' brandy; and I canna take
-mair if his hair were like John Harlowe'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 like 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 agitated 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 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 something into his hand--
-Ochiltree looked at it by the torchlight, 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 with Saunders Mucklebackit--he has aye a soup o' something
-comfortable about his begging--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 band 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."
-
-"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 growling 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 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 productions of the water
-were established as gauges of the extent of land.--Shathmont--salmont--
-you see the close alliance of the sounds; dropping out two _h_'s, and a
-_t,_ and assuming an _l,_ makes the whole difference--I wish to heaven no
-antiquarian derivation had demanded heavier concessions."
-
-"But, my dear sir, I really must go home--I am wet to the skin."
-
-"Shalt have my night-gown, man, and slippers, and 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 companion had that
-evening undergone agitation of mind which had harassed and wearied him
-even more than his extraordinary exertions of body.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER NINTH.
-
-           "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.
-
-The reached the room in which they had dined, and were clamorously
-welcomed by Miss Oldbuck.
-
-"Where's the younger womankind?" said the Antiquary.
-
-"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 agitated 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 together. 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 sae sune as she saw that nane o' ye were
-clodded ower the Craig, and that Miss Wardour was safe in the chariot;
-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 coddling each other. But
-hear me, my venerable sister--start not at the word venerable; it implies
-many praiseworthy qualities besides age; though that too is honourable,
-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, disappearance of the viands on which he had reckoned with absolute
-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 likely to gang
-wi' ye a'--He said fine things on the duty of resignation to Providence's
-will, worthy man! that did he."
-
-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,_ Grizzle--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 proposing some of the
-relies 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 night-cap and
-branched morning-gown of his host, Oldbuck, who pretended 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 Fairport early in the morning, to procure him a change of clothes.
-
-This was the first intimation Miss Oldbuck had received 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
-superincumbent weight of her bead-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?"
-
-"O 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 gaen
-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 am sure ye ken yoursell what a night he 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 inconvenient to his host than he could
-possibly have anticipated. But the howling of the wind, and the 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 decoctions, but brewed
-of Monkbarns barley--John of the Girnel never drew a better flagon to
-entertain a wandering 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, 'tis an adventure, man, to sleep in the Green Room at
-Monkbarns.--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 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
-reality of a 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 court-yard, made you betake yourself to your
-weapon, and if your trick of fence were not the better, would have
-sticked you like a paddock, on his own baronial midden-stead. 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 re-entered, 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, "to do what you can to prevent
-it."
-
-"Me?--I am sure I have said naething, Monkbarns."
-
-"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 Tull
-the town-clerk was sleeping when he had that marvellous communication
-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 like 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 little 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 Monkbarns heritors
-aye employed him on account of their connection wi' the burgh, ye ken."
-
-"Sister Grizel, this is abominable," interrupted Oldbuck; "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 detailing the
-introduction to this single spectre.--Learn to be succinct in your
-narrative.--Imitate the concise style of old Aubrey, an experienced
-ghost-seer, who entered his memoranda on these subjects in a terse
-business-like 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 perfume, and a melodious
-twang'--_Vide_ his Miscellanies, p. eighteen, 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 Tull's assistance;--but ne'er-be-licket could
-they find that was to their purpose. Aud sae, after they bad 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 bad got sic a trick of sippling and
-tippling wi' the bailies 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 got a fearfu' 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, 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 Tull 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 feared 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 Glenlivat--
-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 be
-had nae sooner tried the spirit wi' that, than out cam sic a blatter o'
-Latin about his lugs, that poor Rab Tull, wha was nae great scholar, was
-clean overwhelmed. 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, 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."
-
-"Weel, weel, _carta_ be it then, but they ca'd it _carter_ that tell'd me
-the story. It cried aye _carta,_ if sae be that it was _carta,_ and made
-a sign to Rab to follow it. Rab Tull keepit a Highland heart, and banged
-out o' bed, and till some of his readiest claes--and he did follow the
-thing up stairs and down stairs to the place we ca' the high dow-cot--(a
-sort of a little tower in the corner of the auld house, where there was a
-Tickle 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 library 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 seemed 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 Glengibber, 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."
-
-"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.*
-
-*Note D. Mr. Rutherford's dream.
-
-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 Oldenbuck, 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 occasion to think and speak so frequently. He was a foreigner, 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 sufficient to constitute a white witch at least.
-This superstitious old writer had heard all this, and probably believed
-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 sufficit_ of
-exaggeration, and you have a key to the whole mystery."
-
-"O brother! brother! but Dr. Heavysterne, brother--whose sleep was so
-sore broken, that he declared he wadna pass another night in the Green
-Room to get all 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
-received tales of Mesmer, Shropfer, Cagliostro, and other modern
-pretenders to the mystery of raising spirits, discovering hidden
-treasure, and so forth, in exchange 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
-night-mare. But everything is now ready. Permit me to light 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 candlestick of massive silver
-and antique form, which, he observed, 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 subject 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 TENTH.
-
-
-                 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. "I 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 telling you, but owing to circumstances of an early and unhappy
-attachment. It is at such moments as these, Mr. Lovel, that we feel the
-changes of time. The, same objects are before us--those inanimate things
-which we have gazed on in wayward infancy and impetuous youth, in anxious
-and scheming manhood--they are permanent and the same; but when we look
-upon them in cold unfeeling old age, can we, changed in our temper, our
-pursuits, our feelings--changed in our form, our limbs, 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 being separate and
-distinct from what we now are? The philosopher who appealed from Philip
-inflamed with wine to Philip in his hours of sobriety, 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
-beautifully expressed in a poem which I have heard repeated:*
-
-*Probably Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads had not as yet been published.
-
-                   My eyes are dim with childish tears,
-                       My heart is idly stirred,
-                   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. Grizel's attention had left some fresh
-wood, should he choose to continue it, and the apartment had a
-comfortable, though not a lively appearance. 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 brought with him as a
-sample of the arts of the Continent. 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 grey-hounds, or stag-hounds, in the leash, or cheering
-them upon the objects of their game. Others, with boar-spears, swords,
-and old-fashioned 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 prolific 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 excellent poet, to be embroidered
-in Gothic letters, on a sort of border which he had added to the
-tapestry:-
-
-              Lo! here be oakis grete, streight as a line,
-              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 squirrels that ysate
-                    High on the trees and nuts ate.
-
-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, "that ghosts often chose the best room in the mansion to
-which they attached 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 reality 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 like the feelings which would, at
-another time, have been congenial 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 purpose to escape from it, would have alone occupied his
-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 cliff 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 gratitude, 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 extinguish 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 inconsolable 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 sun-beam, and, long after he had laid
-himself to rest, continued to prevent the repose which he greatly needed.
-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 lion's mane," and resuming
-those studies and that career of life 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, presuming
-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 affords none fairer, has at least many as fair, and less
-haughty than Miss Wardour. Tomorrow 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 sank
-into slumber.
-
-It is seldom that sleep, after such violent agitation, is either sound or
-refreshing. Lovel's 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 cormorant. 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 them--whatever he undertook, failed in some
-strange and unexpected manner--and whatever attracted his attention,
-underwent, as he attempted to investigate it, some wild and wonderful
-metamorphosis, while his mind continued all the while in some degree
-conscious of the delusion, from which it in vain struggled to free itself
-by awaking;--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 may be, a less
-distinct outline. Or it is possible that his feverish agitation 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 occasional flame which
-the unconsumed remnants of the faggots sent forth, as, one by one, they
-fell down upon the 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 summon
-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 represented 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 head-gear 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 portray the first proprietor of Monkbarns, such as he had
-been described to Lovel by his descendants in the course of the 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 office, 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 deliberately 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 has 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, however, was still in
-his ears, nor ceased till he could distinctly 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 distinct
-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 could make them, and only trembled slightly as the early
-breeze, which found its way through an open crevice of the latticed
-window, glided along their surface. Lovel leapt out of bed, and, wrapping
-himself in a morning-gown, that had been considerately laid by his
-bedside, 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 female voice sung, with some taste and great simplicity, something
-between a song and a hymn, in words to the following effect:--
-
-                 "Why sitt'st thou by that ruin'd hill,
-                  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.
-
-                "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!"
-
-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 offices
-of a valet-de-chambre.
-
-"I have brushed your coat, sir," said the old man, when he perceived
-Lovel was awake; "the callant brought it frae 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'll 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 offices, but accompanied 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_ time--"it's a great pity, for he's a comely young
-gentleman."
-
-"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'll be for your breakfast, I'se warrant?--hae, there's
-a soup parritch for ye--it will set ye better tae 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 ELEVENTH.
-
-
-            Sometimes he thinks that Heaven this pageant sent,
-               And ordered all the pageants as they went;
-             Sometimes that only 'twas wild Fancy's play,--
-               The loose and scattered 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 regaling 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 occurrence 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, according
-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."
-
-"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'll 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 dinna 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 lilts 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 dare
-say, 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 like 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 inconvenience sustained by the Highland
-gentleman you mentioned last night."
-
-"Ay, ay--ye understand now where the difficulty lies. Language? he has
-ways o' his ain wad banish a' thae sort o' worricows as far as the
-hindermost parts of Gideon" (meaning possibly Midian), "as Mr.
-Blattergowl says--only ane widna be uncivil to ane's forbear, though he
-be a ghaist. I am sure I will try that receipt of yours, brother, that ye
-showed me in a book, if onybody 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 ingredients, 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"--
-
-"Hypericon, thou foolish woman!" thundered Oldbuck; "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 down to Aubrey, who have wasted their time
-in devising 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 invisible 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 obliged, 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, exceptuous 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 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 but be
-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 antiquities--I am one of the old school,
-
-
-When courtiers galloped 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 expected--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
-_remora,_ 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 limbs--I
-am no friend to violent exertion myself--a walk in the garden once a-day
-is exercise, enough for any thinking 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 afternoon 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 Antigonus--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 _l'embarras 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 themselves wings like 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 lid opened, and
-discovered a thin quarto, curiously bound in black shagreen--"There, Mr.
-Lovel--there is the work I mentioned to you last night--the rare quarto
-of the Augsburg Confession, the foundation at once and the bulwark of the
-Reformation drawn up by the learned and venerable Melancthon, 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 imprinted by the scarcely less venerable and praiseworthy Aldobrand
-Oldenbuck, my happy progenitor, during the yet more tyrannical attempts
-of Philip II. to suppress at once civil and religious liberty. Yes, sir--
-for printing this work, that eminent man was expelled from his ungrateful
-country, and driven to establish his household gods even here at
-Monkbarns, among the ruins of papal superstition and domination.--Look
-upon his venerable effigies, Mr. Lovel, and respect the honourable
-occupation in which it presents him, as labouring personally 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, fonts, 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 advantages, will compel favour and
-patronage, even where it is withheld from prejudice or ignorance."
-
-"And that," said Lovel, after a moment's thoughtful silence--"that, then,
-is the meaning of these German words?"
-
-"Unquestionably. You perceive the appropriate application to a
-consciousness of inward worth, and of eminence 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 romantic circumstance."
-
-"And what is that said to have been, my good sir?" inquired his young
-friend.
-
-"Why, it rather encroaches on my respected predecessor's fame for
-prudence and wisdom--_Sed semel insanivimus omnes_--everybody has played
-the fool in their turn. It is said, my ancestor, during his
-apprenticeship with the descendant of old Faust, whom popular tradition
-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 _hand-werker;_
-for such was the custom 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 themselves for life. It was a
-wise custom; for, as such travellers 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 Nuremburg, 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 _Yung-fraw_
-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
-would 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 sufficiently 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 in which he had
-traversed Germany, and conversed with Luther, Melancthon, Erasmus, 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 womankind, and Bertha refused to acknowledge
-her former lover, in the torn doublet, skin cap, clouted shoes, and
-leathern apron, of a travelling handicraftsman or mechanic. He claimed
-his privilege, however, of being admitted 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
-without 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."
-
-"I beg your pardon," said Lovel; "I 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 honours 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 ever-green bower, my sacred holly-tree yonder, and have it _fronde
-super viridi._
-
-               "Sing heigh-ho! heigh-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 Marshall," 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
-bailiff of the abbey who had resided at Monkbarns. 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:--
-
-                    Here 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 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
-on 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 Scottish 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 increased 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.
-
-"Four devils and six of their imps!" retorted the Antiquary; "do you
-think I am mad, Maggie?"
-
-"And div ye think," rejoined the virago, setting her arms akimbo, "that
-my man and my sons are to gae to the sea in weather like 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 enough, 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)--"Yell
-no be for the fish then?"--(then louder, as she saw him moving off)--
-"I'll gie ye them--and--and--and a half-a-dozen o' partans to make the
-sauce, for three shillings and a dram."
-
-"Half-a-crown then, Maggie, and a dram."
-
-"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 o' you gentle-folks 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 claes, 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 eilding and claes, 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 goodman 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 mysell, 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 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 skin-flint,
-though they sometimes wrangle with her for an hour together under my
-study window, like three sea-gulls screaming and sputtering in a gale of
-wind. But come, wend we on our way to Knockwinnock."
-
-
-
-
-                            CHAPTER TWELFTH.
-
-
-              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,
-           Or constitute themselves, yet they are no rebels.
-                                            Brome.
-
-With our reader's 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 preceding evening, Miss
-Wardour was able to rise at her usual hour, and to apply herself to her
-usual occupations, 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, 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 feeling in my own bosom,
-in spite of my sober reason, almost rejoice that he has attained it?"
-
-While Miss Wardour thus taxed herself with wayward 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 melodrama of
-the preceding evening.
-
-She rang the bell for her maid-servant. "Bring the old man up stairs."
-
-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 life, 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 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 court-yard, 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 court-yard 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 declined 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 something that would make him easy for life; 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, my leddy, and I have never been a
-disgrace to onybody 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 forbear a' the
-slights 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?"
-
-"And 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."
-
-"O, you are a licensed man," said Isabella; "we shall 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 mendicant. "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 gudewives
-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 public loss."
-
-"Well, Edie, if your idea of your importance is so strong as not to be
-shaken by the prospect of independence"--
-
-"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
-anither--sae I canna be said to depend on onybody in particular, 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 ance--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 run himsell out o' thought wi' his honkings 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 embarrassments 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"--(lowering 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 dyke, they'll find as muckle quilted in this auld blue gown as
-will bury me like a Christian, and gie the lads and lasses a blythe
-lykewake too; sae there's the gaberlunzie's burial provided 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 wildfire, that auld Edie suld hae done siccan a
-like thing, and then, I'se warrant, I might grane my heart out or onybody
-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 owerlook me; and maybe ye'll gie a gude word for
-me to 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 office
-in barking at a gaberlunzie like me. And there's ae thing maybe mair,--
-but ye'll think it's very bald 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 Briery-bank, 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 anything 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 extraordinary 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 determine 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 confidant, and at the mercy of
-one who was by profession gossip-general to the whole neighbourhood, gave
-her acute 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 speaking 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
-officious 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 various scutcheons
-of its former owners, seemed in the act of bestowing upon Lovel much
-curious and erudite information, which, from the absent look of his
-auditor, Isabella might shrewdly guess was entirely thrown away. The
-necessity that she should take some resolution 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 THIRTEENTH.
-
-
-                     --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.
-
-"I am glad you are come, my fair foe," said the Antiquary 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 acquainted with the history of Knockwinnock Castle. I think the
-danger of last night has mazed the poor lad. But you, Miss Isabel,--why,
-yon 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 dare say 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 suppressed emotion; "I did not--did not mean
-to intrude 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. "I
-dare say," she continued, participating in Lovel's embarrassment--"I dare
-say--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 dare say 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 intelligence 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 proceeded to examine them, grumbling
-and pshawing at each which he took up and laid aside.
-
-In the meantime, Lovel, forced as it were by this secession of Oldbuck,
-into a sort of tete-a'-tete with Miss Wardour, 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 intrusion
-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 distinction. 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 sympathize 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 happiness, founded on a more
-rational basis than your present wishes, are, I trust, before, you. But
-it is full time, to finish 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 life 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 be 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 to
-Mr. Oldbuck in his dressing-room.
-
-"Let me show you the way," said Miss Wardour, who apparently dreaded a
-continuation of her tete-a-tete with 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; "I 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 incognita_ of Glen-Withershins?"
-
-"Nothing good as yet," said the Baronet, turning himself hastily, as if
-stung by a pang of the gout; "but Dousterswivel does not despair."
-
-"Does he not?" quoth Oldbuck; "I do though, under his favour. Why, old
-Dr. H--n* 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."
-
-* Probably Dr. Hutton, the celebrated geologist.
-
-"The learned doctor is not infallible, I presume?"
-
-"No; but he is one of our first chemists; and this tramping philosopher
-of yours--this Dousterswivel--is, I have a notion, one, of those learned
-adventurers described by Kirchner, _Artem habent sine arte, partem sine
-parte, quorum medium est mentiri, 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 character."
-
-"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. Oldbuck," 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 likely to be the termination
-of the adventure. "I understand," he at length said, "that the young
-gentleman, to whose gallantry and presence of 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 acknowledged the
-preference.
-
-"You made acquaintance with this young gentleman in Edinburgh, I
-suppose?"
-
-Oldbuck told the circumstances 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 Antiquary, 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 had
-less of the paltry pride of womankind about you, Miss Wardour."
-
-"There was a reason for it," said Sir Arthur with dignity; "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, _Milcolumbus Nothus;_ and his temporary
-seizure of our property, and most unjust attempt to establish his own
-illegitimate line 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 telling it to Lovel this
-moment, with some of the wise maxims and consequences which it has
-engrafted on your family 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 an excess of feeling. I
-hope, Sir Arthur, you will not think the less of your life 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 lineage."
-
-"Come, I am glad of that--he'll 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 compliments, 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 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 returning along the sands. The
-building flung its broad 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 chameleon 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
-peritura!_ 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 Antiquary, pursuing his own
-train of thought and feeling--"we harden ourselves in vain to treat with
-the indifference 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 imaginary 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 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 resemble 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 landlouper, Dousterswivel"--
-
-"I think I have seen that person, when, by some rare chance, I happened
-to be in the coffee-room at Fairport;--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 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."
-
-"O, 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 charlatan--talks of the _magisterium_--of sympathies
-and antipathies--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 know 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 caliph for a day, as Honest Abon
-Hassan wished to be, I would scourge me these jugglers out of the
-commonwealth 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 honourable 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 concerning the Pikish language, he is by
-no means very strong in the understanding. His estate is strictly
-entailed, 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
-appearances and more specious lies; and now, like John Bunyan, we awake,
-and behold it is a dream!"
-
-"I am surprised that you, Mr. Oldbuck, should have encouraged Sir Arthur
-by your example."
-
-"Why," said Oldbuck, dropping his large grizzled eyebrow, "I am something
-surprised and ashamed at it myself; 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 perhaps
-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 appearances 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; 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 FOURTEENTH.
-
-
-              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 unaccustomed 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--I did not know," said Lovel, a good deal embarrassed, "it was the
-same lady, till we met; and then it was my duty to wait till she should
-recognise me."
-
-"I am aware of your delicacy: the knight's a punctilious 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 of them but as the
-deceptions of imagination when reason drops the reins? I know no
-difference betwixt them and the hallucinations of madness--the unguided
-horses run away with the carriage in both cases, only in the one the
-coachman is drunk, and in the other he slumbers. What says our Marcus
-Tullius--_Si insanorum visis fides non est habenda, cur credatur
-somnientium visis, quae multo etiam perturbatiora sunt, non intelligo._"
-
-"Yes, sir; but Cicero also tells us, that as he who passes the whole day
-in darting the javelin must sometimes hit the mark, so, amid the cloud of
-nightly dreams, some may occur consonant to future events."
-
-"Ay--that is to say, _you_ have hit the mark in your own sage opinion?
-Lord! Lord! how this world is given to folly! Well, I will allow for once
-the Oneirocritical science--I will give faith to the exposition of
-dreams, and say a Daniel hath arisen to interpret them, if you can prove
-to me that that dream of yours has pointed to a prudent line of conduct."
-
-"Tell me, then," answered Lovel, "why when I was hesitating whether to
-abandon an enterprise, which I have perhaps rashly undertaken, I should
-last night dream I saw your ancestor pointing to a motto which encouraged
-me to perseverance?--why should I have thought of those words which I
-cannot remember to have heard before, which are in a language unknown to
-me, and which yet conveyed, when translated, a lesson which I could so
-plainly apply to my own circumstances?"
-
-The Antiquary burst into a fit of laughing. "Excuse me, my young friend--
-but it is thus we silly mortals deceive ourselves, and look out of doors
-for motives which originate in our own wilful will. I think I can help
-out the cause of your vision. You were so abstracted in your
-contemplations yesterday after dinner, as to pay little attention to the
-discourse between Sir Arthur and me, until we fell upon the controversy
-concerning the Piks, which terminated so abruptly;--but I remember
-producing to Sir Arthur a book printed by my ancestor, and making him
-observe the motto; your mind was bent elsewhere, but your ear had
-mechanically received and retained the sounds, and your busy fancy,
-stirred by Grizel's legend I presume, had introduced this scrap of German
-into your dream. As for the waking wisdom which seized on so frivolous a
-circumstance as an apology for persevering in some course which it could
-find no better reason to justify, it is exactly one of those juggling
-tricks which the sagest of us play off now and then, to gratify our
-inclination at the expense of our understanding."
-
-"I own it," said Lovel, blushing deeply;--"I believe you are right, Mr.
-Oldbuck, and I ought to sink in your esteem for attaching a moment's
-consequence to such a frivolity;--but I was tossed by contradictory
-wishes and resolutions, and you know how slight a line will tow a boat
-when afloat on the billows, though a cable would hardly move her when
-pulled up on the beach."
-
-"Right, right," exclaimed the Antiquary. "Fall in my opinion!--not a
-whit--I love thee the better, man;--why, we have story for story against
-each other, and I can think with less shame on having exposed myself
-about that cursed Praetorium--though I am still convinced Agricola's camp
-must have been somewhere in this neighbourhood. And now, Lovel, my good
-lad, be sincere with me--What make you from Wittenberg?--why have you
-left your own country and professional pursuits, for an idle residence in
-such a place as Fairport? A truant disposition, I fear."
-
-"Even so," replied Lovel, patiently submitting to an interrogatory which
-he could not well evade. "Yet I am so detached from all the world, have
-so few in whom I am interested, or who are interested in me, that my very
-state of destitution gives me independence. He whose good or evil fortune
-affects himself alone, has the best right to pursue it according to his
-own fancy."
-
-"Pardon me, young man," said Oldbuck, laying his hand kindly on his
-shoulder, and making a full halt--"_sufflamina_--a little patience, if
-you please. I will suppose that you have no friends to share or rejoice
-in your success in life--that you cannot look back to those to whom you
-owe gratitude, or forward to those to whom you ought to afford
-protection; but it is no less incumbent on you to move steadily in the
-path of duty--for your active exertions are due not only to society, but
-in humble gratitude to the Being who made you a member of it, with powers
-to serve yourself and others."
-
-"But I am unconscious of possessing such powers," said Lovel, somewhat
-impatiently. "I ask nothing of society but the permission of walking
-innoxiously through the path of life, without jostling others, or
-permitting myself to be jostled. I owe no man anything--I have the means
-of maintaining, myself with complete independence; and so moderate are my
-wishes in this respect, that even these means, however limited, rather
-exceed than fall short of them."
-
-"Nay, then," said Oldbuck, removing his hand, and turning again to the
-road, "if you are so true a philosopher as to think you have money
-enough, there's no more to be said--I cannot pretend to be entitled to
-advise you;--you have attained the _acme'_--the summit of perfection. And
-how came Fairport to be the selected abode of so much self-denying
-philosophy? It is as if a worshipper of the true religion had set up his
-staff by choice among the multifarious idolaters of the land of Egypt.
-There is not a man in Fairport who is not a devoted worshipper of the
-Golden Calf--the mammon of unrighteousness. Why, even I, man, am so
-infected by the bad neighbourhood, that I feel inclined occasionally to
-become an idolater myself."
-
-"My principal amusements being literary," answered Lovel, "and
-circumstances which I cannot mention having induced me, for a time at
-least, to relinquish the military service, I have pitched on Fairport as
-a place where I might follow my pursuits without any of those temptations
-to society which a more elegant circle might have presented to me."
-
-"Aha!" replied Oldbuck, knowingly,--"I begin to understand your
-application of my ancestor's motto. You are a candidate for public
-favour, though not in the way I first suspected,--you are ambitious to
-shine as a literary character, and you hope to merit favour by labour and
-perseverance?"
-
-Lovel, who was rather closely pressed by the inquisitiveness of the old
-gentleman, concluded it would be best to let him remain in the error
-which he had gratuitously adopted.
-
-"I have been at times foolish enough," he replied, "to nourish some
-thoughts of the kind."
-
-"Ah, poor fellow! nothing can be more melancholy; unless, as young men
-sometimes do, you had fancied yourself in love with some trumpery
-specimen of womankind, which is indeed, as Shakspeare truly says,
-pressing to death, whipping, and hanging all at once."
-
-He then proceeded with inquiries, which he was sometimes kind enough to
-answer himself. For this good old gentleman had, from his antiquarian
-researches, acquired a delight in building theories out of premises which
-were often far from affording sufficient ground for them; and being, as
-the reader must have remarked, sufficiently opinionative, he did not
-readily brook being corrected, either in matter of fact or judgment, even
-by those who were principally interested in the subjects on which he
-speculated. He went on, therefore, chalking out Lovel's literary career
-for him.
-
-"And with what do you propose to commence your debut as a man of
-letters?--But I guess--poetry--poetry--the soft seducer of youth. Yes!
-there is an acknowledging modesty of confusion in your eye and manner.
-And where lies your vein?--are you inclined to soar to the, higher
-regions of Parnassus, or to flutter around the base of the hill?"
-
-"I have hitherto attempted only a few lyrical pieces," said Lovel.
-
-"Just as I supposed--pruning your wing, and hopping from spray to spray.
-But I trust you intend a bolder flight. Observe, I would by no means
-recommend your persevering in this unprofitable pursuit--but you say you
-are quite independent of the public caprice?"
-
-"Entirely so," replied Lovel.
-
-"And that you are determined not to adopt a more active course of life?"
-
-"For the present, such is my resolution," replied the young man.
-
-"Why, then, it only remains for me to give you my best advice and
-assistance in the object of your pursuit. I have myself published two
-essays in the Antiquarian Repository,--and therefore am an author of
-experience, There was my Remarks on Hearne's edition of Robert of
-Gloucester, signed _Scrutator;_ and the other signed _Indagator,_ upon a
-passage in Tacitus. I might add, what attracted considerable notice at
-the time, and that is my paper in the Gentleman's Magazine, upon the
-inscription of OElia Lelia, which I subscribed _OEdipus._So you see I am
-not an apprentice in the mysteries of author-craft, and must necessarily
-understand the taste and temper of the times. And now, once more, what do
-you intend to commence with?"
-
-"I have no instant thoughts of publishing."
-
-"Ah! that will never do; you must have the fear of the public before your
-eyes in all your undertakings. Let us see now: A collection of fugitive
-pieces; but no--your fugitive poetry is apt to become stationary with the
-bookseller. It should be something at once solid and attractive--none of
-your romances or anomalous novelties--I would have you take high ground
-at once. Let me see: What think you of a real epic?--the grand
-old-fashioned historical poem which moved through twelve or twenty-four
-books. We'll have it so--I'll supply you with a subject--The battle
-between the Caledonians and Romans--The Caledoniad; or, Invasion
-Repelled;--let that be the title--it will suit the present taste, and you
-may throw in a touch of the times."
-
-"But the invasion of Agricola was _not_ repelled."
-
-"No; but you are a poet--free of the corporation, and as little bound
-down to truth or probability as Virgil himself--You may defeat the Romans
-in spite of Tacitus."
-
-"And pitch Agricola's camp at the Kaim of--what do you call it," answered
-Lovel, "in defiance of Edie Ochiltree?"
-
-"No more of that, an thou lovest me--And yet, I dare say, ye may
-unwittingly speak most correct truth in both instances, in despite of the
-_toga_ of the historian and the blue gown of the mendicant."
-
-"Gallantly counselled!--Well, I will do my best--your kindness will
-assist me with local information."
-
-"Will I not, man?--why, I will write the critical and historical notes on
-each canto, and draw out the plan of the story myself. I pretend to some
-poetical genius, Mr. Lovel, only I was never able to write verses."
-
-"It is a pity, sir, that you should have failed in a qualification
-somewhat essential to the art."
-
-"Essential?--not a whit--it is the mere mechanical department. A man may
-be a poet without measuring spondees and dactyls like the ancients, or
-clashing the ends of lines into rhyme like the moderns, as one may be an
-architect though unable to labour like a stone-mason--Dost think Palladio
-or Vitruvius ever carried a hod?"
-
-"In that case, there should be two authors to each poem--one to think and
-plan, another to execute."
-
-"Why, it would not be amiss; at any rate, we'll make the experiment;--not
-that I would wish to give my name to the public--assistance from a
-learned friend might be acknowledged in the preface after what flourish
-your nature will--I am a total stranger to authorial vanity."
-
-Lovel was much entertained by a declaration not very consistent with the
-eagerness wherewith his friend seemed to catch at an opportunity of
-coming before the public, though in a manner which rather resembled
-stepping up behind a carriage than getting into one. The Antiquary was
-indeed uncommonly delighted; for, like many other men who spend their
-lives in obscure literary research, he had a secret ambition to appear in
-print, which was checked by cold fits of diffidence, fear of criticism,
-and habits of indolence and procrastination. "But," thought he, "I may,
-like a second Teucer, discharge my shafts from behind the shield of my
-ally; and, admit that he should not prove to be a first-rate poet, I am
-in no shape answerable for his deficiencies, and the good notes may very
-probably help off an indifferent text. But he is--he must be a good poet;
-he has the real Parnassian abstraction--seldom answers a question till it
-is twice repeated--drinks his tea scalding, and eats without knowing what
-he is putting into his mouth. This is the real _aestus,_ the _awen_ of
-the Welsh bards, the _divinus afflatus_ that transports the poet beyond
-the limits of sublunary things. His visions, too, are very symptomatical
-of poetic fury--I must recollect to send Caxon to see he puts out his
-candle to-night--poets and visionaries are apt to be negligent in that
-respect." Then, turning to his companion, he expressed himself aloud in
-continuation--
-
-"Yes, my dear Lovel, you shall have full notes; and, indeed, think we may
-introduce the whole of the Essay on Castrametation into the appendix--it
-will give great value to the work. Then we will revive the good old forms
-so disgracefully neglected in modern times. You shall invoke the Muse--
-and certainly she ought to be propitious to an author who, in an
-apostatizing age, adheres with the faith of Abdiel to the ancient form of
-adoration.--Then we must have a vision--in which the Genius of Caledonia
-shall appear to Galgacus, and show him a procession of the real Scottish
-monarchs:--and in the notes I will have a hit at Boethius--No; I must not
-touch that topic, now that Sir Arthur is likely to have vexation enough
-besides--but I'll annihilate Ossian, Macpherson, and Mac-Cribb."
-
-"But we must consider the expense of publication," said Lovel, willing to
-try whether this hint would fall like cold water on the blazing zeal of
-his self-elected coadjutor.
-
-"Expense!" said Mr. Oldbuck, pausing, and mechanically fumbling in his
-pocket--"that is true;--I would wish to do something--but you would not
-like to publish by subscription?"
-
-"By no means," answered Lovel.
-
-"No, no!" gladly acquiesced the Antiquary--"it is not respectable. I'll
-tell you what: I believe I know a bookseller who has a value for my
-opinion, and will risk print and paper, and I will get as many copies
-sold for you as I can."
-
-"O, I am no mercenary author," answered Lovel, smiling; "I only wish to
-be out of risk of loss."
-
-"Hush! hush! we'll take care of that--throw it all on the publishers. I
-do long to see your labours commenced. You will choose blank verse,
-doubtless?--it is more grand and magnificent for an historical subject;
-and, what concerneth you, my friend, it is, I have an idea, more easily
-written."
-
-This conversation brought them to Monkbarns, where the Antiquary had to
-undergo a chiding from his sister, who, though no philosopher, was
-waiting to deliver a lecture to him in the portico. "Guide us, Monkbarns!
-are things no dear eneugh already, but ye maun be raising the very fish
-on us, by giving that randy, Luckie Mucklebackit, just what she likes to
-ask?"
-
-"Why, Grizel," said the sage, somewhat abashed at this unexpected attack,
-"I thought I made a very fair bargain."
-
-"A fair bargain! when ye gied the limmer a full half o' what she seekit!
---An ye will be a wife-carle, and buy fish at your ain hands, ye suld
-never bid muckle mair than a quarter. And the impudent quean had the
-assurance to come up and seek a dram--But I trow, Jenny and I sorted
-her!"
-
-"Truly," said Oldbuck (with a sly look to his companion), "I think our
-estate was gracious that kept us out of hearing of that controversy.--
-Well, well, Grizel, I was wrong for once in my life _ultra crepidam_--I
-fairly admit. But hang expenses!--care killed a cat--we'll eat the fish,
-cost what it will.--And then, Lovel, you must know I pressed you to stay
-here to-day, the rather because our cheer will be better than usual,
-yesterday having been a gaude' day--I love the reversion of a feast
-better than the feast itself. I delight in the _analecta,_ the
-_collectanea,_ as I may call them, of the preceding day's dinner, which
-appear on such occasions--And see, there is Jenny going to ring the
-dinner-bell."
-
-
-
-
-                           CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
-
-
-        Be this letter delivered with haste--haste--post-haste!
-        Ride, villain, ride,--for thy life--for thy life--for thy life.
-                  Ancient Indorsation of Letters of Importance.
-
-Leaving Mr. Oldbuck and his friend to enjoy their hard bargain of fish,
-we beg leave to transport the reader to the back-parlour of the
-post-master's house at Fairport, where his wife, he himself being absent,
-was employed in assorting for delivery the letters which had come by the
-Edinburgh post. This is very often in country towns the period of the day
-when gossips find it particularly agreeable to call on the man or woman
-of letters, in order, from the outside of the epistles, and, if they are
-not belied, occasionally from the inside also, to amuse themselves with
-gleaning information, or forming conjectures about the correspondence and
-affairs of their neighbours. Two females of this description were, at the
-time we mention, assisting, or impeding, Mrs. Mailsetter in her official
-duty.
-
-"Eh, preserve us, sirs!" said the butcher's wife, "there's ten--eleven--
-twall letters to Tennant and Co.--thae folk do mair business than a' the
-rest o' the burgh."
-
-"Ay; but see, lass," answered the baker's lady, "there's twa o' them
-faulded unco square, and sealed at the tae side--I doubt there will be
-protested bills in them."
-
-"Is there ony letters come yet for Jenny Caxon?" inquired the woman of
-joints and giblets; "the lieutenant's been awa three weeks."
-
-"Just ane on Tuesday was a week," answered the dame of letters.
-
-"Wast a ship-letter?" asked the Fornerina.
-
-"In troth wast."
-
-"It wad be frae the lieutenant then," replied the mistress of the rolls,
-somewhat disappointed--"I never thought he wad hae lookit ower his
-shouther after her."
-
-"Od, here's another," quoth Mrs. Mailsetter. "A ship-letter--post-mark,
-Sunderland." All rushed to seize it.--"Na, na, leddies," said Mrs.
-Mailsetter, interfering; "I hae had eneugh o' that wark--Ken ye that Mr.
-Mailsetter got an unco rebuke frae the secretary at Edinburgh, for a
-complaint that was made about the letter of Aily Bisset's that ye opened,
-Mrs. Shortcake?"
-
-"Me opened!" answered the spouse of the chief baker of Fairport; "ye ken
-yoursell, madam, it just cam open o' free will in my hand--what could I
-help it?--folk suld seal wi' better wax."
-
-"Weel I wot that's true, too," said Mrs. Mailsetter, who kept a shop of
-small wares, "and we have got some that I can honestly recommend, if ye
-ken onybody wanting it. But the short and the lang o't is, that we'll
-lose the place gin there's ony mair complaints o' the kind."
-
-"Hout, lass--the provost will take care o' that."
-
-"Na, na, I'll neither trust to provost nor bailier" said the
-postmistress,--"but I wad aye be obliging and neighbourly, and I'm no
-again your looking at the outside of a letter neither--See, the seal has
-an anchor on't--he's done't wi' ane o' his buttons, I'm thinking."
-
-"Show me! show me!" quoth the wives of the chief butcher and chief baker;
-and threw themselves on the supposed love-letter, like the weird sisters
-in Macbeth upon the pilot's thumb, with curiosity as eager and scarcely
-less malignant. Mrs. Heukbane was a tall woman--she held the precious
-epistle up between her eyes and the window. Mrs. Shortcake, a little
-squat personage, strained and stood on tiptoe to have her share of the
-investigation.
-
-"Ay, it's frae him, sure eneugh," said the butcher's lady;--"I can read
-Richard Taffril on the corner, and it's written, like John Thomson's
-wallet, frae end to end."
-
-"Haud it lower down, madam," exclaimed Mrs. Shortcake, in a tone above
-the prudential whisper which their occupation required--"haud it lower
-down--Div ye think naebody can read hand o' writ but yoursell?"
-
-"Whist, whist, sirs, for God's sake!" said Mrs. Mailsetter, "there's
-somebody in the shop,"--then aloud--"Look to the customers, Baby!"--Baby
-answered from without in a shrill tone--"It's naebody but Jenny Caxon,
-ma'am, to see if there's ony letters to her."
-
-"Tell her," said the faithful postmistress, winking to her compeers, "to
-come back the morn at ten o'clock, and I'll let her ken--we havena had
-time to sort the mail letters yet--she's aye in sic a hurry, as if her
-letters were o' mair consequence than the best merchant's o' the town."
-
-Poor Jenny, a girl of uncommon beauty and modesty, could only draw her
-cloak about her to hide the sigh of disappointment and return meekly home
-to endure for another night the sickness of the heart occasioned by hope
-delayed.
-
-"There's something about a needle and a pole," said Mrs. Shortcake, to
-whom her taller rival in gossiping had at length yielded a peep at the
-subject of their curiosity.
-
-"Now, that's downright shamefu'," said Mrs. Heukbane, "to scorn the poor
-silly gait of a lassie after he's keepit company wi' her sae lang, and
-had his will o' her, as I make nae doubt he has."
-
-"It's but ower muckle to be doubted," echoed Mrs. Shortcake;--"to cast up
-to her that her father's a barber and has a pole at his door, and that
-she's but a manty-maker hersell! Hout fy for shame!"
-
-"Hout tout, leddies," cried Mrs. Mailsetter, "ye're clean wrang--It's a
-line out o' ane o' his sailors' sangs that I have heard him sing, about
-being true like the needle to the pole."
-
-"Weel, weel, I wish it may be sae," said the charitable Dame Heukbane,--
-"but it disna look weel for a lassie like her to keep up a correspondence
-wi' ane o' the king's officers."
-
-"I'm no denying that," said Mrs. Mailsetter; "but it's a great advantage
-to the revenue of the post-office thae love-letters. See, here's five or
-six letters to Sir Arthur Wardour--maist o' them sealed wi' wafers, and
-no wi' wax. There will be a downcome, there, believe me."
-
-"Ay; they will be business letters, and no frae ony o' his grand friends,
-that seals wi' their coats of arms, as they ca' them," said Mrs.
-Heukbane;--"pride will hae a fa'--he hasna settled his account wi' my
-gudeman, the deacon, for this twalmonth--he's but slink, I doubt."
-
-"Nor wi' huz for sax months," echoed Mrs. Shortcake--"He's but a brunt
-crust."
-
-"There's a letter," interrupted the trusty postmistress, "from his son,
-the captain, I'm thinking--the seal has the same things wi' the
-Knockwinnock carriage. He'll be coming hame to see what he can save out
-o' the fire."
-
-The baronet thus dismissed, they took up the esquire--"Twa letters for
-Monkbarns--they're frae some o' his learned friends now; see sae close as
-they're written, down to the very seal--and a' to save sending a double
-letter--that's just like Monkbarns himsell. When he gets a frank he fills
-it up exact to the weight of an unce, that a carvy-seed would sink the
-scale--but he's neer a grain abune it. Weel I wot I wad be broken if I
-were to gie sic weight to the folk that come to buy our pepper and
-brimstone, and suchlike sweetmeats."
-
-"He's a shabby body the laird o' Monkbarns," said Mrs. Heukbane; "he'll
-make as muckle about buying a forequarter o' lamb in August as about a
-back sey o' beef. Let's taste another drop of the sinning" (perhaps she
-meant _cinnamon_) "waters, Mrs. Mailsetter, my dear. Ah, lasses! an ye
-had kend his brother as I did--mony a time he wad slip in to see me wi' a
-brace o' wild deukes in his pouch, when my first gudeman was awa at the
-Falkirk tryst--weel, weel--we'se no speak o' that e'enow."
-
-"I winna say ony ill o'this Monkbarns," said Mrs. Shortcake; "his brother
-neer brought me ony wild-deukes, and this is a douce honest man; we serve
-the family wi' bread, and he settles wi' huz ilka week--only he was in an
-unco kippage when we sent him a book instead o' the _nick-sticks,_*
-whilk, he said, were the true ancient way o' counting between tradesmen
-and customers; and sae they are, nae doubt."
-
-* Note E. Nick-sticks.
-
-"But look here, lasses," interrupted Mrs. Mailsetter, "here's a sight for
-sair e'en! What wad ye gie to ken what's in the inside o' this letter?
-This is new corn--I haena seen the like o' this--For William Lovel,
-Esquire, at Mrs. Hadoway's, High Street, Fairport, by Edinburgh, N. B.
-This is just the second letter he has had since he was here."
-
-"Lord's sake, let's see, lass!--Lord's sake, let's see!--that's him that
-the hale town kens naething about--and a weel-fa'ard lad he is; let's
-see, let's see!" Thus ejaculated the two worthy representatives of mother
-Eve.
-
-"Na, na, sirs," exclaimed Mrs. Mailsetter; "haud awa--bide aff, I tell
-you; this is nane o' your fourpenny cuts that we might make up the value
-to the post-office amang ourselves if ony mischance befell it;--the
-postage is five-and-twenty shillings--and here's an order frae the
-Secretary to forward it to the young gentleman by express, if he's no at
-hame. Na, na, sirs, bide aff;--this maunna be roughly guided."
-
-"But just let's look at the outside o't, woman."
-
-Nothing could be gathered from the outside, except remarks on the various
-properties which philosophers ascribe to matter,--length, breadth, depth,
-and weight, The packet was composed of strong thick paper, imperviable by
-the curious eyes of the gossips, though they stared as if they would
-burst from their sockets. The seal was a deep and well-cut impression of
-arms, which defied all tampering.
-
-"Od, lass," said Mrs. Shortcake, weighing it in her hand, and wishing,
-doubtless, that the too, too solid wax would melt and dissolve itself, "I
-wad like to ken what's in the inside o' this, for that Lovel dings a'
-that ever set foot on the plainstanes o' Fairport--naebody kens what to
-make o' him."
-
-"Weel, weel, leddies," said the postmistress, "we'se sit down and crack
-about it.--Baby, bring ben the tea-water--Muckle obliged to ye for your
-cookies, Mrs. Shortcake--and we'll steek the shop, and cry ben Baby, and
-take a hand at the cartes till the gudeman comes hame--and then we'll try
-your braw veal sweetbread that ye were so kind as send me, Mrs.
-Heukbane."
-
-"But winna ye first send awa Mr. Lovel's letter?" said Mrs. Heukbane.
-
-"Troth I kenna wha to send wi't till the gudeman comes hame, for auld
-Caxon tell'd me that Mr. Lovel stays a' the day at Monkbarns--he's in a
-high fever, wi' pu'ing the laird and Sir Arthur out o' the sea."
-
-"Silly auld doited carles!" said Mrs. Shortcake; "what gar'd them gang to
-the douking in a night like yestreen!"
-
-"I was gi'en to understand it was auld Edie that saved them," said Mrs.
-Heukbane--"Edie Ochiltree, the Blue-Gown, ye ken; and that he pu'd the
-hale three out of the auld fish-pound, for Monkbarns had threepit on them
-to gang in till't to see the wark o' the monks lang syne."
-
-"Hout, lass, nonsense!" answered the postmistress; "I'll tell ye, a'
-about it, as Caxon tell'd it to me. Ye see, Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour,
-and Mr. Lovel, suld hae dined at Monkbarns"--
-
-"But, Mrs. Mailsetter," again interrupted Mrs. Heukbane, "will ye no be
-for sending awa this letter by express?--there's our powny and our
-callant hae gane express for the office or now, and the powny hasna gane
-abune thirty mile the day;--Jock was sorting him up as I came ower by."
-
-"Why, Mrs. Heukbane," said the woman of letters, pursing up her mouth,
-"ye ken my gudeman likes to ride the expresses himsell--we maun gie our
-ain fish-guts to our ain sea-maws--it's a red half-guinea to him every
-time he munts his mear; and I dare say he'll be in sune--or I dare to
-say, it's the same thing whether the gentleman gets the express this
-night or early next morning."
-
-"Only that Mr. Lovel will be in town before the express gaes aff," said
-Mrs. Heukbane; "and where are ye then, lass? But ye ken yere ain ways
-best."
-
-"Weel, weel, Mrs. Heukbane," answered Mrs. Mailsetter, a little out of
-humour, and even out of countenance, "I am sure I am never against being
-neighbour-like, and living and letting live, as they say; and since I hae
-been sic a fule as to show you the post-office order--ou, nae doubt, it
-maun be obeyed. But I'll no need your callant, mony thanks to ye--I'll
-send little Davie on your powny, and that will be just five-and-
-threepence to ilka ane o' us, ye ken."
-
-"Davie! the Lord help ye, the bairn's no ten year auld; and, to be plain
-wi' ye, our powny reists a bit, and it's dooms sweer to the road, and
-naebody can manage him but our Jock."
-
-"I'm sorry for that," answered the postmistress, gravely; "it's like we
-maun wait then till the gudeman comes hame, after a'--for I wadna like to
-be responsible in trusting the letter to sic a callant as Jock--our Davie
-belangs in a manner to the office."
-
-"Aweel, aweel, Mrs. Mailsetter, I see what ye wad be at--but an ye like
-to risk the bairn, I'll risk the beast."
-
-Orders were accordingly given. The unwilling pony was brought out of his
-bed of straw, and again equipped for service--Davie (a leathern post-bag
-strapped across his shoulders) was perched upon the saddle, with a tear
-in his eye, and a switch in his hand. Jock good-naturedly led the animal
-out of town, and, by the crack of his whip, and the whoop and halloo of
-his too well-known voice, compelled it to take the road towards
-Monkbarns.
-
-Meanwhile the gossips, like the sibyls after consulting their leaves,
-arranged and combined the information of the evening, which flew next
-morning through a hundred channels, and in a hundred varieties, through
-the world of Fairport. Many, strange, and inconsistent, were the rumours
-to which their communications and conjectures gave rise. Some said
-Tennant and Co. were broken, and that all their bills had come back
-protested--others that they had got a great contract from Government, and
-letters from the principal merchants at Glasgow, desiring to have shares
-upon a premium. One report stated, that Lieutenant Taffril had
-acknowledged a private marriage with Jenny Caxon--another, that he had
-sent her a letter upbraiding her with the lowness of her birth and
-education, and bidding her an eternal adieu. It was generally rumoured
-that Sir Arthur Wardour's affairs had fallen into irretrievable
-confusion, and this report was only doubted by the wise, because it was
-traced to Mrs. Mailsetter's shop,--a source more famous for the
-circulation of news than for their accuracy. But all agreed that a packet
-from the Secretary of State's office, had arrived, directed for Mr.
-Lovel, and that it had been forwarded by an orderly dragoon, despatched
-from the head-quarters at Edinburgh, who had galloped through Fairport
-without stopping, except just to inquire the way to Monkbarns. The reason
-of such an extraordinary mission to a very peaceful and retired
-individual, was variously explained. Some said Lovel was an emigrant
-noble, summoned to head an insurrection that had broken out in La
-Vende'e--others that he was a spy--others that he was a general officer,
-who was visiting the coast privately--others that he was a prince of the
-blood, who was travelling _incognito._
-
-Meanwhile the progress of the packet which occasioned so much
-speculation, towards its destined owner at Monkbarns, had been perilous
-and interrupted. The bearer, Davie Mailsetter, as little resembling a
-bold dragoon as could well be imagined, was carried onwards towards
-Monkbarns by the pony, so long as the animal had in his recollection the
-crack of his usual instrument of chastisement, and the shout of the
-butcher's boy. But feeling how Davie, whose short legs were unequal to
-maintain his balance, swung to and fro upon his back, the pony began to
-disdain furthur compliance with the intimations he had received. First,
-then, he slackened his pace to a walk This was no point of quarrel
-between him and his rider, who had been considerably discomposed by the
-rapidity of his former motion, and who now took the opportunity of his
-abated pace to gnaw a piece of gingerbread, which had been thrust into
-his hand by his mother in order to reconcile this youthful emissary of
-the post-office to the discharge of his duty. By and by, the crafty pony
-availed himself of this surcease of discipline to twitch the rein out of
-Davies hands, and applied himself to browse on the grass by the side of
-the lane. Sorely astounded by these symptoms of self-willed rebellion,
-and afraid alike to sit or to fall, poor Davie lifted up his voice and
-wept aloud. The pony, hearing this pudder over his head, began apparently
-to think it would be best both for himself and Davie to return from
-whence they came, and accordingly commenced a retrograde movement towards
-Fairport. But, as all retreats are apt to end in utter rout, so the
-steed, alarmed by the boy's cries, and by the flapping of the reins,
-which dangled about his forefeet--finding also his nose turned homeward,
-began to set off at a rate which, if Davie kept the saddle (a matter
-extremely dubious), would soon have presented him at Heukbane's
-stable-door,--when, at a turn of the road, an intervening auxiliary, in
-the shape of old Edie Ochiltree, caught hold of the rein, and stopped his
-farther proceeding. "Wha's aught ye, callant? whaten a gate's that to
-ride?"
-
-"I canna help it!" blubbered the express; "they ca' me little Davie."
-
-"And where are ye gaun?"
-
-"I'm gaun to Monkbarns wi' a letter."
-
-"Stirra, this is no the road to Monkbarns."
-
-But Davie could oinly answer the expostulation with sighs and tears.
-
-Old Edie was easily moved to compassion where childhood was in the case.-
--"I wasna gaun that gate," he thought, "but it's the best o' my way o'
-life that I canna be weel out o' my road. They'll gie me quarters at
-Monkbarns readily eneugh, and I'll e'en hirple awa there wi' the wean,
-for it will knock its hams out, puir thing, if there's no somebody to
-guide the pony.--Sae ye hae a letter, hinney? will ye let me see't?"
-
-"I'm no gaun to let naebody see the letter," sobbed the boy, "till I
-gie't to Mr. Lovel, for I am a faithfu' servant o' the office--if it
-werena for the powny."
-
-"Very right, my little man," said Ochiltree, turning the reluctant pony's
-head towards Monkbarns; "but we'll guide him atween us, if he's no a' the
-sweerer."
-
-Upon the very height of Kinprunes, to which Monkbarns had invited Lovel
-after their dinner, the Antiquary, again reconciled to the once degraded
-spot, was expatiating upon the topics the scenery afforded for a
-description of Agricola's camp at the dawn of morning, when his eye was
-caught by the appearance of the mendicant and his protegee. "What the
-devil!--here comes Old Edie, bag and baggage, I think."
-
-The beggar explained his errand, and Davie, who insisted upon a literal
-execution of his commission by going on to Monkbarns, was with difficulty
-prevailed upon to surrender the packet to its proper owner, although he
-met him a mile nearer than the place he bad been directed to. "But my
-minnie said, I maun be sure to get twenty shillings and five shillings
-for the postage, and ten shillings and sixpence for the express--there's
-the paper."
-
-"Let me see--let me see," said Oldbuck, putting on his spectacles, and
-examining the crumpled copy of regulations to which Davie
-appealed."Express, per man and horse, one day, not to exceed ten
-shillings and sixpence. One day? why, it's not an hour--Man and horse?
-why, 'tis a monkey on a starved cat!"
-
-"Father wad hae come himsell," said Davie, "on the muckle red mear, an ye
-wad hae bidden till the morn's night."
-
-"Four-and-twenty hours after the regular date of delivery! You little
-cockatrice egg, do you understand the art of imposition so early?"
-
-"Hout Monkbarns! dinna set your wit against a bairn," said the beggar;
-"mind the butcher risked his beast, and the wife her wean, and I am sure
-ten and sixpence isna ower muckle. Ye didna gang sae near wi' Johnnie
-Howie, when"--
-
-Lovel, who, sitting on the supposed _Praetorium,_ had glanced over the
-contents of the packet, now put an end to the altercation by paying
-Davies demand; and then turning to Mr. Oldbuck, with a look of much
-agitation, he excused himself from returning with him to Monkbarns' that
-evening.--"I must instantly go to Fairport, and perhaps leave it on a
-moment's notice;--your kindness, Mr. Oldbuck, I can never forget."
-
-"No bad news, I hope?" said the Antiquary.
-
-"Of a very chequered complexion," answered his friend. "Farewell--in good
-or bad fortune I will not forget your regard."
-
-"Nay, nay--stop a moment. If--if--" (making an effort)--"if there be any
-pecuniary inconvenience--I have fifty--or a hundred guineas at your
-service--till--till Whitsunday--or indeed as long as you please."
-
-"I am much obliged, Mr. Oldbuck, but I am amply provided," said his
-mysterious young friend."Excuse me--I really cannot sustain further
-conversation at present. I will write or see you, before I leave
-Fairport--that is, if I find myself obliged to go."
-
-So saying, he shook the Antiquary's hand warmly, turned from him, and
-walked rapidly towards the town, "staying no longer question."
-
-"Very extraordinary indeed!" said Oldbuck;--"but there's something about
-this lad I can never fathom; and yet I cannot for my heart think ill of
-him neither. I must go home and take off the fire in the Green Room, for
-none of my womankind will venture into it after twilight."
-
-"And how am I to win hame?" blubbered the disconsolate express.
-
-"It's a fine night," said the Blue-Gown, looking up to the skies; "I had
-as gude gang back to the town, and take care o' the wean."
-
-"Do so, do so, Edie;" and rummaging for some time in his huge waistcoat
-pocket till be found the object of his search, the Antiquary added,
-"there's sixpence to ye to buy sneeshin."
-
-
-
-
-
-                           CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
-
-     "I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal has not
-     given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged; it could
-     not be else. I have drunk medicines."
-                            Second Part of Henry IV.
-
-Regular for a fortnight were the inquiries of the Antiquary at the
-veteran Caxon, whether he had heard what Mr. Lovel was about; and as
-regular were Caxon's answers, "that the town could learn naething about
-him whatever, except that he had received anither muckle letter or twa
-frae the south, and that he was never seen on the plainstanes at a'."
-
-"How does he live, Caxon?"
-
-"Ou, Mrs. Hadoway just dresses him a beefsteak or a muttonchop, or makes
-him some Friar's chicken, or just what she likes hersell, and he eats it
-in the little red parlour off his bedroom. She canna get him to say that
-he likes ae thing better than anither; and she makes him tea in a
-morning, and he settles honourably wi' her every week."
-
-"But does he never stir abroad?"
-
-"He has clean gi'en up walking, and he sits a' day in his room reading or
-writing; a hantle letters he has written, but he wadna put them into our
-post-house, though Mrs. Hadoway offered to carry them hersell, but sent
-them a' under ae cover to the sheriff; and it's Mrs. Mailsetter's belief,
-that the sheriff sent his groom to put them into the post-office at
-Tannonburgh; it's my puir thought, that he jaloused their looking into
-his letters at Fairport; and weel had he need, for my puir daughter
-Jenny"--
-
-"Tut, don't plague me with your womankind, Caxon. About this poor young
-lad.--Does he write nothing but letters?"
-
-"Ou, ay--hale sheets o' other things, Mrs. Hadoway says. She wishes
-muckle he could be gotten to take a walk; she thinks he's but looking
-very puirly, and his appetite's clean gane; but he'll no hear o' ganging
-ower the door-stane--him that used to walk sae muckle too."
-
-"That's wrong--I have a guess what he's busy about; but he must not work
-too hard neither. I'll go and see him this very day--he's deep,
-doubtless, in the Caledoniad."
-
-Having formed this manful resolution, Mr. Oldbuck equipped himself for
-the expedition with his thick walking-shoes and gold-headed cane,
-muttering the while the words of Falstaff which we have chosen for the
-motto of this chapter; for the Antiquary was himself rather surprised at
-the degree of attachment which he could not but acknowledge be
-entertained for this stranger. The riddle was notwithstanding easily
-solved. Lovel had many attractive qualities, but he won our Antiquary's
-heart by being on most occasions an excellent listener.
-
-A walk to Fairport had become somewhat of an adventure with Mr. Oldbuck,
-and one which he did not often care to undertake. He hated greetings in
-the market-place; and there were generally loiterers in the streets to
-persecute him, either about the news of the day, or about some petty
-pieces of business. So, on this occasion, he had no sooner entered the
-streets of Fairport, than it was "Good-morrow, Mr. Oldbuck--a sight o'
-you's gude, for sair een: what d'ye think of the news in the Sun the
-day?--they say the great attempt will be made in a fortnight."
-
-"I wish to the Lord it were made and over, that I might hear no more
-about it."
-
-"Monkbarns, your honour," said the nursery and seedsman, "I hope the
-plants gied satisfaction?--and if ye wanted ony flower-roots fresh frae
-Holland, or" (this in a lower key) "an anker or twa o' Cologne gin, ane
-o' our brigs cam in yestreen."
-
-"Thank ye, thank ye,--no occasion at present, Mr. Crabtree," said the
-Antiquary, pushing resolutely onward.
-
-"Mr. Oldbuck," said the town-clerk (a more important person, who came in
-front and ventured to stop the old gentleman), "the provost,
-understanding you were in town, begs on no account that you'll quit it
-without seeing him; he wants to speak to ye about bringing the water frae
-the Fairwell-spring through a part o' your lands."
-
-"What the deuce!--have they nobody's land but mine to cut and carve on?--
-I won't consent, tell them."
-
-"And the provost," said the clerk, going on, without noticing the rebuff,
-"and the council, wad be agreeable that you should hae the auld stones at
-Donagild's chapel, that ye was wussing to hae."
-
-"Eh!--what?--Oho! that's another story--Well, well, I'll call upon the
-provost, and we'll talk about it."
-
-"But ye maun speak your mind on't forthwith, Monkbarns, if ye want the
-stones; for Deacon Harlewalls thinks the carved through-stanes might be
-put with advantage on the front of the new council-house--that is, the
-twa cross-legged figures that the callants used to ca' Robin and Bobbin,
-ane on ilka door-cheek; and the other stane, that they ca'd Ailie Dailie,
-abune the door. It will be very tastefu', the Deacon says, and just in
-the style of modern Gothic."
-
-"Lord deliver me from this Gothic generation!" exclaimed the Antiquary,--
-"A monument of a knight-templar on each side of a Grecian porch, and a
-Madonna on the top of it!--_O crimini!_--Well, tell the provost I wish to
-have the stones, and we'll not differ about the water-course. It's lucky
-I happened to come this way to-day."
-
-They parted mutually satisfied; but the wily clerk had most reason to
-exult in the dexterity he had displayed, since the whole proposal of an
-exchange between the monuments (which the council had determined to
-remove as a nuisance, because they encroached three feet upon the public
-road), and the privilege of conveying the water to the burgh through the
-estate of Monkbarns, was an idea which had originated with himself upon
-the pressure of the moment.
-
-Through these various entanglements, Monkbarns (to use the phrase by
-which he was distinguished in the country) made his way at length to Mrs.
-Hadoway's. This good woman was the widow of a late clergyman at Fairport,
-who had been reduced by her husband's untimely death, to that state of
-straitened and embarrassed circumstances in which the widows of the
-Scotch clergy are too often found. The tenement which she occupied, and
-the furniture of which she was possessed, gave her the means of letting a
-part of her house; and as Lovel had been a quiet, regular, and profitable
-lodger, and had qualified the necessary intercourse which they had
-together with a great deal of gentleness and courtesy, Mrs. Hadoway, not,
-perhaps, much used to such kindly treatment, had become greatly attached
-to her lodger, and was profuse in every sort of personal attention which
-circumstances permitted her to render him. To cook a dish somewhat better
-than ordinary for "the poor young gentleman's dinner;" to exert her
-interest with those who remembered her husband, or loved her for her own
-sake and his, in order to procure scarce vegetables, or something which
-her simplicity supposed might tempt her lodger's appetite, was a labour
-in which she delighted, although she anxiously concealed it from the
-person who was its object. She did not adopt this secrecy of benevolence
-to avoid the laugh of those who might suppose that an oval face and dark
-eyes, with a clear brown complexion, though belonging to a woman of
-five-and-forty, and enclosed within a widow's close-drawn pinners, might
-possibly still aim at making conquests; for, to say truth, such a
-ridiculous suspicion having never entered into her own head, she could
-not anticipate its having birth in that of any one else. But she
-concealed her attentions solely out of delicacy to her guest, whose power
-of repaying them she doubted as much as she believed in his inclination
-to do so, and in his being likely to feel extreme pain at leaving any of
-her civilities unrequited. She now opened the door to Mr. Oldbuck, and
-her surprise at seeing him brought tears into her eyes, which she could
-hardly restrain.
-
-"I am glad to see you, sir--I am very glad to see you. My poor gentleman
-is, I am afraid, very unwell; and oh, Mr. Oldbuck, he'll see neither
-doctor, nor minister, nor writer! And think what it would be, if, as my
-poor Mr. Hadoway used to say, a man was to die without advice of the
-three learned faculties!"
-
-"Greatly better than with them," grumbled the cynical Antiquary. "I tell
-you, Mrs. Hadoway, the clergy live by our sins, the medical faculty by
-our diseases, and the law gentry by our misfortunes."
-
-"O fie, Monkbarns!--to hear the like o' that frae you!--But yell walk up
-and see the poor young lad?--Hegh sirs? sae young and weel-favoured--and
-day by day he has eat less and less, and now he hardly touches onything,
-only just pits a bit on the plate to make fashion--,-and his poor cheek
-has turned every day thinner and paler, sae that be now really looks as
-auld as me, that might be his mother--no that I might be just that
-neither, but something very near it."
-
-"Why does he not take some exercise?" said Oldbuck.
-
-"I think we have persuaded him to do that, for he has bought a horse from
-Gibbie Golightly, the galloping groom. A gude judge o' horse-flesh Gibbie
-tauld our lass that he was--for he offered him a beast he thought wad
-answer him weel eneugh, as he was a bookish man, but Mr. Lovel wadna look
-at it, and bought ane might serve the Master o' Morphie--they keep it at
-the Graeme's Arms, ower the street;--and he rode out yesterday morning
-and this morning before breakfast--But winna ye walk up to his room?"
-
-"Presently, presently. But has he no visitors?"
-
-"O dear, Mr. Oldbuck, not ane; if he wadna receive them when he was weel
-and sprightly, what chance is there of onybody in Fairport looking in
-upon him now?"
-
-"Ay, ay, very true,--I should have been surprised had it been otherwise--
-Come, show me up stairs, Mrs. Hadoway, lest I make a blunder, and go
-where I should not."
-
-The good landlady showed Mr. Oldbuck up her narrow staircase, warning him
-of every turn, and lamenting all the while that he was laid under the
-necessity of mounting up so high. At length she gently tapped at the door
-of her guest's parlour. "Come in," said Lovel; and Mrs. Hadoway ushered
-in the Laird of Monkbarns.
-
-The little apartment was neat and clean, and decently furnished--
-ornamented, too, by such relics of her youthful arts of sempstress-ship
-as Mrs. Hadoway had retained; but it was close, overheated, and, as it
-appeared to Oldbuck, an unwholesome situation for a young person in
-delicate health,--an observation which ripened his resolution touching a
-project that had already occurred to him in Lovel's behalf. With a
-writing-table before him, on which lay a quantity of books and papers,
-Lovel was seated on a couch, in his night-gown and slippers. Oldbuck was
-shocked at the change which had taken place in his personal appearance.
-His cheek and brow had assumed a ghastly white, except where a round
-bright spot of hectic red formed a strong and painful contrast, totally
-different from the general cast of hale and hardy complexion which had
-formerly overspread and somewhat embrowned his countenance. Oldbuck
-observed, that the dress he wore belonged to a deep mourning suit, and a
-coat of the same colour hung on a chair near to him. As the Antiquary
-entered, Lovel arose and came forward to welcome him.
-
-"This is very kind," he said, shaking him by the hand, and thanking him
-warmly for his visit--"this is very kind, and has anticipated a visit
-with which I intended to trouble you. You must know I have become a
-horseman lately."
-
-"I understand as much from Mrs. Hadoway--I only hope, my good young
-friend, you have been fortunate in a quiet horse. I myself inadvertently
-bought one from the said Gibbie Golightly, which brute ran two miles on
-end with me after a pack of hounds, with which I had no more to do than
-the last year's snow; and after affording infinite amusement, I suppose,
-to the whole hunting field, he was so good as to deposit me in a dry
-ditch--I hope yours is a more peaceful beast?"
-
-"I hope, at least, we shall make our excursions on a better plan of
-mutual understanding."
-
-"That is to say, you think yourself a good horseman?"
-
-"I would not willingly," answered Lovel, "confess myself a very bad one."
-
-"No--all you young fellows think that would be equal to calling
-yourselves tailors at once--But have you had experience? for, _crede
-experto,_ a horse in a passion is no joker."
-
-"Why, I should be sorry to boast myself as a great horseman; but when I
-acted as aide-de-camp to Sir----in the cavalry action at--, last year, I
-saw many better cavaliers than myself dismounted."
-
-"Ah! you have looked in the face of the grisly god of arms then?--you are
-acquainted with the frowns of Mars armipotent? That experience fills up
-the measure of your qualifications for the epopea! The Britons, however,
-you will remember, fought in chariots--_covinarii_ is the phrase of
-Tacitus;--you recollect the fine description of their dashing among the
-Roman infantry, although the historian tells us how ill the rugged face
-of the ground was calculated for equestrian combat; and truly, upon the
-whole, what sort of chariots could be driven in Scotland anywhere but on
-turnpike roads, has been to me always matter of amazement. And well now--
-has the Muse visited you?--have you got anything to show me?"
-
-"My time," said Lovel, with a glance at his black dress, "has been less
-pleasantly employed."
-
-"The death of a friend?" said the Antiquary.
-
-"Yes, Mr. Oldbuck--of almost the only friend I could ever boast of
-possessing."
-
-"Indeed? Well, young man," replied his visitor, in a tone of seriousness
-very different from his affected gravity, "be comforted. To have lost a
-friend by death while your mutual regard was warm and unchilled, while
-the tear can drop unembittered by any painful recollection of coldness or
-distrust or treachery, is perhaps an escape from a more heavy
-dispensation. Look round you--how few do you see grow old in the
-affections of those with whom their early friendships were formed! Our
-sources of common pleasure gradually dry up as we journey on through the
-vale of Bacha, and we hew out to ourselves other reservoirs, from which
-the first companions of our pilgrimage are excluded;--jealousies,
-rivalries, envy, intervene to separate others from our side, until none
-remain but those who are connected with us rather by habit than
-predilection, or who, allied more in blood than in disposition, only keep
-the old man company in his life, that they may not be forgotten at his
-death--
-
-                    _Haec data poena diu viventibus._
-
-Ah, Mr. Lovel! if it be your lot to reach the chill, cloudy, and
-comfortless evening of life, you will remember the sorrows of your youth
-as the light shadowy clouds that intercepted for a moment the beams of
-the sun when it was rising. But I cram these words into your ears against
-the stomach of your sense."
-
-"I am sensible of your kindness," answered the youth; "but the wound that
-is of recent infliction must always smart severely, and I should be
-little comforted under my present calamity--forgive me for saying so--by
-the conviction that life had nothing in reserve for me but a train of
-successive sorrows. And permit me to add, you, Mr. Oldbuck, have least
-reason of many men to take so gloomy a view of life. You have a competent
-and easy fortune--are generally respected--may, in your own phrase,
-_vacare musis,_ indulge yourself in the researches to which your taste
-addicts you; you may form your own society without doors--and within you
-have the affectionate and sedulous attention of the nearest relatives."
-
-"Why, yes--the womankind, for womankind, are, thanks to my training, very
-civil and tractable--do not disturb me in my morning studies--creep
-across the floor with the stealthy pace of a cat, when it suits me to
-take a nap in my easy-chair after dinner or tea. All this is very well;
-but I want something to exchange ideas with--something to talk to."
-
-"Then why do you not invite your nephew, Captain M'Intyre, who is
-mentioned by every one as a fine spirited young fellow, to become a
-member of your family?"
-
-"Who?" exclaimed Monkbarns, "my nephew Hector?--the Hotspur of the North?
-Why, Heaven love you, I would as soon invite a firebrand into my
-stackyard. He's an Almanzor, a Chamont--has a Highland pedigree as long
-as his claymore, and a claymore as long as the High Street of Fairport,
-which he unsheathed upon the surgeon the last time he was at Fairport. I
-expect him here one of these days; but I will keep him at staff's end, I
-promise you. He an inmate of my house! to make my very chairs and tables
-tremble at his brawls. No, no--I'll none of Hector M'Intyre. But hark ye,
-Lovel;--you are a quiet, gentle-tempered lad; had not you better set up
-your staff at Monkbarns for a month or two, since I conclude you do not
-immediately intend to leave this country?--I will have a door opened out
-to the garden--it will cost but a trifle--there is the space for an old
-one which was condemned long ago--by which said door you may pass and
-repass into the Green Chamber at pleasure, so you will not interfere with
-the old man, nor he with you. As for your fare, Mrs. Hadoway tells me you
-are, as she terms it, very moderate of your mouth, so you will not
-quarrel with my humble table. Your washing"--
-
-"Hold, my dear Mr. Oldbuck," interposed Lovel, unable to repress a smile;
-"and before your hospitality settles all my accommodations, let me thank
-you most sincerely for so kind an offer--it is not at present in my power
-to accept of it; but very likely, before I bid adieu to Scotland, I shall
-find an opportunity to pay you a visit of some length."
-
-Mr. Oldbuck's countenance fell. "Why, I thought I had hit on the very
-arrangement that would suit us both,--and who knows what might happen in
-the long run, and whether we might ever part? Why, I am master of my
-acres, man--there is the advantage of being descended from a man of more
-sense than pride--they cannot oblige me to transmit my goods chattels,
-and heritages, any way but as I please. No string of substitute heirs of
-entail, as empty and unsubstantial as the morsels of paper strung to the
-train of a boy's kite, to cumber my flights of inclination, and my
-humours of predilection. Well,--I see you won't be tempted at present--
-but Caledonia goes on I hope?"
-
-"O certainly," said Lovel; "I cannot think of relinquishing a plan so
-hopeful."
-
-"It is indeed," said the Antiquary, looking gravely upward,--for, though
-shrewd and acute enough in estimating the variety of plans formed by
-others, he had a very natural, though rather disproportioned good opinion
-of the importance of those which originated with himself--"it is indeed
-one of those undertakings which, if achieved with spirit equal to that
-which dictates its conception, may redeem from the charge of frivolity
-the literature of the present generation."
-
-Here he was interrupted by a knock at the room door, which introduced a
-letter for Mr. Lovel. The servant waited, Mrs. Hadoway said, for an
-answer. "You are concerned in this matter, Mr. Oldbuck," said Lovel,
-after glancing over the billet, and handing it to the Antiquary as he
-spoke.
-
-It was a letter from Sir Arthur Wardour, couched in extremely civil
-language, regetting that a fit of the gout had prevented his hitherto
-showing Mr. Lovel the attentions to which his conduct during a late
-perilous occasion had so well entitled him--apologizing for not paying
-his respects in person, but hoping Mr. Lovel would dispense with that
-ceremony, and be a member of a small party which proposed to visit the
-ruins of Saint Ruth's priory on the following day, and afterwards to dine
-and spend the evening at Knockwinnock Castle. Sir Arthur concluded with
-saying, that he had sent to request the Monkbarns family to join the
-party of pleasure which he thus proposed. The place of rendezvous was
-fixed at a turnpike-gate, which was about an equal distance from all the
-points from which the company were to assemble.
-
-"What shall we do?" said Lovel, looking at the Antiquary, but pretty
-certain of the part he would take.
-
-"Go, man--we'll go, by all means. Let me see--it will cost a post-chaise
-though, which will hold you and me, and Mary M'Intyre, very well--and the
-other womankind may go to the manse--and you can come out in the chaise
-to Monkbarns, as I will take it for the day."
-
-"Why, I rather think I had better ride."
-
-"True, true, I forgot your Bucephalus. You are a foolish lad, by the by,
-for purchasing the brute outright; you should stick to eighteenpence a
-side, if you will trust any creature's legs in preference to your own."
-
-"Why, as the horse's have the advantage of moving considerably faster,
-and are, besides, two pair to one, I own I incline"--
-
-"Enough said--enough said--do as you please. Well then, I'll bring either
-Grizel or the minister, for I love to have my full pennyworth out of
-post-horses--and we meet at Tirlingen turnpike on Friday, at twelve
-o'clock precisely. "--And with this ageement the friends separated.
-
-
-
-
-                          CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
-
-          Of seats they tell, where priests, 'mid tapers dim,
-          Breathed the warm prayer, or tuned the midnight hymn
-               To scenes like these the fainting soul retired;
-               Revenge and Anger in these cells expired:
-             By Pity soothed, Remorse lost half her fears,
-             And softened Pride dropped penitential tears.
-                           Crabbe's Borough.
-
-The morning of Friday was as serene and beautiful as if no pleasure party
-had been intended; and that is a rare event, whether in novel-writing or
-real life. Lovel, who felt the genial influence of the weather, and
-rejoiced at the prospect of once more meeting with Miss Wardour, trotted
-forward to the place of rendezvous with better spirits than he had for
-some time enjoyed. His prospects seemed in many respects to open and
-brighten before him--and hope, although breaking like the morning sun
-through clouds and showers, appeared now about to illuminate the path
-before him. He was, as might have been expected from this state of
-spirits, first at the place of meeting,--and, as might also have been
-anticipated, his looks were so intently directed towards the road from
-Knockwinnock Castles that he was only apprized of the arrival of the
-Monkbarns division by the gee-hupping of the postilion, as the
-post-chaise lumbered up behind him. In this vehicle were pent up, first,
-the stately figure of Mr. Oldbuck himself; secondly, the scarce less
-portly person of the Reverend Mr. Blattergowl, minister of Trotcosey, the
-parish in which Monkbarns and Knockwinnock were both situated. The
-reverend gentleman was equipped in a buzz wig, upon the top of which was
-an equilateral cocked hat. This was the paragon of the three yet
-remaining wigs of the parish, which differed, as Monkbarns used to
-remark, like the three degrees of comparison--Sir Arthur's ramilies being
-the positive, his own bob-wig the comparative, and the overwhelming
-grizzle of the worthy clergyman figuring as the superlative. The
-superintendent of these antique garnitures, deeming, or affecting to
-deem, that he could not well be absent on an occasion which assembled all
-three together, had seated himself on the board behind the carriage,
-"just to be in the way in case they wanted a touch before the gentlemen
-sat down to dinner." Between the two massive figures of Monkbarns and the
-clergyman was stuck, by way of bodkin, the slim form of Mary M'Intyre,
-her aunt having preferred a visit to the manse, and a social chat with
-Miss Beckie Blattergowl, to investigating the ruins of the priory of
-Saint Ruth.
-
-As greetings passed between the members of the Monkbarns party and Mr.
-Lovel, the Baronet's carriage, an open barouche, swept onward to the
-place of appointment, making, with its smoking bays, smart drivers, arms,
-blazoned panels, and a brace of outriders, a strong contrast with the
-battered vehicle and broken-winded backs which had brought thither the
-Antiquary and his followers. The principal seat of the carriage was
-occupied by Sir Arthur and his daughter. At the first glance which passed
-betwixt Miss Wardour and Lovel, her colour rose considerably;--but she
-had apparently made up her mind to receive him as a friend, and only as
-such, and there was equal composure and courtesy in the mode of her reply
-to his fluttered salutation. Sir Arthur halted the barouche to shake his
-preserver kindly by the hand, and intimate the pleasure he had on this
-opportunity of returning him his personal thanks; then mentioned to him,
-in a tone of slight introduction, "Mr. Dousterswivel, Mr. Lovel."
-
-Lovel took the necessary notice of the German adept, who occupied the
-front seat of the carriage, which is usually conferred upon dependants or
-inferiors. The ready grin and supple inclination with which his
-salutation, though slight, was answered by the foreigner, increased the
-internal dislike which Lovel had already conceived towards him; and it
-was plain, from the lower of the Antiquary's shaggy eye-brow, that he too
-looked with displeasure on this addition to the company. Little more than
-distant greeting passed among the members of the party, until, having
-rolled on for about three miles beyond the place at which they met, the
-carriages at length stopped at the sign of the Four Horse-shoes, a small
-hedge inn, where Caxon humbly opened the door, and let down the step of
-the hack-chaise, while the inmates of the barouche were, by their more
-courtly attendants, assisted to leave their equipage.
-
-Here renewed greetings passed: the young ladies shook hands; and Oldbuck,
-completely in his element, placed himself as guide and cicerone at the
-head of the party, who were now to advance on foot towards the object of
-their curiosity. He took care to detain Lovel close beside him as the
-best listener of the party, and occasionally glanced a word of
-explanation and instruction to Miss Wardour and Mary M'Intyre, who
-followed next in order. The Baronet and the clergyman he rather avoided,
-as he was aware both of them conceived they understood such matters as
-well, or better than he did; and Dousterswivel, besides that he looked on
-him as a charlatan, was so nearly connected with his apprehended loss in
-the stock of the mining company, that he could not abide the sight of
-him. These two latter satellites, therefore, attended upon the orb of Sir
-Arthur, to whom, moreover, as the most important person of the society,
-they were naturally induced to attach themselves.
-
-It frequently happens that the most beautiful points of Scottish scenery
-lie hidden in some sequestered dell, and that you may travel through the
-country in every direction without being aware of your vicinity to what
-is well worth seeing, unless intention or accident carry you to the very
-spot. This is particularly the case in the country around Fairport, which
-is, generally speaking, open, unenclosed, and bare. But here and there
-the progress of rills, or small rivers, has formed dells, glens, or as
-they are provincially termed, _dens,_ on whose high and rocky banks trees
-and shrubs of all kinds find a shelter, and grow with a luxuriant
-profusion, which is the more gratifying, as it forms an unexpected
-contrast with the general face of the country. This was eminently the
-case with the approach to the ruins of Saint Ruth, which was for some
-time merely a sheep-track, along the side of a steep and bare hill. By
-degrees, however, as this path descended, and winded round the hillside,
-trees began to appear, at first singly, stunted, and blighted, with locks
-of wool upon their trunks, and their roots hollowed out into recesses, in
-which the sheep love to repose themselves--a sight much more gratifying
-to the eye of an admirer of the picturesque than to that of a planter or
-forester. By and by the trees formed groups, fringed on the edges, and
-filled up in the middle, by thorns and hazel bushes; and at length these
-groups closed so much together, that although a broad glade opened here
-and there under their boughs, or a small patch of bog or heath occurred
-which had refused nourishment to the seed which they sprinkled round, and
-consequently remained open and waste, the scene might on the whole be
-termed decidedly woodland. The sides of the valley began to approach each
-other more closely; the rush of a brook was heard below, and between the
-intervals afforded by openings in the natural wood, its waters were seen
-hurling clear and rapid under their silvan canopy.
-
-Oldbuck now took upon himself the full authority of cicerone, and
-anxiously directed the company not to go a foot-breadth off the track
-which he pointed out to them, if they wished to enjoy in full perfection
-what they came to see. "You are happy in me for a guide, Miss Wardour,"
-exclaimed the veteran, waving his hand and head in cadence as he repeated
-with emphasis,
-
-
-               I know each lane, and every alley green,
-               Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood,
-               And every bosky bower from side to side. *
-
-* (Milton's _Comus._)
-
-Ah! deuce take it!--that spray of a bramble has demolished all Caxon's
-labours, and nearly canted my wig into the stream--so much for
-recitations, _hors de propos._"
-
-"Never mind, my dear sir," said Miss Wardour; "you have your faithful
-attendant ready to repair such a disaster when it happens, and when you
-appear with it as restored to its original splendour, I will carry on the
-quotation:
-
-                So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
-                And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
-               And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
-                       Flames on the forehead"--*
-
-* (_Lycidas._)
-
-"O! enough, enough!" answered Oldbuck; "I ought to have known what it was
-to give you advantage over me--But here is what will stop your career of
-satire, for you are an admirer of nature, I know." In fact, when they had
-followed him through a breach in a low, ancient, and ruinous wall, they
-came suddenly upon a scene equally unexpected and interesting.
-
-They stood pretty high upon the side of the glen, which had suddenly
-opened into a sort of amphitheatre to give room for a pure and profound
-lake of a few acres extent, and a space of level ground around it. The
-banks then arose everywhere steeply, and in some places were varied by
-rocks--in others covered with the copse, which run up, feathering their
-sides lightly and irregularly, and breaking the uniformity of the green
-pasture-ground.--Beneath, the lake discharged itself into the huddling
-and tumultuous brook, which had been their companion since they had
-entered the glen. At the point at which it issued from "its parent lake,"
-stood the ruins which they had come to visit. They were not of great
-extent; but the singular beauty, as well as the wild and sequestered
-character of the spot on which they were situated, gave them an interest
-and importance superior to that which attaches itself to architectural
-remains of greater consequence, but placed near to ordinary houses, and
-possessing less romantic accompaniments. The eastern window of the church
-remained entire, with all its ornaments and tracery work; and the sides,
-upheld by flying buttresses whose airy support, detached from the wall
-against which they were placed, and ornamented with pinnacles and carved
-work, gave a variety and lightness to the building. The roof and western
-end of the church were completely ruinous; but the latter appeared to
-have made one side of a square, of which the ruins of the conventual
-buildings formed other two, and the gardens a fourth. The side of these
-buildings which overhung the brook, was partly founded on a steep and
-precipitous rock; for the place had been occasionally turned to military
-purposes, and had been taken with great slaughter during Montrose's wars.
-The ground formerly occupied by the garden was still marked by a few
-orchard trees. At a greater distance from the buildings were detached
-oaks and elms and chestnuts, growing singly, which had attained great
-size. The rest of the space between the ruins and the hill was a
-close-cropt sward, which the daily pasture of the sheep kept in much
-finer order than if it had been subjected to the scythe and broom. The
-whole scene had a repose, which was still and affecting without being
-monotonous. The dark, deep basin, in which the clear blue lake reposed,
-reflecting the water lilies which grew on its surface, and the trees
-which here and there threw their arms from the banks, was finely
-contrasted with the haste and tumult of the brook which broke away from
-the outlet, as if escaping from confinement and hurried down the glen,
-wheeling around the base of the rock on which the ruins were situated,
-and brawling in foam and fury with every shelve and stone which
-obstructed its passage. A similar contrast was seen between the level
-green meadow, in which the ruins were situated, and the large
-timber-trees which were scattered over it, compared with the precipitous
-banks which arose at a short distance around, partly fringed with light
-and feathery underwood, partly rising in steeps clothed with purple
-heath, and partly more abruptly elevated into fronts of grey rock,
-chequered with lichen, and with those hardy plants which find root even
-in the most and crevices of the crags.
-
-"There was the retreat of learning in the days of darkness, Mr. Lovel!"
-said Oldbuck,--around whom the company had now grouped themselves while
-they admired the unexpected opening of a prospect so romantic;--"there
-reposed the sages who were aweary of the world, and devoted either to
-that which was to come, or to the service of the generations who should
-follow them in this. I will show you presently the library;--see that
-stretch of wall with square-shafted windows--there it existed, stored, as
-an old manuscript in my possession assures me, with five thousand
-volumes. And here I might well take up the lamentation of the learned
-Leland, who, regretting the downfall of the conventual libraries,
-exclaims, like Rachel weeping for her children, that if the Papal laws,
-decrees, decretals, clementines, and other such drugs of the devil--yea,
-if Heytesburg's sophisms, Porphyry's universals, Aristotle's logic, and
-Dunse's divinity, with such other lousy legerdemains (begging your
-pardon, Miss Wardour) and fruits of the bottomless pit,--had leaped out
-of our libraries, for the accommodation of grocers, candlemakers,
-soapsellers, and other worldly occupiers, we might have been therewith
-contented. But to put our ancient chronicles, our noble histories, our
-learned commentaries, and national muniments, to such offices of contempt
-and subjection, has greatly degraded our nation, and showed ourselves
-dishonoured in the eyes of posterity to the utmost stretch of time--O
-negligence most unfriendly to our land!"
-
-"And, O John Knox" said the Baronet, "through whose influence, and under
-whose auspices, the patriotic task was accomplished!"
-
-The Antiquary, somewhat in the situation of a woodcock caught in his own
-springe, turned short round and coughed, to excuse a slight blush as he
-mustered his answer--"as to the Apostle of the Scottish Reformation"--
-
-But Miss Wardour broke in to interrupt a conversation so dangerous.
-"Pray, who was the author you quoted, Mr. Oldbuck?"
-
-"The learned Leland, Miss Wardour, who lost his senses on witnessing the
-destruction of the conventual libraries in England."
-
-"Now, I think," replied the young lady, "his misfortune may have saved
-the rationality of some modern antiquaries, which would certainly have
-been drowned if so vast a lake of learning had not been diminished by
-draining."
-
-"Well, thank Heaven, there is no danger now--they have hardly left us a
-spoonful in which to perform the dire feat."
-
-So saying, Mr. Oldbuck led the way down the bank, by a steep but secure
-path, which soon placed them on the verdant meadow where the ruins stood.
-"There they lived," continued the Antiquary, "with nought to do but to
-spend their time in investigating points of remote antiquity,
-transcribing manuscripts, and composing new works for the information of
-posterity."
-
-"And," added the Baronet, "in exercising the rites of devotion with a
-pomp and ceremonial worthy of the office of the priesthood."
-
-"And if Sir Arthur's excellence will permit," said the German, with a low
-bow, "the monksh might also make de vary curious experiment in deir
-laboraties, both in chemistry and _magia naturalis._"
-
-"I think," said the clergyman, "they would have enough to do in
-collecting the teinds of the parsonage and vicarage of three good
-parishes."
-
-"And all," added Miss Wardour, nodding to the Antiquary, "without
-interruption from womankind."
-
-"True, my fair foe," said Oldbuck; "this was a paradise where no Eve was
-admitted, and we may wonder the rather by what chance the good fathers
-came to lose it."
-
-With such criticisms on the occupations of those by whom the ruins had
-been formerly possessed, they wandered for some time from one moss-grown
-shrine to another, under the guidance of Oldbuck, who explained, with
-much plausibility, the ground-plan of the edifice, and read and expounded
-to the company the various mouldering inscriptions which yet were to be
-traced upon the tombs of the dead, or under the vacant niches of the
-sainted images.
-
-"What is the reason," at length Miss Wardour asked the Antiquary, "why
-tradition has preserved to us such meagre accounts of the inmates of
-these stately edifices, raised with such expense of labour and taste, and
-whose owners were in their times personages of such awful power and
-importance? The meanest tower of a freebooting baron or squire who lived
-by his lance and broadsword, is consecrated by its appropriate legend,
-and the shepherd will tell you with accuracy the names and feats of its
-inhabitants;--but ask a countryman concerning these beautiful and
-extensive remains--these towers, these arches, and buttresses, and
-shafted windows, reared at such cost,--three words fill up his answer--
-they were made up by the monks lang syne.'"
-
-The question was somewhat puzzling. Sir Arthur looked upward, as if
-hoping to be inspired with an answer--Oldbuck shoved back his wig--the
-clergyman was of opinion that his parishioners were too deeply impressed
-with the true presbyterian doctrine to preserve any records concerning
-the papistical cumberers of the land, offshoots as they were of the great
-overshadowing tree of iniquity, whose roots are in the bowels of the
-seven hills of abomination--Lovel thought the question was best resolved
-by considering what are the events which leave the deepest impression on
-the minds of the common people--"These," he contended, "were not such as
-resemble the gradual progress of a fertilizing river, but the headlong
-and precipitous fury of some portentous flood. The eras by which the
-vulgar compute time, have always reference to some period of fear and
-tribulation, and they date by a tempest, an earthquake, or burst of civil
-commotion. When such are the facts most alive, in the memory of the
-common people, we cannot wonder," he concluded, "that the ferocious
-warrior is remembered, and the peaceful abbots are abandoned to
-forgetfulness and oblivion."
-
-"If you pleashe, gentlemans and ladies, and ashking pardon of Sir Arthur
-and Miss Wardour, and this worthy clergymansh, and my goot friend Mr.
-Oldenbuck, who is my countrymansh, and of goot young Mr. Lofel also, I
-think it is all owing to de hand of glory."
-
-"The hand of what?" exclaimed Oldbuck.
-
-"De hand of glory, my goot Master Oldenbuck, which is a vary great and
-terrible secrets--which de monksh used to conceal their treasures when
-they were triven from their cloisters by what you call de Reform."
-
-"Ay, indeed! tell us about that," said Oldbuck, "for these are secrets
-worth knowing."
-
-"Why, my goot Master Oldenbuck, you will only laugh at me--But de hand of
-glory is vary well known in de countries where your worthy progenitors
-did live--and it is hand cut off from a dead man, as has been hanged for
-murther, and dried very nice in de shmoke of juniper wood; and if you put
-a little of what you call yew wid your juniper, it will not be any
-better--that is, it will not be no worse--then you do take something of
-de fatsh of de bear, and of de badger, and of de great eber, as you call
-de grand boar, and of de little sucking child as has not been christened
-(for dat is very essentials), and you do make a candle, and put it into
-de hand of glory at de proper hour and minute, with de proper ceremonish,
-and he who seeksh for treasuresh shall never find none at all,"
-
-"I dare take my corporal oath of that conclusion," said the Antiquary.
-"And was it the custom, Mr. Dousterswivel, in Westphalia, to make use of
-this elegant candelabrum?"
-
-"Alwaysh, Mr. Oldenbuck, when you did not want nobody to talk of nothing
-you wash doing about--And the monksh alwaysh did this when they did hide
-their church-plates, and their great chalices, and de rings, wid very
-preshious shtones and jewels."
-
-"But, notwithstanding, you knights of the Rosy Cross have means, no
-doubt, of breaking the spell, and discovering what the poor monks have
-put themselves to so much trouble to conceal?"
-
-"Ah! goot Mr. Oldenbuck," replied the adept, shaking his head
-mysteriously, "you was very hard to believe; but if you had seen de great
-huge pieces of de plate so massive, Sir Arthur,--so fine fashion, Miss
-Wardour--and de silver cross dat we did find (dat was Schroepfer and my
-ownself) for de Herr Freygraf, as you call de Baron Von Blunderhaus, I do
-believe you would have believed then."
-
-"Seeing _is_ believing indeed. But what was your art--what was your
-mystery, Mr. Dousterswivel?"
-
-"Aha, Mr. Oldenbuck! dat is my little secret, mine goot sir--you sall
-forgife me that I not tell that. But I will tell you dere are various
-ways--yes, indeed, dere is de dream dat you dream tree times--dat is a
-vary goot way."
-
-"I am glad of that," said Oldbuck; "I have a friend" (with a side-glance
-to Lovel) "who is peculiarly favoured by the visits of Queen Mab."
-
-"Den dere is de sympathies, and de antipathies, and de strange properties
-and virtues natural of divers herb, and of de little divining-rod."
-
-"I would gladly rather see some of these wonders than hear of them," said
-Miss Wardour.
-
-"Ah, but, my much-honoured young lady, this is not de time or de way to
-do de great wonder of finding all de church's plate and treasure; but to
-oblige you, and Sir Arthur my patron, and de reverend clergymans, and
-goot Mr. Oldenbuck, and young Mr. Lofel, who is a very goot young
-gentleman also, I will show you dat it is possible, a vary possible, to
-discover de spring, of water, and de little fountain hidden in de ground,
-without any mattock, or spade, or dig at all."
-
-"Umph!" quoth the Antiquary, "I have heard of that conundrum. That will
-be no very productive art in our country;--you should carry that property
-to Spain or Portugal, and turn it to good account."
-
-"Ah! my goot Master Oldenbuck, dere is de Inquisition and de Auto-da-fe'
---they would burn me, who am but a simple philosopher, for one great
-conjurer."
-
-"They would cast away their coals then," said Oldbuck; "but," continued
-he, in a whisper to Lovel, "were they to pillory him for one of the most
-impudent rascals that ever wagged a tongue, they would square the
-punishment more accurately with his deserts. But let us see: I think he
-is about to show us some of his legerdemain."
-
-In truth, the German was now got to a little copse-thicket at some
-distance from the ruins, where he affected busily to search for such a
-wand as would suit the purpose of his mystery: and after cutting and
-examining, and rejecting several, he at length provided himself with a
-small twig of hazel terminating in a forked end, which he pronounced to
-possess the virtue proper for the experiment that he was about to
-exhibit. Holding the forked ends of the wand, each between a finger and
-thumb, and thus keeping the rod upright, he proceeded to pace the ruined
-aisles and cloisters, followed by the rest of the company in admiring
-procession. "I believe dere was no waters here," said the adept, when he
-had made the round of several of the buildings, without perceiving any of
-those indications which he pretended to expect--"I believe those Scotch
-monksh did find de water too cool for de climate, and alwaysh drank de
-goot comfortable, Rhinewine. But, aha!--see there!" Accordingly, the
-assistants observed the rod to turn in his fingers, although he pretended
-to hold it very tight.--"Dere is water here about, sure enough," and,
-turning this way and that way, as the agitation of the divining-rod
-seemed to increase or diminish, he at length advanced into the midst of a
-vacant and roofless enclosure which had been the kitchen of the priory,
-when the rod twisted itself so as to point almost straight downwards.
-"Here is de place," said the adept, "and if you do not find de water
-here, I will give you all leave to call me an impudent knave."
-
-"I shall take that license," whispered the Antiquary to Lovel, "whether
-the water is discovered or no."
-
-A servant, who had come up with a basket of cold refreshments, was now
-despatched to a neighbouring forester's hut for a mattock and pick-axe.
-The loose stones and rubbish being removed from the spot indicated by the
-German, they soon came to the sides of a regularly-built well; and when a
-few feet of rubbish were cleared out by the assistance of the forester
-and his sons, the water began to rise rapidly, to the delight of the
-philosopher, the astonishment of the ladies, Mr. Blattergowl, and Sir
-Arthur, the surprise of Lovel, and the confusion of the incredulous
-Antiquary. He did not fail, however, to enter his protest in Lovers ear
-against the miracle. "This is a mere trick," he said; "the rascal had
-made himself sure of the existence of this old well, by some means or
-other, before he played off this mystical piece of jugglery. Mark what he
-talks of next. I am much mistaken if this is not intended as a prelude to
-some more serious fraud. See how the rascal assumes consequence, and
-plumes himself upon the credit of his success, and how poor Sir Arthur
-takes in the tide of nonsense which he is delivering to him as principles
-of occult science!"
-
-"You do see, my goot patron, you do see, my goot ladies, you do see,
-worthy Dr. Bladderhowl, and even Mr. Lofel and Mr. Oldenbuck may see, if
-they do will to see, how art has no enemy at all but ignorance. Look at
-this little slip of hazel nuts--it is fit for nothing at all but to whip
-de little child"--("I would choose a cat and nine tails for your
-occasions," whispered Oldbuck apart)--"and you put it in the hands of a
-philosopher--paf! it makes de grand discovery. But this is nothing, Sir
-Arthur,--nothing at all, worthy Dr. Botherhowl--nothing at all, ladies--
-nothing at all, young Mr. Lofel and goot Mr. Oldenbuck, to what art can
-do. Ah! if dere was any man that had de spirit and de courage, I would
-show him better things than de well of water--I would show him"--
-
-"And a little money would be necessary also, would it not?" said the
-Antiquary.
-
-"Bah! one trifle, not worth talking about, maight be necessaries,"
-answered the adept.
-
-"I thought as much," rejoined the Antiquary, drily; "and I, in the
-meanwhile, without any divining-rod, will show you an excellent venison
-pasty, and a bottle of London particular Madeira, and I think that will
-match all that Mr. Dousterswivel's art is like to exhibit."
-
-The feast was spread _fronde super viridi,_ as Oldbuck expressed himself,
-under a huge old tree called the Prior's Oak, and the company, sitting
-down around it, did ample honour to the, contents of the basket.
-
-
-
-                           CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
-
-               As when a Gryphon through the wilderness,
-               With winged course, o'er hill and moory dale,
-                 Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
-                 Had from his wakeful custody purloined
-                  The guarded gold: So eagerly the Fiend--
-                                   Paradise Lost.
-
-When their collation was ended, Sir Arthur resumed the account of the
-mysteries of the divining-rod, as a subject on which he had formerly
-conversed with Dousterswivel. "My friend Mr. Oldbuck will now be
-prepared, Mr. Dousterswivel, to listen with more respect to the stories
-you have told us of the late discoveries in Germany by the brethren of
-your association."
-
-"Ah, Sir Arthur, that was not a thing to speak to those gentlemans,
-because it is want of credulity--what you call faith--that spoils the
-great enterprise."
-
-"At least, however, let my daughter read the narrative she has taken down
-of the story of Martin Waldeck."
-
-"Ah! that was vary true story--but Miss Wardour, she is so sly and so
-witty, that she has made it just like one romance--as well as Goethe or
-Wieland could have done it, by mine honest wort."
-
-"To say the truth, Mr. Dousterswivel," answered Miss Wardour, "the
-romantic predominated in the legend so much above the probable, that it
-was impossible for a lover of fairyland like me to avoid lending a few
-touches to make it perfect in its kind. But here it is, and if you do not
-incline to leave this shade till the heat of the day has somewhat
-declined, and will have sympathy with my bad composition, perhaps Sir
-Arthur or Mr. Oldbuck will read it to us."
-
-"Not I," said Sir Arthur; "I was never fond of reading aloud."
-
-"Nor I," said Oldbuck, "for I have forgot my spectacles. But here is
-Lovel, with sharp eyes and a good voice; for Mr. Blattergowl, I know,
-never reads anything, lest he should be suspected of reading his
-sermons."
-
-The task was therefore imposed upon Lovel, who received, with some
-trepidation, as Miss Wardour delivered, with a little embarrassment, a
-paper containing the lines traced by that fair hand, the possession of
-which he coveted as the highest blessing the earth could offer to him.
-But there was a necessity of suppressing his emotions; and after glancing
-over the manuscript, as if to become acquainted with the character, he
-collected himself, and read the company the following tale:--
-
-
-                    [The Fortunes of Martin Waldeck.]
-
-The solitudes of the Harz forest in Germany,* but especially the
-mountains called Blocksberg, or rather Brockenberg, are the chosen scenes
-for tales of witches, demons, and apparitions.
-
-* The outline of this story is taken from the German, though the Author
-is at present unable to say in which of the various collections of the
-popular legends in that language the original is to be found.
-
-The occupation of the inhabitants, who are either miners or foresters, is
-of a kind that renders them peculiarly prone to superstition, and the
-natural phenomena which they witness in pursuit of their solitary or
-subterraneous profession, are often set down by them to the interference
-of goblins or the power of magic. Among the various legends current in
-that wild country, there is a favourite one, which supposes the Harz to
-be haunted by a sort of tutelar demon, in the shape of a wild man, of
-huge stature, his head wreathed with oak leaves, and his middle cinctured
-with the same, bearing in his hand a pine torn up by the roots. It is
-certain that many persons profess to have seen such a form traversing,
-with huge strides, in a line parallel to their own course, the opposite
-ridge of a mountain, when divided from it by a narrow glen; and indeed
-the fact of the apparition is so generally admitted, that modern
-scepticism has only found refuge by ascribing it to optical deception. *
-
-*The shadow of the person who sees the phantom, being reflected upon a
-cloud of mist, like the image of the magic lantern upon a white sheet, is
-supposed to have formed the apparition.
-
-In elder times, the intercourse of the demon with the inhabitants was
-more familiar, and, according to the traditions of the Harz, he was wont,
-with the caprice usually ascribed to these earth-born powers, to
-interfere with the affairs of mortals, sometimes for their weal,
-sometimes for their wo. But it was observed that even his gifts often
-turned out, in the long run, fatal to those on whom they were bestowed,
-and it was no uncommon thing for the pastors, in their care of their
-flocks, to compose long sermons, the burden whereof was a warning against
-having any intercourse, direct or indirect, with the Harz demon. The
-fortunes of Martin Waldeck have been often quoted by the aged to their
-giddy children, when they were heard to scoff at a danger which appeared
-visionary.
-
-A travelling capuchin had possessed himself of the pulpit of the thatched
-church at a little hamlet called _Morgenbrodt,_ lying in the Harz
-district, from which he declaimed against the wickedness of the
-inhabitants, their communication with fiends, witches, and fairies, and,
-in particular, with the woodland goblin of the Harz. The doctrines of
-Luther had already begun to spread among the peasantry (for the incident
-is placed under the reign of Charles V. ), and they laughed to scorn the
-zeal with which the venerable man insisted upon his topic. At length, as
-his vehemence increased with opposition, so their opposition rose in
-proportion to his vehemence. The inhabitants did not like to hear an
-accustomed quiet demon, who had inhabited the Brockenberg for so many
-ages, summarily confounded with Baal-peor, Ashtaroth, and Beelzebub
-himself, and condemned without reprieve to the bottomless Tophet. The
-apprehensions that the spirit might avenge himself on them for listening
-to such an illiberal sentence, added to their national interest in his
-behalf. A travelling friar, they said, that is here to-day and away
-to-morrow, may say what be pleases: but it is we, the ancient and
-constant inhabitants of the country, that are left at the mercy of the
-insulted demon, and must, of course, pay for all. Under the irritation
-occasioned by these reflections, the peasants from injurious language
-betook themselves to stones, and having pebbled the priest pretty
-handsomely, they drove him out of the parish to preach against demons
-elsewhere.
-
-Three young men, who had been present and assisting on this occasion were
-upon their return to the hut where they carried on the laborious and mean
-occupation of preparing charcoal for the smelting furnaces. On the way,
-their conversation naturally turned upon the demon of the Harz and the
-doctrine of the capuchin. Max and George Waldeck, the two elder brothers,
-although they allowed the language of the capuchin to have been
-indiscreet and worthy of censure, as presuming to determine upon the
-precise character and abode of the spirit, yet contended it was
-dangerous, in the highest degree, to accept of his gifts, or hold any
-communication with him, He was powerful, they allowed, but wayward and
-capricious, and those who had intercourse with him seldom came to a good
-end. Did he not give the brave knight, Ecbert of Rabenwald, that famous
-black steed, by means of which he vanquished all the champions at the
-great tournament at Bremen? and did not the same steed afterwards
-precipitate itself with its rider into an abyss so steep and fearful,
-that neither horse nor man were ever seen more? Had he not given to Dame
-Gertrude Trodden a curious spell for making butter come? and was she not
-burnt for a witch by the grand criminal judge of the Electorate, because
-she availed herself of his gift? But these, and many other instances
-which they quoted, of mischance and ill-luck ultimately attending on the
-apparent benefits conferred by the Harz spirit, failed to make any
-impression upon Martin Waldeck, the youngest of the brothers.
-
-Martin was youthful, rash, and impetuous; excelling in all the exercises
-which distinguish a mountaineer, and brave and undaunted from his
-familiar intercourse with the dangers that attend them. He laughed at the
-timidity of his brothers. "Tell me not of such folly," he said; "the
-demon is a good demon--he lives among us as if he were a peasant like
-ourselves--haunts the lonely crags and recesses of the mountains like a
-huntsman or goatherd--and he who loves the Harz forest and its wild
-scenes cannot be indifferent to the fate of the hardy children of the
-soil. But, if the demon were as malicious as you would make him, how
-should he derive power over mortals, who barely avail themselves of his
-gifts, without binding themselves to submit to his pleasure? When you
-carry your charcoal to the furnace, is not the money as good that is paid
-you by blaspheming Blaize, the old reprobate overseer, as if you got it
-from the pastor himself? It is not the goblins gifts which can endanger
-you, then, but it is the use you shall make of them that you must account
-for. And were the demon to appear to me at this moment, and indicate to
-me a gold or silver mine, I would begin to dig away even before his back
-were turned,--and I would consider myself as under protection of a much
-Greater than he, while I made a good use of the wealth he pointed out to
-me."
-
-To this the elder brother replied, that wealth ill won was seldom well
-spent; while Martin presumptuously declared, that the possession of all
-the treasures of the Harz would not make the slightest alteration on his
-habits, morals, or character.
-
-His brother entreated Martin to talk less wildly upon the subject, and
-with some difficulty contrived to withdraw his attention, by calling it
-to the consideration of the approaching boar-chase. This talk brought
-them to their hut, a wretched wigwam, situated upon one side of a wild,
-narrow, and romantic dell, in the recesses of the Brockenberg. They
-released their sister from attending upon the operation of charring the
-wood, which requires constant attention, and divided among themselves the
-duty of watching it by night, according to their custom, one always
-waking, while his brothers slept.
-
-Max Waldeck, the eldest, watched during the first two hours of the night,
-and was considerably alarmed by observing, upon the opposite bank of the
-glen, or valley, a huge fire surrounded by some figures that appeared to
-wheel around it with antic gestures. Max at first bethought him of
-calling up his brothers; but recollecting the daring character of the
-youngest, and finding it impossible to wake the elder without also
-disturbing Martin--conceiving also what he saw to be an illusion of the
-demon, sent perhaps in consequence of the venturous expressions used by
-Martin on the preceding evening, he thought it best to betake himself to
-the safeguard of such prayers as he could murmur over, and to watch in
-great terror and annoyance this strange and alarming apparition. After
-blazing for some time, the fire faded gradually away into darkness, and
-the rest of Max's watch was only disturbed by the remembrance of its
-terrors.
-
-George now occupied the place of Max, who had retired to rest. The
-phenomenon of a huge blazing fire, upon the opposite bank of the glen,
-again presented itself to the eye of the watchman. It was surrounded as
-before by figures, which, distinguished by their opaque forms, being
-between the spectator and the red glaring light, moved and fluctuated
-around it as if engaged in some mystical ceremony. George, though equally
-cautious, was of a bolder character than his elder brother. He resolved
-to examine more nearly the object of his wonder; and, accordingly after
-crossing the rivulet which divided the glen, he climbed up the opposite
-bank, and approached within an arrow's flight of the fire, which blazed
-apparently with the same fury as when he first witnessed it.
-
-The appearance, of the assistants who surrounded it resembled those
-phantoms which are seen in a troubled dream, and at once confirmed the
-idea he had entertained from the first, that they did not belong to the
-human world. Amongst these strange unearthly forms, George Waldeck
-distinguished that of a giant overgrown with hair, holding an uprooted
-fir in his hand, with which, from time to time, he seemed to stir the
-blazing fire, and having no other clothing than a wreath of oak leaves
-around his forehead and loins. George's heart sunk within him at
-recognising the well-known apparition of the Harz demon, as he had been
-often described to him by the ancient shepherds and huntsmen who had seen
-his form traversing the mountains. He turned, and was about to fly; but
-upon second thoughts, blaming his own cowardice, he recited mentally the
-verse of the Psalmist, "All good angels, praise the Lord!" which is in
-that country supposed powerful as an exorcism, and turned himself once
-more towards the place where he had seen the fire. But it was no longer
-visible.
-
-The pale moon alone enlightened the side of the valley; and when George,
-with trembling steps, a moist brow, and hair bristling upright under his
-collier's cap, came to the spot on which the fire had been so lately
-visible, marked as it was by a scathed oak-tree, there appeared not on
-the heath the slightest vestiges of what he had seen. The moss and wild
-flowers were unscorched, and the branches of the oak-tree, which had so
-lately appeared enveloped in wreaths of flame and smoke, were moist with
-the dews of midnight.
-
-George returned to his hut with trembling steps, and, arguing like his
-elder brother, resolved to say nothing of what he had seen, lest he
-should awake in Martin that daring curiosity which he almost deemed to be
-allied with impiety.
-
-It was now Martin's turn to watch. The household cock had given his first
-summons, and the night was well-nigh spent. Upon examining the state of
-the furnace in which the wood was deposited in order to its being _coked_
-or _charred,_ he was surprised to find that the fire had not been
-sufficiently maintained; for in his excursion and its consequences,
-George had forgot the principal object of his watch. Martin's first
-thought was to call up the slumberers; but observing that both his
-brothers slept unwontedly deep and heavily, he respected their repose,
-and set himself to supply the furnace with fuel without requiring their
-aid. What he heaped upon it was apparently damp and unfit for the
-purpose, for the fire seemed rather to decay than revive. Martin next
-went to collect some boughs from a stack which had been carefully cut and
-dried for this purpose; but, when he returned, he found the fire totally
-extinguished. This was a serious evil, and threatened them with loss of
-their trade for more than one day. The vexed and mortified watchman set
-about to strike a light in order to rekindle the fire but the tinder was
-moist, and his labour proved in this respect also ineffectual. He was now
-about to call up his brothers, for circumstances seemed to be pressing,
-when flashes of light glimmered not only through the window, but through
-every crevice of the rudely built hut, and summoned him to behold the
-same apparition which had before alarmed the successive watches of his
-brethren. His first idea was, that the Muhllerhaussers, their rivals in
-trade, and with whom they had had many quarrels, might have encroached
-upon their bounds for the purpose of pirating their wood; and he resolved
-to awake his brothers, and be revenged on them for their audacity. But a
-short reflection and observation on the gestures and manner of those who
-seemed to "work in the fire," induced him to dismiss this belief, and
-although rather sceptical in such matters, to conclude that what he saw
-was a supernatural phenomenon. "But be they men or fiends," said the
-undaunted forester, "that busy themselves yonder with such fantastical
-rites and gestures, I will go and demand a light to rekindle our
-furnace." He, relinquished at the same time the idea of awaking his
-brethren. There was a belief that such adventures as he was about to
-undertake were accessible only to one person at a time; he feared also
-that his brothers, in their scrupulous timidity, might interfere to
-prevent his pursuing the investigation he had resolved to commence; and,
-therefore, snatching his boar-spear from the wall, the undaunted Martin
-Waldeck set forth on the adventure alone.
-
-With the same success as his brother George, but with courage far
-superior, Martin crossed the brook, ascended the hill, and approached so
-near the ghostly assembly, that he could recognise, in the presiding
-figure, the attributes of the Harz demon. A cold shuddering assailed him
-for the first time in his life; but the recollection that he had at a
-distance dared and even courted the intercourse which was now about to
-take place, confirmed his staggering courage; and pride supplying what he
-wanted in resolution, he advanced with tolerable firmness towards the
-fire, the figures which surrounded it appearing still more wild,
-fantastical, and supernatural, the more near he approached to the
-assembly. He was received with a loud shout of discordant and unnatural
-laughter, which, to his stunned ears, seemed more alarming than a
-combination of the most dismal and melancholy sounds that could be
-imagined. "Who art thou?" said the giant, compressing his savage and
-exaggerated features into a sort of forced gravity, while they were
-occasionally agitated by the convulsion of the laughter which he seemed
-to suppress.
-
-"Martin Waldeck, the forester," answered the hardy youth;--"and who are
-you?"
-
-"The King of the Waste and of the Mine," answered the spectre;--"and why
-hast thou dared to encroach on my mysteries?"
-
-"I came in search of light to rekindle my fire," answered Martin,
-hardily, and then resolutely asked in his turn, "What mysteries are those
-that you celebrate here?"
-
-"We celebrate," answered the complaisant demon, "the wedding of Hermes
-with the Black Dragon--But take thy fire that thou camest to seek, and
-begone! no mortal may look upon us and live."
-
-The peasant struck his spear-point into a large piece of blazing wood,
-which he heaved up with some difficulty, and then turned round to regain
-his hut, the, shouts of laughter being renewed behind him with treble
-violence, and ringing far down the narrow valley. When Martin returned to
-the hut, his first care, however much astonished with what he had seen,
-was to dispose the kindled coal among the fuel so as might best light the
-fire of his furnace; but after many efforts, and all exertions of bellows
-and fire-prong, the coal he had brought from the demon's fire became
-totally extinct without kindling any of the others. He turned about, and
-observed the fire still blazing on the hill, although those who had been
-busied around it had disappeared. As he conceived the spectre had been
-jesting with him, he gave way to the natural hardihood of his temper,
-and, determining to see the adventure to an end, resumed the road to the
-fire, from which, unopposed by the demon, he brought off in the same
-manner a blazing piece of charcoal, but still without being able to
-succeed in lighting his fire. Impunity having increased his rashness, he
-resolved upon a third experiment, and was as successful as before in
-reaching the fire; but when he had again appropriated a piece of burning
-coal, and had turned to depart, he heard the harsh and supernatural voice
-which had before accosted him, pronounce these words, "Dare not return
-hither a fourth time!"
-
-The attempt to kindle the fire with this last coal having proved as
-ineffectual as on the former occasions, Martin relinquished the hopeless
-attempt, and flung himself on his bed of leaves, resolving to delay till
-the next morning the communication of his supernatural adventure to his
-brothers. He was awakened from a heavy sleep into which he had sunk, from
-fatigue of body and agitation of mind, by loud exclamations of surprise
-and joy. His brothers, astonished at finding the fire extinguished when
-they awoke, had proceeded to arrange the fuel in order to renew it, when
-they found in the ashes three huge metallic masses, which their skill
-(for most of the peasants in the Harz are practical mineralogists)
-immediately ascertained to be pure gold.
-
-It was some damp upon their joyful congratulations when they learned from
-Martin the mode in which he had obtained this treasure, to which their
-own experience of the nocturnal vision induced them to give full credit.
-But they were unable to resist the temptation of sharing in their
-brother's wealth. Taking now upon him as head of the house, Martin
-Waldeck bought lands and forests, built a castle, obtained a patent of
-nobility, and, greatly to the indignation of the ancient aristocracy of
-the neighbourhood, was invested with all the privileges of a man of
-family. His courage in public war, as well as in private feuds, together
-with the number of retainers whom he kept in pay, sustained him for some
-time against the odium which was excited by his sudden elevation, and the
-arrogance of his pretensious.
-
-And now it was seen in the instance of Martin Waldeck, as it has been in
-that of many others, how little mortals can foresee the effect of sudden
-prosperity on their own disposition. The evil propensities in his nature,
-which poverty had checked and repressed, ripened and bore their
-unhallowed fruit under the influence of temptation and the means of
-indulgence. As Deep calls unto Deep, one bad passion awakened another the
-fiend of avarice invoked that of pride, and pride was to be supported by
-cruelty and oppression. Waldeck's character, always bold and daring but
-rendered harsh and assuming by prosperity, soon made him odious, not to
-the nobles only, but likewise to the lower ranks, who saw, with double
-dislike, the oppressive rights of the feudal nobility of the empire so
-remorselessly exercised by one who had risen from the very dregs of the
-people. His adventure, although carefully concealed, began likewise to be
-whispered abroad, and the clergy already stigmatized as a wizard and
-accomplice of fiends, the wretch, who, having acquired so huge a treasure
-in so strange a manner, had not sought to sanctify it by dedicating a
-considerable portion to the use of the church. Surrounded by enemies,
-public and private, tormented by a thousand feuds, and threatened by the
-church with excommunication, Martin Waldeck, or, as we must now call him,
-the Baron von Waldeck, often regretted bitterly the labours and sports of
-his unenvied poverty. But his courage failed him not under all these
-difficulties, and seemed rather to augment in proportion to the danger
-which darkened around him, until an accident precipitated his fall.
-
-A proclamation by the reigning Duke of Brunswick had invited to a solemn
-tournament all German nobles of free and honourable descent; and Martin
-Waldeck, splendidly armed, accompanied by his two brothers, and a
-gallantly-equipped retinue, had the arrogance to appear among the
-chivalry of the province, and demand permission to enter the lists. This
-was considered as filling up the measure of his presumption. A thousand
-voices exclaimed, "We will have no cinder-sifter mingle in our games of
-chivalry." Irritated to frenzy, Martin drew his sword and hewed down the
-herald, who, in compliance with the general outcry, opposed his entry
-into the lists. An hundred swords were unsheathed to avenge what was in
-those days regarded as a crime only inferior to sacrilege or regicide.
-Waldeck, after defending himself like a lion, was seized, tried on the
-spot by the judges of the lists, and condemned, as the appropriate
-punishment for breaking the peace of his sovereign, and violating the
-sacred person of a herald-at-arms, to have his right hand struck from his
-body, to be ignominiously deprived of the honour of nobility, of which he
-was unworthy, and to be expelled from the city. When he had been stripped
-of his arms, and sustained the mutilation imposed by this severe
-sentence, the unhappy victim of ambition was abandoned to the rabble, who
-followed him with threats and outcries levelled alternately against the
-necromancer and oppressor, which at length ended in violence. His
-brothers (for his retinue were fled and dispersed) at length succeeded in
-rescuing him from the hands of the populace, when, satiated with cruelty,
-they had left him half dead through loss of blood, and through the
-outrages he had sustained. They were not permitted, such was the
-ingenious cruelty of their enemies, to make use of any other means of
-removing him, excepting such a collier's cart as they had themselves
-formerly used, in which they deposited their brother on a truss of straw,
-scarcely expecting to reach any place of shelter ere death should release
-him from his misery.
-
-When the Waldecks, journeying in this miserable manner, had approached
-the verge of their native country, in a hollow way, between two
-mountains, they perceived a figure advancing towards them, which at first
-sight seemed to be an aged man. But as he approached, his limbs and
-stature increased, the cloak fell from his shoulders, his pilgrim's staff
-was changed into an uprooted pine-tree, and the gigantic figure of the
-Harz demon passed before them in his terrors. When he came opposite to
-the cart which contained the miserable Waldeck, his huge features dilated
-into a grin of unutterable contempt and malignity, as he asked the
-sufferer, "How like you the fire my coals have kindled?" The power of
-motion, which terror suspended in his two brothers, seemed to be restored
-to Martin by the energy of his courage. He raised himself on the cart,
-bent his brows, and, clenching his fist, shook it at the spectre with a
-ghastly look of hate and defiance. The goblin vanished with his usual
-tremendous and explosive laugh, and left Waldeck exhausted with this
-effort of expiring nature.
-
-The terrified brethren turned their vehicle toward the towers of a
-convent, which arose in a wood of pine-trees beside the road. They were
-charitably received by a bare-footed and long-bearded capuchin, and
-Martin survived only to complete the first confession he had made since
-the day of his sudden prosperity, and to receive absolution from the very
-priest whom, precisely on that day three years, he had assisted to pelt
-out of the hamlet of Morgenbrodt. The three years of precarious
-prosperity were supposed to have a mysterious correspondence with the
-number of his visits to the spectral fire upon the bill.
-
-The body of Martin Waldeck was interred in the convent where he expired,
-in which his brothers, having assumed the habit of the order, lived and
-died in the performance of acts of charity and devotion. His lands, to
-which no one asserted any claim, lay waste until they were reassumed by
-the emperor as a lapsed fief, and the ruins of the castle, which Waldeck
-had called by his own name, are still shunned by the miner and forester
-as haunted by evil spirits. Thus were the miseries attendant upon wealth,
-hastily attained and ill employed, exemplified in the fortunes of Martin
-Waldeck.
-
-
-
-
-                           CHAPTER NINETEENTH.
-
-
-                 Here has been such a stormy encounter
-                 Betwixt my cousin Captain, and this soldier,
-                 About I know not what!--nothing, indeed;
-                 Competitions, degrees, and comparatives
-                          Of soldiership!----
-                                    A Faire Qurrell.
-
-The attentive audience gave the fair transcriber of the foregoing legend
-the thanks which politeness required. Oldbuck alone curled up his nose,
-and observed, that Miss Wardour's skill was something like that of the
-alchemists, for she had contrived to extract a sound and valuable moral
-out of a very trumpery and ridiculous legend. "It is the fashion, as I am
-given to understand, to admire those extravagant fictions--for me,
-
-                            --I bear an English heart,
-             Unused at ghosts and rattling bones to start."
-
-"Under your favour, my goot Mr. Oldenbuck," said the German, "Miss
-Wardour has turned de story, as she does every thing as she touches, very
-pretty indeed; but all the history of de Harz goblin, and how he walks
-among de desolate mountains wid a great fir-tree for his walking cane,
-and wid de great green bush around his head and his waist--that is as
-true as I am an honest man."
-
-"There is no disputing any proposition so well guaranteed," answered the
-Antiquary, drily. But at this moment the approach of a stranger cut short
-the conversation.
-
-The new comer was a handsome young man, about five-and-twenty, in a
-military undress, and bearing, in his look and manner, a good deal of
-the, martial profession--nay, perhaps a little more than is quite
-consistent with the ease of a man of perfect good-breeding, in whom no
-professional habit ought to predominate. He was at once greeted by the
-greater part of the company. "My dear Hector!" said Miss M'Intyre, as she
-rose to take his hand--
-
-"Hector, son of Priam, whence comest thou?" said the Antiquary.
-
-"From Fife, my liege," answered the young soldier, and continued, when he
-had politely saluted the rest of the company, and particularly Sir Arthur
-and his daughter--"I learned from one of the servants, as I rode towards
-Monkbarns to pay my respects to you, that I should find the present
-company in this place, and I willingly embrace the opportunity to pay my
-respects to so many of my friends at once."
-
-"And to a new one also, my trusty Trojan," said Oldbuck. "Mr. Lovel, this
-is my nephew, Captain M'Intyre--Hector, I recommend Mr. Lovel to your
-acquaintance."
-
-The young soldier fixed his keen eye upon Lovel, and paid his compliment
-with more reserve than cordiality and as our acquaintance thought his
-coldness almost supercilious, he was equally frigid and haughty in making
-the necessary return to it; and thus a prejudice seemed to arise between
-them at the very commencement of their acquaintance.
-
-The observations which Lovel made during the remainder of this pleasure
-party did not tend to reconcile him with this addition to their society.
-Captain M'Intyre, with the gallantry to be expected from his age and
-profession, attached himself to the service of Miss Wardour, and offered
-her, on every possible opportunity, those marks of attention which Lovel
-would have given the world to have rendered, and was only deterred from
-offering by the fear of her displeasure. With forlorn dejection at one
-moment, and with irritated susceptibility at another, he saw this
-handsome young soldier assume and exercise all the privileges of a
-_cavaliere servente._ He handed Miss Wardour's gloves, he assisted her in
-putting on her shawl, he attached himself to her in the walks, had a hand
-ready to remove every impediment in her path, and an arm to support her
-where it was rugged or difficult; his conversation was addressed chiefly
-to her, and, where circumstances permitted, it was exclusively so. All
-this, Lovel well knew, might be only that sort of egotistical gallantry
-which induces some young men of the present day to give themselves the
-air of engrossing the attention of the prettiest women in company, as if
-the others were unworthy of their notice. But he thought he observed in
-the conduct of Captain M'Intyre something of marked and peculiar
-tenderness, which was calculated to alarm the jealousy of a lover. Miss
-Wardour also received his attentions; and although his candour allowed
-they were of a kind which could not be repelled without some strain of
-affectation, yet it galled him to the heart to witness that she did so.
-
-The heart-burning which these reflections occasioned proved very
-indifferent seasoning to the dry antiquarian discussions with which
-Oldbuck, who continued to demand his particular attention, was
-unremittingly persecuting him; and he underwent, with fits of impatience
-that amounted almost to loathing, a course of lectures upon monastic
-architecture, in all its styles, from the massive Saxon to the florid
-Gothic, and from that to the mixed and composite architecture of James
-the First's time, when, according to Oldbuck, all orders were confounded,
-and columns of various descriptions arose side by side, or were piled
-above each other, as if symmetry had been forgotten, and the elemental
-principles of art resolved into their primitive confusion. "What can be
-more cutting to the heart than the sight of evils," said Oldbuck, in
-rapturous enthusiasm, "which we are compelled to behold, while we do not
-possess the power of remedying them?" Lovel answered by an involulatary
-groan. "I see, my dear young friend, and most congenial spirit, that you
-feel these enormities almost as much as I do. Have you ever approached
-them, or met them, without longing to tear, to deface, what is so
-dishonourable?"
-
-"Dishonourable!" echoed Lovel--"in what respect dishonourable?"
-
-"I mean, disgraceful to the arts."
-
-"Where? how?"
-
-"Upon the portico, for example, of the schools of Oxford, where, at
-immense expense, the barbarous, fantastic, and ignorant architect has
-chosen to represent the whole five orders of architecture on the front of
-one building."
-
-By such attacks as these, Oldbuck, unconscious of the torture he was
-giving, compelled Lovel to give him a share of his attention,--as a
-skilful angler, by means of his line, maintains an influence over the
-most frantic movements of his agonized prey.
-
-They were now on their return to the spot where they had left the
-carriages; and it is inconceivable how often, in the course of that short
-walk, Lovel, exhausted by the unceasing prosing of his worthy companion,
-mentally bestowed on the devil, or any one else that would have rid him
-of hearing more of them, all the orders and disorders of architecture
-which had been invented or combined from the building of Solomon's temple
-downwards. A slight incident occurred, however, which sprinkled a little
-patience on the heat of his distemperature.
-
-Miss Wardour, and her self-elected knight companion, rather preceded the
-others in the narrow path, when the young lady apparently became desirous
-to unite herself with the rest of the party, and, to break off her
-_tete-a-tete_ with the young officer, fairly made a pause until Mr.
-Oldbuck came up. "I wished to ask you a question, Mr. Oldbuck, concerning
-the date of these interesting ruins."
-
-It would be doing injustice to Miss Wardour's _savoir faire,_ to suppose
-she was not aware that such a question would lead to an answer of no
-limited length. The Antiquary, starting like a war-horse at the trumpet
-sound, plunged at once into the various arguments for and against the
-date of 1273, which had been assigned to the priory of St. Ruth by a late
-publication on Scottish architectural antiquities. He raked up the names
-of all the priors who had ruled the institution, of the nobles who had
-bestowed lands upon it, and of the monarchs who had slept their last
-sleep among its roofless courts. As a train which takes fire is sure to
-light another, if there be such in the vicinity, the Baronet, catching at
-the name of one of his ancestors which occurred in Oldbuck's
-disquisition, entered upon an account of his wars, his conquests, and his
-trophies; and worthy Dr. Blattergowl was induced, from the mention of a
-grant of lands, _cum decimis inclusis tam vicariis quam garbalibus, et
-nunquan antea separatis,_ to enter into a long explanation concerning the
-interpretation given by the Teind Court in the consideration of such a
-clause, which had occurred in a process for localling his last
-augmentation of stipend. The orators, like three racers, each pressed
-forward to the goal, without much regarding how each crossed and jostled
-his competitors. Mr. Oldbuck harangued, the Baronet declaimed, Mr.
-Blattergowl prosed and laid down the law, while the Latin forms of feudal
-grants were mingled with the jargon of blazonry, and the yet more
-barbarous phraseology of the Teind Court of Scotland. "He was," exclaimed
-Oldbuck, speaking of the Prior Adhemar, "indeed an exemplary prelate;
-and, from his strictness of morals, rigid execution of penance, joined to
-the charitable disposition of his mind, and the infirmities endured by
-his great age and ascetic habits"--
-
-Here he chanced to cough, and Sir Arthur burst in, or rather continued--
-"was called popularly Hell-in-Harness; he carried a shield, gules with a
-sable fess, which we have since disused, and was slain at the battle of
-Vernoil, in France, after killing six of the English with his own"--
-
-"Decreet of certification," proceeded the clergyman, in that prolonged,
-steady, prosing tone, which, however overpowered at first by the
-vehemence of competition, promised, in the long run, to obtain the
-ascendancy in this strife of narrators;--"Decreet of certification having
-gone out, and parties being held as confessed, the proof seemed to be
-held as concluded, when their lawyer moved to have it opened up, on the
-allegation that they had witnesses to bring forward, that they had been
-in the habit of carrying the ewes to lamb on the teind-free land; which
-was a mere evasion, for"--
-
-But here the, Baronet and Mr. Oldbuck having recovered their wind, and
-continued their respective harangues, the three _strands_ of the
-conversation, to speak the language of a rope-work, were again twined
-together into one undistinguishable string of confusion.
-
-Yet, howsoever uninteresting this piebald jargon might seem, it was
-obviously Miss Wardour's purpose to give it her attention, in preference
-to yielding Captain M'Intyre an opportunity of renewing their private
-conversation. So that, after waiting for a little time with displeasure,
-ill concealed by his haughty features, he left her to enjoy her bad
-taste, and taking his sister by the arm, detained her a little behind the
-rest of the party.
-
-"So I find, Mary, that your neighbour has neither become more lively nor
-less learned during my absence."
-
-"We lacked your patience and wisdom to instruct us, Hector."
-
-"Thank you, my dear sister. But you have got a wiser, if not so lively an
-addition to your society, than your unworthy brother--Pray, who is this
-Mr. Lovel, whom our old uncle has at once placed so high in his good
-graces?--he does not use to be so accessible to strangers."
-
-"Mr. Lovel, Hector, is a very gentleman-like young man."
-
-"Ay,--that is to say, he bows when he comes into a room, and wears a coat
-that is whole at the elbows."
-
-"No, brother; it says a great deal more. It says that his manners and
-discourse express the feelings and education of the higher class."
-
-"But I desire to know what is his birth and his rank in society, and what
-is his title to be in the circle in which I find him domesticated?"
-
-"If you mean, how he comes to visit at Monkbarns, you must ask my uncle,
-who will probably reply, that he invites to his own house such company as
-he pleases; and if you mean to ask Sir Arthur, you must know that Mr.
-Lovel rendered Miss Wardour and him a service of the most important
-kind."
-
-"What! that romantic story is true, then?--And pray, does the valorous
-knight aspire, as is befitting on such occasions, to the hand of the
-young lady whom he redeemed from peril? It is quite in the rule of
-romance, I am aware; and I did think that she was uncommonly dry to me as
-we walked together, and seemed from time to time as if she watched
-whether she was not giving offence to her gallant cavalier."
-
-"Dear Hector," said his sister, "if you really continue to nourish any
-affection for Miss Wardour"--
-
-"If, Mary?--what an _if_ was there!"
-
-"--I own I consider your perseverance as hopeless."
-
-"And why hopeless, my sage sister?" asked Captain M'Intyre: "Miss
-Wardour, in the state of her father's affairs, cannot pretend to much
-fortune;--and, as to family, I trust that of Mlntyre is not inferior."
-
-"But, Hector," continued his sister, "Sir Arthur always considers us as
-members of the Monkbarns family."
-
-"Sir Arthur may consider what he pleases," answered the Highlander
-scornfully; "but any one with common sense will consider that the wife
-takes rank from the husband, and that my father's pedigree of fifteen
-unblemished descents must have ennobled my mother, if her veins had been
-filled with printer's ink."
-
-"For God's sake, Hector," replied his anxious sister, "take care of
-yourself! a single expression of that kind, repeated to my uncle by an
-indiscreet or interested eavesdropper, would lose you his favour for
-ever, and destroy all chance of your succeeding to his estate."
-
-"Be it so," answered the heedless young man; "I am one of a profession
-which the world has never been able to do without, and will far less
-endure to want for half a century to come; and my good old uncle may tack
-his good estate and his plebeian name to your apron-string if he pleases,
-Mary, and you may wed this new favourite of his if you please, and you
-may both of you live quiet, peaceable, well-regulated lives, if it
-pleases Heaven. My part is taken--I'll fawn on no man for an inheritance
-which should be mine by birth."
-
-Miss M'Intyre laid her hand on her brother's arm, and entreated him to
-suppress his vehemence. "Who," she said, "injures or seeks to injure you,
-but your own hasty temper?--what dangers are you defying, but those you
-have yourself conjured up?--Our uncle has hitherto been all that is kind
-and paternal in his conduct to us, and why should you suppose he will in
-future be otherwise than what he has ever been, since we were left as
-orphans to his care?"
-
-"He is an excellent old gentleman, I must own," replied M'Intyre, "and I
-am enraged at myself when I chance to offend him; but then his eternal
-harangues upon topics not worth the spark of a flint--his investigations
-about invalided pots and pans and tobacco-stoppers past service--all
-these things put me out of patience. I have something of Hotspur in me,
-sister, I must confess."
-
-"Too much, too much, my dear brother! Into how many risks, and, forgive
-me for saying, some of them little creditable, has this absolute and
-violent temper led you! Do not let such clouds darken the time you are
-now to pass in our neighbourhood, but let our old benefactor see his
-kinsman as he is--generous, kind, and lively, without being rude,
-headstrong, and impetuous."
-
-"Well," answered Captain M'Intyre, "I am schooled--good-manners be my
-speed! I'll do the civil thing by your new friend--I'll have some talk
-with this Mr. Lovel."
-
-With this determination, in which he was for the time perfectly sincere,
-he joined the party who were walking before them. The treble disquisition
-was by this time ended; and Sir Arthur was speaking on the subject of
-foreign news, and the political and military situation of the country,
-themes upon which every man thinks himself qualified to give an opinion.
-An action of the preceding year having come upon the _tapis,_ Lovel,
-accidentally mingling in the conversation, made some assertion concerning
-it, of the accuracy of which Captain M'Intyre seemed not to be convinced,
-although his doubts were politely expressed.
-
-"You must confess yourself in the wrong here, Hector," said his uncle,
-"although I know no man less willing to give up an argument; but you were
-in England at the time, and Mr. Lovel was probably concerned in the
-affair."
-
-"I am speaking to a military man, then?" said M'Intyre; "may I inquire to
-what regiment Mr. Lovel belongs?"--Mr. Lovel gave him the number of the
-regiment. "It happens strangely that we should never have met before, Mr.
-Lovel. I know your regiment very well, and have served along with them at
-different times."
-
-A blush crossed Lovel's countenance. "I have not lately been with my
-regiment," he replied; "I served the last campaign upon the staff of
-General Sir----."
-
-"Indeed! that is more wonderful than the other circumstance!--for
-although I did not serve with General Sir----, yet I had an opportunity
-of knowing the names of the officers who held situations in his family,
-and I cannot recollect that of Lovel."
-
-At this observation Lovel again blushed so deeply as to attract the
-attention of the whole company, while, a scornful laugh seemed to
-indicate Captain M'Intyre's triumph. "There is something strange in
-this," said Oldbuck to himself; "but I will not readily give up my
-phoenix of post-chaise companions--all his actions, language, and
-bearing, are those of a gentleman."
-
-Lovel in the meanwhile had taken out his pocket-book, and selecting a
-letter, from which he took off the envelope, he handed it to Mlntyre.
-"You know the General's hand, in all probability--I own I ought not to
-show these exaggerated expressions of his regard and esteem for me." The
-letter contained a very handsome compliment from the officer in question
-for some military service lately performed. Captain M'Intyre, as be
-glanced his eye over it, could not deny that it was written in the
-General's hand, but drily observed, as be returned it, that the address
-was wanting. "The address, Captain M'Intyre," answered Lovel, in the same
-tone, "shall be at your service whenever you choose to inquire after it!"
-
-"I certainly shall not fail to do so," rejoined the soldier.
-
-"Come, come," exclaimed Oldbuck, "what is the meaning of all this? Have
-we got Hiren here?--We'll have no swaggering youngsters. Are you come
-from the wars abroad, to stir up domestic strife in our peaceful land?
-Are you like bull-dog puppies, forsooth, that when the bull, poor fellow,
-is removed from the ring, fall to brawl among themselves, worry each
-other, and bite honest folk's shins that are standing by?"
-
-Sir Arthur trusted, he said, the young gentlemen would not so far forget
-themselves as to grow warm upon such a trifling subject as the back of a
-letter.
-
-Both the disputants disclaimed any such intention, and, with high colour
-and flashing eyes, protested they were never so cool in their lives. But
-an obvious damp was cast over the party;--they talked in future too much
-by the rule to be sociable, and Lovel, conceiving himself the object of
-cold and suspicious looks from the rest of the company, and sensible that
-his indirect replies had given them permission to entertain strange
-opinions respecting him, made a gallant determination to sacrifice the
-pleasure he had proposed in spending the day at Knockwinnock.
-
-He affected, therefore, to complain of a violent headache, occasioned by
-the heat of the day, to which he had not been exposed since his illness,
-and made a formal apology to Sir Arthur, who, listening more to recent
-suspicion than to the gratitude due for former services, did not press
-him to keep his engagement more than good-breeding exactly demanded.
-
-When Lovel took leave of the ladies, Miss Wardour's manner seemed more
-anxious than he had hitherto remarked it. She indicated by a glance of
-her eye towards Captain M'Intyre, perceptible only by Lovel, the subject
-of her alarm, and hoped, in a voice greatly under her usual tone, it was
-not a less pleasant engagement which deprived them of the pleasure of Mr.
-Lovel's company. "No engagement had intervened," he assured her; "it was
-only the return of a complaint by which he had been for some time
-occasionally attacked."
-
-"The best remedy in such a case is prudence, and I--every friend of Mr.
-Lovel's will expect him to employ it."
-
-Lovel bowed low and coloured deeply, and Miss Wardour, as if she felt
-that she had said too much, turned and got into the carriage. Lovel had
-next to part with Oldbuck, who, during this interval, had, with Caxon's
-assistance, been arranging his disordered periwig, and brushing his coat,
-which exhibited some marks of the rude path they had traversed. "What,
-man!" said Oldbuck, "you are not going to leave us on account of that
-foolish Hector's indiscreet curiosity and vehemence? Why, he is a
-thoughtless boy--a spoiled child from the time he was in the nurse's
-arms--he threw his coral and bells at my head for refusing him a bit of
-sugar; and you have too much sense to mind such a shrewish boy: _aequam
-servare mentem_ is the motto of our friend Horace. I'll school Hector by
-and by, and put it all to rights." But Lovel persisted in his design of
-returning to Fairport.
-
-The Antiquary then assumed a graver tone.--"Take heed, young man, to your
-present feelings. Your life has been given yon for useful and valuable
-purposes, and should be reserved to illustrate the literature of your
-country, when you are not called upon to expose it in her defence, or in
-the rescue of the innocent. Private war, a practice unknown to the
-civilised ancients, is, of all the absurdities introduced by the Gothic
-tribes, the most gross, impious, and cruel. Let me hear no more of these
-absurd quarrels, and I will show you the treatise upon the duello, which
-I composed when the town-clerk and provost Mucklewhame chose to assume
-the privileges of gentlemen, and challenged each other. I thought of
-printing my Essay, which is signed _Pacificator;_ but there was no need,
-as the matter was taken up by the town-council of the borough."
-
-"But I assure you, my dear sir, there is nothing between Captain M'Intyre
-and me that can render such respectable interference necessary."
-
-"See it be so; for otherwise, I will stand second to both parties."
-
-So saying, the old gentleman got into the chaise, close to which Miss
-M'Intyre had detained her brother, upon the same principle that the owner
-of a quarrelsome dog keeps him by his side to prevent his fastening upon
-another. But Hector contrived to give her precaution the slip, for, as he
-was on horseback, he lingered behind the carriages until they had fairly
-turned the corner in the road to Knockwinnock, and then, wheeling his
-horse's head round, gave him the spur in the opposite direction.
-
-A very few minutes brought him up with Lovel, who, perhaps anticipating
-his intention, had not put his horse beyond a slow walk, when the clatter
-of hoofs behind him announced Captain Mlntyre. The young soldier, his
-natural heat of temper exasperated by the rapidity of motion, reined his
-horse up suddenly and violently by Lovel's side, and touching his hat
-slightly, inquired, in a very haughty tone of voice, "What am I to
-understand, sir, by your telling me that your address was at my service?"
-
-"Simply, sir," replied Lovel, "that my name is Lovel, and that my
-residence is, for the present, Fairport, as you will see by this card."
-
-"And is this all the information you are disposed to give me?"
-
-"I see no right you have to require more."
-
-"I find you, sir, in company with my sister," said the young soldier,
-"and I have a right to know who is admitted into Miss M'Intyre's
-society."
-
-"I shall take the liberty of disputing that right," replied Lovel, with a
-manner as haughty as that of the young soldier;--"you find me in society
-who are satisfied with the degree of information on my affairs which I
-have thought proper to communicate, and you, a mere stranger, have no
-right to inquire further."
-
-"Mr. Lovel, if you served as you say you have"--
-
-"If!" interrupted Lovel,--"_if_ I have served as _I say_ I have?"
-
-"Yes, sir, such is my expression--_if_ you have so served, you must know
-that you owe me satisfaction either in one way or other."
-
-"If that be your opinion, I shall be proud to give it to you, Captain
-M'Intyre, in the way in which the word is generally used among
-gentlemen."
-
-"Very well, sir," rejoined Hector, and, turning his horse round, galloped
-off to overtake his party.
-
-His absence had already alarmed them, and his sister, having stopped the
-carriage, had her neck stretched out of the window to see where he was.
-
-"What is the matter with you now?" said the Antiquary, "riding to and fro
-as your neck were upon the wager--why do you not keep up with the
-carriage?"
-
-"I forgot my glove, sir," said Hector.
-
-"Forgot your glove!--I presume you meant to say you went to throw it
-down--But I will take order with you, my young gentleman--you shall
-return with me this night to Monkbarns." So saying, he bid the postilion
-go on.
-
-
-
-                           CHAPTER TWENTIETH.
-
-
-                         --If you fail Honour here,
-                 Never presume to serve her any more;
-                 Bid farewell to the integrity of armes;
-                    And the honourable name of soldier
-            Fall from you, like a shivered wreath of laurel
-            By thunder struck from a desertlesse forehead.
-                                    A Faire Quarrell.
-
-Early the next morning, a gentleman came to wait upon Mr. Lovel, who was
-up and ready to receive him. He was a military gentleman, a friend of
-Captain M'Intyre's, at present in Fairport on the recruiting service.
-Lovel and he were slightly known to each other. "I presume, sir," said
-Mr. Lesley (such was the name of the visitor), "that you guess the
-occasion of my troubling you so early?"
-
-"A message from Captain M'Intyre, I presume?"
-
-"The same. He holds himself injured by the manner in which you declined
-yesterday to answer certain inquiries which he conceived himself entitled
-to make respecting a gentleman whom he found in intimate society with his
-family."
-
-"May I ask, if you, Mr. Lesley, would have inclined to satisfy
-interrogatories so haughtily and unceremoniously put to you?"
-
-"Perhaps not;--and therefore, as I know the warmth of my friend M'Intyre
-on such occasions, I feel very desirous of acting as peacemaker. From Mr.
-Lovel's very gentleman-like manners, every one must strongly wish to see
-him repel all that sort of dubious calumny which will attach itself to
-one whose situation is not fully explained. If he will permit me, in
-friendly conciliation, to inform Captain M'Intyre of his real name, for
-we are led to conclude that of Lovel is assumed"--
-
-"I beg your pardon, sir, but I cannot admit that inference."
-
-"--Or at least," said Lesley, proceeding, "that it is not the name by
-which Mr. Lovel has been at all times distinguished--if Mr. Lovel will
-have the goodness to explain this circumstance, which, in my opinion, he
-should do in justice to his own character, I will answer for the amicable
-arrangement of this unpleasant business."
-
-"Which is to say, Mr. Lesley, that if I condescend to answer questions
-which no man has a right to ask, and which are now put to me under
-penalty of Captain M'Intyre's resentment, Captain MIntyre will condescend
-to rest satisfied? Mr. Lesley, I have just one word to say on this
-subject--I have no doubt my secret, if I had one, might be safely
-entrusted to your honour, but I do not feel called upon to satisfy the
-curiosity of any one. Captain M'Intyre met me in society which of itself
-was a warrant to all the world, and particularly ought to be such to him,
-that I was a gentleman. He has, in my opinion, no right to go any
-further, or to inquire the pedigree, rank, or circumstances, of a
-stranger, who, without seeking any intimate connection with him, or his,
-chances to dine with his uncle, or walk in company with his sister."
-
-"In that case, Captain M'Intyre requests you to be informed, that your
-farther visits at Monkbarns, and all connection with Miss M'Intyre, must
-be dropt, as disagreeable to him."
-
-"I shall certainly," said Lovel, "visit Mr. Oldbuck when it suits me,
-without paying the least respect to his nephew's threats or irritable
-feelings. I respect the young lady's name too much (though nothing can be
-slighter than our acquaintance) to introduce it into such a discussion."
-
-"Since that is your resolution, sir," answered Lesley, "Captain M'Intyre
-requests that Mr. Lovel, unless he wishes to be announced as a very
-dubious character, will favour him with a meeting this evening, at seven,
-at the thorn-tree in the little valley close by the ruins of St. Ruth."
-
-"Most unquestionably, I will wait upon him. There is only one difficulty
---I must find a friend to accompany me, and where to seek one on this
-short notice, as I have no acquaintance in Fairport--I will be on the
-spot, however--Captain M'Intyre may be assured of that."
-
-Lesley had taken his hat, and was as far as the door of the apartment,
-when, as if moved by the peculiarity of Lovel's situation, he returned,
-and thus addressed him: "Mr. Lovel, there is something so singular in all
-this, that I cannot help again resuming the argument. You must be
-yourself aware at this moment of the inconvenience of your preserving an
-incognito, for which, I am convinced, there can be no dishonourable
-reason. Still, this mystery renders it difficult for you to procure the
-assistance of a friend in a crisis so delicate--nay, let me add, that
-many persons will even consider it as a piece of Quixotry in M'Intyre to
-give you a meeting, while your character and circumstances are involved
-in such obscurity."
-
-"I understand your innuendo, Mr. Lesley," rejoined Lovel; and though I
-might be offended at its severity, I am not so, because it is meant
-kindly. But, in my opinion, he is entitled to all the privileges of a
-gentleman, to whose charge, during the time he has been known in the
-society where he happens to move, nothing can be laid that is unhandsome
-or unbecoming. For a friend, I dare say I shall find some one or other
-who will do me that good turn; and if his experience be less than I could
-wish, I am certain not to suffer through that circumstance when you are
-in the field for my antagonist."
-
-"I trust you will not," said Lesley; "but as I must, for my own sake, be
-anxious to divide so heavy a responsibility with a capable assistant,
-allow me to say, that Lieutenant Taffril's gun-brig is come into the
-roadstead, and he himself is now at old Caxon's, where he lodges. I think
-you have the same degree of acquaintance with him as with me, and, as I
-am sure I should willingly have rendered you such a service were I not
-engaged on the other side, I am convinced he will do so at your first
-request."
-
-"At the thorn-tree, then, Mr. Lesley, at seven this evening--the arms, I
-presume, are pistols?"
-
-"Exactly. M'Intyre has chosen the hour at which he can best escape from
-Monkbarns--he was with me this morning by five, in order to return and
-present himself before his uncle was up. Good-morning to you, Mr. Lovel."
-And Lesley left the apartment.
-
-Lovel was as brave as most men; but none can internally regard such a
-crisis as now approached, without deep feelings of awe and uncertainty.
-In a few hours he might be in another world to answer for an action which
-his calmer thought told him was unjustifiable in a religious point of
-view, or he might be wandering about in the present like Cain, with the
-blood of his brother on his head. And all this might be saved by speaking
-a single word. Yet pride whispered, that to speak that word now, would be
-ascribed to a motive which would degrade him more low than even the most
-injurious reasons that could be assigned for his silence. Every one, Miss
-Wardour included, must then, he thought, account him a mean dishonoured
-poltroon, who gave to the fear of meeting Captain M'Intyre the
-explanation he had refused to the calm and handsome expostulations of Mr.
-Lesley. M'Intyre's insolent behaviour to himself personally, the air of
-pretension which he assumed towards Miss Wardour, and the extreme
-injustice, arrogance, and incivility of his demands upon a perfect
-stranger, seemed to justify him in repelling his rude investigation. In
-short, he formed the resolution which might have been expected from so
-young a man,--to shut the eyes, namely, of his calmer reason, and follow
-the dictates of his offended pride. With this purpose he sought
-Lieutenant Taffril.
-
-The lieutenant received him with the good breeding of a gentleman and the
-frankness of a sailor, and listened with no small surprise to the detail
-which preceded his request that he might be favoured with his company at
-his meeting with Captain M'Intyre. When he had finished, Taffril rose up
-and walked through his apartment once or twice. "This is a most singular
-circumstance," he said, "and really"--
-
-"I am conscious, Mr. Taffril, how little I am entitled to make my present
-request, but the urgency of circumstances hardly leaves me an
-alternative."
-
-"Permit me to ask you one question," asked the sailor;--"is there
-anything of which you are ashamed in the circumstances which you have
-declined to communicate."
-
-"Upon my honour, no; there is nothing but what, in a very short time, I
-trust I may publish to the whole world."
-
-"I hope the mystery arises from no false shame at the lowness of your
-friends perhaps, or connections?"
-
-"No, on my word," replied Lovel.
-
-"I have little sympathy for that folly," said Taffril--"indeed I cannot
-be supposed to have any; for, speaking of my relations, I may be said to
-have come myself from before the mast, and I believe I shall very soon
-form a connection, which the world will think low enough, with a very
-amiable girl, to whom I have been attached since we were next-door
-neighbours, at a time when I little thought of the good fortune which has
-brought me forward in the service."
-
-"I assure you, Mr. Taffril," replied Lovel, "whatever were the rank of my
-parents, I should never think of concealing it from a spirit of petty
-pride. But I am so situated at present, that I cannot enter on the
-subject of my family with any propriety."
-
-"It is quite enough," said the honest sailor--"give me your hand; I'll
-see you as well through this business as I can, though it is but an
-unpleasant one after all--But what of that? our own honour has the next
-call on us after our country;--you are a lad of spirit, and I own I think
-Mr. Hector M'Intyre, with his long pedigree and his airs of family, very
-much of a jackanapes. His father was a soldier of fortune as I am a
-sailor--he himself, I suppose, is little better, unless just as his uncle
-pleases; and whether one pursues fortune by land, or sea, makes no great
-difference, I should fancy."
-
-"None in the universe, certainly," answered Lovel.
-
-"Well," said his new ally, "we will dine together and arrange matters for
-this rencounter. I hope you understand the use of the weapon?"
-
-"Not particularly," Lovel replied.
-
-"I am sorry for that--M'Intyre is said to be a marksman."
-
-"I am sorry for it also," said Lovel, "both for his sake and my own: I
-must then, in self-defence, take my aim as well as I can."
-
-"Well," added Taffril, "I will have our surgeon's mate on the field--a
-good clever young fellow at caulking a shot-hole. I will let Lesley, who
-is an honest fellow for a landsman, know that he attends for the benefit
-of either party. Is there anything I can do for you in case of an
-accident?"
-
-"I have but little occasion to trouble you," said Lovel. "This small
-billet contains the key of my escritoir, and my very brief secret. There
-is one letter in the escritoir" (digesting a temporary swelling of the
-heart as he spoke), "which I beg the favour of you to deliver with your
-own hand."
-
-"I understand," said the sailor. "Nay, my friend, never be ashamed for
-the matter--an affectionate heart may overflow for an instant at the
-eyes, if the ship were clearing for action; and, depend on it, whatever
-your injunctions are, Dan Taffril will regard them like the bequest of a
-dying brother. But this is all stuff;--we must get our things in fighting
-order, and you will dine with me and my little surgeon's mate, at the
-Graeme's-Arms over the way, at four o'clock."
-
-"Agreed," said Lovel.
-
-"Agreed," said Taffril; and the whole affair was arranged.
-
-It was a beautiful summer evening, and the shadow of the solitary
-thorn-tree was lengthening upon the short greensward of the narrow
-valley, which was skirted by the woods that closed around the ruins of
-St. Ruth. *
-
-* [Supposed to have been suggested by the old Abbey of Arbroath in *
-Forfarshire.]
-
- Lovel and Lieutenant Taffril, with the surgeon, came upon the ground
-with a purpose of a nature very uncongenial to the soft, mild, and
-pacific character of the hour and scene. The sheep, which during the
-ardent heat of the day had sheltered in the breaches and hollows of the
-gravelly bank, or under the roots of the aged and stunted trees, had now
-spread themselves upon the face of the hill to enjoy their evening's
-pasture, and bleated, to each other with that melancholy sound which at
-once gives life to a landscape, and marks its solitude.--Taffril and
-Lovel came on in deep conference, having, for fear of discovery, sent
-their horses back to the town by the Lieutenant's servant. The opposite
-party had not yet appeared on the field. But when they came upon the
-ground, there sat upon the roots of the old thorn a figure as vigorous in
-his decay as the moss-grown but strong and contorted boughs which served
-him for a canopy. It was old Ochiltree. "This is embarrassing enough,"
-said Lovel:--"How shall we get rid of this old fellow?"
-
-"Here, father Adam," cried Taffril, who knew the mendicant of yore--
-"here's half-a-crown for you. You must go to the Four Horse-shoes yonder
---the little inn, you know, and inquire for a servant with blue and
-yellow livery. If he is not come, you'll wait for him, and tell him we
-shall be with his master in about an hour's time. At any rate, wait there
-till we come back,--and--Get off with you--Come, come, weigh anchor."
-
-"I thank ye for your awmous," said Ochiltree, pocketing the piece of
-money; "but I beg your pardon, Mr. Taffril--I canna gang your errand e'en
-now."
-
-"Why not, man? what can hinder you?"
-
-"I wad speak a word wi' young Mr. Lovel."
-
-"With me?" answered Lovel: "what would you say with me? Come, say on, and
-be brief."
-
-The mendicant led him a few paces aside. "Are ye indebted onything to the
-Laird o' Monkbarns?"
-
-"Indebted!--no, not I--what of that?--what makes you think so?"
-
-"Ye maun ken I was at the shirra's the day; for, God help me, I gang
-about a' gates like the troubled spirit; and wha suld come whirling there
-in a post-chaise, but Monkbarns in an unco carfuffle--now, it's no a
-little thing that will make his honour take a chaise and post-horse twa
-days rinnin'."
-
-"Well, well; but what is all this to me?"
-
-"Ou, ye'se hear, ye'se hear. Weel, Monkbarns is closeted wi' the shirra
-whatever puir folk may be left thereout--ye needna doubt that--the
-gentlemen are aye unco civil amang themsells."
-
-"For heaven's sake, my old friend"--
-
-"Canna ye bid me gang to the deevil at ance, Mr. Lovel? it wad be mair
-purpose fa'ard than to speak o' heaven in that impatient gate."
-
-"But I have private business with Lieutenant Taffril here."
-
-"Weel, weel, a' in gude time," said the beggar--"I can use a little wee
-bit freedom wi' Mr. Daniel Taffril;--mony's the peery and the tap I
-worked for him langsyne, for I was a worker in wood as weel as a
-tinkler."
-
-"You are either mad, Adam, or have a mind to drive me mad."
-
-"Nane o' the twa," said Edie, suddenly changing his manner from the
-protracted drawl of the mendicant to a brief and decided tone. "The
-shirra sent for his clerk, and as the lad is rather light o' the tongue,
-I fand it was for drawing a warrant to apprehend you--I thought it had
-been on a _fugie_ warrant for debt; for a' body kens the laird likes
-naebody to pit his hand in his pouch--But now I may haud my tongue, for I
-see the M'Intyre lad and Mr. Lesley coming up, and I guess that
-Monkbarns's purpose was very kind, and that yours is muckle waur than it
-should be."
-
-The antagonist now approached, and saluted with the stern civility which
-befitted the occasion. "What has this old fellow to do here?" said
-M'Intyre.
-
-"I am an auld fallow," said Edie, "but I am also an auld soldier o' your
-father's, for I served wi' him in the 42d."
-
-"Serve where you please, you have no title to intrude on us," said
-M'Intyre, "or"--and he lifted his cane _in terrorem,_ though without the
-idea of touching the old man.
-
-But Ochiltree's courage was roused by the insult. "Haud down your switch,
-Captain M'Intyre! I am an auld soldier, as I said before, and I'll take
-muckle frae your father's son; but no a touch o' the wand while my
-pike-staff will haud thegither."
-
-"Well, well, I was wrong--I was wrong," said M'Intyre; "here's a crown
-for you--go your ways--what's the matter now?"
-
-The old man drew himself up to the full advantage of his uncommon height,
-and in despite of his dress, which indeed had more of the pilgrim than
-the ordinary beggar, looked from height, manner, and emphasis of voice
-and gesture, rather like a grey palmer or eremite preacher, the ghostly
-counsellor of the young men who were around him, than the object of their
-charity. His speech, indeed, was as homely as his habit, but as bold and
-unceremonious as his erect and dignified demeanour. "What are ye come
-here for, young men?" he said, addressing himself to the surprised
-audience; "are ye come amongst the most lovely works of God to break his
-laws? Have ye left the works of man, the houses and the cities that are
-but clay and dust, like those that built them--and are ye come here among
-the peaceful hills, and by the quiet waters, that will last whiles aught
-earthly shall endure, to destroy each other's lives, that will have but
-an unco short time, by the course of nature, to make up a lang account at
-the close o't? O sirs! hae ye brothers, sisters, fathers, that hae tended
-ye, and mothers that hae travailed for ye, friends that hae ca'd ye like
-a piece o' their ain heart? and is this the way ye tak to make them
-childless and brotherless and friendless? Ohon! it's an ill feight whar
-he that wins has the warst o't. Think on't, bairns. I'm a puir man--but
-I'm an auld man too--and what my poverty takes awa frae the weight o' my
-counsel, grey hairs and a truthfu' heart should add it twenty times. Gang
-hame, gang hame, like gude lads--the French will be ower to harry us ane
-o' thae days, and ye'll hae feighting eneugh, and maybe auld Edie will
-hirple out himsell if he can get a feal-dyke to lay his gun ower, and may
-live to tell you whilk o' ye does the best where there's a good cause
-afore ye."
-
-There was something in the undaunted and independent manner, hardy
-sentiment, and manly rude elocution of the old man, that had its effect
-upon the party, and particularly on the seconds, whose pride was
-uninterested in bringing the dispute to a bloody arbitrament, and who, on
-the contrary, eagerly watched for an opportunity to recommend
-reconciliation.
-
-"Upon my word, Mr. Lesley," said Taffril, "old Adam speaks like an
-oracle. Our friends here were very angry yesterday, and of course very
-foolish;--today they should be cool, or at least we must be so in their
-behalf. I think the word should be forget and forgive on both sides,--
-that we should all shake hands, fire these foolish crackers in the air,
-and go home to sup in a body at the Graeme's-Arms."
-
-"I would heartily recommend it," said Lesley; "for, amidst a great deal
-of heat and irritation on both sides, I confess myself unable to discover
-any rational ground of quarrel."
-
-"Gentlemen," said M'Intyre, very coldly, "all this should have been
-thought of before. In my opinion, persons that have carried this matter
-so far as we have done, and who should part without carrying it any
-farther, might go to supper at the Graeme's-Arms very joyously, but would
-rise the next morning with reputations as ragged as our friend here, who
-has obliged us with a rather unnecessary display of his oratory. I speak
-for myself, that I find myself bound to call upon you to proceed without
-more delay."
-
-"And I," said Lovel, "as I never desired any, have also to request these
-gentlemen to arrange preliminaries as fast as possible."
-
-"Bairns! bairns!" cried old Ochiltree; but perceiving he was no longer
-attended to--"Madmen, I should say--but your blood be on your heads!" And
-the old man drew off from the ground, which was now measured out by the
-seconds, and continued muttering and talking to himself in sullen
-indignation, mixed with anxiety, and with a strong feeling of painful
-curiosity. Without paying farther attention to his presence or
-remonstrances, Mr. Lesley and the Lieutenant made the necessary
-arrangements for the duel, and it was agreed that both parties should
-fire when Mr. Lesley dropped his handkerchief.
-
-The fatal sign was given, and both fired almost in the same moment.
-Captain M'Intyre's ball grazed the side of his opponent, but did not draw
-blood. That of Lovel was more true to the aim; M'Intyre reeled and fell.
-Raising himself on his arm, his first exclamation was, "It is nothing--it
-is nothing--give us the other pistols. "But in an instant he said, in a
-lower tone, "I believe I have enough--and what's worse, I fear I deserve
-it. Mr. Lovel, or whatever your name is, fly and save yourself--Bear all
-witness, I provoked this matter." Then raising himself again on his arm,
-he added, "Shake hands, Lovel--I believe you to be a gentleman--forgive
-my rudeness, and I forgive you my death--My poor sister!"
-
-The surgeon came up to perform his part of the tragedy, and Lovel stood
-gazing on the evil of which he had been the active, though unwilling
-cause, with a dizzy and bewildered eye. He was roused from his trance by
-the grasp of the mendicant. "Why stand you gazing on your deed?--What's
-doomed is doomed--what's done is past recalling. But awa, awa, if ye wad
-save your young blood from a shamefu' death--I see the men out by yonder
-that are come ower late to part ye--but, out and alack! sune eneugh, and
-ower sune, to drag ye to prison."
-
-"He is right--he is right," exclaimed Taffril; "you must not attempt to
-get on the high-road--get into the wood till night. My brig will be under
-sail by that time, and at three in the morning, when the tide will serve,
-I shall have the boat waiting for you at the Mussel-crag. Away-away, for
-Heaven's sake!"
-
-"O yes! fly, fly!" repeated the wounded man, his words faltering with
-convulsive sobs.
-
-"Come with me," said the mendicant, almost dragging him off; "the
-Captain's plan is the best--I'll carry ye to a place where ye might be
-concealed in the meantime, were they to seek ye 'wi' sleuth-hounds."
-
-"Go, go," again urged Lieutenant Taffril--"to stay here is mere madness."
-
-"It was worse madness to have come hither," said Lovel, pressing his
-hand--"But farewell!" And he followed Ochiltree into the recesses of the
-wood.
-
-
-
-
-                          CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.
-
-
-                      --The Lord Abbot had a soul
-               Subtile and quick, and searching as the fire;
-               By magic stairs he went as deep as hell,
-               And if in devils' possession gold be kept,
-         He brought some sure from thence--'tis hid in caves,
-                        Known, save to me, to none.--
-                                   The Wonder of a Kingdome.
-
-Lovel almost mechanically followed the beggar, who led the way with a
-hasty and steady pace, through bush and bramble, avoiding the beaten
-path, and often turning to listen whether there were any sounds of
-pursuit behind them. They sometimes descended into the very bed of the
-torrent, sometimes kept a narrow and precarious path, that the sheep
-(which, with the sluttish negligence towards property of that sort
-universal in Scotland, were allowed to stray in the copse) had made along
-the very verge of its overhanging banks. From time to time Lovel had a
-glance of the path which he had traversed the day before in company with
-Sir Arthur, the Antiquary, and the young ladies. Dejected, embarrassed,
-and occupied by a thousand inquietudes, as he then was, what would he now
-have given to regain the sense of innocence which alone can
-counter-balance a thousand evils! "Yet, then," such was his hasty and
-involuntary reflection, "even then, guiltless and valued by all around
-me, I thought myself unhappy. What am I now, with this young man's blood
-upon my hands?--the feeling of pride which urged me to the deed has now
-deserted me, as the actual fiend himself is said to do those whom he has
-tempted to guilt." Even his affection for Miss Wardour sunk for the time
-before the first pangs of remorse, and he thought he could have
-encountered every agony of slighted love to have had the conscious
-freedom from blood-guiltiness which he possessed in the morning.
-
-These painful reflections were not interrupted by any conversation on the
-part of his guide, who threaded the thicket before him, now holding back
-the sprays to make his path easy, now exhorting him to make haste, now
-muttering to himself, after the custom of solitary and neglected old age,
-words which might have escaped Lovel's ear even had he listened to them,
-or which, apprehended and retained, were too isolated to convey any
-connected meaning,--a habit which may be often observed among people of
-the old man's age and calling.
-
-At length, as Lovel, exhausted by his late indisposition, the harrowing
-feelings by which he was agitated, and the exertion necessary to keep up
-with his guide in a path so rugged, began to flag and fall behind, two or
-three very precarious steps placed him on the front of a precipice
-overhung with brushwood and copse. Here a cave, as narrow in its entrance
-as a fox-earth, was indicated by a small fissure in the rock, screened by
-the boughs of an aged oak, which, anchored by its thick and twisted roots
-in the upper part of the cleft, flung its branches almost straight
-outward from the cliff, concealing it effectually from all observation.
-It might indeed have escaped the attention even of those who had stood at
-its very opening, so uninviting was the portal at which the beggar
-entered. But within, the cavern was higher and more roomy, cut into two
-separate branches, which, intersecting each other at right angles, formed
-an emblem of the cross, and indicated the abode of an anchoret of former
-times. There are many caves of the same kind in different parts of
-Scotland. I need only instance those of Gorton, near Rosslyn, in a scene
-well known to the admirers of romantic nature.
-
-The light within the eave was a dusky twilight at the entrance, which
-failed altogether in the inner recesses. "Few folks ken o' this place,"
-said the old man; "to the best o'my knowledge, there's just twa living by
-mysell, and that's Jingling Jock and the Lang Linker. I have had mony a
-thought, that when I fand mysell auld and forfairn, and no able to enjoy
-God's blessed air ony langer, I wad drag mysell here wi' a pickle
-ait-meal; and see, there's a bit bonny dropping well that popples that
-self-same gate simmer and winter;--and I wad e'en streek mysell out here,
-and abide my removal, like an auld dog that trails its useless ugsome
-carcass into some bush or bracken no to gie living things a scunner wi'
-the sight o't when it's dead--Ay, and then, when the dogs barked at the
-lone farm-stead, the gudewife wad cry, Whisht, stirra, that'll be auld
-Edie,' and the bits o' weans wad up, puir things, and toddle to the door
-to pu' in the auld Blue-Gown that mends a' their bonny-dies--But there
-wad be nae mair word o' Edie, I trow."
-
-He then led Lovel, who followed him unresistingly, into one of the
-interior branches of the cave. "Here," he said, "is a bit turnpike-stair
-that gaes up to the auld kirk abune. Some folks say this place was howkit
-out by the monks lang syne to hide their treasure in, and some said that
-they used to bring things into the abbey this gate by night, that they
-durstna sae weel hae brought in by the main port and in open day--And
-some said that ane o' them turned a saint (or aiblins wad hae had folk
-think sae), and settled him down in this Saint Ruth's cell, as the auld
-folks aye ca'd it, and garr'd big the stair, that he might gang up to the
-kirk when they were at the divine service. The Laird o' Monkbarns wad hae
-a hantle to say about it, as he has about maist things, if he ken'd only
-about the place. But whether it was made for man's devices or God's
-service, I have seen ower muckle sin done in it in my day, and far ower
-muckle have I been partaker of--ay, even here in this dark cove. Mony a
-gudewife's been wondering what for the red cock didna craw her up in the
-morning, when he's been roasting, puir fallow, in this dark hole--And,
-ohon! I wish that and the like o' that had been the warst o't! Whiles
-they wad hae heard the din we were making in the very bowels o' the
-earth, when Sanders Aikwood, that was forester in thae days, the father
-o' Ringan that now is, was gaun daundering about the wood at e'en, to see
-after the Laird's game and whiles he wad hae seen a glance o' the light
-frae the door o' the cave, flaughtering against the hazels on the other
-bank;--and then siccan stories as Sanders had about the worricows and
-gyre-carlins that haunted about the auld wa's at e'en, and the lights
-that he had seen, and the cries that he had heard, when there was nae
-mortal e'e open but his ain; and eh! as he wad thrum them ower and ower
-to the like o' me ayont the ingle at e'en, and as I wad gie the auld
-silly carle grane for grane, and tale for tale, though I ken'd muckle
-better about it than ever he did. Ay, ay--they were daft days thae;--but
-they were a' vanity, and waur,--and it's fitting that they wha hae led a
-light and evil life, and abused charity when they were young, suld
-aiblins come to lack it when they are auld."
-
-While Ochiltree was thus recounting the exploits and tricks of his
-earlier life, with a tone in which glee and compunction alternately
-predominated, his unfortunate auditor had sat down upon the hermit's
-seat, hewn out of the solid rock, and abandoned himself to that
-lassitude, both of mind and body, which generally follows a course of
-events that have agitated both, The effect of his late indisposition,
-which had much weakened his system, contributed to this lethargic
-despondency. "The puir bairn!" said auld Edie, "an he sleeps in this damp
-hole, he'll maybe wauken nae mair, or catch some sair disease. It's no
-the same to him as to the like o' us, that can sleep ony gate an anes our
-wames are fu'. Sit up, Maister Lovel, lad! After a's come and gane, I
-dare say the captain-lad will do weel eneugh--and, after a', ye are no
-the first that has had this misfortune. I hae seen mony a man killed, and
-helped to kill them mysell, though there was nae quarrel between us--and
-if it isna wrang to kill folk we have nae quarrel wi', just because they
-wear another sort of a cockade, and speak a foreign language, I canna see
-but a man may have excuse for killing his ain mortal foe, that comes
-armed to the fair field to kill him. I dinna say it's right--God forbid--
-or that it isna sinfu' to take away what ye canna restore, and that's the
-breath of man, whilk is in his nostrils; but I say it is a sin to be
-forgiven if it's repented of. Sinfu' men are we a'; but if ye wad believe
-an auld grey sinner that has seen the evil o' his ways, there is as much
-promise atween the twa boards o' the Testament as wad save the warst o'
-us, could we but think sae."
-
-With such scraps of comfort and of divinity as he possessed, the
-mendicant thus continued to solicit and compel the attention of Lovel,
-until the twilight began to fade into night. "Now," said Ochiltree, "I
-will carry ye to a mair convenient place, where I hae sat mony a time to
-hear the howlit crying out of the ivy tod, and to see the moonlight come
-through the auld windows o' the ruins. There can be naebody come here
-after this time o' night; and if they hae made ony search, thae
-blackguard shirra'-officers and constables, it will hae been ower lang
-syne. Od, they are as great cowards as ither folk, wi' a' their warrants
-and king's keys*--I hae gien some o' them a gliff in my day, when they
-were coming rather ower near me--But, lauded be grace for it! they canna
-stir me now for ony waur than an auld man and a beggar, and my badge is a
-gude protection; and then Miss Isabella Wardour is a tower o' strength,
-ye ken"--(Lovel sighed)--"Aweel, dinna be cast down--bowls may a' row
-right yet--gie the lassie time to ken her mind. She's the wale o' the
-country for beauty, and a gude friend o' mine--I gang by the bridewell as
-safe as by the kirk on a Sabbath--deil ony o' them daur hurt a hair o'
-auld Edie's head now; I keep the crown o' the causey when I gae to the
-borough, and rub shouthers wi' a bailie wi' as little concern as an he
-were a brock."
-
-* The king's keys are, in law phrase, the crow-bars and hammers used to
-force doors and locks, in execution of the king's warrant.
-
-While the mendicant spoke thus, he was busied in removing a few loose
-stones in one angle of the eave, which obscured the entrance of the
-staircase of which he had spoken, and led the way into it, followed by
-Lovel in passive silence.
-
-"The air's free eneugh," said the old man; "the monks took care o' that,
-for they werena a lang-breathed generation, I reckon; they hae contrived
-queer tirlie-wirlie holes, that gang out to the open air, and keep the
-stair as caller as a kail-blade."
-
-Lovel accordingly found the staircase well aired, and, though narrow, it
-was neither ruinous nor long, but speedily admitted them into a narrow
-gallery contrived to run within the side wall of the chancel, from which
-it received air and light through apertures ingeniously hidden amid the
-florid ornaments of the Gothic architecture.
-
-"This secret passage ance gaed round great part o' the biggin," said the
-beggar, "and through the wa' o' the place I've heard Monkbarns ca' the
-Refractory" [meaning probably _Refectory_], "and so awa to the Prior's
-ain house. It's like he could use it to listen what the monks were saying
-at meal-time,--and then he might come ben here and see that they were
-busy skreighing awa wi' the psalms doun below there; and then, when he
-saw a' was right and tight, he might step awa and fetch in a bonnie lass
-at the cove yonder--for they were queer hands the monks, unless mony lees
-is made on them. But our folk were at great pains lang syne to big up the
-passage in some parts, and pu' it down in others, for fear o' some
-uncanny body getting into it, and finding their way down to the cove: it
-wad hae been a fashious job that--by my certie, some o' our necks wad hae
-been ewking."
-
-They now came to a place where the gallery was enlarged into a small
-circle, sufficient to contain a stone seat. A niche, constructed exactly
-before it, projected forward into the chancel, and as its sides were
-latticed, as it were, with perforated stone-work, it commanded a full
-view of the chancel in every direction, and was probably constructed, as
-Edie intimated, to be a convenient watch-tower, from which the superior
-priest, himself unseen, might watch the behaviour of his monks, and
-ascertain, by personal inspection, their punctual attendance upon those
-rites of devotion which his rank exempted him from sharing with them. As
-this niche made one of a regular series which stretched along the wall of
-the chancel, and in no respect differed from the rest when seen from
-below, the secret station, screened as it was by the stone figure of St.
-Michael and the dragon, and the open tracery around the niche, was
-completely hid from observation. The private passage, confined to its
-pristine breadth, had originally continued beyond this seat; but the
-jealous precautions of the vagabonds who frequented the cave of St. Ruth
-had caused them to build it carefully up with hewn stones from the ruin.
-
-"We shall be better here," said Edie, seating himself on the stone bench,
-and stretching the lappet of his blue gown upon the spot, when he
-motioned Lovel to sit down beside him--"we shall be better here than doun
-below; the air's free and mild, and the savour of the wallflowers, and
-siccan shrubs as grow on thae ruined wa's, is far mair refreshing than
-the damp smell doun below yonder. They smell sweetest by night-time thae
-flowers, and they're maist aye seen about rained buildings. Now, Maister
-Lovel, can ony o' you scholars gie a gude reason for that?"
-
-Lovel replied in the negative.
-
-"I am thinking," resumed the beggar, "that they'll be, like mony folk's
-gude gifts, that often seem maist gracious in adversity--or maybe it's a
-parable, to teach us no to slight them that are in the darkness of sin
-and the decay of tribulation, since God sends odours to refresh the
-mirkest hour, and flowers and pleasant bushes to clothe the ruined
-buildings. And now I wad like a wise man to tell me whether Heaven is
-maist pleased wi' the sight we are looking upon--thae pleasant and quiet
-lang streaks o' moonlight that are lying sae still on the floor o' this
-auld kirk, and glancing through the great pillars and stanchions o' the
-carved windows, and just dancing like on the leaves o' the dark ivy as
-the breath o' wind shakes it--I wonder whether this is mair pleasing to
-Heaven than when it was lighted up wi' lamps, and candles nae doubt, and
-roughies,* and wi' the mirth and the frankincent that they speak of in
-the Holy Scripture, and wi' organs assuredly, and men and women singers,
-and sackbuts, and dulcimers, and a' instruments o' music--I wonder if
-that was acceptable, or whether it is of these grand parafle o'
-ceremonies that holy writ says, It is an abomination to me.
-
-* Links, or torches.
-
-I am thinking, Maister Lovel, if twa puir contrite spirits like yours and
-mine fand grace to make our petition"--
-
-Here Lovel laid his hand eagerly on the mendicant's arm, saying,--"Hush!
-I heard some one speak."
-
-"I am dull o' hearing," answered Edie, in a whisper, "but we're surely
-safe here--where was the sound?"
-
-Lovel pointed to the door of the chancel, which, highly ornamented,
-occupied the west end of the building, surmounted by the carved window,
-which let in a flood of moonlight over it.
-
-"They can be nane o' our folk," said Edie in the same low and cautious
-tone; "there's but twa o' them kens o' the place, and they're mony a mile
-off, if they are still bound on their weary pilgrimage. I'll never think
-it's the officers here at this time o' night. I am nae believer in auld
-wives' stories about ghaists, though this is gey like a place for them--
-But mortal, or of the other world, here they come!--twa men and a light."
-
-And in very truth, while the mendicant spoke, two human figures darkened
-with their shadows the entrance of the chancel--which had before opened
-to the moon-lit meadow beyond, and the small lantern which one of them
-displayed, glimmered pale in the clear and strong beams of the moon, as
-the evening star does among the lights of the departing day. The first
-and most obvious idea was, that, despite the asseverations of Edie
-Ochiltree, the persons who approached the ruins at an hour so uncommon
-must be the officers of justice in quest of Lovel. But no part of their
-conduct confirmed the suspicion. A touch and a whisper from the old man
-warned Lovel that his best course was to remain quiet, and watch their
-motions from their present place of concealment. Should anything appear
-to render retreat necessary, they had behind them the private stair-case
-and cavern, by means of which they could escape into the wood long before
-any danger of close pursuit. They kept themselves, therefore, as still as
-possible, and observed with eager and anxious curiosity every accent and
-motion of these nocturnal wanderers.
-
-After conversing together some time in whispers, the two figures advanced
-into the middle of the chancel; and a voice, which Lovel at once
-recognised, from its tone and dialect, to be that of Dousterswivel,
-pronounced in a louder but still a smothered tone, "Indeed, mine goot
-sir, dere cannot be one finer hour nor season for dis great purpose. You
-shall see, mine goot sir, dat it is all one bibble-babble dat Mr.
-Oldenbuck says, and dat he knows no more of what he speaks than one
-little child. Mine soul! he expects to get as rich as one Jew for his
-poor dirty one hundred pounds, which I care no more about, by mine honest
-wort, than I care for an hundred stivers. But to you, my most munificent
-and reverend patron, I will show all de secrets dat art can show--ay, de
-secret of de great Pymander."
-
-"That other ane," whispered Edie, "maun be, according to a' likelihood,
-Sir Arthur Wardour--I ken naebody but himsell wad come here at this time
-at e'en wi' that German blackguard;--ane wad think he's bewitched him--he
-gars him e'en trow that chalk is cheese. Let's see what they can be
-doing."
-
-This interruption, and the low tone in which Sir Arthur spoke, made Lovel
-lose all Sir Arthur's answer to the adept, excepting the last three
-emphatic words, "Very great expense;" to which Dousterswivel at once
-replied--"Expenses!--to be sure--dere must be de great expenses. You do
-not expect to reap before you do sow de seed: de expense is de seed--de
-riches and de mine of goot metal, and now de great big chests of plate,
-they are de crop--vary goot crop too, on mine wort. Now, Sir Arthur, you
-have sowed this night one little seed of ten guineas like one pinch of
-snuff, or so big; and if you do not reap de great harvest--dat is, de
-great harvest for de little pinch of seed, for it must be proportions,
-you must know--then never call one honest man, Herman Dousterswivel. Now
-you see, mine patron--for I will not conceal mine secret from you at all
---you see this little plate of silver; you know de moon measureth de
-whole zodiack in de space of twenty-eight day--every shild knows dat.
-Well, I take a silver plate when she is in her fifteenth mansion, which
-mansion is in de head of _Libra,_ and I engrave upon one side de worts,
-[Shedbarschemoth Schartachan]--dat is, de Emblems of de Intelligence of
-de moon--and I make this picture like a flying serpent with a turkey-
-cock's head--vary well. Then upon this side I make de table of de moon,
-which is a square of nine, multiplied into itself, with eighty-one
-numbers on every side, and diameter nine--dere it is done very proper.
-Now I will make dis avail me at de change of every quarter-moon dat I
-shall find by de same proportions of expenses I lay out in de
-suffumigations, as nine, to de product of nine multiplied into itself--
-But I shall find no more to-night as maybe two or dree times nine,
-because dere is a thwarting power in de house of ascendency."
-
-"But, Dousterswivel," said the simple Baronet, "does not this look like
-magic?--I am a true though unworthy son of the Episcopal church, and I
-will have nothing to do with the foul fiend."
-
-"Bah! bah!--not a bit magic in it at all--not a bit--It is all founded on
-de planetary influence, and de sympathy and force of numbers. I will show
-you much finer dan dis. I do not say dere is not de spirit in it, because
-of de suffumigation; but, if you are not afraid, he shall not be
-invisible."
-
-"I have no curiosity to see him at all," said the Baronet, whose courage
-seemed, from a certain quaver in his accent, to have taken a fit of the
-ague.
-
-"Dat is great pity," said Dousterswivel; "I should have liked to show you
-de spirit dat guard dis treasure like one fierce watchdog--but I know how
-to manage him;--you would not care to see him?"
-
-"Not at all," answered the Baronet, in a tone of feigned indifference; "I
-think we have but little time."
-
-"You shall pardon me, my patron; it is not yet twelve, and twelve precise
-is just our planetary hours; and I could show you de spirit vary well, in
-de meanwhile, just for pleasure. You see I would draw a pentagon within a
-circle, which is no trouble at all, and make my suffumigation within it,
-and dere we would be like in one strong castle, and you would hold de
-sword while I did say de needful worts. Den you should see de solid wall
-open like de gate of ane city, and den--let me see--ay, you should see
-first one stag pursued by three black greyhounds, and they should pull
-him down as they do at de elector's great hunting-match; and den one
-ugly, little, nasty black negro should appear and take de stag from them
---and paf--all should be gone; den you should hear horns winded dat all
-de ruins should ring--mine wort, they should play fine hunting piece, as
-goot as him you call'd Fischer with his oboi; vary well--den comes one
-herald, as we call Ernhold, winding his horn--and den come de great
-Peolphan, called de mighty Hunter of de North, mounted on hims black
-steed. But you would not care to see all this?"*
-
-* Note F. Witchcraft.
-
- "Why, I am not afraid," answered the poor Baronet,--"if--that is--does
-anything--any great mischiefs, happen on such occasions?"
-
-"Bah! mischiefs? no!--sometimes if de circle be no quite just, or de
-beholder be de frightened coward, and not hold de sword firm and straight
-towards him, de Great Hunter will take his advantage, and drag him
-exorcist out of de circle and throttle him. Dat does happens."
-
-"Well then, Dousterswivel, with every confidence in my courage and your
-skill, we will dispense with this apparition, and go on to the business
-of the night."
-
-"With all mine heart--it is just one thing to me--and now it is de time--
-hold you de sword till I kindle de little what you call chip."
-
-Dousterswivel accordingly set fire to a little pile of chips, touched and
-prepared with some bituminous substance to make them burn fiercely; and
-when the flame was at the highest, and lightened, with its shortlived
-glare, all the ruins around, the German flung in a handful of perfumes
-which produced a strong and pungent odour. The exorcist and his pupil
-both were so much affected as to cough and sneeze heartily; and, as the
-vapour floated around the pillars of the building, and penetrated every
-crevice, it produced the same effect on the beggar and Lovel.
-
-"Was that an echo?" said the Baronet, astonished at the sternutation
-which resounded from above; "or"--drawing close to the adept, "can it be
-the spirit you talked of, ridiculing our attempt upon his hidden
-treasures?"
-
-"N--n--no," muttered the German, who began to partake of his pupil's
-terrors, "I hope not."
-
-Here a violent of sneezing, which the mendicant was unable to suppress,
-and which could not be considered by any means as the dying fall of an
-echo, accompanied by a grunting half-smothered cough, confounded the two
-treasure-seekers. "Lord have mercy on us!" said the Baronet.
-
-"_Alle guten Geistern loben den Herrn!_" ejaculated the terrified adept.
-"I was begun to think," he continued, after a moment's silence, "that
-this would be de bestermost done in de day-light--we was bestermost to go
-away just now."
-
-"You juggling villain!" said the Baronet, in whom these expressions
-awakened a suspicion that overcame his terrors, connected as it was with
-the sense of desperation arising from the apprehension of impending ruin
---"you juggling mountebank! this is some legerdemain trick of yours to
-get off from the performance of your promise, as you have so often done
-before. But, before Heaven! I will this night know what I have trusted to
-when I suffered you to fool me on to my ruin! Go on, then--come fairy,
-come fiend, you shall show me that treasure, or confess yourself a knave
-and an impostor, or, by the faith of a desperate and ruined man, I'll
-send you where you shall see spirits enough."
-
-The treasure-finder, trembling between his terror for the supernatural
-beings by whom he supposed himself to be surrounded, and for his life,
-which seemed to be at the mercy of a desperate man, could only bring out,
-"Mine patron, this is not the allerbestmost usage. Consider, mine
-honoured sir, that de spirits"--
-
-Here Edie, who began to enter into the humour of the scene, uttered an
-extraordinary howl, being an exaltation and a prolongation of the most
-deplorable whine in which he was accustomed to solicit charity.
-
-Dousterswivel flung himself on his knees--"Dear Sir Arthurs, let us go,
-or let me go!"
-
-"No, you cheating scoundrel!" said the knight, unsheathing the sword
-which he had brought for the purposes of the exorcism, "that shift shall
-not serve you--Monkbarns warned me long since of your juggling pranks--I
-will see this treasure before you leave this place, or I will have you
-confess yourself an impostor, or, by Heaven, I'll run this sword through
-you, though all the spirits of the dead should rise around us!"
-
-"For de lofe of Heaven be patient, mine honoured patron, and you shall
-hafe all de treasure as I knows of--yes, you shall indeed--But do not
-speak about de spirits--it makes dem angry."
-
-Edie Ochiltree here prepared himself to throw in another groan, but was
-restrained by Lovel, who began to take a more serious interest, as he
-observed the earnest and almost desperate demeanour of Sir Arthur.
-Dousterswivel, having at once before his eyes the fear of the foul fiend,
-and the violence of Sir Arthur, played his part of a conjuror extremely
-ill, hesitating to assume the degree of confidence necessary to deceive
-the latter, lest it should give offence to the invisible cause of his
-alarm. However, after rolling his eyes, muttering and sputtering German
-exorcisms, with contortions of his face and person, rather flowing from
-the impulse of terror than of meditated fraud, he at length proceeded to
-a corner of the building where a flat stone lay upon the ground, bearing
-upon its surface the effigy of an armed warrior in a recumbent posture
-carved in bas-relief. He muttered to Sir Arthur, "Mine patrons, it is
-here--Got save us all!"
-
-Sir Arthur, who, after the first moment of his superstitious fear was
-over, seemed to have bent up all his faculties to the pitch of resolution
-necessary to carry on the adventure, lent the adept his assistance to
-turn over the stone, which, by means of a lever that the adept had
-provided, their joint force with difficulty effected. No supernatural
-light burst forth from below to indicate the subterranean treasury, nor
-was there any apparition of spirits, earthly or infernal. But when
-Dousterswivel had, with great trepidation, struck a few strokes with a
-mattock, and as hastily thrown out a shovelful or two of earth (for they
-came provided with the tools necessary for digging), something was heard
-to ring like the sound of a falling piece of metal, and Dousterswivel,
-hastily catching up the substance which produced it, and which his shovel
-had thrown out along with the earth, exclaimed, "On mine dear wort, mine
-patrons, dis is all--it is indeed; I mean all we can do to-night;"--and
-he gazed round him with a cowering and fearful glance, as if to see from
-what comer the avenger of his imposture was to start forth.
-
-"Let me see it," said Sir Arthur; and then repeated, still more sternly,
-"I will be satisfied--I will judge by mine own eyes." He accordingly held
-the object to the light of the lantern. It was a small case, or casket,--
-for Lovel could not at the distance exactly discern its shape, which,
-from the Baronet's exclamation as he opened it, he concluded was filled
-with coin. "Ay," said the Baronet, "this is being indeed in good luck!
-and if it omens proportional success upon a larger venture, the venture
-shall be made. That six hundred of Goldieword's, added to the other
-incumbent claims, must have been ruin indeed. If you think we can parry
-it by repeating this experiment--suppose when the moon next changes,--I
-will hazard the necessary advance, come by it how I may."
-
-"Oh, mine good patrons, do not speak about all dat," said Dousterswivel,
-"as just now, but help me to put de shtone to de rights, and let us
-begone our own ways." And accordingly, so soon as the stone was replaced,
-he hurried Sir Arthur, who was now resigned once more to his guidance,
-away from a spot, where the German's guilty conscience and superstitious
-fears represented goblins as lurking behind each pillar with the purpose
-of punishing his treachery.
-
-"Saw onybody e'er the like o' that!" said Edie, when they had disappeared
-like shadows through the gate by which they had entered--"saw ony
-creature living e'er the like o' that!--But what can we do for that puir
-doited deevil of a knight-baronet? Od, he showed muckle mair spunk, too,
-than I thought had been in him--I thought he wad hae sent cauld iron
-through the vagabond--Sir Arthur wasna half sae bauld at Bessie's-apron
-yon night--but then, his blood was up even now, and that makes an unco
-difference. I hae seen mony a man wad hae felled another an anger him,
-that wadna muckle hae liked a clink against Crummies-horn yon time. But
-what's to be done?"
-
-"I suppose," said Lovel, "his faith in this fellow is entirely restored
-by this deception, which, unquestionably, he had arranged beforehand."
-
-"What! the siller?--Ay, ay--trust him for that--they that hide ken best
-where to find. He wants to wile him out o' his last guinea, and then
-escape to his ain country, the land-louper. I wad likeit weel just to hae
-come in at the clipping-time, and gien him a lounder wi' my pike-staff;
-he wad hae taen it for a bennison frae some o' the auld dead abbots. But
-it's best no to be rash; sticking disna gang by strength, but by the
-guiding o' the gally. I'se be upsides wi' him ae day."
-
-"What if you should inform Mr. Oldbuck?" said Lovel.
-
-"Ou, I dinna ken--Monkbarns and Sir Arthur are like, and yet they're no
-like neither. Monkbarns has whiles influence wi' him, and whiles Sir
-Arthur cares as little about him as about the like o' me. Monkbarns is no
-that ower wise himsell, in some things;--he wad believe a bodle to be an
-auld Roman coin, as he ca's it, or a ditch to be a camp, upon ony leasing
-that idle folk made about it. I hae garr'd him trow mony a queer tale
-mysell, gude forgie me. But wi' a' that, he has unco little sympathy wi'
-ither folks; and he's snell and dure eneugh in casting up their nonsense
-to them, as if he had nane o' his ain. He'll listen the hale day, an yell
-tell him about tales o' Wallace, and Blind Harry, and Davie Lindsay; but
-ye maunna speak to him about ghaists or fairies, or spirits walking the
-earth, or the like o' that;--he had amaist flung auld Caxon out o' the
-window (and he might just as weel hae flung awa his best wig after him),
-for threeping he had seen a ghaist at the humlock-knowe. Now, if he was
-taking it up in this way, he wad set up the tother's birse, and maybe do
-mair ill nor gude--he's done that twice or thrice about thae mine-warks;
-ye wad thought Sir Arthur had a pleasure in gaun on wi' them the deeper,
-the mair he was warned against it by Monkbarns."
-
-"What say you then," said Lovel, "to letting Miss Wardour know the
-circumstance?"
-
-"Ou, puir thing, how could she stop her father doing his pleasure?--and,
-besides, what wad it help? There's a sough in the country about that six
-hundred pounds, and there's a writer chield in Edinburgh has been driving
-the spur-rowels o' the law up to the head into Sir Arthur's sides to gar
-him pay it, and if he canna, he maun gang to jail or flee the country.
-He's like a desperate man, and just catches at this chance as a' he has
-left, to escape utter perdition; so what signifies plaguing the puir
-lassie about what canna be helped? And besides, to say the truth, I wadna
-like to tell the secret o' this place. It's unco convenient, ye see
-yoursell, to hae a hiding-hole o' ane's ain; and though I be out o' the
-line o' needing ane e'en now, and trust in the power o' grace that I'll
-neer do onything to need ane again, yet naebody kens what temptation ane
-may be gien ower to--and, to be brief, I downa bide the thought of
-anybody kennin about the place;--they say, keep a thing seven year, an'
-yell aye find a use for't--and maybe I may need the cove, either for
-mysell, or for some ither body."
-
-This argument, in which Edie Ochiltree, notwithstanding his scraps of
-morality and of divinity, seemed to take, perhaps from old habit, a
-personal interest, could not be handsomely controverted by Lovel, who was
-at that moment reaping the benefit of the secret of which the old man
-appeared to be so jealous.
-
-This incident, however, was of great service to Lovel, as diverting his
-mind from the unhappy occurrence of the evening, and considerably rousing
-the energies which had been stupefied by the first view of his calamity.
-He reflected that it by no means necessarily followed that a dangerous
-wound must be a fatal one--that he had been hurried from the spot even
-before the surgeon had expressed any opinion of Captain M'Intyre's
-situation--and that he had duties on earth to perform, even should the
-very worst be true, which, if they could not restore his peace of mind or
-sense of innocence, would furnish a motive for enduring existence, and at
-the same time render it a course of active benevolence.--Such were
-Lovel's feelings, when the hour arrived when, according to Edie's
-calculation--who, by some train or process of his own in observing the
-heavenly bodies, stood independent of the assistance of a watch or
-time-keeper--it was fitting they should leave their hiding-place, and
-betake themselves to the seashore, in order to meet Lieutenant Taffril's
-boat according to appointment.
-
-They retreated by the same passage which had admitted them to the prior's
-secret seat of observation, and when they issued from the grotto into the
-wood, the birds which began to chirp, and even to sing, announced that
-the dawn was advanced. This was confirmed by the light and amber clouds
-that appeared over the sea, as soon as their exit from the copse
-permitted them to view the horizon.--Morning, said to be friendly to the
-muses, has probably obtained this character from its effect upon the
-fancy and feelings of mankind. Even to those who, like Lovel, have spent
-a sleepless and anxious night, the breeze of the dawn brings strength and
-quickening both of mind and body. It was, therefore, with renewed health
-and vigour that Lovel, guided by the trusty mendicant, brushed away the
-dew as he traversed the downs which divided the Den of St. Ruth, as the
-woods surrounding the ruins were popularly called, from the sea-shore.
-
-The first level beam of the sun, as his brilliant disk began to emerge
-from the ocean, shot full upon the little gun-brig which was lying-to in
-the offing--close to the shore the boat was already waiting, Taffril
-himself, with his naval cloak wrapped about him, seated in the stern. He
-jumped ashore when he saw the mendicant and Lovel approach, and, shaking
-the latter heartily by the hand, begged him not to be cast down.
-"M'Intyre's wound," he said, "was doubtful, but far from desperate."
-His attention had got Lovel's baggage privately sent on board the brig;
-"and," he said, "he trusted that, if Lovel chose to stay with the vessel,
-the penalty of a short cruise would be the only disagreeable consequence
-of his rencontre. As for himself, his time and motions were a good deal
-at his own disposal, he said, excepting the necessary obligation of
-remaining on his station."
-
-"We will talk of our farther motions," said Lovel, "as we go on board."
-
-Then turning to Edie, he endeavoured to put money into his hand. "I
-think," said Edie, as he tendered it back again, "the hale folk here have
-either gane daft, or they hae made a vow to rain my trade, as they say
-ower muckle water drowns the miller. I hae had mair gowd offered me
-within this twa or three weeks than I ever saw in my life afore. Keep the
-siller, lad--yell hae need o't, I'se warrant ye, and I hae nane my claes
-is nae great things, and I get a blue gown every year, and as mony siller
-groats as the king, God bless him, is years auld--you and I serve the
-same master, ye ken, Captain Taffril; there's rigging provided for--and
-my meat and drink I get for the asking in my rounds, or, at an orra time,
-I can gang a day without it, for I make it a rule never to pay for nane;
---so that a' the siller I need is just to buy tobacco and sneeshin, and
-maybe a dram at a time in a cauld day, though I am nae dram-drinker to be
-a gaberlunzie;--sae take back your gowd, and just gie me a lily-white
-shilling."
-
-Upon these whims, which he imagined intimately connected with the honour
-of his vagabond profession, Edie was flint and adamant, not to be moved
-by rhetoric or entreaty; and therefore Lovel was under the necessity of
-again pocketing his intended bounty, and taking a friendly leave of the
-mendicant by shaking him by the hand, and assuring him of his cordial
-gratitude for the very important services which he had rendered him,
-recommending, at the same time, secrecy as to what they had that night
-witnessed.--"Ye needna doubt that," said Ochiltree; "I never tell'd tales
-out o' yon cove in my life, though mony a queer thing I hae seen in't."
-
-The boat now put off. The old man remained looking after it as it made
-rapidly towards the brig under the impulse of six stout rowers, and Lovel
-beheld him again wave his blue bonnet as a token of farewell ere he
-turned from his fixed posture, and began to move slowly along the sands
-as if resuming his customary perambulations.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-                               VOLUME TWO.
-
-
-                             CHAPTER FIRST.
-
-                 Wiser Raymondus, in his closet pent,
-                 Laughs at such danger and adventurement
-              When half his lands are spent in golden smoke,
-              And now his second hopeful glasse is broke,
-                 But yet, if haply his third furnace hold,
-                Devoteth all his pots and pans to gold. *
-
-* The author cannot remember where these lines are to be found: perhaps
-in Bishop Hall's Satires. [They occur in Book iv. Satire iii.]
-
-About a week after the adventures commemorated in our last chapter, Mr.
-Oldbuck, descending to his breakfast-parlour, found that his womankind
-were not upon duty, his toast not made, and the silver jug, which was
-wont to receive his libations of mum, not duly aired for its reception.
-
-"This confounded hot-brained boy!" he said to himself; "now that he
-begins to get out of danger, I can tolerate this life no longer. All goes
-to sixes and sevens--an universal saturnalia seems to be proclaimed in my
-peaceful and orderly family. I ask for my sister--no answer. I call, I
-shout--I invoke my inmates by more names than the Romans gave to their
-deities--at length Jenny, whose shrill voice I have heard this half-hour
-lilting in the Tartarean regions of the kitchen, condescends to hear me
-and reply, but without coming up stairs, so the conversation must be
-continued at the top of my lungs. "--Here he again began to hollow aloud
---"Jenny, where's Miss Oldbuck?"
-
-"Miss Grizzy's in the captain's room."
-
-"Umph!--I thought so--and where's my niece?"
-
-"Miss Mary's making the captain's tea."
-
-"Umph! I supposed as much again--and where's Caxon?"
-
-"Awa to the town about the captain's fowling-gun, and his setting-dog."
-
-"And who the devil's to dress my periwig, you silly jade?--when you knew
-that Miss Wardour and Sir Arthur were coming here early after breakfast,
-how could you let Caxon go on such a Tomfool's errand?"
-
-"Me! what could I hinder him?--your honour wadna hae us contradict the
-captain e'en now, and him maybe deeing?"
-
-"Dying!" said the alarmed Antiquary,--"eh! what? has he been worse?"
-
-"Na, he's no nae waur that I ken of."*
-
-* It is, I believe, a piece of free-masonry, or a point of conscience,
-among the Scottish lower orders, never to admit that a patient is doing
-better. The closest approach to recovery which they can be brought to
-allow, is, that the pairty inquired after is "Nae waur."
-
-"Then he must be better--and what good is a dog and a gun to do here, but
-the one to destroy all my furniture, steal from my larder, and perhaps
-worry the cat, and the other to shoot somebody through the head. He has
-had gunning and pistolling enough to serve him one while, I should
-think."
-
-Here Miss Oldbuck entered the parlour, at the door of which Oldbuck was
-carrying on this conversation, he bellowing downward to Jenny, and she
-again screaming upward in reply.
-
-"Dear brother," said the old lady, "ye'll cry yoursell as hoarse as a
-corbie--is that the way to skreigh when there's a sick person in the
-house?"
-
-"Upon my word, the sick person's like to have all the house to himself,--
-I have gone without my breakfast, and am like to go without my wig; and I
-must not, I suppose, presume to say I feel either hunger or cold, for
-fear of disturbing the sick gentleman who lies six rooms off, and who
-feels himself well enough to send for his dog and gun, though he knows I
-detest such implements ever since our elder brother, poor Williewald,
-marched out of the world on a pair of damp feet, caught in the
-Kittlefitting-moss. But that signifies nothing; I suppose I shall be
-expected by and by to lend a hand to carry Squire Hector out upon his
-litter, while he indulges his sportsmanlike propensities by shooting my
-pigeons, or my turkeys--I think any of the _ferae naturae_ are safe from
-him for one while."
-
-Miss M'Intyre now entered, and began to her usual morning's task of
-arranging her uncle's breakfast, with the alertness of one who is too
-late in setting about a task, and is anxious to make up for lost time.
-But this did not avail her. "Take care, you silly womankind--that mum's
-too near the fire--the bottle will burst; and I suppose you intend to
-reduce the toast to a cinder as a burnt-offering for Juno, or what do you
-call her--the female dog there, with some such Pantheon kind of a name,
-that your wise brother has, in his first moments of mature reflection,
-ordered up as a fitting inmate of my house (I thank him), and meet
-company to aid the rest of the womankind of my household in their daily
-conversation and intercourse with him."
-
-"Dear uncle, don't be angry about the poor spaniel; she's been tied up at
-my brother's lodgings at Fairport, and she's broke her chain twice, and
-came running down here to him; and you would not have us beat the
-faithful beast away from the door?--it moans as if it had some sense of
-poor Hector's misfortune, and will hardly stir from the door of his
-room."
-
-"Why," said his uncle, "they said Caxon had gone to Fairport after his
-dog and gun."
-
-"O dear sir, no," answered Miss M'Intyre, "it was to fetch some dressings
-that were wanted, and Hector only wished him to bring out his gun, as he
-was going to Fairport at any rate."
-
-"Well, then, it is not altogether so foolish a business, considering what
-a mess of womankind have been about it--Dressings, quotha?--and who is to
-dress my wig?--But I suppose Jenny will undertake"--continued the old
-bachelor, looking at himself in the glass--"to make it somewhat decent.
-And now let us set to breakfast--with what appetite we may. Well may I
-say to Hector, as Sir Isaac Newton did to his dog Diamond, when the
-animal (I detest dogs) flung down the taper among calculations which had
-occupied the philosopher for twenty years, and consumed the whole mass of
-materials--Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the mischief thou hast
-done!"
-
-"I assure you, sir," replied his niece, "my brother is quite sensible of
-the rashness of his own behaviour, and allows that Mr. Lovel behaved very
-handsomely."
-
-"And much good that will do, when he has frightened the lad out of the
-country! I tell thee, Mary, Hector's understanding, and far more that of
-feminity, is inadequate to comprehend the extent of the loss which he has
-occasioned to the present age and to posterity--_aureum quidem opus_--a
-poem on such a subject, with notes illustrative of all that is clear, and
-all that is dark, and all that is neither dark nor clear, but hovers in
-dusky twilight in the region of Caledonian antiquities. I would have made
-the Celtic panegyrists look about them. Fingal, as they conceitedly term
-Fin-Mac-Coul, should have disappeared before my search, rolling himself
-in his cloud like the spirit of Loda. Such an opportunity can hardly
-again occur to an ancient and grey-haired man; and to see it lost by the
-madcap spleen of a hot-headed boy! But I submit--Heaven's will be done!"
-
-Thus continued the Antiquary to _maunder,_ as his sister expressed it,
-during the whole time of breakfast, while, despite of sugar and honey,
-and all the comforts of a Scottish morning tea-table, his reflections
-rendered the meal bitter to all who heard them. But they knew the nature
-of the man. "Monkbarns's bark," said Miss Griselda Oldbuck, in
-confidential intercourse with Miss Rebecca Blattergowl, "is muckle waur
-than his bite."
-
-In fact, Mr. Oldbuck had suffered in mind extremely while his nephew was
-in actual danger, and now felt himself at liberty, upon his returning
-health, to indulge in complaints respecting the trouble he had been put
-to, and the interruption of his antiquarian labours. Listened to,
-therefore, in respectful silence, by his niece and sister, he unloaded
-his discontent in such grumblings as we have rehearsed, venting many a
-sarcasm against womankind, soldiers, dogs, and guns, all which implements
-of noise, discord, and tumult, as he called them, he professed to hold in
-utter abomination.
-
-This expectoration of spleen was suddenly interrupted by the noise of a
-carriage without, when, shaking off all sullenness at the sound, Oldbuck
-ran nimbly up stairs and down stairs, for both operations were necessary
-ere he could receive Miss Wardour and her father at the door of his
-mansion.
-
-A cordial greeting passed on both sides. And Sir Arthur, referring to his
-previous inquiries by letter and message, requested to be particularly
-informed of Captain M'Intyre's health.
-
-"Better than he deserves," was the answer--"better than he deserves, for
-disturbing us with his vixen brawls, and breaking God's peace and the
-King's."
-
-"The young gentleman," Sir Arthur said, "had been imprudent; but he
-understood they were indebted to him for the detection of a suspicious
-character in the young man Lovel."
-
-"No more suspicious than his own," answered the Antiquary, eager in his
-favourites defence;--"the young gentleman was a little foolish and
-headstrong, and refused to answer Hector's impertinent interrogatories--
-that is all. Lovel, Sir Arthur, knows how to choose his confidants
-better--Ay, Miss Wardour, you may look at me--but it is very true;--it
-was in my bosom that he deposited the secret cause of his residence at
-Fairport; and no stone should have been left unturned on my part to
-assist him in the pursuit to which he had dedicated himself."
-
-On hearing this magnanimous declaration on the part of the old Antiquary,
-Miss Wardour changed colour more than once, and could hardly trust her
-own ears. For of all confidants to be selected as the depositary of love
-affairs,--and such she naturally supposed must have been the subject of
-communication,--next to Edie Ochiltree, Oldbuck seemed the most uncouth
-and extraordinary; nor could she sufficiently admire or fret at the
-extraordinary combination of circumstances which thus threw a secret of
-such a delicate nature into the possession of persons so unfitted to be
-entrusted with it. She had next to fear the mode of Oldbuck's entering
-upon the affair with her father, for such, she doubted not, was his
-intention. She well knew that the honest gentleman, however vehement in
-his prejudices, had no great sympathy with those of others, and she had
-to fear a most unpleasant explosion upon an _e'claircissement_ taking
-place between them. It was therefore with great anxiety that she heard
-her father request a private interview, and observed Oldbuck readily
-arise and show the way to his library. She remained behind, attempting to
-converse with the ladies of Monkbarns, but with the distracted feelings
-of Macbeth, when compelled to disguise his evil conscience by listening
-and replying to the observations of the attendant thanes upon the storm
-of the preceding night, while his whole soul is upon the stretch to
-listen for the alarm of murder, which he knows must be instantly raised
-by those who have entered the sleeping apartment of Duncan. But the
-conversation of the two virtuosi turned on a subject very different from
-that which Miss Wardour apprehended.
-
-"Mr. Oldbuck," said Sir Arthur, when they had, after a due exchange of
-ceremonies, fairly seated themselves in the _sanctum sanctorum_ of the
-Antiquary,--"you, who know so much of my family matters, may probably be
-surprised at the question I am about to put to you."
-
-"Why, Sir Arthur, if it relates to money, I am very sorry, but"--
-
-"It does relate to money matters, Mr. Oldbuck."
-
-"Really, then, Sir Arthur," continued the Antiquary, "in the present
-state of the money-market--and stocks being so low"--
-
-"You mistake my meaning, Mr. Oldbuck," said the Baronet; "I wished to ask
-your advice about laying out a large sum of money to advantage."
-
-"The devil!" exclaimed the Antiquary; and, sensible that his involuntary
-ejaculation of wonder was not over and above civil, he proceeded to
-qualify it by expressing his joy that Sir Arthur should have a sum of
-money to lay out when the commodity was so scarce. "And as for the mode
-of employing it," said he, pausing, "the funds are low at present, as I
-said before, and there are good bargains of land to be had. But had you
-not better begin by clearing off encumbrances, Sir Arthur?--There is the
-sum in the personal bond--and the three notes of hand," continued he,
-taking out of the right-hand drawer of his cabinet a certain red
-memorandum-book, of which Sir Arthur, from the experience of former
-frequent appeals to it, abhorred the very sight--"with the interest
-thereon, amounting altogether to--let me see"--
-
-"To about a thousand pounds," said Sir Arthur, hastily; "you told me the
-amount the other day."
-
-"But there's another term's interest due since that, Sir Arthur, and it
-amounts (errors excepted) to eleven hundred and thirteen pounds, seven
-shillings, five pennies, and three-fourths of a penny sterling--But look
-over the summation yourself."
-
-"I daresay you are quite right, my dear sir," said the Baronet, putting
-away the book with his hand, as one rejects the old-fashioned civility
-that presses food upon you after you have eaten till you nauseate--
-"perfectly right, I dare say; and in the course of three days or less you
-shall have the full value--that is, if you choose to accept it in
-bullion."
-
-"Bullion! I suppose you mean lead. What the deuce! have we hit on the
-vein then at last? But what could I do with a thousand pounds' worth, and
-upwards, of lead? The former abbots of Trotcosey might have roofed their
-church and monastery with it indeed--but for me"--
-
-"By bullion," said the Baronet, "I mean the precious metals,--gold and
-silver."
-
-"Ay! indeed?--and from what Eldorado is this treasure to be imported?"
-
-"Not far from hence," said Sir Arthur, significantly. "And naow I think
-of it, you shall see the whole process, on one small condition."
-
-"And what is that?" craved the Antiquary.
-
-"Why, it will be necessary for you to give me your friendly assistance,
-by advancing one hundred pounds or thereabouts."
-
-Mr. Oldbuck, who had already been grasping in idea the sum, principal and
-interest, of a debt which he had long regarded as wellnigh desperate, was
-so much astounded at the tables being so unexpectedly turned upon him,
-that he could only re-echo, in an accent of wo and surprise, the words,
-"Advance one hundred pounds!"
-
-"Yes, my good sir," continued Sir Arthur; "but upon the best possible
-security of being repaid in the course of two or three days."
-
-There was a pause--either Oldbuck's nether jaw had not recovered its
-position, so as to enable him to utter a negative, or his curiosity kept
-him silent.
-
-"I would not propose to you," continued Sir Arthur, "to oblige me thus
-far, if I did not possess actual proofs of the reality of those
-expectations which I now hold out to you. And I assure you, Mr. Oldbuck,
-that in entering fully upon this topic, it is my purpose to show my
-confidence in you, and my sense of your kindness on many former
-occasions."
-
-Mr. Oldbuck professed his sense of obligation, but carefully avoided
-committing himself by any promise of farther assistance.
-
-"Mr. Dousterswivel," said Sir Arthur, "having discovered"--
-
-Here Oldbuck broke in, his eyes sparkling with indignation. "Sir Arthur,
-I have so often warned you of the knavery of that rascally quack, that I
-really wonder you should quote him to me."
-
-"But listen--listen," interrupted Sir Arthur in his turn, "it will do you
-no harm. In short, Dousterswivel persuaded me to witness an experiment
-which he had made in the ruins of St. Ruth--and what do you think we
-found?"
-
-"Another spring of water, I suppose, of which the rogue had beforehand
-taken care to ascertain the situation and source."
-
-"No, indeed--a casket of gold and silver coins--here they are."
-
-With that, Sir Arthur drew from his pocket a large ram's horn, with a
-copper cover, containing a considerable quantity of coins, chiefly
-silver, but with a few gold pieces intermixed. The Antiquary's eyes
-glistened as he eagerly spread them out on the table.
-
-"Upon my word--Scotch, English, and foreign coins, of the fifteenth and
-sixteenth centuries, and some of them _rari--et rariores--etiam
-rarissimi!_ Here is the bonnet-piece of James V., the unicorn of James
-II.,--ay, and the gold festoon of Queen Mary, with her head and the
-Dauphin's. And these were really found in the ruins of St. Ruth?"
-
-"Most assuredly--my own eyes witnessed it."
-
-"Well," replied Oldbuck; "but you must tell me the when--the where-the
-how."
-
-"The when," answered Sir Arthur, "was at midnight the last full moon--the
-where, as I have told you, in the ruins of St. Ruth's priory--the how,
-was by a nocturnal experiment of Dousterswivel, accompanied only by
-myself."
-
-"Indeed!" said Oldbuck; "and what means of discovery did you employ?"
-
-"Only a simple suffumigation," said the Baronet, "accompanied by availing
-ourselves of the suitable planetary hour."
-
-"Simple suffumigation? simple nonsensification--planetary hour? planetary
-fiddlestick! _Sapiens dominabitur astris._ My dear Sir Arthur, that
-fellow has made a gull of you above ground and under ground, and he would
-have made a gull of you in the air too, if he had been by when you was
-craned up the devil's turnpike yonder at Halket-head--to be sure the
-transformation would have been then peculiarly _apropos._"
-
-"Well, Mr. Oldbuck, I am obliged to you for your indifferent opinion of
-my discernment; but I think you will give me credit for having seen what
-I _say_ I saw."
-
-"Certainly, Sir Arthur," said the Antiquary,--"to this extent at least,
-that I know Sir Arthur Wardour will not say he saw anything but what he
-_thought_ he saw."
-
-"Well, then," replied the Baronet, "as there is a heaven above us, Mr.
-Oldbuck, I saw, with my own eyes, these coins dug out of the chancel of
-St. Ruth at midnight. And as to Dousterswivel, although the discovery be
-owing to his science, yet, to tell the truth, I do not think he would
-have had firmness of mind to have gone through with it if I had not been
-beside him."
-
-"Ay! indeed?" said Oldbuck, in the tone used when one wishes to hear the
-end of a story before making any comment.
-
-"Yes truly," continued Sir Arthur--"I assure you I was upon my guard--we
-did hear some very uncommon sounds, that is certain, proceeding from
-among the ruins."
-
-"Oh, you did?" said Oldbuck; "an accomplice hid among them, I suppose?"
-
-"Not a jot," said the Baronet;--"the sounds, though of a hideous and
-preternatural character, rather resembled those of a man who sneezes
-violently than any other--one deep groan I certainly heard besides; and
-Dousterswivel assures me that he beheld the spirit Peolphan, the Great
-Hunter of the North--(look for him in your Nicolaus Remigius, or Petrus
-Thyracus, Mr. Oldbuck)--who mimicked the motion of snuff-taking and its
-effects."
-
-"These indications, however singular as proceeding from such a personage,
-seem to have been _apropos_ to the matter," said the Antiquary; "for you
-see the case, which includes these coins, has all the appearance of being
-an old-fashioned Scottish snuff-mill. But you persevered, in spite of the
-terrors of this sneezing goblin?"
-
-"Why, I think it probable that a man of inferior sense or consequence
-might have given way; but I was jealous of an imposture, conscious of the
-duty I owed to my family in maintaining my courage under every
-contingency, and therefore I compelled Dousterswivel, by actual and
-violent threats, to proceed with what he was about to do;--and, sir, the
-proof of his skill and honesty is this parcel of gold and silver pieces,
-out of which I beg you to select such coins or medals as will best suit
-your collection."
-
-"Why, Sir Arthur, since you are so good, and on condition you will permit
-me to mark the value according to Pinkerton's catalogue and appreciation,
-against your account in my red book, I will with pleasure select"--
-
-"Nay," said Sir Arthur Wardour, "I do not mean you should consider them
-as anything but a gift of friendship and least of all would I stand by
-the valuation of your friend Pinkerton, who has impugned the ancient and
-trustworthy authorities upon which, as upon venerable and moss-grown
-pillars, the credit of Scottish antiquities reposed."
-
-"Ay, ay," rejoined Oldbuck, "you mean, I suppose, Mair and Boece, the
-Jachin and Boaz, not of history but of falsification and forgery. And
-notwithstanding all you have told me, I look on your friend Dousterswivel
-to be as apocryphal as any of them."
-
-"Why then, Mr. Oldbuck," said Sir Arthur, "not to awaken old disputes, I
-suppose you think, that because I believe in the ancient history of my
-country, I have neither eyes nor ears to ascertain what modern events
-pass before me?"
-
-"Pardon me, Sir Arthur," rejoined the Antiquary; "but I consider all the
-affectation of terror which this worthy gentleman, your coadjutor, chose
-to play off, as being merely one part of his trick or mystery. And with
-respect to the gold or silver coins, they are so mixed and mingled in
-country and date, that I cannot suppose they could be any genuine hoard,
-and rather suppose them to be, like the purses upon the table of
-Hudibras's lawyer--
-
-                       --Money placed for show,
-                   Like nest-eggs, to make clients lay,
-                   And for his false opinions pay.--
-
-It is the trick of all professions, my dear Sir Arthur. Pray, may I ask
-you how much this discovery cost you?"
-
-"About ten guineas."
-
-"And you have gained what is equivalent to twenty in actual bullion, and
-what may be perhaps worth as much more to such fools as ourselves, who
-are willing to pay for curiosity. This was allowing you a tempting profit
-on the first hazard, I must needs admit. And what is the next venture he
-proposes?"
-
-"An hundred and fifty pounds;--I have given him one-third part of the
-money, and I thought it likely you might assist me with the balance."
-
-"I should think that this cannot be meant as a parting blow--is not of
-weight and importance sufficient; he will probably let us win this hand
-also, as sharpers manage a raw gamester.--Sir Arthur, I hope you believe
-I would serve you?"
-
-"Certainly, Mr. Oldbuck; I think my confidence in you on these occasions
-leaves no room to doubt that."
-
-"Well, then, allow me to speak to Dousterswivel. If the money can be
-advanced usefully and advantageously for you, why, for old
-neighbourhood's sake, you shall not want it but if, as I think, I can
-recover the treasure for you without making such an advance, you will,
-I presume, have no objection!"
-
-"Unquestionably, I can have none whatsoever."
-
-"Then where is Dousterswivel?" continued the Antiquary.
-
-"To tell you the truth, he is in my carriage below; but knowing your
-prejudice against him"--
-
-"I thank Heaven, I am not prejudiced against any man, Sir Arthur: it is
-systems, not individuals, that incur my reprobation." He rang the bell.
-"Jenny, Sir Arthur and I offer our compliments to Mr. Dousterswivel, the
-gentleman in Sir Arthur's carriage, and beg to have the pleasure of
-speaking with him here."
-
-Jenny departed and delivered her message. It had been by no means a part
-of the project of Dousterswivel to let Mr. Oldbuck into his supposed
-mystery. He had relied upon Sir Arthur's obtaining the necessary
-accommodation without any discussion as to the nature of the application,
-and only waited below for the purpose of possessing himself of the
-deposit as soon as possible, for he foresaw that his career was drawing
-to a close. But when summoned to the presence of Sir Arthur and Mr.
-Oldbuck, he resolved gallantly to put confidence in his powers of
-impudence, of which, the reader may have observed, his natural share was
-very liberal.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER SECOND.
-
-
-                          --And this Doctor,
-             Your sooty smoky-bearded compeer, he
-             Will close you so much gold in a bolt's head,
-             And, on a turn, convey in the stead another
-             With sublimed mercury, that shall burst i' the heat,
-                      And all fly out _in fumo._--
-                                        The Alchemist.
-
-"How do you do, goot Mr. Oldenbuck? and I do hope your young gentleman,
-Captain M'Intyre, is getting better again? Ach! it is a bat business when
-young gentlemens will put lead balls into each other's body."
-
-"Lead adventures of all kinds are very precarious, Mr. Dousterswivel; but
-I am happy to learn," continued the Antiquary, "from my friend Sir
-Arthur, that you have taken up a better trade, and become a discoverer of
-gold."
-
-"Ach, Mr. Oldenbuck, mine goot and honoured patron should not have told a
-word about dat little matter; for, though I have all reliance--yes,
-indeed, on goot Mr. Oldenbuck's prudence and discretion, and his great
-friendship for Sir Arthur Wardour--yet, my heavens! it is an great
-ponderous secret."
-
-"More ponderous than any of the metal we shall make by it, I fear,"
-answered Oldbuck.
-
-"Dat is just as you shall have de faith and de patience for de grand
-experiment--If you join wid Sir Arthur, as he is put one hundred and
-fifty--see, here is one fifty in your dirty Fairport bank-note--you put
-one other hundred and fifty in de dirty notes, and you shall have de pure
-gold and silver, I cannot tell how much."
-
-"Nor any one for you, I believe," said the Antiquary. "But, hark you, Mr.
-Dousterswivel: Suppose, without troubling this same sneezing spirit with
-any farther fumigations, we should go in a body, and having fair
-day-light and our good consciences to befriend us, using no other
-conjuring implements than good substantial pick-axes and shovels, fairly
-trench the area of the chancel in the ruins of St. Ruth, from one end to
-the other, and so ascertain the existence of this supposed treasure,
-without putting ourselves to any farther expense--the ruins belong to Sir
-Arthur himself, so there can be no objection--do you think we shall
-succeed in this way of managing the matter?"
-
-"Bah!--you will not find one copper thimble--But Sir Arthur will do his
-pleasure. I have showed him how it is possible--very possible--to have de
-great sum of money for his occasions--I have showed him de real
-experiment. If he likes not to believe, goot Mr. Oldenbuck, it is nothing
-to Herman Dousterswivel--he only loses de money and de gold and de
-silvers--dat is all."
-
-Sir Arthur Wardour cast an intimidated glance at Oldbuck who, especially
-when present, held, notwithstanding their frequent difference of opinion,
-no ordinary influence over his sentiments. In truth, the Baronet felt,
-what he would not willingly have acknowledged, that his genius stood
-rebuked before that of the Antiquary. He respected him as a shrewd,
-penetrating, sarcastic character--feared his satire, and had some
-confidence in the general soundness of his opinions. He therefore looked
-at him as if desiring his leave before indulging his credulity.
-Dousterswivel saw he was in danger of losing his dupe, unless he could
-make some favourable impression on the adviser.
-
-"I know, my goot Mr. Oldenbuck, it is one vanity to speak to you about de
-spirit and de goblin. But look at this curious horn;--I know, you know de
-curiosity of all de countries, and how de great Oldenburgh horn, as they
-keep still in the Museum at Copenhagen, was given to de Duke of
-Oldenburgh by one female spirit of de wood. Now I could not put one trick
-on you if I were willing--you who know all de curiosity so well--and dere
-it is de horn full of coins;--if it had been a box or case, I would have
-said nothing."
-
-"Being a horn," said Oldbuck, "does indeed strengthen your argument. It
-was an implement of nature's fashioning, and therefore much used among
-rude nations, although, it may be, the metaphorical horn is more frequent
-in proportion to the progress of civilisation. And this present horn," he
-continued, rubbing it upon his sleeve, "is a curious and venerable relic,
-and no doubt was intended to prove a _cornucopia,_ or horn of plenty, to
-some one or other; but whether to the adept or his patron, may be justly
-doubted."
-
-"Well, Mr. Oldenbuck, I find you still hard of belief--but let me assure
-you, de monksh understood de _magisterium._"
-
-"Let us leave talking of the _magisterium,_ Mr. Dousterswivel, and think
-a little about the magistrate. Are you aware that this occupation of
-yours is against the law of Scotland, and that both Sir Arthur and myself
-are in the commission of the peace?"
-
-"Mine heaven! and what is dat to de purpose when I am doing you all de
-goot I can?"
-
-"Why, you must know that when the legislature abolished the cruel laws
-against witchcraft, they had no hope of destroying the superstitious
-feelings of humanity on which such chimeras had been founded; and to
-prevent those feelings from being tampered with by artful and designing
-persons, it is enacted by the ninth of George the Second, chap. 5, that
-whosoever shall pretend, by his alleged skill in any occult or crafty
-science, to discover such goods as are lost, stolen or concealed, he
-shall suffer punishment by pillory and imprisonment, as a common cheat
-and impostor."
-
-"And is dat de laws?" asked Dousterswivel, with some agitation.
-
-"Thyself shall see the act," replied the Antiquary.
-
-"Den, gentlemens, I shall take my leave of you, dat is all; I do not like
-to stand on your what you call pillory--it is very bad way to take de
-air, I think; and I do not like your prisons no more, where one cannot
-take de air at all."
-
-"If such be your taste, Mr. Dousterswivel," said the Antiquary, "I advise
-you to stay where you are, for I cannot let you go, unless it be in the
-society of a constable; and, moreover, I expect you will attend us just
-now to the ruins of St. Ruth, and point out the place where you propose
-to find this treasure."
-
-"Mine heaven, Mr. Oldenbuck! what usage is this to your old friend, when
-I tell you so plain as I can speak, dat if you go now, you will not get
-so much treasure as one poor shabby sixpence?"
-
-"I will try the experiment, however, and you shall be dealt with
-according to its success,--always with Sir Arthur's permission."
-
-Sir Arthur, during this investigation, had looked extremely embarrassed,
-and, to use a vulgar but expressive phrase, chop-fallen. Oldbuck's
-obstinate disbelief led him strongly to suspect the imposture of
-Dousterswivel, and the adept's mode of keeping his ground was less
-resolute than he had expected. Yet he did not entirely give him up.
-
- "Mr. Oldbuck," said the Baronet, "you do Mr. Dousterswivel less than
-justice. He has undertaken to make this discovery by the use of his art,
-and by applying characters descriptive of the Intelligences presiding
-over the planetary hour in which the experiment is to be made; and you
-require him to proceed, under pain of punishment, without allowing him
-the use of any of the preliminaries which he considers as the means of
-procuring success."
-
-"I did not say that exactly--I only required him to be present when we
-make the search, and not to leave us during the interval. I fear he may
-have some intelligence with the Intelligences you talk of, and that
-whatever may be now hidden at Saint Ruth may disappear before we get
-there."
-
-"Well, gentlemens," said Dousterswivel, sullenly, "I will make no
-objections to go along with you but I tell you beforehand, you shall not
-find so much of anything as shall be worth your going twenty yard from
-your own gate."
-
-"We will put that to a fair trial," said the Antiquary; and the Baronet's
-equipage being ordered, Miss Wardour received an intimation from her
-father, that she was to remain at Monkbarns until his return from an
-airing. The young lady was somewhat at a loss to reconcile this direction
-with the communication which she supposed must have passed between Sir
-Arthur and the Antiquary; but she was compelled, for the present, to
-remain in a most unpleasant state of suspense.
-
-The journey of the treasure-seekers was melancholy enough. Dousterswivel
-maintained a sulky silence, brooding at once over disappointed
-expectation and the risk of punishment; Sir Arthur, whose golden dreams
-had been gradually fading away, surveyed, in gloomy prospect, the
-impending difficulties of his situation; and Oldbuck, who perceived that
-his having so far interfered in his neighbours affairs gave the Baronet a
-right to expect some actual and efficient assistance, sadly pondered to
-what extent it would be necessary to draw open the strings of his purse.
-Thus each being wrapped in his own unpleasant ruminations, there was
-hardly a word said on either side, until they reached the Four
-Horse-shoes, by which sign the little inn was distinguished. They
-procured at this place the necessary assistance and implements for
-digging, and, while they were busy about these preparations, were
-suddenly joined by the old beggar, Edie Ochiltree.
-
-"The Lord bless your honour," began the Blue-Gown, with the genuine
-mendicant whine, "and long life to you!--weel pleased am I to hear that
-young Captain M'Intyre is like to be on his legs again sune--Think on
-your poor bedesman the day."
-
-"Aha, old true-penny!" replied the Antiquary. "Why, thou hast never come
-to Monkbarns since thy perils by rock and flood--here's something for
-thee to buy snuff,"--and, fumbling for his purse, he pulled out at the
-same time the horn which enclosed the coins.
-
-"Ay, and there's something to pit it in," said the mendicant, eyeing the
-ram's horn--"that loom's an auld acquaintance o' mine. I could take my
-aith to that sneeshing-mull amang a thousand--I carried it for mony a
-year, till I niffered it for this tin ane wi' auld George Glen, the
-dammer and sinker, when he took a fancy till't doun at Glen-Withershins
-yonder."
-
-"Ay! indeed?" said Oldbuck;--"so you exchanged it with a miner? but I
-presume you never saw it so well filled before"--and opening it, he
-showed the coins.
-
-"Troth, ye may swear that, Monkbarns: when it was mine it neer had abune
-the like o' saxpenny worth o' black rappee in't at ance. But I reckon
-ye'll be gaun to mak an antic o't, as ye hae dune wi' mony an orra thing
-besides. Od, I wish anybody wad mak an antic o' me; but mony ane will
-find worth in rousted bits o' capper and horn and airn, that care unco
-little about an auld carle o' their ain country and kind."
-
-"You may now guess," said Oldbuck, turning to Sir Arthur, "to whose good
-offices you were indebted the other night. To trace this cornucopia of
-yours to a miner, is bringing it pretty near a friend of ours--I hope we
-shall be as successful this morning, without paying for it."
-
-"And whare is your honours gaun the day," said the mendicant, "wi' a'
-your picks and shules?--Od, this will be some o' your tricks, Monkbarns:
-ye'll be for whirling some o' the auld monks down by yonder out o' their
-graves afore they hear the last call--but, wi' your leave, I'se follow ye
-at ony rate, and see what ye mak o't."
-
-The party soon arrived at the ruins of the priory, and, having gained the
-chancel, stood still to consider what course they were to pursue next.
-The Antiquary, meantime, addressed the adept.
-
-"Pray, Mr. Dousterswivel, what is your advice in this matter? Shall we
-have most likelihood of success if we dig from east to west, or from west
-to east?--or will you assist us with your triangular vial of May-dew, or
-with your divining-rod of witches-hazel?--or will you have the goodness
-to supply us with a few thumping blustering terms of art, which, if they
-fail in our present service, may at least be useful to those who have not
-the happiness to be bachelors, to still their brawling children withal?"
-
-"Mr. Oldenbuck," said Dousterswivel, doggedly, "I have told you already
-that you will make no good work at all, and I will find some way of mine
-own to thank you for your civilities to me--yes, indeed."
-
-"If your honours are thinking of tirling the floor," said old Edie, "and
-wad but take a puir body's advice, I would begin below that muckle stane
-that has the man there streekit out upon his back in the midst o't."
-
-"I have some reason for thinking favourably of that plan myself," said
-the Baronet.
-
-"And I have nothing to say against it," said Oldbuck: "it was not unusual
-to hide treasure in the tombs of the deceased--many instances might be
-quoted of that from Bartholinus and others."
-
-The tombstone, the same beneath which the coins had been found by Sir
-Arthur and the German, was once more forced aside, and the earth gave
-easy way to the spade.
-
-"It's travell'd earth that," said Edie, "it howks gae eithly--I ken it
-weel, for ance I wrought a simmer wi' auld Will Winnet, the bedral, and
-howkit mair graves than ane in my day; but I left him in winter, for it
-was unco cald wark; and then it cam a green Yule, and the folk died thick
-and fast--for ye ken a green Yule makes a fat kirkyard; and I never dowed
-to bide a hard turn o' wark in my life--sae aff I gaed, and left Will to
-delve his last dwellings by himsell for Edie."
-
-The diggers were now so far advanced in their labours as to discover that
-the sides of the grave which they were clearing out had been originally
-secured by four walls of freestone, forming a parallelogram, for the
-reception, probably, of the coffin.
-
-"It is worth while proceeding in our labours," said the Antiquary to Sir
-Arthur, "were it but for curiosity's sake. I wonder on whose sepulchre
-they have bestowed such uncommon pains."
-
-"The arms on the shield," said Sir Arthur, and sighed as he spoke it,
-"are the same with those on Misticot's tower, supposed to have been built
-by Malcolm the usurper. No man knew where he was buried, and there is an
-old prophecy in our family, that bodes us no good when his grave shall be
-discovered."
-
-"I wot," said the beggar, "I have often heard that when I was a bairn--
-
-              If Malcolm the Misticot's grave were fun',
-              The lands of Knockwinnock were lost and won."
-
-Oldbuck, with his spectacles on his nose, had already knelt down on the
-monument, and was tracing, partly with his eye, partly with his finger,
-the mouldered devices upon the effigy of the deceased warrior. "It is the
-Knockwinnock arms, sure enough," he exclaimed, "quarterly with the coat
-of Wardour."
-
-"Richard, called the red-handed Wardour, married Sybil Knockwinnock, the
-heiress of the Saxon family, and by that alliance," said Sir Arthur,
-"brought the castle and estate into the name of Wardour, in the year of
-God 1150."
-
-"Very true, Sir Arthur; and here is the baton-sinister, the mark of
-illegitimacy, extended diagonally through both coats upon the shield.
-Where can our eyes have been, that they did not see this curious monument
-before?"
-
-"Na, whare was the through-stane, that it didna come before our een till
-e'enow?" said Ochiltree; "for I hae ken'd this auld kirk, man and bairn,
-for saxty lang years, and I neer noticed it afore; and it's nae sic mote
-neither, but what ane might see it in their parritch."
-
-All were now induced to tax their memory as to the former state of the
-ruins in that corner of the chancel, and all agreed in recollecting a
-considerable pile of rubbish which must have been removed and spread
-abroad in order to malke the tomb visible. Sir Arthur might, indeed, have
-remembered seeing the monument on the former occasion, but his mind was
-too much agitated to attend to the circumstance as a novelty.
-
-While the assistants were engaged in these recollections and discussions,
-the workmen proceeded with their labour. They had already dug to the
-depth of nearly five feet, and as the flinging out the soil became more
-and more difficult, they began at length to tire of the job.
-
-"We're down to the till now," said one of them, "and the neer a coffin or
-onything else is here--some cunninger chiel's been afore us, I reckon;"--
-and the labourer scrambled out of the grave.
-
-"Hout, lad," said Edie, getting down in his room--"let me try my hand for
-an auld bedral;--ye're gude seekers, but ill finders."
-
-So soon as he got into the grave, he struck his pike-staff forcibly down;
-it encountered resistance in its descent, and the beggar exclaimed, like
-a Scotch schoolboy when he finds anything, "Nae halvers and quarters--
-hale o' mine ain and 'nane o' my neighbour's."
-
-Everybody, from the dejected Baronet to the sullen adept, now caught the
-spirit of curiosity, crowded round the grave, and would have jumped into
-it, could its space have contained them. The labourers, who had begun to
-flag in their monotonous and apparently hopeless task, now resumed their
-tools, and plied them with all the ardour of expectation. Their shovels
-soon grated upon a hard wooden surface, which, as the earth was cleared
-away, assumed the distinct form of a chest, but greatly smaller than that
-of a coffin. Now all hands were at work to heave it out of the grave, and
-all voices, as it was raised, proclaimed its weight and augured its
-value. They were not mistaken.
-
-When the chest or box was placed on the surface, and the lid forced up by
-a pickaxe, there was displayed first a coarse canvas cover, then a
-quantity of oakum, and beneath that a number of ingots of silver. A
-general exclamation hailed a discovery so surprising and unexpected. The
-Baronet threw his hands and eyes up to heaven, with the silent rapture of
-one who is delivered from inexpressible distress of mind. Oldbuck, almost
-unable to credit his eyes, lifted one piece of silver after another.
-There was neither inscription nor stamp upon them, excepting one, which
-seemed to be Spanish. He could have no doubt of the purity and great
-value of the treasure before him. Still, however, removing piece by
-piece, he examined row by row, expecting to discover that the lower
-layers were of inferior value; but he could perceive no difference in
-this respect, and found himself compelled to admit, that Sir Arthur had
-possessed himself of bullion to the value, perhaps of a thousand pounds
-sterling. Sir Arthur now promised the assistants a handsome recompense
-for their trouble, and began to busy himself about the mode of conveying
-this rich windfall to the Castle of Knockwinnock, when the adept,
-recovering from his surprise, which had squalled that exhibited by any
-other individual of the party, twitched his sleeve, and having offered
-his humble congratulations, turned next to Oldbuck with an air of
-triumph.
-
-"I did tell you, my goot friend, Mr. Oldenbuck, dat I was to seek
-opportunity to thank you for your civility; now do you not think I have
-found out vary goot way to return thank?"
-
-"Why, Mr. Dousterswivel, do you pretend to have had any hand in our good
-success?--you forget you refused us all aid of your science, man; and you
-are here without your weapons that should have fought the battle which
-you pretend to have gained in our behalf: you have used neither charm,
-lamen, sigil, talisman, spell, crystal, pentacle, magic mirror, nor
-geomantic figure. Where be your periapts, and your abracadabras man? your
-Mayfern, your vervain,
-
-           Your toad, your crow, your dragon, and your panther,
-           Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop,
-                Your Lato, Azoch, Zernich, Chibrit, Heautarit,
-           With all your broths, your menstrues, your materials,
-                      Would burst a man to name?--
-
-Ah! rare Ben Jonson! long peace to thy ashes for a scourge of the quacks
-of thy day!--who expected to see them revive in our own?"
-
-The answer of the adept to the Antiquary's tirade we must defer to our
-next chapter.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER THIRD.
-
-   _Clause._--You now shall know the king o' the beggars' treasure:--
-            Yes--ere to-morrow you shall find your harbour
-            Here,--fail me not, for if I live I'll fit you.
-                                       The Beggar's Bush.
-
-The German, determined, it would seem, to assert the vantage-ground on
-which the discovery had placed him, replied with great pomp and
-stateliness to the attack of the Antiquary.
-
-"Maister Oldenbuck, all dis may be very witty and comedy, but I have
-nothing to say--nothing at all--to people dat will not believe deir own
-eye-sights. It is vary true dat I ave not any of de things of de art, and
-it makes de more wonder what I has done dis day. But I would ask of you,
-mine honoured and goot and generous patron, to put your hand into your
-right-hand waistcoat pocket, and show me what you shall find dere."
-
-Sir Arthur obeyed his direction, and pulled out the small plate of silver
-which he had used under the adept's auspices upon the former occasion.
-"It is very true," said Sir Arthur, looking gravely at the Antiquary;
-"this is the graduated and calculated sigil by which Mr. Dousterswivel
-and I regulated our first discovery."
-
-"Pshaw! pshaw! my dear friend," said Oldbuck, "you are too wise to
-believe in the influence of a trumpery crown-piece, beat out thin, and a
-parcel of scratches upon it. I tell thee, Sir Arthur, that if
-Dousterswivel had known where to get this treasure himself, you would not
-have been lord of the least share of it."
-
-"In troth, please your honour," said Edie, who put in his word on all
-occasions, "I think, since Mr. Dunkerswivel has had sae muckle merit in
-discovering a' the gear, the least ye can do is to gie him that o't
-that's left behind for his labour; for doubtless he that kend where to
-find sae muckle will hae nae difficulty to find mair."
-
-Dousterswivel's brow grew very dark at this proposal of leaving him to
-his "ain purchase," as Ochiltree expressed it; but the beggar, drawing
-him aside, whispered a word or two in his ear, to which he seemed to give
-serious attention,
-
-Meanwhile Sir Arthur, his heart warm with his good fortune, said aloud,
-"Never mind our friend Monkbarns, Mr. Dousterswivel, but come to the
-Castle to-morrow, and I'll convince you that I am not ungrateful for the
-hints you have given me about this matter--and the fifty Fairport dirty
-notes, as you call them, are heartily at your service. Come, my lads, get
-the cover of this precious chest fastened up again."
-
-But the cover had in the confusion fallen aside among the rubbish, or the
-loose earth which had been removed from the grave--in short, it was not
-to be seen.
-
-"Never mind, my good lads, tie the tarpaulin over it, and get it away to
-the carriage.--Monkbarns, will you walk? I must go back your way to take
-up Miss Wardour."
-
-"And, I hope, to take up your dinner also, Sir Arthur, and drink a glass
-of wine for joy of our happy adventure. Besides, you should write about
-the business to the Exchequer, in case of any interference on the part of
-the Crown. As you are lord of the manor, it will be easy to get a deed of
-gift, should they make any claim. We must talk about it, though."
-
-"And I particularly recommend silence to all who are present," said Sir
-Arthur, looking round. All bowed and professed themselves dumb.
-
-"Why, as to that," said Monkbarns, "recommending secrecy where a dozen of
-people are acquainted with the circumstance to be concealed, is only
-putting the truth in masquerade, for the story will be circulated under
-twenty different shapes. But never mind--we will state the true one to
-the Barons, and that is all that is necessary."
-
-"I incline to send off an express to-night," said the Baronet.
-
-"I can recommend your honour to a sure hand," said Ochiltree; "little
-Davie Mailsetter, and the butcher's reisting powny."
-
-"We will talk over the matter as we go to Monkbarns," said Sir Arthur.
-"My lads" (to the work-people), "come with me to the Four Horse-shoes,
-that I may take down all your names.--Dousterswivel, I won't ask you to
-go down to Monkbarns, as the laird and you differ so widely in opinion;
-but do not fail to come to see me to-morrow."
-
-Dousterswivel growled out an answer, in which the words, "duty,"--"mine
-honoured patron,"--and "wait upon Sir Arthurs,"--were alone
-distinguishable; and after the Baronet and his friend had left the ruins,
-followed by the servants and workmen, who, in hope of reward and whisky,
-joyfully attended their leader, the adept remained in a brown study by
-the side of the open grave.
-
-"Who was it as could have thought this?" he ejaculated unconsciously.
-"Mine heiligkeit! I have heard of such things, and often spoken of such
-things--but, sapperment! I never, thought to see them! And if I had gone
-but two or dree feet deeper down in the earth--mein himmel! it had been
-all mine own--so much more as I have been muddling about to get from this
-fool's man."
-
-Here the German ceased his soliloquy, for, raising his eyes, he
-encountered those of Edie Ochiltree, who had not followed the rest of the
-company, but, resting as usual on his pike-staff, had planted himself on
-the other side of the grave. The features of the old man, naturally
-shrewd and expressive almost to an appearance of knavery, seemed in this
-instance so keenly knowing, that even the assurance of Dousterswivel,
-though a professed adventurer, sunk beneath their glances. But he saw the
-necessity of an e'claircissement, and, rallying his spirits, instantly
-began to sound the mendicant on the occurrences of the day. "Goot Maister
-Edies Ochiltrees"--
-
-"Edie Ochiltree, nae maister--your puir bedesman and the king's,"
-answered the Blue-Gown.
-
-"Awell den, goot Edie, what do you think of all dis?"
-
-"I was just thinking it was very kind (for I darena say very simple) o'
-your honour to gie thae twa rich gentles, wha hae lands and lairdships,
-and siller without end, this grand pose o' silver and treasure (three
-times tried in the fire, as the Scripture expresses it), that might hae
-made yoursell and ony twa or three honest bodies beside, as happy and
-content as the day was lang."
-
-"Indeed, Edie, mine honest friends, dat is very true; only I did not
-know, dat is, I was not sure, where to find the gelt myself."
-
-"What! was it not by your honours advice and counsel that Monkbarns and
-the Knight of Knockwinnock came here then?"
-
-"Aha--yes; but it was by another circumstance. I did not know dat dey
-would have found de treasure, mine friend; though I did guess, by such a
-tintamarre, and cough, and sneeze, and groan, among de spirit one other
-night here, dat there might be treasure and bullion hereabout. Ach, mein
-himmel! the spirit will hone and groan over his gelt, as if he were a
-Dutch Burgomaster counting his dollars after a great dinner at the
-Stadthaus."
-
-"And do you really believe the like o' that, Mr. Dusterdeevil !--a
-skeelfu' man like you--hout fie!"
-
-"Mein friend," answered the adept, foreed by circumstances to speak
-something nearer the truth than he generally used to do, "I believed it
-no more than you and no man at all, till I did hear them hone and moan
-and groan myself on de oder night, and till I did this day see de cause,
-which was an great chest all full of de pure silver from Mexico--and what
-would you ave nae think den?"
-
-"And what wad ye gie to ony ane," said Edie, "that wad help ye to sic
-another kistfu' o' silver!"
-
-"Give?--mein himmel!--one great big quarter of it."
-
-"Now if the secret were mine," said the mendicant, "I wad stand out for a
-half; for you see, though I am but a puir ragged body, and couldna carry
-silver or gowd to sell for fear o' being taen up, yet I could find mony
-folk would pass it awa for me at unco muckle easier profit than ye're
-thinking on."
-
-"Ach, himmel!--Mein goot friend, what was it I said?--I did mean to say
-you should have de tree quarter for your half, and de one quarter to be
-my fair half."
-
-"No, no, Mr. Dusterdeevil, we will divide equally what we find, like
-brother and brother. Now, look at this board that I just flung into the
-dark aisle out o' the way, while Monkbarns was glowering ower a' the
-silver yonder. He's a sharp chiel Monkbarns--I was glad to keep the like
-o' this out o' his sight. Ye'll maybe can read the character better than
-me--I am nae that book learned, at least I'm no that muckle in practice."
-
-With this modest declaration of ignorance, Ochiltree brought forth from
-behind a pillar the cover of the box or chest of treasure, which, when
-forced from its hinges, had been carelessly flung aside during the ardour
-of curiosity to ascertain the contents which it concealed, and had been
-afterwards, as it seems, secreted by the mendicant. There was a word and
-a number upon the plank, and the beggar made them more distinct by
-spitting upon his ragged blue handkerchief, and rubbing off the clay by
-which the inscription was obscured. It was in the ordinary black letter.
-
-"Can ye mak ought o't?" said Edie to the adept.
-
-"S," said the philosopher, like a child getting his lesson in the primer
---"S, T, A, R, C, H,--_Starch!_--dat is what de woman-washers put into de
-neckerchers, and de shirt collar."
-
-"Search!" echoed Ochiltree; "na, na, Mr. Dusterdeevil, ye are mair of a
-conjuror than a clerk--it's _search,_ man, _search_--See, there's the
-_Ye_ clear and distinct."
-
-"Aha! I see it now--it is _search--number one._ Mein himmel! then there
-must be a _number two,_ mein goot friend: for _search_ is what you call
-to seek and dig, and this is but _number one!_ Mine wort, there is one
-great big prize in de wheel for us, goot Maister Ochiltree."
-
-"Aweel, it may be sae; but we canna howk fort enow--we hae nae shules,
-for they hae taen them a' awa--and it's like some o' them will be sent
-back to fling the earth into the hole, and mak a' things trig again. But
-an ye'll sit down wi' me a while in the wood, I'se satisfy your honour
-that ye hae just lighted on the only man in the country that could hae
-tauld about Malcolm Misticot and his hidden treasure--But first we'll rub
-out the letters on this board, for fear it tell tales."
-
-And, by the assistance of his knife, the beggar erased and defaced the
-characters so as to make them quite unintelligible, and then daubed the
-board with clay so as to obliterate all traces of the erasure.
-
-Dousterswivel stared at him in ambiguous silence. There was an
-intelligence and alacrity about all the old man's movements, which
-indicated a person that could not be easily overreached, and yet (for
-even rogues acknowledge in some degree the spirit of precedence) our
-adept felt the disgrace of playing a secondary part, and dividing
-winnings with so mean an associate. His appetite for gain, however, was
-sufficiently sharp to overpower his offended pride, and though far more
-an impostor than a dupe, he was not without a certain degree of personal
-faith even in the gross superstitions by means of which he imposed upon
-others. Still, being accustomed to act as a leader on such occasions, he
-felt humiliated at feeling himself in the situation of a vulture
-marshalled to his prey by a carrion-crow.--"Let me, however, hear this
-story to an end," thought Dousterswivel, "and it will be hard if I do not
-make mine account in it better as Maister Edie Ochiltrees makes
-proposes."
-
-The adept, thus transformed into a pupil from a teacher of the mystic
-art, followed Ochiltree in passive acquiescence to the Prior's Oak--a
-spot, as the reader may remember, at a short distance from the ruins,
-where the German sat down, and silence waited the old man's
-communication.
-
-"Maister Dustandsnivel," said the narrator, "it's an unco while since I
-heard this business treated anent;--for the lairds of Knockwinnock,
-neither Sir Arthur, nor his father, nor his grandfather--and I mind a wee
-bit about them a'--liked to hear it spoken about; nor they dinna like it
-yet--But nae matter; ye may be sure it was clattered about in the
-kitchen, like onything else in a great house, though it were forbidden in
-the ha'--and sae I hae heard the circumstance rehearsed by auld servants
-in the family; and in thir present days, when things o' that auld-warld
-sort arena keepit in mind round winter fire-sides as they used to be, I
-question if there's onybody in the country can tell the tale but mysell--
-aye out-taken the laird though, for there's a parchment book about it, as
-I have heard, in the charter-room at Knockwinnock Castle."
-
-"Well, all dat is vary well--but get you on with your stories, mine goot
-friend," said Dousterswivel.
-
-"Aweel, ye see," continued the mendicant, "this was a job in the auld
-times o' rugging and riving through the hale country, when it was ilka
-ane for himsell, and God for us a'--when nae man wanted property if he
-had strength to take it, or had it langer than he had power to keep it.
-It was just he ower her, and she ower him, whichever could win upmost, a'
-through the east country here, and nae doubt through the rest o' Scotland
-in the self and same manner.
-
-"Sae in these days Sir Richard Wardour came into the land, and that was
-the first o' the name ever was in this country. There's been mony o' them
-sin' syne; and the maist, like him they ca'd Hell-in-Harness, and the
-rest o' them, are sleeping down in yon ruins. They were a proud dour set
-o' men, but unco brave, and aye stood up for the weel o' the country, God
-sain them a'--there's no muckle popery in that wish. They ca'd them the
-Norman Wardours, though they cam frae the south to this country. So this
-Sir Richard, that they ca'd Red-hand, drew up wi' the auld Knockwinnock
-o' that day--for then they were Knockwinnocks of that Ilk--and wad fain
-marry his only daughter, that was to have the castle and the land. Laith,
-laith was the lass--(Sybil Knockwinnock they ca'd her that tauld me the
-tale)--laith, laith was she to gie into the match, for she had fa'en a
-wee ower thick wi' a cousin o' her ain that her father had some ill-will
-to; and sae it was, that after she had been married to Sir Richard jimp
-four months--for marry him she maun, it's like--ye'll no hinder her
-gieing them a present o' a bonny knave bairn. Then there was siccan a
-ca'-thro', as the like was never seen; and she's be burnt, and he's be
-slain, was the best words o' their mouths. But it was a' sowdered up
-again some gait, and the bairn was sent awa, and bred up near the
-Highlands, and grew up to be a fine wanle fallow, like mony ane that
-comes o' the wrang side o' the blanket; and Sir Richard wi' the Red-hand,
-he had a fair offspring o'his ain, and a was lound and quiet till his
-head was laid in the ground. But then down came Malcolm Misticot--(Sir
-Arthur says it should be _Misbegot,_ but they aye ca'd him Misticot that
-spoke o't lang syne)--down cam this Malcolm, the love-begot, frae
-Glen-isla, wi' a string o' lang-legged Highlanders at his heels, that's
-aye ready for onybody's mischief, and he threeps the castle and lands are
-his ain as his mother's eldest son, and turns a' the Wardours out to the
-hill. There was a sort of fighting and blude-spilling about it, for the
-gentles took different sides; but Malcolm had the uppermost for a lang
-time, and keepit the Castle of Knockwinnock, and strengthened it, and
-built that muckle tower that they ca' Misticot's tower to this day."
-
-"Mine goot friend, old Mr. Edie Ochiltree." interrupted the German, "this
-is all as one like de long histories of a baron of sixteen quarters in
-mine countries; but I would as rather hear of de silver and gold."
-
-"Why, ye see," continued the mendicant, "this Malcolm was weel helped by
-an uncle, a brother o' his father's, that was Prior o' St. Ruth here; and
-muckle treasure they gathered between them, to secure the succession of
-their house in the lands of Knockwinnock. Folk said that the monks in
-thae days had the art of multiplying metals--at ony rate, they were very
-rich. At last it came to this, that the young Wardour, that was
-Red-hand's son, challenged Misticot to fight with him in the lists as
-they ca'd them--that's no lists or tailor's runds and selvedges o'
-claith, but a palin'-thing they set up for them to fight in like
-game-cocks. Aweel, Misticot was beaten, and at his brother's mercy--but
-he wadna touch his life, for the blood of Knockwinnock that was in baith
-their veins: so Malcolm was compelled to turn a monk, and he died soon
-after in the priory, of pure despite and vexation. Naebody ever kenn'd
-whare his uncle the prior earded him, or what he did wi' his gowd and
-silver, for he stood on the right o' halie kirk, and wad gie nae account
-to onybody. But the prophecy gat abroad in the country, that whenever
-Misticot's grave was fund out, the estate of Knockwinnock should be lost
-and won."
-
-"Ach! mine goot old friend, Maister Edie, and dat is not so very
-unlikely, if Sir Arthurs will quarrel wit his goot friends to please Mr.
-Oldenbuck.--And so you do tink dat dis golds and silvers belonged to goot
-Mr. Malcolm Mishdigoat?"
-
-"Troth do I, Mr. Dousterdeevil."
-
-"And you do believe dat dere is more of dat sorts behind?"
-
-"By my certie do I--How can it be otherwise?--_Search--No. I_--that is as
-muckle as to say, search and ye'll find number twa. Besides, yon kist is
-only silver, and I aye heard that' Misticot's pose had muckle yellow gowd
-in't."
-
-"Den, mine goot friends," said the adept, jumping up hastily, "why do we
-not set about our little job directly?"
-
-"For twa gude reasons," answered the beggar, who quietly kept his sitting
-posture;--"first, because, as I said before, we have naething to dig wi',
-for they hae taen awa the picks and shules; and, secondly, because there
-will be a wheen idle gowks coming to glower at the hole as lang as it is
-daylight, and maybe the laird may send somebody to fill it up--and ony
-way we wad be catched. But if you will meet me on this place at twal
-o'clock wi' a dark lantern, I'll hae tools ready, and we'll gang quietly
-about our job our twa sells, and naebody the wiser for't."
-
-"Be--be--but, mine goot friend," said Dousterswivel, from whose
-recollection his former nocturnal adventure was not to be altogether
-erased, even by the splendid hopes which Edie's narrative held forth, "it
-is not so goot or so safe, to be about goot Maister Mishdigoat's grabe at
-dat time of night--you have forgot how I told you de spirits did hone and
-mone dere. I do assure you, dere is disturbance dere."
-
-"If ye're afraid of ghaists," answered the mendicant, coolly, "I'll do
-the job mysell, and bring your share o' the siller to ony place you like
-to appoint."
-
-"No--no--mine excellent old Mr. Edie,--too much trouble for you--I will
-not have dat--I will come myself--and it will be bettermost; for, mine
-old friend, it was I, Herman Dousterswivel, discovered Maister
-Mishdigoat's grave when I was looking for a place as to put away some
-little trumpery coins, just to play one little trick on my dear friend
-Sir Arthur, for a little sport and pleasures. Yes, I did take some what
-you call rubbish, and did discover Maister Mishdigoat's own monumentsh--
-It's like dat he meant I should be his heirs--so it would not be civility
-in me not to come mineself for mine inheritance."
-
-"At twal o'clock, then," said the mendicant, "we meet under this tree.
-I'll watch for a while, and see that naebody meddles wi' the grave--it's
-only saying the laird's forbade it--then get my bit supper frae Ringan
-the poinder up by, and leave to sleep in his barn; and I'll slip out at
-night, and neer be mist."
-
-"Do so, mine goot Maister Edie, and I will meet you here on this very
-place, though all de spirits should moan and sneeze deir very brains
-out."
-
-So saying he shook hands with the old man, and with this mutual pledge of
-fidelity to their appointment, they separated for the present.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER FOURTH.
-
-                          --See thou shake the bags
-                 Of hoarding abbots; angels imprisoned
-                         Set thou at liberty--
-                Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back,
-                        If gold and silver beckon to come on.
-                                              King John.
-
-The night set in stormy, with wind and occasional showers of rain. "Eh,
-sirs," said the old mendicant, as he took his place on the sheltered side
-of the large oak-tree to wait for his associate--"Eh, sirs, but human
-nature's a wilful and wilyard thing!--Is it not an unco lucre o' gain wad
-bring this Dousterdivel out in a blast o' wind like this, at twal o'clock
-at night, to thir wild gousty wa's?--and amna I a bigger fule than
-himsell to bide here waiting for him?"
-
-Having made these sage reflections, he wrapped himself close in his
-cloak, and fixed his eye on the moon as she waded amid the stormy and
-dusky clouds, which the wind from time to time drove across her surface.
-The melancholy and uncertain gleams that she shot from between the
-passing shadows fell full upon the rifted arches and shafted windows of
-the old building, which were thus for an instant made distinctly visible
-in their ruinous state, and anon became again a dark, undistinguished,
-and shadowy mass. The little lake had its share of these transient beams
-of light, and showed its waters broken, whitened, and agitated under the
-passing storm, which, when the clouds swept over the moon, were only
-distinguished by their sullen and murmuring plash against the beach. The
-wooded glen repeated, to every successive gust that hurried through its
-narrow trough, the deep and various groan with which the trees replied to
-the whirlwind, and the sound sunk again, as the blast passed away, into a
-faint and passing murmur, resembling the sighs of an exhausted criminal
-after the first pangs of his torture are over. In these sounds,
-superstition might have found ample gratification for that State of
-excited terror which she fears and yet loves. But such feeling is made no
-part of Ochiltree's composition. His mind wandered back to the scenes of
-his youth.
-
-"I have kept guard on the outposts baith in Germany and America," he said
-to himself, "in mony a waur night than this, and when I ken'd there was
-maybe a dozen o' their riflemen in the thicket before me. But I was aye
-gleg at my duty--naebody ever catched Edie sleeping."
-
-As he muttered thus to himself, he instinctively shouldered his trusty
-pike-staff, assumed the port of a sentinel on duty, and, as a step
-advanced towards the tree, called, with a tone assorting better with his
-military reminiscences than his present state--"Stand! who goes there?"
-
-"De devil, goot Edie," answered Dousterswivel, "why does you speak so
-loud as a baarenhauter, or what you call a factionary--I mean a
-sentinel?"
-
-"Just because I thought I was a sentinel at that moment," answered the
-mendicant. "Here's an awsome night! Hae ye brought the lantern and a pock
-for the siller?"
-
-"Ay-ay, mine goot friend," said the German, "here it is--my pair of what
-you call saddlebag; one side will be for you, one side for me;--I will
-put dem on my horse to save you de trouble, as you are old man."
-
-"Have you a horse here, then?" asked Edie Ochiltree.
-
-"O yes, mine friend--tied yonder by de stile," responded the adept.
-
-"Weel, I hae just ae word to the bargain--there sall nane o' my gear gang
-on your beast's back."
-
-"What was it as you would be afraid of?" said the foreigner.
-
-"Only of losing sight of horse, man, and money," again replied the
-gaberlunzie.
-
-"Does you know dat you make one gentlemans out to be one great rogue?"
-
-"Mony gentlemen," replied Ochiltree, "can make that out for themselves--
-But what's the sense of quarrelling?--If ye want to gang on, gang on--if
-no--I'll gae back to the gude ait-straw in Ringan Aikwood's barn that I
-left wi' right ill-will e'now, and I'll pit back the pick and shule whar
-I got them."
-
-Dousterswivel deliberated a moment, whether, by suffering Edie to depart,
-he might not secure the whole of the expected wealth for his own
-exclusive use. But the want of digging implements, the uncertainty
-whether, if he had them, he could clear out the grave to a sufficient
-depth without assistance, and, above all, the reluctance which he felt,
-owing to the experience of the former night, to venture alone on the
-terrors of Misticot's grave, satisfied him the attempt would be
-hazardous. Endeavouring, therefore, to assume his usual cajoling tone,
-though internally incensed, he begged "his goot friend Maister Edie
-Ochiltrees would lead the way, and assured him of his acquiescence in all
-such an excellent friend could propose."
-
-"Aweel, aweel, then," said Edie, "tak gude care o' your feet amang the
-lang grass and the loose stones. I wish we may get the light keepit in
-neist, wi' this fearsome wind--but there's a blink o' moonlight at
-times."
-
-Thus saying, old Edie, closely accompanied by the adept, led the way
-towards the ruins, but presently made a full halt in front of them.
-
-"Ye're a learned man, Mr. Dousterdeevil, and ken muckle o' the marvellous
-works o' nature--Now, will ye tell me ae thing?--D'ye believe in ghaists
-and spirits that walk the earth?--d'ye believe in them, ay or no?"
-
-"Now, goot Mr. Edie," whispered Dousterswivel, in an expostulatory tone
-of voice, "is this a times or a places for such a questions?"
-
-"Indeed is it, baith the tane and the t'other, Mr. Dustanshovel; for I
-maun fairly tell ye, there's reports that auld Misticot walks. Now this
-wad be an uncanny night to meet him in, and wha kens if he wad be ower
-weel pleased wi' our purpose of visiting his pose?"
-
-"_Alle guten Geister_"--muttered the adept, the rest of the conjuration
-being lost in a tremulous warble of his voice,--"I do desires you not to
-speak so, Mr. Edie; for, from all I heard dat one other night, I do much
-believes"--
-
-"Now I," said Ochiltree, entering the chancel, and flinging abroad his
-arm with an air of defiance, "I wadna gie the crack o' my thumb for him
-were he to appear at this moment: he's but a disembodied spirit, as we
-are embodied anes."
-
-"For the lofe of heavens," said Dousterswivel, "say nothing at all
-neither about somebodies or nobodies!"
-
-"Aweel," said the beggar (expanding the shade of the lantern), "here's
-the stane, and, spirit or no spirit, I'se be a wee bit deeper in the
-grave;" and he jumped into the place from which the precious chest had
-that morning been removed. After striking a few strokes, he tired, or
-affected to tire, and said to his companion, "I'm auld and failed now,
-and canna keep at it--time about's fair play, neighbour; ye maun get in
-and tak the shule a bit, and shule out the loose earth, and then I'll tak
-turn about wi' you."
-
-Dousterswivel accordingly took the place which the beggar had evacuated,
-and toiled with all the zeal that awakened avarice, mingled with the
-anxious wish to finish the undertaking and leave the place as soon as
-possible, could inspire in a mind at once greedy, suspicious, and
-timorous.
-
-Edie, standing much at his ease by the side of the hole, contented
-himself with exhorting his associate to labour hard. "My certie! few ever
-wrought for siccan a day's wage; an it be but--say the tenth part o' the
-size o' the kist, No. I., it will double its value, being filled wi' gowd
-instead of silver. Od, ye work as if ye had been bred to pick and shule--
-ye could win your round half-crown ilka day. Tak care o' your taes wi'
-that stane!" giving a kick to a large one which the adept had heaved out
-with difficulty, and which Edie pushed back again to the great annoyance
-of his associate's shins.
-
-Thus exhorted by the mendicant, Dousterswivel struggled and laboured
-among the stones and stiff clay, toiling like a horse, and internally
-blaspheming in German. When such an unhallowed syllable escaped his lips,
-Edie changed his battery upon him.
-
-"O dinna swear! dinna swear! Wha kens whals listening!--Eh! gude guide
-us, what's you!--Hout, it's just a branch of ivy flightering awa frae the
-wa'; when the moon was in, it lookit unco like a dead man's arm wi' a
-taper in't--I thought it was Misticot himsell. But never mind, work you
-away--fling the earth weel up by out o' the gate--Od, if ye're no as
-clean a worker at a grave as Win Winnet himsell! What gars ye stop now?--
-ye're just at the very bit for a chance."
-
-"Stop!" said the German, in a tone of anger and disappointment, "why, I
-am down at de rocks dat de cursed ruins (God forgife me!) is founded
-upon."
-
-"Weel," said the beggar, "that's the likeliest bit of ony. It will be but
-a muckle through-stane laid doun to kiver the gowd--tak the pick till't,
-and pit mair strength, man--ae gude down-right devvel will split it, I'se
-warrant ye--Ay, that will do Od, he comes on wi' Wallace's straiks!"
-
-In fact, the adept, moved by Edie's exhortations, fetched two or three
-desperate blows, and succeeded in breaking, not indeed that against which
-he struck, which, as he had already conjectured, was the solid rock, but
-the implement which he wielded, jarring at the same time his arms up to
-the shoulder-blades.
-
-"Hurra, boys!--there goes Ringan's pick-axe!" cried Edie "it's a shame o'
-the Fairport folk to sell siccan frail gear. Try the shule--at it again,
-Mr. Dusterdeevil."
-
-The adept, without reply, scrambled out of the pit, which was now about
-six feet deep, and addressed his associate in a voice that trembled with
-anger. "Does you know, Mr. Edies Ochiltrees, who it is you put off your
-gibes and your jests upon?"
-
-"Brawly, Mr. Dusterdeevil--brawly do I ken ye, and has done mony a day;
-but there's nae jesting in the case, for I am wearying to see ae our
-treasures; we should hae had baith ends o' the pockmanky filled by this
-time--I hope it's bowk eneugh to haud a' the gear?"
-
-"Look you, you base old person," said the incensed philosopher, "if you
-do put another jest upon me, I will cleave your skull-piece with this
-shovels!"
-
-"And whare wad my hands and my pike-staff be a' the time?" replied Edie,
-in a tone that indicated no apprehension. "Hout, tout, Maister
-Dusterdeevil, I haena lived sae lang in the warld neither, to be shuled
-out o't that gate. What ails ye to be cankered, man, wi' your friends?
-I'll wager I'll find out the treasure in a minute;" and he jumped into
-the pit, and took up the spade.
-
-"I do swear to you," said the adept, whose suspicions were now fully
-awake, "that if you have played me one big trick, I will give you one big
-beating, Mr. Edies."
-
-"Hear till him now!" said Ochiltree, "he kens how to gar folk find out
-the gear--Od, I'm thinking he's been drilled that way himsell some day."
-
-At this insinuation, which alluded obviously to the former scene betwixt
-himself and Sir Arthur, the philosopher lost the slender remnant of
-patience he had left, and being of violent passions, heaved up the
-truncheon of the broken mattock to discharge it upon the old man's head.
-The blow would in all probability have been fatal, had not he at whom it
-was aimed exclaimed in a stern and firm voice, "Shame to ye, man!--do ye
-think Heaven or earth will suffer ye to murder an auld man that might be
-your father?--Look behind ye, man!"
-
-Dousterswivel turned instinctively, and beheld, to his utter
-astonishment, a tall dark figure standing close behind him. The
-apparition gave him no time to proceed by exorcism or otherwise, but
-having instantly recourse to the _voie de fait,_ took measure of the
-adept's shoulders three or four times with blows so substantial, that he
-fell under the weight of them, and remained senseless for some minutes
-between fear and stupefaction. When he came to himself, he was alone in
-the ruined chancel, lying upon the soft and damp earth which had been
-thrown out of Misticot's grave. He raised himself with a confused
-sensation of anger, pain, and terror, and it was not until he had sat
-upright for some minutes, that he could arrange his ideas sufficiently to
-recollect how he came there, or with what purpose. As his recollection
-returned, he could have little doubt that the bait held out to him by
-Ochiltree, to bring him to that solitary spot, the sarcasms by which he
-had provoked him into a quarrel, and the ready assistance which he had at
-hand for terminating it in the manner in which it had ended, were all
-parts of a concerted plan to bring disgrace and damage on Herman
-Dousterswivel. He could hardly suppose that he was indebted for the
-fatigue, anxiety, and beating which he had undergone, purely to the
-malice of Edie Ochiltree singly, but concluded that the mendicant had
-acted a part assigned to him by some person of greater importance. His
-suspicions hesitated between Oldbuck and Sir Arthur Wardour. The former
-had been at no pains to conceal a marked dislike of him--but the latter
-he had deeply injured; and although he judged that Sir Arthur did not
-know the extent of his wrongs towards him, yet it was easy to suppose he
-had gathered enough of the truth to make him desirous of revenge.
-Ochiltree had alluded to at least one circumstance which the adept had
-every reason to suppose was private between Sir Arthur and himself, and
-therefore must have been learned from the former. The language of Oldbuck
-also intimated a conviction of his knavery, which Sir Arthur heard
-without making any animated defence. Lastly, the way in which
-Dousterswivel supposed the Baronet to have exercised his revenge, was not
-inconsistent with the practice of other countries with which the adept
-was better acquainted than with those of North Britain. With him, as with
-many bad men, to suspect an injury, and to nourish the purpose of
-revenge, was one and the same movement. And before Dousterswivel had
-fairly recovered his legs, he had mentally sworn the ruin of his
-benefactor, which, unfortunately, he possessed too much the power of
-accelerating.
-
-But although a purpose of revenge floated through his brain, it was no
-time to indulge such speculations. The hour, the place, his own
-situation, and perhaps the presence or near neighbourhood of his
-assailants, made self-preservation the adept's first object. The lantern
-had been thrown down and extinguished in the scuffle. The wind, which
-formerly howled so loudly through the aisles of the ruin, had now greatly
-fallen, lulled by the rain, which was descending very fast. The moon,
-from the same cause, was totally obscured, and though Dousterswivel had
-some experience of the ruins, and knew that he must endeavour to regain
-the eastern door of the chancel, yet the confusion of his ideas was such,
-that he hesitated for some time ere he could ascertain in what direction
-he was to seek it. In this perplexity, the suggestions of superstition,
-taking the advantage of darkness and his evil conscience, began again to
-present themselves to his disturbed imagination. "But bah!" quoth he
-valiantly to himself, "it is all nonsense all one part of de damn big
-trick and imposture. Devil! that one thick-skulled Scotch Baronet, as I
-have led by the nose for five year, should cheat Herman Dousterswivel!"
-
-As he had come to this conclusion, an incident occurred which tended
-greatly to shake the grounds on which he had adopted it. Amid the
-melancholy _sough_ of the dying wind, and the plash of the rain-drops on
-leaves and stones, arose, and apparently at no great distance from the
-listener, a strain of vocal music so sad and solemn, as if the departed
-spirits of the churchmen who had once inhabited these deserted rains were
-mourning the solitude and desolation to which their hallowed precincts
-had been abandoned. Dousterswivel, who had now got upon his feet, and was
-groping around the wall of the chancel, stood rooted to the ground on the
-occurrence of this new phenomenon. Each faculty of his soul seemed for
-the moment concentred in the sense of hearing, and all rushed back with
-the unanimous information, that the deep, wild, and prolonged chant which
-he now heard, was the appropriate music of one of the most solemn dirges
-of the Church of Rome. Why performed in such a solitude, and by what
-class of choristers, were questions which the terrified imagination of
-the adept, stirred with all the German superstitions of nixies,
-oak-kings, wer-wolves, hobgoblins, black spirits and white, blue spirits
-and grey, durst not even attempt to solve.
-
-Another of his senses was soon engaged in the investigation. At the
-extremity of one of the transepts of the church, at the bottom of a few
-descending steps, was a small iron-grated door, opening, as far as he
-recollected, to a sort of low vault or sacristy. As he cast his eye in
-the direction of the sound, he observed a strong reflection of red light
-glimmering through these bars, and against the steps which descended to
-them. Dousterswivel stood a moment uncertain what to do; then, suddenly
-forming a desperate resolution, he moved down the aisle to the place from
-which the light proceeded.
-
-Fortified with the sign of the cross, and as many exorcisms as his memory
-could recover, he advanced to the grate, from which, unseen, he could see
-what passed in the interior of the vault. As he approached with timid and
-uncertain steps, the chant, after one or two wild and prolonged cadences,
-died away into profound silence. The grate, when he reached it, presented
-a singular spectacle in the interior of the sacristy. An open grave, with
-four tall flambeaus, each about six feet high, placed at the four
-corners--a bier, having a corpse in its shroud, the arms folded upon the
-breast, rested upon tressels at one side of the grave, as if ready to be
-interred--a priest, dressed in his cope and stole, held open the service
-book--another churchman in his vestments bore a holy-water sprinkler, and
-two boys in white surplices held censers with incense--a man, of a figure
-once tall and commanding, but now bent with age or infirmity, stood alone
-and nearest to the coffin, attired in deep mourning--such were the most
-prominent figures of the group. At a little distance were two or three
-persons of both sexes, attired in long mourning hoods and cloaks; and
-five or six others in the same lugubrious dress, still farther removed
-from the body, around the walls of the vault, stood ranged in motionless
-order, each bearing in his hand a huge torch of black wax. The smoky
-light from so many flambeaus, by the red and indistinct atmosphere which
-it spread around, gave a hazy, dubious, and as it were phantom-like
-appearance to the outlines of this singular apparition, The voice of the
-priest--loud, clear, and sonorous--now recited, from the breviary which
-he held in his hand, those solemn words which the ritual of the Catholic
-church has consecrated to the rendering of dust to dust. Meanwhile,
-Dousterswivel, the place, the hour, and the surprise considered, still
-remained uncertain whether what he saw was substantial, or an unearthly
-representation of the rites to which in former times these walls were
-familiar, but which are now rarely practised in Protestant countries, and
-almost never in Scotland. He was uncertain whether to abide the
-conclusion of the ceremony, or to endeavour to regain the chancel, when a
-change in his position made him visible through the grate to one of the
-attendant mourners. The person who first espied him indicated his
-discovery to the individual who stood apart and nearest the coffin, by a
-sign, and upon his making a sign in reply, two of the group detached
-themselves, and, gliding along with noiseless steps, as if fearing to
-disturb the service, unlocked and opened the grate which separated them
-from the adept. Each took him by an arm, and exerting a degree of force,
-which he would have been incapable of resisting had his fear permitted
-him to attempt opposition, they placed him on the ground in the chancel,
-and sat down, one on each side of him, as if to detain him. Satisfied he
-was in the power of mortals like himself, the adept would have put some
-questions to them; but while one pointed to the vault, from which the
-sound of the priest's voice was distinctly heard, the other placed his
-finger upon his lips in token of silence, a hint which the German thought
-it most prudent to obey. And thus they detained him until a loud
-Alleluia, pealing through the deserted arches of St. Ruth, closed the
-singular ceremony which it had been his fortune to witness.
-
-When the hymn had died away with all its echoes, the voice of one of the
-sable personages under whose guard the adept had remained, said, in a
-familiar tone and dialect, "Dear sirs, Mr. Dousterswivel, is this you?
-could not ye have let us ken an ye had wussed till hae been present at
-the ceremony?--My lord couldna tak it weel your coming blinking and
-jinking in, in that fashion."
-
-"In de name of all dat is gootness, tell me what you are?" interrupted
-the German in his turn.
-
-"What I am? why, wha should I be but Ringan Aikwood, the Knockwinnock
-poinder?--and what are ye doing here at this time o' night, unless ye
-were come to attend the leddy's burial?"
-
-"I do declare to you, mine goot Poinder Aikwood," said the German,
-raising himself up, "that I have been this vary nights murdered, robbed,
-and put in fears of my life."
-
-"Robbed! wha wad do sic a deed here?--Murdered! od ye speak pretty blithe
-for a murdered man--Put in fear! what put you in fear, Mr.
-Dousterswivel?"
-
-"I will tell you, Maister Poinder Aikwood Ringan, just dat old miscreant
-dog villain blue-gown, as you call Edie Ochiltrees."
-
-"I'll neer believe that," answered Ringan;--"Edie was ken'd to me, and my
-father before me, for a true, loyal, and sooth-fast man; and, mair by
-token, he's sleeping up yonder in our barn, and has been since ten at
-e'en--Sae touch ye wha liket, Mr. Dousterswivel, and whether onybody
-touched ye or no, I'm sure Edie's sackless."
-
-"Maister Ringan Aikwood Poinders, I do not know what you call sackless,--
-but let alone all de oils and de soot dat you say he has, and I will tell
-you I was dis night robbed of fifty pounds by your oil and sooty friend,
-Edies Ochiltree; and he is no more in your barn even now dan I ever shall
-be in de kingdom of heafen."
-
-"Weel, sir, if ye will gae up wi' me, as the burial company has
-dispersed, we'se mak ye down a bed at the lodge, and we'se see if Edie's
-at the barn. There was twa wild-looking chaps left the auld kirk when we
-were coming up wi' the corpse, that's certain; and the priest, wha likes
-ill that ony heretics should look on at our church ceremonies, sent twa
-o' the riding saulies after them; sae we'll hear a' about it frae them."
-
-Thus speaking, the kindly apparition, with the assistance of the mute
-personage, who was his son, disencumbered himself of his cloak, and
-prepared to escort Dousterswivel to the place of that rest which the
-adept so much needed.
-
-"I will apply to the magistrates to-morrow," said the adept; "oder, I
-will have de law put in force against all the peoples."
-
-While he thus muttered vengeance against the cause of his injury, he
-tottered from among the ruins, supporting himself on Ringan and his son,
-whose assistance his state of weakness rendered very necessary.
-
-When they were clear of the priory, and had gained the little meadow in
-which it stands, Dousterswivel could perceive the torches which had
-caused him so much alarm issuing in irregular procession from the ruins,
-and glancing their light, like that of the _ignis fatuus,_ on the banks
-of the lake. After moving along the path for some short space with a
-fluctuating and irregular motion, the lights were at once extinguished.
-
-"We aye put out the torches at the Halie-cross Well on sic occasions,"
-said the forester to his guest. And accordingly no farther visible sign
-of the procession offered itself to Dousterswivel, although his ear could
-catch the distant and decreasing echo of horses' hoofs in the direction
-towards which the mourners had bent their course.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER FIFTH.
-
-                       O weel may the boatie row
-                       And better may she speed,
-                      And weel may the boatie row
-                    That earns the bairnies' bread!
-                   The boatie rows, the boatie rows,
-                       The boatie rows fu' weel,
-                 And lightsome be their life that bear
-                       The merlin and the creel!
-                                        Old Ballad.
-
-We must now introduce our reader to the interior of the fisher's cottage
-mentioned in chapter eleventh of this edifying history. I wish I could
-say that its inside was well arranged, decently furnished, or tolerably
-clean. On the contrary, I am compelled to admit, there was confusion,--
-there was dilapidation,--there was dirt good store. Yet, with all this,
-there was about the inmates, Luckie Mucklebackit and her family, an
-appearance of ease, plenty, and comfort, that seemed to warrant their old
-sluttish proverb, "The clartier the cosier." A huge fire, though the
-season was summer, occupied the hearth, and served at once for affording
-light, heat, and the means of preparing food. The fishing had been
-successful, and the family, with customary improvidence, had, since
-unlading the cargo, continued an unremitting operation of broiling and
-frying that part of the produce reserved for home consumption, and the
-bones and fragments lay on the wooden trenchers, mingled with morsels of
-broken bannocks and shattered mugs of half-drunk beer. The stout and
-athletic form of Maggie herself, bustling here and there among a pack of
-half-grown girls and younger children, of whom she chucked one now here
-and another now there, with an exclamation of "Get out o' the gate, ye
-little sorrow!" was strongly contrasted with the passive and
-half-stupified look and manner of her husband's mother, a woman advanced
-to the last stage of human life, who was seated in her wonted chair close
-by the fire, the warmth of which she coveted, yet hardly seemed to be
-sensible of--now muttering to herself, now smiling vacantly to the
-children as they pulled the strings of her _toy_ or close cap, or
-twitched her blue checked apron. With her distaff in her bosom, and her
-spindle in her hand, she plied lazily and mechanically the old-fashioned
-Scottish thrift, according to the old-fashioned Scottish manner. The
-younger children, crawling among the feet of the elder, watched the
-progress of grannies spindle as it twisted, and now and then ventured to
-interrupt its progress as it danced upon the floor in those vagaries
-which the more regulated spinning-wheel has now so universally
-superseded, that even the fated Princess in the fairy tale might roam
-through all Scotland without the risk of piercing her hand with a
-spindle, and dying of the wound. Late as the hour was (and it was long
-past midnight), the whole family were still on foot, and far from
-proposing to go to bed; the dame was still busy broiling car-cakes on the
-girdle, and the elder girl, the half-naked mermaid elsewhere
-commemorated, was preparing a pile of Findhorn haddocks (that is,
-haddocks smoked with green wood), to be eaten along with these relishing
-provisions.
-
-While they were thus employed, a slight tap at the door, accompanied with
-the question, "Are ye up yet, sirs?" announced a visitor. The answer,
-"Ay, ay,--come your ways ben, hinny," occasioned the lifting of the
-latch, and Jenny Rintherout, the female domestic of our Antiquary, made
-her appearance.
-
-"Ay, ay," exclaimed the mistress of the family--"Hegh, sirs! can this be
-you, Jenny?--a sight o' you's gude for sair een, lass."
-
-"O woman, we've been sae ta'en up wi' Captain Hector's wound up by, that
-I havena had my fit out ower the door this fortnight; but he's better
-now, and auld Caxon sleeps in his room in case he wanted onything. Sae,
-as soon as our auld folk gaed to bed, I e'en snodded my head up a bit,
-and left the house-door on the latch, in case onybody should be wanting
-in or out while I was awa, and just cam down the gate to see an there was
-ony cracks amang ye."
-
-"Ay, ay," answered Luckie Mucklebackit, "I see you hae gotten a' your
-braws on; ye're looking about for Steenie now--but he's no at hame the
-night; and ye'll no do for Steenie, lass--a feckless thing like you's no
-fit to mainteen a man."
-
-"Steenie will no do for me," retorted Jenny, with a toss of her head that
-might have become a higher-born damsel; "I maun hae a man that can
-mainteen his wife."
-
-"Ou ay, hinny--thae's your landward and burrows-town notions. My certie!
---fisherwives ken better--they keep the man, and keep the house, and keep
-the siller too, lass."
-
-"A wheen poor drudges ye are," answered the nymph of the land to the
-nymph of the sea. "As sune as the keel o' the coble touches the sand,
-deil a bit mair will the lazy fisher loons work, but the wives maun kilt
-their coats, and wade into the surf to tak the fish ashore. And then the
-man casts aff the wat and puts on the dry, and sits down wi' his pipe and
-his gill-stoup ahint the ingle, like ony auld houdie, and neer a turn
-will he do till the coble's afloat again! And the wife she maun get the
-scull on her back, and awa wi' the fish to the next burrows-town, and
-scauld and ban wi'ilka wife that will scauld and ban wi'her till it's
-sauld--and that's the gait fisher-wives live, puir slaving bodies."
-
-"Slaves?--gae wa', lass!--ca' the head o' the house slaves? little ye ken
-about it, lass. Show me a word my Saunders daur speak, or a turn he daur
-do about the house, without it be just to tak his meat, and his drink,
-and his diversion, like ony o' the weans. He has mair sense than to ca'
-anything about the bigging his ain, frae the rooftree down to a crackit
-trencher on the bink. He kens weel eneugh wha feeds him, and cleeds him,
-and keeps a' tight, thack and rape, when his coble is jowing awa in the
-Firth, puir fallow. Na, na, lass!--them that sell the goods guide the
-purse--them that guide the purse rule the house. Show me ane o' yer bits
-o' farmer-bodies that wad let their wife drive the stock to the market,
-and ca' in the debts. Na, na."
-
-"Aweel, aweel, Maggie, ilka land has its ain lauch--But where's Steenie
-the night, when a's come and gane? And where's the gudeman?"*
-
-* Note G. Gyneocracy.
-
-"I hae putten the gudeman to his bed, for he was e'en sair forfain; and
-Steenie's awa out about some barns-breaking wi' the auld gaberlunzie,
-Edie Ochiltree: they'll be in sune, and ye can sit doun."
-
-"Troth, gudewife" (taking a seat), "I haena that muckle time to stop--but
-I maun tell ye about the news. Yell hae heard o' the muckle kist o' gowd
-that Sir Arthur has fund down by at St. Ruth?--He'll be grander than ever
-now--he'll no can haud down his head to sneeze, for fear o' seeing his
-shoon."
-
-"Ou ay--a' the country's heard o' that; but auld Edie says that they ca'
-it ten times mair than ever was o't, and he saw them howk it up. Od, it
-would be lang or a puir body that needed it got sic a windfa'."
-
-"Na, that's sure eneugh.--And yell hae heard o' the Countess o' Glenallan
-being dead and lying in state, and how she's to be buried at St. Ruth's
-as this night fa's, wi' torch-light; and a' the popist servants, and
-Ringan Aikwood, that's a papist too, are to be there, and it will be the
-grandest show ever was seen."
-
-"Troth, hinny," answered the Nereid, "if they let naebody but papists
-come there, it'll no be muckle o' a show in this country, for the auld
-harlot, as honest Mr. Blattergowl ca's her, has few that drink o' her cup
-o' enchantments in this corner o' our chosen lands.--But what can ail
-them to bury the auld carlin (a rudas wife she was) in the night-time?--I
-dare say our gudemither will ken."
-
-Here she exalted her voice, and exclaimed twice or thrice, "Gudemither!
-gudemither!" but, lost in the apathy of age and deafness, the aged sibyl
-she addressed continued plying her spindle without understanding the
-appeal made to her.
-
-"Speak to your grandmither, Jenny--Od, I wad rather hail the coble half a
-mile aff, and the nor-wast wind whistling again in my teeth."
-
-"Grannie," said the little mermaid, in a voice to which the old woman was
-better accustomed, "minnie wants to ken what for the Glenallan folk aye
-bury by candle-light in the ruing of St. Ruth!"
-
-The old woman paused in the act of twirling the spindle, turned round to
-the rest of the party, lifted her withered, trembling, and clay-coloured
-band, raised up her ashen-hued and wrinkled face, which the quick motion
-of two light-blue eyes chiefly distinguished from the visage of a corpse,
-and, as if catching at any touch of association with the living world,
-answered, "What gars the Glenallan family inter their dead by torchlight,
-said the lassie?--Is there a Glenallan dead e'en now?"
-
-"We might be a' dead and buried too," said Maggie, "for onything ye wad
-ken about it;"--and then, raising her voice to the stretch of her
-mother-in-law's comprehension, she added,
-
-"It's the auld Countess, gudemither."
-
-"And is she ca'd hame then at last?" said the old woman, in a voice that
-seemed to be agitated with much more feeling than belonged to her extreme
-old age, and the general indifference and apathy of her manner--"is she
-then called to her last account after her lang race o' pride and power?--
-O God, forgie her!"
-
-"But minnie was asking ye," resumed the lesser querist, "what for the
-Glenallan family aye bury their dead by torch-light?"
-
-"They hae aye dune sae," said the grandmother, "since the time the Great
-Earl fell in the sair battle o' the Harlaw, when they say the coronach
-was cried in ae day from the mouth of the Tay to the Buck of the Cabrach,
-that ye wad hae heard nae other sound but that of lamentation for the
-great folks that had fa'en fighting against Donald of the Isles. But the
-Great Earl's mither was living--they were a doughty and a dour race, the
-women o' the house o' Glenallan--and she wad hae nae coronach cried for
-her son, but had him laid in the silence o' midnight in his place o'
-rest, without either drinking the dirge, or crying the lament. She said
-he had killed enow that day he died, for the widows and daughters o' the
-Highlanders he had slain to cry the coronach for them they had lost, and
-for her son too; and sae she laid him in his gave wi' dry eyes, and
-without a groan or a wail. And it was thought a proud word o' the family,
-and they aye stickit by it--and the mair in the latter times, because in
-the night-time they had mair freedom to perform their popish ceremonies
-by darkness and in secrecy than in the daylight--at least that was the
-case in my time; they wad hae been disturbed in the day-time baith by the
-law and the commons of Fairport--they may be owerlooked now, as I have
-heard: the warlds changed--I whiles hardly ken whether I am standing or
-sitting, or dead or living."
-
-And looking round the fire, as if in a state of unconscious uncertainty
-of which she complained, old Elspeth relapsed into her habitual and
-mechanical occupation of twirling the spindle.
-
-"Eh, sirs!" said Jenny Rintherout, under her breath to her gossip, "it's
-awsome to hear your gudemither break out in that gait--it's like the dead
-speaking to the living."
-
-"Ye're no that far wrang, lass; she minds naething o' what passes the
-day--but set her on auld tales, and she can speak like a prent buke. She
-kens mair about the Glenallan family than maist folk--the gudeman's
-father was their fisher mony a day. Ye maun ken the papists make a great
-point o' eating fish--it's nae bad part o' their religion that, whatever
-the rest is--I could aye sell the best o' fish at the best o' prices for
-the Countess's ain table, grace be wi' her! especially on a Friday--But
-see as our gudemither's hands and lips are ganging--now it's working in
-her head like barm--she'll speak eneugh the night. Whiles she'll no speak
-a word in a week, unless it be to the bits o' bairns."
-
-"Hegh, Mrs. Mucklebackit, she's an awsome wife!" said Jenny in reply.
-"D'ye think she's a'thegither right? Folk say she downa gang to the kirk,
-or speak to the minister, and that she was ance a papist but since her
-gudeman's been dead, naebody kens what she is. D'ye think yoursell that
-she's no uncanny?"
-
-"Canny, ye silly tawpie! think ye ae auld wife's less canny than anither?
-unless it be Alison Breck--I really couldna in conscience swear for her;
-I have kent the boxes she set fill'd wi' partans, when"--
-
-"Whisht, whisht, Maggie," whispered Jenny--"your gudemither's gaun to
-speak again."
-
-"Wasna there some ane o' ye said," asked the old sibyl, "or did I dream,
-or was it revealed to me, that Joscelind, Lady Glenallan, is dead, an'
-buried this night?"
-
-"Yes, gudemither," screamed the daughter-in-law, "it's e'en sae."
-
-"And e'en sae let it be," said old Elspeth; "she's made mony a sair heart
-in her day--ay, e'en her ain son's--is he living yet?"
-
-"Ay, he's living yet; but how lang he'll live--however, dinna ye mind his
-coming and asking after you in the spring, and leaving siller?"
-
-"It may be sae, Magge--I dinna mind it--but a handsome gentleman he was,
-and his father before him. Eh! if his father had lived, they might hae
-been happy folk! But he was gane, and the lady carried it in--ower and
-out-ower wi' her son, and garr'd him trow the thing he never suld hae
-trowed, and do the thing he has repented a' his life, and will repent
-still, were his life as lang as this lang and wearisome ane o' mine."
-
-"O what was it, grannie?"--and "What was it, gudemither?"--and "What was
-it, Luckie Elspeth?" asked the children, the mother, and the visitor, in
-one breath.
-
-"Never ask what it was," answered the old sibyl, "but pray to God that ye
-arena left to the pride and wilfu'ness o' your ain hearts: they may be as
-powerful in a cabin as in a castle--I can bear a sad witness to that. O
-that weary and fearfu' night! will it never gang out o' my auld head!--
-Eh! to see her lying on the floor wi' her lang hair dreeping wi' the salt
-water!--Heaven will avenge on a' that had to do wi't. Sirs! is my son out
-wi' the coble this windy e'en?"
-
-"Na, na, mither--nae coble can keep the sea this wind; he's sleeping in
-his bed out-ower yonder ahint the hallan."
-
-"Is Steenie out at sea then?"
-
-"Na, grannie--Steenie's awa out wi' auld Edie Ochiltree, the gaberlunzie;
-maybe they'll be gaun to see the burial."
-
-"That canna be," said the mother of the family; "we kent naething o't
-till Jock Rand cam in, and tauld us the Aikwoods had warning to attend--
-they keep thae things unco private--and they were to bring the corpse a'
-the way frae the Castle, ten miles off, under cloud o' night. She has
-lain in state this ten days at Glenallan House, in a grand chamber a'
-hung wi' black, and lighted wi' wax cannle."
-
-"God assoilzie her!" ejaculated old Elspeth, her head apparently still
-occupied by the event of the Countess's death; "she was a hard-hearted
-woman, but she's gaen to account for it a', and His mercy is infinite--
-God grant she may find it sae!" And she relapsed into silence, which she
-did not break again during the rest of the evening.
-
-"I wonder what that auld daft beggar carle and our son Steenie can be
-doing out in sic a nicht as this," said Maggie Mucklebackit; and her
-expression of surprise was echoed by her visitor. "Gang awa, ane o' ye,
-hinnies, up to the heugh head, and gie them a cry in case they're within
-hearing; the car-cakes will be burnt to a cinder."
-
-The little emissary departed, but in a few minutes came running back with
-the loud exclamation, "Eh, Minnie! eh, grannie! there's a white bogle
-chasing twa black anes down the heugh."
-
-A noise of footsteps followed this singular annunciation, and young
-Steenie Mucklebackit, closely followed by Edie Ochiltree, bounced into
-the hut. They were panting and out of breath. The first thing Steenie did
-was to look for the bar of the door, which his mother reminded him had
-been broken up for fire-wood in the hard winter three years ago; "for
-what use," she said, "had the like o' them for bars?"
-
-"There's naebody chasing us," said the beggar, after he had taken his
-breath: "we're e'en like the wicked, that flee when no one pursueth."
-
-"Troth, but we were chased," said Steenie, "by a spirit or something
-little better."
-
-"It was a man in white on horseback," said Edie, "for the soft grund that
-wadna bear the beast, flung him about, I wot that weel; but I didna think
-my auld legs could have brought me aff as fast; I ran amaist as fast as
-if I had been at Prestonpans."*
-
-* [This refers to the flight of the government forces at the battle of
-Prestonpans, 1745.]
-
-"Hout, ye daft gowks!" said Luckie Mucklebackit, "it will hae been some
-o' the riders at the Countess's burial."
-
-"What!" said Edie, "is the auld Countess buried the night at St. Ruth's?
-Ou, that wad be the lights and the noise that scarr'd us awa; I wish I
-had ken'd--I wad hae stude them, and no left the man yonder--but they'll
-take care o' him. Ye strike ower hard, Steenie I doubt ye foundered the
-chield."
-
-"Neer a bit," said Steenie, laughing; "he has braw broad shouthers, and I
-just took measure o' them wi' the stang. Od, if I hadna been something
-short wi' him, he wad hae knockit your auld hams out, lad."
-
-"Weel, an I win clear o' this scrape," said Edie, "I'se tempt Providence
-nae mair. But I canna think it an unlawfu' thing to pit a bit trick on
-sic a landlouping scoundrel, that just lives by tricking honester folk."
-
-"But what are we to do with this?" said Steenie, producing a pocket-book.
-
-"Od guide us, man," said Edie in great alarm, "what garr'd ye touch the
-gear? a very leaf o' that pocket-book wad be eneugh to hang us baith."
-
-"I dinna ken," said Steenie; "the book had fa'en out o' his pocket, I
-fancy, for I fand it amang my feet when I was graping about to set him on
-his logs again, and I just pat it in my pouch to keep it safe; and then
-came the tramp of horse, and you cried, Rin, rin,' and I had nae mair
-thought o' the book."
-
-"We maun get it back to the loon some gait or other; ye had better take
-it yoursell, I think, wi' peep o' light, up to Ringan Aikwood's. I wadna
-for a hundred pounds it was fund in our hands."
-
-Steenie undertook to do as he was directed.
-
-"A bonny night ye hae made o't, Mr. Steenie," said Jenny Rintherout, who,
-impatient of remaining so long unnoticed, now presented herself to the
-young fisherman--"A bonny night ye hae made o't, tramping about wi'
-gaberlunzies, and getting yoursell hunted wi' worricows, when ye suld be
-sleeping in your bed, like your father, honest man."
-
-This attack called forth a suitable response of rustic raillery from the
-young fisherman. An attack was now commenced upon the car-cakes and
-smoked fish, and sustained with great perseverance by assistance of a
-bicker or two of twopenny ale and a bottle of gin. The mendicant then
-retired to the straw of an out-house adjoining,--the children had one by
-one crept into their nests,--the old grandmother was deposited in her
-flock-bed,--Steenie, notwithstanding his preceding fatigue, had the
-gallantry to accompany Miss Rintherout to her own mansion, and at what
-hour he returned the story saith not,--and the matron of the family,
-having laid the gathering-coal upon the fire, and put things in some sort
-of order, retired to rest the last of the family.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER SIXTH.
-
-                           --Many great ones
-          Would part with half their states, to have the plan
-                 And credit to beg in the first style.
-                                            Beggar's Bush.
-
-Old Edie was stirring with the lark, and his first inquiry was after
-Steenie and the pocket-book. The young fisherman had been under the
-necessity of attending his father before daybreak, to avail themselves of
-the tide, but he had promised that, immediately on his return, the
-pocket-book, with all its contents, carefully wrapped up in a piece of
-sail-cloth, should be delivered by him to Ringan Aikwood, for
-Dousterswivel, the owner.
-
-The matron had prepared the morning meal for the family, and, shouldering
-her basket of fish, tramped sturdily away towards Fairport. The children
-were idling round the door, for the day was fair and sun-shiney. The
-ancient grandame, again seated on her wicker-chair by the fire, had
-resumed her eternal spindle, wholly unmoved by the yelling and screaming
-of the children, and the scolding of the mother, which had preceded the
-dispersion of the family. Edie had arranged his various bags, and was
-bound for the renewal of his wandering life, but first advanced with due
-courtesy to take his leave of the ancient crone.
-
-"Gude day to ye, cummer, and mony ane o' them. I will be back about the
-fore-end o'har'st, and I trust to find ye baith haill and fere."
-
-"Pray that ye may find me in my quiet grave," said the old woman, in a
-hollow and sepulchral voice, but without the agitation of a single
-feature.
-
-"Ye're auld, cummer, and sae am I mysell; but we maun abide His will--
-we'll no be forgotten in His good time."
-
-"Nor our deeds neither," said the crone: "what's dune in the body maun be
-answered in the spirit."
-
-"I wot that's true; and I may weel tak the tale hame to mysell, that hae
-led a misruled and roving life. But ye were aye a canny wife. We're a'
-frail--but ye canna hae sae muckle to bow ye down."
-
-"Less than I might have had--but mair, O far mair, than wad sink the
-stoutest brig e'er sailed out o' Fairport harbour!--Didna somebody say
-yestreen--at least sae it is borne in on my mind, but auld folk hae weak
-fancies--did not somebody say that Joscelind, Countess of Glenallan, was
-departed frae life?"
-
-"They said the truth whaever said it," answered old Edie; "she was buried
-yestreen by torch-light at St. Ruth's, and I, like a fule, gat a gliff
-wi' seeing the lights and the riders."
-
-"It was their fashion since the days of the Great Earl that was killed at
-Harlaw;--they did it to show scorn that they should die and be buried
-like other mortals; the wives o' the house of Glenallan wailed nae wail
-for the husband, nor the sister for the brother.--But is she e'en ca'd to
-the lang account?"
-
-"As sure," answered Edie, "as we maun a' abide it."
-
-"Then I'll unlade my mind, come o't what will."
-
-This she spoke with more alacrity than usually attended her expressions,
-and accompanied her words with an attitude of the hand, as if throwing
-something from her. She then raised up her form, once tall, and still
-retaining the appearance of having been so, though bent with age and
-rheumatism, and stood before the beggar like a mummy animated by some
-wandering spirit into a temporary resurrection. Her light-blue eyes
-wandered to and fro, as if she occasionally forgot and again remembered
-the purpose for which her long and withered hand was searching among the
-miscellaneous contents of an ample old-fashioned pocket. At length she
-pulled out a small chip-box, and opening it, took out a handsome ring, in
-which was set a braid of hair, composed of two different colours, black
-and light brown, twined together, encircled with brilliants of
-considerable value.
-
-"Gudeman," she said to Ochiltree, "as ye wad e'er deserve mercy, ye maun
-gang my errand to the house of Glenallan, and ask for the Earl."
-
-"The Earl of Glenallan, cummer! ou, he winna see ony o' the gentles o'
-the country, and what likelihood is there that he wad see the like o' an
-auld gaberlunzie?"
-
-"Gang your ways and try;--and tell him that Elspeth o' the Craigburnfoot
---he'll mind me best by that name--maun see him or she be relieved frae
-her lang pilgrimage, and that she sends him that ring in token of the
-business she wad speak o'."
-
-Ochiltree looked on the ring with some admiration of its apparent value,
-and then carefully replacing it in the box, and wrapping it in an old
-ragged handkerchief, he deposited the token in his bosom.
-
-"Weel, gudewife," he said, "I'se do your bidding, or it's no be my fault.
-But surely there was never sic a braw propine as this sent to a yerl by
-an auld fishwife, and through the hands of a gaberlunzie beggar."
-
-With this reflection, Edie took up his pike-staff, put on his
-broad-brimmed bonnet, and set forth upon his pilgrimage. The old woman
-remained for some time standing in a fixed posture, her eyes directed to
-the door through which her ambassador had departed. The appearance of
-excitation, which the conversation had occasioned, gradually left her
-features; she sank down upon her accustomed seat, and resumed her
-mechanical labour of the distaff and spindle, with her wonted air of
-apathy.
-
-Edie Ochiltree meanwhile advanced on his journey. The distance to
-Glenallan was ten miles, a march which the old soldier accomplished in
-about four hours. With the curiosity belonging to his idle trade and
-animated character, he tortured himself the whole way to consider what
-could be the meaning of this mysterious errand with which he was
-entrusted, or what connection the proud, wealthy, and powerful Earl of
-Glenallan could have with the crimes or penitence of an old doting woman,
-whose rank in life did not greatly exceed that of her messenger. He
-endeavoured to call to memory all that he had ever known or heard of the
-Glenallan family, yet, having done so, remained altogether unable to form
-a conjecture on the subject. He knew that the whole extensive estate of
-this ancient and powerful family had descended to the Countess, lately
-deceased, who inherited, in a most remarkable degree, the stern, fierce,
-and unbending character which had distinguished the house of Glenallan
-since they first figured in Scottish annals. Like the rest of her
-ancestors, she adhered zealously to the Roman Catholic faith, and was
-married to an English gentleman of the same communion, and of large
-fortune, who did not survive their union two years. The Countess was,
-therefore, left all early widow, with the uncontrolled management of the
-large estates of her two sons. The elder, Lord Geraldin, who was to
-succeed to the title and fortune of Glenallan, was totally dependent on
-his mother during her life. The second, when he came of age, assumed the
-name and arms of his father, and took possession of his estate, according
-to the provisions of the Countess's marriage-settlement. After this
-period, he chiefly resided in England, and paid very few and brief visits
-to his mother and brother; and these at length were altogether dispensed
-with, in consequence of his becoming a convert to the reformed religion.
-
-But even before this mortal offence was given to its mistress, his
-residence at Glenallan offered few inducements to a gay young man like
-Edward Geraldin Neville, though its gloom and seclusion seemed to suit
-the retired and melancholy habits of his elder brother. Lord Geraldin, in
-the outset of life, had been a young man of accomplishment and hopes.
-Those who knew him upon his travels entertained the highest expectations
-of his future career. But such fair dawns are often strangely overcast.
-The young nobleman returned to Scotland, and after living about a year in
-his mother's society at Glenallan House, he seemed to have adopted all
-the stern gloom and melancholy of her character. Excluded from politics
-by the incapacities attached to those of his religion, and from all
-lighter avocationas by choice, Lord Geraldin led a life of the strictest
-retirement. His ordinary society was composed of the clergyman of his
-communion, who occasionally visited his mansion; and very rarely, upon
-stated occasions of high festival, one or two families who still
-professed the Catholic religion were formally entertained at Glenallan
-House. But this was all; their heretic neighbours knew nothing of the
-family whatever; and even the Catholics saw little more than the
-sumptuous entertainment and solemn parade which was exhibited on those
-formal occasions, from which all returned without knowing whether most to
-wonder at the stern and stately demeanour of the Countess, or the deep
-and gloomy dejection which never ceased for a moment to cloud the
-features of her son. The late event had put him in possession of his
-fortune and title, and the neighbourhood had already begun to conjecture
-whether gaiety would revive with independence, when those who had some
-occasional acquaintance with the interior of the family spread abroad a
-report, that the Earl's constitution was undermined by religious
-austerities, and that in all probability he would soon follow his mother
-to the grave. This event was the more probable, as his brother had died
-of a lingering complaint, which, in the latter years of his life, had
-affected at once his frame and his spirits; so that heralds and
-genealogists were already looking back into their records to discover the
-heir of this ill-fated family, and lawyers were talking with gleesome
-anticipation, of the probability of a "great Glenallan cause."
-
-As Edie Ochiltree approached the front of Glenallan House,* an ancient
-building of great extent, the most modern part of which had been designed
-by the celebrated Inigo Jones, he began to consider in what way he should
-be most likely to gain access for delivery of his message; and, after
-much consideration, resolved to send the token to the Earl by one of the
-domestics.
-
-* [Supposed to represent Glammis Castle, in Forfarshire, with which the
-Author was well acquainted.]
-
-With this purpose he stopped at a cottage, where he obtained the means of
-making up the ring in a sealed packet like a petition, addressed, _Forr
-his hounor the Yerl of Glenllan--These._ But being aware that missives
-delivered at the doors of great houses by such persons as himself, do not
-always make their way according to address, Edie determined, like an old
-soldier, to reconnoitre the ground before he made his final attack. As he
-approached the porter's lodge, he discovered, by the number of poor
-ranked before it, some of them being indigent persons in the vicinity,
-and others itinerants of his own begging profession,--that there was
-about to be a general dole or distribution of charity.
-
-"A good turn," said Edie to himself, "never goes unrewarded--I'll maybe
-get a good awmous that I wad hae missed but for trotting on this auld
-wife's errand."
-
-Accordingly, he ranked up with the rest of this ragged regiment, assuming
-a station as near the front as possible,--a distinction due, as he
-conceived, to his blue gown and badge, no less than to his years and
-experience; but he soon found there was another principle of precedence
-in this assembly, to which he had not adverted.
-
-"Are ye a triple man, friend, that ye press forward sae bauldly?--I'm
-thinking no, for there's nae Catholics wear that badge."
-
-"Na, na, I am no a Roman," said Edie.
-
-"Then shank yoursell awa to the double folk, or single folk, that's the
-Episcopals or Presbyterians yonder: it's a shame to see a heretic hae sic
-a lang white beard, that would do credit to a hermit."
-
-Ochiltree, thus rejected from the society of the Catholic mendicants, or
-those who called themselves such, went to station himself with the
-paupers of the communion of the church of England, to whom the noble
-donor allotted a double portion of his charity. But never was a poor
-occasional conformist more roughly rejected by a High-church
-congregation, even when that matter was furiously agitated in the days of
-good Queen Anne.
-
-"See to him wi' his badge!" they said;--"he hears ane o' the king's
-Presbyterian chaplains sough out a sermon on the morning of every
-birth-day, and now he would pass himsell for ane o' the Episcopal church!
-Na, na!--we'll take care o' that."
-
-Edie, thus rejected by Rome and Prelacy, was fain to shelter himself from
-the laughter of his brethren among the thin group of Presbyterians, who
-had either disdained to disguise their religious opinions for the sake of
-an augmented dole, or perhaps knew they could not attempt the imposition
-without a certainty of detection.
-
-The same degree of precedence was observed in the mode of distributing
-the charity, which consisted in bread, beef, and a piece of money, to
-each individual of all the three classes. The almoner, an ecclesiastic of
-grave appearance and demeanour, superintended in person the accommodation
-of the Catholic mendicants, asking a question or two of each as he
-delivered the charity, and recommending to their prayers the soul of
-Joscelind, late Countess of Glenallan, mother of their benefactor. The
-porter, distinguished by his long staff headed with silver, and by the
-black gown tufted with lace of the same colour, which he had assumed upon
-the general mourning in the family, overlooked the distribution of the
-dole among the prelatists. The less-favoured kirk-folk were committed to
-the charge of an aged domestic.
-
-As this last discussed some disputed point with the porter, his name, as
-it chanced to be occasionally mentioned, and then his features, struck
-Ochiltree, and awakened recollections of former times. The rest of the
-assembly were now retiring, when the domestic, again approaching the
-place where Edie still lingered, said, in a strong Aberdeenshire accent,
-"Fat is the auld feel-body deeing, that he canna gang avay, now that he's
-gotten baith meat and siller?"
-
-"Francis Macraw," answered Edie Ochiltree, "d'ye no mind Fontenoy, and
-keep thegither front and rear?'"
-
-"Ohon! ohon!" cried Francie, with a true north-country yell of
-recognition, "naebody could hae said that word but my auld front-rank
-man, Edie Ochiltree! But I'm sorry to see ye in sic a peer state, man."
-
-"No sae ill aff as ye may think, Francis. But I'm laith to leave this
-place without a crack wi' you, and I kenna when I may see you again, for
-your folk dinna mak Protestants welcome, and that's ae reason that I hae
-never been here before."
-
-"Fusht, fusht," said Francie, "let that flee stick i' the wa'--when the
-dirt's dry it will rub out;--and come you awa wi' me, and I'll gie ye
-something better thau that beef bane, man."
-
-Having then spoke a confidential word with the porter (probably to
-request his connivance), and having waited until the almoner had returned
-into the house with slow and solemn steps, Francie Macraw introduced his
-old comrade into the court of Glenallan House, the gloomy gateway of
-which was surmounted by a huge scutcheon, in which the herald and
-undertaker had mingled, as usual, the emblems of human pride and of human
-nothingness,--the Countess's hereditary coat-of-arms, with all its
-numerous quarterings, disposed in a lozenge, and surrounded by the
-separate shields of her paternal and maternal ancestry, intermingled with
-scythes, hour glasses, skulls, and other symbols of that mortality which
-levels all distinctions. Conducting his friend as speedily as possible
-along the large paved court, Macraw led the way through a side-door to a
-small apartment near the servants' hall, which, in virtue of his personal
-attendance upon the Earl of Glenallan, he was entitled to call his own.
-To produce cold meat of various kinds, strong beer, and even a glass of
-spirits, was no difficulty to a person of Francis's importance, who had
-not lost, in his sense of conscious dignity, the keen northern prudence
-which recommended a good understanding with the butler. Our mendicant
-envoy drank ale, and talked over old stories with his comrade, until, no
-other topic of conversation occurring, he resolved to take up the theme
-of his embassy, which had for some time escaped his memory.
-
-"He had a petition to present to the Earl," he said;--for he judged it
-prudent to say nothing of the ring, not knowing, as he afterwards
-observed, how far the manners of a single soldier* might have been
-corrupted by service in a great house.
-
-* A single soldier means, in Scotch, a private soldier.
-
-"Hout, tout, man," said Francie, "the Earl will look at nae petitions--
-but I can gie't to the almoner."
-
-"But it relates to some secret, that maybe my lord wad like best to see't
-himsell."
-
-"I'm jeedging that's the very reason that the almoner will be for seeing
-it the first and foremost."
-
-"But I hae come a' this way on purpose to deliver it, Francis, and ye
-really maun help me at a pinch."
-
-"Neer speed then if I dinna," answered the Aberdeenshire man: "let them
-be as cankered as they like, they can but turn me awa, and I was just
-thinking to ask my discharge, and gang down to end my days at Inverurie."
-
-With this doughty resolution of serving his friend at all ventures, since
-none was to be encountered which could much inconvenience himself,
-Francie Macraw left the apartment. It was long before he returned, and
-when he did, his manner indicated wonder and agitation.
-
-"I am nae seer gin ye be Edie Ochiltree o' Carrick's company in the
-Forty-twa, or gin ye be the deil in his likeness!"
-
-"And what makes ye speak in that gait?" demanded the astonished
-mendicant.
-
-"Because my lord has been in sic a distress and surpreese as I neer saw a
-man in my life. But he'll see you--I got that job cookit. He was like a
-man awa frae himsell for mony minutes, and I thought he wad hae swarv't
-a'thegither,--and fan he cam to himsell, he asked fae brought the packet
---and fat trow ye I said?"
-
-"An auld soger," says Edie--"that does likeliest at a gentle's door; at a
-farmer's it's best to say ye're an auld tinkler, if ye need ony quarters,
-for maybe the gudewife will hae something to souther."
-
-"But I said neer ane o' the twa," answered Francis; "my lord cares as
-little about the tane as the tother--for he's best to them that can
-souther up our sins. Sae I e'en said the bit paper was brought by an auld
-man wi' a long fite beard--he might be a capeechin freer for fat I ken'd,
-for he was dressed like an auld palmer. Sae ye'll be sent up for fanever
-he can find mettle to face ye."
-
-"I wish I was weel through this business," thought Edie to himself; "mony
-folk surmise that the Earl's no very right in the judgment, and wha can
-say how far he may be offended wi' me for taking upon me sae muckle?"
-
-But there was now no room for retreat--a bell sounded from a distant part
-of the mansion, and Macraw said, with a smothered accent, as if already
-in his master's presence, "That's my lord's bell!--follow me, and step
-lightly and cannily, Edie."
-
-Edie followed his guide, who seemed to tread as if afraid of being
-overheard, through a long passage, and up a back stair, which admitted
-them into the family apartments. They were ample and extensive, furnished
-at such cost as showed the ancient importance and splendour of the
-family. But all the ornaments were in the taste of a former and distant
-period, and one would have almost supposed himself traversing the halls
-of a Scottish nobleman before the union of the crowns. The late Countess,
-partly from a haughty contempt of the times in which she lived, partly
-from her sense of family pride, had not permitted the furniture to be
-altered or modernized during her residence at Glenallan House. The most
-magnificent part of the decorations was a valuable collection of pictures
-by the best masters, whose massive frames were somewhat tarnished by
-time. In this particular also the gloomy taste of the family seemed to
-predominate. There were some fine family portraits by Vandyke and other
-masters of eminence; but the collection was richest in the Saints and
-Martyrdoms of Domenichino, Velasquez, and Murillo, and other subjects of
-the same kind, which had been selected in preference to landscapes or
-historical pieces. The manner in which these awful, and sometimes
-disgusting, subjects were represented, harmonized with the gloomy state
-of the apartments,--a circumstance which was not altogether lost on the
-old man, as he traversed them under the guidance of his quondam
-fellow-soldier. He was about to express some sentiment of this kind, but
-Francie imposed silence on him by signs, and opening a door at the end of
-the long picture-gallery, ushered him into a small antechamber hung with
-black. Here they found the almoner, with his ear turned to a door
-opposite that by which they entered, in the attitude of one who listens
-with attention, but is at the same time afraid of being detected in the
-act.
-
-The old domestic and churchman started when they perceived each other.
-But the almoner first recovered his recollection, and advancing towards
-Macraw, said, under his breath, but with an authoritative tone, "How dare
-you approach the Earl's apartment without knocking? and who is this
-stranger, or what has he to do here?--Retire to the gallery, and wait for
-me there."
-
-"It's impossible just now to attend your reverence," answered Macraw,
-raising his voice so as to be heard in the next room, being conscious
-that the priest would not maintain the altercation within hearing of his
-patron,--"the Earl's bell has rung."
-
-He had scarce uttered the words, when it was rung again with greater
-violence than before; and the ecclesiastic, perceiving further
-expostulation impossible, lifted his finger at Macraw, with a menacing
-attitude, as he left the apartment.
-
-"I tell'd ye sae," said the Aberdeen man in a whisper to Edie, and then
-proceeded to open the door near which they had observed the chaplain
-stationed.
-
-
-
-
-                            CHAPTER SEVENTH.
-
-
-                             --This ring.--
-               This little ring, with necromantic force,
-               Has raised the ghost of pleasure to my fears,
-               Conjured the sense of honour and of love
-               Into such shapes, they fright me from myself.
-                                     The Fatal Marriage.
-
-The ancient forms of mourning were observed in Glenallan House,
-notwithstanding the obduracy with which the members of the family were
-popularly supposed to refuse to the dead the usual tribute of
-lamentation. It was remarked, that when she received the fatal letter
-announcing the death of her second, and, as was once believed, her
-favourite son, the hand of the Countess did not shake, nor her eyelid
-twinkle, any more than upon perusal of a letter of ordinary business.
-Heaven only knows whether the suppression of maternal sorrow, which her
-pride commanded, might not have some effect in hastening her own death.
-It was at least generally supposed that the apoplectic stroke, which so
-soon afterwards terminated her existence, was, as it were, the vengeance
-of outraged Nature for the restraint to which her feelings had been
-subjected. But although Lady Glenallan forebore the usual external signs
-of grief, she had caused many of the apartments, amongst others her own
-and that of the Earl, to be hung with the exterior trappings of woe.
-
-The Earl of Glenallan was therefore seated in an apartment hung with
-black cloth, which waved in dusky folds along its lofty walls. A screen,
-also covered with black baize, placed towards the high and narrow window,
-intercepted much of the broken light which found its way through the
-stained glass, that represented, with such skill as the fourteenth
-century possessed, the life and sorrows of the prophet Jeremiah. The
-table at which the Earl was seated was lighted with two lamps wrought in
-silver, shedding that unpleasant and doubtful light which arises from the
-mingling of artificial lustre with that of general daylight. The same
-table displayed a silver crucifix, and one or two clasped parchment
-books. A large picture, exquisitely painted by Spagnoletto, represented
-the martyrdom of St. Stephen, and was the only ornament of the apartment.
-
-The inhabitant and lord of this disconsolate chamber was a man not past
-the prime of life, yet so broken down with disease and mental misery, so
-gaunt and ghastly, that he appeared but a wreck of manhood; and when he
-hastily arose and advanced towards his visitor, the exertion seemed
-almost to overpower his emaciated frame. As they met in the midst of the
-apartment, the contrast they exhibited was very striking. The hale cheek,
-firm step, erect stature, and undaunted presence and bearing of the old
-mendicant, indicated patience and content in the extremity of age, and in
-the lowest condition to which humanity can sink; while the sunken eye,
-pallid cheek, and tottering form of the nobleman with whom he was
-confronted, showed how little wealth, power, and even the advantages of
-youth, have to do with that which gives repose to the mind, and firmness
-to the frame.
-
-The Earl met the old man in the middle of the room, and having commanded
-his attendant to withdraw into the gallery, and suffer no one to enter
-the antechamber till he rung the bell, awaited, with hurried yet fearful
-impatience, until he heard first the door of his apartment, and then that
-of the antechamber, shut and fastened by the spring-bolt. When he was
-satisfied with this security against being overheard, Lord Glenallan came
-close up to the mendicant, whom he probably mistook for some person of a
-religious order in disguise, and said, in a hasty yet faltering tone, "In
-the name of all our religion holds most holy, tell me, reverend father,
-what am I to expect from a communication opened by a token connected with
-such horrible recollections?"
-
-The old man, appalled by a manner so different from what he had expected
-from the proud and powerful nobleman, was at a loss how to answer, and in
-what manner to undeceive him. "Tell me," continued the Earl, in a tone of
-increasing trepidation and agony--"tell me, do you come to say that all
-that has been done to expiate guilt so horrible, has been too little and
-too trivial for the offence, and to point out new and more efficacious
-modes of severe penance?--I will not blench from it, father--let me
-suffer the pains of my crime here in the body, rather than hereafter in
-the spirit!"
-
-Edie had now recollection enough to perceive, that if he did not
-interrapt the frankness of Lord Glenallan's admissions, he was likely to
-become the confidant of more than might be safe for him to know. He
-therefore uttered with a hasty and trembling voice--"Your lordship's
-honour is mistaken--I am not of your persuasion, nor a clergyman, but,
-with all reverence, only puir Edie Ochiltree, the king's bedesman and
-your honour's."
-
-This explanation be accompanied by a profound bow after his manner, and
-then, drawing himself up erect, rested his arm on his staff, threw back
-his long white hair, and fixed his eyes upon the Earl, as he waited for
-an answer.
-
-"And you are not then," said Lord Glenallan, after a pause of surprise--
-"You are not then a Catholic priest?"
-
-"God forbid!" said Edie, forgetting in his confusion to whom he was
-speaking; "I am only the king's bedesman and your honour's, as I said
-before."
-
-The Earl turned hastily away, and paced the room twice or thrice, as if
-to recover the effects of his mistake, and then, coming close up to the
-mendicant, he demanded, in a stern and commanding tone, what he meant by
-intruding himself on his privacy, and from whence he had got the ring
-which he had thought proper to send him. Edie, a man of much spirit, was
-less daunted at this mode of interrogation than he had been confused by
-the tone of confidence in which the Earl had opened their conversation.
-To the reiterated question from whom he had obtained the ring, he
-answered composedly, "From one who was better known to the Earl than to
-him."
-
-"Better known to me, fellow?" said Lord Glenallan: "what is your
-meaning?--explain yourself instantly, or you shall experience the
-consequence of breaking in upon the hours of family distress."
-
-"It was auld Elspeth Mucklebackit that sent me here," said the beggar,
-"in order to say"--
-
-"You dote, old man!" said the Earl; "I never heard the name--but this
-dreadful token reminds me"--
-
-"I mind now, my lord," said Ochiltree, "she tauld me your lordship would
-be mair familiar wi' her, if I ca'd her Elspeth o' the Craigburnfoot--she
-had that name when she lived on your honour's land, that is, your
-honour's worshipful mother's that was then--Grace be wi' her!"
-
-"Ay," said the appalled nobleman, as his countenance sunk, and his cheek
-assumed a hue yet more cadaverous; "that name is indeed written in the
-most tragic page of a deplorable history. But what can she desire of me?
-Is she dead or living?"
-
-"Living, my lord; and entreats to see your lordship before she dies, for
-she has something to communicate that hangs upon her very soul, and she
-says she canna flit in peace until she sees you."
-
-"Not until she sees me!--what can that mean? But she is doting with age
-and infirmity. I tell thee, friend, I called at her cottage myself, not a
-twelvemonth since, from a report that she was in distress, and she did
-not even know my face or voice."
-
-"If your honour wad permit me," said Edie, to whom the length of the
-conference restored a part of his professional audacity and native
-talkativeness--"if your honour wad but permit me, I wad say, under
-correction of your lordship's better judgment, that auld Elspeth's like
-some of the ancient ruined strengths and castles that ane sees amang the
-hills. There are mony parts of her mind that appear, as I may say, laid
-waste and decayed, but then there's parts that look the steever, and the
-stronger, and the grander, because they are rising just like to fragments
-amaong the ruins o' the rest. She's an awful woman."
-
-"She always was so," said the Earl, almost unconsciously echoing the
-observation of the mendicant; "she always was different from other women
---likest perhaps to her who is now no more, in her temper and turn of
-mind.--She wishes to see me, then?"
-
-"Before she dies," said Edie, "she earnestly entreats that pleasure."
-
-"It will be a pleasure to neither of us," said the Earl, sternly, "yet
-she shall be gratified. She lives, I think, on the sea-shore to the
-southward of Fairport?"
-
-"Just between Monkbarns and Knockwinnock Castle, but nearer to Monkbarns.
-Your lordship's honour will ken the laird and Sir Arthur, doubtless?"
-
-A stare, as if he did not comprehend the question, was Lord Glenallan's
-answer. Edie saw his mind was elsewhere, and did not venture to repeat a
-query which was so little germain to the matter.
-
-"Are you a Catholic, old man?" demanded the Earl.
-
-"No, my lord," said Ochiltree stoutly; for the remembrance of the unequal
-division of the dole rose in his mind at the moment; "I thank Heaven I am
-a good Protestant."
-
-"He who can conscientiously call himself _good,_ has indeed reason to
-thank Heaven, be his form of Christianity what it will--But who is he
-that shall dare to do so!"
-
-"Not I," said Edie; "I trust to beware of the sin of presumption."
-
-"What was your trade in your youth?" continued the Earl.
-
-"A soldier, my lord; and mony a sair day's kemping I've seen. I was to
-have been made a sergeant, but"--
-
-"A soldier! then you have slain and burnt, and sacked and spoiled?"
-
-"I winna say," replied Edie, "that I have been better than my
-neighbours;--it's a rough trade--war's sweet to them that never tried
-it."
-
-"And you are now old and miserable, asking from precarious charity the
-food which in your youth you tore from the hand of the poor peasant?"
-
-"I am a beggar, it is true, my lord; but I am nae just sae miserable
-neither. For my sins, I hae had grace to repent of them, if I might say
-sae, and to lay them where they may be better borne than by me; and for
-my food, naebody grudges an auld man a bit and a drink--Sae I live as I
-can, and am contented to die when I am ca'd upon."
-
-"And thus, then, with little to look back upon that is pleasant or
-praiseworthy in your past life--with less to look forward to on this side
-of eternity, you are contented to drag out the rest of your existence?
-Go, begone! and in your age and poverty and weariness, never envy the
-lord of such a mansion as this, either in his sleeping or waking moments
---Here is something for thee."
-
-The Earl put into the old man's hand five or six guineas. Edie would
-perhaps have stated his scruples, as upon other occasions, to the amount
-of the benefaction, but the tone of Lord Glenallan was too absolute to
-admit of either answer or dispute. The Earl then called his servant--"See
-this old man safe from the castle--let no one ask him any questions--and
-you, friend, begone, and forget the road that leads to my house."
-
-"That would be difficult for me," said Edie, looking at the gold which he
-still held in his hand, "that would be e'en difficult, since your honour
-has gien me such gade cause to remember it."
-
-Lord Glenallan stared, as hardly comprehending the old man's boldness in
-daring to bandy words with him, and, with his hand, made him another
-signal of departure, which the mendicant instantly obeyed.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER EIGHTH.
-
-                For he was one in all their idle sport,
-               And like a monarch, ruled their little court
-               The pliant bow he formed, the flying ball,
-               The bat, the wicket, were his labours all.
-                                         Crabbe's Village.
-
-Francis Macraw, agreeably to the commands of his master, attended the
-mendicant, in order to see him fairly out of the estate, without
-permitting him to have conversation, or intercourse, with any of the
-Earl's dependents or domestics. But, judiciously considering that the
-restriction did not extend to himself, who was the person entrusted with
-the convoy, he used every measure in his power to extort from Edie the
-nature of his confidential and secret interview with Lord Glenallan. But
-Edie had been in his time accustomed to cross-examination, and easily
-evaded those of his quondam comrade. "The secrets of grit folk," said
-Ochiltree within himself, "are just like the wild beasts that are shut up
-in cages. Keep them hard and fast sneaked up, and it's a' very weel or
-better--but ance let them out, they will turn and rend you. I mind how
-ill Dugald Gunn cam aff for letting loose his tongue about the Major's
-leddy and Captain Bandilier."
-
-Francis was therefore foiled in his assaults upon the fidelity of the
-mendicant, and, like an indifferent chess-player, became, at every
-unsuccessful movement, more liable to the counter-checks of his opponent.
-
-"Sae ye uphauld ye had nae particulars to say to my lord but about yer
-ain matters?"
-
-"Ay, and about the wee bits o' things I had brought frae abroad," said
-Edie. "I ken'd you popist folk are unco set on the relics that are
-fetched frae far-kirks and sae forth."
-
-"Troth, my Lord maun be turned feel outright," said the domestic, "an he
-puts himsell into sic a carfuffle, for onything ye could bring him,
-Edie."
-
-"I doubtna ye may say true in the main, neighbour," replied the beggar;
-"but maybe he's had some hard play in his younger days, Francis, and that
-whiles unsettles folk sair."
-
-"Troth, Edie, and ye may say that--and since it's like yell neer come
-back to the estate, or, if ye dee, that ye'll no find me there, I'se e'en
-tell you he had a heart in his young time sae wrecked and rent, that it's
-a wonder it hasna broken outright lang afore this day."
-
-"Ay, say ye sae?" said Ochiltree; "that maun hae been about a woman, I
-reckon?"
-
-"Troth, and ye hae guessed it," said Francie--"jeest a cusin o' his nain
---Miss Eveline Neville, as they suld hae ca'd her;--there was a sough in
-the country about it, but it was hushed up, as the grandees were
-concerned;--it's mair than twenty years syne--ay, it will be
-three-and-twenty."
-
-"Ay, I was in America then," said the mendicant, "and no in the way to
-hear the country clashes."
-
-"There was little clash about it, man," replied Macraw; "he liked this
-young leddy, ana suld hae married her, but his mother fand it out, and
-then the deil gaed o'er Jock Webster. At last, the peer lass clodded
-hersell o'er the scaur at the Craigburnfoot into the sea, and there was
-an end o't."
-
-"An end ot wi' the puir leddy," said the mendicant, "but, as I reckon,
-nae end o't wi' the yerl."
-
-"Nae end o't till his life makes an end," answered the Aberdonian.
-
-"But what for did the auld Countess forbid the marriage?" continued the
-persevering querist.
-
-"Fat for!--she maybe didna weel ken for fat hersell, for she gar'd a' bow
-to her bidding, right or wrang--But it was ken'd the young leddy was
-inclined to some o' the heresies of the country--mair by token, she was
-sib to him nearer than our Church's rule admits of. Sae the leddy was
-driven to the desperate act, and the yerl has never since held his head
-up like a man."
-
-"Weel away!" replied Ochiltree:--"it's e'en queer I neer heard this tale
-afore."
-
-"It's e'en queer that ye heard it now, for deil ane o' the servants durst
-hae spoken o't had the auld Countess been living. Eh, man, Edie! but she
-was a trimmer--it wad hae taen a skeely man to hae squared wi' her!--But
-she's in her grave, and we may loose our tongues a bit fan we meet a
-friend.--But fare ye weel, Edie--I maun be back to the evening-service.
-An' ye come to Inverurie maybe sax months awa, dinna forget to ask after
-Francie Macraw."
-
-What one kindly pressed, the other as firmly promised; and the friends
-having thus parted, with every testimony of mutual regard, the domestic
-of Lord Glenallan took his road back to the seat of his master, leaving
-Ochiltree to trace onward his habitual pilgrimage.
-
-It was a fine summer evening, and the world--that is, the little circle
-which was all in all to the individual by whom it was trodden, lay before
-Edie Ochiltree, for the choosing of his night's quarters. When he had
-passed the less hospitable domains of Glenallan, he had in his option so
-many places of refuge for the evening, that he was nice, and even
-fastidious in the choice. Ailie Sim's public was on the road-side about a
-mile before him, but there would be a parcel of young fellows there on
-the Saturday night, and that was a bar to civil conversation. Other
-"gudemen and gudewives," as the farmers and their dames are termed in
-Scotland, successively presented themselves to his imagination. But one
-was deaf, and could not hear him; another toothless, and could not make
-him hear; a third had a cross temper; and a fourth an ill-natured
-house-dog. At Monkbarns or Knockwinnock he was sure of a favourable and
-hospitable reception; but they lay too distant to be conveniently reached
-that night.
-
-"I dinna ken how it is," said the old man, "but I am nicer about my
-quarters this night than ever I mind having been in my life. I think,
-having seen a' the braws yonder, and finding out ane may be happier
-without them, has made me proud o' my ain lot--But I wuss it bode me
-gude, for pride goeth before destruction. At ony rate, the warst barn
-e'er man lay in wad be a pleasanter abode than Glenallan House, wi' a'
-the pictures and black velvet, and silver bonny-wawlies belonging to it--
-Sae I'll e'en settle at ance, and put in for Ailie Sims."
-
-As the old man descended the hill above the little hamlet to which he was
-bending his course, the setting sun had relieved its inmates from their
-labour, and the young men, availing themselves of the fine evening, were
-engaged in the sport of long-bowls on a patch of common, while the women
-and elders looked on. The shout, the laugh, the exclamations of winners
-and losers, came in blended chorus up the path which Ochiltree was
-descending, and awakened in his recollection the days when he himself had
-been a keen competitor, and frequently victor, in games of strength and
-agility. These remembrances seldom fail to excite a sigh, even when the
-evening of life is cheered by brighter prospects than those of our poor
-mendicant. "At that time of day," was his natural reflection, "I would
-have thought as little about ony auld palmering body that was coming down
-the edge of Kinblythemont, as ony o' thae stalwart young chiels does
-e'enow about auld Edie Ochiltree."
-
-He was, however, presently cheered, by finding that more importance was
-attached to his arrival than his modesty had anticipated. A disputed cast
-had occurred between the bands of players, and as the gauger favoured the
-one party, and the schoolmaster the other, the matter might be said to be
-taken up by the higher powers. The miller and smith, also, had espoused
-different sides, and, considering the vivacity of two such disputants,
-there was reason to doubt whether the strife might be amicably
-terminated. But the first person who caught a sight of the mendicant
-exclaimed, "Ah! here comes auld Edie, that kens the rules of a' country
-games better than ony man that ever drave a bowl, or threw an axle-tree,
-or putted a stane either;--let's hae nae quarrelling, callants--we'll
-stand by auld Edie's judgment."
-
-Edie was accordingly welcomed, and installed as umpire, with a general
-shout of gratulation. With all the modesty of a Bishop to whom the mitre
-is proffered, or of a new Speaker called to the chair, the old man
-declined the high trust and responsibility with which it was proposed to
-invest him, and, in requital for his self-denial and humility, had the
-pleasure of receiving the reiterated assurances of young, old, and
-middle-aged, that he was simply the best qualified person for the office
-of arbiter "in the haill country-side." Thus encouraged, he proceeded
-gravely to the execution of his duty, and, strictly forbidding all
-aggravating expressions on either side, he heard the smith and gauger on
-one side, the miller and schoolmaster on the other, as junior and senior
-counsel. Edie's mind, however, was fully made up on the subject before
-the pleading began; like that of many a judge, who must nevertheless go
-through all the forms, and endure in its full extent the eloquence and
-argumentation of the Bar. For when all had been said on both sides, and
-much of it said over oftener than once, our senior, being well and ripely
-advised, pronounced the moderate and healing judgment, that the disputed
-cast was a drawn one, and should therefore count to neither party. This
-judicious decision restored concord to the field of players; they began
-anew to arrange their match and their bets, with the clamorous mirth
-usual on such occasions of village sport, and the more eager were already
-stripping their jackets, and committing them, with their coloured
-handkerchiefs, to the care of wives, sisters, and mistresses. But their
-mirth was singularly interrupted.
-
-On the outside of the group of players began to arise sounds of a
-description very different from those of sport--that sort of suppressed
-sigh and exclamation, with which the first news of calamity is received
-by the hearers, began to be heard indistinctly. A buzz went about among
-the women of "Eh, sirs! sae young and sae suddenly summoned!"--It then
-extended itself among the men, and silenced the sounds of sportive mirth.
-
-All understood at once that some disaster had happened in the country,
-and each inquired the cause at his neighbour, who knew as little as the
-querist. At length the rumour reached, in a distinct shape, the ears of
-Edie Ochiltree, who was in the very centre of the assembly. The boat of
-Mucklebackit, the fisherman whom we have so often mentioned, had been
-swamped at sea, and four men had perished, it was affirmed, including
-Mucklebackit and his son. Rumour had in this, however, as in other cases,
-gone beyond the truth. The boat had indeed been overset; but Stephen, or,
-as he was called, Steenie Mucklebackit, was the only man who had been
-drowned. Although the place of his residence and his mode of life removed
-the young man from the society of the country folks, yet they failed not
-to pause in their rustic mirth to pay that tribute to sudden calamity
-which it seldom fails to receive in cases of infrequent occurrence. To
-Ochiltree, in particular, the news came like a knell, the rather that he
-had so lately engaged this young man's assistance in an affair of
-sportive mischief; and though neither loss nor injury was designed to the
-German adept, yet the work was not precisely one in which the latter
-hours of life ought to be occupied.
-
-Misfortunes never come alone. While Ochiltree, pensively leaning upon his
-staff, added his regrets to those of the hamlet which bewailed the young
-man's sudden death, and internally blamed himself for the transaction in
-which he had so lately engaged him, the old man's collar was seized by a
-peace-officer, who displayed his baton in his right hand, and exclaimed,
-"In the king's name."
-
-The gauger and schoolmaster united their rhetoric, to prove to the
-constable and his assistant that he had no right to arrest the king's
-bedesman as a vagrant; and the mute eloquence of the miller and smith,
-which was vested in their clenched fists, was prepared to give Highland
-bail for their arbiter; his blue gown, they said, was his warrant for
-travelling the country.
-
-"But his blue gown," answered the officer, "is nae protection for
-assault, robbery, and murder; and my warrant is against him for these
-crimes."
-
-"Murder!" said Edie, "murder! wha did I e'er murder?"
-
-"Mr. German Doustercivil, the agent at Glen-Withershins mining-works."
-
-"Murder Doustersnivel?--hout, he's living, and life-like, man."
-
-"Nae thanks to you if he be; he had a sair struggle for his life, if a'
-be true he tells, and ye maun answer for't at the bidding of the law."
-
-The defenders of the mendicant shrunk back at hearing the atrocity of the
-charges against him, but more than one kind hand thrust meat and bread
-and pence upon Edie, to maintain him in the prison, to which the officers
-were about to conduct him.
-
-"Thanks to ye! God bless ye a', bairns!--I've gotten out o' mony a snare
-when I was waur deserving o' deliverance--I shall escape like a bird from
-the fowler. Play out your play, and never mind me--I am mair grieved for
-the puir lad that's gane, than for aught they can do to me."
-
-Accordingly, the unresisting prisoner was led off, while he mechanically
-accepted and stored in his wallets the alms which poured in on every
-hand, and ere he left the hamlet, was as deep-laden as a government
-victualler. The labour of bearing this accumulating burden was, however,
-abridged, by the officer procuring a cart and horse to convey the old man
-to a magistrate, in order to his examination and committal.
-
-The disaster of Steenie, and the arrest of Edie, put a stop to the sports
-of the village, the pensive inhabitants of which began to speculate upon
-the vicissitudes of human affairs, which had so suddenly consigned one of
-their comrades to the grave, and placed their master of the revels in
-some danger of being hanged. The character of Dousterswivel being pretty
-generally known, which was in his case equivalent to being pretty
-generally detested, there were many speculations upon the probability of
-the accusation being malicious. But all agreed, that if Edie Ochiltree
-behaved in all events to suffer upon this occasion, it was a great pity
-he had not better merited his fate by killing Dousterswivel outright.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER NINTH
-
-               Who is he?--One that for the lack of land
-              Shall fight upon the water--he hath challenged
-              Formerly the grand whale; and by his titles
-                 Of Leviathan, Behemoth, and so forth.
-                 He tilted with a sword-fish--Marry, sir,
-                 Th' aquatic had the best--the argument
-                      Still galls our champion's breech.
-                                               Old Play.
-
-"And the poor young fellow, Steenie Mucklebackit, is to be buried this
-morning," said our old friend the Antiquary, as he exchanged his quilted
-night-gown for an old-fashioned black coat in lieu of the snuff-coloured
-vestment which he ordinarily wore, "and, I presume, it is expected that I
-should attend the funeral?"
-
-"Ou, ay," answered the faithful Caxon, officiously brushing the white
-threads and specks from his patron's habit. "The body, God help us! was
-sae broken against the rocks that they're fain to hurry the burial. The
-sea's a kittle cast, as I tell my daughter, puir thing, when I want her
-to get up her spirits; the sea, says I, Jenny, is as uncertain a
-calling"--
-
-"As the calling of an old periwig-maker, that's robbed of his business by
-crops and the powder-tax. Caxon, thy topics of consolation are as ill
-chosen as they are foreign to the present purpose._Quid mihi cum
-faemina_? What have I to do with thy womankind, who have enough and to
-spare of mine own?--I pray of you again, am I expected by these poor
-people to attend the funeral of their son?"
-
-"Ou, doubtless, your honour is expected," answered Caxon; "weel I wot ye
-are expected. Ye ken, in this country ilka gentleman is wussed to be sae
-civil as to see the corpse aff his grounds; ye needna gang higher than
-the loan-head--it's no expected your honour suld leave the land; it's
-just a Kelso convoy, a step and a half ower the doorstane."
-
-"A Kelso convoy!" echoed the inquisitive Antiquary; "and why a Kelso
-convoy more than any other?"
-
-"Dear sir," answered Caxon, "how should I ken? it's just a by-word."
-
-"Caxon," answered Oldbuck, "thou art a mere periwig-maker--Had I asked
-Ochiltree the question, he would have had a legend ready made to my
-hand."
-
-"My business," replied Caxon, with more animation than he commonly
-displayed, "is with the outside of your honour's head, as ye are
-accustomed to say."
-
-"True, Caxon, true; and it is no reproach to a thatcher that he is not an
-upholsterer."
-
-He then took out his memorandum-book and wrote down "Kelso convoy--said
-to be a step and a half over the threshold. Authority--Caxon.--_Quaere_--
-Whence derived? _Mem._ To write to Dr. Graysteel upon the subject."
-
-Having made this entry, he resumed--"And truly, as to this custom of the
-landlord attending the body of the peasant, I approve it, Caxon. It comes
-from ancient times, and was founded deep in the notions of mutual aid and
-dependence between the lord and cultivator of the soil. And herein I must
-say, the feudal system--(as also in its courtesy towards womankind, in
-which it exceeded)--herein, I say, the feudal usages mitigated and
-softened the sternness of classical times. No man, Caxon, ever heard of a
-Spartan attending the funeral of a Helot--yet I dare be sworn that John
-of the Girnel--ye have heard of him, Caxon?"
-
-"Ay, ay, sir," answered Caxon; "naebody can hae been lang in your
-honour's company without hearing of that gentleman."
-
-"Well," continued the Antiquary, "I would bet a trifle there was not a
-_kolb kerl,_ or bondsman, or peasant, _ascriptus glebae,_ died upon the
-monks' territories down here, but John of the Girnel saw them fairly and
-decently interred."
-
-"Ay, but if it like your honour, they say he had mair to do wi' the
-births than the burials. Ha! ha! ha!" with a gleeful chuckle.
-
-"Good, Caxon, very good!--why, you shine this morning."
-
-"And besides," added Caxon, slyly, encouraged by his patron's
-approbation, "they say, too, that the Catholic priests in thae times gat
-something for ganging about to burials."
-
-"Right, Caxon! right as my glove! By the by, I fancy that phrase comes
-from the custom of pledging a glove as the signal of irrefragable faith--
-right, I say, as my glove, Caxon--but we of the Protestant ascendency
-have the more merit in doing that duty for nothing, which cost money in
-the reign of that empress of superstition, whom Spenser, Caxon, terms in
-his allegorical phrase,
-
-                  --The daughter of that woman blind,
-                    Abessa, daughter of Corecca slow--
-
-But why talk I of these things to thee?--my poor Lovel has spoiled me,
-and taught me to speak aloud when it is much the same as speaking to
-myself. Where's my nephew, Hector M'Intyre?"
-
-"He's in the parlour, sir, wi' the leddies."
-
-"Very well," said the Antiquary, "I will betake me thither."
-
-"Now, Monkbarns," said his sister, on his entering the parlour, "ye
-maunna be angry."
-
-"My dear uncle!" began Miss M'Intyre.
-
-"What's the meaning of all this?" said Oldbuck, in alarm of some
-impending bad news, and arguing upon the supplicating tone of the ladies,
-as a fortress apprehends an attack from the very first flourish of the
-trumpet which announces the summons--"what's all this?--what do you
-bespeak my patience for?"
-
-"No particular matter, I should hope, sir," said Hector, who, with his
-arm in a sling, was seated at the breakfast table;--"however, whatever it
-may amount to I am answerable for it, as I am for much more trouble that
-I have occasioned, and for which I have little more than thanks to
-offer."
-
-"No, no! heartily welcome, heartily welcome--only let it be a warning to
-you," said the Antiquary, "against your fits of anger, which is a short
-madness--_Ira furor brevis_--but what is this new disaster?"
-
-"My dog, sir, has unfortunately thrown down"--
-
-"If it please Heaven, not the lachrymatory from Clochnaben!" interjected
-Oldbuck.
-
-"Indeed, uncle," said the young lady, "I am afraid--it was that which
-stood upon the sideboard--the poor thing only meant to eat the pat of
-fresh butter."
-
-"In which she has fully succeeded, I presume, for I see that on the table
-is salted. But that is nothing--my lachrymatory, the main pillar of my
-theory on which I rested to show, in despite of the ignorant obstinacy of
-Mac-Cribb, that the Romans had passed the defiles of these mountains, and
-left behind them traces of their arts and arms, is gone--annihilated--
-reduced to such fragments as might be the shreds of a broken-flowerpot!
-
-                            --Hector, I love thee,
-                  But never more be officer of mine."
-
-"Why, really, sir, I am afraid I should make a bad figure in a regiment
-of your raising."
-
-"At least, Hector, I would have you despatch your camp train, and travel
-_expeditus,_ or _relictis impedimentis._ You cannot conceive how I am
-annoyed by this beast--she commits burglary, I believe, for I heard her
-charged with breaking into the kitchen after all the doors were locked,
-and eating up a shoulder of mutton. "--(Our readers, if they chance to
-remember Jenny Rintherout's precaution of leaving the door open when she
-went down to the fisher's cottage, will probably acquit poor Juno of that
-aggravation of guilt which the lawyers call a _claustrum fregit,_ and
-which makes the distinction between burglary and privately stealing. )
-
-"I am truly sorry, sir," said Hector, "that Juno has committed so much
-disorder; but Jack Muirhead, the breaker, was never able to bring her
-under command. She has more travel than any bitch I ever knew, but"--
-
-"Then, Hector, I wish the bitch would travel herself out of my grounds."
-
-"We will both of us retreat to-morrow, or to-day, but I would not
-willingly part from my mother's brother in unkindness about a paltry
-pipkin."
-
-"O brother! brother!" ejaculated Miss M'Intyre, in utter despair at this
-vituperative epithet.
-
-"Why, what would you have me call it?" continued Hector; "it was just
-such a thing as they use in Egypt to cool wine, or sherbet, or water;--I
-brought home a pair of them--I might have brought home twenty."
-
-"What!" said Oldbuck, "shaped such as that your dog threw down?"
-
-"Yes, sir, much such a sort of earthen jar as that which was on the
-sideboard. They are in my lodgings at Fairport; we brought a parcel of
-them to cool our wine on the passage--they answer wonderfully well. If I
-could think they would in any degree repay your loss, or rather that they
-could afford you pleasure, I am sure I should be much honoured by your
-accepting them."
-
-"Indeed, my dear boy, I should be highly gratified by possessing them. To
-trace the connection of nations by their usages, and the similarity of
-the implements which they employ, has been long my favourite study.
-Everything that can illustrate such connections is most valuable to me."
-
-"Well, sir, I shall be much gratified by your acceptance of them, and a
-few trifles of the same kind. And now, am I to hope you have forgiven
-me?"
-
-"O, my dear boy, you are only thoughtless and foolish."
-
-"But Juno--she is only thoughtless too, I assure you--the breaker tells
-me she has no vice or stubbornness."
-
-"Well, I grant Juno also a free pardon--conditioned, that you will
-imitate her in avoiding vice and stubbornness, and that henceforward she
-banish herself forth of Monkbarns parlour."
-
-"Then, uncle," said the soldier, "I should have been very sorry and
-ashamed to propose to you anything in the way of expiation of my own
-sins, or those of my follower, that I thought _worth_ your acceptance;
-but now, as all is forgiven, will you permit the orphan-nephew, to whom
-you have been a father, to offer you a trifle, which I have been assured
-is really curious, and which only the cross accident of my wound has
-prevented my delivering to you before? I got it from a French savant, to
-whom I rendered some service after the Alexandria affair."
-
-The captain put a small ring-case into the Antiquary's hands, which, when
-opened, was found to contain an antique ring of massive gold, with a
-cameo, most beautifully executed, bearing a head of Cleopatra. The
-Antiquary broke forth into unrepressed ecstasy, shook his nephew
-cordially by the hand, thanked him an hundred times, and showed the ring
-to his sister and niece, the latter of whom had the tact to give it
-sufficient admiration; but Miss Griselda (though she had the same
-affection for her nephew) had not address enough to follow the lead.
-
-"It's a bonny thing," she said, "Monkbarns, and, I dare say, a valuable;
-but it's out o'my way--ye ken I am nae judge o' sic matters."
-
-"There spoke all Fairport in one voice!" exclaimed Oldbuck "it is the
-very spirit of the borough has infected us all; I think I have smelled
-the smoke these two days, that the wind has stuck, like a _remora,_ in
-the north-east--and its prejudices fly farther than its vapours. Believe
-me, my dear Hector, were I to walk up the High Street of Fairport,
-displaying this inestimable gem in the eyes of each one I met, no human
-creature, from the provost to the town-crier, would stop to ask me its
-history. But if I carried a bale of linen cloth under my arm, I could not
-penetrate to the Horsemarket ere I should be overwhelmed with queries
-about its precise texture and price. Oh, one might parody their brutal
-ignorance in the words of Gray:
-
-                   Weave the warp and weave the woof,
-                   The winding-sheet of wit and sense,
-                   Dull garment of defensive proof,
-                  'Gainst all that doth not gather pence."
-
-The most remarkable proof of this peace-offering being quite acceptable
-was, that while the Antiquary was in full declamation, Juno, who held him
-in awe, according to the remarkable instinct by which dogs instantly
-discover those who like or dislike them, had peeped several times into
-the room, and encountering nothing very forbidding in his aspect, had at
-length presumed to introduce her full person; and finally, becoming bold
-by impunity, she actually ate up Mr. Oldbuck's toast, as, looking first
-at one then at another of his audience, he repeated, with
-self-complacency,
-
-                  "Weave the warp and weave the woof,--
-
-You remember the passage in the Fatal Sisters, which, by the way, is not
-so fine as in the original--But, hey-day! my toast has vanished!--I see
-which way--Ah, thou type of womankind! no wonder they take offence at thy
-generic appellation!"--(So saying, he shook his fist at Juno, who scoured
-out of the parlour.)--"However, as Jupiter, according to Homer, could not
-rule Juno in heaven, and as Jack Muirhead, according to Hector M'Intyre,
-has been equally unsuccessful on earth, I suppose she must have her own
-way." And this mild censure the brother and sister justly accounted a
-full pardon for Juno's offences, and sate down well pleased to the
-morning meal.
-
-When breakfast was over, the Antiquary proposed to his nephew to go down
-with him to attend the funeral. The soldier pleaded the want of a
-mourning habit.
-
-"O, that does not signify--your presence is all that is requisite. I
-assure you, you will see something that will entertain--no, that's an
-improper phrase--but that will interest you, from the resemblances which
-I will point out betwixt popular customs on such occasions and those of
-the ancients."
-
-"Heaven forgive me!" thought M'Intyre;--"I shall certainly misbehave, and
-lose all the credit I have so lately and accidentally gained."
-
-When they set out, schooled as he was by the warning and entreating looks
-of his sister, the soldier made his resolution strong to give no offence
-by evincing inattention or impatience. But our best resolutions are
-frail, when opposed to our predominant inclinations. Our Antiquary,--to
-leave nothing unexplained, had commenced with the funeral rites of the
-ancient Scandinavians, when his nephew interrupted him, in a discussion
-upon the "age of hills," to remark that a large sea-gull, which flitted
-around them, had come twice within shot. This error being acknowledged
-and pardoned, Oldbuck resumed his disquisition.
-
-"These are circumstances you ought to attend to and be familiar with, my
-dear Hector; for, in the strange contingencies of the present war which
-agitates every corner of Europe, there is no knowing where you may be
-called upon to serve. If in Norway, for example, or Denmark, or any part
-of the ancient Scania, or Scandinavia, as we term it, what could be more
-convenient than to have at your fingers' ends the history and antiquities
-of that ancient country, the _officina gentium,_ the mother of modern
-Europe, the nursery of those heroes,
-
-               Stern to inflict, and stubborn to endure,
-                         Who smiled in death?--
-
-How animating, for example, at the conclusion of a weary march, to find
-yourself in the vicinity of a Runic monument, and discover that you have
-pitched your tent beside the tomb of a hero!"
-
-"I am afraid, sir, our mess would be better supplied if it chanced to be
-in the neighbourhood of a good poultry-yard."
-
-"Alas, that you should say so! No wonder the days of Cressy and Agincourt
-are no more, when respect for ancient valour has died away in the breasts
-of the British soldiery."
-
-"By no means, sir--by no manner of means. I dare say that Edward and
-Henry, and the rest of these heroes, thought of their dinner, however,
-before they thought of examining an old tombstone. But I assure you, we
-are by no means insensible to the memoir of our fathers' fame; I used
-often of an evening to get old Rory MAlpin to sing us songs out of Ossian
-about the battles of Fingal and Lamon Mor, and Magnus and the Spirit of
-Muirartach."
-
-"And did you believe," asked the aroused Antiquary, "did you absolutely
-believe that stuff of Macpherson's to be really ancient, you simple boy?"
-
-"Believe it, sir?--how could I but believe it, when I have heard the
-songs sung from my infancy?"
-
-"But not the same as Macpherson's English Ossian--you're not absurd
-enough to say that, I hope?" said the Antiquary, his brow darkening with
-wrath.
-
-But Hector stoutly abode the storm; like many a sturdy Celt, he imagined
-the honour of his country and native language connected with the
-authenticity of these popular poems, and would have fought knee-deep, or
-forfeited life and land, rather than have given up a line of them. He
-therefore undauntedly maintained, that Rory MAlpin could repeat the whole
-book from one end to another;--and it was only upon cross-examination
-that he explained an assertion so general, by adding "At least, if he was
-allowed whisky enough, he could repeat as long as anybody would hearken
-to him."
-
-"Ay, ay," said the Antiquary; "and that, I suppose, was not very long."
-
-"Why, we had our duty, sir, to attend to, and could not sit listening all
-night to a piper."
-
-"But do you recollect, now," said Oldbuck, setting his teeth firmly
-together, and speaking without opening them, which was his custom when
-contradicted--"Do you recollect, now, any of these verses you thought so
-beautiful and interesting--being a capital judge, no doubt, of such
-things?"
-
-"I don't pretend to much skill, uncle; but it's not very reasonable to be
-angry with me for admiring the antiquities of my own country more than
-those of the Harolds, Harfagers, and Hacos you are so fond of."
-
-"Why, these, sir--these mighty and unconquered Goths--_were_ your
-ancestors! The bare-breeched Celts whom theysubdued, and suffered only to
-exist, like a fearful people, in the crevices of the rocks, were but
-their Mancipia and Serfs!"
-
-Hector's brow now grew red in his turn. "Sir," he said, "I don't
-understand the meaning of Mancipia and Serfs, but I conceive that such
-names are very improperly applied to Scotch Highlanders: no man but my
-mother's brother dared to have used such language in my presence; and I
-pray you will observe, that I consider it as neither hospitable,
-handsome, kind, nor generous usage towards your guest and your kinsman.
-My ancestors, Mr. Oldbuck"--
-
-"Were great and gallant chiefs, I dare say, Hector; and really I did not
-mean to give you such immense offence in treating a point of remote
-antiquity, a subject on which I always am myself cool, deliberate, and
-unimpassioned. But you are as hot and hasty, as if you were Hector and
-Achilles, and Agamemnon to boot."
-
-"I am sorry I expressed myself so hastily, uncle, especially to you, who
-have been so generous and good. But my ancestors"--
-
-"No more about it, lad; I meant them no affront--none."
-
-"I'm glad of it, sir; for the house of M'Intyre"--
-
-"Peace be with them all, every man of them," said the Antiquary. "But to
-return to our subject--Do you recollect, I say, any of those poems which
-afforded you such amusement?"
-
-"Very hard this," thought M'Intyre, "that he will speak with such glee of
-everything which is ancient, excepting my family. "--Then, after some
-efforts at recollection, he added aloud, "Yes, sir,--I think I do
-remember some lines; but you do not understand the Gaelic language."
-
-"And will readily excuse hearing it. But you can give me some idea of the
-sense in our own vernacular idiom?"
-
-"I shall prove a wretched interpreter," said M'Intyre, running over the
-original, well garnished with _aghes, aughs,_ and _oughs,_ and similar
-gutterals, and then coughing and hawking as if the translation stuck in
-his throat. At length, having premised that the poem was a dialogue
-between the poet Oisin, or Ossian, and Patrick, the tutelar Saint of
-Ireland, and that it was difficult, if not impossible, to render the
-exquisite felicity of the first two or three lines, he said the sense was
-to this purpose:
-
-                      "Patrick the psalm-singer,
-            Since you will not listen to one of my stories,
-                      Though you never heard it before,
-                             I am sorry to tell you
-                  You are little better than an ass"--
-
-"Good! good!" exclaimed the Antiquary; "but go on. Why, this is, after
-all, the most admirable fooling--I dare say the poet was very right. What
-says the Saint?"
-
-"He replies in character," said M'Intyre; "but you should hear MAlpin
-sing the original. The speeches of Ossian come in upon a strong deep
-bass--those of Patrick are upon a tenor key."
-
-"Like MAlpin's drone and small pipes, I suppose," said Oldbuck. "Well?
-Pray go on."
-
-"Well then, Patrick replies to Ossian:
-
-                     Upon my word, son of Fingal,
-                     While I am warbling the psalms,
-                     The clamour of your old women's tales
-                     Disturbs my devotional exercises."
-
-"Excellent!--why, this is better and better. I hope Saint Patrick sung
-better than Blattergowl's precentor, or it would be hang--choice between
-the poet and psalmist. But what I admire is the courtesy of these two
-eminent persons towards each other. It is a pity there should not be a
-word of this in Macpherson's translation."
-
-"If you are sure of that," said M'Intyre, gravely, "he must have taken
-very unwarrantable liberties with his original."
-
-"It will go near to be thought so shortly--but pray proceed."
-
-"Then," said M'Intyre, "this is the answer of Ossian:
-
-                     Dare you compare your psalms,
-                            You son of a--"
-
-"Son of a what?" exclaimed Oldbuck.
-
-"It means, I think," said the young soldier, with some reluctance, "son
-of a female dog:
-
-                           Do you compare your psalms,
-                To the tales of the bare-arm'd Fenians"
-
-"Are you sure you are translating that last epithet correctly, Hector?"
-
-"Quite sure, sir," answered Hector, doggedly.
-
-"Because I should have thought the nudity might have been quoted as
-existing in a different part of the body."
-
-Disdaining to reply to this insinuation, Hector proceeded in his
-recitation:
-
-                        "I shall think it no great harm
-             To wring your bald head from your shoulders--
-
-But what is that yonder?" exclaimed Hector, interrupting himself.
-
-"One of the herd of Proteus," said the Antiquary--"a _phoca,_ or seal,
-lying asleep on the beach."
-
-Upon which M'Intyre, with the eagerness of a young sportsman, totally
-forgot both Ossian, Patrick, his uncle, and his wound, and exclaiming--"I
-shall have her! I shall have her!" snatched the walking-stick out of the
-hand of the astonished Antiquary, at some risk of throwing him down, and
-set off at full speed to get between the animal and the sea, to which
-element, having caught the alarm, she was rapidly retreating.
-
-Not Sancho, when his master interrupted his account of the combatants of
-Pentapolin with the naked arm, to advance in person to the charge of the
-flock of sheep, stood more confounded than Oldbuck at this sudden
-escapade of his nephew.
-
-"Is the devil in him," was his first exclamation, "to go to disturb the
-brute that was never thinking of him!"--Then elevating his voice,
-"Hector--nephew--fool--let alone the _Phoca_--let alone the _Phoca_!--
-they bite, I tell you, like furies. He minds me no more than a post.
-There--there they are at it--Gad, the _Phoca_ has the best of it! I am
-glad to see it," said he, in the bitterness of his heart, though really
-alarmed for his nephew's safety--"I am glad to see it, with all my heart
-and spirit."
-
-In truth, the seal, finding her retreat intercepted by the light-footed
-soldier, confronted him manfully, and having sustained a heavy blow
-without injury, she knitted her brows, as is the fashion of the animal
-when incensed, and making use at once of her fore-paws and her unwieldy
-strength, wrenched the weapon out of the assailant's hand, overturned him
-on the sands, and scuttled away into the sea, without doing him any
-farther injury. Captain M'Intyre, a good deal out of countenance at the
-issue of his exploit, just rose in time to receive the ironical
-congratulations of his uncle, upon a single combat worthy to be
-commemorated by Ossian himself, "since," said the Antiquary, "your
-magnanimous opponent has fled, though not upon eagle's wings, from the
-foe that was low--Egad, she walloped away with all the grace of triumph,
-and has carried my stick off also, by way of _spolia opima._"
-
-M'Intyre had little to answer for himself, except that a Highlander could
-never pass a deer, a seal, or a salmon, where there was a possibility of
-having a trial of skill with them, and that he had forgot one of his arms
-was in a sling. He also made his fall an apology for returning back to
-Monkbarns, and thus escape the farther raillery of his uncle, as well as
-his lamentations for his walking-stick.
-
-"I cut it," he said, "in the classic woods of Hawthornden, when I did not
-expect always to have been a bachelor--I would not have given it for an
-ocean of seals--O Hector! Hector!--thy namesake was born to be the prop
-of Troy, and thou to be the plague of Monkbarns!"
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER TENTH.
-
-             Tell me not of it, friend--when the young weep,
-         Their tears are luke-warm brine;--from your old eyes
-             Sorrow falls down like hail-drops of the North,
-             Chilling the furrows of our withered cheeks,
-              Cold as our hopes, and hardened as our feeling--
-          Theirs, as they fall, sink sightless--ours recoil,
-             Heap the fair plain, and bleaken all before us.
-                               Old Play.
-
-The Antiquary, being now alone, hastened his pace, which had been
-retarded by these various discussions, and the rencontre which had closed
-them, and soon arrived before the half-dozen cottages at Mussel-crag.
-They had now, in addition to their usual squalid and uncomfortable
-appearance, the melancholy attributes of the house of mourning. The boats
-were all drawn up on the beach; and, though the day was fine, and the
-season favourable, the chant, which is used by the fishers when at sea,
-was silent, as well as the prattle of the children, and the shrill song
-of the mother, as she sits mending her nets by the door. A few of the
-neighbours, some in their antique and well-saved suits of black, others
-in their ordinary clothes, but all bearing an expression of mournful
-sympathy with distress so sudden and unexpected, stood gathered around
-the door of Mucklebackit's cottage, waiting till "the body was lifted."
-As the Laird of Monkbarns approached, they made way for him to enter,
-doffing their hats and bonnets as he passed, with an air of melancholy
-courtesy, and he returned their salutes in the same manner.
-
-In the inside of the cottage was a scene which our Wilkie alone could
-have painted, with that exquisite feeling of nature that characterises
-his enchanting productions,
-
-The body was laid in its coffin within the wooden bedstead which the
-young fisher had occupied while alive. At a little distance stood the
-father, whose ragged weather-beaten countenance, shaded by his grizzled
-hair, had faced many a stormy night and night-like day. He was apparently
-revolving his loss in his mind, with that strong feeling of painful grief
-peculiar to harsh and rough characters, which almost breaks forth into
-hatred against the world, and all that remain in it, after the beloved
-object is withdrawn. The old man had made the most desperate efforts to
-save his son, and had only been withheld by main force from renewing them
-at a moment when, without the possibility of assisting the sufferer, he
-must himself have perished. All this apparently was boiling in his
-recollection. His glance was directed sidelong towards the coffin, as to
-an object on which he could not stedfastly look, and yet from which he
-could not withdraw his eyes. His answers to the necessary questions which
-were occasionally put to him, were brief, harsh, and almost fierce. His
-family had not yet dared to address to him a word, either of sympathy or
-consolation. His masculine wife, virago as she was, and absolute mistress
-of the family, as she justly boasted herself, on all ordinary occasions,
-was, by this great loss, terrified into silence and submission, and
-compelled to hide from her husband's observation the bursts of her female
-sorrow. As he had rejected food ever since the disaster had happened, not
-daring herself to approach him, she had that morning, with affectionate
-artifice, employed the youngest and favourite child to present her
-husband with some nourishment. His first action was to put it from him
-with an angry violence that frightened the child; his next, to snatch up
-the boy and devour him with kisses. "Yell be a bra' fallow, an ye be
-spared, Patie,--but ye'll never--never can be--what he was to me!--He has
-sailed the coble wi' me since he was ten years auld, and there wasna the
-like o' him drew a net betwixt this and Buchan-ness.--They say folks maun
-submit--I will try."
-
-And he had been silent from that moment until compelled to answer the
-necessary questions we have already noticed. Such was the disconsolate
-state of the father.
-
-In another corner of the cottage, her face covered by her apron, which
-was flung over it, sat the mother--the nature of her grief sufficiently
-indicated by the wringing of her hands, and the convulsive agitation of
-the bosom, which the covering could not conceal. Two of her gossips,
-officiously whispering into her ear the commonplace topic of resignation
-under irremediable misfortune, seemed as if they were endeavouring to
-stun the grief which they could not console.
-
-The sorrow of the children was mingled with wonder at the preparations
-they beheld around them, and at the unusual display of wheaten bread and
-wine, which the poorest peasant, or fisher, offers to the guests on these
-mournful occasions; and thus their grief for their brother's death was
-almost already lost in admiration of the splendour of his funeral.
-
-But the figure of the old grandmother was the most remarkable of the
-sorrowing group. Seated on her accustomed chair, with her usual air of
-apathy, and want of interest in what surrounded her, she seemed every now
-and then mechanically to resume the motion of twirling her spindle; then
-to look towards her bosom for the distaff, although both had been laid
-aside. She would then cast her eyes about, as if surprised at missing the
-usual implements of her industry, and appear struck by the black colour
-of the gown in which they had dressed her, and embarrassed by the number
-of persons by whom she was surrounded. Then, finally, she would raise her
-head with a ghastly look, and fix her eyes upon the bed which contained
-the coffin of her grandson, as if she had at once, and for the first
-time, acquired sense to comprehend her inexpressible calamity. These
-alternate feelings of embarrassment, wonder, and grief, seemed to succeed
-each other more than once upon her torpid features. But she spoke not a
-word--neither had she shed a tear--nor did one of the family understand,
-either from look or expression, to what extent she comprehended the
-uncommon bustle around her. Thus she sat among the funeral assembly like
-a connecting link between the surviving mourners and the dead corpse
-which they bewailed--a being in whom the light of existence was already
-obscured by the encroaching shadows of death.
-
-When Oldbuck entered this house of mourning, he was received by a general
-and silent inclination of the head, and, according to the fashion of
-Scotland on such occasions, wine and spirits and bread were offered round
-to the guests. Elspeth, as these refreshments were presented, surprised
-and startled the whole company by motioning to the person who bore them
-to stop; then, taking a glass in her hand, she rose up, and, as the smile
-of dotage played upon her shrivelled features, she pronounced, with a
-hollow and tremulous voice, "Wishing a' your healths, sirs, and often may
-we hae such merry meetings!"
-
-All shrunk from the ominous pledge, and set down the untasted liquor with
-a degree of shuddering horror, which will not surprise those who know how
-many superstitions are still common on such occasions among the Scottish
-vulgar. But as the old woman tasted the liquor, she suddenly exclaimed
-with a sort of shriek, "What's this?--this is wine--how should there be
-wine in my son's house?--Ay," she continued with a suppressed groan, "I
-mind the sorrowful cause now," and, dropping the glass from her hand, she
-stood a moment gazing fixedly on the bed in which the coffin of her
-grandson was deposited, and then sinking gradually into her seat, she
-covered her eyes and forehead with her withered and pallid hand.
-
-At this moment the clergyman entered the cottage. Mr. Blattergowl, though
-a dreadful proser, particularly on the subject of augmentations,
-localities, teinds, and overtures in that session of the General
-Assembly, to which, unfortunately for his auditors, he chanced one year
-to act as moderator, was nevertheless a good man, in the old Scottish
-presbyterian phrase, God-ward and man-ward. No divine was more attentive
-in visiting the sick and afflicted, in catechising the youth, in
-instructing the ignorant, and in reproving the erring. And hence,
-notwithstanding impatience of his prolixity and prejudices, personal or
-professional, and notwithstanding, moreover, a certain habitual contempt
-for his understanding, especially on affairs of genius and taste, on
-which Blattergowl was apt to be diffuse, from his hope of one day
-fighting his way to a chair of rhetoric or belles lettres,--
-notwithstanding, I say, all the prejudices excited against him by these
-circumstances, our friend the Antiquary looked with great regard and
-respect on the said Blattergowl, though I own he could seldom, even by
-his sense of decency and the remonstrances of his womankind, be _hounded
-out,_ as he called it, to hear him preach. But he regularly took shame to
-himself for his absence when Blattergowl came to Monkbarns to dinner, to
-which he was always invited of a Sunday, a mode of testifying his respect
-which the proprietor probably thought fully as agreeable to the
-clergyman, and rather more congenial to his own habits.
-
-To return from a digression which can only serve to introduce the honest
-clergyman more particularly to our readers, Mr. Blattergowl had no sooner
-entered the hut, and received the mute and melancholy salutations of the
-company whom it contained, than he edged himself towards the unfortunate
-father, and seemed to endeavour to slide in a few words of condolence or
-of consolation. But the old man was incapable as yet of receiving either;
-he nodded, however, gruffly, and shook the clergyman's hand in
-acknowledgment of his good intentions, but was either unable or unwilling
-to make any verbal reply.
-
-The minister next passed to the mother, moving along the floor as slowly,
-silently, and gradually, as if he had been afraid that the ground would,
-like unsafe ice, break beneath his feet, or that the first echo of a
-footstep was to dissolve some magic spell, and plunge the hut, with all
-its inmates, into a subterranean abyss. The tenor of what he had said to
-the poor woman could only be judged by her answers, as, half-stifled by
-sobs ill-repressed, and by the covering which she still kept over her
-countenance, she faintly answered at each pause in his speech--"Yes, sir,
-yes!--Ye're very gude--ye're very gude!--Nae doubt, nae doubt!--It's our
-duty to submit!--But, oh dear! my poor Steenie! the pride o' my very
-heart, that was sae handsome and comely, and a help to his family, and a
-comfort to us a', and a pleasure to a' that lookit on him!--Oh, my bairn!
-my bairn! my bairn! what for is thou lying there!--and eh! what for am I
-left to greet for ye!"
-
-There was no contending with this burst of sorrow and natural affection.
-Oldbuck had repeated recourse to his snuff-box to conceal the tears
-which, despite his shrewd and caustic temper, were apt to start on such
-occasions. The female assistants whimpered, the men held their bonnets to
-their faces, and spoke apart with each other. The clergyman, meantime,
-addressed his ghostly consolation to the aged grandmother. At first she
-listened, or seemed to listen, to what he said, with the apathy of her
-usual unconsciousness. But as, in pressing this theme, he approached so
-near to her ear that the sense of his words became distinctly
-intelligible to her, though unheard by those who stood more distant, her
-countenance at once assumed that stern and expressive cast which
-characterized her intervals of intelligence. She drew up her head and
-body, shook her head in a manner that showed at least impatience, if not
-scorn of his counsel, and waved her hand slightly, but with a gesture so
-expressive, as to indicate to all who witnessed it a marked and
-disdainful rejection of the ghostly consolation proffered to her. The
-minister stepped back as if repulsed, and, by lifting gently and dropping
-his hand, seemed to show at once wonder, sorrow, and compassion for her
-dreadful state of mind. The rest of the company sympathized, and a
-stifled whisper went through them, indicating how much her desperate and
-determined manner impressed them with awe, and even horror.
-
-In the meantime, the funeral company was completed, by the arrival of one
-or two persons who had been expected from Fairport. The wine and spirits
-again circulated, and the dumb show of greeting was anew interchanged.
-The grandame a second time took a glass in her hand, drank its contents,
-and exclaimed, with a sort of laugh,--"Ha! ha! I hae tasted wine twice in
-ae day--Whan did I that before, think ye, cummers?--Never since"--and the
-transient glow vanishing from her countenance, she set the glass down,
-and sunk upon the settle from whence she had risen to snatch at it.
-
-As the general amazement subsided, Mr. Oldbuck, whose heart bled to
-witness what he considered as the errings of the enfeebled intellect
-struggling with the torpid chill of age and of sorrow, observed to the
-clergyman that it was time to proceed with the ceremony. The father was
-incapable of giving directions, but the nearest relation of the family
-made a sign to the carpenter, who in such cases goes through the duty of
-the undertaker, to proceed in his office. The creak of the screw-nails
-presently announced that the lid of the last mansion of mortality was in
-the act of being secured above its tenant. The last act which separates
-us for ever, even from the mortal relies of the person we assemble to
-mourn, has usually its effect upon the most indifferent, selfish, and
-hard-hearted. With a spirit of contradiction, which we may be pardoned
-for esteeming narrow-minded, the fathers of the Scottish kirk rejected,
-even on this most solemn occasion, the form of an address to the
-Divinity, lest they should be thought to give countenance to the rituals
-of Rome or of England. With much better and more liberal judgment, it is
-the present practice of most of the Scottish clergymen to seize this
-opportunity of offering a prayer, and exhortation, suitable to make an
-impression upon the living, while they are yet in the very presence of
-the relics of him whom they have but lately seen such as they themselves,
-and who now is such as they must in their time become. But this decent
-and praiseworthy practice was not adopted at the time of which I am
-treating, or at least, Mr. Blattergowl did not act upon it, and the
-ceremony proceeded without any devotional exercise.
-
-The coffin, covered with a pall, and supported upon hand-spikes by the
-nearest relatives, now only waited the father to support the head, as is
-customary. Two or three of these privileged persons spoke to him, but he
-only answered by shaking his hand and his head in token of refusal. With
-better intention than judgment, the friends, who considered this as an
-act of duty on the part of the living, and of decency towards the
-deceased, would have proceeded to enforce their request, had not Oldbuck
-interfered between the distressed father and his well-meaning tormentors,
-and informed them, that he himself, as landlord and master to the
-deceased, "would carry his head to the grave." In spite of the sorrowful
-occasion, the hearts of the relatives swelled within them at so marked a
-distinction on the part of the laird; and old Alison Breck, who was
-present among other fish-women, swore almost aloud, "His honour Monkbarns
-should never want sax warp of oysters in the season" (of which fish he
-was understood to be fond), "if she should gang to sea and dredge for
-them hersell, in the foulest wind that ever blew." And such is the temper
-of the Scottish common people, that, by this instance of compliance with
-their customs, and respect for their persons, Mr. Oldbuck gained more
-popularity than by all the sums which he had yearly distributed in the
-parish for purposes of private or general charity.
-
-The sad procession now moved slowly forward, preceded by the beadles, or
-saulies, with their batons,--miserable-looking old men, tottering as if
-on the edge of that grave to which they were marshalling another, and
-clad, according to Scottish guise, with threadbare black coats, and
-hunting-caps decorated with rusty crape. Monkbarns would probably have
-remonstrated against this superfluous expense, had he been consulted;
-but, in doing so, he would have given more offence than he gained
-popularity by condescending to perform the office of chief-mourner. Of
-this he was quite aware, and wisely withheld rebuke, where rebuke and
-advice would have been equally unavailing. In truth, the Scottish
-peasantry are still infected with that rage for funeral ceremonial, which
-once distinguished the grandees of the kingdom so much, that a sumptuary
-law was made by the Parliament of Scotland for the purpose of restraining
-it; and I have known many in the lowest stations, who have denied
-themselves not merely the comforts, but almost the necessaries of life,
-in order to save such a sum of money as might enable their surviving
-friends to bury them like Christians, as they termed it; nor could their
-faithful executors be prevailed upon, though equally necessitous, to turn
-to the use and maintenance of the living the money vainly wasted upon the
-interment of the dead.
-
-The procession to the churchyard, at about half-a-mile's distance, was
-made with the mournful solemnity usual on these occasions,--the body was
-consigned to its parent earth,--and when the labour of the gravediggers
-had filled up the trench, and covered it with fresh sod, Mr. Oldbuck,
-taking his hat off, saluted the assistants, who had stood by in
-melancholy silence, and with that adieu dispersed the mourners.
-
-The clergyman offered our Antiquary his company to walk homeward; but Mr.
-Oldbuck had been so much struck with the deportment of the fisherman and
-his mother, that, moved by compassion, and perhaps also, in some degree,
-by that curiosity which induces us to seek out even what gives us pain to
-witness, he preferred a solitary walk by the coast, for the purpose of
-again visiting the cottage as he passed.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER ELEVENTH
-
-              What is this secret sin, this untold tale,
-              That art cannot extract, nor penance cleanse?
-                    --Her muscles hold their place;
-              Nor discomposed, nor formed to steadiness,
-               No sudden flushing, and no faltering lip.--
-                                     Mysterious Mother.
-
-The coffin had been borne from the place where it rested. The mourners,
-in regular gradation, according to their rank or their relationship to
-the deceased, had filed from the cottage, while the younger male children
-were led along to totter after the bier of their brother, and to view
-with wonder a ceremonial which they could hardly comprehend. The female
-gossips next rose to depart, and, with consideration for the situation of
-the parents, carried along with them the girls of the family, to give the
-unhappy pair time and opportunity to open their hearts to each other and
-soften their grief by communicating it. But their kind intention was
-without effect. The last of them had darkened the entrance of the
-cottage, as she went out, and drawn the door softly behind her, when the
-father, first ascertaining by a hasty glance that no stranger remained,
-started up, clasped his hands wildly above his head, uttered a cry of the
-despair which he had hitherto repressed, and, in all the impotent
-impatience of grief, half rushed half staggered forward to the bed on
-which the coffin had been deposited, threw himself down upon it, and
-smothering, as it were, his head among the bed-clothes, gave vent to the
-full passion of his sorrow. It was in vain that the wretched mother,
-terrified by the vehemence of her husband's affliction--affliction still
-more fearful as agitating a man of hardened manners and a robust frame--
-suppressed her own sobs and tears, and, pulling him by the skirts of his
-coat, implored him to rise and remember, that, though one was removed, he
-had still a wife and children to comfort and support. The appeal came at
-too early a period of his anguish, and was totally unattended to; he
-continued to remain prostrate, indicating, by sobs so bitter and violent,
-that they shook the bed and partition against which it rested, by
-clenched hands which grasped the bed-clothes, and by the vehement and
-convulsive motion of his legs, how deep and how terrible was the agony of
-a father's sorrow.
-
-"O, what a day is this! what a day is this!" said the poor mother, her
-womanish affliction already exhausted by sobs and tears, and now almost
-lost in terror for the state in which she beheld her husband--"O, what an
-hour is this! and naebody to help a poor lone woman--O, gudemither, could
-ye but speak a word to him!--wad ye but bid him be comforted!"
-
-To her astonishment, and even to the increase of her fear, her husband's
-mother heard and answered the appeal. She rose and walked across the
-floor without support, and without much apparent feebleness, and standing
-by the bed on which her son had extended himself, she said, "Rise up, my
-son, and sorrow not for him that is beyond sin and sorrow and temptation.
-Sorrow is for those that remain in this vale of sorrow and darkness--I,
-wha dinna sorrow, and wha canna sorrow for ony ane, hae maist need that
-ye should a' sorrow for me."
-
-The voice of his mother, not heard for years as taking part in the active
-duties of life, or offering advice or consolation, produced its effect
-upon her son. He assumed a sitting posture on the side of the bed, and
-his appearance, attitude, and gestures, changed from those of angry
-despair to deep grief and dejection. The grandmother retired to her nook,
-the mother mechanically took in her hand her tattered Bible, and seemed
-to read, though her eyes were drowned with tears.
-
-They were thus occupied, when a loud knock was heard at the door.
-
-"Hegh, sirs!" said the poor mother, "wha is that can be coming in that
-gate e'enow?--They canna hae heard o' our misfortune, I'm sure."
-
-The knock being repeated, she rose and opened the door, saying
-querulously, "Whatna gait's that to disturb a sorrowfu' house?"
-
-A tall man in black stood before her, whom she instantly recognised to be
-Lord Glenallan. "Is there not," he said, "an old woman lodging in this or
-one of the neighbouring cottages, called Elspeth, who was long resident
-at Craigburnfoot of Glenallan?"
-
-"It's my gudemither, my lord," said Margaret; "but she canna see onybody
-e'enow--Ohon! we're dreeing a sair weird--we hae had a heavy
-dispensation!"
-
-"God forbid," said Lord Glenallan, "that I should on light occasion
-disturb your sorrow;--but my days are numbered--your mother-in-law is in
-the extremity of age, and, if I see her not to-day, we may never meet on
-this side of time."
-
-"And what," answered the desolate mother, "wad ye see at an auld woman,
-broken down wi' age and sorrow and heartbreak? Gentle or semple shall not
-darken my door the day my bairn's been carried out a corpse."
-
-While she spoke thus, indulging the natural irritability of disposition
-and profession, which began to mingle itself with her grief when its
-first uncontrolled bursts were gone by, she held the door about one-third
-part open, and placed herself in the gap, as if to render the visitor's
-entrance impossible. But the voice of her husband was heard from within--
-"Wha's that, Maggie? what for are ye steaking them out?--let them come
-in; it doesna signify an auld rope's end wha comes in or wha gaes out o'
-this house frae this time forward."
-
-The woman stood aside at her husband's command, and permitted Lord
-Glenallan to enter the hut. The dejection exhibited in his broken frame
-and emaciated countenance, formed a strong contrast with the effects of
-grief, as they were displayed in the rude and weatherbeaten visage of the
-fisherman, and the masculine features of his wife. He approached the old
-woman as she was seated on her usual settle, and asked her, in a tone as
-audible as his voice could make it, "Are you Elspeth of the Craigburnfoot
-of Glenallan?"
-
-"Wha is it that asks about the unhallowed residence of that evil woman?"
-was the answer returned to his query.
-
-"The unhappy Earl of Glenallan."
-
-"Earl!--Earl of Glenallan!"
-
-"He who was called William Lord Geraldin," said the Earl; "and whom his
-mother's death has made Earl of Glenallan."
-
-"Open the bole," said the old woman firmly and hastily to her
-daughter-in-law, "open the bole wi' speed, that I may see if this be the
-right Lord Geraldin--the son of my mistress--him that I received in my
-arms within the hour after he was born--him that has reason to curse me
-that I didna smother him before the hour was past!"
-
-The window, which had been shut in order that a gloomy twilight might add
-to the solemnity of the funeral meeting, was opened as she commanded, and
-threw a sudden and strong light through the smoky and misty atmosphere of
-the stifling cabin. Falling in a stream upon the chimney, the rays
-illuminated, in the way that Rembrandt would have chosen, the features of
-the unfortunate nobleman, and those of the old sibyl, who now, standing
-upon her feet, and holding him by one hand, peered anxiously in his
-features with her light-blue eyes, and holding her long and withered
-fore-finger within a small distance of his face, moved it slowly as if to
-trace the outlines and reconcile what she recollected with that she now
-beheld. As she finished her scrutiny, she said, with a deep sigh, "It's a
-sair--sair change; and wha's fault is it?--but that's written down where
-it will be remembered--it's written on tablets of brass with a pen of
-steel, where all is recorded that is done in the flesh.--And what," she
-said after a pause, "what is Lord Geraldin seeking from a poor auld
-creature like me, that's dead already, and only belongs sae far to the
-living that she isna yet laid in the moulds?"
-
-"Nay," answered Lord Glenallan, "in the name of Heaven, why was it that
-you requested so urgently to see me?--and why did you back your request
-by sending a token which you knew well I dared not refuse?"
-
-As he spoke thus, he took from his purse the ring which Edie Ochiltree
-had delivered to him at Glenallan House. The sight of this token produced
-a strange and instantaneous effect upon the old woman. The palsy of fear
-was immediately added to that of age, and she began instantly to search
-her pockets with the tremulous and hasty agitation of one who becomes
-first apprehensive of having lost something of great importance;--then,
-as if convinced of the reality of her fears, she turned to the Earl, and
-demanded, "And how came ye by it then?--how came ye by it? I thought I
-had kept it sae securely--what will the Countess say?"
-
-"You know," said the Earl, "at least you must have heard, that my mother
-is dead."
-
-"Dead! are ye no imposing upon me? has she left a' at last, lands and
-lordship and lineages?"
-
-"All, all," said the Earl, "as mortals must leave all human vanities."
-
-"I mind now," answered Elspeth--"I heard of it before but there has been
-sic distress in our house since, and my memory is sae muckle impaired--
-But ye are sure your mother, the Lady Countess, is gane hame?"
-
-The Earl again assured her that her former mistress was no more.
-
-"Then," said Elspeth, "it shall burden my mind nae langer!--When she
-lived, wha dared to speak what it would hae displeased her to hae had
-noised abroad? But she's gane--and I will confess all."
-
-Then turning to her son and daughter-in-law, she commanded them
-imperatively to quit the house, and leave Lord Geraldin (for so she still
-called him) alone with her. But Maggie Mucklebackit, her first burst of
-grief being over, was by no means disposed in her own house to pay
-passive obedience to the commands of her mother-in-law, an authority
-which is peculiarly obnoxious to persons in her rank of life, and which
-she was the more astonished at hearing revived, when it seemed to have
-been so long relinquished and forgotten.
-
-"It was an unco thing," she said, in a grumbling tone of voice,--for the
-rank of Lord Glenallan was somewhat imposing--"it was an unco thing to
-bid a mother leave her ain house wi' the tear in her ee, the moment her
-eldest son had been carried a corpse out at the door o't."
-
-The fisherman, in a stubborn and sullen tone, added to the same purpose.
-"This is nae day for your auld-warld stories, mother. My lord, if he be a
-lord, may ca' some other day--or he may speak out what he has gotten to
-say if he likes it; there's nane here will think it worth their while to
-listen to him or you either. But neither for laird or loon, gentle or
-semple, will I leave my ain house to pleasure onybody on the very day my
-poor"--
-
-Here his voice choked, and he could proceed no farther; but as he had
-risen when Lord Glenallan came in, and had since remained standing, he
-now threw himself doggedly upon a seat, and remained in the sullen
-posture of one who was determined to keep his word.
-
-But the old woman, whom this crisis seemed to repossess in all those
-powers of mental superiority with which she had once been eminently
-gifted, arose, and advancing towards him, said, with a solemn voice, "My
-son, as ye wad shun hearing of your mother's shame--as ye wad not
-willingly be a witness of her guilt--as ye wad deserve her blessing and
-avoid her curse, I charge ye, by the body that bore and that nursed ye,
-to leave me at freedom to speak with Lord Geraldin, what nae mortal ears
-but his ain maun listen to. Obey my words, that when ye lay the moulds on
-my head--and, oh that the day were come!--ye may remember this hour
-without the reproach of having disobeyed the last earthly command that
-ever your mother wared on you."
-
-The terms of this solemn charge revived in the fisherman's heart the
-habit of instinctive obedience in which his mother had trained him up,
-and to which he had submitted implicitly while her powers of exacting it
-remained entire. The recollection mingled also with the prevailing
-passion of the moment; for, glancing his eye at the bed on which the dead
-body had been laid, he muttered to himself, "_He_ never disobeyed _me,_
-in reason or out o' reason, and what for should I vex _her_?" Then,
-taking his reluctant spouse by the arm, he led her gently out of the
-cottage, and latched the door behind them as he left it.
-
-As the unhappy parents withdrew, Lord Glenallan, to prevent the old woman
-from relapsing into her lethargy, again pressed her on the subject of the
-communication which she proposed to make to him.
-
-"Ye will have it sune eneugh," she replied;--"my mind's clear eneugh now,
-and there is not--I think there is not--a chance of my forgetting what I
-have to say. My dwelling at Craigburnfoot is before my een, as it were
-present in reality:--the green bank, with its selvidge, just where the
-burn met wi' the sea--the twa little barks, wi' their sails furled, lying
-in the natural cove which it formed--the high cliff that joined it with
-the pleasure-grounds of the house of Glenallan, and hung right ower the
-stream--Ah! yes--I may forget that I had a husband and have lost him--
-that I hae but ane alive of our four fair sons--that misfortune upon
-misfortune has devoured our ill-gotten wealth--that they carried the
-corpse of my son's eldest-born frae the house this morning--But I never
-can forget the days I spent at bonny Craigburnfoot!"
-
-"You were a favourite of my mother," said Lord Glenallan, desirous to
-bring her back to the point, from which she was wandering.
-
-"I was, I was,--ye needna mind me o' that. She brought me up abune my
-station, and wi' knowledge mair than my fellows--but, like the tempter of
-auld, wi' the knowledge of gude she taught me the knowledge of evil."
-
-"For God's sake, Elspeth," said the astonished Earl, "proceed, if you
-can, to explain the dreadful hints you have thrown out! I well know you
-are confidant to one dreadful secret, which should split this roof even
-to hear it named--but speak on farther."
-
-"I will," she said--"I will!--just bear wi' me for a little;"--and again
-she seemed lost in recollection, but it was no longer tinged with
-imbecility or apathy. She was now entering upon the topic which had long
-loaded her mind, and which doubtless often occupied her whole soul at
-times when she seemed dead to all around her. And I may add, as a
-remarkable fact, that such was the intense operation of mental energy
-upon her physical powers and nervous system, that, notwithstanding her
-infirmity of deafness, each word that Lord Glenallan spoke during this
-remarkable conference, although in the lowest tone of horror or agony,
-fell as full and distinct upon Elspeth's ear as it could have done at any
-period of her life. She spoke also herself clearly, distinctly, and
-slowly, as if anxious that the intelligence she communicated should be
-fully understood; concisely at the same time, and with none of the
-verbiage or circumlocutory additions natural to those of her sex and
-condition. In short, her language bespoke a better education, as well as
-an uncommonly firm and resolved mind, and a character of that sort from
-which great virtues or great crimes may be naturally expected. The tenor
-of her communication is disclosed in the following chapter.
-
-
-
-                            CHAPTER TWELFTH.
-
-                    Remorse--she neer forsakes us--
-            A bloodhound staunch--she tracks our rapid step
-            Through the wild labyrinth of youthful frenzy,
-            Unheard, perchance, until old age hath tamed us
-         Then in our lair, when Time hath chilled our joints,
-             And maimed our hope of combat, or of flight,
-             We hear her deep-mouthed bay, announcing all
-             Of wrath, and wo, and punishment that bides us.
-                                            Old Play.
-
-"I need not tell you," said the old woman, addressing the Earl of
-Glenallan, "that I was the favourite and confidential attendant of
-Joscelind, Countess of Glenallan, whom God assoilzie!"--(here she crossed
-herself)--"and I think farther, ye may not have forgotten that I shared
-her regard for mony years. I returned it by the maist sincere attachment,
-but I fell into disgrace frae a trifling act of disobedience, reported to
-your mother by ane that thought, and she wasna wrang, that I was a spy
-upon her actions and yours."
-
-"I charge thee, woman," said the Earl, in a voice trembling with passion,
-"name not her name in my hearing!"
-
-"I must," returned the penitent firmly and calmly, "or how can you
-understand me?"
-
-The Earl leaned upon one of the wooden chairs of the hut, drew his hat
-over his face, clenched his hands together, set his teeth like one who
-summons up courage to undergo a painful operation, and made a signal to
-her to proceed.
-
-"I say, then," she resumed, "that my disgrace with my mistress was
-chiefly owing to Miss Eveline Neville, then bred up in Glenallan House as
-the daughter of a cousin-german and intimate friend of your father that
-was gane. There was muckle mystery in her history,--but wha dared to
-inquire farther than the Countess liked to tell?--All in Glenallan House
-loved Miss Neville--all but twa, your mother and mysell--we baith hated
-her."
-
-"God! for what reason, since a creature so mild, so gentle, so formed to
-inspire affection, never walked on this wretched world?"
-
-"It may hae been sae," rejoined Elspeth, "but your mother hated a' that
-cam of your father's family--a' but himsell. Her reasons related to
-strife which fell between them soon after her marriage; the particulars
-are naething to this purpose. But oh! doubly did she hate Eveline Neville
-when she perceived that there was a growing kindness atween you and that
-unfortunate young leddy! Ye may mind that the Countess's dislike didna
-gang farther at first than just showing o' the cauld shouther--at least
-it wasna seen farther; but at the lang run it brak out into such
-downright violence that Miss Neville was even fain to seek refuge at
-Knockwinnock Castle with Sir Arthur's leddy, wha (God sain her!) was then
-wi' the living."
-
-"You rend my heart by recalling these particulars--But go on,--and may my
-present agony be accepted as additional penance for the involuntary
-crime!"
-
-"She had been absent some months," continued Elspeth, "when I was ae
-night watching in my hut the return of my husband from fishing, and
-shedding in private those bitter tears that my proud spirit wrung frae me
-whenever I thought on my disgrace. The sneck was drawn, and the Countess
-your mother entered my dwelling. I thought I had seen a spectre, for even
-in the height of my favour, this was an honour she had never done me, and
-she looked as pale and ghastly as if she had risen from the grave. She
-sat down, and wrung the draps from her hair and cloak,--for the night was
-drizzling, and her walk had been through the plantations, that were a'
-loaded with dew. I only mention these things that you may understand how
-weel that night lives in my memory,--and weel it may. I was surprised to
-see her, but I durstna speak first, mair than if I had seen a phantom--
-Na, I durst not, my lord, I that hae seen mony sights of terror, and
-never shook at them. Sae, after a silence, she said, Elspeth Cheyne (for
-she always gave me my maiden name), are not ye the daughter of that
-Reginald Cheyne who died to save his master, Lord Glenallan, on the field
-of Sheriffmuir?' And I answered her as proudly as hersell nearly--As sure
-as you are the daughter of that Earl of Glenallan whom my father saved
-that day by his own death.'"
-
-Here she made a deep pause.
-
-"And what followed?--what followed?--For Heaven's sake, good woman--But
-why should I use that word?--Yet, good or bad, I command you to tell me."
-
-"And little I should value earthly command," answered Elspeth, "were
-there not a voice that has spoken to me sleeping and waking, that drives
-me forward to tell this sad tale. Aweel, my Lord--the Countess said to
-me, My son loves Eveline Neville--they are agreed--they are plighted:
-should they have a son, my right over Glenallan merges--I sink from that
-moment from a Countess into a miserable stipendiary dowager, I who
-brought lands and vassals, and high blood and ancient fame, to my
-husband, I must cease to be mistress when my son has an heir-male. But I
-care not for that--had he married any but one of the hated Nevilles, I
-had been patient. But for them--that they and their descendants should
-enjoy the right and honours of my ancestors, goes through my heart like a
-two-edged dirk. And this girl--I detest her!'--And I answered, for my
-heart kindled at her words, that her hate was equalled by mine."
-
-"Wretch!" exclaimed the Earl, in spite of his determination to preserve
-silence--"wretched woman! what cause of hate could have arisen from a
-being so innocent and gentle?"
-
-"I hated what my mistress hated, as was the use with the liege vassals of
-the house of Glenallan; for though, my Lord, I married under my degree,
-yet an ancestor of yours never went to the field of battle, but an
-ancestor of the frail, demented, auld, useless wretch wha now speaks with
-you, carried his shield before him. But that was not a'," continued the
-beldam, her earthly and evil passions rekindling as she became heated in
-her narration--"that was not a'; I hated Miss Eveline Neville for her ain
-sake, I brought her frae England, and, during our whole journey, she
-gecked and scorned at my northern speech and habit, as her southland
-leddies and kimmers had done at the boarding-school, as they cald it"--
-(and, strange as it may seem, she spoke of an affront offered by a
-heedless school-girl without intention, with a degree of inveteracy
-which, at such a distance of time, a mortal offence would neither have
-authorized or excited in any well-constituted mind)--"Yes, she scorned
-and jested at me--but let them that scorn the tartan fear the dirk!"
-
-She paused, and then went on--"But I deny not that I hated her mair than
-she deserved. My mistress, the Countess, persevered and said, Elspeth
-Cheyne, this unruly boy will marry with the false English blood. Were
-days as they have been, I could throw her into the Massymore* of
-Glenallan, and fetter him in the Keep of Strathbonnel.
-
-* _Massa-mora,_ an ancient name for a dungeon, derived from the Moorish
-language, perhaps as far back as the time of the Crusades.
-
-But these times are past, and the authority which the nobles of the land
-should exercise is delegated to quibbling lawyers and their baser
-dependants. Hear me, Elspeth Cheyne! if you are your father's daughter as
-I am mine, I will find means that they shall not marry. She walks often
-to that cliff that overhangs your dwelling to look for her lover's boat--
-(ye may remember the pleasure ye then took on the sea, my Lord)--let him
-find her forty fathom lower than he expects!'--Yes! ye may stare and
-frown and clench your hand; but, as sure as I am to face the only Being I
-ever feared--and, oh that I had feared him mair!--these were your
-mother's words. What avails it to me to lie to you?--But I wadna consent
-to stain my hand with blood.--Then she said, By the religion of our holy
-Church they are ower _sibb_ thegither. But I expect nothing but that both
-will become heretics as well as disobedient reprobates;'--that was her
-addition to that argument. And then, as the fiend is ever ower busy wi'
-brains like mine, that are subtle beyond their use and station, I was
-unhappily permitted to add--But they might be brought to think themselves
-sae _sibb_ as no Christian law will permit their wedlock.'"
-
-Here the Earl of Glenallan echoed her words, with a shriek so piercing as
-almost to rend the roof of the cottage.--"Ah! then Eveline Neville was
-not the--the"--
-
-"The daughter, ye would say, of your father?" continued Elspeth. "No--be
-it a torment or be it a comfort to you--ken the truth, she was nae mair a
-daughter of your father's house than I am."
-
-"Woman, deceive me not!--make me not curse the memory of the parent I
-have so lately laid in the grave, for sharing in a plot the most cruel,
-the most infernal"--
-
-"Bethink ye, my Lord Geraldin, ere ye curse the memory of a parent that's
-gane, is there none of the blood of Glenallan living, whose faults have
-led to this dreadfu' catastrophe?"
-
-"Mean you my brother?--he, too, is gone," said the Earl.
-
-"No," replied the sibyl, "I mean yoursell, Lord Geraldin. Had you not
-transgressed the obedience of a son by wedding Eveline Neville in secret
-while a guest at Knockwinnock, our plot might have separated you for a
-time, but would have left at least your sorrows without remorse to canker
-them. But your ain conduct had put poison in the weapon that we threw,
-and it pierced you with the mair force because ye cam rushing to meet it.
-Had your marriage been a proclaimed and acknowledged action, our
-stratagem to throw an obstacle into your way that couldna be got ower,
-neither wad nor could hae been practised against ye."
-
-"Great Heaven!" said the unfortunate nobleman--"it is as if a film fell
-from my obscured eyes! Yes, I now well understand the doubtful hints of
-consolation thrown out by my wretched mother, tending indirectly to
-impeach the evidence of the horrors of which her arts had led me to
-believe myself guilty."
-
-"She could not speak mair plainly," answered Elspeth, "without confessing
-her ain fraud,--and she would have submitted to be torn by wild horses,
-rather than unfold what she had done; and if she had still lived, so
-would I for her sake. They were stout hearts the race of Glenallan, male
-and female, and sae were a' that in auld times cried their gathering-word
-of _Clochnaben_--they stood shouther to shouther--nae man parted frae his
-chief for love of gold or of gain, or of right or of wrang. The times are
-changed, I hear, now."
-
-The unfortunate nobleman was too much wrapped up in his own confused and
-distracted reflections, to notice the rude expressions of savage
-fidelity, in which, even in the latest ebb of life, the unhappy author of
-his misfortunes seemed to find a stern and stubborn source of
-consolation.
-
-"Great Heaven!" he exclaimed, "I am then free from a guilt the most
-horrible with which man can be stained, and the sense of which, however
-involuntary, has wrecked my peace, destroyed my health, and bowed me down
-to an untimely grave. Accept," he fervently uttered, lifting his eyes
-upwards, "accept my humble thanks! If I live miserable, at least I shall
-not die stained with that unnatural guilt!--And thou--proceed if thou
-hast more to tell--proceed, while thou hast voice to speak it, and I have
-powers to listen."
-
-"Yes," answered the beldam, "the hour when you shall hear, and I shall
-speak, is indeed passing rapidly away. Death has crossed your brow with
-his finger, and I find his grasp turning every day coulder at my heart.
-Interrupt me nae mair with exclamations and groans and accusations, but
-hear my tale to an end! And then--if ye be indeed sic a Lord of Glenallan
-as I hae heard of in _my_ day--make your merrymen gather the thorn, and
-the brier, and the green hollin, till they heap them as high as the
-house-riggin', and burn! burn! burn! the auld witch Elspeth, and a' that
-can put ye in mind that sic a creature ever crawled upon the land!"
-
-"Go on," said the Earl, "go on--I will not again interrupt you."
-
-He spoke in a half-suffocated yet determined voice, resolved that no
-irritability on his part should deprive him of this opportunity of
-acquiring proofs of the wonderful tale he then heard. But Elspeth had
-become exhausted by a continuous narration of such unusual length; the
-subsequent part of her story was more broken, and though still distinctly
-intelligible in most parts, had no longer the lucid conciseness which the
-first part of her narrative had displayed to such an astonishing degree.
-Lord Glenallan found it necessary, when she had made some attempts to
-continue her narrative without success, to prompt her memory by
-demanding--"What proofs she could propose to bring of the truth of a
-narrative so different from that which she had originally told?"
-
-"The evidence," she replied, "of Eveline Neville's real birth was in the
-Countess's possession, with reasons for its being for some time kept
-private;--they may yet be found, if she has not destroyed them, in the
-left hand drawer of the ebony cabinet that stood in the dressing-room.
-These she meant to suppress for the time, until you went abroad again,
-when she trusted, before your return, to send Miss Neville back to her
-ain country, or to get her settled in marriage."
-
-"But did you not show me letters of my father's, which seemed to me,
-unless my senses altogether failed me in that horrible moment, to avow
-his relationship to--to the unhappy"--
-
-"We did; and, with my testimony, how could you doubt the fact, or her
-either? But we suppressed the true explanation of these letters, and that
-was, that your father thought it right the young leddy should pass for
-his daughter for a while, on account o'some family reasons that were
-amang them."
-
-"But wherefore, when you learned our union, was this dreadful artifice
-persisted in?"
-
-"It wasna," she replied, "till Lady Glenallan had communicated this fause
-tale, that she suspected ye had actually made a marriage--nor even then
-did you avow it sae as to satisfy her whether the ceremony had in verity
-passed atween ye or no--But ye remember, O ye canna but remember weel,
-what passed in that awfu' meeting!"
-
-"Woman! you swore upon the gospels to the fact which you now disavow."
-
-"I did,--and I wad hae taen a yet mair holy pledge on it, if there had
-been ane--I wad not hae spared the blood of my body, or the guilt of my
-soul, to serve the house of Glenallan."
-
-"Wretch! do you call that horrid perjury, attended with consequences yet
-more dreadful--do you esteem that a service to the house of your
-benefactors?"
-
-"I served her, wha was then the head of Glenallan, as she required me to
-serve her. The cause was between God and her conscience--the manner
-between God and mine--She is gane to her account, and I maun follow. Have
-I taulds you a'?"
-
-"No," answered Lord Glenallan--"you have yet more to tell--you have to
-tell me of the death of the angel whom your perjury drove to despair,
-stained, as she thought herself, with a crime so horrible. Speak truth--
-was that dreadful--was that horrible incident"--he could scarcely
-articulate the words--"was it as reported? or was it an act of yet
-further, though not more atrocious cruelty, inflicted by others?"
-
-"I understand you," said Elspeth. "But report spoke truth;--our false
-witness was indeed the cause, but the deed was her ain distracted act. On
-that fearfu' disclosure, when ye rushed frae the Countess's presence and
-saddled your horse, and left the castle like a fire-flaught, the Countess
-hadna yet discovered your private marriage; she hadna fund out that the
-union, which she had framed this awfu' tale to prevent, had e'en taen
-place. Ye fled from the house as if the fire o' Heaven was about to fa'
-upon it, and Miss Neville, atween reason and the want o't, was put under
-sure ward. But the ward sleep't, and the prisoner waked--the window was
-open--the way was before her--there was the cliff, and there was the
-sea!--O, when will I forget that!"
-
-"And thus died," said the Earl, "even so as was reported?"
-
-"No, my lord. I had gane out to the cove--the tide was in, and it flowed,
-as ye'll remember, to the foot o' that cliff--it was a great convenience
-that for my husband's trade--Where am I wandering?--I saw a white object
-dart frae the tap o' the cliff like a sea-maw through the mist, and then
-a heavy flash and sparkle of the waters showed me it was a human creature
-that had fa'en into the waves. I was bold and strong, and familiar with
-the tide. I rushed in and grasped her gown, and drew her out and carried
-her on my shouthers--I could hae carried twa sic then--carried her to my
-hut, and laid her on my bed. Neighbours cam and brought help; but the
-words she uttered in her ravings, when she got back the use of speech,
-were such, that I was fain to send them awa, and get up word to Glenallan
-House. The Countess sent down her Spanish servant Teresa--if ever there
-was a fiend on earth in human form, that woman was ane. She and I were to
-watch the unhappy leddy, and let no other person approach.--God knows
-what Teresa's part was to hae been--she tauld it not to me--but Heaven
-took the conclusion in its ain hand. The poor leddy! she took the pangs
-of travail before her time, bore a male child, and died in the arms of
-me--of her mortal enemy! Ay, _ye_ may weep--she was a sightly creature to
-see to--but think ye, if I didna mourn her then, that I can mourn her
-now? Na, na, I left Teresa wi' the dead corpse and new-born babe, till I
-gaed up to take the Countess's commands what was to be done. Late as it
-was, I ca'd her up, and she gar'd me ca' up your brother"--
-
-"My brother?"
-
-"Yes, Lord Geraldin, e'en your brother, that some said she aye wished to
-be her heir. At ony rate, he was the person maist concerned in the
-succession and heritance of the house of Glenallan."
-
-"And is it possible to believe, then, that my brother, out of avarice to
-grasp at my inheritance, would lend himself to such a base and dreadful
-stratagem?"
-
-"Your mother believed it," said the old beldam with a fiendish laugh--"it
-was nae plot of my making; but what they did or said I will not say,
-because I did not hear. Lang and sair they consulted in the black
-wainscot dressing-room; and when your brother passed through the room
-where I was waiting, it seemed to me (and I have often thought sae since
-syne) that the fire of hell was in his cheek and een. But he had left
-some of it with his mother, at ony rate. She entered the room like a
-woman demented, and the first words she spoke were, Elspeth Cheyne, did
-you ever pull a new-budded flower?' I answered, as ye may believe, that I
-often had. Then,' said she, ye will ken the better how to blight the
-spurious and heretical blossom that has sprung forth this night to
-disgrace my father's noble house--See here;'--(and she gave me a golden
-bodkin)--nothing but gold must shed the blood of Glenallan. This child is
-already as one of the dead, and since thou and Teresa alone ken that it
-lives, let it be dealt upon as ye will answer to me!' and she turned away
-in her fury, and left me with the bodkin in my hand.--Here it is; that
-and the ring of Miss Neville, are a' I hae preserved of my ill-gotten
-gear--for muckle was the gear I got. And weel hae I keepit the secret,
-but no for the gowd or gear either."
-
-Her long and bony hand held out to Lord Glenallan a gold bodkin, down
-which in fancy be saw the blood of his infant trickling.
-
-"Wretch! had you the heart?"
-
-"I kenna if I could hae had it or no. I returned to my cottage without
-feeling the ground that I trode on; but Teresa and the child were gane--
-a' that was alive was gane--naething left but the lifeless corpse."
-
-"And did you never learn my infant's fate?"
-
-"I could but guess. I have tauld ye your mother's purpose, and I ken
-Teresa was a fiend. She was never mair seen in Scotland, and I have heard
-that she returned to her ain land. A dark curtain has fa'en ower the
-past, and the few that witnessed ony part of it could only surmise
-something of seduction and suicide. You yourself"--
-
-"I know--I know it all," answered the Earl.
-
-"You indeed know all that I can say--And now, heir of Glenallan, can you
-forgive me?"
-
-"Ask forgiveness of God, and not of man," said the Earl, turning away.
-
-"And how shall I ask of the pure and unstained what is denied to me by a
-sinner like mysell? If I hae sinned, hae I not suffered?--Hae I had a
-day's peace or an hour's rest since these lang wet locks of hair first
-lay upon my pillow at Craigburnfoot?--Has not my house been burned, wi'
-my bairn in the cradle?--Have not my boats been wrecked, when a' others
-weather'd the gale?--Have not a' that were near and dear to me dree'd
-penance for my sin?--Has not the fire had its share o' them--the winds
-had their part--the sea had her part?--And oh!" she added, with a
-lengthened groan, looking first upwards towards Heaven, and then bending
-her eyes on the floor--"O that the earth would take her part, that's been
-lang lang wearying to be joined to it!"
-
-Lord Glenallan had reached the door of the cottage, but the generosity of
-his nature did not permit him to leave the unhappy woman in this state of
-desperate reprobation. "May God forgive thee, wretched woman," he said,
-"as sincerely as I do!--Turn for mercy to Him who can alone grant mercy,
-and may your prayers be heard as if they were mine own!--I will send a
-religious man."
-
-"Na, na--nae priest! nae priest!" she ejaculated; and the door of the
-cottage opening as she spoke, prevented her from proceeding.
-
-
-
-
-                           CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
-
-
-          Still in his dead hand clenched remain the strings
-              That thrill his father's heart--e'en as the limb,
-          Lopped off and laid in grave, retains, they tell us,
-              Strange commerce with the mutilated stump,
-          Whose nerves are twinging still in maimed existence.
-                                           Old Play.
-
-The Antiquary, as we informed the reader in the end of the thirty-first
-chapter, [tenth] had shaken off the company of worthy Mr. Blattergowl,
-although he offered to entertain him with an abstract of the ablest
-speech he had ever known in the teind court, delivered by the procurator
-for the church in the remarkable case of the parish of Gatherem.
-Resisting this temptation, our senior preferred a solitary path, which
-again conducted him to the cottage of Mucklebackit. When he came in front
-of the fisherman's hut, he observed a man working intently, as if to
-repair a shattered boat which lay upon the beach, and going up to him was
-surprised to find it was Mucklebackit himself. "I am glad," he said in a
-tone of sympathy--"I am glad, Saunders, that you feel yourself able to
-make this exertion."
-
-"And what would ye have me to do," answered the fisher gruffly, "unless I
-wanted to see four children starve, because ane is drowned? It's weel wi'
-you gentles, that can sit in the house wi' handkerchers at your een when
-ye lose a friend; but the like o' us maun to our wark again, if our
-hearts were beating as hard as my hammer."
-
-Without taking more notice of Oldbuck, he proceeded in his labour; and
-the Antiquary, to whom the display of human nature under the influence of
-agitating passions was never indifferent, stood beside him, in silent
-attention, as if watching the progress of the work. He observed more than
-once the man's hard features, as if by the force of association, prepare
-to accompany the sound of the saw and hammer with his usual symphony of a
-rude tune, hummed or whistled,--and as often a slight twitch of
-convulsive expression showed, that ere the sound was uttered, a cause for
-suppressing it rushed upon his mind. At length, when he had patched a
-considerable rent, and was beginning to mend another, his feelings
-appeared altogether to derange the power of attention necessary for his
-work. The piece of wood which he was about to nail on was at first too
-long; then he sawed it off too short, then chose another equally ill
-adapted for the purpose. At length, throwing it down in anger, after
-wiping his dim eye with his quivering hand, he exclaimed, "There is a
-curse either on me or on this auld black bitch of a boat, that I have
-hauled up high and dry, and patched and clouted sae mony years, that she
-might drown my poor Steenie at the end of them, an' be d--d to her!" and
-he flung his hammer against the boat, as if she had been the intentional
-cause of his misfortune. Then recollecting himself, he added, "Yet what
-needs ane be angry at her, that has neither soul nor sense?--though I am
-no that muckle better mysell. She's but a rickle o' auld rotten deals
-nailed thegither, and warped wi' the wind and the sea--and I am a dour
-carle, battered by foul weather at sea and land till I am maist as
-senseless as hersell. She maun be mended though again the morning tide--
-that's a thing o' necessity."
-
-Thus speaking, he went to gather together his instruments, and attempt to
-resume his labour,--but Oldbuck took him kindly by the arm. "Come, come,"
-he said, "Saunders, there is no work for you this day--I'll send down
-Shavings the carpenter to mend the boat, and he may put the day's work
-into my account--and you had better not come out to-morrow, but stay to
-comfort your family under this dispensation, and the gardener will bring
-you some vegetables and meal from Monkbarns."
-
-"I thank ye, Monkbarns," answered the poor fisher; "I am a plain-spoken
-man, and hae little to say for mysell; I might hae learned fairer
-fashions frae my mither lang syne, but I never saw muckle gude they did
-her; however, I thank ye. Ye were aye kind and neighbourly, whatever folk
-says o' your being near and close; and I hae often said, in thae times
-when they were ganging to raise up the puir folk against the gentles--I
-hae often said, neer a man should steer a hair touching to Monkbarns
-while Steenie and I could wag a finger--and so said Steenie too. And,
-Monkbarns, when ye laid his head in the grave (and mony thanks for the
-respect), ye, saw the mouls laid on an honest lad that likit you weel,
-though he made little phrase about it."
-
-Oldbuck, beaten from the pride of his affected cynicism, would not
-willingly have had any one by on that occasion to quote to him his
-favourite maxims of the Stoic philosophy. The large drops fell fast from
-his own eyes, as he begged the father, who was now melted at recollecting
-the bravery and generous sentiments of his son, to forbear useless
-sorrow, and led him by the arm towards his own home, where another scene
-awaited our Antiquary.
-
-As he entered, the first person whom he beheld was Lord Glenallan. Mutual
-surprise was in their countenances as they saluted each other--with
-haughty reserve on the part of Mr. Oldbuck, and embarrassment on that of
-the Earl.
-
-"My Lord Glenallan, I think?" said Mr. Oldbuck.
-
-"Yes--much changed from what he was when he knew Mr. Oldbuck."
-
-"I do not mean," said the Antiquary, "to intrude upon your lordship--I
-only came to see this distressed family."
-
-"And you have found one, sir, who has still greater claims on your
-compassion."
-
-"My compassion? Lord Glenallan cannot need my compassion. If Lord
-Glenallan could need it, I think he would hardly ask it."
-
-"Our former acquaintance," said the Earl--
-
-"Is of such ancient date, my lord--was of such short duration, and was
-connected with circumstances so exquisitely painful, that I think we may
-dispense with renewing it."
-
-So saying, the Antiquary turned away, and left the hut; but Lord
-Glenallan followed him into the open air, and, in spite of a hasty "Good
-morning, my lord," requested a few minutes' conversation, and the favour
-of his advice in an important matter.
-
-"Your lordship will find many more capable to advise you, my lord, and by
-whom your intercourse will be deemed an honour. For me, I am a man
-retired from business and the world, and not very fond of raking up the
-past events of my useless life;--and forgive me if I say, I have
-particular pain in reverting to that period of it when I acted like a
-fool, and your lordship like"--He stopped short.
-
-"Like a villain, you would say," said Lord Glenallan--"for such I must
-have appeared to you."
-
-"My lord--my lord, I have no desire to hear your shrift," said the
-Antiquary.
-
-"But, sir, if I can show you that I am more sinned against than sinning--
-that I have been a man miserable beyond the power of description, and who
-looks forward at this moment to an untimely grave as to a haven of rest,
-you will not refuse the confidence which, accepting your appearance at
-this critical moment as a hint from Heaven, I venture thus to press on
-you."
-
-"Assuredly, my lord, I shall shun no longer the continuation of this
-extraordinary interview."
-
-"I must then recall to you our occasional meetings upwards of twenty
-years since at Knockwinnock Castle,--and I need not remind you of a lady
-who was then a member of that family."
-
-"The unfortunate Miss Eveline Neville, my lord; I remember it well."
-
-"Towards whom you entertained sentiments"--
-
-"Very different from those with which I before and since have regarded
-her sex. Her gentleness, her docility, her pleasure in the studies which
-I pointed out to her, attached my affections more than became my age
-though that was not then much advanced--or the solidity of my character.
-But I need not remind your lordship of the various modes in which you
-indulged your gaiety at the expense of an awkward and retired student,
-embarrassed by the expression of feelings so new to him, and I have no
-doubt that the young lady joined you in the well-deserved ridicule--it is
-the way of womankind. I have spoken at once to the painful circumstances
-of my addresses and their rejection, that your lordship may be satisfied
-everything is full in my memory, and may, so far as I am concerned, tell
-your story without scruple or needless delicacy."
-
-"I will," said Lord Glenallan. "But first let me say, you do injustice to
-the memory of the gentlest and kindest, as well as to the most unhappy of
-women, to suppose she could make a jest of the honest affection of a man
-like you. Frequently did she blame me, Mr. Oldbuck, for indulging my
-levity at your expense--may I now presume you will excuse the gay
-freedoms which then offended you?--my state of mind has never since laid
-me under the necessity of apologizing for the inadvertencies of a light
-and happy temper."
-
-"My lord, you are fully pardoned," said Mr. Oldbuck. "You should be
-aware, that, like all others, I was ignorant at the time that I placed
-myself in competition with your lordship, and understood that Miss
-Neville was in a state of dependence which might make her prefer a
-competent independence and the hand of an honest man--But I am wasting
-time--I would I could believe that the views entertained towards her by
-others were as fair and honest as mine!"
-
-"Mr. Oldbuck, you judge harshly."
-
-"Not without cause, my lord. When I only, of all the magistrates of this
-county--having neither, like some of them, the honour to be connected
-with your powerful family--nor, like others, the meanness to fear it,--
-when I made some inquiry into the manner of Miss Neville's death--I shake
-you, my lord, but I must be plain--I do own I had every reason to believe
-that she had met most unfair dealing, and had either been imposed upon by
-a counterfeit marriage, or that very strong measures had been adopted to
-stifle and destroy the evidence of a real union. And I cannot doubt in my
-own mind, that this cruelty on your lordship's part, whether coming of
-your own free will, or proceeding from the influence of the late
-Countess, hurried the unfortunate young lady to the desperate act by
-which her life was terminated."
-
-"You are deceived, Mr. Oldbuck, into conclusions which are not just,
-however naturally they flow from the circumstances. Believe me, I
-respected you even when I was most embarrassed by your active attempts to
-investigate our family misfortunes. You showed yourself more worthy of
-Miss Neville than I, by the spirit with which you persisted in
-vindicating her reputation even after her death. But the firm belief that
-your well-meant efforts could only serve to bring to light a story too
-horrible to be detailed, induced me to join my unhappy mother in schemes
-to remove or destroy all evidence of the legal union which had taken
-place between Eveline and myself. And now let us sit down on this bank,--
-for I feel unable to remain longer standing,--and have the goodness to
-listen to the extraordinary discovery which I have this day made."
-
-They sate down accordingly; and Lord Glenallan briefly narrated his
-unhappy family history--his concealed marriage--the horrible invention by
-which his mother had designed to render impossible that union which had
-already taken place. He detailed the arts by which the Countess, having
-all the documents relative to Miss Neville's birth in her hands, had
-produced those only relating to a period during which, for family
-reasons, his father had consented to own that young lady as his natural
-daughter, and showed how impossible it was that he could either suspect
-or detect the fraud put upon him by his mother, and vouched by the oaths
-of her attendants, Teresa and Elspeth. "I left my paternal mansion," he
-concluded, "as if the furies of hell had driven me forth, and travelled
-with frantic velocity I knew not whither. Nor have I the slightest
-recollection of what I did or whither I went, until I was discovered by
-my brother. I will not trouble you with an account of my sick-bed and
-recovery, or how, long afterwards, I ventured to inquire after the sharer
-of my misfortunes, and heard that her despair had found a dreadful remedy
-for all the ills of life. The first thing that roused me to thought was
-hearing of your inquiries into this cruel business; and you will hardly
-wonder, that, believing what I did believe, I should join in those
-expedients to stop your investigation, which my brother and mother had
-actively commenced. The information which I gave them concerning the
-circumstances and witnesses of our private marriage enabled them to
-baffle your zeal. The clergyman, therefore, and witnesses, as persons who
-had acted in the matter only to please the powerful heir of Glenallan,
-were accessible to his promises and threats, and were so provided for,
-that they had no objections to leave this country for another. For
-myself, Mr. Oldbuck," pursued this unhappy man, "from that moment I
-considered myself as blotted out of the book of the living, and as having
-nothing left to do with this world. My mother tried to reconcile me to
-life by every art--even by intimations which I can now interpret as
-calculated to produce a doubt of the horrible tale she herself had
-fabricated. But I construed all she said as the fictions of maternal
-affection. I will forbear all reproach. She is no more--and, as her
-wretched associate said, she knew not how the dart was poisoned, or how
-deep it must sink, when she threw it from her hand. But, Mr. Oldbuck, if
-ever, during these twenty years, there crawled upon earth a living being
-deserving of your pity, I have been that man. My food has not nourished
-me--my sleep has not refreshed me--my devotions have not comforted me--
-all that is cheering and necessary to man has been to me converted into
-poison. The rare and limited intercourse which I have held with others
-has been most odious to me. I felt as if I were bringing the
-contamination of unnatural and inexpressible guilt among the gay and the
-innocent. There have been moments when I had thoughts of another
-description--to plunge into the adventures of war, or to brave the
-dangers of the traveller in foreign and barbarous climates--to mingle in
-political intrigue, or to retire to the stern seclusion of the anchorites
-of our religion;--all these are thoughts which have alternately passed
-through my mind, but each required an energy, which was mine no longer,
-after the withering stroke I had received. I vegetated on as I could in
-the same spot--fancy, feeling, judgment, and health, gradually decaying,
-like a tree whose bark has been destroyed,--when first the blossoms fade,
-then the boughs, until its state resembles the decayed and dying trunk
-that is now before you. Do you now pity and forgive me?"
-
-"My lord," answered the Antiquary, much affected, "my pity--my
-forgiveness, you have not to ask, for your dismal story is of itself not
-only an ample excuse for whatever appeared mysterious in your conduct,
-but a narrative that might move your worst enemies (and I, my lord, was
-never of the number) to tears and to sympathy. But permit me to ask what
-you now mean to do, and why you have honoured me, whose opinion can be of
-little consequence, with your confidence on this occasion?"
-
-"Mr. Oldbuck," answered the Earl, "as I could never have foreseen the
-nature of that confession which I have heard this day, I need not say
-that I had no formed plan of consulting you, or any one, upon affairs the
-tendency of which I could not even have suspected. But I am without
-friends, unused to business, and, by long retirement, unacquainted alike
-with the laws of the land and the habits of the living generation; and
-when, most unexpectedly, I find myself immersed in the matters of which I
-know least, I catch, like a drowning man, at the first support that
-offers. You are that support, Mr. Oldbuck. I have always heard you
-mentioned as a man of wisdom and intelligence--I have known you myself as
-a man of a resolute and independent spirit;--and there is one
-circumstance," said he, "which ought to combine us in some degree--our
-having paid tribute to the same excellence of character in poor Eveline.
-You offered yourself to me in my need, and you were already acquainted
-with the beginning of my misfortunes. To you, therefore, I have recourse
-for advice, for sympathy, for support."
-
-"You shall seek none of them in vain, my lord," said Oldbuck, "so far as
-my slender ability extends;--and I am honoured by the preference, whether
-it arises from choice, or is prompted by chance. But this is a matter to
-be ripely considered. May I ask what are your principal views at
-present?"
-
-"To ascertain the fate of my child," said the Earl, "be the consequences
-what they may, and to do justice to the honour of Eveline, which I have
-only permitted to be suspected to avoid discovery of the yet more
-horrible taint to which I was made to believe it liable."
-
-"And the memory of your mother?"
-
-"Must bear its own burden," answered the Earl with a sigh: "better that
-she were justly convicted of deceit, should that be found necessary, than
-that others should be unjustly accused of crimes so much more dreadful."
-
-"Then, my lord," said Oldbuck, "our first business must be to put the
-information of the old woman, Elspeth, into a regular and authenticated
-form."
-
-"That," said Lord Glenallan, "will be at present, I fear, impossible. She
-is exhausted herself, and surrounded by her distressed family. To-morrow,
-perhaps, when she is alone--and yet I doubt, from her imperfect sense of
-right and wrong, whether she would speak out in any one's presence but my
-own. I am too sorely fatigued."
-
-"Then, my lord," said the Antiquary, whom the interest of the moment
-elevated above points of expense and convenience, which had generally
-more than enough of weight with him, "I would propose to your lordship,
-instead of returning, fatigued as you are, so far as to Glenallan House,
-or taking the more uncomfortable alternative of going to a bad inn at
-Fairport, to alarm all the busybodies of the town--I would propose, I
-say, that you should be my guest at Monkbarns for this night. By
-to-morrow these poor people will have renewed their out-of-doors
-vocation--for sorrow with them affords no respite from labour,--and we
-will visit the old woman Elspeth alone, and take down her examination."
-
-After a formal apology for the encroachment, Lord Glenallan agreed to go
-with him, and underwent with patience in their return home the whole
-history of John of the Girnel, a legend which Mr. Oldbuck was never known
-to spare any one who crossed his threshold.
-
-The arrival of a stranger of such note, with two saddle-horses and a
-servant in black, which servant had holsters on his saddle-bow, and a
-coronet upon the holsters, created a general commotion in the house of
-Monkbarns. Jenny Rintherout, scarce recovered from the hysterics which
-she had taken on hearing of poor Steenie's misfortune, chased about the
-turkeys and poultry, cackled and screamed louder than they did, and ended
-by killing one-half too many. Miss Griselda made many wise reflections on
-the hot-headed wilfulness of her brother, who had occasioned such
-devastation, by suddenly bringing in upon them a papist nobleman. And she
-ventured to transmit to Mr. Blattergowl some hint of the unusual
-slaughter which had taken place in the _basse-cour,_ which brought the
-honest clergyman to inquire how his friend Monkbarns had got home, and
-whether he was not the worse of being at the funeral, at a period so near
-the ringing of the bell for dinner, that the Antiquary had no choice left
-but to invite him to stay and bless the meat. Miss M'Intyre had on her
-part some curiosity to see this mighty peer, of whom all had heard, as an
-eastern caliph or sultan is heard of by his subjects, and felt some
-degree of timidity at the idea of encountering a person, of whose
-unsocial habits and stern manners so many stories were told, that her
-fear kept at least pace with her curiosity. The aged housekeeper was no
-less flustered and hurried in obeying the numerous and contradictory
-commands of her mistress, concerning preserves, pastry and fruit, the
-mode of marshalling and dishing the dinner, the necessity of not
-permitting the melted butter to run to oil, and the danger of allowing
-Juno--who, though formally banished from the parlour, failed not to
-maraud about the out-settlements of the family--to enter the kitchen.
-
-The only inmate of Monkbarns who remained entirely indifferent on this
-momentous occasion was Hector M'Intyre, who cared no more for an Earl
-than he did for a commoner, and who was only interested in the unexpected
-visit, as it might afford some protection against his uncle's
-displeasure, if he harboured any, for his not attending the funeral, and
-still more against his satire upon the subject of his gallant but
-unsuccessful single combat with the _phoca,_ or seal.
-
-To these, the inmates of his household, Oldbuck presented the Earl of
-Glenallan, who underwent, with meek and subdued civility, the prosing
-speeches of the honest divine, and the lengthened apologies of Miss
-Griselda Oldbuck, which her brother in vain endeavoured to abridge.
-Before the dinner hour, Lord Glenallan requested permission to retire a
-while to his chamber. Mr. Oldbuck accompanied his guest to the Green
-Room, which had been hastily prepared for his reception. He looked around
-with an air of painful recollection.
-
-"I think," at length he observed, "I think, Mr. Oldbuck, that I have been
-in this apartment before."
-
-"Yes, my lord," answered Oldbuck, "upon occasion of an excursion hither
-from Knockwinnock--and since we are upon a subject so melancholy, you may
-perhaps remember whose taste supplied these lines from Chaucer, which now
-form the motto of the tapestry."
-
-"I guess", said the Earl, "though I cannot recollect. She excelled me,
-indeed, in literary taste and information, as in everything else; and it
-is one of the mysterious dispensations of Providence, Mr. Oldbuck, that a
-creature so excellent in mind and body should have been cut off in so
-miserable a manner, merely from her having formed a fatal attachment to
-such a wretch as I am."
-
-Mr. Oldbuck did not attempt an answer to this burst of the grief which
-lay ever nearest to the heart of his guest, but, pressing Lord
-Glenallan's hand with one of his own, and drawing the other across his
-shaggy eyelashes, as if to brush away a mist that intercepted his sight,
-he left the Earl at liberty to arrange himself previous to dinner.
-
-
-
-
-                            CHAPTER FOURTEENTH
-
-                           --Life, with you,
-            Glows in the brain and dances in the arteries;
-           'Tis like the wine some joyous guest hath quaffed,
-                 That glads the heart and elevates the fancy:
-                 Mine is the poor residuum of the cup,
-             Vapid, and dull, and tasteless, only soiling,
-             With its base dregs, the vessel that contains it.
-                                            Old Play.
-
-"Now, only think what a man my brother is, Mr. Blattergowl, for a wise
-man and a learned man, to bring this Yerl into our house without speaking
-a word to a body! And there's the distress of thae Mucklebackits--we
-canna get a fin o' fish--and we hae nae time to send ower to Fairport for
-beef, and the mutton's but new killed--and that silly fliskmahoy, Jenny
-Rintherout, has taen the exies, and done naething but laugh and greet,
-the skirl at the tail o' the guffaw, for twa days successfully--and now
-we maun ask that strange man, that's as grand and as grave as the Yerl
-himsell, to stand at the sideboard! and I canna gang into the kitchen to
-direct onything, for he's hovering there, making some pousowdie* for my
-Lord, for he doesna eat like ither folk neither--And how to sort the
-strange servant man at dinner time--I am sure, Mr. Blattergowl,
-a'thegither, it passes my judgment."
-
-* _Pousowdie,_--Miscellaneous mess.
-
-"Truly, Miss Griselda," replied the divine, "Monkbarns was inconsiderate.
-He should have taen a day to see the invitation, as they do wi' the
-titular's condescendence in the process of valuation and sale. But the
-great man could not have come on a sudden to ony house in this parish
-where he could have been better served with _vivers_--that I must say--
-and also that the steam from the kitchen is very gratifying to my
-nostrils;--and if ye have ony household affairs to attend to, Mrs.
-Griselda, never make a stranger of me--I can amuse mysell very weel with
-the larger copy of Erskine's Institutes."
-
-And taking down from the window-seat that amusing folio, (the Scottish
-Coke upon Littleton), he opened it, as if instinctively, at the tenth
-title of Book Second, "of Teinds or Tythes," and was presently deeply
-wrapped up in an abstruse discussion concerning the temporality of
-benefices.
-
-The entertainment, about which Miss Oldbuck expressed so much anxiety,
-was at length placed upon the table; and the Earl of Glenallan, for the
-first time since the date of his calamity, sat at a stranger's board,
-surrounded by strangers. He seemed to himself like a man in a dream, or
-one whose brain was not fully recovered from the effects of an
-intoxicating potion. Relieved, as he had that morning been, from the
-image of guilt which had so long haunted his imagination, he felt his
-sorrows as a lighter and more tolerable load, but was still unable to
-take any share in the conversation that passed around him. It was,
-indeed, of a cast very different from that which he had been accustomed
-to. The bluntness of Oldbuck, the tiresome apologetic harangues of his
-sister, the pedantry of the divine, and the vivacity of the young
-soldier, which savoured much more of the camp than of the court, were all
-new to a nobleman who had lived in a retired and melancholy state for so
-many years, that the manners of the world seemed to him equally strange
-and unpleasing. Miss M'Intyre alone, from the natural politeness and
-unpretending simplicity of her manners, appeared to belong to that class
-of society to which he had been accustomed in his earlier and better
-days.
-
-Nor did Lord Glenallan's deportment less surprise the company. Though a
-plain but excellent family-dinner was provided (for, as Mr. Blattergowl
-had justly said, it was impossible to surprise Miss Griselda when her
-larder was empty), and though the Antiquary boasted his best port, and
-assimilated it to the Falernian of Horace, Lord Glenallan was proof to
-the allurements of both. His servant placed before him a small mess of
-vegetables, that very dish, the cooking of which had alarmed Miss
-Griselda, arranged with the most minute and scrupulous neatness. He ate
-sparingly of these provisions; and a glass of pure water, sparkling from
-the fountain-head, completed his repast. Such, his servant said, had been
-his lordship's diet for very many years, unless upon the high festivals
-of the Church, or when company of the first rank were entertained at
-Glenallan House, when he relaxed a little in the austerity of his diet,
-and permitted himself a glass or two of wine. But at Monkbarns, no
-anchoret could have made a more simple and scanty meal.
-
-The Antiquary was a gentleman, as we have seen, in feeling, but blunt and
-careless in expression, from the habit of living with those before whom
-he had nothing to suppress. He attacked his noble guest without scruple
-on the severity of his regimen.
-
-"A few half-cold greens and potatoes--a glass of ice-cold water to wash
-them down--antiquity gives no warrant for it, my lord. This house used to
-be accounted a _hospitium,_ a place of retreat for Christians; but your
-lordship's diet is that of a heathen Pythagorean, or Indian Bramin--nay,
-more severe than either, if you refuse these fine apples."
-
-"I am a Catholic, you are aware," said Lord Glenallan, wishing to escape
-from the discussion, "and you know that our church"----
-
-"Lays down many rules of mortification," proceeded the dauntless
-Antiquary; "but I never heard that they were quite so rigorously
-practised--Bear witness my predecessor, John of the Girnel, or the jolly
-Abbot, who gave his name to this apple, my lord."
-
-And as he pared the fruit, in spite of his sister's "O fie, Monkbarns!"
-and the prolonged cough of the minister, accompanied by a shake of his
-huge wig, the Antiquary proceeded to detail the intrigue which had given
-rise to the fame of the abbot's apple with more slyness and
-circumstantiality than was at all necessary. His jest (as may readily be
-conceived) missed fire, for this anecdote of conventual gallantry failed
-to produce the slightest smile on the visage of the Earl. Oldbuck then
-took up the subject of Ossian, Macpherson, and Mac-Cribb; but Lord
-Glenallan had never so much as heard of any of the three, so little
-conversant had he been with modern literature. The conversation was now
-in some danger of flagging, or of falling into the hands of Mr.
-Blattergowl, who had just pronounced the formidable word, "teind-free,"
-when the subject of the French Revolution was started--a political event
-on which Lord Glenallan looked with all the prejudiced horror of a
-bigoted Catholic and zealous aristocrat. Oldbuck was far from carrying
-his detestation of its principles to such a length.
-
-"There were many men in the first Constituent Assembly," he said, "who
-held sound Whiggish doctrines, and were for settling the Constitution
-with a proper provision for the liberties of the people. And if a set of
-furious madmen were now in possession of the government, it was," he
-continued, "what often happened in great revolutions, where extreme
-measures are adopted in the fury of the moment, and the State resembles
-an agitated pendulum which swings from side to side for some time ere it
-can acquire its due and perpendicular station. Or it might be likened to
-a storm or hurricane, which, passing over a region, does great damage in
-its passage, yet sweeps away stagnant and unwholesome vapours, and
-repays, in future health and fertility, its immediate desolation and
-ravage."
-
-The Earl shook his head; but having neither spirit nor inclination for
-debate, he suffered the argument to pass uncontested.
-
-This discussion served to introduce the young soldier's experiences; and
-he spoke of the actions in which he, had been engaged, with modesty, and
-at the same time with an air of spirit and zeal which delighted the Earl,
-who had been bred up, like others of his house, in the opinion that the
-trade of arms was the first duty of man, and believed that to employ them
-against the French was a sort of holy warfare.
-
-"What would I give," said he apart to Oldbuck, as they rose to join the
-ladies in the drawing-room, "what would I give to have a son of such
-spirit as that young gentleman!--He wants something of address and
-manner, something of polish, which mixing in good society would soon give
-him; but with what zeal and animation he expresses himself--how fond of
-his profession--how loud in the praise of others--how modest when
-speaking of himself!"
-
-"Hector is much obliged to you, my lord," replied his uncle, gratified,
-yet not so much so as to suppress his consciousness of his own mental
-superiority over the young soldier; "I believe in my heart nobody ever
-spoke half so much good of him before, except perhaps the sergeant of his
-company, when was wheedling a Highland recruit to enlist with him. He is
-a good lad notwithstanding, although he be not quite the hero your
-lordship supposes him, and although my commendations rather attest the
-kindness than the vivacity of his character. In fact, his high spirit is
-a sort of constitutional vehemence, which attends him in everything he
-sets about, and is often very inconvenient to his friends. I saw him
-to-day engage in an animated contest with a _phoca,_ or seal (_sealgh,_
-our people more properly call them, retaining the Gothic guttural _gh_),
-with as much vehemence as if he had fought against Dumourier--Marry, my
-lord, the _phoca_ had the better, as the said Dumourier had of some other
-folks. And he'll talk with equal if not superior rapture of the good
-behaviour of a pointer bitch, as of the plan of a campaign."
-
-"He shall have full permission to sport over my grounds," said the Earl,
-"if he is so fond of that exercise."
-
-"You will bind him to you, my lord," said Monkbarns, "body and soul: give
-him leave to crack off his birding-piece at a poor covey of partridges or
-moor-fowl, and he's yours for ever--I will enchant him by the
-intelligence. But O, my lord, that you could have seen my phoenix Lovel!
---the very prince and chieftain of the youth of this age; and not
-destitute of spirit neither--I promise you he gave my termagant kinsman a
-_quid pro quo_--a Rowland for his Oliver, as the vulgar say, alluding to
-the two celebrated Paladins of Charlemagne."
-
-After coffee, Lord Glenallan requested a private interview with the
-Antiquary, and was ushered to his library.
-
-"I must withdraw you from your own amiable family," he said, "to involve
-you in the perplexities of an unhappy man. You are acquainted with the
-world, from which I have long been banished; for Glenallan House has been
-to me rather a prison than a dwelling, although a prison which I had
-neither fortitude nor spirit to break from."
-
-"Let me first ask your lordship," said the Antiquary, "what are your own
-wishes and designs in this matter?"
-
-"I wish most especially," answered Lord Glenallan, "to declare my
-luckless marriage, and to vindicate the reputation of the unhappy
-Eveline--that is, if you see a possibility of doing so without making
-public the conduct of my mother."
-
-"_Suum cuique tribuito,_" said the Antiquary; "do right to everyone. The
-memory of that unhappy young lady has too long suffered, and I think it
-might be cleared without further impeaching that of your mother, than by
-letting it be understood in general that she greatly disapproved and
-bitterly opposed the match. All--forgive me, my lord--all who ever heard
-of the late Countess of Glenallan, will learn that without much
-surprise."
-
-"But you forget one horrible circumstance, Mr. Oldbuck," said the Earl,
-in an agitated voice.
-
-"I am not aware of it," replied the Antiquary.
-
-"The fate of the infant--its disappearance with the confidential
-attendant of my mother, and the dreadful surmises which may be drawn from
-my conversation with Elspeth."
-
-"If you would have my free opinion, my lord," answered Mr. Oldbuck, "and
-will not catch too rapidly at it as matter of hope, I would say that it
-is very possible the child yet lives. For thus much I ascertained, by my
-former inquiries concerning the event of that deplorable evening, that a
-child and woman were carried that night from the cottage at the
-Craigburnfoot in a carriage and four by your brother Edward Geraldin
-Neville, whose journey towards England with these companions I traced for
-several stages. I believed then it was a part of the family compact to
-carry a child whom you meant to stigmatize with illegitimacy, out of that
-country where chance might have raised protectors and proofs of its
-rights. But I now think that your brother, having reason, like yourself,
-to believe the child stained with shame yet more indelible, had
-nevertheless withdrawn it, partly from regard to the honour of his house,
-partly from the risk to which it might have been exposed in the
-neighbourhood of the Lady Glenallan."
-
-As he spoke, the Earl of Glenallan grew extremely pale, and had nearly
-fallen from his chair.--The alarmed Antiquary ran hither and thither
-looking for remedies; but his museum, though sufficiently well filled
-with a vast variety of useless matters, contained nothing that could be
-serviceable on the present or any other occasion. As he posted out of the
-room to borrow his sister's salts, he could not help giving a
-constitutional growl of chagrin and wonder at the various incidents which
-had converted his mansion, first into an hospital for a wounded duellist,
-and now into the sick chamber of a dying nobleman. "And yet," said he, "I
-have always kept aloof from the soldiery and the peerage. My
-_coenobitium_ has only next to be made a lying-in hospital, and then, I
-trow, the transformation will be complete."
-
-When he returned with the remedy, Lord Glenallan was much better. The new
-and unexpected light which Mr. Oldbuck had thrown upon the melancholy
-history of his family had almost overpowered him. "You think, then, Mr.
-Oldbuck--for you are capable of thinking, which I am not--you think,
-then, that it is possible--that is, not impossible--my child may yet
-live?"
-
-"I think," said the Antiquary, "it is impossible that it could come to
-any violent harm through your brother's means. He was known to be a gay
-and dissipated man, but not cruel nor dishonourable; nor is it possible,
-that, if he had intended any foul play, he would have placed himself so
-forward in the charge of the infant, as I will prove to your lordship he
-did."
-
-So saying, Mr. Oldbuck opened a drawer of the cabinet of his ancestor
-Aldobrand, and produced a bundle of papers tied with a black ribband, and
-labelled,--Examinations, etc., taken by Jonathan Oldbuck, J. P., upon the
-18th of February, 17--; a little under was written, in a small hand,
-_Eheu Evelina_! The tears dropped fast from the Earl's eyes, as he
-endeavoured, in vain, to unfasten the knot which secured these documents.
-
-"Your lordship," said Mr. Oldbuck, "had better not read these at present.
-Agitated as you are, and having much business before you, you must not
-exhaust your strength. Your brother's succession is now, I presume, your
-own, and it will be easy for you to make inquiry among his servants and
-retainers, so as to hear where the child is, if, fortunately, it shall be
-still alive."
-
-"I dare hardly hope it," said the Earl, with a deep sigh. "Why should my
-brother have been silent to me?"
-
-"Nay, my lord, why should he have communicated to your lordship the
-existence of a being whom you must have supposed the offspring of"--
-
-"Most true--there is an obvious and a kind reason for his being silent.
-If anything, indeed, could have added to the horror of the ghastly dream
-that has poisoned my whole existence, it must have been the knowledge
-that such a child of misery existed."
-
-"Then," continued the Antiquary, "although it would be rash to conclude,
-at the distance of more than twenty years, that your son must needs be
-still alive because he was not destroyed in infancy, I own I think you
-should instantly set on foot inquiries."
-
-"It shall be done," replied Lord Glenallan, catching eagerly at the hope
-held out to him, the first he had nourished for many years;--"I will
-write to a faithful steward of my father, who acted in the same capacity
-under my brother Neville--But, Mr. Oldbuck, I am not my brother's heir."
-
-"Indeed!--I am sorry for that, my lord--it is a noble estate, and the
-ruins of the old castle of Neville's-Burgh alone, which are the most
-superb relics of Anglo-Norman architecture in that part of the country,
-are a possession much to be coveted. I thought your father had no other
-son or near relative."
-
-"He had not, Mr. Oldbuck," replied Lord Glenallan; "but my brother
-adopted views in politics, and a form of religion, alien from those which
-had been always held by our house. Our tempers had long differed, nor did
-my unhappy mother always think him sufficiently observant to her. In
-short, there was a family quarrel, and my brother, whose property was at
-his own free disposal, availed himself of the power vested in him to
-choose a stranger for his heir. It is a matter which never struck me as
-being of the least consequence--for if worldly possessions could
-alleviate misery, I have enough and to spare. But now I shall regret it,
-if it throws any difficulty in the way of our inquiries--and I bethink me
-that it may; for in case of my having a lawful son of my body, and my
-brother dying without issue, my father's possessions stood entailed upon
-my son. It is not therefore likely that this heir, be he who he may, will
-afford us assistance in making a discovery which may turn out so much to
-his own prejudice."
-
-"And in all probability the steward your lordship mentions is also in his
-service," said the Antiquary.
-
-"It is most likely; and the man being a Protestant--how far it is safe to
-entrust him"--
-
-"I should hope, my lord," said Oldbuck gravely, "that a Protestant may be
-as trustworthy as a Catholic. I am doubly interested in the Protestant
-faith, my lord. My ancestor, Aldobrand Oldenbuck, printed the celebrated
-Confession of Augsburg, as I can show by the original edition now in this
-house."
-
-"I have not the least doubt of what you say, Mr. Oldbuck," replied the
-Earl, "nor do I speak out of bigotry or intolerance; but probably the
-Protestant steward will favour the Protestant heir rather than the
-Catholic--if, indeed, my son has been bred in his father's faith--or,
-alas! if indeed he yet lives."
-
-"We must look close into this," said Oldbuck, "before committing
-ourselves. I have a literary friend at York, with whom I have long
-corresponded on the subject of the Saxon horn that is preserved in the
-Minster there; we interchanged letters for six years, and have only as
-yet been able to settle the first line of the inscription. I will write
-forthwith to this gentleman, Dr. Dryasdust, and be particular in my
-inquiries concerning the character, etc., of your brother's heir, of the
-gentleman employed in his affairs, and what else may be likely to further
-your lordship's inquiries. In the meantime your lordship will collect the
-evidence of the marriage, which I hope can still be recovered?"
-
-"Unquestionably," replied the Earl: "the witnesses, who were formerly
-withdrawn from your research, are still living. My tutor, who solemnized
-the marriage, was provided for by a living in France, and has lately
-returned to this country as an emigrant, a victim of his zeal for
-loyalty, legitimacy, and religion."
-
-"That's one lucky consequence of the French, revolution, my lord--you
-must allow that, at least," said Oldbuck: "but no offence; I will act as
-warmly in your affairs as if I were of your own faith in politics and
-religion. And take my advice--If you want an affair of consequence
-properly managed, put it into the hands of an antiquary; for as they are
-eternally exercising their genius and research upon trifles, it is
-impossible they can be baffled in affairs of importance;--use makes
-perfect--and the corps that is most frequently drilled upon the parade,
-will be most prompt in its exercise upon the day of battle. And, talking
-upon that subject, I would willingly read to your lordship, in order to
-pass away the time betwixt and supper"--
-
-"I beg I may not interfere with family arrangements," said Lord
-Glenallan, "but I never taste anything after sunset."
-
-"Nor I either, my lord," answered his host, "notwithstanding it is said
-to have been the custom of the ancients. But then I dine differently from
-your lordship, and therefore am better enabled to dispense with those
-elaborate entertainments which my womankind (that is, my sister and
-niece, my lord) are apt to place on the table, for the display rather of
-their own house-wifery than the accommodation of our wants. However, a
-broiled bone, or a smoked haddock, or an oyster, or a slice of bacon of
-our own curing, with a toast and a tankard--or something or other of that
-sort, to close the orifice of the stomach before going to bed, does not
-fall under my restriction, nor, I hope, under your lordship's."
-
-"My no-supper is literal, Mr. Oldbuck; but I will attend you at your meal
-with pleasure."
-
-"Well, my lord," replied the Antiquary, "I will endeavour to entertain
-your ears at least, since I cannot banquet your palate. What I am about
-to read to your lordship relates to the upland glens."
-
-Lord Glenallan, though he would rather have recurred to the subject of
-his own uncertainties, was compelled to make a sign of rueful civility
-and acquiescence.
-
-The Antiquary, therefore, took out his portfolio of loose sheets, and
-after premising that the topographical details here laid down were
-designed to illustrate a slight essay upon castrametation, which had been
-read with indulgence at several societies of Antiquaries, he commenced as
-follows: "The subject, my lord, is the hill-fort of Quickens-bog, with
-the site of which your lordship is doubtless familiar--it is upon your
-store-farm of Mantanner, in the barony of Clochnaben."
-
-"I think I have heard the names of these places," said the Earl, in
-answer to the Antiquary's appeal.
-
-"Heard the name? and the farm brings him six hundred a-year--O Lord!"
-
-Such was the scarce-subdued ejaculation of the Antiquary. But his
-hospitality got the better of his surprise, and he proceeded to read his
-essay with an audible voice, in great glee at having secured a patient,
-and, as he fondly hoped, an interested hearer.
-
-"Quickens-bog may at first seem to derive its name from the plant
-_Quicken,_ by which, _Scottice,_ we understand couch-grass, dog-grass, or
-the _Triticum repens_ of Linnaeus, and the common English monosyllable
-_Bog,_ by which we mean, in popular language, a marsh or morass--in
-Latin, _Palus._ But it may confound the rash adopters of the more obvious
-etymological derivations, to learn that the couch-grass or dog-grass, or,
-to speak scientifically, the _Triticum repens_ of Linnaeus, does not grow
-within a quarter of a mile of this castrum or hill-fort, whose ramparts
-are uniformly clothed with short verdant turf; and that we must seek a
-bog or _palus_ at a still greater distance, the nearest being that of
-Gird-the-mear, a full half-mile distant. The last syllable, _bog,_ is
-obviously, therefore, a mere corruption of the Saxon _Burgh,_ which we
-find in the various transmutations of _Burgh, Burrow, Brough, Bruff,
-Buff,_ and _Boff,_ which last approaches very near the sound in question
---since, supposing the word to have been originally _borgh,_ which is the
-genuine Saxon spelling, a slight change, such as modern organs too often
-make upon ancient sounds, will produce first _Bogh,_ and then, _elisa H,_
-or compromising and sinking the guttural, agreeable to the common
-vernacular practice, you have either _Boff_ or _Bog_ as it happens. The
-word _Quickens_ requires in like manner to be altered,--decomposed, as it
-were,--and reduced to its original and genuine sound, ere we can discern
-its real meaning. By the ordinary exchange of the _Qu_ into _Wh,_
-familiar to the rudest tyro who has opened a book of old Scottish poetry,
-we gain either Whilkens, or Whichensborgh--put we may suppose, by way of
-question, as if those who imposed the name, struck with the extreme
-antiquity of the place, had expressed in it an interrogation, To whom did
-this fortress belong?'--Or, it might be _Whackens-burgh,_ from the Saxon
-_Whacken,_ to strike with the hand, as doubtless the skirmishes near a
-place of such apparent consequence must have legitimated such a
-derivation," etc. etc. etc.
-
-I will be more merciful to my readers than Oldbuck was to his guest; for,
-considering his opportunities of gaining patient attention from a person
-of such consequence as Lord Glenallan were not many, he used, or rather
-abused, the present to the uttermost.
-
-
-
-
-                           CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
-
-                         Crabbed age and youth
-                         Cannot live together:--
-                         Youth is full of pleasance,
-                              Age is full of care;
-                         Youth like summer morn,
-                         Age like winter weather;
-                         Youth like summer brave,
-                         Age like winter bare.
-                                      Shakspeare.
-
-In the morning of the following day, the Antiquary, who was something of
-a sluggard, was summoned from his bed a full hour earlier than his custom
-by Caxon. "What's the matter now?" he exclaimed, yawning and stretching
-forth his hand to the huge gold repeater, which, bedded upon his India
-silk handkerchief, was laid safe by his pillow--"what's the matter now,
-Caxon?--it can't be eight o'clock yet."
-
-"Na, sir,--but my lord's man sought me out, for he fancies me your
-honour's valley-de-sham,--and sae I am, there's nae doubt o't, baith your
-honour's and the minister's--at least ye hae nae other that I ken o'--and
-I gie a help to Sir Arthur too, but that's mair in the way o' my
-profession."
-
-"Well, well--never mind that," said the Antiquary--"happy is he that is
-his own valley-de-sham, as you call it--But why disturb my morning's
-rest?"
-
-"Ou, sir, the great man's been up since peep o' day, and he's steered the
-town to get awa an express to fetch his carriage, and it will be here
-briefly, and he wad like to see your honour afore he gaes awa."
-
-"Gadso!" ejaculated Oldbuck, "these great men use one's house and time as
-if they were their own property. Well, it's once and away. Has Jenny come
-to her senses yet, Caxon?"
-
-"Troth, sir, but just middling," replied the barber; "she's been in a
-swither about the jocolate this morning, and was like to hae toomed it a'
-out into the slap-bason, and drank it hersell in her ecstacies--but she's
-won ower wi't, wi' the help o' Miss M'Intyre."
-
-"Then all my womankind are on foot and scrambling, and I must enjoy my
-quiet bed no longer, if I would have a well-regulated house--Lend me my
-gown. And what are the news at Fairport?"
-
-"Ou, sir, what can they be about but this grand news o' my lord,"
-answered the old man, "that hasna been ower the door-stane, they threep
-to me, for this twenty years--this grand news of his coming to visit your
-honour?"
-
-"Aha!" said Monkbarns; "and what do they say of that, Caxon?"
-
-"'Deed, sir, they hae various opinions. Thae fallows, that are the
-democraws, as they ca' them, that are again' the king and the law, and
-hairpowder and dressing o' gentlemen's wigs--a wheen blackguards--they
-say he's come doun to speak wi' your honour about bringing doun his hill
-lads and Highland tenantry to break up the meetings of the Friends o' the
-People;--and when I said your honour never meddled wi' the like o' sic
-things where there was like to be straiks and bloodshed, they said, if ye
-didna, your nevoy did, and that he was weel ken'd to be a kingsman that
-wad fight knee-deep, and that ye were the head and he was the hand, and
-that the Yerl was to bring out the men and the siller."
-
-"Come," said the Antiquary, laughing--"I am glad the war is to cost me
-nothing but counsel."
-
-"Na, na," said Caxon--"naebody thinks your honour wad either fight
-yoursell, or gie ony feck o' siller to ony side o' the question."
-
-"Umph! well, that's the opinion of the democraws, as you call them--What
-say the rest o' Fairport?"
-
-"In troth," said the candid reporter, "I canna say it's muckle better.
-Captain Coquet, of the volunteers--that's him that's to be the new
-collector,--and some of the other gentlemen of the Blue and a' Blue Club,
-are just saying it's no right to let popists, that hae sae mony French
-friends as the Yerl of Glenallan, gang through the country, and--but your
-honour will maybe be angry?"
-
-"Not I, Caxon," said Oldbuck; "fire away as if you were Captain Coquet's
-whole platoon--I can stand it."
-
-"Weel then, they say, sir, that as ye didna encourage the petition about
-the peace, and wadna petition in favour of the new tax, and as you were
-again' bringing in the yeomanry at the meal mob, but just for settling
-the folk wi' the constables--they say ye're no a gude friend to
-government; and that thae sort o' meetings between sic a powerfu' man as
-the Yerl, and sic a wise man as you,--Od they think they suld be lookit
-after; and some say ye should baith be shankit aff till Edinburgh
-Castle."
-
-"On my word," said the Antiquary, "I am infinitely obliged to my
-neighbours for their good opinion of me! And so I, that have never
-interfered with their bickerings, but to recommend quiet and moderate
-measures, am given up on both sides as a man very likely to commit high
-treason, either against King or People?--Give me my coat, Caxon--give me
-my coat;--it's lucky I live not in their report. Have you heard anything
-of Taffril and his vessel?"
-
-Caxon's countenance fell.--"Na, sir, and the winds hae been high, and
-this is a fearfu' coast to cruise on in thae eastern gales,--the
-headlands rin sae far out, that a veshel's embayed afore I could sharp a
-razor; and then there's nae harbour or city of refuge on our coast--a'
-craigs and breakers;--a veshel that rins ashore wi' us flees asunder like
-the powther when I shake the pluff--and it's as ill to gather ony o't
-again. I aye tell my daughter thae things when she grows wearied for a
-letter frae Lieutenant Taffril--It's aye an apology for him. Ye sudna
-blame him, says I, hinny, for ye little ken what may hae happened."
-
-"Ay, ay, Caxon, thou art as good a comforter as a valet-de-chambre.--Give
-me a white stock, man,--dye think I can go down with a handkerchief about
-my neck when I have company?"
-
-"Dear sir, the Captain says a three-nookit hankercher is the maist
-fashionable overlay, and that stocks belang to your honour and me that
-are auld warld folk. I beg pardon for mentioning us twa thegither, but it
-was what he said."
-
-"The Captain's a puppy, and you are a goose, Caxon."
-
-"It's very like it may be sae," replied the acquiescent barber: "I am
-sure your honour kens best."
-
-Before breakfast, Lord Glenallan, who appeared in better spirits than he
-had evinced in the former evening, went particularly through the various
-circumstances of evidence which the exertions of Oldbuck had formerly
-collected; and pointing out the means which he possessed of completing
-the proof of his marriage, expressed his resolution instantly to go
-through the painful task of collecting and restoring the evidence
-concerning the birth of Eveline Neville, which Elspeth had stated to be
-in his mother's possession.
-
-"And yet, Mr. Oldbuck," he said, "I feel like a man who receives
-important tidings ere he is yet fully awake, and doubt whether they refer
-to actual life, or are not rather a continuation of his dream. This
-woman--this Elspeth,--she is in the extremity of age, and approaching in
-many respects to dotage. Have I not--it is a hideous question--have I not
-been hasty in the admission of her present evidence, against that which
-she formerly gave me to a very--very different purpose?"
-
-Mr. Oldbuck paused a moment, and then answered with firmness--"No, my
-lord; I cannot think you have any reason to suspect the truth of what she
-has told you last, from no apparent impulse but the urgency of
-conscience. Her confession was voluntary, disinterested, distinct,
-consistent with itself, and with all the other known circumstances of the
-case. I would lose no time, however, in examining and arranging the other
-documents to which she has referred; and I also think her own statement
-should be taken down, if possible in a formal manner. We thought of
-setting about this together. But it will be a relief to your lordship,
-and moreover have a more impartial appearance, were I to attempt the
-investigation alone in the capacity of a magistrate. I will do this--at
-least I will attempt it, so soon as I shall see her in a favourable state
-of mind to undergo an examination."
-
-Lord Glenallan wrung the Antiquary's hand in token of grateful
-acquiescence. "I cannot express to you," he said, "Mr. Oldbuck, how much
-your countenance and cooperation in this dark and most melancholy
-business gives me relief and confidence. I cannot enough applaud myself
-for yielding to the sudden impulse which impelled me, as it were, to drag
-you into my confidence, and which arose from the experience I had
-formerly of your firmness in discharge of your duty as a magistrate, and
-as a friend to the memory of the unfortunate. Whatever the issue of these
-matters may prove,--and I would fain hope there is a dawn breaking on the
-fortunes of my house, though I shall not live to enjoy its light,--but
-whatsoever be the issue, you have laid my family and me under the most
-lasting obligation."
-
-"My lord," answered the Antiquary, "I must necessarily have the greatest
-respect for your lordship's family, which I am well aware is one of the
-most ancient in Scotland, being certainly derived from Aymer de Geraldin,
-who sat in parliament at Perth, in the reign of Alexander II., and who by
-the less vouched, yet plausible tradition of the country, is said to have
-been descended from the Marmor of Clochnaben. Yet, with all my veneration
-for your ancient descent, I must acknowledge that I find myself still
-more bound to give your lordship what assistance is in my limited power,
-from sincere sympathy with your sorrows, and detestation at the frauds
-which have so long been practised upon you.--But, my lord, the matin meal
-is, I see, now prepared--Permit me to show your lordship the way through
-the intricacies of my _cenobitium,_ which is rather a combination of
-cells, jostled oddly together, and piled one upon the top of the other,
-than a regular house. I trust you will make yourself some amends for the
-spare diet of yesterday."
-
-But this was no part of Lord Glenallan's system. Having saluted the
-company with the grave and melancholy politeness which distinguished his
-manners, his servant placed before him a slice of toasted bread, with a
-glass of fair water, being the fare on which he usually broke his fast.
-While the morning's meal of the young soldier and the old Antiquary was
-despatched in much more substantial manner, the noise of wheels was
-heard.
-
-"Your lordship's carriage, I believe," said Oldbuck, stepping to the
-window. "On my word, a handsome _quadriga,_--for such, according to the
-best _scholium,_ was the _vox signata_ of the Romans for a chariot which,
-like that of your lordship, was drawn by four horses."
-
-"And I will venture to say," cried Hector, eagerly gazing from the
-window, "that four handsomer or better-matched bays never were put in
-harness--What fine forehands!--what capital chargers they would make!--
-Might I ask if they are of your lordship's own breeding?"
-
-"I--I--rather believe so," said Lord Glenallan; "but I have been so
-negligent of my domestic matters, that I am ashamed to say I must apply
-to Calvert" (looking at the domestic).
-
-"They are of your lordship's own breeding," said Calvert, "got by Mad Tom
-out of Jemina and Yarico, your lordship's brood mares."
-
-"Are there more of the set?" said Lord Glenallan.
-
-"Two, my lord,--one rising four, the other five off this grass, both very
-handsome."
-
-"Then let Dawkins bring them down to Monkbarns to-morrow," said the Earl
---"I hope Captain M'Intyre will accept them, if they are at all fit for
-service."
-
-Captain M'Intyre's eyes sparkled, and he was profuse in grateful
-acknowledgments; while Oldbuck, on the other hand, seizing the Earl's
-sleeve, endeavoured to intercept a present which boded no good to his
-corn-chest and hay-loft.
-
-"My lord--my lord--much obliged--much obliged--But Hector is a
-pedestrian, and never mounts on horseback in battle--he is a Highland
-soldier, moreover, and his dress ill adapted for cavalry service. Even
-Macpherson never mounted his ancestors on horseback, though he has the
-impudence to talk of their being car-borne--and that, my lord, is what is
-running in Hector's head--it is the vehicular, not the equestrian
-exercise, which he envies--
-
-                Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum
-                           Collegisse juvat.
-
-His noddle is running on a curricle, which he has neither money to buy,
-nor skill to drive if he had it; and I assure your lordship, that the
-possession of two such quadrupeds would prove a greater scrape than any
-of his duels, whether with human foe or with my friend the _phoca._"
-
-"You must command us all at present, Mr. Oldbuck," said the Earl
-politely; "but I trust you will not ultimately prevent my gratifying my
-young friend in some way that may afford him pleasure."
-
-"Anything useful, my lord," said Oldbuck, "but no _curriculum_--I protest
-he might as rationally propose to keep a _quadriga_ at once--And now I
-think of it, what is that old post-chaise from Fairport come jingling
-here for?--I did not send for it."
-
-"_I_ did, sir," said Hector, rather sulkily, for he was not much
-gratified by his uncle's interference to prevent the Earl's intended
-generosity, nor particularly inclined to relish either the disparagement
-which he cast upon his skill as a charioteer, or the mortifying allusion
-to his bad success in the adventures of the duel and the seal.
-
-"You did, sir?" echoed the Antiquary, in answer to his concise
-information. "And pray, what may be your business with a post-chaise? Is
-this splendid equipage--this _biga,_ as I may call it--to serve for an
-introduction to a _quadriga_ or a _curriculum_?"
-
-"Really, sir," replied the young soldier, "if it be necessary to give you
-such a specific explanation, I am going to Fairport on a little
-business."
-
-"Will you permit me to inquire into the nature of that business, Hector?"
-answered his uncle, who loved the exercise of a little brief authority
-over his relative. "I should suppose any regimental affairs might be
-transacted by your worthy deputy the sergeant--an honest gentleman, who
-is so good as to make Monkbarns his home since his arrival among us--I
-should, I say, suppose that he may transact any business of yours,
-without your spending a day's pay on two dog-horses, and such a
-combination of rotten wood, cracked glass, and leather--such a skeleton
-of a post-chaise, as that before the door."
-
-"It is not regimental business, sir, that calls me; and, since you insist
-upon knowing, I must inform you Caxon has brought word this morning that
-old Ochiltree, the beggar, is to be brought up for examination to-day,
-previous to his being committed for trial; and I'm going to see that the
-poor old fellow gets fair play--that's all."
-
-"Ay?--I heard something of this, but could not think it serious. And
-pray, Captain Hector, who are so ready to be every man's second on all
-occasions of strife, civil or military, by land, by water, or on the
-sea-beach, what is your especial concern with old Edie Ochiltree?"
-
-"He was a soldier in my father's company, sir," replied Hector; "and
-besides, when I was about to do a very foolish thing one day, he
-interfered to prevent me, and gave me almost as much good advice, sir, as
-you could have done yourself."
-
-"And with the same good effect, I dare be sworn for it--eh, Hector?--
-Come, confess it was thrown away."
-
-"Indeed it was, sir; but I see no reason that my folly should make me
-less grateful for his intended kindness."
-
-"Bravo, Hector! that's the most sensible thing I ever heard you say. But
-always tell me your plans without reserve,--why, I will go with you
-myself, man. I am sure the old fellow is not guilty, and I will assist
-him in such a scrape much more effectually than you can do. Besides, it
-will save thee half-a-guinea, my lad--a consideration which I heartily
-pray you to have more frequently before your eyes."
-
-Lord Glenallan's politeness had induced him to turn away and talk with
-the ladies, when the dispute between the uncle and nephew appeared to
-grow rather too animated to be fit for the ear of a stranger, but the
-Earl mingled again in the conversation when the placable tone of the
-Antiquary expressed amity. Having received a brief account of the
-mendicant, and of the accusation brought against him, which Oldbuck did
-not hesitate to ascribe to the malice of Dousterswivel, Lord Glenallan
-asked, whether the individual in question had not been a soldier
-formerly?--He was answered in the affirmative.
-
-"Had he not," continued his Lordship, "a coarse blue coat, or gown, with
-a badge?--was he not a tall, striking-looking old man, with grey beard
-and hair, who kept his body remarkably erect, and talked with an air of
-ease and independence, which formed a strong contrast to his profession?"
-
-"All this is an exact picture of the man," refumed Oldbuck.
-
-"Why, then," continued Lord Glenallan, "although I fear I can be of no
-use to him in his present condition, yet I owe him a debt of gratitude
-for being the first person who brought me some tidings of the utmost
-importance. I would willingly offer him a place of comfortable
-retirement, when he is extricated from his present situation."
-
-"I fear, my lord," said Oldbuck, "he would have difficulty in reconciling
-his vagrant habits to the acceptance of your bounty, at least I know the
-experiment has been tried without effect. To beg from the public at large
-he considers as independence, in comparison to drawing his whole support
-from the bounty of an individual. He is so far a true philosopher, as to
-be a contemner of all ordinary rules of hours and times. When he is
-hungry he eats; when thirsty he drinks; when weary he sleeps; and with
-such indifference with respect to the means and appliances about which we
-make a fuss, that I suppose he was never ill dined or ill lodged in his
-life. Then he is, to a certain extent, the oracle of the district through
-which he travels--their genealogist, their newsman, their master of the
-revels, their doctor at a pinch, or their divine;--I promise you he has
-too many duties, and is too zealous in performing them, to be easily
-bribed to abandon his calling. But I should be truly sorry if they sent
-the poor light-hearted old man to lie for weeks in a jail. I am convinced
-the confinement would break his heart."
-
-Thus finished the conference. Lord Glenallan, having taken leave of the
-ladies, renewed his offer to Captain M'Intyre of the freedom of his
-manors for sporting, which was joyously accepted,
-
-"I can only add," he said, "that if your spirits are not liable to be
-damped by dull company, Glenallan House is at all times open to you. On
-two days of the week, Friday and Saturday, l keep my apartment, which
-will be rather a relief to you, as you will be left to enjoy the society
-of my almoner, Mr. Gladsmoor, who is a scholar and a man of the world."
-
-Hector, his heart exulting at the thoughts of ranging through the
-preserves of Glenallan House, and over the well-protected moors of
-Clochnaben--nay, joy of joys! the deer-forest of Strath-Bonnel--made many
-acknowledgements of the honour and gratitude he felt. Mr. Oldbuck was
-sensible of the Earl's attention to his nephew; Miss M'Intyre was pleased
-because her brother was gratified; and Miss Griselda Oldbuck looked
-forward with glee to the potting of whole bags of moorfowl and
-black-game, of which Mr. Blattergowl was a professed admirer. Thus,--
-which is always the case when a man of rank leaves a private family where
-he has studied to appear obliging,--all were ready to open in praise of
-the Earl as soon as he had taken his leave, and was wheeled off in his
-chariot by the four admired bays. But the panegyric was cut short, for
-Oldbuck and his nephew deposited themselves in the Fairport hack, which,
-with one horse trotting, and the other urged to a canter, creaked,
-jingled, and hobbled towards that celebrated seaport, in a manner that
-formed a strong contrast to the rapidity and smoothness with which Lord
-Glenallan's equipage had seemed to vanish from their eyes.
-
-
-
-
-                           CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
-
-              Yes! I love justice well--as well as you do--
-             But since the good dame's blind, she shall excuse me
-              If, time and reason fitting, I prove dumb;--
-                  The breath I utter now shall be no means
-                  To take away from me my breath in future.
-                                          Old Play.
-
-By dint of charity from the town's-people in aid of the load of
-provisions he had brought with him into durance, Edie Ochiltree had
-passed a day or two's confinement without much impatience, regretting his
-want of freedom the less, as the weather proved broken and rainy.
-
-"The prison," he said, "wasna sae dooms bad a place as it was ca'd. Ye
-had aye a good roof ower your head to fend aff the weather, and, if the
-windows werena glazed, it was the mair airy and pleasant for the summer
-season. And there were folk enow to crack wi', and he had bread eneugh to
-eat, and what need he fash himsell about the rest o't?"
-
-The courage of our philosophical mendicant began, however, to abate, when
-the sunbeams shone fair on the rusty bars of his grated dungeon, and a
-miserable linnet, whose cage some poor debtor had obtained permission to
-attach to the window, began to greet them with his whistle.
-
-"Ye're in better spirits than I am," said Edie, addressing the bird, "for
-I can neither whistle nor sing for thinking o' the bonny burnsides and
-green shaws that I should hae been dandering beside in weather like this.
-But hae--there's some crumbs t'ye, an ye are sae merry; and troth ye hae
-some reason to sing an ye kent it, for your cage comes by nae faut o'
-your ain, and I may thank mysell that I am closed up in this weary
-place."
-
-Ochiltree's soliloquy was disturbed by a peace-officer, who came to
-summon him to attend the magistrate. So he set forth in awful procession
-between two poor creatures, neither of them so stout as he was himself,
-to be conducted into the presence of inquisitorial justice. The people,
-as the aged prisoner was led along by his decrepit guards, exclaimed to
-each other, "Eh! see sic a grey-haired man as that is, to have committed
-a highway robbery, wi' ae fit in the grave!"--And the children
-congratulated the officers, objects of their alternate dread and sport,
-Puggie Orrock and Jock Ormston, on having a prisoner as old as
-themselves.
-
-Thus marshalled forward, Edie was presented (by no means for the first
-time) before the worshipful Bailie Littlejohn, who, contrary to what his
-name expressed, was a tall portly magistrate, on whom corporation crusts
-had not been conferred in vain. He was a zealous loyalist of that zealous
-time, somewhat rigorous and peremptory in the execution of his duty, and
-a good deal inflated with the sense of his own power and importance;--
-otherwise an honest, well-meaning, and useful citizen.
-
-"Bring him in! bring him in!" he exclaimed. "Upon my word these are awful
-and unnatural times! the very bedesmen and retainers of his Majesty are
-the first to break his laws. Here has been an old Blue-Gown committing
-robbery--I suppose the next will reward the royal charity which supplies
-him with his garb, pension, and begging license, by engaging in
-high-treason, or sedition at least--But bring him in."
-
-Edie made his obeisance, and then stood, as usual, firm and erect, with
-the side of his face turned a little upward, as if to catch every word
-which the magistrate might address to him. To the first general
-questions, which respected only his name and calling, the mendicant
-answered with readiness and accuracy; but when the magistrate, having
-caused his clerk to take down these particulars, began to inquire
-whereabout the mendicant was on the night when Dousterswivel met with his
-misfortune, Edie demurred to the motion. "Can ye tell me now, Bailie, you
-that understands the law, what gude will it do me to answer ony o' your
-questions?"
-
-"Good?--no good certainly, my friend, except that giving a true account
-of yourself, if you are innocent, may entitle me to set you at liberty."
-
-"But it seems mair reasonable to me now, that you, Bailie, or anybody
-that has anything to say against me, should prove my guilt, and no to be
-bidding me prove my innocence."
-
-"I don't sit here," answered the magistrate, "to dispute points of law
-with you. I ask you, if you choose to answer my question, whether you
-were at Ringan Aikwood, the forester's, upon the day I have specified?"
-
-"Really, sir, I dinna feel myself called on to remember," replied the
-cautious bedesman.
-
-"Or whether, in the course of that day or night," continued the
-magistrate, "you saw Steven, or Steenie, Mucklebackit?--you knew him, I
-suppose?"
-
-"O, brawlie did I ken Steenie, puir fallow," replied the prisoner;--"but
-I canna condeshend on ony particular time I have seen him lately."
-
-"Were you at the ruins of St. Ruth any time in the course of that
-evening?"
-
-"Bailie Littlejohn," said the mendicant, "if it be your honour's
-pleasure, we'll cut a lang tale short, and I'll just tell ye, I am no
-minded to answer ony o' thae questions--I'm ower auld a traveller to let
-my tongue bring me into trouble."
-
-"Write down," said the magistrate, "that he declines to answer all
-interrogatories, in respect that by telling the truth he might be brought
-to trouble."
-
-"Na, na," said Ochiltree, "I'll no hae that set down as ony part o' my
-answer--but I just meant to say, that in a' my memory and practice, I
-never saw ony gude come o' answering idle questions."
-
-"Write down," said the Bailie, "that, being acquainted with judicial
-interrogatories by long practice, and having sustained injury by
-answering questions put to him on such occasions, the declarant refuses"
-
-"Na, na, Bailie," reiterated Edie, "ye are no to come in on me that gait
-neither."
-
-"Dictate the answer yourself then, friend," said the magistrate, "and the
-clerk will take it down from your own mouth."
-
-"Ay, ay," said Edie--"that's what I ca' fair play; I'se do that without
-loss o' time. Sae, neighbour, ye may just write down, that Edie
-Ochiltree, the declarant, stands up for the liberty--na, I maunna say
-that neither--I am nae liberty-boy--I hae fought again' them in the riots
-in Dublin--besides, I have ate the King's bread mony a day. Stay, let me
-see. Ay--write that Edie Ochiltree, the Blue-Gown, stands up for the
-prerogative--(see that ye spell that word right--it's a lang ane)--for
-the prerogative of the subjects of the land, and winna answer a single
-word that sall be asked at him this day, unless he sees a reason fort.
-Put down that, young man."
-
-"Then, Edie," said the magistrate, "since you will give no information on
-the subject, I must send you back to prison till you shall be delivered
-in due course of law."
-
-"Aweel, sir, if it's Heaven's will and man's will, nae doubt I maun
-submit," replied the mendicant. "I hae nae great objection to the prison,
-only that a body canna win out o't; and if it wad please you as weel,
-Bailie, I wad gie you my word to appear afore the Lords at the Circuit,
-or in ony other coart ye like, on ony day ye are pleased to appoint."
-
-"I rather think, my good friend," answered Bailie Littlejohn, "your word
-might be a slender security where your neck may be in some danger. I am
-apt to think you would suffer the pledge to be forfeited. If you could
-give me sufficient security, indeed"--
-
-At this moment the Antiquary and Captain M'Intyre entered the apartment.
---"Good morning to you, gentlemen," said the magistrate; "you find me
-toiling in my usual vocation--looking after the iniquities of the people
---labouring for the _respublica,_ Mr. Oldbuck--serving the King our
-master, Captain M'Intyre,--for I suppose you know I have taken up the
-sword?"
-
-"It is one of the emblems of justice, doubtless," answered the
-Antiquary;--"but I should have thought the scales would have suited you
-better, Bailie, especially as you have them ready in the warehouse."
-
-"Very good, Monkbarns--excellent! But I do not take the sword up as
-justice, but as a soldier--indeed I should rather say the musket and
-bayonet--there they stand at the elbow of my gouty chair, for I am scarce
-fit for drill yet--a slight touch of our old acquaintance _podagra;_ I
-can keep my feet, however, while our sergeant puts me through the manual.
-I should like to know, Captain M'Intyre, if he follows the regulations
-correctly--he brings us but awkwardly to the _present._" And he hobbled
-towards his weapon to illustrate his doubts and display his proficiency.
-
-"I rejoice we have such zealous defenders, Bailie," replied Mr. Oldbuck;
-"and I dare say Hector will gratify you by communicating his opinion on
-your progress in this new calling. Why, you rival the Hecate' of the
-ancients, my good sir--a merchant on the Mart, a magistrate in the
-Townhouse, a soldier on the Links--_quid non pro patria?_ But my business
-is with the justice; so let commerce and war go slumber."
-
-"Well, my good sir," said the Bailie, "and what commands have you for
-me?"
-
-"Why, here's an old acquaintance of mine, called Edie Ochiltree, whom
-some of your myrmidons have mewed up in jail on account of an alleged
-assault on that fellow Dousterswivel, of whose accusation I do not
-believe one word."
-
-The magistrate here assumed a very grave countenance. "You ought to have
-been informed that he is accused of robbery, as well as assault--a very
-serious matter indeed; it is not often such criminals come under my
-cognizance."
-
-"And," replied Oldbuck, "you are tenacious of the opportunity of making
-the very most of such as occur. But is this poor old man's case really so
-very bad?"
-
-"It is rather out of rule," said the Bailie--"but as you are in the
-commission, Monkbarns, I have no hesitation to show you Dousterswivel's
-declaration, and the rest of the precognition." And he put the papers
-into the Antiquary's hands, who assumed his spectacles, and sat down in a
-corner to peruse them.
-
-The officers, in the meantime, had directions to remove their prisoner
-into another apartment; but before they could do so, M'Intyre took an
-opportunity to greet old Edie, and to slip a guinea into his hand.
-
-"Lord bless your honour!" said the old man; "it's a young soldier's gift,
-and it should surely thrive wi' an auld ane. I'se no refuse it, though
-it's beyond my rules; for if they steek me up here, my friends are like
-eneugh to forget me--out o'sight out o'mind, is a true proverb; and it
-wadna be creditable for me, that am the king's bedesman, and entitled to
-beg by word of mouth, to be fishing for bawbees out at the jail window
-wi' the fit o' a stocking, and a string." As he made this observation he
-was conducted out of the apartment.
-
-Mr. Dousterswivel's declaration contained an exaggerated account of the
-violence he had sustained, and also of his loss.
-
-"But what I should have liked to have asked him," said Monkbarns, "would
-have been his purpose in frequenting the ruins of St. Ruth, so lonely a
-place, at such an hour, and with such a companion as Edie Ochiltree.
-There is no road lies that way, and I do not conceive a mere passion for
-the picturesque would carry the German thither in such a night of storm
-and wind. Depend upon it, he has been about some roguery, and in all
-probability hath been caught in a trap of his own setting--_Nec lex
-justitior ulla._"
-
-The magistrate allowed there was something mysterious in that
-circumstance, and apologized for not pressing Dousterswivel, as his
-declaration was voluntarily emitted. But for the support of the main
-charge, he showed the declaration of the Aikwoods concerning the state in
-which Dousterswivel was found, and establishing the important fact that
-the mendicant had left the barn in which he was quartered, and did not
-return to it again. Two people belonging to the Fairport undertaker, who
-had that night been employed in attending the funeral of Lady Glenallan,
-had also given declarations, that, being sent to pursue two suspicious
-persons who left the ruins of St. Ruth as the funeral approached, and
-who, it was supposed, might have been pillaging some of the ornaments
-prepared for the ceremony, they had lost and regained sight of them more
-than once, owing to the nature of the ground, which was unfavourable for
-riding, but had at length fairly lodged them both in Mucklebackit's
-cottage. And one of the men added, that "he, the declarant, having
-dismounted from his horse, and gone close up to the window of the hut, he
-saw the old Blue-Gown and young Steenie Mucklebackit, with others, eating
-and drinking in the inside, and also observed the said Steenie
-Mucklebackit show a pocket-book to the others;--and declarant has no
-doubt that Ochiltree and Steenie Mucklebackit were the persons whom he
-and his comrade had pursued, as above mentioned." And being interrogated
-why he did not enter the said cottage, declares, "he had no warrant so to
-do; and that as Mucklebackit and his family were understood to be
-rough-handed folk, he, the declarant, had no desire to meddle or make
-with their affairs, _Causa scientiae patet._ All which he declares to be
-truth," etc.
-
-"What do you say to that body of evidence against your friend?" said the
-magistrate, when he had observed the Antiquary had turned the last leaf.
-
-"Why, were it in the case of any other person, I own I should say it
-looked, _prima facie,_ a little ugly; but I cannot allow anybody to be in
-the wrong for beating Dousterswivel--Had I been an hour younger, or had
-but one single flash of your warlike genius, Bailie, I should have done
-it myself long ago. He is _nebulo nebulonum,_ an impudent, fraudulent,
-mendacious quack, that has cost me a hundred pounds by his roguery, and
-my neighbour Sir Arthur, God knows how much. And besides, Bailie, I do
-not hold him to be a sound friend to Government."
-
-"Indeed?" said Bailie Littlejohn; "if I thought that, it would alter the
-question considerably."
-
-"Right--for, in beating him," observed Oldbuck, "the bedesman must have
-shown his gratitude to the king by thumping his enemy; and in robbing
-him, he would only have plundered an Egyptian, whose wealth it is lawful
-to spoil. Now, suppose this interview in the ruins of St. Ruth had
-relation to politics,--and this story of hidden treasure, and so forth,
-was a bribe from the other side of the water for some great man, or the
-funds destined to maintain a seditious club?"
-
-"My dear sir," said the magistrate, catching at the idea, "you hit my
-very thoughts! How fortunate should I be if I could become the humble
-means of sifting such a matter to the bottom!--Don't you think we had
-better call out the volunteers, and put them on duty?"
-
-"Not just yet, while _podagra_ deprives them of an essential member of
-their body. But will you let me examine Ochiltree?"
-
-"Certainly; but you'll make nothing of him. He gave me distinctly to
-understand he knew the danger of a judicial declaration on the part of an
-accused person, which, to say the truth, has hanged many an honester man
-than he is."
-
-"Well, but, Bailie," continued Oldbuck, "you have no objection to let me
-try him?"
-
-"None in the world, Monkbarns. I hear the sergeant below--I'll rehearse
-the manual in the meanwhile. Baby, carry my gun and bayonet down to the
-room below--it makes less noise there when we ground arms." And so exit
-the martial magistrate, with his maid behind him bearing his weapons.
-
-"A good squire that wench for a gouty champion," observed Oldbuck.--
-"Hector, my lad, hook on, hook on--Go with him, boy--keep him employed,
-man, for half-an-hour or so--butter him with some warlike terms--praise
-his dress and address."
-
-Captain M'Intyre, who, like many of his profession, looked down with
-infinite scorn on those citizen soldiers who had assumed arms without any
-professional title to bear them, rose with great reluctance, observing
-that he should not know what to say to Mr. Littlejohn; and that to see an
-old gouty shop-keeper attempting the exercise and duties of a private
-soldier, was really too ridiculous.
-
-"It may be so, Hector," said the Antiquary, who seldom agreed with any
-person in the immediate proposition which was laid down--"it may possibly
-be so in this and some other instances; but at present the country
-resembles the suitors in a small-debt court, where parties plead in
-person, for lack of cash to retain the professed heroes of the bar. I am
-sure in the one case we never regret the want of the acuteness and
-eloquence of the lawyers; and so, I hope, in the other, we may manage to
-make shift with our hearts and muskets, though we shall lack some of the
-discipline of you martinets."
-
-"I have no objection, I am sure, sir, that the whole world should fight
-if they please, if they will but allow me to be quiet," said Hector,
-rising with dogged reluctance.
-
-"Yes, you are a very quiet personage indeed," said his uncle, "whose
-ardour for quarrelling cannot pass so much as a poor _phoca_ sleeping
-upon the beach!"
-
-But Hector, who saw which way the conversation was tending, and hated all
-allusions to the foil he had sustained from the fish, made his escape
-before the Antiquary concluded the sentence.
-
-
-
-
-                          CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
-
-            Well, well, at worst, 'tis neither theft nor coinage,
-             Granting I knew all that you charge me with.
-            What though the tomb hath borne a second birth,
-             And given the wealth to one that knew not on't,
-                     Yet fair exchange was never robbery,
-                         Far less pure bounty--
-                                          Old Play.
-
-The Antiquary, in order to avail himself of the permission given him to
-question the accused party, chose rather to go to the apartment in which
-Ochiltree was detained, than to make the examination appear formal by
-bringing him again into the magistrate's office. He found the old man
-seated by a window which looked out on the sea; and as he gazed on that
-prospect, large tears found their way, as if unconsciously, to his eye,
-and from thence trickled down his cheeks and white beard. His features
-were, nevertheless, calm and composed, and his whole posture and mien
-indicated patience and resignation. Oldbuck had approached him without
-being observed, and roused him out of his musing by saying kindly, "I am
-sorry, Edie, to see you so much cast down about this matter."
-
-The mendicant started, dried his eyes very hastily with the sleeve of his
-gown, and endeavouring to recover his usual tone of indifference and
-jocularity, answered, but with a voice more tremulous than usual, "I
-might weel hae judged, Monkbarns, it was you, or the like o' you, was
-coming in to disturb me--for it's ae great advantage o' prisons and
-courts o' justice, that ye may greet your een out an ye like, and nane o'
-the folk that's concerned about them will ever ask you what it's for."
-
-"Well, Edie," replied Oldbuck, "I hope your present cause of distress is
-not so bad but it may be removed."
-
-"And I had hoped, Monkbarns," answered the mendicant, in a tone of
-reproach, "that ye had ken'd me better than to think that this bit
-trifling trouble o' my ain wad bring tears into my auld een, that hae
-seen far different kind o' distress.--Na, na!--But here's been the puir
-lass, Caxon's daughter, seeking comfort, and has gotten unco little--
-there's been nae speerings o' Taffril's gunbrig since the last gale; and
-folk report on the key that a king's ship had struck on the Reef of
-Rattray, and a' hands lost--God forbid! for as sure as you live,
-Monkbarns, the puir lad Lovel, that ye liked sae weel, must have
-perished."
-
-"God forbid indeed!" echoed the Antiquary, turning pale--"I would rather
-Monkbarns House were on fire. My poor dear friend and coadjutor! I will
-down to the quay instantly."
-
-"I'm sure yell learn naething mair than I hae tauld ye, sir," said
-Ochiltree, "for the officer-folk here were very civil (that is, for the
-like o' them), and lookit up ae their letters and authorities, and could
-throw nae light on't either ae way or another."
-
-"It can't be true! it shall not be true!" said the Antiquary, "And I
-won't believe it if it were!--Taffril's an excellent sea man, and Lovel
-(my poor Lovel!) has all the qualities of a safe and pleasant companion
-by land or by sea--one, Edie, whom, from the ingenuousness of his
-disposition, I would choose, did I ever go a sea-voyage (which I never
-do, unless across the ferry), _fragilem mecum solvere phaselum,_ to be
-the companion of my risk, as one against whom the elements could nourish
-no vengeance. No, Edie, it is not, and cannot be true--it is a fiction of
-the idle jade Rumour, whom I wish hanged with her trumpet about her neck,
-that serves only with its screech-owl tones to fright honest folks out of
-their senses.--Let me know how you got into this scrape of your own."
-
-"Are ye axing me as a magistrate, Monkbarns, or is it just for your ain
-satisfaction!"
-
-"For my own satisfaction solely," replied the Antiquaxy.
-
-"Put up your pocket-book and your keelyvine pen then, for I downa speak
-out an ye hae writing materials in your hands--they're a scaur to
-unlearned folk like me--Od, ane o' the clerks in the neist room will
-clink down, in black and white, as muckle as wad hang a man, before ane
-kens what he's saying."
-
-Monkbarns complied with the old man's humour, and put up his
-memorandum-book.
-
-Edie then went with great frankness through the part of the story already
-known to the reader, informing the Antiquary of the scene which he had
-witnessed between Dousterswivel and his patron in the ruins of St. Ruth,
-and frankly confessing that he could not resist the opportunity of
-decoying the adept once more to visit the tomb of Misticot, with the
-purpose of taking a comic revenge upon him for his quackery. He had
-easily persuaded Steenie, who was a bold thoughtless young fellow, to
-engage in the frolic along with him, and the jest had been inadvertently
-carried a great deal farther than was designed. Concerning the
-pocket-book, he explained that he had expressed his surprise and sorrow
-as soon as he found it had been inadvertently brought off: and that
-publicly, before all the inmates of the cottage, Steenie had undertaken
-to return it the next day, and had only been prevented by his untimely
-fate.
-
-The Antiquary pondered a moment, and then said, "Your account seems very
-probable, Edie, and I believe it from what I know of the parties. But I
-think it likely that you know a great deal more than you have thought it
-proper to tell me, about this matter of the treasure trove--I suspect you
-have acted the part of the Lar Familiaris in Plautus--a sort of Brownie,
-Edie, to speak to your comprehension, who watched over hidden treasures.
---I do bethink me you were ten Sir Arthur made his successful attack upon
-Misticot's grave, and also that when the labourers began to flag, you,
-Edie. were again the first to leap into the trench, and to make the
-discovery of the treasure. Now you must explain an this to me, unless you
-would have me use you as ill as Euclio does Staphyla in the _Aulularia._"
-
-"Lordsake, sir," replied the mendicant, "what do I ken about your
-Howlowlaria?--it's mair like a dog's language than a man's."
-
-"You knew, however, of the box of treasure being there?" continued
-Oldbuck.
-
-"Dear sir," answered Edie, assuming a countenance of great simplicity,
-"what likelihood is there o'that? d'ye think sae puir an auld creature as
-me wad hae kend o' sic a like thing without getting some gude out o't?--
-and ye wot weel I sought nane and gat nane, like Michael Scott's man.
-What concern could I hae wi't?"
-
-"That's just what I want you to explain to me," said Oldbuck; "for I am
-positive you knew it was there."
-
-"Your honour's a positive man, Monkbarns--and, for a positive man, I must
-needs allow ye're often in the right."
-
-"You allow, then, Edie, that my belief is well founded?"
-
-Edie nodded acquiescence.
-
-"Then please to explain to me the whole affair from beginning to end,"
-said the Antiquary.
-
-"If it were a secret o' mine, Monkbarns," replied the beggar, "ye suldna
-ask twice; for I hae aye said ahint your back, that for a' the nonsense
-maggots that ye whiles take into your head, ye are the maist wise and
-discreet o' a' our country gentles. But I'se een be open-hearted wi' you,
-and tell you that this is a friend's secret, and that they suld draw me
-wi' wild horses, or saw me asunder, as they did the children of Ammon,
-sooner than I would speak a word mair about the matter, excepting this,
-that there was nae ill intended, but muckle gude, and that the purpose
-was to serve them that are worth twenty hundred o' me. But there's nae
-law, I trow, that makes it a sin to ken where ither folles siller is, if
-we didna pit hand til't oursell?"
-
-Oldbuck walked once or twice up and down the room in profound thought,
-endeavouring to find some plausible reason for transactions of a nature
-so mysterious--but his ingenuity was totally at fault. He then placed
-himself before the prisoner.
-
-"This story of yours, friend Edie, is an absolute enigma, and would
-require a second OEdipus to solve it--who OEdipus was, I will tell you
-some other time if you remind me--However, whether it be owing to the
-wisdom or to the maggots with which you compliment me, I am strongly
-disposed to believe that you have spoken the truth, the rather that you
-have not made any of those obtestations of the superior powers, which I
-observe you and your comrades always make use of when you mean to deceive
-folks. "(Here Edie could not suppress a smile.) "If, therefore, you will
-answer me one question, I will endeavour to procure your liberation."
-
-"If yell let me hear the question," said Edie, with the caution of a
-canny Scotchman, "I'll tell you whether I'll answer it or no."
-
-"It is simply," said the Antiquary, "Did Dousterswivel know anything
-about the concealment of the chest of bullion?"
-
-"He, the ill-fa'ard loon!" answered Edie, with much frankness of manner--
-"there wad hae been little speerings o't had Dustansnivel ken'd it was
-there--it wad hae been butter in the black dog's hause."
-
-"I thought as much," said Oldbuck. "Well, Edie, if I procure your
-freedom, you must keep your day, and appear to clear me of the bail-bond,
-for these are not times for prudent men to incur forfeitures, unless you
-can point out another _Aulam auri plenam quadrilibrem_--another _Search,
-No. I._"
-
-"Ah!" said the beggar, shaking his head, "I doubt the bird's flown that
-laid thae golden eggs--for I winna ca' her goose, though that's the gait
-it stands in the story-buick--But I'll keep my day, Monkbarns; ye'se no
-loss a penny by me--And troth I wad fain be out again, now the weather's
-fine--and then I hae the best chance o' hearing the first news o' my
-friends."
-
-"Well, Edie, as the bouncing and thumping beneath has somewhat ceased, I
-presume Bailie Littlejohn has dismissed his military preceptor, and has
-retired from the labours of Mars to those of Themis--I will have some
-conversation with him--But I cannot and will not believe any of those
-wretched news you were telling me."
-
-"God send your honour may be right!" said the mendicant, as Oldbuck left
-the room.
-
-The Antiquary found the magistrate, exhausted with the fatigues of the
-drill, reposing in his gouty chair, humming the air, "How merrily we live
-that soldiers be!" and between each bar comforting himself with a
-spoonful of mock-turtle soup. He ordered a similar refreshment for
-Oldbuck, who declined it, observing, that, not being a military man, he
-did not feel inclined to break his habit of keeping regular hours for
-meals--"Soldiers like you, Bailie, must snatch their food as they find
-means and time. But I am sorry to hear ill news of young Taffril's brig."
-
-"Ah, poor fellow!" said the bailie, "he was a credit to the town--much
-distinguished on the first of June."
-
-"But," said Oldbuck, "I am shocked to hear you talk of him in the
-preterite tense."
-
-"Troth, I fear there may be too much reason for it, Monkbarns;--and yet
-let us hope the best. The accident is said to have happened in the
-Rattray reef of rocks, about twenty miles to the northward, near
-Dirtenalan Bay--I have sent to inquire about it--and your nephew run out
-himself as if he had been flying to get the Gazette of a victory."
-
-Here Hector entered, exclaiming as he came in, "I believe it's all a
-damned lie--I can't find the least authority for it, but general rumour."
-
-"And pray, Mr. Hector," said his uncle, "if it had been true, whose fault
-would it have been that Lovel was on board?"
-
-"Not mine, I am sure," answered Hector; "it would have been only my
-misfortune."
-
-"Indeed!" said his uncle, "I should not have thought of that."
-
-"Why, sir, with all your inclination to find me in the wrong," replied
-the young soldier, "I suppose you will own my intention was not to blame
-in this case. I did my best to hit Lovel, and if I had been successful,
-'tis clear my scrape would have been his, and his scrape would have been
-mine."
-
-"And whom or what do you intend to hit now, that you are lugging with you
-that leathern magazine there, marked Gunpowder?"
-
-"I must be prepared for Lord Glenallan's moors on the twelfth, sir," said
-M'Intyre.
-
-"Ah, Hector! thy great _chasse,_ as the French call it, would take place
-best--
-
-                   Omne cum Proteus pecus egit altos
-                            Visere montes--
-
-Could you meet but with a martial _phoca,_ instead of an unwarlike
-heath-bird."
-
-"The devil take the seal, sir, or _phoca,_ if you choose to call it so!
-It's rather hard one can never hear the end of a little piece of folly
-like that."
-
-"Well, well," said Oldbuck, "I am glad you have the grace to be ashamed
-of it--as I detest the whole race of Nimrods, I wish them all as well
-matched. Nay, never start off at a jest, man--I have done with the
-_phoca_--though, I dare say, the Bailie could tell us the value of
-seal-skins just now."
-
-"They are up," said the magistrate, "they are well up--the fishing has
-been unsuccessful lately."
-
-"We can bear witness to that," said the tormenting Antiquary, who was
-delighted with the hank this incident had given him over the young
-sportsman: One word more, Hector, and
-
-              We'll hang a seal-skin on thy recreant limbs.
-
-Aha, my boy! Come, never mind it; I must go to business.--Bailie, a word
-with you: you must take bail--moderate bail, you understand--for old
-Ochiltree's appearance."
-
-"You don't consider what you ask," said the Bailie; "the offence is
-assault and robbery."
-
-"Hush! not a word about it," said the Antiquary. "I gave you a hint
-before--I will possess you more fully hereafter--I promise you, there is
-a secret."
-
-"But, Mr. Oldbuck, if the state is concerned, I, who do the whole
-drudgery business here, really have a title to be consulted, and until I
-am"--
-
-"Hush! hush!" said the Antiquary, winking and putting his finger to his
-nose,--"you shall have the full credit, the entire management, whenever
-matters are ripe. But this is an obstinate old fellow, who will not hear
-of two people being as yet let into his mystery, and he has not fully
-acquainted me with the clew to Dousterswivel's devices."
-
-"Aha! so we must tip that fellow the alien act, I suppose?"
-
-"To say truth, I wish you would."
-
-"Say no more," said the magistrate; "it shall forthwith be done--he shall
-be removed _tanquam suspect_--I think that's one of your own phrases,
-Monkbarns?"
-
-"It is classical, Bailie--you improve."
-
-"Why, public business has of late pressed upon me so much, that I have
-been obliged to take my foreman into partnership. I have had two several
-correspondences with the Under Secretary of State--one on the proposed
-tax on Riga hemp-seed, and the other on putting down political societies.
-So you might as well communicate to me as much as you know of this old
-fellow's discovery of a plot against the state."
-
-"I will, instantly, when I am master of it," replied Oldbuck---"I hate
-the trouble of managing such matters myself. Remember, however, I did not
-say decidedly a plot against the state I only say I hope to discover, by
-this man's means, a foul plot."
-
-"If it be a plot at all, there must be treason in it, or sedition at
-least," said the Bailie--"Will you bail him for four hundred merks?"
-
-"Four hundred merks for an old Blue-Gown! Think on the act 1701
-regulating bail-bonds!--Strike off a cipher from the sum--I am content to
-bail him for forty merks."
-
-"Well, Mr. Oldbuck, everybody in Fairport is always willing to oblige
-you--and besides, I know that you are a prudent man, and one that would
-be as unwilling to lose forty, as four hundred merks. So I will accept
-your bail, _meo periculo_--what say you to that law phrase again? I had
-it from a learned counsel. I will vouch it, my lord, he said, _meo
-periculo._"
-
-"And I will vouch for Edie Ochiltree, _meo periculo,_ in like manner,"
-said Oldbuck. "So let your clerk draw out the bail-bond, and I will sign
-it."
-
-When this ceremony had been performed, the Antiquary communicated to Edie
-the joyful tidings that he was once more at liberty, and directed him to
-make the best of his way to Monkbarns House, to which he himself returned
-with his nephew, after having perfected their good work.
-
-
-
-
-                           CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
-
-                Full of wise saws and modern instances.
-                                       As You Like It.
-
-"I wish to Heaven, Hector," said the Antiquary, next morning after
-breakfast, "you would spare our nerves, and not be keeping snapping that
-arquebuss of yours."
-
-"Well, sir, I'm sure I'm sorry to disturb you," said his nephew, still
-handling his fowling-piece;--"but it's a capital gun--it's a Joe Manton,
-that cost forty guineas."
-
-"A fool and his money are soon parted, nephew--there is a Joe Miller for
-your Joe Manton," answered the Antiquary; "I am glad you have so many
-guineas to throw away."
-
-"Every one has their fancy, uncle,--you are fond of books."
-
-"Ay, Hector," said the uncle, "and if my collection were yours, you would
-make it fly to the gunsmith, the horse-market, the dog-breaker,--
-_Coemptos undique nobiles libros--mutare loricis Iberis._"
-
-"I could not use your books, my dear uncle," said the young soldier,
-"that's true; and you will do well to provide for their being in better
-hands. But don't let the faults of my head fall on my heart--I would not
-part with a Cordery that belonged to an old friend, to get a set of
-horses like Lord Glenallan's."
-
-"I don't think you would, lad--I don't think you would," said his
-softening relative. "I love to tease you a little sometimes; it keeps up
-the spirit of discipline and habit of subordination--You will pass your
-time happily here having me to command you, instead of Captain, or
-Colonel, or Knight in Arms,' as Milton has it; and instead of the
-French," he continued, relapsing into his ironical humour, "you have the
-_Gens humida ponti_--for, as Virgil says,
-
-              Sternunt se somno diversae in littore phocae;
-
-which might be rendered,
-
-                   Here phocae slumber on the beach,
-                  Within our Highland Hector's reach.
-
-Nay, if you grow angry, I have done. Besides, I see old Edie in the
-court-yard, with whom I have business. Good-bye, Hector--Do you remember
-how she splashed into the sea like her master Proteus, _et se jactu dedit
-aequor in altum_?"
-
-M'Intyre,--waiting, however, till the door was shut,--then gave way to
-the natural impatience of his temper.
-
-"My uncle is the best man in the world, and in his way the kindest; but
-rather than hear any more about that cursed _phoca,_ as he is pleased to
-call it, I would exchange for the West Indies, and never see his face
-again."
-
-Miss M'Intyre, gratefully attached to her uncle, and passionately fond of
-her brother, was, on such occasions, the usual envoy of reconciliation.
-She hastened to meet her uncle on his return, before he entered the
-parlour.
-
-"Well, now, Miss Womankind, what is the meaning of that imploring
-countenance?--has Juno done any more mischief?"
-
-"No, uncle; but Juno's master is in such fear of your joking him about
-the seal--I assure you, he feels it much more than you would wish;--it's
-very silly of him, to be sure; but then you can turn everybody so sharply
-into ridicule"--
-
-"Well, my dear," answered Oldbuck, propitiated by the compliment, "I will
-rein in my satire, and, if possible, speak no more of the _phoca_--I will
-not even speak of sealing a letter, but say _umph,_ and give a nod to you
-when I want the wax-light--I am not _monitoribus asper,_ but, Heaven
-knows, the most mild, quiet, and easy of human beings, whom sister,
-niece, and nephew, guide just as best pleases them."
-
-With this little panegyric on his own docility, Mr. Oldbuck entered the
-parlour, and proposed to his nephew a walk to the Mussel-crag. "I have
-some questions to ask of a woman at Mucklebackit's cottage," he observed,
-"and I would willingly have a sensible witness with me--so, for fault of
-a better, Hector, I must be contented with you."
-
-"There is old Edie, sir, or Caxon--could not they do better than me?"
-answered M'Intyre, feeling somewhat alarmed at the prospect of a long
-_tete-a-tete_ with his uncle.
-
-"Upon my word, young man, you turn me over to pretty companions, and I am
-quite sensible of your politeness," replied Mr. Oldbuck. "No, sir, I
-intend the old Blue-Gown shall go with me--not as a competent witness,
-for he is, at present, as our friend Bailie Littlejohn says (blessings on
-his learning!) _tanquam suspectus,_ and you are _suspicione major,_ as
-our law has it."
-
-"I wish I were a major, sir," said Hector, catching only the last, and,
-to a soldier's ear, the most impressive word in the sentence,--"but,
-without money or interest, there is little chance of getting the step."
-
-"Well, well, most doughty son of Priam," said the Antiquary, "be ruled by
-your friends, and there's no saying what may happen--Come away with me,
-and you shall see what may be useful to you should you ever sit upon a
-court-martial, sir."
-
-"I have been on many a regimental court-martial, sir," answered Captain
-M'Intyre. "But here's a new cane for you."
-
-"Much obliged, much obliged."
-
-"I bought it from our drum-major," added M'Intyre, "who came into our
-regiment from the Bengal army when it came down the Red Sea. It was cut
-on the banks of the Indus, I assure you."
-
-"Upon my word, 'tis a fine ratan, and well replaces that which the _ph_--
-Bah! what was I going to say?"
-
-The party, consisting of the Antiquary, his nephew, and the old beggar,
-now took the sands towards Mussel-crag--the former in the very highest
-mood of communicating information, and the others, under a sense of
-former obligation, and some hope for future favours, decently attentive
-to receive it. The uncle and nephew walked together, the mendicant about
-a step and a half behind, just near enough for his patron to speak to him
-by a slight inclination of his neck, and without the trouble of turning
-round. (Petrie, in his Essay on Good-breeding, dedicated to the
-magistrates of Edinburgh, recommends, upon his own experience, as tutor
-in a family of distinction, this attitude to all led captains, tutors,
-dependants, and bottle-holders of every description. ) Thus escorted, the
-Antiquary moved along full of his learning, like a lordly man of war, and
-every now and then yawing to starboard and larboard to discharge a
-broadside upon his followers.
-
-"And so it is your opinion," said he to the mendicant, "that this
-windfall--this _arca auri,_ as Plautus has it, will not greatly avail Sir
-Arthur in his necessities?"
-
-Unless he could find ten times as much," said the beggar, "and that I am
-sair doubtful of;--I heard Puggie Orrock, and the tother thief of a
-sheriff-officer, or messenger, speaking about it--and things are ill aff
-when the like o' them can speak crousely about ony gentleman's affairs. I
-doubt Sir Arthur will be in stane wa's for debt, unless there's swift
-help and certain."
-
-"You speak like a fool," said the Antiquary.--"Nephew, it is a remarkable
-thing, that in this happy country no man can be legally imprisoned for
-debt."
-
-"Indeed, sir?" said M'Intyre; "I never knew that before--that part of our
-law would suit some of our mess well."
-
-"And if they arena confined for debt," said Ochiltree, "what is't that
-tempts sae mony puir creatures to bide in the tolbooth o' Fairport
-yonder?--they a' say they were put there by their creditors--Od! they
-maun like it better than I do, if they're there o' free will."
-
-"A very natural observation, Edie, and many of your betters would make
-the same; but it is founded entirely upon ignorance of the feudal system.
-Hector, be so good as to attend, unless you are looking out for another--
-Ahem!" (Hector compelled himself to give attention at this hint. ) "And
-you, Edie, it may be useful to you _reram cognoscere causas._ The nature
-and origin of warrant for caption is a thing _haud alienum a Scaevolae
-studiis._--You must know then, once more, that nobody can be arrested in
-Scotland for debt."
-
-"I haena muckle concern wi' that, Monkbarns," said the old man, "for
-naebody wad trust a bodle to a gaberlunzie."
-
-"I pr'ythee, peace, man--As a compulsitor, therefore, of payment, that
-being a thing to which no debtor is naturally inclined, as I have too
-much reason to warrant from the experience I have had with my own,--we
-had first the letters of four forms, a sort of gentle invitation, by
-which our sovereign lord the king, interesting himself, as a monarch
-should, in the regulation of his subjects' private affairs, at first by
-mild exhortation, and afterwards by letters of more strict enjoinment and
-more hard compulsion--What do you see extraordinary about that bird,
-Hector?--it's but a seamaw."
-
-"It's a pictarnie, sir," said Edie.
-
-"Well, what an if it were--what does that signify at present?--But I see
-you're impatient; so I will waive the letters of four forms, and come to
-the modern process of diligence.--You suppose, now, a man's committed to
-prison because he cannot pay his debt? Quite otherwise: the truth is, the
-king is so good as to interfere at the request of the creditor, and to
-send the debtor his royal command to do him justice within a certain
-time--fifteen days, or six, as the case may be. Well, the man resists and
-disobeys: what follows? Why, that he be lawfully and rightfully declared
-a rebel to our gracious sovereign, whose command he has disobeyed, and
-that by three blasts of a horn at the market-place of Edinburgh, the
-metropolis of Scotland. And he is then legally imprisoned, not on account
-of any civil debt, but because of his ungrateful contempt of the royal
-mandate. What say you to that, Hector?--there's something you never knew
-before."*
-
-* The doctrine of Monkbarns on the origin of imprisonment for civil debt
-in Scotland, may appear somewhat whimsical, but was referred to, and
-admitted to be correct, by the Bench of the Supreme Scottish Court, on
-5th December 1828, in the case of Thom _v._ Black. In fact, the Scottish
-law is in this particular more jealous of the personal liberty of the
-subject than any other code in Europe.
-
-"No, uncle; but, I own, if I wanted money to pay my debts, I would rather
-thank the king to send me some, than to declare me a rebel for not doing
-what I could not do."
-
-"Your education has not led you to consider these things," replied his
-uncle; "you are incapable of estimating the elegance of the legal
-fiction, and the manner in which it reconciles that duress, which, for
-the protection of commerce, it has been found necessary to extend towards
-refractory debtors, with the most scrupulous attention to the liberty of
-the subject."
-
-"I don't know, sir," answered the unenlightened Hector; "but if a man
-must pay his debt or go to jail, it signifies but little whether he goes
-as a debtor or a rebel, I should think. But you say this command of the
-king's gives a license of so many days--Now, egad, were I in the scrape,
-I would beat a march and leave the king and the creditor to settle it
-among themselves before they came to extremities."
-
-"So wad I," said Edie; "I wad gie them leg-bail to a certainty."
-
-"True," replied Monkbarns; "but those whom the law suspects of being
-unwilling to abide her formal visit, she proceeds with by means of a
-shorter and more unceremonious call, as dealing with persons on whom
-patience and favour would be utterly thrown away."
-
-"Ay," said Ochiltree, "that will be what they ca' the fugie-warrants--I
-hae some skeel in them. There's Border-warrants too in the south country,
-unco rash uncanny things;--I was taen up on ane at Saint James's Fair,
-and keepit in the auld kirk at Kelso the haill day and night; and a cauld
-goustie place it was, I'se assure ye.--But whatna wife's this, wi' her
-creel on her back? It's puir Maggie hersell, I'm thinking."
-
-It was so. The poor woman's sense of her loss, if not diminished, was
-become at least mitigated by the inevitable necessity of attending to the
-means of supporting her family; and her salutation to Oldbuck was made in
-an odd mixture between the usual language of solicitation with which she
-plied her customers, and the tone of lamentation for her recent calamity.
-
-"How's a' wi' ye the day, Monkbarns? I havena had the grace yet to come
-down to thank your honour for the credit ye did puir Steenie, wi' laying
-his head in a rath grave, puir fallow. "--Here she whimpered and wiped
-her eyes with the corner of her blue apron--"But the fishing comes on no
-that ill, though the gudeman hasna had the heart to gang to sea himsell--
-Atweel I would fain tell him it wad do him gude to put hand to wark--but
-I'm maist fear'd to speak to him--and it's an unco thing to hear ane o'
-us speak that gate o' a man--However, I hae some dainty caller haddies,
-and they sall be but three shillings the dozen, for I hae nae pith to
-drive a bargain ennow, and maun just tak what ony Christian body will
-gie, wi' few words and nae flyting."
-
-"What shall we do, Hector?" said Oldbuck, pausing: "I got into disgrace
-with my womankind for making a bad bargain with her before. These
-maritime animals, Hector, are unlucky to our family."
-
-"Pooh, sir, what would you do?--give poor Maggie what she asks, or allow
-me to send a dish of fish up to Monkbarns."
-
-And he held out the money to her; but Maggie drew back her hand. "Na, na,
-Captain; ye're ower young and ower free o' your siller--ye should never
-tak a fish-wife's first bode; and troth I think maybe a flyte wi' the
-auld housekeeper at Monkbarns, or Miss Grizel, would do me some gude--And
-I want to see what that hellicate quean Jenny Ritherout's doing--folk
-said she wasna weel--She'll be vexing hersell about Steenie, the silly
-tawpie, as if he wad ever hae lookit ower his shouther at the like
-o'her!--Weel, Monkbarns, they're braw caller haddies, and they'll bid me
-unco little indeed at the house if ye want crappit-heads the day."
-
-And so on she paced with her burden,--grief, gratitude for the sympathy
-of her betters, and the habitual love of traffic and of gain, chasing
-each other through her thoughts.
-
-"And now that we are before the door of their hut," said Ochiltree, "I
-wad fain ken, Monkbarns, what has gar'd ye plague yoursell wi' me a' this
-length? I tell ye sincerely I hae nae pleasure in ganging in there. I
-downa bide to think how the young hae fa'en on a' sides o' me, and left
-me an useless auld stump wi' hardly a green leaf on't."
-
-"This old woman," said Oldbuck, "sent you on a message to the Earl of
-Glenallan, did she not?"
-
-"Ay!" said the surprised mendicant; "how ken ye that sae weel?"
-
-"Lord Glenallan told me himself," answered the Antiquary; "so there is no
-delation--no breach of trust on your part; and as he wishes me to take
-her evidence down on some important family matters, I chose to bring you
-with me, because in her situation, hovering between dotage and
-consciousness, it is possible that your voice and appearance may awaken
-trains of recollection which I should otherwise have no means of
-exciting. The human mind--what are you about, Hector?"
-
-"I was only whistling for the dog, sir," replied the Captain "she always
-roves too wide--I knew I should be troublesome to you."
-
-"Not at all, not at all," said Oldbuck, resuming the subject of his
-disquisition--"the human mind is to be treated like a skein of ravelled
-silk, where you must cautiously secure one free end before you can make
-any progress in disentangling it."
-
-"I ken naething about that," said the gaberlunzie; "but an my auld
-acquaintance be hersell, or anything like hersell, she may come to wind
-us a pirn. It's fearsome baith to see and hear her when she wampishes
-about her arms, and gets to her English, and speaks as if she were a
-prent book, let a-be an auld fisher's wife. But, indeed, she had a grand
-education, and was muckle taen out afore she married an unco bit beneath
-hersell. She's aulder than me by half a score years--but I mind weel
-eneugh they made as muckle wark about her making a half-merk marriage wi'
-Simon Mucklebackit, this Saunders's father, as if she had been ane o' the
-gentry. But she got into favour again, and then she lost it again, as I
-hae heard her son say, when he was a muckle chield; and then they got
-muckle siller, and left the Countess's land, and settled here. But things
-never throve wi' them. Howsomever, she's a weel-educate woman, and an she
-win to her English, as I hae heard her do at an orra time, she may come
-to fickle us a'."
-
-
-
-
-                            CHAPTER NINETEENTH
-
-           Life ebbs from such old age, unmarked and silent,
-           As the slow neap-tide leaves yon stranded galley.--
-              Late she rocked merrily at the least impulse
-              That wind or wave could give; but now her keel
-              Is settling on the sand, her mast has ta'en
-           An angle with the sky, from which it shifts not.
-              Each wave receding shakes her less and less,
-              Till, bedded on the strand, she shall remain
-                               Useless as motionless.
-                                                 Old Play.
-
-As the Antiquary lifted the latch of the hut, he was surprised to hear
-the shrill tremulous voice of Elspeth chanting forth an old ballad in a
-wild and doleful recitative.
-
-                "The herring loves the merry moonlight,
-                     The mackerel loves the wind,
-                But the oyster loves the dredging sang,
-                     For they come of a gentle kind."
-
-A diligent collector of these legendary scraps of ancient poetry, his
-foot refused to cross the threshold when his ear was thus arrested, and
-his hand instinctively took pencil and memorandum-book. From time to time
-the old woman spoke as if to the children--"Oh ay, hinnies, whisht!
-whisht! and I'll begin a bonnier ane than that--
-
-                 "Now haud your tongue, baith wife and carle,
-                      And listen, great and sma',
-                  And I will sing of Glenallan's Earl
-                     That fought on the red Harlaw.
-
-                 "The cronach's cried on Bennachie,
-                       And doun the Don and a',
-                  And hieland and lawland may mournfu' be
-                       For the sair field of Harlaw.--
-
-I dinna mind the neist verse weel--my memory's failed, and theres unco
-thoughts come ower me--God keep us frae temptation!"
-
-Here her voice sunk in indistinct muttering.
-
-"It's a historical ballad," said Oldbuck, eagerly, "a genuine and
-undoubted fragment of minstrelsy! Percy would admire its simplicity--
-Ritson could not impugn its authenticity."
-
-"Ay, but it's a sad thing," said Ochiltree, "to see human nature sae far
-owertaen as to be skirling at auld sangs on the back of a loss like
-hers."
-
-"Hush! hush!" said the Antiquary--"she has gotten the thread of the story
-again. "--And as he spoke, she sung--
-
-              "They saddled a hundred milk-white steeds,
-                   They hae bridled a hundred black,
-               With a chafron of steel on each horse's head,
-                  And a good knight upon his back. "--
-
-"Chafron!" exclaimed the Antiquary,--"equivalent, perhaps, to
-_cheveron;_--the word's worth a dollar,"--and down it went in his red
-book.
-
-                  "They hadna ridden a mile, a mile,
-                        A mile, but barely ten,
-                   When Donald came branking down the brae
-                       Wi' twenty thousand men.
-
-                 "Their tartans they were waving wide,
-                       Their glaives were glancing clear,
-                  Their pibrochs rung frae side to side,
-                       Would deafen ye to hear.
-
-                 "The great Earl in his stirrups stood
-                      That Highland host to see:
-                  Now here a knight that's stout and good
-                         May prove a jeopardie:
-
-                 "What wouldst thou do, my squire so gay,
-                       That rides beside my reyne,
-                   Were ye Glenallan's Earl the day,
-                       And I were Roland Cheyne?
-
-                 "To turn the rein were sin and shame,
-                       To fight were wondrous peril,
-                 What would ye do now, Roland Cheyne,
-                       Were ye Glenallan's Earl?'
-
-Ye maun ken, hinnies, that this Roland Cheyne, for as poor and auld as I
-sit in the chimney-neuk, was my forbear, and an awfu' man he was that
-dayin the fight, but specially after the Earl had fa'en, for he blamed
-himsell for the counsel he gave, to fight before Mar came up wi' Mearns,
-and Aberdeen, and Angus."
-
-Her voice rose and became more animated as she recited the warlike
-counsel of her ancestor--
-
-                  "Were I Glenallan's Earl this tide,
-                      And ye were Roland Cheyne,
-                  The spur should be in my horse's side,
-                     And the bridle upon his mane.
-
-                 "If they hae twenty thousand blades,
-                       And we twice ten times ten,
-                  Yet they hae but their tartan plaids,
-                       And we are mail-clad men.
-
-                 "My horse shall ride through ranks sae rude,
-                      As through the moorland fern,
-                 Then neer let the gentle Norman blude
-                      Grow cauld for Highland kerne.'"
-
-"Do you hear that, nephew?" said Oldbuck;--"you observe your Gaelic
-ancestors were not held in high repute formerly by the Lowland warriors."
-
-"I hear," said Hector, "a silly old woman sing a silly old song. I am
-surprised, sir, that you, who will not listen to Ossian's songs of Selma,
-can be pleased with such trash. I vow, I have not seen or heard a worse
-halfpenny ballad; I don't believe you could match it in any pedlar's pack
-in the country. I should be ashamed to think that the honour of the
-Highlands could be affected by such doggrel. "--And, tossing up his head,
-he snuffed the air indignantly.
-
-Apparently the old woman heard the sound of their voices; for, ceasing
-her song, she called out, "Come in, sirs, come in--good-will never halted
-at the door-stane."
-
-They entered, and found to their surprise Elspeth alone, sitting "ghastly
-on the hearth," like the personification of Old Age in the Hunter's song
-of the Owl,* "wrinkled, tattered, vile, dim-eyed, discoloured, torpid."
-
-* See Mrs. Grant on the Highland Superstitions, vol. ii. p. 260, for this
-fine translation from the Gaelic.
-
-"They're a' out," she said, as they entered; "but an ye will sit a blink,
-somebody will be in. If ye hae business wi' my gude-daughter, or my son,
-they'll be in belyve,--I never speak on business mysell. Bairns, gie them
-seats--the bairns are a' gane out, I trow,"--looking around her;--"I was
-crooning to keep them quiet a wee while since; but they hae cruppen out
-some gate. Sit down, sirs, they'll be in belyve;" and she dismissed her
-spindle from her hand to twirl upon the floor, and soon seemed
-exclusively occupied in regulating its motion, as unconscious of the
-presence of the strangers as she appeared indifferent to their rank or
-business there.
-
-"I wish," said Oldbuck, "she would resume that canticle, or legendary
-fragment. I always suspected there was a skirmish of cavalry before the
-main battle of the Harlaw. "*
-
-* Note H. Battle of Harlaw.
-
-"If your honour pleases," said Edie, "had ye not better proceed to the
-business that brought us a' here? I'se engage to get ye the sang ony
-time."
-
-"I believe you are right, Edie--_Do manus_--I submit. But how shall we
-manage? She sits there the very image of dotage. Speak to her, Edie--try
-if you can make her recollect having sent you to Glenallan House."
-
-Edie rose accordingly, and, crossing the floor, placed himself in the
-same position which he had occupied during his former conversation with
-her. "I'm fain to see ye looking sae weel, cummer; the mair, that the
-black ox has tramped on ye since I was aneath your roof-tree."
-
-"Ay," said Elspeth; but rather from a general idea of misfortune, than
-any exact recollection of what had happened,--"there has been distress
-amang us of late--I wonder how younger folk bide it--I bide it ill. I
-canna hear the wind whistle, and the sea roar, but I think I see the
-coble whombled keel up, and some o' them struggling in the waves!--Eh,
-sirs; sic weary dreams as folk hae between sleeping and waking, before
-they win to the lang sleep and the sound! I could amaist think whiles my
-son, or else Steenie, my oe, was dead, and that I had seen the burial.
-Isna that a queer dream for a daft auld carline? What for should ony o'
-them dee before me?--it's out o' the course o' nature, ye ken."
-
-"I think you'll make very little of this stupid old woman," said Hector,
---who still nourished, perhaps, some feelings of the dislike excited by
-the disparaging mention of his countrymen in her lay--"I think you'll
-make but little of her, sir; and it's wasting our time to sit here and
-listen to her dotage."
-
-"Hector," said the Antiquary, indignantly, "if you do not respect her
-misfortunes, respect at least her old age and grey hairs: this is the
-last stage of existence, so finely treated by the Latin poet--
-
-                                --Omni
-               Membrorum damno major dementia, quae neo
-               Nomina, servorum, nec vultus agnoscit amici,
-               Cum queis preterita coenavit nocte, nec illos
-                            Quos genuit, quos ecluxit."
-
-"That's Latin!" said Elspeth, rousing herself as if she attended to the
-lines, which the Antiquary recited with great pomp of diction--"that's
-Latin!" and she cast a wild glance around her--"Has there a priest fund
-me out at last?"
-
-"You see, nephew, her comprehension is almost equal to your own of that
-fine passage."
-
-"I hope you think, sir, that I knew it to be Latin as well as she did?"
-
-"Why, as to that--But stay, she is about to speak."
-
-"I will have no priest--none," said the beldam, with impotent vehemence;
-"as I have lived I will die--none shall say that I betrayed my mistress,
-though it were to save my soul!"
-
-"That bespoke a foul conscience," said the mendicant;--"I wuss she wad
-mak a clean breast, an it were but for her sake;" and he again assailed
-her.
-
-"Weel, gudewife, I did your errand to the Yerl."
-
-"To what Earl? I ken nae Earl;--I ken'd a Countess ance--I wish to Heaven
-I had never ken'd her! for by that acquaintance, neighbour, their cam,"--
-and she counted her withered fingers as she spoke "first Pride, then
-Malice, then Revenge, then False Witness; and Murder tirl'd at the
-door-pin, if he camna ben. And werena thae pleasant guests, think ye, to
-take up their quarters in ae woman's heart? I trow there was routh o'
-company."
-
-"But, cummer," continued the beggar, "it wasna the Countess of Glenallan
-I meant, but her son, him that was Lord Geraldin."
-
-"I mind it now," she said; "I saw him no that langsyne, and we had a
-heavy speech thegither. Eh, sirs! the comely young lord is turned as auld
-and frail as I am: it's muckle that sorrow and heartbreak, and crossing
-of true love, will do wi' young blood. But suldna his mither hae lookit
-to that hersell?--we were but to do her bidding, ye ken. I am sure
-there's naebody can blame me--he wasna my son, and she was my mistress.
-Ye ken how the rhyme says--I hae maist forgotten how to sing, or else the
-tune's left my auld head--
-
-                  "He turn'd him right and round again,
-                       Said, Scorn na at my mither;
-                   Light loves I may get mony a ane,
-                       But minnie neer anither.
-
-Then he was but of the half blude, ye ken, and her's was the right
-Glenallan after a'. Na, na, I maun never maen doing and suffering for the
-Countess Joscelin--never will I maen for that."
-
-Then drawing her flax from the distaff, with the dogged air of one who is
-resolved to confess nothing, she resumed her interrupted occupation.
-
-"I hae heard," said the mendicant, taking his cue from what Oldbuck had
-told him of the family history--"I hae heard, cummer, that some ill
-tongue suld hae come between the Earl, that's Lord Geraldin, and his
-young bride."
-
-"Ill tongue?" she said in hasty alarm; "and what had she to fear frae an
-ill tongue?--she was gude and fair eneugh--at least a' body said sae. But
-had she keepit her ain tongue aff ither folk, she might hae been living
-like a leddy for a' that's come and gane yet."
-
-"But I hae heard say, gudewife," continued Ochiltree, "there was a
-clatter in the country, that her husband and her were ower sibb when they
-married."
-
-"Wha durst speak o' that?" said the old woman hastily; "wha durst say
-they were married?--wha ken'd o' that?--Not the Countess--not I. If they
-wedded in secret, they were severed in secret--They drank of the
-fountains of their ain deceit."
-
-"No, wretched beldam!" exclaimed Oldbuck, who could keep silence no
-longer, "they drank the poison that you and your wicked mistress prepared
-for them."
-
-"Ha, ha!" she replied, "I aye thought it would come to this. It's but
-sitting silent when they examine me--there's nae torture in our days; and
-if there is, let them rend me!--It's ill o' the vassal's mouth that
-betrays the bread it eats."
-
-"Speak to her, Edie," said the Antiquary; "she knows your voice, and
-answers to it most readily."
-
-"We shall mak naething mair out o' her," said Ochiltree. "When she has
-clinkit hersell down that way, and faulded her arms, she winna speak a
-word, they say, for weeks thegither. And besides, to my thinking, her
-face is sair changed since we cam in. However, I'se try her ance mair to
-satisfy your honour.--So ye canna keep in mind, cummer, that your auld
-mistress, the Countess Joscelin, has been removed?"
-
-"Removed!" she exclaimed; for that name never failed to produce its usual
-effect upon her; "then we maun a' follow--a' maun ride when she is in the
-saddle. Tell them to let Lord Geraldin ken we're on before them. Bring my
-hood and scarf--ye wadna hae me gang in the carriage wi' my leddy, and my
-hair in this fashion?"
-
-She raised her shrivelled arms, and seemed busied like a woman who puts
-on her cloak to go abroad, then dropped them slowly and stiffly; and the
-same idea of a journey still floating apparently through her head, she
-proceeded, in a hurried and interrupted manner,--"Call Miss Neville--What
-do you mean by Lady Geraldin? I said Eveline Neville, not Lady Geraldin--
-there's no Lady Geraldin; tell her that, and bid her change her wet gown,
-and no' look sae pale. Bairn! what should she do wi' a bairn?--maidens
-hae nane, I trow.--Teresa--Teresa--my lady calls us!--Bring a candle;--
-the grand staircase is as mirk as a Yule midnight--We are coming, my
-lady!"--With these words she sunk back on the settle, and from thence
-sidelong to the floor. *
-
-* Note I. Elspeth's death.
-
- Edie ran to support her, but hardly got her in his arms, before he said,
-"It's a' ower--she has passed away even with that last word."
-
-"Impossible," said Oldbuck, hastily advancing, as did his nephew. But
-nothing was more certain. She had expired with the last hurried word that
-left her lips; and all that remained before them were the mortal relics
-of the creature who had so long struggled with an internal sense of
-concealed guilt, joined to all the distresses of age and poverty.
-
-"God grant that she be gane to a better place!" said Edie, as he looked
-on the lifeless body; "but oh! there was something lying hard and heavy
-at her heart. I have seen mony a ane dee, baith in the field o' battle,
-and a fair-strae death at hame; but I wad rather see them a' ower again,
-as sic a fearfu' flitting as hers!"
-
-"We must call in the neighbours," said Oldbuck, when he had somewhat
-recovered his horror and astonishment, "and give warning of this
-additional calamity. I wish she could have been brought to a confession.
-And, though of far less consequence, I could have wished to transcribe
-that metrical fragment. But Heaven's will must be done!"
-
-They left the hut accordingly, and gave the alarm in the hamlet, whose
-matrons instantly assembled to compose the limbs and arrange the body of
-her who might be considered as the mother of their settlement. Oldbuck
-promised his assistance for the funeral.
-
-"Your honour," said Alison Breck, who was next in age to the deceased,
-"suld send doun something to us for keeping up our hearts at the
-lykewake, for a' Saunders's gin, puir man, was drucken out at the burial
-o' Steenie, and we'll no get mony to sit dry-lipped aside the corpse.
-Elspeth was unco clever in her young days, as I can mind right weel, but
-there was aye a word o' her no being that chancy. Ane suldna speak ill o'
-the dead--mair by token, o' ane's cummer and neighbour--but there was
-queer things said about a leddy and a bairn or she left the
-Craigburnfoot. And sae, in gude troth, it will be a puir lykewake, unless
-your honour sends us something to keep us cracking."
-
-"You shall have some whisky," answered Oldbuck, "the rather that you have
-preserved the proper word for that ancient custom of watching the dead.--
-You observe, Hector, this is genuine Teutonic, from the Gothic
-_Leichnam,_ a corpse. It is quite erroneously called _Late-wake,_ though
-Brand favours that modern corruption and derivation."
-
-"I believe," said Hector to himself, "my uncle would give away Monkbarns
-to any one who would come to ask it in genuine Teutonic! Not a drop of
-whisky would the old creatures have got, had their president asked it for
-the use of the _Late-wake._"
-
-While Oldbuck was giving some farther directions, and promising
-assistance, a servant of Sir Arthur's came riding very hard along the
-sands, and stopped his horse when he saw the Antiquary. "There had
-something," he said, "very particular happened at the Castle"--(he could
-not, or would not, explain what)--"and Miss Wardour had sent him off
-express to Monkbarns, to beg that Mr. Oldbuck would come to them without
-a moment's delay."
-
-"I am afraid," said the Antiquary, "his course also is drawing to a
-close. What can I do?"
-
-"Do, sir?" exclaimed Hector, with his characteristic impatience,--"get on
-the horse, and turn his head homeward--you will be at Knockwinnock Castle
-in ten minutes."
-
-"He is quite a free goer," said the servant, dismounting to adjust the
-girths and stirrups,--"he only pulls a little if he feels a dead weight
-on him."
-
-"I should soon be a dead weight _off_ him, my friend," said the
-Antiquary.--"What the devil, nephew, are you weary of me? or do you
-suppose me weary of my life, that I should get on the back of such a
-Bucephalus as that? No, no, my friend, if I am to be at Knockwinnock
-to-day, it must be by walking quietly forward on my own feet, which I
-will do with as little delay as possible. Captain M'Intyre may ride that
-animal himself, if he pleases."
-
-"I have little hope I could be of any use, uncle, but I cannot think of
-their distress without wishing to show sympathy at least--so I will ride
-on before, and announce to them that you are coming.--I'll trouble you
-for your spurs, my friend."
-
-"You will scarce need them, sir," said the man, taking them off at the
-same time, and buckling them upon Captain Mlntyre's heels, "he's very
-frank to the road."
-
-Oldbuck stood astonished at this last act of temerity, "are you mad,
-Hector?" he cried, "or have you forgotten what is said by Quintus
-Curtius, with whom, as a soldier, you must needs be familiar,--_Nobilis
-equus umbra quidem virgae regitur; ignavus ne calcari quidem excitari
-potest;_ which plainly shows that spurs are useless in every case, and, I
-may add, dangerous in most."
-
-But Hector, who cared little for the opinion of either Quintus Curtius or
-of the Antiquary, upon such a topic, only answered with a heedless "Never
-fear--never fear, sir."
-
-              With that he gave his able horse the head,
-              And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
-              Against the panting sides of his poor jade,
-                Up to the rowel-head; and starting so,
-                He seemed in running to devour the way,
-                      Staying no longer question.
-
-"There they go, well matched," said Oldbuck, looking after them as they
-started--"a mad horse and a wild boy, the two most unruly creatures in
-Christendom! and all to get half an hour sooner to a place where nobody
-wants him; for I doubt Sir Arthur's griefs are beyond the cure of our
-light horseman. It must be the villany of Dousterswivel, for whom Sir
-Arthur has done so much; for I cannot help observing, that, with some
-natures, Tacitus's maxim holdeth good: _Beneficia eo usque laeta sunt dum
-videntur exsolvi posse; ubi multum antevenere, pro gratia odium
-redditur,_--from which a wise man might take a caution, not to oblige any
-man beyond the degree in which he may expect to be requited, lest he
-should make his debtor a bankrupt in gratitude."
-
-Murmuring to himself such scraps of cynical philosophy, our Antiquary
-paced the sands towards Knockwinnock; but it is necessary we should
-outstrip him, for the purpose of explaining the reasons of his being so
-anxiously summoned thither.
-
-
-
-
-                           CHAPTER TWENTIETH.
-
-
-             So, while the Goose, of whom the fable told,
-                Incumbent, brooded o'er her eggs of gold,
-             With hand outstretched, impatient to destroy,
-                Stole on her secret nest the cruel Boy,
-             Whose gripe rapacious changed her splendid dream,
-            --For wings vain fluttering, and for dying scream.
-                                   The Loves of the Sea-weeds.
-
-From the time that Sir Arthur Wardour had become possessor of the
-treasure found in Misticot's grave, he had been in a state of mind more
-resembling ecstasy than sober sense. Indeed, at one time his daughter had
-become seriously apprehensive for his intellect; for, as he had no doubt
-that he had the secret of possessing himself of wealth to an unbounded
-extent, his language and carriage were those of a man who had acquired
-the philosopher's stone. He talked of buying contiguous estates, that
-would have led him from one side of the island to the other, as if he
-were determined to brook no neighbour save the sea. He corresponded with
-an architect of eminence, upon a plan of renovating the castle of his
-forefathers on a style of extended magnificence that might have rivalled
-that of Windsor, and laying out the grounds on a suitable scale. Troops
-of liveried menials were already, in fancy, marshalled in his halls, and
---for what may not unbounded wealth authorize its possessor to aspire
-to?--the coronet of a marquis, perhaps of a duke, was glittering before
-his imagination. His daughter--to what matches might she not look
-forward? Even an alliance with the blood-royal was not beyond the sphere
-of his hopes. His son was already a general--and he himself whatever
-ambition could dream of in its wildest visions.
-
-In this mood, if any one endeavoured to bring Sir Arthur down to the
-regions of common life, his replies were in the vein of Ancient Pistol--
-
-                   A fico for the world, and worldlings base
-                   I speak of Africa and golden joys!
-
-The reader may conceive the amazement of Miss Wardour, when, instead of
-undergoing an investigation concerning the addresses of Lovel, as she had
-expected from the long conference of her father with Mr. Oldbuck, upon
-the morning of the fated day when the treasure was discovered, the
-conversation of Sir Arthur announced an imagination heated with the hopes
-of possessing the most unbounded wealth. But she was seriously alarmed
-when Dousterswivel was sent for to the Castle, and was closeted with her
-father--his mishap condoled with--his part taken, and his loss
-compensated. All the suspicions which she had long entertained respecting
-this man became strengthened, by observing his pains to keep up the
-golden dreams of her father, and to secure for himself, under various
-pretexts, as much as possible out of the windfall which had so strangely
-fallen to Sir Arthur's share.
-
-Other evil symptoms began to appear, following close on each other.
-Letters arrived every post, which Sir Arthur, as soon as he had looked at
-the directions, flung into the fire without taking the trouble to open
-them. Miss Wardour could not help suspecting that these epistles, the
-contents of which seemed to be known to her father by a sort of
-intuition, came from pressing creditors. In the meanwhile, the temporary
-aid which he had received from the treasure dwindled fast away. By far
-the greater part had been swallowed up by the necessity of paying the
-bill of six hundred pounds, which had threatened Sir Arthur with instant
-distress. Of the rest, some part was given to the adept, some wasted upon
-extravagances which seemed to the poor knight fully authorized by his
-full-blown hopes,--and some went to stop for a time the mouths of such
-claimants as, being weary of fair promises, had become of opinion with
-Harpagon, that it was necessary to touch something substantial. At length
-circumstances announced but too plainly, that it was all expended within
-two or three days after its discovery; and there appeared no prospect of
-a supply. Sir Arthur, naturally impatient, now taxed Dousterswivel anew
-with breach of those promises through which he had hoped to convert all
-his lead into gold. But that worthy gentleman's turn was now served; and
-as he had grace enough to wish to avoid witnessing the fall of the house
-which he had undermined, he was at the trouble of bestowing a few learned
-terms of art upon Sir Arthur, that at least he might not be tormented
-before his time. He took leave of him, with assurances that he would
-return to Knockwinnock the next morning, with such information as would
-not fail to relieve Sir Arthur from all his distresses.
-
-"For, since I have consulted in such matters, I ave never," said Mr.
-Herman Dousterswivel, "approached so near de _arcanum,_ what you call de
-great mystery,--de Panchresta--de Polychresta--I do know as much of it as
-Pelaso de Taranta, or Basilius--and either I will bring you in two and
-tree days de No. III. of Mr. Mishdigoat, or you shall call me one knave
-myself, and never look me in de face again no more at all."
-
-The adept departed with this assurance, in the firm resolution of making
-good the latter part of the proposition, and never again appearing before
-his injured patron. Sir Arthur remained in a doubtful and anxious state
-of mind. The positive assurances of the philosopher, with the hard words
-Panchresta, Basilius, and so forth, produced some effect on his mind. But
-he had been too often deluded by such jargon, to be absolutely relieved
-of his doubt, and he retired for the evening into his library, in the
-fearful state of one who, hanging over a precipice, and without the means
-of retreat, perceives the stone on which he rests gradually parting from
-the rest of the crag, and about to give way with him.
-
-The visions of hope decayed, and there increased in proportion that
-feverish agony of anticipation with which a man, educated in a sense of
-consequence, and possessed of opulence,--the supporter of an ancient
-name, and the father of two promising children,--foresaw the hour
-approaching which should deprive him of all the splendour which time had
-made familiarly necessary to him, and send him forth into the world to
-struggle with poverty, with rapacity, and with scorn. Under these dire
-forebodings, his temper, exhausted by the sickness of delayed hope,
-became peevish and fretful, and his words and actions sometimes expressed
-a reckless desperation, which alarmed Miss Wardour extremely. We have
-seen, on a former occasion, that Sir Arthur was a man of passions lively
-and quick, in proportion to the weakness of his character in other
-respects; he was unused to contradiction, and if he had been hitherto, in
-general, good-humoured and cheerful, it was probably because the course
-of his life had afforded no such frequent provocation as to render his
-irritability habitual.
-
-On the third morning after Dousterswivel's departure, the servant, as
-usual, laid on the breakfast table the newspaper and letters of the day.
-Miss Wardour took up the former to avoid the continued ill-humour of her
-father, who had wrought himself into a violent passion, because the toast
-was over-browned.
-
-"I perceive how it is," was his concluding speech on this interesting
-subject,--"my servants, who have had their share of my fortune, begin to
-think there is little to be made of me in future. But while I _am_ the
-scoundrel's master I will be so, and permit no neglect--no, nor endure a
-hair's-breadth diminution of the respect I am entitled to exact from
-them."
-
-"I am ready to leave your honour's service this instant," said the
-domestic upon whom the fault had been charged, "as soon as you order
-payment of my wages."
-
-Sir Arthur, as if stung by a serpent, thrust his hand into his pocket,
-and instantly drew out the money which it contained, but which was short
-of the man's claim. "What money have you got, Miss Wardour?" he said, in
-a tone of affected calmness, but which concealed violent agitation.
-
-Miss Wardour gave him her purse; he attempted to count the bank notes
-which it contained, but could not reckon them. After twice miscounting
-the sum, he threw the whole to his daughter, and saying, in a stern
-voice, "Pay the rascal, and let him leave the house instantly!" he strode
-out of the room.
-
-The mistress and servant stood alike astonished at the agitation and
-vehemence of his manner.
-
-"I am sure, ma'am, if I had thought I was particularly wrang, I wadna hae
-made ony answer when Sir Arthur challenged me. I hae been lang in his
-service, and he has been a kind master, and you a kind mistress, and I
-wad like ill ye should think I wad start for a hasty word. I am sure it
-was very wrang o' me to speak about wages to his honour, when maybe he
-has something to vex him. I had nae thoughts o' leaving the family in
-this way."
-
-"Go down stair, Robert," said his mistress--"something has happened to
-fret my father--go down stairs, and let Alick answer the bell."
-
-When the man left the room, Sir Arthur re-entered, as if he had been
-watching his departure. "What's the meaning of this?" he said hastily, as
-he observed the notes lying still on the table--"Is he not gone? Am I
-neither to be obeyed as a master or a father?"
-
-"He is gone to give up his charge to the housekeeper, sir,--I thought
-there was not such instant haste."
-
-"There _is_ haste, Miss Wardour," answered her father, interrupting her;
---"What I do henceforth in the house of my forefathers, must be done
-speedily, or never."
-
-He then sate down, and took up with a trembling hand the basin of tea
-prepared for him, protracting the swallowing of it, as if to delay the
-necessity of opening the post-letters which lay on the table, and which
-he eyed from time to time, as if they had been a nest of adders ready to
-start into life and spring upon him.
-
-"You will be happy to hear," said Miss Wardour, willing to withdraw her
-father's mind from the gloomy reflections in which he appeared to be
-plunged, "you will be happy to hear, sir, that Lieutenant Taffril's
-gun-brig has got safe into Leith Roads--I observe there had been
-apprehensions for his safety--I am glad we did not hear them till they
-were contradicted."
-
-"And what is Taffril and his gun-brig to me?"
-
-"Sir!" said Miss Wardour in astonishment; for Sir Arthur, in his ordinary
-state of mind, took a fidgety sort of interest in all the gossip of the
-day and country.
-
-"I say," he repeated in a higher and still more impatient key, "what do I
-care who is saved or lost? It's nothing to me, I suppose?"
-
-"I did not know you were busy, Sir Arthur; and thought, as Mr. Taffril is
-a brave man, and from our own country, you would be happy to hear"--
-
-"Oh, I am happy--as happy as possible--and, to make you happy too, you
-shall have some of my good news in return." And he caught up a letter.
-"It does not signify which I open first--they are all to the same tune."
-
-He broke the seal hastily, ran the letter over, and then threw it to his
-daughter. "Ay--I could not have lighted more happily!--this places the
-copestone."
-
-Miss Wardour, in silent terror, took up the letter. "Read it--read it
-aloud!" said her father; "it cannot be read too often; it will serve to
-break you in for other good news of the same kind."
-
-She began to read with a faltering voice, "Dear Sir."
-
-"He _dears_ me too, you see, this impudent drudge of a writer's office,
-who, a twelvemonth since, was not fit company for my second table--I
-suppose I shall be dear Knight' with him by and by."
-
-"Dear Sir," resumed Miss Wardour; but, interrupting herself, "I see the
-contents are unpleasant, sir--it will only vex you my reading them
-aloud."
-
-"If you will allow me to know my own pleasure, Miss Wardour, I entreat
-you to go on--I presume, if it were unnecessary, I should not ask you to
-take the trouble."
-
-"Having been of late taken into copartnery," continued Miss Wardour,
-reading the letter, "by Mr. Gilbert Greenhorn, son of your late
-correspondent and man of business, Girnigo Greenhorn, Esq., writer to the
-signet, whose business I conducted as parliament-house clerk for many
-years, which business will in future be carried on under the firm of
-Greenhorn and Grinderson (which I memorandum for the sake of accuracy in
-addressing your future letters), and having had of late favours of yours,
-directed to my aforesaid partner, Gilbert Greenhorn, in consequence of
-his absence at the Lamberton races, have the honour to reply to your said
-favours."
-
-"You see my friend is methodical, and commences by explaining the causes
-which have procured me so modest and elegant a correspondent. Go on--I
-can bear it."
-
-And he laughed that bitter laugh which is perhaps the most fearful
-expression of mental misery. Trembling to proceed, and yet afraid to
-disobey, Miss Wardour continued to read--"I am for myself and partner,
-sorry we cannot oblige you by looking out for the sums you mention, or
-applying for a suspension in the case of Goldiebirds' bond, which would
-be more inconsistent, as we have been employed to act as the said
-Goldiebirds' procurators and attorneys, in which capacity we have taken
-out a charge of horning against you, as you must be aware by the schedule
-left by the messenger, for the sum of four thousand seven hundred and
-fifty-six pounds five shillings and sixpence one-fourth of a penny
-sterling, which, with annual-rent and expenses effeiring, we presume will
-be settled during the currency of the charge, to prevent further trouble.
-Same time, I am under the necessity to observe our own account, amounting
-to seven hundred and sixty-nine pounds ten shillings and sixpence, is
-also due, and settlement would be agreeable; but as we hold your rights,
-title-deeds, and documents in hypothec, shall have no objection to give
-reasonable time--say till the next money term. I am, for myself and
-partner, concerned to add, that Messrs. Goldiebirds' instructions to us
-are to proceed _peremptorie_ and _sine mora,_ of which I have the
-pleasure to advise you, to prevent future mistakes, reserving to
-ourselves otherwise to age' as accords. I am, for self and partner, dear
-sir, your obliged humble servant, Gabriel Grinderson, for Greenhorn and
-Grinderson."
-
-"Ungrateful villain!" said Miss Wardour.
-
-"Why, no--it's in the usual rule, I suppose; the blow could not have been
-perfect if dealt by another hand--it's all just as it should be,"
-answered the poor Baronet, his affected composure sorely belied by his
-quivering lip and rolling eye--"But here's a postscript I did not notice
---come, finish the epistle."
-
-"I have to add (not for self but partner) that Mr. Greenhorn will
-accommodate you by taking your service of plate, or the bay horses, if
-sound in wind and limb, at a fair appreciation, in part payment of your
-accompt."
-
-"G--d confound him!" said Sir Arthur, losing all command of himself at
-this condescending proposal: "his grandfather shod my father's horses,
-and this descendant of a scoundrelly blacksmith proposes to swindle me
-out of mine! But I will write him a proper answer."
-
-And he sate down and began to write with great vehemence, then stopped
-and read aloud:--"Mr. Gilbert Greenhorn,--in answer to two letters of a
-late date, I received a letter from a person calling himself Grinderson,
-and designing himself as your partner. When I address any one, I do not
-usually expect to be answered by deputy--I think I have been useful to
-your father, and friendly and civil to yourself, and therefore am now
-surprised--And yet," said he, stopping short, "why should I be surprised
-at that or anything else? or why should I take up my time in writing to
-such a scoundrel?--I shan't be always kept in prison, I suppose; and to
-break that puppy's bones when I get out, shall be my first employment."
-
-"In prison, sir?" said Miss Wardour, faintly.
-
-"Ay, in prison to be sure. Do you make any question about that? Why, Mr.
-what's his name's fine letter for self and partner seems to be thrown
-away on you, or else you have got four thousand so many hundred pounds,
-with the due proportion of shillings, pence, and half-pence, to pay that
-aforesaid demand, as he calls it."
-
-"I, sir? O if I had the means!--But where's my brother?--why does he not
-come, and so long in Scotland? He might do something to assist us."
-
-"Who, Reginald?--I suppose he's gone with Mr. Gilbert Greenhorn, or some
-such respectable person, to the Lamberton races--I have expected him this
-week past; but I cannot wonder that my children should neglect me as well
-as every other person. But I should beg your pardon, my love, who never
-either neglected or offended me in your life."
-
-And kissing her cheek as she threw her arms round his neck, he
-experienced that consolation which a parent feels, even in the most
-distressed state, in the assurance that he possesses the affection of a
-child.
-
-Miss Wardour took the advantage of this revulsion of feeling, to
-endeavour to soothe her father's mind to composure. She reminded him that
-he had many friends.
-
-"I had many once," said Sir Arthur; "but of some I have exhausted their
-kindness with my frantic projects; others are unable to assist me--others
-are unwilling. It is all over with me. I only hope Reginald will take
-example by my folly."
-
-"Should I not send to Monkbarns, sir?" said his daughter.
-
-"To what purpose? He cannot lend me such a sum, and would not if he
-could, for he knows I am otherwise drowned in debt; and he would only
-give me scraps of misanthropy and quaint ends of Latin."
-
-"But he is shrewd and sensible, and was bred to business, and, I am sure,
-always loved this family."
-
-"Yes, I believe he did. It is a fine pass we are come to, when the
-affection of an Oldbuck is of consequence to a Wardour! But when matters
-come to extremity, as I suppose they presently will--it may be as well to
-send for him. And now go take your walk, my dear--my mind is more
-composed than when I had this cursed disclosure to make. You know the
-worst, and may daily or hourly expect it. Go take your walk--I would
-willingly be alone for a little while."
-
-When Miss Wardour left the apartment, her first occupation was to avail
-herself of the half permission granted by her father, by despatching to
-Monkbarns the messenger, who, as we have already seen, met the Antiquary
-and his nephew on the sea-beach.
-
-Little recking, and indeed scarce knowing, where she was wandering,
-chance directed her into the walk beneath the Briery Bank, as it was
-called. A brook, which in former days had supplied the castle-moat with
-water, here descended through a narrow dell, up which Miss Wardour's
-taste had directed a natural path, which was rendered neat and easy of
-ascent, without the air of being formally made and preserved. It suited
-well the character of the little glen, which was overhung with thickets
-and underwood, chiefly of larch and hazel, intermixed with the usual
-varieties of the thorn and brier. In this walk had passed that scene of
-explanation between Miss Wardour and Lovel which was overheard by old
-Edie Ochiltree. With a heart softened by the distress which approached
-her family, Miss Wardour now recalled every word and argument which Lovel
-had urged in support of his suit, and could not help confessing to
-herself, it was no small subject of pride to have inspired a young man of
-his talents with a passion so strong and disinterested. That he should
-have left the pursuit of a profession in which he was said to be rapidly
-rising, to bury himself in a disagreeable place like Fairport, and brood
-over an unrequited passion, might be ridiculed by others as romantic, but
-was naturally forgiven as an excess of affection by the person who was
-the object of his attachment. Had he possessed an independence, however
-moderate, or ascertained a clear and undisputed claim to the rank in
-society he was well qualified to adorn, she might now have had it in her
-power to offer her father, during his misfortunes, an asylum in an
-establishment of her own. These thoughts, so favourable to the absent
-lover, crowded in, one after the other, with such a minute recapitulation
-of his words, looks, and actions, as plainly intimated that his former
-repulse had been dictated rather by duty than inclination. Isabella was
-musing alternately upon this subject, and upon that of her father's
-misfortunes, when, as the path winded round a little hillock covered with
-brushwood, the old Blue-Gown suddenly met her.
-
-With an air as if he had something important and mysterious to
-communicate, he doffed his bonnet, and assumed the cautious step and
-voice of one who would not willingly be overheard. "I hae been wishing
-muckle to meet wi' your leddyship--for ye ken I darena come to the house
-for Dousterswivel."
-
-"I heard indeed," said Miss Wardour, dropping an alms into the bonnet--"I
-heard that you had done a very foolish, if not a very bad thing, Edie--
-and I was sorry to hear it."
-
-"Hout, my bonny leddy--fulish? A' the world's fules--and how should auld
-Edie Ochiltree be aye wise?--And for the evil--let them wha deal wi'
-Dousterswivel tell whether he gat a grain mair than his deserts."
-
-"That may be true, Edie, and yet," said Miss Wardour, "you may have been
-very wrong."
-
-"Weel, weel, we'se no dispute that e'ennow--it's about yoursell I'm gaun
-to speak. Div ye ken what's hanging ower the house of Knockwinnock?"
-
-"Great distress, I fear, Edie," answered Miss Wardour; "but I am
-surprised it is already so public."
-
-"Public!--Sweepclean, the messenger, will be there the day wi' a' his
-tackle. I ken it frae ane o' his concurrents, as they ca' them, that's
-warned to meet him; and they'll be about their wark belyve; whare they
-clip, there needs nae kame--they shear close eneugh."
-
-"Are you sure this bad hour, Edie, is so very near?--come, I know, it
-will."
-
-"It's e'en as I tell you, leddy. But dinna be cast down--there's a heaven
-ower your head here, as weel as in that fearful night atween the
-Ballyburghness and the Halket-head. D'ye think He, wha rebuked the
-waters, canna protect you against the wrath of men, though they be armed
-with human authority?"
-
-"It is indeed all we have to trust to."
-
-"Ye dinna ken--ye dinna ken: when the night's darkest, the dawn's
-nearest. If I had a gude horse, or could ride him when I had him, I
-reckon there wad be help yet. I trusted to hae gotten a cast wi' the
-Royal Charlotte, but she's coupit yonder, it's like, at Kittlebrig. There
-was a young gentleman on the box, and he behuved to drive; and Tam Sang,
-that suld hae mair sense, he behuved to let him, and the daft callant
-couldna tak the turn at the corner o' the brig; and od! he took the
-curbstane, and he's whomled her as I wad whomle a toom bicker--it was a
-luck I hadna gotten on the tap o' her. Sae I came down atween hope and
-despair, to see if ye wad send me on."
-
-"And, Edie--where would ye go?" said the young lady.
-
-"To Tannonburgh, my leddy" (which was the first stage from Fairport, but
-a good deal nearer to Knockwinnock), "and that without delay--it's a' on
-your ain business."
-
-"Our business, Edie? Alas! I give you all credit for your good meaning;
-but"--
-
-"There's nae _buts_ about it, my leddy, for gang I maun," said the
-persevering Blue-Gown.
-
-"But what is it that you would do at Tannonburgh?--or how can your going
-there benefit my father's affairs?"
-
-"Indeed, my sweet leddy," said the gaberlunzie, "ye maun just trust that
-bit secret to auld Edie's grey pow, and ask nae questions about it.
-Certainly if I wad hae wared my life for you yon night, I can hae nae
-reason to play an ill pliskie t'ye in the day o' your distress."
-
-"Well, Edie, follow me then," said Miss Wardour, "and I will try to get
-you sent to Tannonburgh."
-
-"Mak haste then, my bonny leddy--mak haste, for the love o' goodness!"--
-and he continued to exhort her to expedition until they reached the
-Castle.
-
-
-
-
-                          CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.
-
-               Let those go see who will--I like it not--
-               For, say he was a slave to rank and pomp,
-               And all the nothings he is now divorced from
-                 By the hard doom of stern necessity:
-                 Yet it is sad to mark his altered brow,
-                 Where Vanity adjusts her flimsy veil
-               O'er the deep wrinkles of repentant anguish.
-                                         Old Play.
-
-When Miss Wardour arrived in the court of the Castle, she was apprized by
-the first glance that the visit of the officers of the law had already
-taken place. There was confusion, and gloom and sorrow, and curiosity
-among the domestics, while the retainers of the law went from place to
-place, making an inventory of the goods and chattels falling under their
-warrant of distress, or poinding, as it is called in the law of Scotland.
-Captain M'Intyre flew to her, as, struck dumb with the melancholy
-conviction of her father's ruin, she paused upon the threshold of the
-gateway.
-
-"Dear Miss Wardour," he said, "do not make yourself uneasy; my uncle is
-coming immediately, and I am sure he will find some way to clear the
-house of these rascals."
-
-"Alas! Captain M'Intyre, I fear it will be too late."
-
-"No," answered Edie, impatiently--"could I but get to Tannonburgh. In the
-name of Heaven, Captain, contrive some way to get me on, and ye'll do
-this poor ruined family the best day's doing that has been done them
-since Redhand's days--for as sure as e'er an auld saw came true,
-Knockwinnock house and land will be lost and won this day."
-
-"Why, what good can you do, old man?" said Hector.
-
-But Robert, the domestic with whom Sir Arthur had been so much displeased
-in the morning, as if he had been watching for an opportunity to display
-his zeal, stepped hastily forward and said to his mistress, "If you
-please, ma'am, this auld man, Ochiltree, is very skeely and auld-farrant
-about mony things, as the diseases of cows and horse, and sic like, and I
-am sure be disna want to be at Tannonburgh the day for naething, since he
-insists on't this gate; and, if your leddyship pleases, I'll drive him
-there in the taxed-cart in an hour's time. I wad fain be of some use--I
-could bite my very tongue out when I think on this morning."
-
-"I am obliged to you, Robert," said Miss Wardour; "and if you really
-think it has the least chance of being useful"---
-
-"In the name of God," said the old man, "yoke the cart, Robie, and if I
-am no o' some use, less or mair, I'll gie ye leave to fling me ower
-Kittlebrig as ye come back again. But, O man, haste ye, for time's
-precious this day."
-
-Robert looked at his mistress as she retired into the house, and seeing
-he was not prohibited, flew to the stable-yard, which was adjacent to the
-court, in order to yoke the, carriage; for, though an old beggar was the
-personage least likely to render effectual assistance in a case of
-pecuniary distress, yet there was among the common people of Edie's
-circle, a general idea of his prudence and sagacity, which authorized
-Robert's conclusion that he would not so earnestly have urged the
-necessity of this expedition had he not been convinced of its utility.
-But so soon as the servant took hold of a horse to harness him for the
-taxed-cart, an officer touched him on the shoulder--"My friend, you must
-let that beast alone--he's down in the schedule."
-
-"What!" said Robert, "am I not to take my master's horse to go my young
-leddy's errand?"
-
-"You must remove nothing here," said the man of office, "or you will be
-liable for all consequences."
-
-"What the devil, sir," said Hector, who having followed to examine
-Ochiltree more closely on the nature of his hopes and expectations,
-already began to bristle like one of the terriers of his own native
-mountains, and sought but a decent pretext for venting his displeasure,
-"have you the impudence to prevent the young lady's servant from obeying
-her orders?"
-
-There was something in the air and tone of the young soldier, which
-seemed to argue that his interference was not likely to be confined to
-mere expostulation; and which, if it promised finally the advantages of a
-process of battery and deforcement, would certainly commence with the
-unpleasant circumstances necessary for founding such a complaint. The
-legal officer, confronted with him of the military, grasped with one
-doubtful hand the greasy bludgeon which was to enforce his authority, and
-with the other produced his short official baton, tipped with silver, and
-having a movable ring upon it--"Captain M'Intyre,--Sir, I have no quarrel
-with you,--but if you interrupt me in my duty, I will break the wand of
-peace, and declare myself deforced."
-
-"And who the devil cares," said Hector, totally ignorant of the words of
-judicial action, "whether you declare yourself divorced or married? And
-as to breaking your wand, or breaking the peace, or whatever you call it,
-all I know is, that I will break your bones if you prevent the lad from
-harnessing the horses to obey his mistress's orders."
-
-"I take all who stand here to witness," said the messenger, "that I
-showed him my blazon, and explained my character. He that will to Cupar
-maun to Cupar,"--and he slid his enigmatical ring from one end of the
-baton to the other, being the appropriate symbol of his having been
-forcibly interrupted in the discharge of his duty.
-
-Honest Hector, better accustomed to the artillery of the field than to
-that of the law, saw this mystical ceremony with great indifference; and
-with like unconcern beheld the messenger sit down to write out an
-execution of deforcement. But at this moment, to prevent the well-meaning
-hot-headed Highlander from running the risk of a severe penalty, the
-Antiquary arrived puffing and blowing, with his handkerchief crammed
-under his hat, and his wig upon the end of his stick.
-
-"What the deuce is the matter here?" he exclaimed, hastily adjusting his
-head-gear; "I have been following you in fear of finding your idle
-loggerhead knocked against one rock or other, and here I find you parted
-with your Bucephalus, and quarrelling with Sweepclean. A messenger,
-Hector, is a worse foe than a _phoca,_ whether it be the _phoca barbata,_
-or the _phoca vitulina_ of your late conflict."
-
-"D--n the _phoca,_ sir," said Hector, "whether it be the one or the
-other--I say d--n them both particularly! I think you would not have me
-stand quietly by and see a scoundrel like this, because he calls himself
-a king's messenger, forsooth--(I hope the king has many better for his
-meanest errands)--insult a young lady of family and fashion like Miss
-Wardour?"
-
-"Rightly argued, Hector," said the Antiquary; "but the king, like other
-people, has now and then shabby errands, and, in your ear, must have
-shabby fellows to do them. But even supposing you unacquainted with the
-statutes of William the Lion, in which _capite quarto versu quinto,_ this
-crime of deforcement is termed _despectus Domini Regis_--a contempt, to
-wit, of the king himself, in whose name all legal diligence issues,--
-could you not have inferred, from the information I took so much pains to
-give you to-day, that those who interrupt officers who come to execute
-letters of caption, are _tanquam participes criminis rebellionis?_ seeing
-that he who aids a rebel, is himself, _quodammodo,_ an accessory to
-rebellion--But I'll bring you out of this scrape."
-
-He then spoke to the messenger, who, upon his arrival, had laid aside all
-thoughts of making a good by-job out of the deforcement, and accepted Mr.
-Oldbuck's assurances that the horse and taxed-cart should be safely
-returned in the course of two or three hours.
-
-"Very well, sir," said the Antiquary, "since you are disposed to be so
-civil, you shall have another job in your own best way--a little cast of
-state politics--a crime punishable _per Legem Juliam,_ Mr. Sweepclean--
-Hark thee hither."
-
-And after a whisper of five minutes, he gave him a slip of paper, on
-receiving which, the messenger mounted his horse, and, with one of his
-assistants, rode away pretty sharply. The fellow who remained seemed to
-delay his operations purposely, proceeded in the rest of his duty very
-slowly, and with the caution and precision of one who feels himself
-overlooked by a skilful and severe inspector.
-
-In the meantime, Oldbuck, taking his nephew by the arm, led him into the
-house, and they were ushered into the presence of Sir Arthur Wardour,
-who, in a flutter between wounded pride, agonized apprehension, and vain
-attempts to disguise both under a show of indifference, exhibited a
-spectacle of painful interest.
-
-"Happy to see you, Mr. Oldbuck--always happy to see my friends in fair
-weather or foul," said the poor Baronet, struggling not for composure,
-but for gaiety--an affectation which was strongly contrasted by the
-nervous and protracted grasp of his hand, and the agitation of his whole
-demeanour--"I am happy to see you. You are riding, I see--I hope in this
-confusion your horses are taken good care of--I always like to have my
-friend's horses looked after--Egad! they will have all my care now, for
-you see they are like to leave me none of my own--he! he! he! eh, Mr.
-Oldbuck?"
-
-This attempt at a jest was attended by a hysterical giggle, which poor
-Sir Arthur intended should sound as an indifferent laugh.
-
-"You know I never ride, Sir Arthur," said the Antiquary.
-
-"I beg your pardon; but sure I saw your nephew arrive on horseback a
-short time since. We must look after officers' horses, and his was as
-handsome a grey charger as I have seen."
-
-Sir Arthur was about to ring the bell, when Mr. Oldbuck said, "My nephew
-came on your own grey horse, Sir Arthur."
-
-"Mine!" said the poor Baronet; "mine was it? then the sun had been in my
-eyes. Well, I'm not worthy having a horse any longer, since I don't know
-my own when I see him."
-
-"Good Heaven!" thought Oldbuck, "how is this man altered from the formal
-stolidity of his usual manner!--he grows wanton under adversity--_Sed
-pereunti mille figurae._"--He then proceeded aloud--"Sir Arthur, we must
-necessarily speak a little on business."
-
-"To be sure," said Sir Arthur; "but it was so good that I should not know
-the horse I have ridden these five years--ha! ha! ha!"
-
-"Sir Arthur," said the Antiquary, "don't let us waste time which is
-precious; we shall have, I hope, many better seasons for jesting--
-_desipere in loco_ is the maxim of Horace. I more than suspect this has
-been brought on by the villany of Dousterswivel."
-
-"Don't mention his name, sir!" said Sir Arthur; and his manner entirely
-changed from a fluttered affectation of gaiety to all the agitation of
-fury; his eyes sparkled, his mouth foamed, his hands were clenched--
-"don't mention his name, sir," he vociferated, "unless you would see me
-go mad in your presence! That I should have been such a miserable dolt--
-such an infatuated idiot--such a beast endowed with thrice a beast's
-stupidity, to be led and driven and spur-galled by such a rascal, and
-under such ridiculous pretences!--Mr. Oldbuck, I could tear myself when I
-think of it."
-
-"I only meant to say," answered the Antiquary, "that this fellow is like
-to meet his reward; and I cannot but think we shall frighten something
-out of him that may be of service to you. He has certainly had some
-unlawful correspondence on the other side of the water."
-
-"Has he?--has he?--has he indeed?--then d--n the house-hold goods,
-horses, and so forth--I will go to prison a happy man, Mr. Oldbuck. I
-hope in heaven there's a reasonable chance of his being hanged?"
-
-"Why, pretty fair," said Oldbuck, willing to encourage this diversion, in
-hopes it might mitigate the feelings which seemed like to overset the
-poor man's understanding; "honester men have stretched a rope, or the law
-has been sadly cheated--But this unhappy business of yours--can nothing
-be done? Let me see the charge."
-
-He took the papers; and, as he read them, his countenance grew hopelessly
-dark and disconsolate. Miss Wardour had by this time entered the
-apartment, and fixing her eyes on Mr. Oldbuck, as if she meant to read
-her fate in his looks, easily perceived, from the change in his eye, and
-the dropping of his nether-jaw, how little was to be hoped.
-
-"We are then irremediably ruined, Mr. Oldbuck?" said the young lady.
-
-"Irremediably?--I hope not--but the instant demand is very large, and
-others will, doubtless, pour in."
-
-"Ay, never doubt that, Monkbarns," said Sir Arthur; "where the slaughter
-is, the eagles will be gathered together. I am like a sheep which I have
-seen fall down a precipice, or drop down from sickness--if you had not
-seen a single raven or hooded crow for a fortnight before, he will not
-lie on the heather ten minutes before half-a-dozen will be picking out
-his eyes (and he drew his hand over his own), and tearing at his
-heartstrings before the poor devil has time to die. But that d--d
-long-scented vulture that dogged me so long--you have got him fast, I
-hope?"
-
-"Fast enough," said the Antiquary; "the gentleman wished to take the
-wings of the morning, and bolt in the what d'ye call it,--the coach and
-four there. But he would have found twigs limed for him at Edinburgh. As
-it is, he never got so far, for the coach being overturned--as how could
-it go safe with such a Jonah?--he has had an infernal tumble, is carried
-into a cottage near Kittlebrig, and to prevent all possibility of escape,
-I have sent your friend Sweepclean to bring him back to Fairport _in
-nomine regis,_ or to act as his sick-nurse at Kittlebrig, as is most
-fitting. And now, Sir Arthur, permit me to have some conversation with
-you on the present unpleasant state of your affairs, that we may see what
-can be done for their extrication;" and the Antiquary led the way into
-the library, followed by the unfortunate gentleman.
-
-They had been shut up together for about two hours, when Miss Wardour
-interrupted them with her cloak on as if prepared for a journey. Her
-countenance was very pale, yet expressive of the composure which
-characterized her disposition.
-
-"The messenger is returned, Mr. Oldbuck."
-
-"Returned?--What the devil! he has not let the fellow go?"
-
-"No--I understand he has carried him to confinement; and now he is
-returned to attend my father, and says he can wait no longer."
-
-A loud wrangling was now heard on the staircase, in which the voice of
-Hector predominated. "You an officer, sir, and these ragamuffins a party!
-a parcel of beggarly tailor fellows--tell yourselves off by nine, and we
-shall know your effective strength."
-
-The grumbling voice of the man of law was then heard indistinctly
-muttering a reply, to which Hector retorted--"Come, come, sir, this won't
-do;--march your party, as you call them, out of this house directly, or
-I'll send you and them to the right about presently."
-
-"The devil take Hector," said the Antiquary, hastening to the scene of
-action; "his Highland blood is up again, and we shall have him fighting a
-duel with the bailiff. Come, Mr. Sweepclean, you must give us a little
-time--I know you would not wish to hurry Sir Arthur."
-
-"By no means, sir," said the messenger, putting his hat off, which he had
-thrown on to testify defiance of Captain M'Intyre's threats; "but your
-nephew, sir, holds very uncivil language, and I have borne too much of it
-already; and I am not justified in leaving my prisoner any longer after
-the instructions I received, unless I am to get payment of the sums
-contained in my diligence." And he held out the caption, pointing with
-the awful truncheon, which he held in his right hand, to the formidable
-line of figures jotted upon the back thereof.
-
-Hector, on the other hand, though silent from respect to his uncle,
-answered this gesture by shaking his clenched fist at the messenger with
-a frown of Highland wrath.
-
-"Foolish boy, be quiet," said Oldbuck, "and come with me into the room--
-the man is doing his miserable duty, and you will only make matters worse
-by opposing him.--I fear, Sir Arthur, you must accompany this man to
-Fairport; there is no help for it in the first instance--I will accompany
-you, to consult what further can be done--My nephew will escort Miss
-Wardour to Monkbarns, which I hope she will make her residence until
-these unpleasant matters are settled."
-
-"I go with my father, Mr. Oldbuck," said Miss Wardour firmly--"I have
-prepared his clothes and my own--I suppose we shall have the use of the
-carriage?"
-
-"Anything in reason, madam," said the messenger; "I have ordered it out,
-and it's at the door--I will go on the box with the coachman--I have no
-desire to intrude--but two of the concurrents must attend on horseback."
-
-"I will attend too," said Hector, and he ran down to secure a horse for
-himself.
-
-"We must go then," said the Antiquary.
-
-"To jail," said the Baronet, sighing involuntarily. "And what of that?"
-he resumed, in a tone affectedly cheerful--"it is only a house we can't
-get out of, after all--Suppose a fit of the gout, and Knockwinnock would
-be the same--Ay, ay, Monkbarns--we'll call it a fit of the gout without
-the d--d pain."
-
-But his eyes swelled with tears as he spoke, and his faltering accent
-marked how much this assumed gaiety cost him. The Antiquary wrung his
-hand, and, like the Indian Banians, who drive the real terms of an
-important bargain by signs, while they are apparently talking of
-indifferent matters, the hand of Sir Arthur, by its convulsive return of
-the grasp, expressed his sense of gratitude to his friend, and the real
-state of his internal agony.--They stepped slowly down the magnificent
-staircase--every well-known object seeming to the unfortunate father and
-daughter to assume a more prominent and distinct appearance than usual,
-as if to press themselves on their notice for the last time.
-
-At the first landing-place, Sir Arthur made an agonized pause; and as he
-observed the Antiquary look at him anxiously, he said with assumed
-dignity--"Yes, Mr. Oldbuck, the descendant of an ancient line--the
-representative of Richard Redhand and Gamelyn de Guardover, may be
-pardoned a sigh when he leaves the castle of his fathers thus poorly
-escorted. When I was sent to the Tower with my late father, in the year
-1745, it was upon a charge becoming our birth--upon an accusation of high
-treason, Mr. Oldbuck;--we were escorted from Highgate by a troop of
-life-guards, and committed upon a secretary of state's warrant; and now,
-here I am, in my old age, dragged from my household by a miserable
-creature like that" (pointing to the messenger), "and for a paltry
-concern of pounds, shillings, and pence."
-
-"At least," said Oldbuck, "you have now the company of a dutiful
-daughter, and a sincere friend, if you will permit me to say so, and that
-may be some consolation, even without the certainty that there can be no
-hanging, drawing, or quartering, on the present occasion. But I hear that
-choleric boy as loud as ever. I hope to God he has got into no new
-broil!--it was an accursed chance that brought him here at all."
-
-In fact, a sudden clamour, in which the loud voice and somewhat northern
-accent of Hector was again preeminently distinguished, broke off this
-conversation. The cause we must refer to the next chapter.
-
-
-
-                         CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.
-
-           Fortune, you say, flies from us--She but circles,
-           Like the fleet sea-bird round the fowler's skiff,--
-               Lost in the mist one moment, and the next
-               Brushing the white sail with her whiter wing,
-               As if to court the aim.--Experience watches,
-                                And has her on the wheel--
-                                               Old Play.
-
-The shout of triumph in Hector's warlike tones was not easily
-distinguished from that of battle. But as he rushed up stairs with a
-packet in his hand, exclaiming, "Long life to an old soldier! here comes
-Edie with a whole budget of good news!" it became obvious that his
-present cause of clamour was of an agreeable nature. He delivered the
-letter to Oldbuck, shook Sir Arthur heartily by the hand, and wished Miss
-Wardour joy, with all the frankness of Highland congratulation. The
-messenger, who had a kind of instinctive terror for Captain M'Intyre,
-drew towards his prisoner, keeping an eye of caution on the soldier's
-motions.
-
-"Don't suppose I shall trouble myself about you, you dirty fellow," said
-the soldier; "there's a guinea for the fright I have given you; and here
-comes an old _forty-two_ man, who is a fitter match for you than I am."
-
-The messenger (one of those dogs who are not too scornful to eat dirty
-puddings) caught in his hand the guinea which Hector chucked at his face;
-and abode warily and carefully the turn which matters were now to take.
-All voices meanwhile were loud in inquiries, which no one was in a hurry
-to answer.
-
-"What is the matter, Captain M'Intyre?" said Sir Arthur.
-
-"Ask old Edie," said Hector;--"I only know all's safe and well."
-
-"What is all this, Edie?" said Miss Wardour to the mendicant.
-
-"Your leddyship maun ask Monkbarns, for he has gotten the yepistolary
-correspondensh."
-
-"God save the king!" exclaimed the Antiquary at the first glance at the
-contents of his packet, and, surprised at once out of decorum,
-philosophy, and phlegm, he skimmed his cocked hat in the air, from which
-it descended not again, being caught in its fall by a branch of the
-chandelier. He next, looking joyously round, laid a grasp on his wig,
-which he perhaps would have sent after the beaver, had not Edie stopped
-his hand, exclaiming "Lordsake! he's gaun gyte!--mind Caxon's no here to
-repair the damage."
-
-Every person now assailed the Antiquary, clamouring to know the cause of
-so sudden a transport, when, somewhat ashamed of his rapture, he fairly
-turned tail, like a fox at the cry of a pack of hounds, and ascending the
-stair by two steps at a time, gained the upper landing-place, where,
-turning round, he addressed the astonished audience as follows:--
-
-"My good friends, _favete linguis_--To give you information, I must
-first, according to logicians, be possessed of it myself; and, therefore,
-with your leaves, I will retire into the library to examine these papers
---Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour will have the goodness to step into the
-parlour--Mr. Sweepclean, _secede paulisper,_ or, in your own language,
-grant us a supersedere of diligence for five minutes--Hector, draw off
-your forces, and make your bear-garden flourish elsewhere--and, finally,
-be all of good cheer till my return, which will be _instanter._"
-
-The contents of the packet were indeed so little expected, that the
-Antiquary might be pardoned, first his ecstasy, and next his desire of
-delaying to communicate the intelligence they conveyed, until it was
-arranged and digested in his own mind.
-
-Within the envelope was a letter addressed to Jonathan Oldbuck, Esq. of
-Monkbarns, of the following purport:--
-
-"Dear Sir,--To you, as my father's proved and valued friend, I venture to
-address myself, being detained here by military duty of a very pressing
-nature. You must by this time be acquainted with the entangled state of
-our affairs; and I know it will give you great pleasure to learn, that I
-am as fortunately as unexpectedly placed in a situation to give effectual
-assistance for extricating them. I understand Sir Arthur is threatened
-with severe measures by persons who acted formerly as his agents; and, by
-advice of a creditable man of business here, I have procured the enclosed
-writing, which I understand will stop their proceedings until their claim
-shall be legally discussed, and brought down to its proper amount. I also
-enclose bills to the amount of one thousand pounds to pay any other
-pressing demands, and request of your friendship to apply them according
-to your discretion. You will be surprised I give you this trouble, when
-it would seem more natural to address my father directly in his own
-affairs. But I have yet had no assurance that his eyes are opened to the
-character of a person against whom you have often, I know, warned him,
-and whose baneful influence has been the occasion of these distresses.
-And as I owe the means of relieving Sir Arthur to the generosity of a
-matchless friend, it is my duty to take the most certain measures for the
-supplies being devoted to the purpose for which they were destined,--and
-I know your wisdom and kindness will see that it is done. My friend, as
-he claims an interest in your regard, will explain some views of his own
-in the enclosed letter. The state of the post-office at Fairport being
-rather notorious, I must send this letter to Tannonburgh; but the old man
-Ochiltree, whom particular circumstances have recommended as trustworthy,
-has information when the packet is likely to reach that place, and will
-take care to forward it. I expect to have soon an opportunity to
-apologize in person for the trouble I now give, and have the honour to be
-your very faithful servant,
-
-"Reginald Gamelyn Wardour."
-"Edinburgh, 6th August, 179-."
-
-
-The Antiquary hastily broke the seal of the enclosure, the contents of
-which gave him equal surprise and pleasure. When he had in some measure
-composed himself after such unexpected tidings, he inspected the other
-papers carefully, which all related to business--put the bills into his
-pocket-book, and wrote a short acknowledgment to be despatched by that
-day's post, for he was extremely methodical in money matters--and lastly,
-fraught with all the importance of disclosure, he descended to the
-parlour.
-
-"Sweepclean," said he, as he entered, to the officer who stood
-respectfully at the door, "you must sweep yourself clean out of
-Knockwinnock Castle, with all your followers, tag-rag and bob-tail. Seest
-thou this paper, man?"
-
-"A sist on a bill o' suspension," said the messenger, with a disappointed
-look;--"I thought it would be a queer thing if ultimate diligence was to
-be done against sic a gentleman as Sir Arthur--Weel, sir, I'se go my ways
-with my party--And who's to pay my charges?"
-
-"They who employed thee," replied Oldbuck, "as thou full well dost know.
---But here comes another express: this is a day of news, I think."
-
-This was Mr. Mailsetter on his mare from Fairport, with a letter for Sir
-Arthur, another to the messenger, both of which, he said, he was directed
-to forward instantly. The messenger opened his, observing that Greenhorn
-and Grinderson were good enough men for his expenses, and here was a
-letter from them desiring him to stop the diligence. Accordingly, he
-immediately left the apartment, and staying no longer than to gather his
-posse together, he did then, in the phrase of Hector, who watched his
-departure as a jealous mastiff eyes the retreat of a repulsed beggar,
-evacuate Flanders.
-
-Sir Arthur's letter was from Mr. Greenhorn, and a curiosity in its way.
-We give it, with the worthy Baronet's comments.
-
-"Sir--[Oh! I am _dear_ sir no longer; folks are only dear to Messrs.
-Greenhorn and Grinderson when they are in adversity]--Sir, I am much
-concerned to learn, on my return from the country, where I was called on
-particular business [a bet on the sweepstakes, I suppose], that my
-partner had the impropriety, in my absence, to undertake the concerns of
-Messrs. Goldiebirds in preference to yours, and had written to you in an
-unbecoming manner. I beg to make my most humble apology, as well as Mr.
-Grindersons--[come, I see he can write for himself and partner too]--and
-trust it is impossible you can think me forgetful of, or ungrateful for,
-the constant patronage which my family [_his_ family! curse him for a
-puppy!] have uniformly experienced from that of Knockwinnock. I am sorry
-to find, from an interview I had this day with Mr. Wardour, that he is
-much irritated, and, I must own, with apparent reason. But in order to
-remedy as much as in me lies the mistake of which he complains [pretty
-mistake, indeed! to clap his patron into jail], I have sent this express
-to discharge all proceedings against your person or property; and at the
-same time to transmit my respectful apology. I have only to add, that Mr.
-Grinderson is of opinion, that if restored to your confidence, he could
-point out circumstances connected with Messrs. Goldiebirds' present claim
-which would greatly reduce its amount [so, so, willing to play the rogue
-on either side]; and that there is not the slightest hurry in settling
-the balance of your accompt with us; and that I am, for Mr. G. as well as
-myself, Dear Sir [O ay, he has written himself into an approach to
-familiarity], your much obliged and most humble servant,
-
-"Gilbert Greenhorn."
-
-
-"Well said, Mr. Gilbert Greenhorn," said Monkbarns; "I see now there is
-some use in having two attorneys in one firm. Their movements resemble
-those of the man and woman in a Dutch baby-house. When it is fair weather
-with the client, out comes the gentleman partner to fawn like a spaniel;
-when it is foul, forth bolts the operative brother to pin like a
-bull-dog. Well, I thank God that my man of business still wears an
-equilateral cocked hat, has a house in the Old Town, is as much afraid of
-a horse as I am myself, plays at golf of a Saturday, goes to the kirk of
-a Sunday, and, in respect he has no partner, hath only his own folly to
-apologize for."
-
-"There are some writers very honest fellows," said Hector; "I should like
-to hear any one say that my cousin, Donald M'Intyre, Strathtudlem's
-seventh son (the other six are in the army), is not as honest a fellow"--
-
-"No doubt, no doubt, Hector, all the M'Intyres are so; they have it by
-patent, man--But I was going to say, that in a profession where unbounded
-trust is necessarily reposed, there is nothing surprising that fools
-should neglect it in their idleness, and tricksters abuse it in their
-knavery. But it is the more to the honour of those (and I will vouch for
-many) who unite integrity with skill and attention, and walk honourably
-upright where there are so many pitfalls and stumbling-blocks for those
-of a different character. To such men their fellow citizens may safely
-entrust the care of protecting their patrimonial rights, and their
-country the more sacred charge of her laws and privileges."
-
-"They are best aff, however, that hae least to do with them," said
-Ochiltree, who had stretched his neck into the parlour door; for the
-general confusion of the family not having yet subsided, the domestics,
-like waves after the fall of a hurricane, had not yet exactly regained
-their due limits, but were roaming wildly through the house.
-
-"Aha, old Truepenny, art thou there?" said the Antiquary. "Sir Arthur,
-let me bring in the messenger of good luck, though he is but a lame one.
-You talked of the raven that scented out the slaughter from afar; but
-here's a blue pigeon (somewhat of the oldest and toughest, I grant) who
-smelled the good news six or seven miles off, flew thither in the
-taxed-cart, and returned with the olive branch."
-
-"Ye owe it o' to puir Robie that drave me;--puir fallow," said the
-beggar, "he doubts he's in disgrace wi' my leddy and Sir Arthur."
-
-Robert's repentant and bashful face was seen over the mendicant's
-shoulder.
-
-"In disgrace with me?" said Sir Arthur--"how so?"--for the irritation
-into which he had worked himself on occasion of the toast had been long
-forgotten. "O, I recollect--Robert, I was angry, and you were wrong;--go
-about your work, and never answer a master that speaks to you in a
-passion."
-
-"Nor any one else," said the Antiquary; "for a soft answer turneth away
-wrath."
-
-"And tell your mother, who is so ill with the rheumatism, to come down to
-the housekeeper to-morrow," said Miss Wardour, "and we will see what can
-be of service to her."
-
-"God bless your leddyship," said poor Robert, "and his honour Sir Arthur,
-and the young laird, and the house of Knockwinnock in a' its branches,
-far and near!--it's been a kind and gude house to the puir this mony
-hundred years."
-
-"There"--said the Antiquary to Sir Arthur--"we won't dispute--but there
-you see the gratitude of the poor people naturally turns to the civil
-virtues of your family. You don't hear them talk of Redhand, or
-Hell-in-Harness. For me, I must say, _Odi accipitrem qui semper vivit in
-armis_--so let us eat and drink in peace, and be joyful, Sir Knight."
-
-A table was quickly covered in the parlour, where the party sat joyously
-down to some refreshment. At the request of Oldbuck, Edie Ochiltree was
-permitted to sit by the sideboard in a great leathern chair, which was
-placed in some measure behind a screen.
-
-"I accede to this the more readily," said Sir Arthur, "because I remember
-in my fathers days that chair was occupied by Ailshie Gourlay, who, for
-aught I know, was the last privileged fool, or jester, maintained by any
-family of distinction in Scotland."
-
-"Aweel, Sir Arthur," replied the beggar, who never hesitated an instant
-between his friend and his jest, "mony a wise man sits in a fule's seat,
-and mony a fule in a wise man's, especially in families o' distinction."
-
-Miss Wardour, fearing the effect of this speech (however worthy of
-Ailsbie Gourlay, or any other privileged jester) upon the nerves of her
-father, hastened to inquire whether ale and beef should not be
-distributed to the servants and people whom the news had assembled round
-the Castle.
-
-"Surely, my love," said her father; "when was it ever otherwise in our
-families when a siege had been raised?"
-
-"Ay, a siege laid by Saunders Sweepclean the bailiff, and raised by Edie
-Ochiltree the gaberlunzie, _par nobile fratrum,_" said Oldbuck, "and well
-pitted against each other in respectability. But never mind, Sir Arthur--
-these are such sieges and such reliefs as our time of day admits of--and
-our escape is not less worth commemorating in a glass of this excellent
-wine--Upon my credit, it is Burgundy, I think."
-
-"Were there anything better in the cellar," said Miss Wardour, "it would
-be all too little to regale you after your friendly exertions."
-
-"Say you so?" said the Antiquary: "why, then, a cup of thanks to you, my
-fair enemy, and soon may you be besieged as ladies love best to be, and
-sign terms of capitulation in the chapel of Saint Winnox!"
-
-Miss Wardour blushed--Hector coloured, and then grew pale.
-
-Sir Arthur answered, "My daughter is much obliged to you, Monkbarns; but
-unless you'll accept of her yourself, I really do not know where a poor
-knight's daughter is to seek for an alliance in these mercenary times."
-
-"Me, mean ye, Sir Arthur? No, not I! I will claim privilege of the
-duello, and, as being unable to encounter my fair enemy myself, I will
-appear by my champion--But of this matter hereafter. What do you find in
-the papers there, Hector, that you hold your head down over them as if
-your nose were bleeding?"
-
-"Nothing particular, sir; but only that, as my arm is now almost quite
-well, I think I shall relieve you of my company in a day or two, and go
-to Edinburgh. I see Major Neville is arrived there. I should like to see
-him."
-
-"Major whom?" said his uncle.
-
-"Major Neville, sir," answered the young soldier.
-
-"And who the devil is Major Neville?" demanded the Antiquary.
-
-"O, Mr. Oldbuck," said Sir Arthur, "you must remember his name frequently
-in the newspapers--a very distinguished young officer indeed. But I am
-happy to say that Mr. M'Intyre need not leave Monkbarns to see him, for
-my son writes that the Major is to come with him to Knockwinnock, and I
-need not say how happy I shall be to make the young gentlemen
-acquainted,--unless, indeed, they are known to each other already."
-
-"No, not personally," answered Hector, "but I have had occasion to hear a
-good deal of him, and we have several mutual friends--your son being one
-of them. But I must go to Edinburgh; for I see my uncle is beginning to
-grow tired of me, and I am afraid"--
-
-"That you will grow tired of him?" interrupted Oldbuck,--"I fear that's
-past praying for. But you have forgotten that the ecstatic twelfth of
-August approaches, and that you are engaged to meet one of Lord
-Glenallan's gamekeepers, God knows where, to persecute the peaceful
-feathered creation."
-
-"True, true, uncle--I had forgot that," exclaimed the volatile Hector;
-"but you said something just now that put everything out of my head."
-
-"An it like your honours," said old Edie, thrusting his white bead from
-behind the screen, where he had been plentifully regaling himself with
-ale and cold meat--"an it like your honours, I can tell ye something that
-will keep the Captain wi' us amaist as weel as the pouting--Hear ye na
-the French are coming?"
-
-"The French, you blockhead?" answered Oldbuck--"Bah!"
-
-"I have not had time," said Sir Arthur Wardour, "to look over my
-lieutenancy correspondence for the week--indeed, I generally make a rule
-to read it only on Wednesdays, except in pressing cases,--for I do
-everything by method; but from the glance I took of my letters, I
-observed some alarm was entertained."
-
-"Alarm?" said Edie, "troth there's alarm, for the provost's gar'd the
-beacon light on the Halket-head be sorted up (that suld hae been sorted
-half a year syne) in an unco hurry, and the council hae named nae less a
-man than auld Caxon himsell to watch the light. Some say it was out o'
-compliment to Lieutenant Taffril,--for it's neist to certain that he'll
-marry Jenny Caxon,--some say it's to please your honour and Monkbarns
-that wear wigs--and some say there's some auld story about a periwig that
-ane o' the bailies got and neer paid for--Onyway, there he is, sitting
-cockit up like a skart upon the tap o' the craig, to skirl when foul
-weather comes."
-
-"On mine honour, a pretty warder," said Monkbarns; "and what's my wig to
-do all the while?"
-
-"I asked Caxon that very question," answered Ochiltree, "and he said he
-could look in ilka morning, and gie't a touch afore he gaed to his bed,
-for there's another man to watch in the day-time, and Caxon says he'll
-friz your honour's wig as weel sleeping as wauking."
-
-This news gave a different turn to the conversation, which ran upon
-national defence, and the duty of fighting for the land we live in, until
-it was time to part. The Antiquary and his nephew resumed their walk
-homeward, after parting from Knockwinnock with the warmest expressions of
-mutual regard, and an agreement to meet again as soon as possible.
-
-
-
-
-                          CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.
-
-              Nay, if she love me not, I care not for her:
-              Shall I look pale because the maiden blooms
-              Or sigh because she smiles, and smiles on others
-              Not I, by Heaven!--I hold my peace too dear,
-                    To let it, like the plume upon her cap,
-             Shake at each nod that her caprice shall dictate.
-                                          Old Play.
-
-"Hector," said his uncle to Captain M'Intyre, in the course of their walk
-homeward, "I am sometimes inclined to suspect that, in one respect, you
-are a fool."
-
-"If you only think me so in _one_ respect, sir, I am sure you do me more
-grace than I expected or deserve."
-
-"I mean in one particular _par excellence,_" answered the Antiquary. "I
-have sometimes thought that you have cast your eyes upon Miss Wardour."
-
-"Well, sir," said M'Intyre, with much composure.
-
-"Well, sir," echoed his uncle--"Deuce take the fellow! he answers me as
-if it were the most reasonable thing in the world, that he, a captain in
-the array, and nothing at all besides, should marry the daughter of a
-baronet."
-
-"I presume to think, sir," said the young Highlander, "there would be no
-degradation on Miss Wardour's part in point of family."
-
-"O, Heaven forbid we should come on that topic!--No, no, equal both--both
-on the table-land of gentility, and qualified to look down on every
-_roturier_ in Scotland."
-
-"And in point of fortune we are pretty even, since neither of us have got
-any," continued Hector. "There may be an error, but I cannot plead guilty
-to presumption."
-
-"But here lies the error, then, if you call it so," replied his uncle:
-"she won't have you, Hector."
-
-"Indeed, sir?"
-
-"It is very sure, Hector; and to make it double sure, I must inform you
-that she likes another man. She misunderstood some words I once said to
-her, and I have since been able to guess at the interpretation she put on
-them. At the time I was unable to account for her hesitation and
-blushing; but, my poor Hector, I now understand them as a death-signal to
-your hopes and pretensions. So I advise you to beat your retreat and draw
-off your forces as well as you can, for the fort is too well garrisoned
-for you to storm it."
-
-"I have no occasion to beat any retreat, uncle," said Hector, holding
-himself very upright, and marching with a sort of dogged and offended
-solemnity; "no man needs to retreat that has never advanced. There are
-women in Scotland besides Miss Wardour, of as good family"--
-
-"And better taste," said his uncle; "doubtless there are, Hector; and
-though I cannot say but that she is one of the most accomplished as well
-as sensible girls I have seen, yet I doubt, much of her merit would be
-cast away on you. A showy figure, now, with two cross feathers above her
-noddle--one green, one blue; who would wear a riding-habit of the
-regimental complexion, drive a gig one day, and the next review the
-regiment on the grey trotting pony which dragged that vehicle, _hoc erat
-in votis;_--these are the qualities that would subdue you, especially if
-she had a taste for natural history, and loved a specimen of a _phoca._"
-
-"It's a little hard, sir," said Hector, "I must have that cursed seal
-thrown into my face on all occasions--but I care little about it--and I
-shall not break my heart for Miss Wardour. She is free to choose for
-herself, and I wish her all happiness."
-
-"Magnanimously resolved, thou prop of Troy! Why, Hector, I was afraid of
-a scene. Your sister told me you were desperately in love with Miss
-Wardour."
-
-"Sir," answered the young man, "you would not have me desperately in love
-with a woman that does not care about me?"
-
-"Well, nephew," said the Antiquary, more seriously, "there is doubtless
-much sense in what you say; yet I would have given a great deal, some
-twenty or twenty-five years since, to have been able to think as you do."
-
-"Anybody, I suppose, may think as they please on such subjects," said
-Hector.
-
-"Not according to the old school," said Oldbuck; "but, as I said before,
-the practice of the modern seems in this case the most prudential,
-though, I think, scarcely the most interesting. But tell me your ideas
-now on this prevailing subject of an invasion. The cry is still, They
-come."
-
-Hector, swallowing his mortification, which he was peculiarly anxious to
-conceal from his uncle's satirical observation, readily entered into a
-conversation which was to turn the Antiquary's thoughts from Miss Wardour
-and the seal. When they reached Monkbarns, the communicating to the
-ladies the events which had taken place at the castle, with the
-counter-information of how long dinner had waited before the womankind
-had ventured to eat it in the Antiquary's absence, averted these delicate
-topics of discussion.
-
-The next morning the Antiquary arose early, and, as Caxon had not yet
-made his appearance, he began mentally to feel the absence of the petty
-news and small talk of which the ex-peruquier was a faithful reporter,
-and which habit had made as necessary to the Antiquary as his occasional
-pinch of snuff, although he held, or affected to hold, both to be of the
-same intrinsic value. The feeling of vacuity peculiar to such a
-deprivation, was alleviated by the appearance of old Ochiltree,
-sauntering beside the clipped yew and holly hedges, with the air of a
-person quite at home. Indeed, so familiar had he been of late, that even
-Juno did not bark at him, but contented herself with watching him with a
-close and vigilant eye. Our Antiquary stepped out in his night-gown, and
-instantly received and returned his greeting.
-
-"They are coming now, in good earnest, Monkbarns. I just cam frae
-Fairport to bring ye the news, and then I'll step away back again. The
-Search has just come into the bay, and they say she's been chased by a
-French fleet.
-
-"The Search?" said Oldbuck, reflecting a moment. "Oho!"
-
-"Ay, ay, Captain Taffril's gun-brig, the Search."
-
-"What? any relation to _Search, No. II. ?_" said Oldbuck, catching at the
-light which the name of the vessel seemed to throw on the mysterious
-chest of treasure.
-
-The mendicant, like a man detected in a frolic, put his bonnet before his
-face, yet could not help laughing heartily.--"The deil's in you,
-Monkbarns, for garring odds and evens meet. Wha thought ye wad hae laid
-that and that thegither? Od, I am clean catch'd now."
-
-"I see it all," said Oldbuck, "as plain as the legend on a medal of high
-preservation--the box in which the' bullion was found belonged to the
-gun-brig, and the treasure to my phoenix?"--(Edie nodded assent),--"and
-was buried there that Sir Arthur might receive relief in his
-difficulties?"
-
-"By me," said Edie, "and twa o' the brig's men--but they didna ken its
-contents, and thought it some bit smuggling concern o' the Captain's. I
-watched day and night till I saw it in the right hand; and then, when
-that German deevil was glowering at the lid o' the kist (they liked
-mutton weel that licked where the yowe lay), I think some Scottish deevil
-put it into my head to play him yon ither cantrip. Now, ye see, if I had
-said mair or less to Bailie Littlejohn, I behoved till hae come out wi'
-a' this story; and vexed would Mr. Lovel hae been to have it brought to
-light--sae I thought I would stand to onything rather than that."
-
-"I must say he has chosen his confidant well," said Oldbuck, "though
-somewhat strangely."
-
-"I'll say this for mysell, Monkbarns," answered the mendicant, "that I am
-the fittest man in the haill country to trust wi' siller, for I neither
-want it, nor wish for it, nor could use it if I had it. But the lad hadna
-muckle choice in the matter, for he thought he was leaving the country
-for ever (I trust he's mistaen in that though); and the night was set in
-when we learned, by a strange chance, Sir Arthur's sair distress, and
-Lovel was obliged to be on board as the day dawned. But five nights
-afterwards the brig stood into the bay, and I met the boat by
-appointment, and we buried the treasure where ye fand it."
-
-"This was a very romantic, foolish exploit," said Oldbuck: "why not trust
-me, or any other friend?"
-
-"The blood o' your sister's son," replied Edie, "was on his hands, and
-him maybe dead outright--what time had he to take counsel?--or how could
-he ask it of you, by onybody?"
-
-"You are right. But what if Dousterswivel had come before you?"
-
-"There was little fear o' his coming there without Sir Arthur: he had
-gotten a sair gliff the night afore, and never intended to look near the
-place again, unless he had been brought there sting and ling. He ken'd
-weel the first pose was o' his ain hiding, and how could he expect a
-second? He just havered on about it to make the mair o' Sir Arthur."
-
-"Then how," said Oldbuck, "should Sir Arthur have come there unless the
-German had brought him?"
-
-"Umph!" answered Edie drily. "I had a story about Misticot wad hae
-brought him forty miles, or you either. Besides, it was to be thought he
-would be for visiting the place he fand the first siller in--he ken'd na
-the secret o' that job. In short, the siller being in this shape, Sir
-Arthur in utter difficulties, and Lovel determined he should never ken
-the hand that helped him,--for that was what he insisted maist upon,--we
-couldna think o' a better way to fling the gear in his gate, though we
-simmered it and wintered it e'er sae lang. And if by ony queer mischance
-Doustercivil had got his claws on't, I was instantly to hae informed you
-or the Sheriff o' the haill story."
-
-"Well, notwithstanding all these wise precautions, I think your
-contrivance succeeded better than such a clumsy one deserved, Edie. But
-how the deuce came Lovel by such a mass of silver ingots?"
-
-"That's just what I canna tell ye--But they were put on board wi' his
-things at Fairport, it's like, and we stowed them into ane o' the
-ammunition-boxes o' the brig, baith for concealment and convenience of
-carriage."
-
-"Lord!" said Oldbuck, his recollection recurring to the earlier part of
-his acquaintance with Lovel; "and this young fellow, who was putting
-hundreds on so strange a hazard, I must be recommending a subscription to
-him, and paying his bill at the Ferry! I never will pay any person's bill
-again, that's certain.--And you kept up a constant correspondence with
-Lovel, I suppose?"
-
-"I just gat ae bit scrape o' a pen frae him, to say there wad, as
-yesterday fell, be a packet at Tannonburgh, wi' letters o' great
-consequence to the Knockwinnock folk; for they jaloused the opening of
-our letters at Fairport--And that's a's true; I hear Mrs. Mailsetter is
-to lose her office for looking after other folk's business and neglecting
-her ain."
-
-"And what do you expect now, Edie, for being the adviser, and messenger,
-and guard, and confidential person in all these matters?"
-
-"Deil haet do I expect--excepting that a' the gentles will come to the
-gaberlunzie's burial; and maybe ye'll carry the head yoursell, as ye did
-puir Steenie Mucklebackit's.--What trouble was't to me? I was ganging
-about at ony rate--Oh, but I was blythe when I got out of Prison, though;
-for I thought, what if that weary letter should come when I am closed up
-here like an oyster, and a' should gang wrang for want o't? and whiles I
-thought I maun mak a clean breast and tell you a' about it; but then I
-couldna weel do that without contravening Mr. Lovel's positive orders;
-and I reckon he had to see somebody at Edinburgh afore he could do what
-he wussed to do for Sir Arthur and his family."
-
-"Well, and to your public news, Edie--So they are still coming are they?"
-
-"Troth they say sae, sir; and there's come down strict orders for the
-forces and volunteers to be alert; and there's a clever young officer to
-come here forthwith, to look at our means o' defence--I saw the Bailies
-lass cleaning his belts and white breeks--I gae her a hand, for ye maun
-think she wasna ower clever at it, and sae I gat a' the news for my
-pains."
-
-"And what think you, as an old soldier?"
-
-"Troth I kenna--an they come so mony as they speak o', they'll be odds
-against us. But there's mony yauld chields amang thae volunteers; and I
-mauna say muckle about them that's no weel and no very able, because I am
-something that gate mysell--But we'se do our best."
-
-"What! so your martial spirit is rising again, Edie?
-
-                Even in our ashes glow their wonted fires!
-
-I would not have thought you, Edie, had so much to fight for?"
-
-"_Me_ no muckle to fight for, sir?--isna there the country to fight for,
-and the burnsides that I gang daundering beside, and the hearths o'the
-gudewives that gie me my bit bread, and the bits o' weans that come
-toddling to play wi' me when I come about a landward town?--Deil!" he
-continued, grasping his pike-staff with great emphasis, "an I had as gude
-pith as I hae gude-will, and a gude cause, I should gie some o' them a
-day's kemping."
-
-"Bravo, bravo, Edie! The country's in little ultimate danger, when the
-beggar's as ready to fight for his dish as the laird for his land."
-
-Their further conversation reverted to the particulars of the night
-passed by the mendicant and Lovel in the ruins of St. Ruth; by the
-details of which the Antiquary was highly amused.
-
-"I would have given a guinea," he said, "to have seen the scoundrelly
-German under the agonies of those terrors, which it is part of his own
-quackery to inspire into others; and trembling alternately for the fury
-of his patron, and the apparition of some hobgoblin."
-
-"Troth," said the beggar, "there was time for him to be cowed; for ye wad
-hae thought the very spirit of Hell-in-Harness had taken possession o'
-the body o' Sir Arthur. But what will come o' the land-louper?"
-
-"I have had a letter this morning, from which I understand he has
-acquitted you of the charge he brought against you, and offers to make
-such discoveries as will render the settlement of Sir Arthur's affairs a
-more easy task than we apprehended--So writes the Sheriff; and adds, that
-he has given some private information of importance to Government, in
-consideration of which, I understand he will be sent back to play the
-knave in his own country."
-
-"And a' the bonny engines, and wheels, and the coves, and sheughs, doun
-at Glenwithershins yonder, what's to come o' them?" said Edie.
-
-"I hope the men, before they are dispersed, will make a bonfire of their
-gimcracks, as an army destroy their artillery when forced to raise a
-siege. And as for the holes, Edie, I abandon them as rat-traps, for the
-benefit of the next wise men who may choose to drop the substance to
-snatch at a shadow."
-
-"Hech, sirs! guide us a'! to burn the engines? that's a great waste--Had
-ye na better try to get back part o' your hundred pounds wi' the sale o'
-the materials?" he continued, with a tone of affected condolence.
-
-"Not a farthing," said the Antiquary, peevishly, taking a turn from him,
-and making a step or two away. Then returning, half-smiling at his own
-pettishness, he said, "Get thee into the house, Edie, and remember my
-counsel, never speak to me about a mine, nor to my nephew Hector about a
-_phoca,_ that is a sealgh, as you call it."
-
-"I maun be ganging my ways back to Fairport," said the wanderer; "I want
-to see what they're saying there about the invasion;--but I'll mind what
-your honour says, no to speak to you about a sealgh, or to the Captain
-about the hundred pounds that you gied to Douster"--
-
-"Confound thee!--I desired thee not to mention that to me."
-
-"Dear me!" said Edie, with affected surprise; "weel, I thought there was
-naething but what your honour could hae studden in the way o' agreeable
-conversation, unless it was about the Praetorian yonder, or the bodle
-that the packman sauld to ye for an auld coin."
-
-"Pshaw! pshaw!" said the Antiquary, turning from him hastily, and
-retreating into the house.
-
-The mendicant looked after him a moment, and with a chuckling laugh, such
-as that with which a magpie or parrot applauds a successful exploit of
-mischief, he resumed once more the road to Fairport. His habits had given
-him a sort of restlessness, much increased by the pleasure he took in
-gathering news; and in a short time he had regained the town which he
-left in the morning, for no reason that he knew himself, unless just to
-"hae a bit crack wi' Monkbarns."
-
-
-
-
-                         CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH.
-
-                    Red glared the beacon on Pownell
-                        On Skiddaw there were three;
-                    The bugle horn on moor and fell
-                        Was heard continually.
-                                     James Hogg.
-
-The watch who kept his watch on the hill, and looked towards Birnam,
-probably conceived himself dreaming when he first beheld the fated grove
-put itself into motion for its march to Dunsinane. Even so old Caxon, as
-perched in his hut, he qualified his thoughts upon the approaching
-marriage of his daughter, and the dignity of being father-in-law to
-Lieutenant Taffril, with an occasional peep towards the signal-post with
-which his own corresponded, was not a little surprised by observing a
-light in that direction. He rubbed his eyes, looked again, adjusting his
-observation by a cross-staff which had been placed so as to bear upon the
-point. And behold, the light increased, like a comet to the eye of the
-astronomer, "with fear of change perplexing nations."
-
-"The Lord preserve us!" said Caxon, "what's to be done now? But there
-will be wiser heads than mine to look to that, sae I'se e'en fire the
-beacon."
-
-And he lighted the beacon accordingly, which threw up to the sky a long
-wavering train of light, startling the sea-fowl from their nests, and
-reflected far beneath by the reddening billows of the sea. The brother
-warders of Caxon being equally diligent, caught, and repeated his signal.
-The lights glanced on headlands and capes and inland hills, and the whole
-district was alarmed by the signal of invasion. *
-
-* Note J. Alarms of Invasion.
-
-Our Antiquary, his head wrapped warm in two double night-caps, was
-quietly enjoying his repose, when it was suddenly broken by the screams
-of his sister, his niece, and two maid-servants.
-
-"What the devil is the matter?" said he, starting up in his bed--
-"womankind in my room at this hour of night!--are ye all mad?"
-
-"The beacon, uncle!" said Miss M'Intyre.
-
-"The French coming to murder us!" screamed Miss Griselda.
-
-"The beacon! the beacon!--the French! the French!--murder! murder! and
-waur than murder!"--cried the two handmaidens, like the chorus of an
-opera.
-
-"The French?" said Oldbuck, starting up--"get out of the room, womankind
-that you are, till I get my things on--And hark ye, bring me my sword."
-
-"Whilk o' them, Monkbarns?" cried his sister, offering a Roman falchion
-of brass with the one hand, and with the other an Andrea Ferrara without
-a handle.
-
-"The langest, the langest," cried Jenny Rintherout, dragging in a
-two-handed sword of the twelfth century.
-
-"Womankind," said Oldbuck in great agitation, "be composed, and do not
-give way to vain terror--Are you sure they are come?"
-
-"Sure, sure!" exclaimed Jenny--"ower sure!--a' the sea fencibles, and the
-land fencibles, and the volunteers and yeomanry, are on fit, and driving
-to Fairport as hard as horse and man can gang--and auld Mucklebackit's
-gane wi' the lave--muckle gude he'll do!--Hech, sirs!--_he'll_ be missed
-the morn wha wad hae served king and country weel!"
-
-"Give me," said Oldbuck, "the sword which my father wore in the year
-forty-five--it hath no belt or baldrick--but we'll make shift."
-
-So saying he thrust the weapon through the cover of his breeches pocket.
-At this moment Hector entered, who had been to a neighbouring height to
-ascertain whether the alarm was actual.
-
-"Where are your arms, nephew?" exclaimed Oldbuck--"where is your
-double-barrelled gun, that was never out of your hand when there was no
-occasion for such vanities?"
-
-"Pooh! pooh! sir," said Hector, "who ever took a fowling-piece on action?
-I have got my uniform on, you see--I hope I shall be of more use if they
-will give me a command than I could be with ten double-barrels. And you,
-sir, must get to Fairport, to give directions for quartering and
-maintaining the men and horses, and preventing confusion."
-
-"You are right, Hector,--l believe I shall do as much with my head as my
-hand too. But here comes Sir Arthur Wardour, who, between ourselves, is
-not fit to accomplish much either one way or the other."
-
-Sir Arthur was probably of a different opinion; for, dressed in his
-lieutenancy uniform, he was also on the road to Fairport, and called in
-his way to take Mr. Oldbuck with him, having had his original opinion of
-his sagacity much confirmed by late events. And in spite of all the
-entreaties of the womankind that the Antiquary would stay to garrison
-Monkbarns, Mr. Oldbuck, with his nephew, instantly accepted Sir Arthur's
-offer.
-
-Those who have witnessed such a scene can alone conceive the state of
-bustle in Fairport. The windows were glancing with a hundred lights,
-which, appearing and disappearing rapidly, indicated the confusion within
-doors. The women of lower rank assembled and clamoured in the
-market-place. The yeomanry, pouring from their different glens, galloped
-through the streets, some individually, some in parties of five or six,
-as they had met on the road. The drums and fifes of the volunteers
-beating to arms, were blended with the voice of the officers, the sound
-of the bugles, and the tolling of the bells from the steeple. The ships
-in the harbour were lit up, and boats from the armed vessels added to the
-bustle, by landing men and guns destined to assist in the defence of the
-place. This part of the preparations was superintended by Taffril with
-much activity. Two or three light vessels had already slipped their
-cables and stood out to sea, in order to discover the supposed enemy.
-
-Such was the scene of general confusion, when Sir Arthur Wardour,
-Oldbuck, and Hector, made their way with difficulty into the principal
-square, where the town-house is situated. It was lighted up, and the
-magistracy, with many of the neighbouring gentlemen, were assembled. And
-here, as upon other occasions of the like kind in Scotland, it was
-remarkable how the good sense and firmness of the people supplied almost
-all the deficiencies of inexperience.
-
-The magistrates were beset by the quarter-masters of the different corps
-for billets for men and horses. "Let us," said Bailie Littlejohn, "take
-the horses into our warehouses, and the men into our parlours--share our
-supper with the one, and our forage with the other. We have made
-ourselves wealthy under a free and paternal government, and now is the
-time to show we know its value."
-
-A loud and cheerful acquiescence was given by all present, and the
-substance of the wealthy, with the persons of those of all ranks, were
-unanimously devoted to the defence of the country.
-
-Captain M'Intyre acted on this occasion as military adviser and
-aide-de-camp to the principal magistrate, and displayed a degree of
-presence of mind, and knowledge of his profession, totally unexpected by
-his uncle, who, recollecting his usual _insouciance_ and impetuosity,
-gazed at him with astonishment from time to time, as he remarked the calm
-and steady manner in which he explained the various measures of
-precaution that his experience suggested, and gave directions for
-executing them. He found the different corps in good order, considering
-the irregular materials of which they were composed, in great force of
-numbers and high confidence and spirits. And so much did military
-experience at that moment overbalance all other claims to consequence,
-that even old Edie, instead of being left, like Diogenes at Sinope, to
-roll his tub when all around were preparing for defence, had the duty
-assigned him of superintending the serving out of the ammunition, which
-he executed with much discretion.
-
-Two things were still anxiously expected--the presence of the Glenallan
-volunteers, who, in consideration of the importance of that family, had
-been formed into a separate corps, and the arrival of the officer before
-announced, to whom the measures of defence on that coast had been
-committed by the commander-in-chief, and whose commission would entitle
-him to take upon himself the full disposal of the military force.
-
-At length the bugles of the Glenallan yeomanry were heard, and the Earl
-himself, to the surprise of all who knew his habits and state of health,
-appeared at their head in uniform. They formed a very handsome and
-well-mounted squadron, formed entirely out of the Earl's Lowland tenants,
-and were followed by a regiment of five hundred men, completely equipped
-in the Highland dress, whom he had brought down from the upland glens,
-with their pipes playing in the van. The clean and serviceable appearance
-of this band of feudal dependants called forth the admiration of Captain
-M'Intyre; but his uncle was still more struck by the manner in which,
-upon this crisis, the ancient military spirit of his house seemed to
-animate and invigorate the decayed frame of the Earl, their leader. He
-claimed, and obtained for himself and his followers, the post most likely
-to be that of danger, displayed great alacrity in making the necessary
-dispositions, and showed equal acuteness in discussing their propriety.
-Morning broke in upon the military councils of Fairport, while all
-concerned were still eagerly engaged in taking precautions for their
-defence.
-
-At length a cry among the people announced, "There's the brave Major
-Neville come at last, with another officer;" and their post-chaise and
-four drove into the square, amidst the huzzas of the volunteers and
-inhabitants. The magistrates, with their assessors of the lieutenancy,
-hastened to the door of their town-house to receive him; but what was the
-surprise of all present, but most especially that of the Antiquary, when
-they became aware, that the handsome uniform and military cap disclosed
-the person and features of the pacific Lovel! A warm embrace, and a
-hearty shake of the hand, were necessary to assure him that his eyes were
-doing him justice. Sir Arthur was no less surprised to recognise his son,
-Captain Wardour, in Lovel's, or rather Major Neville's company. The first
-words of the young officers were a positive assurance to all present,
-that the courage and zeal which they had displayed were entirely thrown
-away, unless in so far as they afforded an acceptable proof of their
-spirit and promptitude.
-
-"The watchman at Halket-head," said Major Neville, "as we discovered by
-an investigation which we made in our route hither, was most naturally
-misled by a bonfire which some idle people had made on the hill above
-Glenwithershins, just in the line of the beacon with which his
-corresponded."
-
-Oldbuck gave a conscious look to Sir Arthur, who returned it with one
-equally sheepish, and a shrug of the shoulders,
-
-"It must have been the machinery which we condemned to the flames in our
-wrath," said the Antiquary, plucking up heart, though not a little
-ashamed of having been the cause of so much disturbance--"The devil take
-Dousterswivel with all my heart!--I think he has bequeathed us a legacy
-of blunders and mischief, as if he had lighted some train of fireworks at
-his departure. I wonder what cracker will go off next among our shins.
-But yonder comes the prudent Caxon.--Hold up your head, you ass--your
-betters must bear the blame for you--And here, take this what-d'ye-call
-it"--(giving him his sword)--"I wonder what I would have said yesterday
-to any man that would have told me I was to stick such an appendage to my
-tail."
-
-Here he found his arm gently pressed by Lord Glenallan, who dragged him
-into a separate apartment. "For God's sake, who is that young gentleman
-who is so strikingly like"--
-
-"Like the unfortunate Eveline," interrupted Oldbuck. "I felt my heart
-warm to him from the first, and your lordship has suggested the very
-cause."
-
-"But who--who is he?" continued Lord Glenallan, holding the Antiquary
-with a convulsive grasp.
-
-"Formerly I would have called him Lovel, but now he turns out to be Major
-Neville."
-
-"Whom my brother brought up as his natural son--whom he made his heir--
-Gracious Heaven! the child of my Eveline!"
-
-"Hold, my lord--hold!" said Oldbuck, "do not give too hasty way to such a
-presumption;--what probability is there?"
-
-"Probability? none! There is certainty! absolute certainty! The agent I
-mentioned to you wrote me the whole story--I received it yesterday, not
-sooner. Bring him, for God's sake, that a father's eyes may bless him
-before he departs."
-
-"I will; but for your own sake and his, give him a few moments for
-preparation."
-
-And, determined to make still farther investigation before yielding his
-entire conviction to so strange a tale, he sought out Major Neville, and
-found him expediting the necessary measures for dispersing the force
-which had been assembled.
-
-"Pray, Major Neville, leave this business for a moment to Captain Wardour
-and to Hector, with whom, I hope, you are thoroughly reconciled" (Neville
-laughed, and shook hands with Hector across the table), "and grant me a
-moment's audience."
-
-"You have a claim on me, Mr. Oldbuck, were my business more urgent," said
-Neville, "for having passed myself upon you under a false name, and
-rewarding your hospitality by injuring your nephew."
-
-"You served him as he deserved," said Oldbuck--"though, by the way, he
-showed as much good sense as spirit to-day--Egad! if he would rub up his
-learning, and read Caesar and Polybus, and the _Stratagemata Polyaeni,_ I
-think he would rise in the army--and I will certainly lend him a lift."
-
-"He is heartily deserving of it," said Neville; "and I am glad you excuse
-me, which you may do the more frankly, when you know that I am so
-unfortunate as to have no better right to the name of Neville, by which I
-have been generally distinguished, than to that of Lovel, under which you
-knew me."
-
-"Indeed! then, I trust, we shall find out one for you to which you shall
-have a firm and legal title."
-
-"Sir!--I trust you do not think the misfortune of my birth a fit
-subject"--
-
-"By no means, young man," answered the Antiquary, interrupting him;--"I
-believe I know more of your birth than you do yourself--and, to convince
-you of it, you were educated and known as a natural son of Geraldin
-Neville of Neville's-Burgh, in Yorkshire, and I presume, as his destined
-heir?"
-
-"Pardon me--no such views were held out to me. I was liberally educated,
-and pushed forward in the army by money and interest; but I believe my
-supposed father long entertained some ideas of marriage, though he never
-carried them into effect."
-
-"You say your _supposed_ father?--What leads you to suppose Mr. Geraldin
-Neville was not your real father?"
-
-"I know, Mr. Oldbuck, that you would not ask these questions on a point
-of such delicacy for the gratification of idle curiosity. I will
-therefore tell you candidly, that last year, while we occupied a small
-town in French Flanders, I found in a convent, near which I was
-quartered, a woman who spoke remarkably good English--She was a Spaniard
---her name Teresa D'Acunha. In the process of our acquaintance, she
-discovered who I was, and made herself known to me as the person who had
-charge of my infancy. She dropped more than one hint of rank to which I
-was entitled, and of injustice done to me, promising a more full
-disclosure in case of the death of a lady in Scotland, during whose
-lifetime she was determined to keep the secret. She also intimated that
-Mr. Geraldin Neville was not my father. We were attacked by the enemy,
-and driven from the town, which was pillaged with savage ferocity by the
-republicans. The religious orders were the particular objects of their
-hate and cruelty. The convent was burned, and several nuns perished--
-among others Teresa; and with her all chance of knowing the story of my
-birth: tragic by all accounts it must have been."
-
-"_Raro antecedentem scelestum,_ or, as I may here say, _scelestam,_" said
-Oldbuck, "_deseruit poena_--even Epicureans admitted that. And what did
-you do upon this?"
-
-"I remonstrated with Mr. Neville by letter, and to no purpose. I then
-obtained leave of absence, and threw myself at his feet, conjuring him to
-complete the disclosure which Teresa had begun. He refused, and, on my
-importunity, indignantly upbraided me with the favours he had already
-conferred. I thought he abused the power of a benefactor, as he was
-compelled to admit he had no title to that of a father, and we parted in
-mutual displeasure. I renounced the name of Neville, and assumed that
-under which you knew me. It was at this time, when residing with a friend
-in the north of England who favoured my disguise, that I became
-acquainted with Miss Wardour, and was romantic enough to follow her to
-Scotland. My mind wavered on various plans of life, when I resolved to
-apply once more to Mr. Neville for an explanation of the mystery of my
-birth. It was long ere I received an answer; you were present when it was
-put into my hands. He informed me of his bad state of health, and
-conjured me, for my own sake, to inquire no farther into the nature of
-his connection with me, but to rest satisfied with his declaring it to be
-such and so intimate, that he designed to constitute me his heir. When I
-was preparing to leave Fairport to join him, a second express brought me
-word that he was no more. The possession of great wealth was unable to
-suppress the remorseful feelings with which I now regarded my conduct to
-my benefactor, and some hints in his letter appearing to intimate there
-was on my birth a deeper stain than that of ordinary illegitimacy, I
-remembered certain prejudices of Sir Arthur."
-
-"And you brooded over these melancholy ideas until you were ill, instead
-of coming to me for advice, and telling me the whole story?" said
-Oldbuck.
-
-"Exactly; then came my quarrel with Captain M'Intyre, and my compelled
-departure from Fairport and its vicinity."
-
-"From love and from poetry--Miss Wardour and the Caledoniad?"
-
-"Most true."
-
-"And since that time you have been occupied, I suppose, with plans for
-Sir Arthur's relief?"
-
-"Yes, sir; with the assistance of Captain Wardour at Edinburgh."
-
-"And Edie Ochiltree here--you see I know the whole story. But how came
-you by the treasure?"
-
-"It was a quantity of plate which had belonged to my uncle, and was left
-in the custody of a person at Fairport. Some time before his death he had
-sent orders that it should be melted down. He perhaps did not wish me to
-see the Glenallan arms upon it."
-
-"Well, Major Neville--or let me say, Lovel, being the name in which I
-rather delight--you must, I believe, exchange both of your _alias's_ for
-the style and title of the Honourable William Geraldin, commonly called
-Lord Geraldin."
-
-The Antiquary then went through the strange and melancholy circumstances
-concerning his mother's death.
-
-"I have no doubt," he said, "that your uncle wished the report to be
-believed, that the child of this unhappy marriage was no more--perhaps he
-might himself have an eye to the inheritance of his brother--he was then
-a gay wild young man--But of all intentions against your person, however
-much the evil conscience of Elspeth might lead her to inspect him from
-the agitation in which he appeared, Teresa's story and your own fully
-acquit him. And now, my dear sir, let me have the pleasure of introducing
-a son to a father."
-
-We will not attempt to describe such a meeting. The proofs on all sides
-were found to be complete, for Mr. Neville had left a distinct account of
-the whole transaction with his confidential steward in a sealed packet,
-which was not to be opened until the death of the old Countess; his
-motive for preserving secrecy so long appearing to have been an
-apprehension of the effect which the discovery, fraught with so much
-disgrace, must necessarily produce upon her haughty and violent temper.
-
-In the evening of that day, the yeomanry and volunteers of Glenallan
-drank prosperity to their young master. In a month afterwards Lord
-Geraldin was married to Miss Wardour, the Antiquary making the lady a
-present of the wedding ring--a massy circle of antique chasing, bearing
-the motto of Aldobrand Oldenbuck, _Kunst macht gunst._
-
-Old Edie, the most important man that ever wore a blue gown, bowls away
-easily from one friend's house to another, and boasts that he never
-travels unless on a sunny day. Latterly, indeed, he has given some
-symptoms of becoming stationary, being frequently found in the corner of
-a snug cottage between Monkbarns and Knockwinnock, to which Caxon
-retreated upon his daughter's marriage, in order to be in the
-neighbourhood of the three parochial wigs, which he continues to keep in
-repair, though only for amusement. Edie has been heard to say, "This is a
-gey bein place, and it's a comfort to hae sic a corner to sit in in a bad
-day." It is thought, as he grows stiffer in the joints, he will finally
-settle there.
-
-The bounty of such wealthy patrons as Lord and Lady Geraldin flowed
-copiously upon Mrs. Hadoway and upon the Mucklebackits. By the former it
-was well employed, by the latter wasted. They continue, however, to
-receive it, but under the administration of Edie Ochiltree; and they do
-not accept it without grumbling at the channel through which it is
-conveyed.
-
-Hector is rising rapidly in the army, and has been more than once
-mentioned in the Gazette, and rises proportionally high in his uncle's
-favour; and what scarcely pleases the young soldier less, he has also
-shot two seals, and thus put an end to the Antiquary's perpetual harping
-upon the story of the _phoca._People talk of a marriage between Miss
-M'Intyre and Captain Wardour; but this wants confirmation.
-
-The Antiquary is a frequent visitor at Knockwinnock and Glenallan House,
-ostensibly for the sake of completing two essays, one on the mail-shirt
-of the Great Earl, and the other on the left-hand gauntlet of
-Hell-in-Harness. He regularly inquires whether Lord Geraldin has
-commenced the Caledoniad, and shakes his head at the answers he
-receives._En attendant,_ however, he has completed his notes, which, we
-believe, will be at the service of any one who chooses to make them
-public without risk or expense to THE ANTIQUARY.
-
-
-
-
-
-                         NOTES TO THE ANTIQUARY.
-
-
-
-Note A, p. #.--Mottoes.
-
-["It was in correcting the proof-sheets of this novel that Scott first
-took to equipping his chapters with mottoes of his own fabrication. On
-one occasion he happened to ask John Ballantyne, who was sitting by him,
-to hunt for a particular passage in Beaumont and Fletcher. John did as he
-was bid, but did not succeed in discovering the lines. 'Hang it,
-Johnnie,' cried Scott, 'I believe I can make a motto sooner than you will
-find one.' He did so accordingly; and from that hour, whenever memory
-failed to suggest an appropriate epigraph, he had recourse to the
-inexhaustible mines of "old play" or "old ballad," to which we owe some
-of the most exquisite verses that ever flowed from his pen."--_J. G.
-Lockhart._
-
-See also the Introduction to "Chronicles of the Canongate," vol. xix.]
-
-
-
-Note B, p. #.--Sandy Gordon's Itinerarium.
-
-[This well-known work, the "Itinerarium Septentrionale, or a Journey
-thro' most of the Counties of Scotland, and those in the North of
-England," was published at London in 1727, folio. The author states, that
-in prosecuting his work he "made a pretty laborious progress through
-almost every part of Scotland for three years successively." Gordon was
-a native of Aberdeenshire, and had previously spent some years in
-travelling abroad, probably as a tutor. He became Secretary to the London
-Society of Antiquaries in 1736. This office be resigned in 1741, and soon
-after went out to South Carolina with Governor Glen, where he obtained a
-considerable grant of land. On his death, about the year 1753, he is said
-to have left "a handsome estate to his family."--See _Literary Anecdotes
-of Bowyer,_ by John Nichols, vol. v., p. 329, etc.]
-
-
-
-Note C, p. #.--Praetorium.
-
-It may be worth while to mention that the incident of the supposed
-Praetorium actually happened to an antiquary of great learning and
-acuteness, Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, one of the Barons of the Scottish
-Court of Exchequer, and a parliamentary commissioner for arrangement of
-the Union between England and Scotland. As many of his writings show, Sir
-John was much attached to the study of Scottish antiquities. He had a
-small property in Dumfriesshire, near the Roman station on the hill
-called Burrenswark. Here he received the distinguished English
-antiquarian Roger Gale, and of course conducted him to see this
-remarkable spot, where the lords of the world have left such decisive
-marks of their martial labours.
-
-An aged shepherd whom they had used as a guide, or who had approached
-them from curiosity, listened with mouth agape to the dissertations on
-foss and vellum, ports _dextra, sinistra,_ and _decumana,_ which Sir John
-Clerk delivered _ex cathedra,_ and his learned visitor listened with the
-deference to the dignity of a connoisseur on his own ground. But when the
-cicerone proceeded to point out a small hillock near the centre of the
-enclosure as the Praetorium, Corydon's patience could hold no longer,
-and, like Edie Ochiltree, he forgot all reverence, and broke in with
-nearly the same words--"Praetorium here, Praetorium there, I made the
-bourock mysell with a flaughter-spade." The effect of this undeniable
-evidence on the two lettered sages may be left to the reader's
-imagination.
-
-The late excellent and venerable John Clerk of Eldin, the celebrated
-author of _Naval Tactics,_ used to tell this story with glee, and being a
-younger son of Sir John's was perhaps present on the occasion.
-
-
-
-Note D, p. #.--Mr. Rutherfurd's Dream
-
-The legend of Mrs. Grizel Oldbuck was partly taken from an extraordinary
-story which happened about seventy years since, in the South of Scotland,
-so peculiar in its circumstances that it merits being mentioned in this
-place. Mr. Rutherfurd of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the
-vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated
-arrears of teind (or tithe) for which he was said to be indebted to a
-noble family, the titulars (lay impropriators of the tithes). Mr.
-Rutherfurd was strongly impressed with the belief that his father had, by
-a form of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased these lands
-from the titular, and therefore that the present prosecution was
-groundless. But, after an industrious search among his father's papers,
-an investigation of the public records, and a careful inquiry among all
-persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence could
-be recovered to support his defence. The period was now near at hand when
-he conceived the loss of his lawsuit to be inevitable, and he had formed
-his determination to ride to Edinburgh next day, and make the best
-bargain he could in the way of compromise. He went to bed with this
-resolution and, with all the circumstances of the case floating upon his
-mind, had a dream to the following purpose:--His father, who had been
-many years dead, appeared to him, he thought, and asked him why he was
-disturbed in his mind. In dreams men are not surprised at such
-apparitions. Mr. Rutherfurd thought that he informed his father of the
-cause of his distress, adding that the payment of a considerable sum of
-money was the more unpleasant to him, because he had a strong
-consciousness that it was not due, though he was unable to recover any
-evidence in support of his belief, "You are right, my son," replied the
-paternal shade; "I did acquire right to these teinds, for payment of
-which you are now prosecuted. The papers relating to the transaction are
-in the hands of Mr.--, a writer (or attorney), who is now retired from
-professional business, and resides at Inveresk, near Edinburgh. He was a
-person whom I employed on that occasion for a particular reason, but who
-never on any other occasion transacted business on my account. It is very
-possible," pursued the vision, "that Mr.--may have forgotten a matter
-which is now of a very old date; but you may call it to his recollection
-by this token, that when I came to pay his account, there was difficulty
-in getting change for a Portugal piece of gold, and that we were forced
-to drink out the balance at a tavern."
-
-Mr. Rutherfurd awakened in the morning with all the words of the vision
-imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to ride across the
-country to Inveresk, instead of going straight to Edinburgh. When he came
-there he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream, a very old man;
-without saying anything of the vision, he inquired whether he remembered
-having conducted such a matter for his deceased father. The old gentleman
-could not at first bring the circumstance to his recollection, but on
-mention of the Portugal piece of gold, the whole returned upon his
-memory; he made an immediate search for the papers, and recovered them,--
-so that Mr. Rutherfurd carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to
-gain the cause which he was on the verge of losing.
-
-The author has often heard this story told by persons who had the best
-access to know the facts, who were not likely themselves to be deceived,
-and were certainly incapable of deception. He cannot therefore refuse to
-give it credit, however extraordinary the circumstances may appear. The
-circumstantial character of the information given in the dream, takes it
-out of the general class of impressions of the kind which are occasioned
-by the fortuitous coincidence of actual events with our sleeping
-thoughts. On the other hand, few will suppose that the laws of nature
-were suspended, and a special communication from the dead to the living
-permitted, for the purpose of saving Mr. Rutherfurd a certain number of
-hundred pounds. The author's theory is, that the dream was only the
-recapitulation of information which Mr. Rutherfurd had really received
-from his father while in life, but which at first he merely recalled as a
-general impression that the claim was settled. It is not uncommon for
-persons to recover, during sleep, the thread of ideas which they have
-lost during their waking hours.
-
-It may be added, that this remarkable circumstance was attended with bad
-consequences to Mr. Rutherfurd; whose health and spirits were afterwards
-impaired by the attention which he thought himself obliged to pay to the
-visions of the night.
-
-
-
-Note E, p. #.--Nick-sticks.
-
-A sort of tally generally used by bakers of the olden time in settling
-with their customers. Each family had its own nick-stick, and for each
-loaf as delivered a notch was made on the stick. Accounts in Exchequer,
-kept by the same kind of check, may have occasioned the Antiquary's
-partiality. In Prior's time the English bakers had the same sort of
-reckoning.
-
-                   Have you not seen a baker's maid,
-                   Between two equal panniers sway'd?
-                   Her tallies useless lie and idle,
-                     If placed exactly in the middle.
-
-
-
-Note F, p. #.--Witchcraft.
-
-A great deal of stuff to the same purpose with that placed in the mouth
-of the German adept, may be found in Reginald Scott's _Discovery of
-Witchcraft,_ Third Edition, folio, London, 1665. The Appendix is
-entitled, "An Excellent Discourse of the Nature and Substances of Devils
-and Spirits, in two Books; the first by the aforesaid author (Reginald
-Scott), the Second now added in this Third Edition as succedaneous to the
-former, and conducing to the completing of the whole work." This Second
-Book, though stated as succedaneous to the first, is, in fact, entirely
-at variance with it; for the work of Reginald Scott is a compilation of
-the absurd and superstitious ideas concerning witches so generally
-entertained at the time, and the pretended conclusion is a serious
-treatise on the various means of conjuring astral spirits.
-
-[Scott's _Discovery of Witchcraft_ was first published in the reign of
-Queen Elizabeth, London, 1584.]
-
-
-
-Note G, p. #.--Gyneocracy.
-
-In the fishing villages on the Firths of Forth and Tay, as well as
-elsewhere in Scotland, the government is gyneocracy, as described in the
-text. In the course of the late war, and during the alarm of invasion, a
-fleet of transports entered the Firth of Forth under the convoy of some
-ships of war, which would reply to no signals. A general alarm was
-excited, in consequence of which, all the fishers, who were enrolled as
-sea-fencibles, got on board the gun-boats which they were to man as
-occasion should require, and sailed to oppose the supposed enemy. The
-foreigners proved to be Russians, with whom we were then at peace. The
-county gentlemen of Mid-Lothian, pleased with the zeal displayed by the
-sea-fencibles at a critical moment, passed a vote for presenting the
-community of fishers with a silver punch-bowl, to be used on occasions of
-festivity. But the fisher-women, on hearing what was intended, put in
-their claim to have some separate share in the intended honorary reward.
-The men, they said, were their husbands; it was they who would have been
-sufferers if their husbands had been killed, and it was by their
-permission and injunctions that they embarked on board the gun-boats for
-the public service. They therefore claimed to share the reward in some
-manner which should distinguish the female patriotism which they had
-shown on the occasion. The gentlemen of the county willingly admitted the
-claim; and without diminishing the value of their compliment to the men,
-they made the females a present of a valuable broach, to fasten the plaid
-of the queen of the fisher-women for the time.
-
-It may be further remarked, that these Nereids are punctilious among
-themselves, and observe different ranks according to the commodities they
-deal in. One experienced dame was heard to characterise a younger damsel
-as "a puir silly thing, who had no ambition, and would never," she
-prophesied, "rise above the _mussel-line_ of business."
-
-
-
-Note H, p. #.--Battle of Harlaw.
-
-The great battle of Harlaw, here and formerly referred to, might be said
-to determine whether the Gaelic or the Saxon race should be predominant
-in Scotland. Donald, Lord of the Isles, who had at that period the power
-of an independent sovereign, laid claim to the Earldom of Ross during the
-Regency of Robert, Duke of Albany. To enforce his supposed right, he
-ravaged the north with a large army of Highlanders and Islesmen. He was
-encountered at Harlaw, in the Garioch, by Alexander, Earl of Mar, at the
-head of the northern nobility and gentry of Saxon and Norman descent. The
-battle was bloody and indecisive; but the invader was obliged to retire
-in consequence of the loss he sustained, and afterwards was compelled to
-make submission to the Regent, and renounce his pretensions to Ross; so
-that all the advantages of the field were gained by the Saxons. The
-battle of Harlaw was fought 24th July 1411.
-
-
-
-Note I, p. #.--Elspeth's death.
-
-The concluding circumstance of Elspeth's death is taken from an incident
-said to have happened at the funeral of John, Duke of Roxburghe. All who
-were acquainted with that accomplished nobleman must remember that he was
-not more remarkable for creating and possessing a most curious and
-splendid library, than for his acquaintance with the literary treasures
-it contained. In arranging his books, fetching and replacing the volumes
-which he wanted, and carrying on all the necessary intercourse which a
-man of letters holds with his library, it was the Duke's custom to
-employ, not a secretary or librarian, but a livery servant, called
-Archie, whom habit had made so perfectly acquainted with the library,
-that he knew every book, as a shepherd does the individuals of his flock,
-by what is called head-mark, and could bring his master whatever volume
-he wanted, and afford all the mechanical aid the Duke required in his
-literary researches. To secure the attendance of Archie, there was a bell
-hung in his room, which was used on no occasion except to call him
-individually to the Duke's study.
-
-His Grace died in Saint James's Square, London, in the year 1804; the
-body was to be conveyed to Scotland, to lie in state at his mansion of
-Fleurs, and to be removed from thence to the family burial-place at
-Bowden.
-
-At this time, Archie, who had been long attacked by a liver-complaint,
-was in the very last stage of that disease. Yet he prepared himself to
-accompany the body of the master whom he had so long and so faithfully
-waited upon. The medical persons assured him he could not survive the
-journey. It signified nothing, he said, whether he died in England or
-Scotland; he was resolved to assist in rendering the last honours to the
-kind master from whom he had been inseparable for so many years, even if
-he should expire in the attempt. The poor invalid was permitted to attend
-the Duke's body to Scotland; but when they reached Fleurs he was totally
-exhausted, and obliged to keep his bed, in a sort of stupor which
-announced speedy dissolution. On the morning of the day fixed for
-removing the dead body of the Duke to the place of burial, the private
-bell by which he was wont to summon his attendant to his study was rung
-violently. This might easily happen in the confusion of such a scene,
-although the people of the neighbourhood prefer believing that the bell
-sounded of its own accord. Ring, however, it did; and Archie, roused by
-the well-known summons, rose up in his bed, and faltered, in broken
-accents, "Yes, my Lord Duke--yes--I will wait on your Grace instantly;"
-and with these words on his lips he is said to have fallen back and
-expired.
-
-
-
-Note J, p. #.--Alarm of invasion.
-
-The story of the false alarm at Fairport, and the consequences, are taken
-from a real incident. Those who witnessed the state of Britain, and of
-Scotland in particular, from the period that succeeded the war which
-commenced in 1803 to the battle of Trafalgar, must recollect those times
-with feelings which we can hardly hope to make the rising generation
-comprehend. Almost every individual was enrolled either in a military or
-civil capacity, for the purpose of contributing to resist the
-long-suspended threats of invasion, which were echoed from every quarter.
-Beacons were erected along the coast, and all through the country, to
-give the signal for every one to repair to the post where his peculiar
-duty called him, and men of every description fit to serve held
-themselves in readiness on the shortest summons. During this agitating
-period, and on the evening of the 2d February 1804, the person who kept
-watch on the commanding station of Home Castle, being deceived by some
-accidental fire in the county of Northumberland, which he took for the
-corresponding signal-light in that county with which his orders were to
-communicate, lighted up his own beacon. The signal was immediately
-repeated through all the valleys on the English Border. If the beacon at
-Saint Abb's Head had been fired, the alarm would have run northward, and
-roused all Scotland. But the watch at this important point judiciously
-considered, that if there had been an actual or threatened descent on our
-eastern sea-coast, the alarm would have come along the coast and not from
-the interior of the country.
-
-Through the Border counties the alarm spread with rapidity, and on no
-occasion when that country was the scene of perpetual and unceasing war,
-was the summons to arms more readily obeyed. In Berwickshire,
-Roxburghshire, and Selkirkshire, the volunteers and militia got under
-arms with a degree of rapidity and alacrity which, considering the
-distance individuals lived from each other, had something in it very
-surprising--they poured to the alarm-posts on the sea-coast in a state so
-well armed and so completely appointed, with baggage, provisions, etc.,
-as was accounted by the best military judges to render them fit for
-instant and effectual service.
-
-There were some particulars in the general alarm which are curious and
-interesting. The men of Liddesdale, the most remote point to the westward
-which the alarm reached, were so much afraid of being late in the field,
-that they put in requisition all the horses they could find, and when
-they had thus made a forced march out of their own country, they turned
-their borrowed steeds loose to find their way back through the hills, and
-they all got back safe to their own stables. Another remarkable
-circumstance was, the general cry of the inhabitants of the smaller towns
-for arms, that they might go along with their companions. The
-Selkirkshire Yeomanry made a remarkable march, for although some of the
-individuals lived at twenty and thirty miles' distance from the place
-where they mustered, they were nevertheless embodied and in order in so
-short a period, that they were at Dalkeith, which was their alarm-post,
-about one o'clock on the day succeeding the first signal, with men and
-horses in good order, though the roads were in a bad state, and many of
-the troopers must have ridden forty or fifty miles without drawing
-bridle. Two members of the corps chanced to be absent from their homes,
-and in Edinburgh on private business. The lately married wife of one of
-these gentlemen, and the widowed mother of the other, sent the arms,
-uniforms, and chargers of the two troopers, that they might join their
-companions at Dalkeith. The author was very much struck by the answer
-made to him by the last-mentioned lady, when he paid her some compliment
-on the readiness which she showed in equipping her son with the means of
-meeting danger, when she might have left him a fair excuse for remaining
-absent. "Sir," she replied, with the spirit of a Roman matron, "none can
-know better than you that my son is the only prop by which, since his
-father's death, our family is supported. But I would rather see him dead
-on that hearth, than hear that he had been a horse's length behind his
-companions in the defence of his king and country." The author mentions
-what was immediately under his own eye, and within his own knowledge; but
-the spirit was universal, wherever the alarm reached, both in Scotland
-and England.
-
-The account of the ready patriotism displayed by the country on this
-occasion, warmed the hearts of Scottishmen in every corner of the world.
-It reached the ears of the well-known Dr. Leyden, whose enthusiastic love
-of Scotland, and of his own district of Teviotdale, formed a
-distinguished part of his character. The account which was read to him
-when on a sick-bed, stated (very truly) that the different corps, on
-arriving at their alarm-posts, announced themselves by their music
-playing the tunes peculiar to their own districts, many of which have
-been gathering-signals for centuries. It was particularly remembered,
-that the Liddesdale men, before mentioned, entered Kelso playing the
-lively tune--
-
-                       O wha dare meddle wi' me,
-                       And wha dare meddle wi' me!
-                       My name it is little Jock Elliot,
-                       And wha dare meddle wi' me!
-
-The patient was so delighted with this display of ancient Border spirit,
-that he sprung up in his bed, and began to sing the old song with such
-vehemence of action and voice, that his attendants, ignorant of the cause
-of excitation, concluded that the fever had taken possession of his
-brain; and it was only the entry of another Borderer, Sir John Malcolm,
-and the explanation which he was well qualified to give, that prevented
-them from resorting to means of medical coercion.
-
-The circumstances of this false alarm and its consequences may be now
-held of too little importance even for a note upon a work of fiction;
-but, at the period when it happened, it was hailed by the country as a
-propitious omen, that the national force, to which much must naturally
-have been trusted, had the spirit to look in the face the danger which
-they had taken arms to repel; and every one was convinced, that on
-whichever side God might bestow the victory, the invaders would meet with
-the most determined opposition from the children of the soil.
-
-
-
-
-
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-    <h2>
-      THE ANTIQUARY
-    </h2>
-    <h2>
-      BY SIR WALTER SCOTT
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Antiquary, Complete, by Sir Walter Scott
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
-
-
-Title: The Antiquary, Complete
-
-Author: Sir Walter Scott
-
-Release Date: August 16, 2004 [EBook #7005]
-Last Updated: October 17, 2012
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANTIQUARY***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-    <div class="mynote">
-      <i><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7005/old/orig7005-h/main.htm">
-      LINK TO THE ORIGINAL HTML FILE: This Ebook Has Been Reformatted For Better
-      Appearance In Mobile Viewers Such As Kindles And Others. The Original
-      Format, Which The Editor Believes Has A More Attractive Appearance For
-      Laptops And Other Computers, May Be Viewed By Clicking On This Box.</a></i>
-    </div>
-    <p>
-      <br /><br />
-    </p>
-    <hr />
-    <p>
-      <br /><br /> <a name="image-0001" id="image-0001">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
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-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/bookcover.jpg" alt="Bookcover " width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
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-      <img src="images/spines.jpg" alt="Spines " width="100%" /><br />
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-    <p>
-      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      THE ANTIQUARY
-    </h2>
-    <p>
-      <br /><br />
-    </p>
-    <h2>
-      BY SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.
-    </h2>
-    <p>
-      <br /><br /> <a name="image-0003" id="image-0003">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
-    </p>
-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/titlepage1.jpg" alt="Titlepage " width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
-      <br /><br /> <a name="image-0004" id="image-0004">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
-    </p>
-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt="Frontispiece " width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
-      <br /><br />
-    </p>
-    <hr />
-    <p>
-      <br /><br />
-    </p>
-    <h2>
-      CONTENTS
-    </h2>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> VOLUME ONE </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER FIRST. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER SECOND. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER THIRD. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER FOURTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER FIFTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER SIXTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER SEVENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER EIGHTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER NINTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER TENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER ELEVENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER TWELFTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER FOURTEENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER FIFTEENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER SIXTEENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER NINETEENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER TWENTIETH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST. </a>
-    </p>
-    <h3>
-      VOLUME II.
-    </h3>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0001"> CHAPTER FIRST. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0002"> CHAPTER SECOND. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0003"> CHAPTER THIRD. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0004"> CHAPTER FOURTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0005"> CHAPTER FIFTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0006"> CHAPTER SIXTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0007"> CHAPTER SEVENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0008"> CHAPTER EIGHTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0009"> CHAPTER NINTH </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0010"> CHAPTER TENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0011"> CHAPTER ELEVENTH </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0012"> CHAPTER TWELFTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0013"> CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0014"> CHAPTER FOURTEENTH </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0015"> CHAPTER FIFTEENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0016"> CHAPTER SIXTEENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0017"> CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0018"> CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0019"> CHAPTER NINETEENTH </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0020"> CHAPTER TWENTIETH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0021"> CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0022"> CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0023"> CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Alink2HCH0024"> CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#link2H_NOTE"> NOTES TO THE ANTIQUARY. </a>
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <br /><br />
-    </p>
-    <hr />
-    <p>
-      <br /><br />
-    </p>
-    <h2>
-      ILLUSTRATIONS
-    </h2>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0001"> Bookcover </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0002"> Spines </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0003"> Titlepage </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0004"> Frontispiece </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0005"> The Antiquary and Lovel&mdash;the Sanctum </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0006"> Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0007"> The Rescue of Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0008"> Eddie Ochiltree Visits Miss Wardour </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0009"> Mrs. Heukbane and Mrs. Shortcake </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0010"> St. Ruth (arbroath Abbey) </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0011"> The Ruins of St. Ruth </a>
-    </p>
-    <h3>
-      VOLUME II.
-    </h3>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0001"> Bookcover </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0002"> Spines </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0003"> Titlepage </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#image-0004"> Frontispiece-2 </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Aimage-0005"> The Funeral of the Countess </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Aimage-0006"> Lord Glenallen and Elspeth </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Aimage-0007"> The Antiquary Visits Edie in Prison </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Aimage-0008"> My Good Friends, 'favete Linguis' </a>
-    </p>
-    <p class="toc">
-      <a href="#Aimage-0009"> The Antiquary Arming </a>
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <br /><br />
-    </p>
-    <hr />
-    <p>
-      <br /><br />
-    </p>
-    <h2>
-      ILLUSTRATORS
-    </h2>
-    <p>
-      <br /><br />
-    </p>
-    <table summary="">
-      <tr>
-        <td>
-          <h2>
-            Subject or Title &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-            &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-          </h2>
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          <h2>
-            Original Drawing &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-          </h2>
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          <h2>
-            Etching
-          </h2>
-        </td>
-      </tr>
-      <tr>
-        <td>
-          The Antiquary and Lovel&mdash;Kinpurnes
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          J. B. MacDonald
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          T. J. Dagleish
-        </td>
-      </tr>
-      <tr>
-        <td>
-          The Antiquary and Lovel&mdash;The Sanctum&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          Robert Herdman
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          B. Dammon
-        </td>
-      </tr>
-      <tr>
-        <td>
-          Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          J. MacWhirter
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          Alex Ansted
-        </td>
-      </tr>
-      <tr>
-        <td>
-          Rescue of Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          Sam Bough
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          C. de Billy
-        </td>
-      </tr>
-      <tr>
-        <td>
-          Edie Ochiltree visits Miss Wardour
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          W. McTaggart
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          C. O. Murray
-        </td>
-      </tr>
-      <tr>
-        <td>
-          Mrs. Heukbane and Mrs. Shortcake
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          Original Etching by:
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          George Cruikshank
-        </td>
-      </tr>
-      <tr>
-        <td>
-          St. Ruth (Arbroath Abbey)
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          Photo Etching by:
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          John Andrew &amp; Son Co.
-        </td>
-      </tr>
-      <tr>
-        <td>
-          Ruins of St. Ruth
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          Original Etching by:
-        </td>
-        <td>
-          J. Moyr Smith
-        </td>
-      </tr>
-    </table>
-    <p>
-      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      VOLUME ONE
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-           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&mdash;-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
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      INTRODUCTION
-    </h2>
-    <p>
-      The present work completes a series of fictitious narratives, intended to
-      illustrate the manners of Scotland at three different periods. <i>Waverley</i>
-      embraced the age of our fathers, <i>Guy Mannering</i> that of our own
-      youth, and the <i>Antiquary</i> refers to the last ten years of the
-      eighteenth century. I have, in the two last narratives especially, sought
-      my principal personages in the class of society who are the last to feel
-      the influence of that general 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 eloquence of Scripture, in the mouths of those
-      of an elevated understanding, give pathos to their grief, and dignity to
-      their resentment.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      I have been more solicitous to describe manners minutely than to arrange
-      in any case an artificial and combined narrative, and have but to regret
-      that I felt myself unable to unite these two requisites of a good Novel.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The knavery of the adept in the following sheets may 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <br />
-    </p>
-    <hr />
-    <p>
-      <br />
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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,
-      respecting the character of Jonathan Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I may here state generally, that although I have deemed historical
-      personages free subjects of delineation, 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, followed 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 resemblance to real
-      individuals. Yet I must own my attempts 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 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 character of a very
-      intimate friend* of my father's family."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * [The late George Constable of Wallace Craigie, near Dundee.]
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      I have only farther to request the reader not to suppose that my late
-      respected friend resembled Mr. Oldbuck, 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 soundness
-      of thought, rendered more forcible by an occasional quaintness of
-      expression, were, the author conceives, the only qualities in which the
-      creature of his imagination resembled his benevolent and excellent old
-      friend.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The prominent part performed by the Beggar in the following narrative,
-      induces the author to prefix a few remarks of that character, as it
-      formerly existed in Scotland, though it is now scarcely to be traced.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 <i>Reliquiae
-      Divi Sancti Andreae,</i> 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. Oldbuck to regret its extinction. He
-      conceives them to be descended from the ancient bards, and proceeds:&mdash;-"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 ancient 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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, his patched
-      cloak giving him the privilege of the ancient jester. To be a <i>gude
-      crack,</i> that is, to possess talents for conversation, was essential to
-      the trade of a "puir body" of the more esteemed class; and Burns, who
-      delighted in the amusement their discourse afforded, seems to have looked
-      forward with gloomy firmness to the possibility 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 considered the
-      consummation as not utterly impossible. Thus in the fine dedication of his
-      works to Gavin Hamilton, he says,&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                     And when I downa yoke a naig,
-                    Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Again, in his Epistle to Davie, a brother Poet, he states, that in their
-      closing career&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                     The last o't, the warst o't,
-                         Is only just to beg.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      And after having remarked, that
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                  To lie in kilns and barns at e'en,
-                  When banes are crazed and blude is thin,
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Is doubtless great distress; the bard reckons up, with true poetical
-      spirit, the free enjoyment of the beauties of nature, which might
-      counterbalance the hardship and uncertainty of the life, 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As the life of a Scottish mendicant of the eighteenth century seems to
-      have been contemplated without much 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, intact, some privileges. A lodging, such as it
-      was, was readily granted to them in some of the out-houses, and the usual
-      <i>awmous</i> (alms) of a handful of meal (called a <i>gowpen</i>) 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
-      "twalpenny," or English penny, which was expended in snuff or whiskey. In
-      fact, these indolent peripatetics suffered much less real hardship and
-      want of food, than the poor peasants from whom they received alms.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      If, in addition to his personal qualifications, the mendicant 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 parson of great importance.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 Catholic Church, and who where 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 number of years which his Majesty has
-      lived; and one Blue-Gown additional is put on the roll for every returning
-      royal birth-day. On the same auspicious era, each Bedesman receives a new
-      cloak, or gown of coarse cloth, the colour light blue, with a pewter
-      badge, which confers on them the general privilege of asking alms through
-      all Scotland,&mdash;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 birth-day, 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 Johnson's "Hermit hoar" to his proselyte,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                   Come, my lad, and drink some beer.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <h4>
-      BLEW GOWNIS.
-    </h4>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-    In the Account of Sir Robert Melvill of Murdocarney,
-    Treasurer-Depute of King James VI., there are the following Payments:&mdash;
-
-                              "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 viii xx viii elnis clayth; price of the elne
-    xxiiij <i>s. </i>                             Inde, ij <i>c</i>j <i>li. </i>xij <i>s. </i>
-
-    "Item, for sextene elnis bukrum to the saidis gownis, price of the elne x
-    <i>s. </i>                                    Inde, viij <i>li. </i>
-
-    "Item, twentie four pursis, and in ilk purse twentie four schelling
-                                        Inde, xxciij <i>li. </i> xvj <i>s. </i>
-    "Item, the price of ilk purse iiij <i>d. </i>      Inde, viij <i>s. </i>
-
-    "Item, for making of the saidis gownis       viij <i>li.</i>"
-
-    In the Account of John, Earl of Mar, Great Treasurer of Scotland, and of
-    Sir Gideon Murray of Enbank, Treasurer-Depute, the Blue-Gowns also appear
-    thus:&mdash;
-
-
-                              "Junij 1617.
-
-   "Item, to James Murray, merchant, for fyftene scoir sex elnis and aine
-   half elne of blew claith to be gownis to fyftie ane aigeit men, according
-   to the yeiris of his Majesteis age, at xl <i>s. </i> the elne
-                                        Inde, vj <i>c</i> xiij <i>li. </i>
-
-    "Item, to workmen for careing the blewis to James Aikman, tailyeour, his
-    hous xiij <i>s. </i> iiij <i>d. </i>
-
-    "Item, for sex elnis and ane half of harden to the saidis gownis, at vj
-    <i>s. </i> viij <i>d. </i> the elne                 Inde, xliij <i>s. </i>iiij <i>d. </i>
-
-    "Item, to the said workmen for careing of the gownis fra the said James
-    Aikman's hous to the palace of Halyrudehous xviij <i>s. </i>
-
-    "Item, for making the saidis fyftie ane gownis, at xij <i>s. </i> the peice
-                                        Inde, xxx <i>li. </i>xij <i>s. </i>
-
-    "Item, for fyftie ane pursis to the said puire menlj <i>s. </i>
-
-    "Item, to Sir Peter Young, li <i>s. </i> to be put in everie ane of the saidis
-    ljpursis to the said poore men j <i>c</i>xxxl jj <i>s. </i>
-
-    "Item, to the said Sir Peter, to buy breid and drink to the said puir men
-    vj <i>li. </i>xiij <i>s. </i>iiij <i>d. </i>
-
-    "Item, to the said Sir Peter, to be delt amang uther puire folk j <i>c</i>li.
-
-    "Item, upoun the last day of Junii 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 <i>c li.</i>"
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The author has in his youth repeatedly seen and conversed 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 soldierlike or
-      military manner and address. His features were intelligent, with a
-      powerful expression of sarcasm. His motions 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. Andrew 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 Shakespeare's jesters, though without using, like them, the
-      cloak of insanity. It was some fear of Andrew's satire, as much as a
-      feeling 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
-      established character for wit glides through the fashionable world, Many
-      of his good things are held in remembrance, but are generally too local
-      and personal to be introduced here.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 Doctor 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 window 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, Dr. Douglas observed, that the laird was no
-      doubt a humourist 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      This singular mendicant had generally, or was supposed to have, much money
-      about his person, as would have been thought the value of his life among
-      modern foot-pads. On one occasion, a country gentleman, generally 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.&mdash;"I
-      can give you change for a note, laird," replied Andrew.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Like most who have arisen to the head of their profession, the modern
-      degradation which mendicity has undergone 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 <i>laudator temporis acti</i>
-      closed his wanderings, the author never heard with certainty; but most
-      probably, as Burns says,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                   &mdash;he died a cadger-powny's death,
-                          At some dike side.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The author may add another picture of the same kind as Edie Ochiltree and
-      Andrew Gemmells; considering these illustrations as a sort of gallery,
-      open to the reception of anything which may elucidate former manners, or
-      amuse the reader.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 Potterrow-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 Andrew Gemmells' sarcastic
-      humour and stately deportment. 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 where
-      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 Saturday, "on a shoulder of
-      mutton and potatoes," adding, "ye'll 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, considering the character and circumstances of the old man, to
-      decline the invitation.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Such are a few traits of Scottish mendicity, designed to throw light 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 importance
-      assigned him; and have shown, that we have known one beggar take a hand at
-      cards with a person of distinction, and another give dinner parties.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      I know not if it be worth while to observe, that the Antiquary,* was not
-      so well received on its first appearance as either of its predecessors,
-      though in course of time it rose to equal, and, with some readers,
-      superior popularity.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * Note A. Mottoes.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
-    </h2>
-    <h3>
-      TO
-    </h3>
-    <h3>
-      THE ANTIQUARY.
-    </h3>
-    <p>
-      "THE ANTIQUARY" was begun in 1815; the bargain for its publication by
-      Constable was made in the October of that year. On December 22 Scott wrote
-      to Morritt: "I shall set myself seriously to 'The Antiquary,' of which I
-      have only a very general sketch at present; but when once I get my pen to
-      the paper it will walk fast enough. I am sometimes tempted to leave it
-      alone, and try whether it will not write as well without the assistance of
-      my head as with it,&mdash;a hopeful prospect for the reader!'" It is
-      amazing enough that he even constructed "a general sketch," for to such
-      sketches he confesses that he never could keep constant. "I have generally
-      written to the middle of one of these novels without having the least idea
-      how it was to end,&mdash;in short, in the <i>hab nab at a venture style</i>
-      of composition" (Journal, Feb. 24, 1828). Yet it is almost impossible but
-      that the plot of "The Antiquary" should have been duly considered. Scott
-      must have known from the first who Lovel was to turn out to be, and must
-      have recognised in the hapless bride of Lord Glenallan the object of the
-      Antiquary's solitary and unfortunate passion. To introduce another
-      Wandering Heir immediately after the Harry Bertram of "Guy Mannering" was
-      rather audacious. But that old favourite, the Lost Heir, is nearly certain
-      to be popular. For the Antiquary's immortal sorrow Scott had a model in
-      his own experience. "What a romance to tell!&mdash;and told, I fear, it
-      will one day be. And then my three years of dreaming and my two years of
-      wakening will be chronicled doubtless. But the dead will feel no pain."
-      The dead, as Aristotle says, if they care for such things at all, care no
-      more than we do for what has passed in a dream.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The general sketch probably began to take full shape about the last day of
-      1815. On December 29 Scott wrote to Ballantyne:&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-
-          DEAR JAMES,&mdash;
-               I've done, thank'God, with the long yarns
-                   Of the most prosy of Apostles&mdash;Paul, 1
-               And now advance, sweet heathen of Monkbarns,
-                  Step out, old quizz, as fast as I can scrawl.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      In "The Antiquary" Scott had a subject thoroughly to his mind. He had been
-      an antiquary from his childhood. His earliest pence had been devoted to
-      that collection of printed ballads which is still at Abbotsford. These he
-      mentions in the unfinished fragment of his "Reliquiae Trotcosienses," in
-      much the same words as in his manuscript note on one of the seven volumes.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "This little collection of Stall tracts and ballads was formed by me, when
-      a boy, from the baskets of the travelling pedlars. Until put into its
-      present decent binding it had such charms for the servants that it was
-      repeatedly, and with difficulty, recovered from their clutches. It
-      contains most of the pieces that were popular about thirty years since,
-      and, I dare say, many that could not now be procured for any price
-      (1810)."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Nor did he collect only&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                      "The rare melody of some old ditties
-          That first were sung to please King Pepin's cradle.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "Walter had soon begun to gather out-of-the-way things of all sorts. He
-      had more books than shelves [sic]; a small painted cabinet with Scotch and
-      Roman coins in it, and so forth. A claymore and Lochaber axe, given him by
-      old Invernahyle, mounted guard on a little print of Prince Charlie; and
-      Broughton's Saucer was hooked up on the wall below it." He had entered
-      literature through the ruined gateway of archleology, in the "Border
-      Minstrelsy," and his last project was an edition of Perrault's "Contes de
-      Ma Mere l'Oie." As pleasant to him as the purchase of new lands like Turn
-      Again, bought dearly, as in Monkbarns's case, from "bonnet lauds," was a
-      fresh acquisition of an old book or of old armour. Yet, with all his
-      enthusiasm, he did not please the antiquaries of his own day. George
-      Chalmers, in Constable's "Life and Correspondence" (i. 431), sneers at his
-      want of learning. "His notes are loose and unlearned, as they generally
-      are." Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, his friend in life, disported himself in
-      jealous and ribald mockery of Scott's archaeological knowledge, when Scott
-      was dead. In a letter of the enigmatic Thomas Allen, or James Stuart Hay,
-      father of John Sobieski and Charles Edward Stuart, this mysterious person
-      avers that he never knew Scott's opinion to be held as of any value by
-      antiquaries (1829). They probably missed in him "a sort of pettifogging
-      intimacy with dates, names, and trifling matters of fact,&mdash;a tiresome
-      and frivolous accuracy of memory" which Sir Arthur Wardour reproves in
-      Monkbarns. Scott, in brief, was not as Dry-as-dust; all the dead bones
-      that he touches come to life. He was as great an archeologist as a poet
-      can be, and, with Virgil, was the greatest antiquary among poets. Like
-      Monkbarns, he was not incapable of being beguiled. As Oldbuck bought the
-      bodle from the pedlar at the price of a rare coin, so Scott took Surtees's
-      "Barthram's Dirge," and his Latin legend of the tourney with the spectre
-      knight, for genuine antiquities. No Edie Ochiltree ever revealed to him
-      the truth about these forgeries, and the spectre knight, with the ballad
-      of "Anthony Featherstonhaugh," hold their own in "Marmion," to assure the
-      world that this antiquary was gullible when the sleight was practised by a
-      friend. "Non est tanti," he would have said, had he learned the truth; for
-      he was ever conscious of the humorous side of the study of the mouldering
-      past. "I do not know anything which relieves the mind so much from the
-      sullens as a trifling discourse about antiquarian oldwomanries. It is like
-      knitting a stocking,&mdash;diverting the mind without occupying it."
-      ("Journal," March 9, 1828).
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Begun about Jan. 1, 1816, "The Antiquary" was published before May 16,
-      1816, when Scott writes to say that he has sent Mr. Morritt the novel
-      "some time since." "It is not so interesting as its predecessors; the
-      period does not admit of so much romantic situation. But it has been more
-      fortunate than any of them in the sale, for six thousand went off in the
-      first six days, and it is now at press again." The Preface of the first
-      edition ends with the melancholy statement that the author "takes his
-      respectful leave, as one who is not likely again to solicit favour."
-      Apparently Scott had already determined not to announce his next novels
-      ("The Black Dwarf" and "Old Mortality") as "by the Author of Waverley."
-      Mr. Constable, in the biography of his father, says (iii. 84): "Even
-      before the publication of 'The Antiquary,' John Ballantyne had been
-      impowered by the Author to negotiate with Mr. Murray and Mr. Blackwood for
-      the first series of the 'Tales of my Landlord.'" The note of withdrawal
-      from the stage, in the first edition of "The Antiquary," was probably only
-      a part of another experiment on public sagacity. As Lockhart says, Mr.
-      Murray and Mr. Blackwood thought that the consequent absence of the Author
-      of "Waverley's" name from the "Tales of my Landlord" would "check very
-      much the first success of the book;" but they risked this, "to disturb
-      Constable's tenure."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Scott's temporary desertion of Constable in the "Tales of my Landlord" may
-      have had various motives. There was a slight grudge against Constable,
-      born of some complications of the Ballantynes' affairs. Perhaps the mere
-      amusement of the experiment on public sagacity was one of the more
-      powerful reasons for the change. In our day Lord Lytton and Mr. Trollope
-      made similar trials of their popularity when anonymous, the former author
-      with the greater success. The idea of these masquerades and veils of the
-      incognito appears to have bewitched Constable. William Godwin was writing
-      for him his novel "Mandeville," and Godwin had obviously been counselled
-      to try a disguise. He says (Jan. 30, 1816) "I have amused my imagination a
-      thousand times since last we parted with the masquerade you devised for
-      me. The world is full of wonder. An old favourite is always reviewed with
-      coldness. . . . 'Pooh,' they say; 'Godwin has worn his pen to the stump!'
-      . . . But let me once be equipped with a significant mask and an unknown
-      character from your masquerade shop, and admitted to figure in with the
-      'Last Minstrel,' the 'Lady of the Lake,' and 'Guy Mannering' in the
-      Scottish carnival, Gods! how the boys and girls will admire me! 'Here is a
-      new wonder!' they will say. 'Ah, this is something like! Here is Godwin
-      beaten on his own ground. . . Here is for once a Scottish writer that they
-      cannot say has anything of the Scotchman about him.'"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      However, Mr. Godwin did not don the mask and domino. "Mandeville" came out
-      about the same time as "Rob Roy;" but the "craziness of the public" for
-      the Author of "Waverley" was not changed into a passion for the
-      father-in-law of Shelley.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "'The Antiquary,' after a little pause of hesitation, attained popularity
-      not inferior to 'Guy Mannering,' and though the author appears for a
-      moment to have shared the doubts which he read in the countenance of James
-      Ballantyne, it certainly was, in the sequel, his chief favourite among all
-      his novels.'"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As Scott said to Terry, "If a man will paint from nature, he will be
-      likely to amuse those who are daily looking at it." The years which saw
-      the first appearance of "Guy Mannering" also witnessed that of "Emma." By
-      the singular chance, or law, which links great authors closely in time,
-      giving us novelists in pairs, Miss Austen was "drawing from nature" at the
-      very moment when Scott was wedding nature with romance. How generously and
-      wisely he admired her is familiar, and it may, to some, seem curious that
-      he never deliberately set himself to a picture of ordinary life, free from
-      the intrusion of the unusual, of the heroic. Once, looking down at the
-      village which lies on the Tweed, opposite Melrose, he remarked that under
-      its roofs tragedies and tales were doubtless being lived. 'I undertake to
-      say there is some real romance at this moment going on down there, that,
-      if it could have justice done to it, would be well worth all the fiction
-      that was ever spun out of human brains.' But the example he gave was
-      terrible,&mdash;"anything more dreadful was never conceived by Crabbe;"
-      yet, adds Lockhart, "it would never have entered into his head to
-      elaborate such a tale." He could not dwell in the unbroken gloom dear to
-      some modern malingerers. But he could easily have made a tale of common
-      Scotch life, dark with the sorrow of Mucklebackit, and bright with the
-      mirth of Cuddie Headrigg. There was, however, this difficulty,&mdash;that
-      Scott cared not to write a story of a single class. "From the peer to the
-      ploughman," all society mingles in each of his novels. A fiction of
-      middle-class life did not allure him, and he was not at the best, but at
-      his worst, as Sydney Smith observed, in the light talk of society. He
-      could admire Miss Austen, and read her novels again and again; but had he
-      attempted to follow her, by way of variety, then inevitably wild as well
-      as disciplined humour would have kept breaking in, and his fancy would
-      have wandered like the old knights of Arthur's Court, "at adventure." "St.
-      Ronan's Well" proved the truth of all this. Thus it happens that, in "The
-      Antiquary," with all his sympathy for the people, with all his knowledge
-      of them, he does not confine himself to their cottages. As Lockhart says,
-      in his admirable piece of criticism, he preferred to choose topics in
-      which he could display "his highest art, that of skilful contrast."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Even the tragic romance of "Waverley" does not set off its Macwheebles and
-      Callum Begs better than the oddities of Jonathan Oldbuck and his circle
-      are relieved, on the one hand by the stately gloom of the Glenallans, on
-      the other by the stern affliction of the poor fisherman, who, when
-      discovered repairing "the auld black bitch of a boat," in which his boy
-      had been lost, and congratulated by his visitors on being capable of the
-      exertion, makes answer, "And what would you have me to do, unless I wanted
-      to see four children starve, because one is drowned? It 's weel with you
-      gentles, that can sit in the house with handkerchers at your een, when ye
-      lose a friend; but the like o' us maun to our work again, if our hearts
-      were beating as hard as ony hammer." And to his work again Scott had to go
-      when he lost the partner of his life.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The simple unsought charm which Lockhart notes in "The Antiquary" may have
-      passed away in later works, when what had been the amusement of happy days
-      became the task of sadness. But this magic "The Antiquary" keeps perhaps
-      beyond all its companions,&mdash;the magic of pleasant memories and
-      friendly associations. The sketches of the epoch of expected invasion,
-      with its patriotic musters and volunteer drillings, are pictures out of
-      that part in the author's life which, with his early Highland wanderings
-      ("Waverley") and his Liddesdale raids ("Guy Mannering"), was most dear to
-      him. In "Redgauntlet," again, he makes, as Alan Fairford, a return on his
-      youth and his home, and in "Rob Roy" he revives his Highland
-      recollections, his Highland lairds of "the blawing, bleezing stories."
-      None of the rest of the tales are so intimate in their connection with
-      Scott's own personal history. "The Antiquary" has always, therefore, been
-      held in the very first rank of his novels.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As far as plot goes, though Godwin denied that it had any story, "The
-      Antiquary" may be placed among the most careful. The underplot of the
-      Glenallans, gloomy almost beyond endurance, is very ingeniously made to
-      unravel the mystery of Lovel. The other side-narrative, that of
-      Dousterswivel, is the weak point of the whole; but this Scott justifies by
-      "very late instances of the force of superstitious credulity, to a much
-      greater extent." Some occurrence of the hour may have suggested the
-      knavish adept with his divining-rod. But facts are never a real excuse for
-      the morally incredible, or all but incredible, in fiction. On the wealth
-      and vraisemblance and variety of character it were superfluous to dilate.
-      As in Shakspeare, there is not even a minor person but lives and is of
-      flesh and blood, if we except, perhaps, Dousterswivel and Sir Arthur
-      Wardour. Sir Arthur is only Sir Robert Hazlewood over again, with a
-      slightly different folly and a somewhat more amiable nature. Lovel's
-      place, as usual, is among the shades of heroes, and his love-affair is far
-      less moving, far more summarily treated, than that of Jenny Caxon. The
-      skilful contrasts are perhaps most remarkable when we compare Elspeth of
-      the Burnfoot with the gossiping old women in the post-office at Fairport,&mdash;a
-      town studied perhaps from Arbroath. It was the opinion of Sydney Smith
-      that every one of the novels, before "The Fortunes of Nigel," contained a
-      Meg Merrilies and a Dominie Sampson. He may have recognized a male Meg in
-      Edie Ochiltree,&mdash;the invaluable character who is always behind a
-      wall, always overhears everything, and holds the threads of the plot. Or
-      he may have been hypercritical enough to think that Elspeth of the
-      Burnfoot is the Meg of the romance. Few will agree with him that Meg
-      Merrilies, in either of these cases, is "good, but good too often."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The supposed "originals" of certain persons in the tale have been topics
-      of discussion. The character of Oldbuck, like most characters in fiction,
-      is a combination of traits observed in various persons. Scott says, in a
-      note to the Ashiestiel fragment of Autobiography, that Mr. George
-      Constable, an old friend of his father's, "had many of those peculiarities
-      of character which long afterwards I tried to develop in the character of
-      Jonathan Oldbuck." Sir Walter, when a child, made Mr. Constable's
-      acquaintance at Prestonpans in 1777, where he explored the battle-field
-      "under the learned guidance of Dalgetty." Mr. Constable first introduced
-      him to Shakspeare's plays, and gave him his first German dictionary. Other
-      traits may have been suggested by John Clerk of Eldin, whose grandfather
-      was the hero of the story "Praetorian here, Praetorian there, I made it
-      wi' a flaughter spade." Lockhart is no doubt right in thinking that
-      Oldbuck is partly a caricature of Oldbuck's creator,&mdash;Sir Walter
-      indeed frankly accepted the kinship; and the book which he began on his
-      own collection he proposed to style "Reliquim Trotcosienses; or, the
-      Gabions of Jonathan Oldbuck."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Another person who added a few points to Oldbuck was "Sandy Gordon,"
-      author of the "Itinerarium Septentrionale" (1726), the very folio which
-      Monkbarns carried in the dilatory coach to Queensferry. Gordon had been a
-      student in the University of Aberdeen; he was an amateur in many arts, but
-      antiquarianism was his favourite hobby. He was an acquaintance of Sir John
-      Clerk of Eldin, the hero of the Praetorium. The words of Gordon in his
-      "Itinerarium," where he describes the battle of the Grampians, have
-      supplied, or suggested, the speech of Monkbarns at the Kaim of Kinprunes.
-      The great question was, Where is the Mons Grampius of Tacitus? Dismissing
-      Camden's Grantsbain, because he does not know where it is, Gordon says,
-      "As for our Scotch Antiquaries, they are so divided that some will have it
-      to be in the shire of Angus, or in the Mearns, some at the Blair of Athol
-      in Perthshire, or Ardoch in Strathallan, and others at Inverpeffery."
-      Gordon votes for Strathern, "half a mile short of the Kirk of Comrie."
-      This spot is both at the foot of the Montes Grampii, "and boasts a Roman
-      camp capable of holding an army fit to encounter so formidable a number as
-      thirty thousand Caledonians. . . . Here is the Porta Decumana, opposite
-      the Prcetoria, together with the dextra and sinistra gates," all
-      discovered by Sandy Gordon. "Moreover, the situation of the ground is so
-      very exact with the description given by Tacitus, that in all my travels
-      through Britain I never beheld anything with more pleasure. . . . Nor is
-      it difficult, in viewing this ground, to say where the Covinarii, or
-      Charioteers, stood. In fine, to an Antiquary, this is a ravishing scene."
-      He adds the argument "that Galgacus's name still remains on this ground,
-      for the moor on which the camp stood is called to this day Galdachan, or
-      Galgachan Rosmoor." All this lore Gordon illustrates by an immense chart
-      of a camp, and a picture of very small Montes Grampii, about the size and
-      shape of buns. The plate is dedicated to his excellency General Wade.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In another point Monkbapns borrows from Gordon. Sandy has a plate (page
-      20) of "The Roman Sacellum of Mars Signifer, vulgarly called 'Arthur's
-      Oon.' With regard to its shape, it is not unlike the famous Pantheon at
-      Rome before the noble Portico was added to it by Marcus Agrippa." Gordon
-      agrees with Stukeley in attributing Arthur's Oon to Agricola, and here
-      Monkbarns and Lovel adopt almost his words. "Time has left Julius
-      Agricola's very name on the place; . . . and if ever those initial letters
-      J. A. M. P. M. P. T., mentioned by Sir Robert Sibbald, were engraven on a
-      stone in this building, it may not be reckoned altogether absurd that they
-      should bear this reading, JULIUS AGRICOLA MAGNUS PIETATIS MONUMENTUM
-      POSUIT TEMPLUM; but this my reader may either accept or reject as he
-      pleases. However, I think it may be as probably received as that
-      inscription on Caligula's Pharos in Holland, which having these following
-      letters, C. C. P. F., is read Caius Caligula Pharum Fecit." "This,"
-      Monkbarns adds, "has ever been recorded as a sound exposition."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The character of Edie Ochiltree, Scott himself avers to have been
-      suggested by Andrew Gemmells, pleasantly described in the Introduction.
-      Mr. Chambers, in "Illustrations of the Author of 'Waverley," clears up a
-      point doubtful in Scott's memory, by saying that Geimells really was a
-      Blue-Gown. He rode a horse of his own, and at races was a bookmaker. He
-      once dropped at Rutherford, in Teviotdale, a clue of yarn containing
-      twenty guineas. Like Edie Ochiltree, he had served at Fontenoy. He died at
-      Roxburgh Newton in 1793, at the age of one hundred and five, according to
-      his own reckoning. "His wealth was the means of enriching a nephew in
-      Ayrshire, who is now (1825) a considerable landholder there, and belongs
-      to a respectable class of society."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      An old Irus of similar character patrolled Teviotdale, while Andrew
-      Gemmells was attached to Ettrick and Yarrow. This was Blind Willie Craw.
-      Willie was the Society Journal of Hawick, and levied blackmail on the
-      inhabitants. He is thus described by Mr. Grieve, in the Diary already
-      quoted: "He lived at Branxholme Town, in a free house set apart for the
-      gamekeeper, and for many a year carried all the bread from Hawick used in
-      my father's family. He came in that way at breakfast-time, and got a
-      wallet which he put it in, and returned at dinner-time with the 'bawbee
-      rows' and two loaves. He laid the town of Hawick under contribution for
-      bawbees, and he knew the history of every individual, and went rhyming
-      through the town from door to door; and as he knew something against every
-      one which they would rather wish should not be rehearsed, a bawbee put a
-      stop to the paragraph which they wished suppressed. Willie Craw was the
-      son of a gamekeeper of the duke's, and enjoyed a free house at Branxholme
-      Town as long as he lived."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Had Burns ever betaken himself to the gaberlunzie's life, which he speaks
-      of in one of his poems as "the last o't, the worst o't," he would have
-      proved a much more formidable satirist than poor Willie Craw, the last of
-      the "blind crowders." Burns wrote, of course, in a spirit of reckless
-      humour; but he could not, even in sport, have alluded to the life as
-      "suited to his habits and powers," had gaberlunzies been mere mendicants.
-      In Herd's collection of Ballads is one on the ancient Scottish beggar:&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                In Scotland there lived a humble beggar,
-                  He had nor house, nor hald, nor hame;
-                  But he was well liked by ilk a body,
-                And they gave him sunkets to rax his wame.
-
-                A sieve fu' o' meal, a handfu' o' groats,
-                  A dad o' a bannock, or pudding bree,
-                  Cauld porridge, or the lickings o' plates,
-                Wad make him as blythe as a body could be.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The dress and trade of the beggar are said to have been adopted by James
-      V. in his adventures, and tradition attributes to him a song, "The
-      Gaberlunzie Man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      One of Edie's most charming traits is his readiness to "fight for his
-      dish, like the laird for his land," when a French invasion was expected.
-      Scott places the date of "The False Alarm," when he himself rode a hundred
-      miles to join his regiment, on Feb. 2, 1804.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lockhart gives it as an event of 1805 (vol. ii. p. 275). The occasion gave
-      great pleasure to Scott, on account of the patriotism and courage
-      displayed by all classes. "Me no muckle to fight for?" says Edie. "Isna
-      there the country to fight for, and the burns I gang dandering beside, and
-      the hearths o' the gudewives that gie me my bit bread, and the bits o'
-      weans that come toddling to play wi' me when I come about a landward
-      town?" Edie had fought at Fontenoy, and was of the old school. Scott would
-      have been less pleased with a recruit from St. Boswells, on the Tweed.
-      This man was a shoemaker, John Younger, a very intelligent and worthy
-      person, famous as an angler and writer on angling, who has left an account
-      of the "False Alarm" in his memoirs. His view was that the people, unlike
-      Edie, had nothing to fight for, that only the rich had any reason to be
-      patriotic, that the French had no quarrel with the poor. In fact, Mr.
-      Younger was a cosmopolitan democrat, and sneered at the old Border glories
-      of the warlike days. Probably, however, he would have done his duty, had
-      the enemy landed, and, like Edie, might have remembered the "burns he
-      dandered beside," always with a fishingrod in his hand.
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-     The Editor cannot resist the temptation to add that the patriotic
-     lady mentioned in Scott's note, who "would rather have seen her son
-     dead on that hearth than hear that he had been a horse's length
-     behind his companions," was his paternal great-grandmother, Mrs.
-     John Lang. Her husband, who died shortly afterwards, so that she was
-     a widow when Scott conversed with her, chanced to be chief
-     magistrate of Selkirk. His family was aroused late one night by the
-     sound of a carriage hurrying down the steep and narrow street. Lord
-     Napier was bringing, probably from Hawick, the tidings that the
-     beacons were ablaze. The town-bell was instantly rung, the
-     inhabitants met in the marketplace, where Scott's statue now stands,
-     and the whole force, with one solitary exception, armed and marched
-     to Dalkeith. According to the gentleman whose horse and arms were
-     sent on to meet him, it was intended, if the French proved
-     victorious, that the population of the Border towns should abandon
-     their homes and retire to the hills.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      No characters in the "Antiquary," except Monkbarns and Edie Ochiltree,
-      seem to have been borrowed from notable originals. The frauds of
-      Dousterswivel, Scott says, are rendered plausible by "very late instances
-      of the force of superstitious credulity to a much greater extent." He can
-      hardly be referring to the career of Cagliostro, but he may have had in
-      his memory some unsuccessful mining speculations by Charles Earl of
-      Traquair, who sought for lead and found little or none in Traquair hills.
-      The old "Statistical Account of Scotland" (vol. xii. p. 370) says nothing
-      about imposture, and merely remarks that "the noble family of Traquair
-      have made several attempts to discover lead mines, and have found
-      quantities of the ore of that metal, though not adequate to indemnify the
-      expenses of working, and have therefore given up the attempt." This was
-      published in 1794, so twenty years had passed when "The Antiquary" was
-      written. If there was here an "instance of superstitious credulity," it
-      was not "a very late instance." The divining, or "dowsing," rod of
-      Dousterswivel still keeps its place in mining superstition and in the
-      search for wells.
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-With "The Antiquary" most contemporary reviews of the novels lose their
-interest. Their author had firmly established his position, at least till
-"The Monastery" caused some murmurings. Even the "Quarterly Review" was
-infinitely more genial in its reception of "The Antiquary" than of "Guy
-Mannering." The critic only grumbled at Lovel's feverish dreams, which,
-he thought, showed an intention to introduce the marvellous. He
-complained of "the dark dialect of Anglified Erse," but found comfort in
-the glossary appended. The "Edinburgh Review" pronounced the chapter on
-the escape from the tide to be "I the very best description we have ever
-met, inverse or in prose, in ancient or in modern writing." No reviewer
-seems to have noticed that the sun is made to set in the sea, on the east
-coast of Scotland. The "Edinburgh," however, declared that the Antiquary,
-"at least in so far as he is an Antiquary," was the chief blemish on the
-book. The "sweet heathen of Monkbarns" has not suffered from this
-disparagement. The "British Critic" pledged its reputation that Scott was
-the author. If an argument were wanted, "it would be that which has been
-applied to prove the authenticity of the last book of the Iliad,&mdash;that
-Homer must have written it, because no one else could." Alas! that
-argument does not convince German critics.
-                                            ANDREW LANG.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER FIRST.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-               Go call a coach, and let a coach be called,
-               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.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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 Scotland, provided himself with a ticket in one of those
-      public 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 possession. 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," <i>anglice,</i> a cellar, opening to the High
-      Street by a straight and steep stair, at the bottom of which she sold
-      tape, thread, needles, skeins of worsted, coarse linen 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 numerous articles which, piled on each side of
-      the descent, indicated the profession of the trader below.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The written hand-bill, which, pasted on a projecting board, announced that
-      the Queensferry Diligence, or Hawes Fly, departed precisely at twelve
-      o'clock on Tuesday, the fifteenth July 17&mdash;, in order to secure for
-      travellers the opportunity of passing the Firth with the flood-tide, lied
-      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 Automedon, that, in such cases, a little space was
-      to be allowed for the chance of filling up the vacant places&mdash;or the
-      said Automedon might have been attending a funeral, and be delayed by the
-      necessity of stripping his vehicle of its lugubrious trappings&mdash;or he
-      might have staid to take a half-mutchkin extraordinary with his crony the
-      hostler&mdash;or&mdash;in short, he did not make his appearance.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The young gentleman, who began to grow somewhat impatient, was now joined
-      by a companion in this petty misery of human life&mdash;the person who had
-      taken out the other place. He who is bent upon a journey is usually 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 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 arrangement for his baggage before the arrival of his
-      competitors. 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      He was a good-looking man of the age of sixty, perhaps older,&mdash;but
-      his hale complexion and firm step announced 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 enlivened
-      by a cast of ironical humour. His dress was uniform, and of a colour
-      becoming his age and gravity; a wig, well dressed and powdered, 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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&mdash;I am too late after all!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The young man relieved his anxiety, by telling him the coach had not yet
-      appeared. The old gentleman, apparently conscious of his own want of
-      punctuality, did not 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&mdash;&mdash;, that if he had known he was to have had
-      so much time, he would have put another word or two to their bargain,&mdash;then
-      told the boy to mind his business, and he would be as thriving a lad as
-      ever dusted a duodecimo. 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      At length, after one or two impatient glances at the progress of the
-      minute-hand of the clock, having compared 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Good woman,&mdash;what the d&mdash;l is her name?&mdash;Mrs. Macleuchar!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mrs. Macleuchar,&mdash;Good woman" (with an elevated voice)&mdash;then
-      apart, "Old doited hag, she's as deaf as a post&mdash;I say, Mrs.
-      Macleuchar!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am just serving a customer.&mdash;Indeed, hinny, it will no be a bodle
-      cheaper than I tell ye."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Woman," reiterated the traveller, "do you think we can stand here all day
-      till you have cheated that poor servant wench out of her half-year's fee
-      and bountith?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Cheated!" retorted Mrs. Macleuchar, eager to take up the quarrel upon a
-      defensible ground; "I scorn your words, sir: you are an uncivil person,
-      and I desire you will not stand there, to slander me at my ain
-      stair-head."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The woman," said the senior, looking with an arch glance at his destined
-      travelling companion, "does not understand the words of action.&mdash;Woman,"
-      again turning to the vault, "I arraign not thy character, but I desire to
-      know what is become of thy coach?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What's your wull?" answered Mrs. Macleuchar, relapsing into deafness.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We have taken places, ma'am," said the younger stranger, "in your
-      diligence for Queensferry"&mdash;&mdash;"Which should have been half-way
-      on the road before now," continued 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&mdash;and your
-      cursed coach"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The coach?&mdash;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?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What else could have kept us broiling in the sun by the side of the
-      gutter here, you&mdash;you faithless woman, eh?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 exclaimed, with well-feigned
-      astonishment, "Gude guide us&mdash;saw ever onybody the like o' that?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes, you abominable woman," vociferated the traveller, "many have seen
-      the like of it, and all will see the like of it that have anything to do
-      with your trolloping sex;" then pacing with great indignation before the
-      door of the shop, still as he passed and repassed, like a vessel who gives
-      her broadside as she comes abreast of a hostile fortress, he shot down
-      complaints, threats, and reproaches, on the embarrassed Mrs. Macleuchar.
-      He would take a post-chaise&mdash;he would call a hackney coach&mdash;he
-      would take four horses&mdash;he must&mdash;he would be on the north side,
-      to-day&mdash;and all the expense of his journey, besides damages, direct
-      and consequential, arising from delay, should be accumulated on the
-      devoted head of Mrs. Macleuchar.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      There, was something so comic in his pettish resentment, 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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?&mdash;Dost thou know the consequence of seducing the lieges by false
-      reports?&mdash;dost thou know it might be brought under the statute of
-      leasing-making? Answer&mdash;and for once in thy long, useless, and evil
-      life, let it be in the words of truth and sincerity,&mdash;hast thou such
-      a coach?&mdash;is it <i>in rerum natura?</i>&mdash;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?&mdash;Hast
-      thou, I say, such a coach? ay or no?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O dear, yes, sir; the neighbours ken the diligence weel, green picked oat
-      wi' red&mdash;three yellow wheels and a black ane."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Woman, thy special description will not serve&mdash;it may be only a lie
-      with a circumstance."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O, man, man!" said the overwhelmed Mrs. Macleuchar, totally exhausted at
-      having been so long the butt of his rhetoric, "take back your three
-      shillings, and make me quit o' ye."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not so fast, not so fast, woman&mdash;Will three shillings transport me
-      to Queensferry, agreeably to thy treacherous program?&mdash;or will it
-      requite the damage I may sustain by leaving my business undone, or repay
-      the expenses which I must disburse if I am obliged to tarry a day at the
-      South Ferry for lack of tide?&mdash;Will it hire, I say, a pinnace, for
-      which alone the regular price is five shillings?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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
-      dispatch 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 window 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. Macleuchar, should be held
-      responsible for all the consequences that might ensue.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 colophon. 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 relish, or
-      perhaps understand, his answer, and pronounced the book to be Sandy
-      Gordon's <i>Itinerarium Septentrionale,</i>* a book illustrative of the
-      Roman remains in Scotland.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * Note B. Sandy Gordon's <i>Itinerarium.</i>
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The querist, unappalled 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 acquaintance enough with the classics to render him
-      an interested and intelligent auditor when they were enlarged upon. The
-      elder traveller, observing with pleasure the capacity of his temporary
-      companion to understand and answer him, plunged, nothing loath, into a sea
-      of discussion concerning urns, vases, votive, altars, Roman camps, and the
-      rules of castrametation.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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. Macleuchar,
-      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
-      disquisition than the retardation of his journey.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 apprized the coachman of
-      this important deficiency. "It's Jamie Martingale that furnishes the naigs
-      on contract, and uphauds them," answered John, "and I am not entitled to
-      make any stop, or to suffer prejudice by the like of these accidents."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And when you go to&mdash;I mean to the place you deserve to go to, you
-      scoundrel,&mdash;who do you think will uphold <i>you</i> 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      I like so little to analyze the complication of the causes which influence
-      actions, that I will not venture to ascertain whether our Antiquary's
-      humanity to the poor horse was not in some degree aided by his desire of
-      showing his companion a Pict's camp, or Round-about, a subject 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 suffered 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 sea-weed, which were
-      visible along the skirts of the shore, that the hour of tide was past. The
-      young traveller 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
-      actually 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The d&mdash;l's in the diligence and the old hag, it belongs to!&mdash;Diligence,
-      quoth I? Thou shouldst have called it the Sloth&mdash;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'll
-      have a snack here at the Hawes, which is a very decent sort of a place,
-      and I'll be very happy to finish the account I was giving you of the
-      difference between the mode of entrenching <i>castra stativa</i> and <i>castra
-      aestiva,</i> 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!&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In this Christian temper of making the best of all occurrences, our
-      travellers alighted at the Hawes.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER SECOND.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-              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 butter-milk, 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. <i>Sack,</i> says my bush,
-             <i>Be merry and drink Sherry,</i> that's my posie.
-                        Ben Jonson's <i>New Inn.</i>
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ye donnard auld deevil," answered his guest, his Scottish accent
-      predominating when in anger though otherwise not particularly remarkable,&mdash;"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?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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&mdash;"That's very true,&mdash;but
-      I thought ye had some law affair of your ain to look after&mdash;I have
-      ane mysell&mdash;a ganging plea that my father left me, and his father
-      afore left to him. It's about our back-yard&mdash;ye'll maybe hae heard of
-      it in the Parliament-house, Hutchison against Mackitchinson&mdash;it's a
-      weel-kenn'd plea&mdash;its 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.&mdash;O it's a beautiful thing to see how lang and how
-      carefully justice is considered in this country!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou, there's fish, nae doubt,&mdash;that's sea-trout and caller haddocks,"
-      said Mackitchinson, twisting his napkin; "and ye'll be for a mutton-chop,
-      and there's cranberry tarts, very weel preserved, and&mdash;and there's
-      just ony thing else ye like."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, na," said Mackitchinson, whose long and heedful perusal of volumes of
-      printed session papers had made him acquainted with some law phrases&mdash;"the
-      denner shall be served <i>quam primum</i> and that <i>peremptorie.</i>"
-      And with the flattering laugh of a promising host, he left them in his
-      sanded parlour, hung with prints of the Four Seasons.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As, notwithstanding his pledge to the contrary, the glorious delays of the
-      law were not without their parallel 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 sufficient 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Jonathan Oldenbuck, or Oldinbuck, by popular contraction Oldbuck, of
-      Monkbarns, was the second son of a gentleman possessed of a small property
-      in the neighbourhood of a thriving seaport town on the north-eastern coast
-      of Scotland, which, for various reasons, we shall denominate Fairport.
-      They had been established 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&mdash;&mdash;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, like the burghers of the town near which they
-      were settled, were steady assertors of the Protestant 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
-      country in consequence of the persecutions directed against the professors
-      of the Reformed religion. He had found 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 Monkbarns, 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 interest, 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 <i>Forty-twa,</i> who had no other fortune but his commission and a
-      Highland pedigree. Poverty disturbed a union which love would otherwise
-      have made happy, and Captain M'Intyre, 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 off, and no news ever 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 uncertainty,
-      and left a son and daughter to the charge of her brother, the existing
-      Laird of Monkbarns.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 persuaded to apply it to lucrative and
-      practical purposes. It was not from any inconsiderate neglect of the
-      advantages attending the possession of money that he thus deceived the
-      hopes of his master. "Were he thoughtless or light-headed, or <i>rei suae
-      prodigus,</i>" 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 wilt
-      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 routine, that would put twenty
-      shillings in his pocket&mdash;a strange mixture of frugality and industry,
-      and negligent indolence&mdash;I don't know what to make of him."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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
-      consequence of a cold caught in his vocation, while shooting ducks in the
-      swamp called Kittlefittingmoss, notwithstanding 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 expenditure; 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 affected to divide himself
-      from their rank in society, and whose studies and pleasures seemed to them
-      alike incomprehensible. 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 little intercourse with Mr. Oldbuck of Monkbarns. He,
-      had, however, the usual resources, the company of the clergyman, and of
-      the doctor, when he chose to request it, and also his own pursuits and
-      pleasures, being in correspondence with most of the virtuosi of his time,
-      who, like 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
-      Fairport, 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 <i>jibb</i> 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      During the time of dinner, Mr. Oldbuck, actuated by the same curiosity
-      which his fellow-traveller had entertained on his account, made some
-      advances, which his age and station entitled him to do in a more direct
-      manner, towards ascertaining the name, destination, and quality of his
-      young companion.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      His name, the young gentleman said, was Lovel.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What! the cat, the rat, and Lovel our dog? Was he descended from King
-      Richard's favourite?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He had no pretensions," he said, "to call himself a whelp of that litter;
-      his father was a north-of-England gentleman. He was at present travelling
-      to Fairport (the town near to which Monkbarns was situated), and, if he
-      found the place agreeable, might perhaps remain there for some weeks."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Was Mr. Lovel's excursion solely for pleasure?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not entirely."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Perhaps on business with some of the commercial people of Fairport?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It was partly on business, but had no reference to commerce."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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
-      affirming that a little punch was more genuine and better 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
-      appeared bearing in his hand an immense double quart bottle, or magnum, as
-      it is called in Scotland, covered with saw-dust and cobwebs, the warrants
-      of its antiquity.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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'."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What do you mean, you impudent rascal?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, ay, it's nae matter for that&mdash;but do you mind the trick ye
-      served me the last time ye were here!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I trick you!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, just yoursell, Monkbarns. The Laird o' Tamlowrie and Sir Gilbert
-      Grizzlecleuch, and Auld Rossballoh, and the Bailie, were just setting in
-      to make an afternoon o't, and you, wi' some o' 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&mdash;Ah, sir!" turning to Lovel, "he wad wile
-      the bird aff the tree wi' the tales he tells about folk lang syne&mdash;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?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "D'ye hear the impudent scoundrel!" said Monkbarns, but laughing at the
-      same time; for the worthy landlord, as he used to boast, know the measure
-      of a guest's foot as well as e'er a souter on this side Solway; "well,
-      well, you may send us in a bottle of port."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Do you hear how absolute the knave is? Well, my young friend, we must for
-      once prefer the <i>Falernian</i> to the <i>vile Sabinum.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The ready landlord had the cork instantly extracted, decanted the wine
-      into a vessel of suitable capaciousness, and, declaring it <i>parfumed</i>
-      the very room, left his guests to make the most of it.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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
-      dramatists; a ground on which he found his new acquaintance so strong,
-      that at length he began to suspect he had made them his professional
-      study. "A traveller partly for business and partly for pleasure?&mdash;why,
-      the stage partakes of both; it is a labour to the performers, and affords,
-      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.&mdash;If
-      this should be thee, Lovel!&mdash;Lovel? yes, Lovel or Belville are just
-      the names which youngsters are apt to assume on such occasions&mdash;on my
-      life, I am sorry for the lad."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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
-      liberality, and only acquiesced in deference to his years and
-      respectability.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The mutual satisfaction which they found in each other's society induced
-      Mr. Oldbuck to propose, and Lovel willingly to accept, a scheme for
-      travelling together to the end of their journey. Mr. Oldbuck intimated 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 shilling into the hand of a growling postilion;
-      for Oldbuck, tenacious of ancient customs, never extended his guerdon
-      beyond eighteen-pence a stage. In this manner they travelled, until they
-      arrived at Fairport* about two o'clock on the following day.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * [The "Fairport" of this novel is supposed to refer to the town of *
-      Arbroath, in Forfarshire, and "Musselcrag," <i>post,</i> to the fishing
-      village of * Auchmithie, in the same county.]
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel probably expected that his travelling companion 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 convenient 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER THIRD.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                 He had a routh o' auld nick-nackets,
-                 Rusty airn caps, and jinglin-jackets,
-               Would held the Loudons three in tackets,
-                            A towmond gude;
-               And parritch-pats, and auld sayt-backets,
-                           Afore the flude.
-                                           Burns.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      After he had settled himself in his new apartments at Fairport, Mr. Lovel
-      bethought him of paying the requested 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 Edinburgh, 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 commanded a fine prospect of the bay and
-      shipping. Secluded 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 little 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 steward, 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 <i>topiarian</i> artist,* and presented curious arm-chairs, towers,
-      and the figures of Saint George and the Dragon.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * <i>Ars Topiaria,</i> the art of clipping yew-hedges into fantastic
-      figures. A Latin poem, entitled <i>Ars Topiaria,</i> contains a curious
-      account of the process.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The taste of Mr. Oldbuck did not disturb these monuments 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Mr. Oldbuck immediately rose, and advanced to greet 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I hope, my good sir, I should have fallen under no such imputation."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Quite as bad, let me tell you, if you had stolen yourself away without
-      giving me the pleasure of seeing you again. I had rather you had taken my
-      copper Otho himself.&mdash;But come, let me show you the way into my <i>sanctum
-      sanctorum</i>&mdash;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 established themselves
-      in my premises, I live here as much a Coenobite as my predecessor, John o'
-      the Girnell, whose grave I will show you by and by."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 inscription, 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&mdash;and all to no purpose&mdash;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 we know,
-      <i>aliunde,</i> that it was founded by Abbot Waldimir about the middle of
-      the fourteenth century&mdash;and, I profess, I think that centre ornament
-      might be made out by better eyes than mine."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I think," answered Lovel, willing to humour the old man, "it has
-      something the appearance of a mitre."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I protest you are right! you are right! it never struck me before&mdash;see
-      what it is to have younger eyes&mdash;A mitre&mdash;a mitre&mdash;it
-      corresponds in every respect."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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&mdash;"A mitre,
-      my dear sir, will suit our abbot as well as a bishop&mdash;he was a mitred
-      abbot, and at the very top of the roll&mdash;take care of these three
-      steps&mdash;I know Mac-Cribb denies this, but it is as certain as that he
-      took away my Antigonus, no leave asked&mdash;you'll see the name of the
-      Abbot of Trotcosey, <i>Abbas Trottocosiensis,</i> at the head of the rolls
-      of parliament in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries&mdash;there is
-      very little light here, and these cursed womankind always leave their tubs
-      in the passage&mdash;now take, care of the corner&mdash;ascend twelve
-      steps, and ye are safe!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="image-0005" id="image-0005">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
-    </p>
-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/pa026.jpg" alt="The Antiquary and Lovel--the Sanctum "
-      width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
-      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 barefooted chambermaid threw down her
-      duster, detected in the heinous fact of arranging the <i>sanctum
-      sanctorum,</i> and fled out of an opposite door from the face of her
-      incensed master. A genteel-looking young woman, who was superintending the
-      operation, stood her ground, but with some timidity.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And how dare you, or Jenny either, presume to meddle with my private
-      matters?" (Mr. Oldbuck hated <i>puttting to rights</i> 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.&mdash;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
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                    My copperplate, with almanacks
-                    Engraved upon't and other knacks
-                    My moon-dial, with Napier's bones,
-                    And several constellation Stones;
-                    My flea, my morpeon, and punaise,
-                      I purchased for my proper ease.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      And so forth, as old Butler has it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The young lady, after courtesying to Lovel, had taken the opportunity to
-      make her escape during this enumeration of losses. "You'll be poisoned
-      here with the volumes of dust they have raised," continued the Antiquary;
-      "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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 lighted by high narrow
-      latticed 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 littered the floor and the tables, amid a chaos of maps,
-      engraving, 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 them. 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 understand. The rest of the room was
-      panelled, or wainscotted, with black oak, against which hung two or three
-      portraits 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 profusion of papers, parchments, books, and nondescript
-      trinkets and gewgaws, which seemed to have little 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 superstitious
-      eye, might have presented the <i>genius loci,</i> the tutelar demon of the
-      apartment. The floor, as well as the table and chairs, was overflowed by
-      the same <i>mare magnum</i> 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 received damage, and of
-      antique spurs and buckles, which would certainly have occasioned it to any
-      sudden occupant. Of this the Antiquary made Lovel particularly aware,
-      adding, that his friend, the Rev. Doctor Heavysterne from the Low
-      Countries, had sustained much injury by sitting down suddenly and
-      incautiously on three ancient calthrops, or <i>craw-taes,</i> which had
-      been lately dug up in the bog near Bannockburn, and which, dispersed by
-      Robert Bruce to lacerate the feet of the English chargers, came thus in
-      process of time to endamage the sitting part of a learned professor of
-      Utrecht.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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, 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 peregrinations
-      from their mountains; but Mr. Oldbuck was strongly tempted to believe,
-      that, as its shape was singular, it might have been one of the clubs with
-      which the monks armed their peasants in lieu of more martial weapons,&mdash;whence,
-      he observed, the villains were called <i>Colve-carles,</i> or <i>Kolb-kerls,</i>
-      that is, <i>Clavigeri,</i> or club-bearers. For the truth of this custom,
-      he quoted the chronicle of Antwerp and that of St. Martin; against which
-      authorities Lovel had nothing to oppose, having never heard of them till
-      that moment.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 lieu 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;&mdash;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&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-               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.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 sufficient 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 imitated 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 middle-men, 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.&mdash;"Davy Wilson," he said, "commonly called
-      Snuffy Davy, from his inveterate addiction to 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 <i>editio princeps</i> under the mask of a
-      school Corderius. Snuffy Davy 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 inimitable 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!&mdash;Could a copy now
-      occur, Lord only knows," he ejaculated, with a deep sigh and lifted-up
-      hands&mdash;"Lord only knows what would be its ransom; and yet it was
-      originally secured, by skill and research, for the easy equivalent of
-      two-pence sterling. * Happy, thrice happy, Snuffy Davie!&mdash;and blessed
-      were the times when thy industry could be so rewarded!
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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&mdash;a
-      very few things, which I have collected, not by force of money, as any
-      wealthy man might,&mdash;although, as my friend Lucian says, he might
-      chance to throw away his coin only to illustrate his ignorance,&mdash;but
-      gained in a manner that shows I know something of the matter. See this
-      bundle of ballads, not one of them later 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, mutilated 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 memoranda and trophies of many a
-      walk by night and morning through the Cowgate, the Canongate, the Bow, St.
-      Mary's Wynd,&mdash;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!&mdash;how have I trembled, lest some passing stranger should
-      chop in between me and the prize, and regarded each poor student of
-      divinity that stopped to turn over the books at the stall, as a rival
-      amateur, or prowling bookseller in disguise!&mdash;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!&mdash;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, shrouding 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!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel was not a little amused at hearing the old gentleman run on in this
-      manner, and, however incapable of entering into the full merits of what he
-      beheld, he admired, 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
-      improvements, 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&mdash;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 quality of scarcity, or
-      rare occurrence, was attached to it.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Not the least fascinating was the original broadside,&mdash;the Dying
-      Speech, Bloody Murder, or Wonderful Wonder of Wonders,&mdash;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 example, piqued himself
-      especially in possessing an <i>unique</i> 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 Air on the 26th of
-      July 1610, 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 Continuations; 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. Colley, living in West Smithfield, and attested by Thomas
-      Brown, Elizabeth Greenaway, and Anne Gutheridge, who were Spectators of
-      the dreadful Apparitions: 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."*
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * Of this thrice and four times rare broadside, the author possesses an
-      exemplar.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You laugh at this," said the proprietor of the collection, "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.&mdash;Yet stay, I have
-      one piece of antiquity, which you, perhaps, will prize more highly."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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, into 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 in Teniers' 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. "I will say nothing of
-      the server," he remarked, "though it is said to have been wrought by the
-      old mad Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini. But, Mr. Lovel, our ancestors drank
-      sack&mdash;you, who admire the drama, know where that's to be found.&mdash;Here's
-      success to your exertions at Fairport, sir!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And to you, sir, and an ample increase to your treasure, with no more
-      trouble on your part than is just necessary to make the acquisitions
-      valuable."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      After a libation 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
-      curiosity on his return to Fairport.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER FOURTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                The pawkie 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 puir man?
-                                  The Gaberlunzie Man.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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
-      gardening. 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, "which 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:&mdash;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 pleasure 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 Cringlecut 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.&mdash;Admire the little belfry
-      rising above the ivy-mantled porch&mdash;there was here a <i>hospitium,
-      hospitale,</i> or <i>hospitamentum</i> (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 <i>hospitium</i> was situated either in the lands of
-      Haltweary or upon those of Half-starvet; but he is incorrect, Mr. Lovel&mdash;that
-      is the gate called still the Palmer's Port, and my gardener found many
-      hewn stones, when he was trenching 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It commands a fine view," said his companion, looking around him.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "True: but it is not for the prospect I brought you hither; do you see
-      nothing else remarkable?&mdash;nothing on the surface of the ground?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, yes; I do see something like a ditch, indistinctly marked."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indistinctly!&mdash;pardon me, sir, but the indistinctness must be in
-      your powers of vision. Nothing can be more plainly traced&mdash;a proper
-      <i>agger</i> or <i>vallum,</i> with its corresponding ditch or <i>fossa.</i>
-      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!&mdash;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!&mdash;why, you
-      must suppose that fools, boors, and idiots, have ploughed up the land,
-      and, like 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!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel endeavoured to apologize, 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel having again acquiesced, and at length lulled to sleep the irritated
-      and suspicious vanity of the Antiquary, 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 Innerpeffry, 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 complacent looks, "what would you think, Mr. Lovel,&mdash;I say,
-      what would you think,&mdash;if the memorable scene of conflict 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 communication 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&mdash;lo! yonder they are, mixing and contending with
-      the sky on the skirts of the horizon! It was <i>in conspectu classis</i>&mdash;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 astonishing how
-      blind we professed antiquaries sometimes are! Sir Robert Sibbald, Saunders
-      Gordon, General Roy, Dr. Stokely,&mdash;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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * A bonnet-laird signifies a petty proprietor, wearing the dress, along
-      with the habits of a yeoman.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      At length&mdash;I am almost ashamed to say it&mdash;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 celebrated an
-      event became my own, I was overpaid.&mdash;Whose patriotism would not grow
-      warmer, as old Johnson says, on the plains of Marathon? I began to trench
-      the 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 off with plaster of Paris; it bears a sacrificing vessel,
-      and the letters A. D. L. L. which may stand, without much violence, for <i>Agricola
-      Dicavit Libens Lubens.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Certainly, sir; for the Dutch Antiquaries claim Caligula as the founder
-      of a light-house, on the sole authority of the letters C. C. P. F., which
-      they interpret <i>Caius Caligula Pharum Fecit.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "True, and it has ever been recorded as a sound exposition. 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In time, sir, and by good instruction"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "&mdash;You will become more apt&mdash;I doubt it not. You shall peruse,
-      upon your next visit to Monkbarns, my trivial Essay upon Castrametation,
-      with some particular Remarks upon the Vestiges of Ancient Fortifications
-      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 general 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 line,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-               Ille Caledoniis posuit qui castra pruinis.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      For <i>pruinis,</i> though interpreted to mean <i>hoar frosts,</i> to
-      which I own we are somewhat subject in this north-eastern sea-coast, may
-      also signify a locality, namely, <i>Prunes;</i> the <i>Castra Pruinis
-      posita</i> 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 <i>porta
-      sinistra,</i> and on the right, one side of the <i>porta dextra</i>
-      wellnigh entire. Here, then, let us take our stand, on this tumulus,
-      exhibiting the foundation of ruined buildings,&mdash;the central point&mdash;the
-      <i>praetorium,</i> 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,&mdash;the infantry rising rank over rank, as the form of ground
-      displayed their array to its utmost advantage,&mdash;the cavalry and <i>covinarii,</i>
-      by which I understand the charioteers&mdash;another guise of folks from
-      your Bond-street four-in-hand men, I trow&mdash;scouring the more level
-      space below&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                       &mdash;See, then, Lovel&mdash;See&mdash;
-            See that huge battle moving from the mountains!
-        Their gilt coats shine like dragon scales;&mdash;their march
-        Like a rough tumbling storm.&mdash;See them, and view them,
-                       And then see Rome no more!&mdash;
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Yes, my dear friend, from this stance it is probable&mdash;nay, it is
-      nearly certain, that Julius Agricola beheld what our Beaumont has so
-      admirably described!&mdash;From this very Praetorium"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A voice from behind interrupted his ecstatic description&mdash;"Praetorian
-      here, Praetorian there, I mind the bigging o't."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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:&mdash;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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What is that you say, Edie?" said Oldbuck, hoping, perhaps, that his ears
-      had betrayed their duty&mdash;"what were you speaking about!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "About this bit bourock, your honour," answered the undaunted Edie; "I
-      mind the bigging o't."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The devil you do! Why, you old fool, it was here before you were born,
-      and will be after you are hanged, man!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hanged or drowned, here or awa, dead or alive, I mind the bigging o't."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You&mdash;you&mdash;you&mdash;," said the Antiquary, stammering between
-      confusion and anger, "you strolling old vagabond, what the devil do you
-      know about it?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou, I ken this about it, Monkbarns&mdash;and what profit have I for
-      telling ye a lie?&mdash;l just ken this about it, that about twenty years
-      syne, I, and a wheen hallenshakers like mysell, and the mason-lads that
-      built the lang dike 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&mdash;the&mdash;Praetorian,
-      and a' just for a bield at auld Aiken Drum's bridal, and a bit blithe
-      gae-down wi' had in't, some sair rainy weather. Mair by token, Monkbarns,
-      if ye howk up the bourock, as ye seem to have began, yell find, if ye hae
-      not fund it already, 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. L. L.&mdash;Aiken Drum's Lang Ladle&mdash;for Aiken was ane o' the
-      kale-suppers o' Fife."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "This," thought Lovel to himself, "is a famous counterpart to the story of
-      <i>Keip on this syde.</i>" He then ventured 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 companion, I can safely aver to you, that Jonathan Oldbuck of
-      Monkbarns looked neither more wise nor less disconcerted.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There is some mistake about this," he said, abruptly turning away from
-      the mendicant.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Deil a bit on my side o' the wa'," answered the sturdy beggar; "I never
-      deal in mistakes, they aye bring mischances.&mdash;Now, Monkbarns, that
-      young gentleman, that's wi' your honour, thinks little of a carle like 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel's soul rushed to his cheeks, with the vivid blush of two-and-twenty.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Never mind the old rogue," said Mr. Oldbuck; "don't suppose I think the
-      worse of you for your profession; they are only prejudiced fools and
-      coxcombs that do so. You remember what old Tully says in his oration, <i>pro
-      Archia poeta,</i> concerning one of your confraternity&mdash;<i>quis
-      nostrum tam anino agresti ac duro fuit&mdash;ut&mdash;ut</i>&mdash;I
-      forget the Latin&mdash;the meaning is, which of us was so rude and
-      barbarous as to remain unmoved at the death of the great Roscius, whose
-      advanced 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 mortality? So the Prince of Orators spoke of the stage
-      and its professor."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 beggar, who still continued to regard him with a countenance
-      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 intimating his desire of secrecy, and securing the concurrence of
-      the person whom he addressed; and while he bestowed on him an alms, the
-      amount of which rather bore proportion to his fears than to his charity,
-      looked at him with a marked expression, which the mendicant, a
-      physiognomist by profession, seemed perfectly to understand.&mdash;"Never
-      mind me, sir&mdash;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 Oldbuck&mdash;"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?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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, unlined hat, he said, "Go down, go down to
-      Monkbarns&mdash;let them give you some dinner&mdash;Or stay; if you do go
-      to the manse, or to Knockwinnock, ye need say nothing about that foolish
-      story of yours."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Who, I?" said the mendicant&mdash;"Lord bless your honour, naebody sall
-      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 haud gude, if you would just bring down
-      your heart to try it at the law, and say that he beguiled ye."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Provoking scoundrel!" muttered the indignant Antiquary between his teeths&mdash;"I'll
-      have the hangman's lash and his back acquainted for this." And then, in a
-      louder tone,&mdash;"Never mind, Edie&mdash;it is all a mistake."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth, I am thinking sae," continued his tormentor, who seemed to have
-      pleasure in rubbing the galled wound, "troth, I aye thought sae; and it's
-      no sae lang since I said to Luckie Gemmers, Never think you, luckie' said
-      I, that 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 lard'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'll hear he's circumvented him with some of
-      his auld-warld stories,'&mdash;for ye ken, laird, yon other time about the
-      bodle that ye thought was an auld coin"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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&mdash;"Away
-      with you down to Monkbarns, and when I come back, I'll send ye a bottle of
-      ale to the kitchen."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Heaven reward your honour!" This was uttered with the true mendicant
-      whine, as, setting his pike-staff before him, he began to move in the
-      direction of Monkbarns.&mdash;"But did your honour," turning round, "ever
-      get back the siller ye gae to the travelling packman for the bodle?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Curse thee, go about thy business!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aweel, aweel, sir, God bless your honour! I hope ye'll 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Who is this familiar old gentleman?" said Lovel, when the mendicant was
-      out of hearing.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O, one of the plagues of the country&mdash;I have been always against
-      poor's-rates and a work-house&mdash;I think I'll 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&mdash;as
-      intimate as one of the beasts familiar to man which signify love, and with
-      which his own trade is especially conversant. Who is he?&mdash;why, he has
-      gone the vole&mdash; 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 thing's as regularly as Joe
-      Miller's."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, he uses freedom apparently, which is the soul of wit," answered
-      Lovel.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O ay, freedom enough," said the Antiquary; "he generally invents some
-      damned improbable lie or another to provoke you, like that nonsense he
-      talked just now&mdash;not that I'll publish my tract till I have examined
-      the thing to the bottom."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In England," said Lovel, "such a mendicant would get a speedy check."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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&mdash;one of the last specimens of the old fashioned Scottish
-      mendicant, 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,
-      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&mdash;d nonsensical story over half the country."*
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * Note C. Praetorium.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      So saying our heroes parted, Mr. Oldbuck to return to his <i>hospitium</i>
-      at Monkbarns, and Lovel to pursue his way to Fairport, where he arrived
-      without farther adventure.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER FIFTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                     <i>Launcelot Gobbo.</i> Mark me now:
-                      Now will I raise the waters.
-                                         Merchant of Venice.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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-fashioned 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; regular, I say, were Mr. Oldbuck's inquiries at this personage
-      concerning the news of the little 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 womankind along with
-      him. But old Jacob Caxon conveyed no information which warranted his
-      taking so decisive a step as that of securing a box.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      He brought information, on the contrary, that there was a young man
-      residing at Fairport, of whom the <i>town</i> (by which he meant all the
-      gossips, who, having no business of their own, fill up their leisure
-      moments by attending to that of other people) could make nothing. He
-      sought no society, but rather avoided that which the apparent gentleness
-      of his manners, and some degree of curiosity, induced many to offer him.
-      Nothing could be more regular, or less resembling an adventurer, than his
-      mode of living, which was simple, but so completely well arranged, that
-      all who had any transactions with him were loud in their approbation.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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 compelled to abandon that which he had formed in the present
-      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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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, connections, 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
-      <i>soi-disant</i> 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 sympathies with the tea-table.&mdash;In short,
-      since the name was fashionable in novel-writing, and that is a great while
-      agone, there was never a Master Lovel of whom so little positive was
-      known, and who was so universally described by negatives.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      One negative, however, was important&mdash;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 solitary walks, and had drawn several views of the harbour,
-      in which the signal tower, and even the four-gun battery, 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 removed 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 public 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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&mdash;I
-      must do something for him&mdash;I must give him a dinner;&mdash;and I will
-      write Sir Arthur to come to Monkbarns to meet him. I must consult my
-      womankind."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Accordingly, such consultation having been previously 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 contents ran thus:
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dear Sir Arthur,
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "On Tuesday the 17th curt. <i>stilo novo,</i> I hold a coenobitical
-      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 awful 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&mdash;reveres
-      his elders, and has a pretty notion of the classics&mdash;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.&mdash;I am, Dear
-      Sir Arthur, etc. etc. etc."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Fly with this letter, Caxon," said the senior, holding out his missive,
-      <i>signatum atque sigillatum,</i> "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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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&mdash;and he had a quean of a servant-lass that dressed it
-      herself, 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 haddies, 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 magistrates and bailies, and deacons, and
-      the provost himsell, wi' heads as bald and as bare as ane o' my blocks!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And as well furnished within, Caxon. But away with you!&mdash;you have an
-      excellent view of public affairs, and, I dare say, have touched the cause
-      of our popular discontent as closely as the provost could have done
-      himself. But away with you, Caxon!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And off went Caxon upon his walk of three miles&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                  He hobbled&mdash;but his heart was good!
-                  Could he go faster than he could?&mdash;
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      While he is engaged in his journey and return, it may not be impertinent
-      to inform the reader to whose mansion he was bearing his embassy.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 fortune. 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 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 consequence. 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. Perhaps the worshipful owner
-      sympathized 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 person 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
-      liberty, and returned to their own mansion of Knockwinnock, to drink
-      healths five fathoms deep, and talk of their sufferings in the royal
-      cause. This became so much a matter of habit with Sir Arthur, that, even
-      after his father's death, the non-juring chaplain used to pray regularly
-      for the restoration of the rightful sovereign, for the downfall 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 candidate in whom he was interested;&mdash;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 alive, yet, in all actual service and practical
-      exertion, he was a most zealous and devoted subject of George III.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In other respects, Sir Arthur Wardour lived like most country gentlemen in
-      Scotland, hunted and fished&mdash;gave and received dinners&mdash;attended
-      races and county meetings&mdash;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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      There were, however, points of difference between these two humourists,
-      which sometimes occasioned discord. The faith of Sir Arthur, as an
-      antiquary, was boundless, and Mr. Oldbuck (notwithstanding the affair of
-      the Praetorium 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 head-roll of one
-      hundred and four kings of Scotland, received by Boethius, and rendered
-      classical by Buchanan, 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 Oldbuck, 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 descendants of Banquo through the cavern of
-      Hecate.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Another tender topic was the good fame of Queen Mary, of which the knight
-      was a most chivalrous assertor, while the esquire impugned it, in spite
-      both of her beauty and misfortunes. When, unhappily, their conversation
-      turned on yet later times, motives of discord occurred in almost every
-      page of history. Oldbuck was, upon principle, a staunch Presbyterian, a
-      ruling elder of the kirk, and a friend to revolution principles and
-      Protestant 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * The reader will understand that this refers to the reign of our late
-      gracious Sovereign, George the Third.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      It therefore often 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 unlicensed freedom of debate, 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 little better than a fool,
-      he was apt to come more near communicating to him that unfavourable
-      opinion, than the rules of modern politeness warrant. In such cases they
-      often parted in deep dudgeon, and with something like a resolution to
-      forbear each other's company in future:
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 pettishness resembled that of a
-      child, usually showed his superior sense by compassionately making the
-      first advances to reconciliation. But it once or twice happened that the
-      aristocratic pride of the far-descended knight took a flight too offensive
-      to the feelings of the representative of the typographer. In these cases,
-      the breach between these two originals might have been immortal, but for
-      the kind exertion and interposition of the Baronet'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
-      necessary 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      There existed another connection betwixt these worthies, 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, little <i>miffs</i> 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 stand-still or throttling
-      each other.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 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,&mdash;"A letter from Monkbarns, Sir Arthur."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur took the epistle with a due assumption of consequential
-      dignity.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Take the old man into the kitchen, and let him get some refreshment,"
-      said the young lady, whose compassionate eye had remarked his thin grey
-      hair and wearied gait.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mr. Oldbuck, my love, invites us to dinner on Tuesday the 17th," said the
-      Baronet, pausing;&mdash;"he really seems to forget that he has not of late
-      conducted himself so civilly towards me as might have been expected."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dear sir, you have so many advantages over poor Mr. Oldbuck, that no
-      wonder it should put him a little out of humour; but I know he has much
-      respect for your person and your conversation;&mdash;nothing would give
-      him more pain than to be wanting in any real attention."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "True, true, Isabella; and one must allow for the original descent;&mdash;something
-      of the German boorishness still flows in the blood; something of the
-      whiggish and perverse 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 pettifogging intimacy with dates, names,
-      and trifling matters of fact&mdash;a tiresome and frivolous accuracy of
-      memory, which is entirely owing to his mechanical descent."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He must find it convenient in historical investigation, I should think,
-      sir?" said the young lady.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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 tailor's 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 generations. I question if there's a dealer's clerk in Fairport that
-      can sum an account of interest better than Monkbarns."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But you'll accept his invitation, sir?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, ye&mdash;yes; we have no other engagement on hand, I think. Who can
-      the young man be he talks of?&mdash;he seldom picks up new acquaintance;
-      and he has no relation that I ever heard of."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Probably some relation of his brother-in-law Captain M'Intyre."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Very possibly&mdash;yes, we will accept&mdash;the M'Intyres are of a very
-      ancient Highland family. You may answer his card in the affirmative,
-      Isabella; I believe I have, no leisure to be <i>Dear Sirring</i> myself."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      So this important matter being adjusted, Miss Wardour 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 <i>placebo</i>
-      she concluded her note, with which old Caxon, now refreshed in limbs and
-      wind, set out on his return to the Antiquary's mansion.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER SIXTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                   <i>Moth.</i> By Woden, God of Saxons,
-            From whence comes Wensday, that is, Wodnesday,
-                   Truth is a thing that I will ever keep
-                   Unto thylke day in which I creep into
-                             My sepulcre&mdash;
-                             Cartwright's <i>Ordinary.</i>
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Our young friend Lovel, who had received a corresponding invitation,
-      punctual to the hour of appointment, arrived at Monkbarns about five
-      minutes before four o'clock on the 17th of July. The day had been
-      remarkably sultry, and large drops of rain had occasionally fallen, though
-      the threatened showers had as yet passed away.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Mr. Oldbuck received him at the Palmer's-port in his complete brown suit,
-      grey silk stockings, and wig powdered with all the skill of the veteran
-      Caxon, who having smelt out the dinner, had taken care not to finish his
-      job till the hour of eating approached.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You are welcome to my symposion, Mr. Lovel. And now let me introduce you
-      to my Clogdogdo's, as Tom Otter calls them&mdash;my unlucky and
-      good-for-nothing womankind&mdash;<i>malae bestiae,</i> Mr. Lovel."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I shall be disappointed, sir, if I do not find the ladies very
-      undeserving of your satire."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Tilley-valley, Mr. Lovel,&mdash;which, by the way, one commentator
-      derives from <i>tittivillitium,</i> and another from <i>talley-ho</i>&mdash;but
-      tilley-valley, I say&mdash;a truce with your politeness. You will find
-      them but samples of womankind&mdash;But here they be, Mr. Lovel. I present
-      to you in due order, my most discreet sister Griselda, who disdains the
-      simplicity, as well as patience annexed to the poor old name of Grizzel;
-      and my most exquisite niece Maria, whose mother was called Mary, and
-      sometimes Molly."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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&mdash;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 <i>chevaux de frise,</i> and the lappets the banners.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 physiognomy
-      of Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, that Lovel, had they not appeared at once, like
-      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 unparalleled <i>tete,</i> 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 ruffles, and
-      being, folded saltire-ways 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 Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Her niece, the same whom Lovel had seen transiently during his first
-      visit, was a pretty young woman, genteelly dressed according to the
-      fashion of the day, with an air of <i>espieglerie</i> which became her
-      very well, and which was perhaps derived from the caustic humour peculiar
-      to her uncle's family, though softened by transmission.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Mr. Lovel paid his respects to both ladies, and was answered by the elder
-      with the prolonged courtesy of 1760, drawn from the righteous period,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                       When folks conceived a grace
-                       Of half an hour's space,
-                       And rejoiced in a Friday's capon,
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      and by the younger with a modern reverence, which, like the festive
-      benediction of a modern divine, was of much shorter duration.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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 mustered 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-like, well seen, deeply read, and thoroughly grounded in all the
-      hidden mysteries of the green-room and stage, from the days of Davie
-      Lindsay down to those of Dibdin&mdash;he blushes again, which is a sign of
-      grace."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My brother," said Miss Griselda, addressing Lovel, "has a humorous way of
-      expressing himself, sir; nobody thinks anything of what Monkbarns says&mdash;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 broiling sun&mdash;would you take
-      anything?&mdash;a glass of balm-wine?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 partake of
-      that deceitful beverage?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O fy, fy, brother!&mdash;Sir Arthur, did you ever hear the like?&mdash;he
-      must have everything his ain way, or he will invent such stories&mdash;But
-      there goes Jenny to ring the old bell to tell us that the dinner is
-      ready."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Rigid in his economy, Mr. Oldbuck kept no male servant. This he disguised
-      under the pretext that the masculine 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&mdash;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 promote him to a glorious halbert, or even to the gallows? And why
-      does this girl, his full sister, Jenny Rintherout, move in the same
-      vocation with safe and noiseless step&mdash;shod, or unshod&mdash;soft as
-      the pace of a cat, and docile as a spaniel&mdash;Why? but because she is
-      in her vocation. Let them minister to us, Sir Arthur,&mdash;let them
-      minister, I say,&mdash;it's the only thing they are fit for. All ancient
-      legislators, 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Miss Wardour protested loudly against this ungallant doctrine; but the
-      bell now rung for dinner.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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 Mahomet) had some hesitation about the mode of
-      summoning 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      With this discourse he led the way to his dining-parlour, which Lovel had
-      not yet seen;&mdash;it was wainscotted, and contained some curious
-      paintings. The dining-table was attended by Jenny; but an old
-      superintendent, a sort of female butler, stood by the sideboard, and
-      underwent the burden of bearing several reproofs from Mr. Oldbuck, and
-      inuendos, not so much marked, but not less cutting, from his sister.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 Oldbuck half threatened to throw the greasy
-      sea-fowl at the head of the negligent housekeeper, who acted as priestess
-      in presenting this odoriferous offering. But, by good-hap, she had been
-      most fortunate in the hotch-potch, which was unanimously pronounced to be
-      inimitable. "I knew we should succeed here," said Oldbuck exultingly, "for
-      Davie Dibble, the gardener (an old bachelor like myself), takes care the
-      rascally women do not dishonour our vegetables. And here is fish and
-      sauce, and crappit-heads&mdash;I acknowledge our womankind excel in that
-      dish&mdash;it procures them the pleasure of scolding, for half an hour at
-      least, twice a-week, with auld Maggy Mucklebackit, our fish-wife. The
-      chicken-pie, Mr. Lovel, is made after a recipe bequeathed to me by my
-      departed grandmother of happy memory&mdash;And if you will venture on a
-      glass of wine, you will find it worthy of one who professes the maxim of
-      King Alphonso of Castile,&mdash;Old wood to burn&mdash;old books to read&mdash;old
-      wine to drink&mdash;and old friends, Sir Arthur&mdash;ay, Mr. Lovel, and
-      young friends too, to converse with."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And what news do you bring us from Edinburgh, Monkbarns?" said Sir
-      Arthur; "how wags the world in Auld Reekie?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mad, Sir Arthur, mad&mdash;irretrievably frantic&mdash;far beyond dipping
-      in the sea, shaving the crown, or drinking hellebore. The worst sort of
-      frenzy, a military frenzy, hath possessed man, woman, and child."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And high time, I think," said Miss Wardour, "when we are threatened with
-      invasion from abroad and insurrection at home."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O, I did not doubt you would join the scarlet host against me&mdash;women,
-      like turkeys, are always subdued by a red rag&mdash;But what says Sir
-      Arthur, whose dreams are of standing armies and German oppression?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, I say, Mr. Oldbuck," replied the knight, "that so far as I am
-      capable of judging, we ought to resist <i>cum toto corpore regni</i>&mdash;as
-      the phrase is, unless I have altogether forgotten my Latin&mdash;an enemy
-      who comes to propose to us a Whiggish sort of government, a republican
-      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 constables 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 Willie Howie's Kilmarnock cowl covered more
-      sense than all the three wigs in the parish&mdash;I think it is easy to
-      make out that inuendo&mdash;But the rogue shall be taught better manners."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O no, my dear sir," exclaimed Miss Wardour, "not old Edie, that we have
-      known so long;&mdash;I assure you no constable shall have my good graces
-      that executes such a warrant."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, there it goes," said the Antiquary; "you, to be a staunch Tory, Sir
-      Arthur, have nourished a fine sprig of Whiggery in your bosom&mdash;Why,
-      Miss Wardour is alone sufficient to control a whole quarter-session&mdash;a
-      quarter-session? ay, a general assembly or convocation to boot&mdash;a
-      Boadicea she&mdash;an Amazon, a Zenobia."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And yet, with all my courage, Mr. Oldbuck, I am glad to hear our people
-      are getting under arms."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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 now-a-days
-      in the whole synod? Dost thou remember the Nurse's dream in that exquisite
-      work, which she recounts in such agony to Hubble Bubble?&mdash;When she
-      would have taken up a piece of broad-cloth 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 dragoon'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 madman; 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, 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 <i>tellings-off</i> at the
-      morning-drill. I was ill, and sent for a surgeon&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-               He came&mdash;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,&mdash;not to heal.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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&mdash;I detest a drum like a quaker;&mdash;and they
-      thunder and rattle out yonder upon the town's common, so that every volley
-      and roll goes to my very heart."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dear brother, dinna speak that gate o' the gentlemen volunteers&mdash;I
-      am sure they have a most becoming uniform&mdash;Weel I wot they have been
-      wet to the very skin twice last week&mdash;I met them marching in terribly
-      doukit, an mony a sair hoast was amang them&mdash;And the trouble they
-      take, I am sure it claims our gratitude."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And I am sure," said Miss M'Intyre, "that my uncle sent twenty guineas to
-      help out their equipments."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It was to buy liquorice and sugar-candy," said the cynic, "to encourage
-      the trade of the place, and to refresh the throats of the officers who had
-      bawled themselves hoarse in the service of their country."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Take care, Monkbarns! we shall set you down among the black-nebs by and
-      by."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No Sir Arthur&mdash;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&mdash;<i>Ni quito Rey, ni pongo Rey</i>&mdash;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 exciseman&mdash;But
-      here comes the ewe-milk cheese in good time; it is a better digestive than
-      politics."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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,&mdash;the shadow of a shade.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I will stand by what Mr. Lovel says; he was born in the north of England,
-      and may know the very spot."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur thought it unlikely that so young a gentleman should have paid
-      much attention to matters of that sort.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am avised of the contrary," said Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "How say you, Mr. Lovel?&mdash;speak up for your own credit, man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel was obliged to confess himself in the ridiculous situation of one
-      alike ignorant of the subject of conversation and controversy which had
-      engaged the company for an hour.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Lord help the lad, his head has been wool-gathering!&mdash;I thought how
-      it would be when the womankind were admitted&mdash;no getting a word of
-      sense out of a young fellow for six hours after.&mdash;Why, man, there was
-      once a people called the Piks"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "More properly <i>Picts,</i>" interrupted the Baronet.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I say the <i>Pikar, Pihar, Piochtar, Piaghter,</i> or <i>Peughtar,</i>"
-      vociferated Oldbuck; "they spoke a Gothic dialect"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Genuine Celtic," again asseverated the knight.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Gothic! Gothic! I'll go to death upon it!" counter-asseverated the
-      squire.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, gentlemen," sad Lovel, "I conceive that is a dispute which may be
-      easily settled by philologists, if there are any remains of the language."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There is but one word," said the Baronet, "but, in spite of Mr. Oldbuck's
-      pertinacity, it is decisive of the question."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes, in my favour," said Oldbuck: "Mr. Lovel, you shall be judge&mdash;I
-      have the learned Pinkerton on my side."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I, on mine, the indefatigable and erudite Chalmers."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Gordon comes into my opinion."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Sir Robert Sibbald holds mine."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Innes is with me!" vociferated Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Riston has no doubt!" shouted the Baronet.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Truly, gentlemen," said Lovel, "before you muster your forces and
-      overwhelm me with authorities, I should like to know the word in dispute."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "<i>Benval</i>" said both the disputants at once.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Which signifies <i>caput valli,</i>" said Sir Arthur.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The head of the wall," echoed Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      There was a deep pause.&mdash;"It is rather a narrow foundation to build a
-      hypothesis upon," observed the arbiter.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not a whit, not a whit," said Oldbuck; "men fight best in a narrow ring&mdash;an
-      inch is as good as a mile for a home-thrust."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is decidedly Celtic," said the Baronet; "every hill in the Highlands
-      begins with <i>Ben.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But what say you to <i>Val,</i> Sir Arthur; is it not decidedly the Saxon
-      <i>wall?</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is the Roman <i>vallum,</i>" said Sir Arthur;&mdash;"the Picts
-      borrowed that part of the word."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No such thing; if they borrowed anything, it must have been your <i>Ben,</i>
-      which they might have from the neighbouring Britons of Strath Cluyd."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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, methinks, 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 poverty of the language which has left such
-      slight vestiges behind it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You are in an error," said Sir Arthur; "it was a copious language, and
-      they were a great and powerful people; built two steeples&mdash;one at
-      Brechin, one at Abernethy. The Pictish maidens of the blood-royal were
-      kept in Edinburgh Castle, thence called <i>Castrum Puellarum.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A childish legend," said Oldbuck, "invented to give consequence to
-      trumpery womankind. It was called the Maiden Castle, <i>quasi lucus a non
-      lucendo,</i> because it resisted every attack, and women never do."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There is a list of the Pictish kings," persisted Sir Arthur, "well
-      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 <i>Mac</i> prefixed&mdash;Mac, <i>id
-      est filius;</i>&mdash;what do you say to that, Mr. Oldbuck? There is Drust
-      Macmorachin, Trynel Maclachlin (first of that ancient clan, as it may be
-      judged), and Gormach Macdonald, Alpin Macmetegus, Drust Mactallargam"
-      (here he was interrupted by a fit of coughing)&mdash;"ugh, ugh, ugh&mdash;Golarge
-      Macchan&mdash;ugh, ugh&mdash;Macchanan&mdash;ugh&mdash;Macchananail,
-      Kenneth&mdash;ugh&mdash;ugh&mdash; Macferedith, Eachan Macfungus&mdash;and
-      twenty more, decidedly Celtic names, which I could repeat, if this damned
-      cough would let me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Take a glass of wine, Sir Arthur, and drink down that bead-roll of
-      unbaptized jargon, that would choke the devil&mdash;why, that last fellow
-      has the only intelligible name you have repeated&mdash;they are all of the
-      tribe of Macfungus&mdash;mushroom monarchs every one of them; sprung up
-      from the fumes of conceit, folly, and falsehood, fermenting in the brains
-      of some mad Highland seannachie."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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 Melguin, from
-      the Chronicles of Loch Leven and St. 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 of God seventeen hundred and five, or six, I am not precisely certain
-      which&mdash;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?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Say?&mdash;why, I laugh at Harry Maule and his history," answered
-      Oldbuck, "and thereby comply with his request, of giving it entertainment
-      according to its merits."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Do not laugh at a better man than yourself," said Sir Arthur, somewhat
-      scornfully.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I do not conceive I do, Sir Arthur, in laughing either at him or his
-      history."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Henry Maule of Melgum was a gentleman, Mr. Oldbuck."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I presume he had no advantage of me in <i>that</i> particular," replied
-      the Antiquary, somewhat tartly.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Permit me, Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;he was a gentleman of high family, and
-      ancient descent, and therefore"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The descendant of a Westphalian printer should speak of him with
-      deference? Such may be your opinion, Sir Arthur&mdash;it is not mine. I
-      conceive that my descent from that painful and industrious typographer,
-      Wolfbrand Oldenbuck, who, in the month of December 1493, under the
-      patronage, as the colophon tells us, of Sebaldus Scheyter and Sebastian
-      Kammermaister, accomplished the printing of the great Chronicle of
-      Nuremberg&mdash;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 brawling, bullet-headed,
-      iron-fisted, old Gothic barons since the days of Crentheminachcryme&mdash;not
-      one of whom, I suppose, could write his own name."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If you mean the observation as a sneer at my ancestry," said the knight,
-      with an assumption of dignified superiority and composure, "I have the
-      pleasure to inform 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Which only serves to show that he was one of the earliest who set the
-      mean example of submitting to Edward I. What have, you to say for the
-      stainless loyalty of your family, Sir Arthur, after such a backsliding as
-      that?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In that you will do as you find most agreeable, Sir Arthur;&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mighty well&mdash;mighty well, Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;I wish you a good
-      evening&mdash;Mr. a&mdash;a&mdash;a&mdash;Shovel&mdash;I wish you a very
-      good evening."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Out of the parlour door flounced the incensed Sir Arthur, as if the spirit
-      of the whole Round Table inflamed his single bosom, and traversed with
-      long strides the labyrinth of passages which conducted to the
-      drawing-room.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Did you ever hear such an old tup-headed ass?" said Oldbuck, briefly
-      apostrophizing Lovel. "But I must not let him go in this mad-like way
-      neither."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      So saying, he pushed off after the retreating Baronet, 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'll do
-      yourself a mischief," roared the Antiquary; "<i>Qui ambulat in tenebris,
-      nescit quo vadit</i>&mdash;You'll tumble down the back-stair."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur had now got involved in darkness, of which the sedative effect
-      is well known to nurses and governesses 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 <i>locale,</i>
-      got up with him as he had got his grasp upon the handle of the
-      drawing-room door.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Stay a minute, Sir Arthur," said Oldbuck, opposing his abrupt entrance;
-      "don't be quite so hasty, my good old friend. I was a little too rude with
-      you about Sir Gamelyn&mdash;why, he is an old acquaintance of mine, man,
-      and a favourite; he kept company with Bruce and Wallace&mdash;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&mdash;'twas
-      right Scottish craft, my good knight&mdash;hundreds did it. Come, come,
-      forget and forgive&mdash;confess we have given the young fellow here a
-      right to think us two testy old fools."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Speak for yourself, Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck," said Sir Arthur with much
-      majesty.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A-well, a-well&mdash;a wilful man must have his way."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      With that the door opened, and into the drawing-room marched the tall
-      gaunt form of Sir Arthur, followed by Lovel and Mr. Oldbuck, the
-      countenances of all the three a little discomposed.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur readily assented to this proposal, which suited the angry mood
-      in which he found himself; and having, agreeable 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 ceremonious leave of the
-      ladies, and a very dry one of Oldbuck&mdash;off he marched.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I think Sir Arthur has got the black dog on his back again," said Miss
-      Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Black dog!&mdash;black devil!&mdash;he's more absurd than womankind&mdash;What
-      say you, Lovel?&mdash;Why, the lad's gone too."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He took his leave, uncle, while Miss Wardour was putting on her things;
-      but I don't think you observed him."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The devil's in the people! This is all one gets by fussing 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!&mdash;O 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,&mdash;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,&mdash;"O Seged, Emperor of
-      Ethiopia! well hast thou spoken&mdash;No man should presume to say, This
-      shall be a day of happiness."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Oldbuck proceeded in his studies for the best part of an hour,
-      uninterrupted by the ladies, who each, in profound silence, pursued some
-      female employment. At length, a light and modest tap was heard at the
-      parlour door. "Is that you, Caxon?&mdash;come in, come in, man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 mysterious tone of voice, "I was wanting to speak to you, sir."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Come in then, you old fool, and say what you have got to say."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I'll maybe frighten the ladies," said the ex-friseur.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Frighten!" answered the Antiquary,&mdash;"what do you mean?&mdash;never
-      mind the ladies. Have you seen another ghaist at the Humlock-knowe?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, sir&mdash;it's no a ghaist this turn," replied Caxton;&mdash;"but I'm
-      no easy in my mind."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Did you ever hear of any body that was?" answered Oldbuck;&mdash;"what
-      reason has an old battered powder-puff like you to be easy in your mind,
-      more than all the rest of the world besides?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's no for mysell, sir; but it threatens an awfu' night; and Sir Arthur,
-      and Miss Wardour, poor thing"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, man, they must have met the carriage at the head of the loaning, or
-      thereabouts; they must be home long ago."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, sir; they didna gang the road by the turnpike to meet the carriage,
-      they gaed by the sands."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The word operated like electricity on Oldbuck. "The sands!" he exclaimed;
-      "impossible!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "An almanac! an almanac!" said Oldbuck, starting up in great alarm&mdash;"not
-      that bauble!" flinging away a little pocket almanac which his niece
-      offered him.&mdash;"Great God! my poor dear Miss Isabella!&mdash;Fetch me
-      instantly the Fairport Almanac."&mdash;It was brought, consulted, and
-      added greatly to his agitation. "I'll go myself&mdash;call the gardener
-      and ploughman&mdash;bid them bring ropes and ladders&mdash;bid them raise
-      more help as they come along&mdash;keep the top of the cliffs, and halloo
-      down to them&mdash;I'll go myself."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What is the matter?" inquired Miss Oldbuck and Miss M'Intyre.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The tide!&mdash;the tide!" answered the alarmed Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Had not Jenny better&mdash;but no, I'll run myself," said the younger
-      lady, partaking in all her uncle's terrors&mdash;"I'll run myself to
-      Saunders Mucklebackit, and make him get out his boat."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Thank you, my dear, that's the wisest word that has been spoken yet&mdash;Run!
-      run!&mdash;To go by the sands!" seizing his hat and cane; "was there ever
-      such madness heard of!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER SEVENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                       &mdash;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.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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, according 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 opportunity to join them.
-      Miss Wardour immediately proposed to her father that they should take
-      another direction; 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="image-0006" id="image-0006">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
-    </p>
-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/pa082.jpg" alt="Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour " width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur acquiesced willingly. "It would be unpleasant," 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 <i>cut</i>
-      the person you have associated with for a week, the instant you feel or
-      suppose yourself 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 Knockwinnock.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      When this was arranged, and the emissary despatched, the knight and his
-      daughter left the high-road, and following 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;&mdash;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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour paced along, enjoying 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 without 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
-      accumulation of towering clouds through which he had travelled the
-      livelong day, and which now assembled on all sides, 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 gorgeous
-      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 tide rippled
-      onward in waves of sparkling silver, that imperceptibly, yet rapidly,
-      gained upon the sand.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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
-      conversation. Following the windings of the beach, they passed one
-      projecting point of headland or 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 ship-masters. The crags which rose between 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 secured by their
-      dizzy height from the rapacity of man. Many of these wild tribes, with the
-      instinct which sends 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 twilight 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 lift 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Appalled by this sudden change of weather, Miss Wardour drew close to her
-      father, and held his arm fast. "I 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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, indicated a feeling that some
-      exertion was necessary to accomplish his consolatory prediction.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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;&mdash;and neither durst communicate
-      the apprehension which each began to entertain, that, 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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, Sir Arthur observed a human
-      figure on the beach advancing to meet them. "Thank God," he exclaimed, "we
-      shall get round Halket-head!&mdash;that person must have passed it;" thus
-      giving vent to the feeling of hope, though he had suppressed that of
-      apprehension.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Thank God, indeed!" echoed his daughter, half audibly, half internally,
-      as expressing the gratitude which she strongly felt.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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.&mdash;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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Turn back! turn back!" exclaimed the vagrant; "why did ye not turn when I
-      waved to you?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We thought," replied Sir Arthur, in great agitation, "we thought we could
-      get round Halket-head."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Halket-head!&mdash;the tide will be running on Halket-head by this time
-      like the Fall of Fyers!&mdash;it was a' I could do to get round it twenty
-      minutes since&mdash;it was coming in three feet abreast. We will maybe get
-      back by Bally-burgh Ness Point yet. The Lord help us!&mdash;it's our only
-      chance. We can but try."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My God, my child!"&mdash;"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
-      projection of which formed the southern extremity of the bay.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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 risening e'en now? See, yonder's the Ratton's Skerry&mdash;he
-      aye held his neb abune the water in my day&mdash;but he's aneath it now."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 like
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mak haste, mak haste, my bonny leddy," continued the old man&mdash;"mak
-      haste, and we may do yet! Take haud o' my arm&mdash;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&mdash;it's
-      sma' eneugh now&mdash;but, while I see as muckle black about it as the
-      crown o' my hat, I winna believe but we'll get round the Ballyburgh Ness,
-      for a' that's come and gane yet."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Isabella, in silence, accepted from the old man the assistance which Sir
-      Arthur was less able to afford 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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&mdash;a raging tide and an insurmountable
-      precipice&mdash;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 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 promontory,
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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&mdash;"My child! my child!&mdash;to die such a
-      death!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My father! my dear father!" his daughter exclaimed, clinging to him&mdash;"and
-      you too, who have lost your own life in endeavouring to save ours!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "That's not worth the counting," said the old man. "I hae lived to be
-      weary o' life; and here or yonder&mdash;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?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Good man," said Sir Arthur, "can you think of nothing?&mdash;of no help?&mdash;I'll
-      make you rich&mdash;I'll give you a farm&mdash;I'll"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Our riches will be soon equal," said the beggar, looking out upon the
-      strife of the waters&mdash;"they are sae already; for I hae nae land, and
-      you would give your fair bounds and barony for a square yard of rock that
-      would be dry for twal hours."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Yet even this fearful pause gave Isabella time to collect the powers of a
-      mind naturally strong and courageous, and which rallied itself at this
-      terrible juncture. "Must we yield life," 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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&mdash;"I was a bauld
-      craigsman," he said, "ance in my life, and mony a kittywake'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&mdash;and if I had
-      ane, my ee-sight, and my footstep, and my hand-grip, hae a' failed mony a
-      day sinsyne&mdash;And then, how could I save <i>you?</i> But there was a
-      path here ance, though maybe, if we could see it, ye would rather bide
-      where we are&mdash;His name be praised!" he ejaculated suddenly, "there's
-      ane coming down the crag e'en now!"&mdash;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:&mdash;"Ye're right!&mdash;ye're right!&mdash;that gate&mdash;that
-      gate!&mdash;fasten the rope weel round Crummies-horn, that's the muckle
-      black stane&mdash;cast twa plies round it&mdash;that's it!&mdash;now,
-      weize yoursell a wee easel-ward&mdash;a wee mair yet to that ither stane&mdash;we
-      ca'd it the Cat's-lug&mdash;there used to be the root o' an aik tree there&mdash;that
-      will do!&mdash;canny now, lad&mdash;canny now&mdash;tak tent and tak time&mdash;Lord
-      bless ye, tak time&mdash;Vera weel!&mdash;Now ye maun get to Bessy's
-      apron, that's the muckle braid flat blue stane&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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&mdash;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
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="image-0007" id="image-0007">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
-    </p>
-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/pa092.jpg"
-      alt="The Rescue of Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour " width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
-      The sense of reprieve from approaching and apparently 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 connected
-      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 succession the foot of the precipice,
-      overflowing the beach on which they so lately stood, flew as high as their
-      place of 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The lassie!&mdash;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!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 danger, and become almost instinctively known to each other,
-      they had established a mutual confidence.&mdash;"I'll climb up the cliff
-      again," said Lovel&mdash;"there's daylight enough left to see my footing;
-      I'll climb up, and call for more assistance."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Do so, do so, for Heaven's sake!" said Sir Arthur eagerly.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Are ye mad?" said the mendicant: "Francie o' Fowlsheugh, and he was the
-      best craigsman that ever speel'd heugh (mair by token, he brake his neck
-      upon the Dunbuy of Slaines), wodna hae ventured upon the Halket-head
-      craigs after sun-down&mdash;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&mdash;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 hoar and in this weather, in the youngest and yaldest of my strength&mdash;But
-      to venture up again&mdash;it's a mere and a clear tempting o' Providence."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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&mdash;I
-      am sure I can do it with perfect safety. Stay here, my good friend, by Sir
-      Arthur and the young lady."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dell be in my feet then," answered the bedesman sturdily; "if ye gang,
-      I'll gang too; for between the twa o' us, we'll hae mair than wark eneugh
-      to get to the tap o' the heugh."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, no&mdash;stay you here and attend to Miss Wardour&mdash;you see Sir
-      Arthur is quite exhausted."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Stay yoursell then, and I'll gae," said the old man;&mdash;"let death
-      spare the green corn and take the ripe."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Stay both of you, I charge you," said Isabella, faintly; "I am well, and
-      can spend the night very well here&mdash;I feel quite refreshed." So
-      saying, her voice failed her&mdash;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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is impossible to leave them," said Lovel&mdash;"What is to be done?&mdash;Hark!
-      hark!&mdash;did I not hear a halloo?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The skreigh of a Tammie Norie," answered Ochiltree&mdash;"I ken the skirl
-      weel."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, by Heaven!" replied Lovel, "it was a human voice."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A distant hail was repeated, the sound plainly distinguishable among the
-      various elemental noises, and the clang of the sea-mews by which they were
-      surrounded. 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 conspicuous 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 twilight and
-      increasing storm, they had made the persons who apparently were traversing
-      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 answered, and their courage confirmed, by the assurance that
-      they were within hearing, if not within reach, of friendly assistance.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER EIGHTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-              There is a cliff, whose high and bending head
-                 Looks fearfully on the confined deep;
-                 Bring me but to the very brim of it,
-              And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear.
-                                    King Lear.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The shout of human voices from above was soon augmented, and the gleam of
-      torches mingled with those lights of evening which still remained amidst
-      the darkness of the storm. Some attempt was made to hold communication
-      between the assistants above and the sufferers 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Haud a care, haud a care, Monkbarns!" cried Caxon, clinging to the skirts
-      of his patron, and withholding him from danger as far as his strength
-      permitted&mdash;"God's sake, haud a care!&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mind the peak there," cried Mucklebackit, an old fisherman and smuggler&mdash;"mind
-      the peak&mdash;Steenie, Steenie Wilks, bring up the tackle&mdash;I'se
-      warrant we'll sune heave them on board, Monkbarns, wad ye but stand out o'
-      the gate."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I see them," said Oldbuck&mdash;"I see them low down on that flat stone&mdash;Hilli-hilloa,
-      hilli-ho-a!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I see them mysell weel eneugh," said Mucklebackit; "they are sitting down
-      yonder like hoodie-craws in a mist; but d'yo think ye'll help them wi'
-      skirling that gate like an auld skart before a flaw o' weather?&mdash;Steenie,
-      lad, bring up the mast&mdash;Od, I'se hae them up as we used to bouse up
-      the kegs o' gin and brandy lang syne&mdash;Get up the pickaxe, make a step
-      for the mast&mdash;make the chair fast with the rattlin&mdash;haul taught
-      and belay!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The fishers had brought with them the mast of a boat, and as half of the
-      country fellows about had now appeared, 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 preparations
-      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 occupied, 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
-      committing a human being to the vacant atmosphere in such a slight means
-      of conveyance, there was the fearful 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 seaman had let down with the chair another line,
-      which, being attached to it, and held by the persons beneath, might serve
-      by way of <i>gy,</i> 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 beetling
-      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 imminent 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Let my father go first," exclaimed Isabella; "for God's sake, my friends,
-      place him first in safety!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It cannot be, Miss Wardour," said Lovel;&mdash;"your life must be first
-      secured&mdash;the rope which bears your weight may"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I will not listen to a reason so selfish!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But ye maun listen to it, my bonnie lassie," said Ochiltree, "for a' our
-      lives depend on it&mdash;besides, when ye get on the tap o' the heugh
-      yonder, ye can gie them a round guess o' what's ganging on in this Patmos
-      o' ours&mdash;and Sir Arthur's far by that, as I'm thinking."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Struck with the truth of this reasoning, she exclaimed, "True, most true;
-      I am ready and willing to undertake the first risk&mdash;What shall I say
-      to our friends above?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Just to look that their tackle does not graze on the face o' the crag,
-      and to let the chair down and draw it up hooly and fairly;&mdash;we will
-      halloo when we are ready."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      With the sedulous attention of a parent to a child, Lovel bound Miss
-      Wardour with his handkerchief, neckcloth, 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?&mdash;what are ye doing?&mdash;She shall not be
-      separated from me&mdash;Isabel, stay with me, I command you!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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 unreasonable exclamations of the poor Baronet.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Farewell, my father!" murmured Isabella&mdash;"farewell, my&mdash;my
-      friends!" and shutting her eyes, as Edie's experience 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Canny now, lads, canny now!" exclaimed old Mucklebackit, who acted as
-      commodore; "swerve the yard a bit&mdash;Now&mdash;there! there she sits
-      safe on dry land."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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&mdash;ye'll no get out o'your night-cowl this
-      fortnight&mdash;and that will suit us unco ill.&mdash;Na, na&mdash;there's
-      the chariot down by; let twa o' the folk carry the young leddy there."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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.&mdash;Miss
-      Wardour, let me convey you to the chariot."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not for worlds till I see my father safe."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In a few distinct words, evincing how much her resolution had surmounted
-      even the mortal fear of so agitating a hazard, she explained the nature of
-      the situation beneath, and the wishes of Lovel and Ochiltree.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Right, right, that's right too&mdash;I should like to see the son of Sir
-      Gamelyn de Guardover on dry land myself&mdash;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"&mdash;(for the chair was again lowered, and
-      Sir Arthur made fast in it, without much consciousness on his own part)&mdash;"here
-      a' comes&mdash;Bowse away, my boys! canny wi' him&mdash;a pedigree of a
-      hundred links is hanging on a tenpenny tow&mdash;the whole barony of
-      Knockwinnock depends on three plies of hemp&mdash;<i>respice finem,
-      respice funem</i>&mdash;look to your end&mdash;look to a rope's end.&mdash;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&mdash;a fico for the phrase,&mdash;better
-      <i>sus. per funem,</i> than <i>sus. per coll.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What have we here?" said Oldbuck, as the vehicle once more ascended&mdash;"what
-      patched and weather-beaten matter is this?" Then as the torches illumed
-      the rough face and grey hairs of old Ochiltree,&mdash;"What! is it thou?&mdash;Come,
-      old Mocker, I must needs be friends with thee&mdash;but who the devil
-      makes up your party besides?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ane that's weel worth ony twa o' us, Monkbarns;&mdash;it's the young
-      stranger lad they ca' Lovel&mdash;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!&mdash;mind there's naebody below now to haud the gy&mdash;Hae a
-      care o' the Cat's-lug corner&mdash;bide weel aff Crummie's-horn!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Have a care indeed," echoed Oldbuck. "What! is it my <i>rara avis</i>&mdash;my
-      black swan&mdash;my phoenix of companions in a post-chaise?&mdash;take
-      care of him, Mucklebackit."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "As muckle care as if he were a graybeard o' brandy; and I canna take mair
-      if his hair were like John Harlowe's.&mdash;Yo ho, my hearts! bowse away
-      with him!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 like 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 agitated 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,&mdash;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 than he had that evening been exposed to. The beggar she
-      had already commanded to come to Knockwinnock that night. He made an
-      excuse.&mdash;"Then to-morrow let me see you."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The old man promised to obey. Oldbuck thrust something into his hand&mdash;Ochiltree
-      looked at it by the torchlight, and returned it&mdash;"Na, na! I never tak
-      gowd&mdash;besides, Monkbarns, ye wad maybe be rueing it the morn." Then
-      turning to the group of fishermen and peasants&mdash;"Now, sirs, wha will
-      gie me a supper and some clean pease-strae?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I," "and I," "and I," answered many a ready voice.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aweel, since sae it is, and I can only sleep in ae barn at ance, I'll gae
-      down with Saunders Mucklebackit&mdash;he has aye a soup o' something
-      comfortable about his begging&mdash;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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Oldbuck laid the band of strong possession on Lovel&mdash;"Deil a stride
-      ye's go to Fairport this night, young man&mdash;you must go home with me
-      to Monkbarns. Why, man, you have been a hero&mdash;a perfect Sir William
-      Wallace, by all accounts. Come, my good lad, take hold of my arm;&mdash;I
-      am not a prime support in such a wind&mdash;but Caxon shall help us out&mdash;Here,
-      you old idiot, come on the other side of me.&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have been pretty well accustomed to climbing, and I have long observed
-      fowlers practise that pass down the cliff."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I saw them from the verge of the precipice."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "From the verge!&mdash;umph&mdash;And what possessed you <i>dumosa pendere
-      procul de rupe?</i>&mdash;though <i>dumosa</i> is not the appropriate
-      epithet&mdash;what the deil, man, tempted ye to the verge of the craig?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why&mdash;I like to see the gathering and growling of a coming storm&mdash;or,
-      in your own classical language, Mr. Oldbuck, <i>suave mari magno</i>&mdash;and
-      so forth&mdash;but here we reach the turn to Fairport. I must wish you
-      good-night."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not a step, not a pace, not an inch, not a shathmont, as I may say,&mdash;the
-      meaning of which word has puzzled many that think themselves antiquaries.
-      I am clear we should read <i>salmon-length</i> for <i>shathmont's-length.</i>
-      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 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 productions of the water were
-      established as gauges of the extent of land.&mdash;Shathmont&mdash;salmont&mdash;you
-      see the close alliance of the sounds; dropping out two <i>h</i>'s, and a
-      <i>t,</i> and assuming an <i>l,</i> makes the whole difference&mdash;I
-      wish to heaven no antiquarian derivation had demanded heavier
-      concessions."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But, my dear sir, I really must go home&mdash;I am wet to the skin."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Shalt have my night-gown, man, and slippers, and catch the antiquarian
-      fever as men do the plague, by wearing infected garments. Nay, I know what
-      you would be at&mdash;you are afraid to put the old bachelor to charges.
-      But is there not the remains of that glorious chicken-pie&mdash;which, <i>meo
-      arbitrio,</i> is better cold than hot&mdash;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?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 companion had that evening
-      undergone agitation of mind which had harassed and wearied him even more
-      than his extraordinary exertions of body.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER NINTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-           "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.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      They reached the room in which they had dined, and were clamorously
-      welcomed by Miss Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Where's the younger womankind?" said the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed, brother, amang a' the steery, Maria wadna be guided by me she set
-      away to the Halket-craig-head&mdash;I wonder ye didna see her."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Eh!&mdash;what&mdash;what's that you say, sister?&mdash;did the girl go
-      out in a night like this to the Halket-head?&mdash;Good God! the misery of
-      the night is not ended yet!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But ye winna wait, Monkbarns&mdash;ye are so imperative and impatient"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Tittle-tattle, woman," said the impatient and agitated Antiquary, "where
-      is my dear Mary?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Just where ye suld be yoursell, Monkbarns&mdash;up-stairs, and in her
-      warm bed."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I could have sworn it," said Oldbuck laughing, but obviously much
-      relieved&mdash;"I could have sworn it;&mdash;the lazy monkey did not care
-      if we were all drowned together. Why did you say she went out?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But ye wadna wait to hear out my tale, Monkbarns&mdash;she gaed out, and
-      she came in again with the gardener sae sune as she saw that nane o' ye
-      were clodded ower the Craig, and that Miss Wardour was safe in the
-      chariot; she was hame a quarter of an hour syne, for it's now ganging ten&mdash;sair
-      droukit was she, puir thing, sae I e'en put a glass o' sherry in her
-      water-gruel."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Right, Grizel, right&mdash;let womankind alone for coddling each other.
-      But hear me, my venerable sister&mdash;start not at the word venerable; it
-      implies many praiseworthy qualities besides age; though that too is
-      honourable, albeit it is the last quality for which womankind would wish
-      to be honoured&mdash;But perpend my words: let Lovel and me have forthwith
-      the relics of the chicken-pie, and the reversion of the port."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The chicken-pie! the port!&mdash;ou dear! brother&mdash;there was but a
-      wheen banes, and scarce a drap o' the wine."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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
-      disappearance of the viands on which he had reckoned with absolute
-      certainty. But his sister understood these looks of ire. "Ou dear!
-      Monkbarns, what's the use of making a wark?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I make no wark, as ye call it, woman."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But what's the use o' looking sae glum and glunch about a pickle banes?&mdash;an
-      ye will hae the truth, ye maun ken the minister came in, worthy man&mdash;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 likely to gang wi' ye a'&mdash;He
-      said fine things on the duty of resignation to Providence's will, worthy
-      man! that did he."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Oldbuck replied, catching the same tone, "Worthy man!&mdash;he cared not
-      how soon Monkbarns had devolved on an heir-female, I've a notion;&mdash;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?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dear brother, how can you speak of sic frivolities, when you have had sic
-      an escape from the craig?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Better than my supper has had from the minister's <i>craig,</i> Grizzle&mdash;it's
-      all discussed, I suppose?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hout, Monkbarns, ye speak as if there was nae mair meat in the house&mdash;wad
-      ye not have had me offer the honest man some slight refreshment after his
-      walk frae the manse?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Oldbuck half-whistled, half-hummed, the end of the old Scottish ditty,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                 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!
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      His sister hastened to silence his murmurs, by proposing some of the
-      relies 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 night-cap and
-      branched morning-gown of his host, Oldbuck, who pretended 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 Fairport early in the morning, to procure him a change of clothes.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      This was the first intimation Miss Oldbuck had received 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
-      superincumbent 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Lord haud a care o' us!" exclaimed the astounded maiden.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What's the matter now, Grizel?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Wad ye but just speak a moment, Monkbarns?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Speak!&mdash;what should I speak about? I want to get to my bed&mdash;and
-      this poor young fellow&mdash;let a bed be made ready for him instantly."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A bed?&mdash;The Lord preserve us!" again ejaculated Grizel.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, what's the matter now?&mdash;are there not beds and rooms enough in
-      the house?&mdash;was it not an ancient <i>hospitium,</i> in which, I am
-      warranted to say, beds were nightly made down for a score of pilgrims?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O dear, Monkbarns! wha kens what they might do lang syne?&mdash;but in
-      our time&mdash;beds&mdash;ay, troth, there's beds enow sic as they are&mdash;and
-      rooms enow too&mdash;but ye ken yoursell the beds haena been sleepit in,
-      Lord kens the time, nor the rooms aired.&mdash;If I had kenn'd, Mary and
-      me might hae gaen down to the manse&mdash;Miss Beckie is aye fond to see
-      us&mdash;(and sae is the minister, brother)&mdash;But now, gude save us!"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Is there not the Green Room, Grizel?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth is there, and it is in decent order too, though naebody has sleepit
-      there since Dr. Heavysterne, and"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And what?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And what! I am sure ye ken yoursell what a night he had&mdash;ye wadna
-      expose the young gentleman to the like o' that, wad ye?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel interfered upon hearing this altercation, and protested he would far
-      rather walk home than put them to the least inconvenience&mdash;that the
-      exercise would be of service to him&mdash;that he knew the road perfectly,
-      by night or day, to Fairport&mdash;that the storm was abating, and so
-      forth&mdash;adding all that civility could suggest as an excuse for
-      escaping from a hospitality which seemed more inconvenient to his host
-      than he could possibly have anticipated. But the howling of the wind, and
-      the 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&mdash;"Sit ye down, sit ye down, sit
-      ye down, man," he reiterated;&mdash;"an ye part so, I would I might never
-      draw a cork again, and here comes out one from a prime bottle of&mdash;strong
-      ale&mdash;right <i>anno domini</i>&mdash;none of your Wassia Quassia
-      decoctions, but brewed of Monkbarns barley&mdash;John of the Girnel never
-      drew a better flagon to entertain a wandering minstrel, or palmer, with
-      the freshest news from Palestine.&mdash;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, 'tis an adventure, man, to sleep in
-      the Green Room at Monkbarns.&mdash;Sister, pray see it got ready&mdash;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 half so heavy, should not encounter and break the
-      spell."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What! a haunted apartment, I suppose?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "To be sure, to be sure&mdash;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
-      reality of a ghost in an old manor-house you ran the risk of being made a
-      ghost yourself, as Hamlet says.&mdash;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 court-yard, made you betake
-      yourself to your weapon, and if your trick of fence were not the better,
-      would have sticked you like a paddock, on his own baronial midden-stead. I
-      once narrowly escaped such an affray&mdash;but I humbled myself, and
-      apologised to Redcowl; for, even in my younger days, I was no friend to
-      the <i>monomachia,</i> or duel, and would rather walk with Sir Priest than
-      with Sir Knight&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here Miss Oldbuck re-entered, with a singularly sage expression of
-      countenance.&mdash;"Mr. Lovel's bed's ready, brother&mdash;clean sheets&mdash;weel
-      aired&mdash;a spunk of fire in the chimney&mdash;I am sure, Mr. Lovel,"
-      (addressing him), "it's no for the trouble&mdash;and I hope you will have
-      a good night's rest&mdash;But"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You are resolved," said the Antiquary, "to do what you can to prevent
-      it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Me?&mdash;I am sure I have said naething, Monkbarns."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My dear madam," said Lovel, "allow me to ask you the meaning of your
-      obliging anxiety on my account."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou, Monkbarns does not like to hear of it&mdash;but he kens himsell that
-      the room has an ill name. It's weel minded that it was there auld Rab Tull
-      the town-clerk was sleeping when he had that marvellous communication
-      about the grand law-plea between us and the feuars at the Mussel-craig.
-      &mdash;It had cost a hantle siller, Mr. Lovel; for law-pleas were no
-      carried on without siller lang syne mair than they are now&mdash;and the
-      Monkbarns of that day&mdash;our gudesire, Mr. Lovel, as I said before&mdash;was
-      like to be waured afore the Session for want of a paper&mdash;Monkbarns
-      there kens weel what paper it was, but I'se warrant he'll no help me out
-      wi' my tale&mdash;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&mdash;in presence, as they ca't&mdash;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&mdash;so there was little time to come and gang on. He was but a
-      doited snuffy body, Rab, as I've heard &mdash;but then he was the
-      town-clerk of Fairport, and the Monkbarns heritors aye employed him on
-      account of their connection wi' the burgh, ye ken."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Sister Grizel, this is abominable," interrupted Oldbuck; "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 detailing the introduction to
-      this single spectre.&mdash;Learn to be succinct in your narrative.&mdash;Imitate
-      the concise style of old Aubrey, an experienced ghost-seer, who entered
-      his memoranda on these subjects in a terse business-like manner; <i>exempli
-      gratia</i>&mdash;At Cirencester, 5th March, 1670, was an apparition.&mdash;Being
-      demanded whether good spirit or bad, made no answer, but instantly
-      disappeared with a curious perfume, and a melodious twang'&mdash;<i>Vide</i>
-      his Miscellanies, p. eighteen, as well as I can remember, and near the
-      middle of the page."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O, Monkbarns, man! do ye think everybody is as book-learned as yoursell?&mdash;But
-      ye like to gar folk look like fools&mdash;ye can do that to Sir Arthur,
-      and the minister his very sell."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nature has been beforehand with me, Grizel, in both these instances, and
-      in another which shall be nameless&mdash;but take a glass of ale, Grizel,
-      and proceed with your story, for it waxes late."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Jenny's just warming your bed, Monkbarns, and ye maun e'en wait till
-      she's done.&mdash;Weel, I was at the search that our gudesire, Monkbarns
-      that then was, made wi' auld Rab Tull's assistance;&mdash;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&mdash;we
-      never were glass-breakers in this house, Mr. Lovel, but the body had got
-      sic a trick of sippling and tippling wi' the bailies and deacons when they
-      met (which was amaist ilka night) concerning the common gude o' the burgh,
-      that he couldna weel sleep without it&mdash;But his punch he gat, and to
-      bed he gaed; and in the middle of the night he got a fearfu' wakening!&mdash;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, and out he lookit, fancying, puir man, it
-      might hae been the cat&mdash;But he saw&mdash;God hae a care o' us! it
-      gars my flesh aye creep, though I hae tauld the story twenty times&mdash;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&mdash;He had a beard too, and whiskers turned
-      upwards on his upper-lip, as lang as baudrons'&mdash;and mony mair
-      particulars there were that Rab Tull tauld o', but they are forgotten now&mdash;it's
-      an auld story. Aweel, Rab was a just-living man for a country writer&mdash;and
-      he was less feared than maybe might just hae been expected; and he asked
-      in the name o' goodness what the apparition wanted&mdash;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 Glenlivat&mdash;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 Tull, wha was nae great scholar, was clean overwhelmed. 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,
-      <i>Carter, carter</i>&mdash;"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "<i>Carta,</i> you transformer of languages!" cried Oldbuck;&mdash;"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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Weel, weel, <i>carta</i> be it then, but they ca'd it <i>carter</i> that
-      tell'd me the story. It cried aye <i>carta,</i> if sae be that it was <i>carta,</i>
-      and made a sign to Rab to follow it. Rab Tull keepit a Highland heart, and
-      banged out o' bed, and till some of his readiest claes&mdash;and he did
-      follow the thing up stairs and down stairs to the place we ca' the high
-      dow-cot&mdash;(a sort of a little tower in the corner of the auld house,
-      where there was a Rickle o' useless boxes and trunks)&mdash;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 library table, and then disappeared like a fuff o'
-      tobacco, leaving Rab in a very pitiful condition."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "<i>Tenues secessit in auras,</i>" quoth Oldbuck. "Marry, sir, <i>mansit
-      odor</i>&mdash;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 seemed 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 Glengibber, 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&mdash;thirteen.
-      It's not worth while to repeat the witnesses' names."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I would rather," said Lovel with awakened curiosity, "I would rather hear
-      your opinion of the way in which the deed was discovered."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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.*
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      *Note D. Mr. Rutherford's dream.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 Oldenbuck, my
-      great-great-great-grandfather&mdash;it's a shame to the English language
-      that, we have not a less clumsy way of expressing a relationship of which
-      we have occasion to think and speak so frequently. He was a foreigner, 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 sufficient to constitute a white witch at least.
-      This superstitious old writer had heard all this, and probably believed
-      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&mdash;Add a <i>quantum sufficit</i> of
-      exaggeration, and you have a key to the whole mystery."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O brother! brother! but Dr. Heavysterne, brother&mdash;whose sleep was so
-      sore broken, that he declared he wadna pass another night in the Green
-      Room to get all Monkbarns, so that Mary and I were forced to yield our"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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
-      received tales of Mesmer, Shropfer, Cagliostro, and other modern
-      pretenders to the mystery of raising spirits, discovering hidden treasure,
-      and so forth, in exchange for your legends of the green bedchamber;&mdash;and
-      considering that the <i>Illustrissimus</i> 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 night-mare. But
-      everything is now ready. Permit me to light you to your apartment, Mr.
-      Lovel&mdash;I am sure you have need of rest&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      So saying, the Antiquary took up a bedroom candlestick of massive silver
-      and antique form, which, he observed, 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 subject 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER TENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                 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,&mdash;
-                       Visions of long departed joys.
-                                        W. R. Spenser.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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. "I am seldom in
-      this apartment," he said, "and never without yielding to a melancholy
-      feeling&mdash;not, of course, on account of the childish nonsense that
-      Grizel was telling you, but owing to circumstances of an early and unhappy
-      attachment. It is at such moments as these, Mr. Lovel, that we feel the
-      changes of time. The same objects are before us&mdash;those inanimate
-      things which we have gazed on in wayward infancy and impetuous youth, in
-      anxious and scheming manhood&mdash;they are permanent and the same; but
-      when we look upon them in cold unfeeling old age, can we, changed in our
-      temper, our pursuits, our feelings&mdash;changed in our form, our limbs,
-      and our strength,&mdash;can we be ourselves called the same? or do we not
-      rather look back with a sort of wonder upon our former selves, as being
-      separate and distinct from what we now are? The philosopher who appealed
-      from Philip inflamed with wine to Philip in his hours of sobriety, 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 beautifully expressed in a poem which I have heard repeated:*
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      *Probably Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads had not as yet been published.
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                   My eyes are dim with childish tears,
-                       My heart is idly stirred,
-                   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.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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."&mdash;So saying, he shook Lovel cordially by the hand, wished
-      him good-night, and took his leave.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The fire blazed cheerfully. Mrs. Grizel's attention had left some fresh
-      wood, should he choose to continue it, and the apartment had a
-      comfortable, though not a lively appearance. 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 brought with him as a
-      sample of the arts of the Continent. 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 grey-hounds, or stag-hounds, in the leash, or cheering them
-      upon the objects of their game. Others, with boar-spears, swords, and
-      old-fashioned 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 prolific
-      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 excellent poet, to be embroidered in Gothic letters, on a
-      sort of border which he had added to the tapestry:-
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-              Lo! here be oakis grete, streight as a line,
-              Under the which the grass, so fresh of line,
-              Be'th newly sprung&mdash;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.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      And in another canton was the following similar legend:&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                  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 squirrels that ysate
-                    High on the trees and nuts ate.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have heard," muttered Lovel, as he took a cursory view of the room and
-      its furniture, "that ghosts often chose the best room in the mansion to
-      which they attached 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 reality of his own hopeless passion at present detached
-      him. For he now only felt emotions like those expressed in the lines,&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                 Ah! cruel maid, how hast thou changed
-                        The temper of my mind!
-                 My heart, by thee from all estranged,
-                        Becomes like thee unkind.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      He endeavoured to conjure up something like the feelings which would, at
-      another time, have been congenial 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 purpose to escape from it, would have alone occupied his
-      imagination exclusively. But with this were united recollections more
-      agitating if less painful,&mdash;her hair-breadth escape&mdash;the
-      fortunate assistance which he had been able to render her&mdash;Yet what
-      was his requital? She left the cliff while his fate was yet doubtful&mdash;while
-      it was uncertain whether her preserver had not lost the life which he had
-      exposed for her so freely. Surely gratitude, at least, called for some
-      little interest in his fate&mdash;But no&mdash;she could not be selfish or
-      unjust&mdash;it was no part of her nature. She only desired to shut the
-      door against hope, and, even in compassion to him, to extinguish a passion
-      which she could never return.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 inconsolable 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&mdash;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 sun-beam, and, long after he had laid
-      himself to rest, continued to prevent the repose which he greatly needed.
-      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 lion's mane," and resuming
-      those studies and that career of life 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, presuming
-      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
-      affords none fairer, has at least many as fair, and less haughty than Miss
-      Wardour. Tomorrow 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 sank into slumber.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      It is seldom that sleep, after such violent agitation, is either sound or
-      refreshing. Lovel's was disturbed by a thousand baseless and confused
-      visions. He was a bird&mdash;he was a fish&mdash;or he flew like the one,
-      and swam like the other,&mdash;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 cormorant. These agreeable imaginations were
-      varied by all the usual vagaries of a feverish dream;&mdash;the air
-      refused to bear the visionary, the water seemed to burn him&mdash;the
-      rocks felt like down pillows as he was dashed against them&mdash;whatever
-      he undertook, failed in some strange and unexpected manner&mdash;and
-      whatever attracted his attention, underwent, as he attempted to
-      investigate it, some wild and wonderful metamorphosis, while his mind
-      continued all the while in some degree conscious of the delusion, from
-      which it in vain struggled to free itself by awaking;&mdash;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 may be, a less distinct outline. Or it is possible that his
-      feverish agitation may have assisted him in forming the vision.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 occasional flame which
-      the unconsumed remnants of the faggots sent forth, as, one by one, they
-      fell down upon the 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 summon 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&mdash;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&mdash;the
-      shouts of men, and the clatter of horses' hoofs, seemed at once to
-      surround him&mdash;while every group pursued, with all the fury of the
-      chase, the employment in which the artist had represented 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 head-gear 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 portray the first proprietor of Monkbarns, such as he had
-      been described to Lovel by his descendants in the course of the 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
-      office, 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 deliberately 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&mdash;Lovel started, and became
-      completely awake. The music, however, was still in his ears, nor ceased
-      till he could distinctly follow the measure of an old Scottish tune.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 distinct
-      light into the apartment. He looked round upon the hangings,&mdash;but the
-      mixed groups of silken and worsted huntsmen were as stationary as
-      tenter-hooks could make them, and only trembled slightly as the early
-      breeze, which found its way through an open crevice of the latticed
-      window, glided along their surface. Lovel leapt out of bed, and, wrapping
-      himself in a morning-gown, that had been considerately laid by his
-      bedside, 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&mdash;it
-      was now nothing more than an air on the harpsichord, tolerably well
-      performed&mdash;such is the caprice of imagination as affecting the fine
-      arts. A female voice sung, with some taste and great simplicity, something
-      between a song and a hymn, in words to the following effect:&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                 "Why sitt'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&mdash;
-                    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.
-
-                "Redeem mine hours&mdash;the space is brief&mdash;
-                While in my glass the sand-grains shiver,
-                   And measureless thy joy or grief,
-                When Time and thou shalt part for ever!"
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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 offices of a
-      valet-de-chambre.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have brushed your coat, sir," said the old man, when he perceived Lovel
-      was awake; "the callant brought it frae 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'll 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel, who was by this time once more on his legs, declined the old man's
-      professional offices, but accompanied the refusal with such a douceur as
-      completely sweetened Caxon's mortification.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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&mdash;that is to
-      say, of his <i>whole</i> time&mdash;"it's a great pity, for he's a comely
-      young gentleman."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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'll be for your breakfast, I'se warrant?&mdash;hae,
-      there's a soup parritch for ye&mdash;it will set ye better tae be
-      slaistering at them and the lapper-milk than meddling wi' Mr. Lovel's head&mdash;ye
-      wad spoil the maist natural and beautifaest head o' hair in a' Fairport,
-      baith burgh and county."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER ELEVENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-            Sometimes he thinks that Heaven this pageant sent,
-               And ordered all the pageants as they went;
-             Sometimes that only 'twas wild Fancy's play,&mdash;
-               The loose and scattered relics of the day.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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 regaling himself, <i>more majorum,</i> with cold roast-beef,
-      and a glass of a sort of beverage called <i>mum</i>&mdash;a species of fat
-      ale, brewed from wheat and bitter herbs, of which the present generation
-      only know the name by its occurrence 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 <i>did</i> refrain, as he saw he should otherwise give
-      great offence to his host, who had the liquor annually prepared with
-      peculiar care, according 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We canna compliment Mr. Lovel on his looks this morning, brother&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I certainly do still feel somewhat fatigued," said Lovel,
-      "notwithstanding the excellent accommodations with which your hospitality
-      so amply supplied me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ah, sir!" said Miss Oldbuck looking at him with a knowing smile, or what
-      was meant to be one, "ye'll not allow of ony inconvenience, out of
-      civility to us."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Really, madam," replied Lovel, "I had no disturbance; for I cannot term
-      such the music with which some kind fairy favoured me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I doubted Mary wad waken you wi' her skreighing; she dinna ken I had left
-      open a chink of your window, for, forbye the ghaist, the Green Room disna
-      vent weel in a high wind&mdash;But I am judging ye heard mair than Mary's
-      lilts yestreen. Weel, men are hardy creatures&mdash;they can gae through
-      wi' a' thing. I am sure, had I been to undergo ony thing of that nature,&mdash;that's
-      to say that's beyond nature&mdash;I would hae skreigh'd out at once, and
-      raised the house, be the consequence what liket&mdash;and, I dare say, the
-      minister wad hae done as mickle, and sae I hae tauld him,&mdash;I ken
-      naebody but my brother, Monkbarns himsell, wad gae through the like o't,
-      if, indeed, it binna you, Mr. Lovel."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A man of Mr. Oldbuck's learning, madam," answered the questioned party,
-      "would not be exposed to the inconvenience sustained by the Highland
-      gentleman you mentioned last night."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, ay&mdash;ye understand now where the difficulty lies. Language? he
-      has ways o' his ain wad banish a' thae sort o' worricows as far as the
-      hindermost parts of Gideon" (meaning possibly Midian), "as Mr. Blattergowl
-      says&mdash;only ane widna be uncivil to ane's forbear, though he be a
-      ghaist. I am sure I will try that receipt of yours, brother, that ye
-      showed me in a book, if onybody is to sleep in that room again, though I
-      think, in Christian charity, ye should rather fit up the matted-room&mdash;it's
-      a wee damp and dark, to be sure, but then we hae sae seldom occasion for a
-      spare bed."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, no, sister;&mdash;dampness and darkness are worse than spectres&mdash;ours
-      are spirits of light, and I would rather have you try the spell."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I will do that blythely, Monkbarns, an I had the ingredients, as my
-      cookery book ca's them&mdash;There was <i>vervain</i> and <i>dill</i>&mdash;I
-      mind that&mdash;Davie Dibble will ken about them, though, maybe, he'll gie
-      them Latin names&mdash;and Peppercorn, we hae walth o' them, for"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hypericon, thou foolish woman!" thundered Oldbuck; "d'ye suppose you're
-      making a haggis&mdash;or do you think that a spirit, though he be formed
-      of air, can be expelled by a receipt against wind?&mdash;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"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Auld woman, Monkbarns!" said Miss Oldbuck, roused something above her
-      usual submissive tone; "ye really are less than civil to me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not less than just, Grizel: however, I include in the same class many a
-      sounding name, from Jamblichus down to Aubrey, who have wasted their time
-      in devising imaginary remedies for non-existing diseases.&mdash;But I
-      hope, my young friend, that, charmed or uncharmed&mdash;secured by the
-      potency of Hypericon,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                      With vervain and with dill,
-                      That hinder witches of their will,
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      or left disarmed and defenceless to the inroads of the invisible world,
-      you will give another night to the terrors of the haunted apartment, and
-      another day to your faithful and feal friends."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I heartily wish I could, but"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nay, but me no <i>buts</i>&mdash;I have set my heart upon it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am greatly obliged, my dear sir, but"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Look ye there, now&mdash;<i>but</i> again!&mdash;I hate <i>but;</i> I
-      know no form of expression in which he can appear, that is amiable,
-      excepting as a <i>butt</i> of sack. But is to me a more detestable
-      combination of letters than <i>no</i> itself.<i>No</i> is a surly, honest
-      fellow&mdash;speaks his mind rough and round at once. <i>But</i> is a
-      sneaking, evasive, half-bred, exceptuous sort of a conjunction, which
-      comes to pull away the cup just when it is at your lips&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                             &mdash;it does allay
-                The good precedent&mdash;fie upon <i>but yet!</i>
-                <i>But yet</i> is as a jailor to bring forth
-                         Some monstrous malefactor."
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "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 afraid&mdash;and
-      I will, since you are good enough to wish it, take this opportunity of
-      spending another day here."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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&mdash;which will but be
-      barely civil, and then"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I beg pardon, my dear sir; but, perhaps, you had better adjourn your
-      visit till to-morrow&mdash;I am a stranger, you know."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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 antiquities&mdash;I am one of the old school,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-  When courtiers galloped o'er four counties
-  The ball's fair partner to behold,
-  And humbly hope she caught no cold."
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "Why, if&mdash;if&mdash;if you thought it would be expected&mdash;but I
-      believe I had better stay."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nay, nay, my good friend, I am not so old-fashioned as to press you to
-      what is disagreeable, neither&mdash;it is sufficient that I see there is
-      some <i>remora,</i> some cause of delay, some mid impediment, which I have
-      no title to inquire into. Or you are still somewhat tired, perhaps;&mdash;I
-      warrant I find means to entertain your intellects without fatiguing your
-      limbs&mdash;I am no friend to violent exertion myself&mdash;a walk in the
-      garden once a-day is exercise, enough for any thinking being&mdash;none
-      but a fool or a fox-hunter would require more. Well, what shall we set
-      about?&mdash;my Essay on Castrametation&mdash;but I have that in <i>petto</i>
-      for our afternoon cordial;&mdash;or I will show you the controversy upon
-      Ossian's Poems between Mac-Cribb and me. I hold with the acute Orcadian&mdash;he
-      with the defenders of the authenticity;&mdash;the controversy began in
-      smooth, oily, lady-like terms, but is now waxing more sour and eager as we
-      get on&mdash;it already partakes somewhat of old Scaliger's style. I fear
-      the rogue will get some scent of that story of Ochiltree's&mdash;but at
-      worst, I have a hard repartee for him on the affair of the abstracted
-      Antigonus&mdash;I will show you his last epistle and the scroll of my
-      answer&mdash;egad, it is a trimmer!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 <i>l'embarras des richesses;</i> in other words, the
-      abundance of his collection often prevented him from finding the article
-      he sought for. "Curse the papers!&mdash;I believe," said Oldbuck, as he
-      shuffled them to and fro&mdash;"I believe they make themselves wings like
-      grasshoppers, and fly away bodily&mdash;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&mdash;"Pr'ythee,
-      undo this button," said he, as he observed Lovel fumbling at the clasp. He
-      did so,&mdash;the lid opened, and discovered a thin quarto, curiously
-      bound in black shagreen&mdash;"There, Mr. Lovel&mdash;there is the work I
-      mentioned to you last night&mdash;the rare quarto of the Augsburg
-      Confession, the foundation at once and the bulwark of the Reformation
-      drawn up by the learned and venerable Melancthon, 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 imprinted by
-      the scarcely less venerable and praiseworthy Aldobrand Oldenbuck, my happy
-      progenitor, during the yet more tyrannical attempts of Philip II. to
-      suppress at once civil and religious liberty. Yes, sir&mdash;for printing
-      this work, that eminent man was expelled from his ungrateful country, and
-      driven to establish his household gods even here at Monkbarns, among the
-      ruins of papal superstition and domination.&mdash;Look upon his venerable
-      effigies, Mr. Lovel, and respect the honourable occupation in which it
-      presents him, as labouring personally at the press for the diffusion of
-      Christian and political knowledge.&mdash;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&mdash;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, fonts, forms, great and small pica, been shivered to pieces
-      around him&mdash;Read, I say, his motto,&mdash;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&mdash;that is, skill, or prudence, in availing ourselves of our
-      natural talents and advantages, will compel favour and patronage, even
-      where it is withheld from prejudice or ignorance."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And that," said Lovel, after a moment's thoughtful silence&mdash;"that,
-      then, is the meaning of these German words?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Unquestionably. You perceive the appropriate application to a
-      consciousness of inward worth, and of eminence in a useful and honourable
-      art.&mdash;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 romantic circumstance."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And what is that said to have been, my good sir?" inquired his young
-      friend.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, it rather encroaches on my respected predecessor's fame for prudence
-      and wisdom&mdash;<i>Sed semel insanivimus omnes</i>&mdash;everybody has
-      played the fool in their turn. It is said, my ancestor, during his
-      apprenticeship with the descendant of old Faust, whom popular tradition
-      hath sent to the devil under the name of Faustus, was attracted by a
-      paltry slip of womankind, his master's daughter, called Bertha&mdash;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 <i>hand-werker;</i>
-      for such was the custom 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 themselves for life. It was a wise
-      custom; for, as such travellers 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 Nuremburg, 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 <i>Yung-fraw</i> 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 would 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 <i>gentle</i> 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
-      sufficiently possessed of the mystery&mdash;But I tire you."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "By no means; pray, proceed, Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;I listen with uncommon
-      interest."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ah! it is all folly. However&mdash;Aldobrand arrived in the ordinary
-      dress, as we would say, of a journeyman printer&mdash;the same in which he
-      had traversed Germany, and conversed with Luther, Melancthon, Erasmus, 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 womankind, and Bertha refused to acknowledge
-      her former lover, in the torn doublet, skin cap, clouted shoes, and
-      leathern apron, of a travelling handicraftsman or mechanic. He claimed his
-      privilege, however, of being admitted 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 without
-      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&mdash;the blushing maiden acknowledged
-      her error in trusting to the eye more than the intellect&mdash;and the
-      elected bridegroom thenceforward chose for his impress or device the
-      appropriate words, <i>Skill wins favour.</i>'&mdash;But what is the matter
-      with you?&mdash;you are in a brown study! Come, I told you this was but
-      trumpery conversation for thinking people&mdash;and now I have my hand on
-      the Ossianic Controversy."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I beg your pardon," said Lovel; "I am going to appear very silly and
-      changeable in your eyes, Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;but you seemed to think Sir
-      Arthur might in civility expect a call from me?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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 honours good graces?&mdash;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
-      ever-green bower, my sacred holly-tree yonder, and have it <i>fronde super
-      viridi.</i>
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-               Sing heigh-ho! heigh-ho! for the green holly,
-         Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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&mdash;I
-      quarrel with no man's hobby, if he does not run it a tilt against mine,
-      and if he does&mdash;let him beware his eyes. What say you?&mdash;in the
-      language of the world and worldlings base, if you can condescend to so
-      mean a sphere, shall we stay or go?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In the language of selfishness, then, which is of course the language of
-      the world&mdash;let us go by all means."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Amen, amen, quo' the Earl Marshall," answered Oldbuck, as he exchanged
-      his slippers for a pair of stout walking shoes, with <i>cutikins,</i> 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
-      bailiff of the abbey who had resided at Monkbarns. 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:&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                    Here 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.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "You see how modest the author of this sepulchral commendation was;&mdash;he
-      tells us that honest John could make five firlots, or quarters, as you
-      would say, out of the boll, instead of four,&mdash;that he gave the fifth
-      to the wives of the parish, and accounted for the other four to the abbot
-      and CHAPTER&mdash;that in his time the wives' hens always laid eggs&mdash;and
-      devil thank them, if they got one-fifth of the abbey rents; and that
-      honest men's hearths were never unblest with offspring&mdash;an addition
-      to the miracle, which they, as well as I, must have considered as
-      perfectly unaccountable. But come on&mdash;leave we Jock o' the Girnel,
-      and let us jog on 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 Scottish 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 increased
-      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&mdash;a bannock-fluke and a cock-padle."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "How much for the bannock-fluke and cock-padle?" demanded the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Four white shillings and saxpence," answered the Naiad.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Four devils and six of their imps!" retorted the Antiquary; "do you think
-      I am mad, Maggie?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And div ye think," rejoined the virago, setting her arms akimbo, "that my
-      man and my sons are to gae to the sea in weather like yestreen and the day&mdash;sic
-      a sea as it's yet outby&mdash;and get naething for their fish, and be
-      misca'd into the bargain, Monkbarns? It's no fish ye're buying&mdash;it's
-      men's lives."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, Maggie, I'll bid you fair&mdash;I'll bid you a shilling for the
-      fluke and the cock-padle, or sixpence separately&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, well, you old beldam, carry your fish up to Monkbarns, and see what
-      my sister will give you for them."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, na, Monkbarns, deil a fit&mdash;I'll rather deal wi' yoursell; for
-      though you're near enough, yet Miss Grizel has an unco close grip&mdash;I'll
-      gie ye them" (in a softened tone) "for three-and-saxpence."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Eighteen-pence, or nothing!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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)&mdash;"Yell
-      no be for the fish then?"&mdash;(then louder, as she saw him moving off)&mdash;"I'll
-      gie ye them&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;and a half-a-dozen o' partans to
-      make the sauce, for three shillings and a dram."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Half-a-crown then, Maggie, and a dram."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aweel, your honour maun hae't your ain gate, nae doubt; but a dram's
-      worth siller now&mdash;the distilleries is no working."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And I hope they'll never work again in my time," said Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, ay&mdash;it's easy for your honour, and the like o' you gentle-folks
-      to say sae, that hae stouth and routh, and fire and fending and meat and
-      claith, and sit dry and canny by the fireside&mdash;but an ye wanted fire,
-      and meat, and dry claes, 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 eilding and claes, and a supper and heart's ease
-      into the bargain, till the morn's morning?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's even too true an apology, Maggie. Is your goodman off to sea this
-      morning, after his exertions last night?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, he's an industrious fellow. Carry the fish up to Monkbarns."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "That I will&mdash;or I'll send little Jenny, she'll rin faster; but I'll
-      ca' on Miss Grizzy for the dram mysell, and say ye sent me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 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 skin-flint, though they
-      sometimes wrangle with her for an hour together under my study window,
-      like three sea-gulls screaming and sputtering in a gale of wind. But come,
-      wend we on our way to Knockwinnock."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER TWELFTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-              Beggar?&mdash;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,
-           Or constitute themselves, yet they are no rebels.
-                                            Brome.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      With our reader's 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Notwithstanding the fatigues and dangers of the preceding evening, Miss
-      Wardour was able to rise at her usual hour, and to apply herself to her
-      usual occupations, 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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,
-      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 feeling in my own bosom, in spite of my
-      sober reason, almost rejoice that he has attained it?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      While Miss Wardour thus taxed herself with wayward 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 melodrama of the
-      preceding evening.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      She rang the bell for her maid-servant. "Bring the old man up stairs."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The servant returned in a minute or two&mdash;"He will come up at no rate,
-      madam;&mdash;he says his clouted shoes never were on a carpet in his life,
-      and that, please God, they never shall.&mdash;Must I take him into the
-      servants' hall?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No; stay, I want to speak with him&mdash;Where is he?" for she had lost
-      sight of him as he approached the house.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Sitting in the sun on the stone-bench in the court, beside the window of
-      the flagged parlour."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="image-0008" id="image-0008">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
-    </p>
-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/pa146.jpg" alt="Eddie Ochiltree Visits Miss Wardour "
-      width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
-      "Bid him stay there&mdash;I'll come down to the parlour, and speak with
-      him at the window."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 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
-      court-yard, 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
-      court-yard 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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      After Miss Wardour had offered, in the terms she thought would be most
-      acceptable, those thanks which the beggar declined 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 something that would make him easy for life; if he
-      chose to reside at the castle, she would give orders"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The old man smiled, and shook his head. "I wad be baith a grievance and a
-      disgrace to your fine servants, my leddy, and I have never been a disgrace
-      to onybody yet, that I ken of."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Sir Arthur would give strict orders"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ye're very kind&mdash;I doubtna, I doubtna; but there are some things a
-      master can command, and some he canna&mdash;I daresay he wad gar them keep
-      hands aff me&mdash;(and troth, I think they wad hardly venture on that ony
-      gate)&mdash;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 forbear a' the
-      slights and taunts that hurt ane's spirit mair nor downright misca'ing?&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And 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&mdash;but ye ken Sir Arthur has odd sort
-      o' ways&mdash;and I wad be jesting or scorning at them&mdash;and ye wad be
-      angry, and then I wad be just fit to hang mysell."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O, you are a licensed man," said Isabella; "we shall give you all
-      reasonable scope: So you had better be ruled, and remember your age."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But I am no that sair failed yet," replied the mendicant. "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 gudewives 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 public loss."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, Edie, if your idea of your importance is so strong as not to be
-      shaken by the prospect of independence"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, na, Miss&mdash;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&mdash;if it's refused at ae place, I get it at
-      anither&mdash;sae I canna be said to depend on onybody in particular, but
-      just on the country at large."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, na, my leddy: I downa take muckle siller at ance&mdash;it's against
-      our rule; and&mdash;though it's maybe no civil to be repeating the like o'
-      that&mdash;they say that siller's like to be scarce wi' Sir Arthur
-      himsell, and that he's run himsell out o' thought wi' his honkings and
-      minings for lead and copper yonder."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Isabella had some anxious anticipations to the same effect, but was
-      shocked to hear that her father's embarrassments 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.&mdash;Miss Wardour sighed deeply&mdash;"Well, Edie, we have
-      enough to pay our debts, let folks say what they will, and requiting you
-      is one of the foremost&mdash;let me press this sum upon you."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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?&mdash;I am
-      no"&mdash;(lowering his voice to a whisper, and looking keenly around him)&mdash;"I
-      am no that clean unprovided for neither; and though I should die at the
-      back of a dyke, they'll find as muckle quilted in this auld blue gown as
-      will bury me like a Christian, and gie the lads and lasses a blythe
-      lykewake too; sae there's the gaberlunzie's burial provided 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?&mdash;it wad
-      flee through the country like wildfire, that auld Edie suld hae done
-      siccan a like thing, and then, I'se warrant, I might grane my heart out or
-      onybody wad gie me either a bane or a bodle."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Is there nothing, then, that I can do for you?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou ay&mdash;I'll aye come for my awmous as usual,&mdash;and whiles I wad
-      be fain o' a pickle sneeshin, and ye maun speak to the constable and
-      ground-officer just to owerlook me; and maybe ye'll gie a gude word for me
-      to Sandie Netherstanes, the miller, that he may chain up his muckle dog&mdash;I
-      wadna hae him to hurt the puir beast, for it just does its office in
-      barking at a gaberlunzie like me. And there's ae thing maybe mair,&mdash;but
-      ye'll think it's very bald o' the like o' me to speak o't."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What is it, Edie?&mdash;if it respects you it shall be done if it is in
-      my power."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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&mdash;but
-      dinna ye sneer awa the lad Lovel, as ye did a while sinsyne on the walk
-      beneath the Briery-bank, 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 anything I could have done for you, that Sir Arthur and you wan
-      ower yestreen."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Miss Wardour remained for a moment or two in the situation in which she
-      had heard the old man's last extraordinary 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 determine 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 confidant, and at the mercy of
-      one who was by profession gossip-general to the whole neighbourhood, gave
-      her acute 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 speaking 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
-      officious assistance of Lovel and Ochiltree had been absent upon the
-      preceding evening.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 various scutcheons of
-      its former owners, seemed in the act of bestowing upon Lovel much curious
-      and erudite information, which, from the absent look of his auditor,
-      Isabella might shrewdly guess was entirely thrown away. The necessity that
-      she should take some resolution became instant and pressing;&mdash;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.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                     &mdash;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&mdash;
-                But do not look for further recompense.
-                                        As You Like It.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Miss Isabella Wardour's complexion was considerably heightened, when,
-      after the delay necessary to arrange her ideas, she presented herself in
-      the drawing-room.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am glad you are come, my fair foe," said the Antiquary 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 acquainted with the history of Knockwinnock Castle. I think the danger
-      of last night has mazed the poor lad. But you, Miss Isabel,&mdash;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
-      <i>hospitium</i> yesterday. And Sir Arthur&mdash;how fares my good old
-      friend?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indifferently well, Mr. Oldbuck; but I am afraid, not quite able to
-      receive your congratulations, or to pay&mdash;to pay&mdash;Mr. Lovel his
-      thanks for his unparalleled exertions."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I dare say not&mdash;A good down pillow for his good white head were more
-      meet than a couch so churlish as Bessy's-apron, plague on her!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I had no thought of intruding," said Lovel, looking upon the ground, and
-      speaking with hesitation and suppressed emotion; "I did not&mdash;did not
-      mean to intrude upon Sir Arthur or Miss Wardour the presence of one who&mdash;who
-      must necessarily be unwelcome&mdash;as associated, I mean, with painful
-      reflections."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Do not think my father so unjust and ungrateful," said Miss Wardour. "I
-      dare say," she continued, participating in Lovel's embarrassment&mdash;"I
-      dare say&mdash;I am certain&mdash;that my father would be happy to show
-      his gratitude&mdash;in any way&mdash;that is, which Mr. Lovel could
-      consider it as proper to point out."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why the deuce," interrupted Oldbuck, "what sort of a qualification is
-      that?&mdash;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&mdash;I dare say Sir Arthur
-      will bid us welcome on some future day. And what news from the kingdom of
-      subterranean darkness and airy hope?&mdash;What says the swart spirit of
-      the mine? Has Sir Arthur had any good intelligence of his adventure lately
-      in Glen-Withershins?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Miss Wardour shook her head&mdash;"But indifferent, I fear, Mr. Oldbuck;
-      but there lie some specimens which have lately been sent down."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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&mdash;But let me see them."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And so saying, he sat down at the table in the recess, on which the
-      mineral productions were lying, and proceeded to examine them, grumbling
-      and pshawing at each which he took up and laid aside.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In the meantime, Lovel, forced as it were by this secession of Oldbuck,
-      into a sort of tete-a'-tete with Miss Wardour, 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 intrusion
-      of a person who has reason to think himself&mdash;so unacceptable a
-      visitor."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mr. Lovel," answered Miss Wardour, observing the same tone of caution, "I
-      trust you will not&mdash;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&mdash;could he
-      see me as a friend&mdash;as a sister&mdash;no man will be&mdash;and, from
-      all I have ever heard of Mr. Lovel, ought to be, more welcome but"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Oldbuck's anathema against the preposition <i>but</i> 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;&mdash;but do not add to the severity of repelling my sentiments
-      the rigour of obliging me to disavow them."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am much embarrassed, Mr. Lovel," replied the young lady, "by your&mdash;I
-      would not willingly use a strong word&mdash;your romantic and hopeless
-      pertinacity. It is for yourself I plead, that you would consider the calls
-      which your country has upon your talents&mdash;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 distinction. Let me entreat that you would form a manly resolution"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is enough, Miss Wardour;&mdash;I see plainly that"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mr. Lovel, you are hurt&mdash;and, believe me, I sympathize 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"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, Miss Wardour," answered Lovel, in a tone of passionate entreaty; "do
-      not go farther&mdash;is it not enough to crush every hope in our present
-      relative situation?&mdash;do not carry your resolutions farther&mdash;why
-      urge what would be your conduct if Sir Arthur's objections could be
-      removed?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, Miss Wardour, your wishes shall be obeyed;&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not so, Mr. Lovel; many years of deserved happiness, founded on a more
-      rational basis than your present wishes, are, I trust, before, you. But it
-      is full time, to finish this conversation. I cannot force you to adopt my
-      advice&mdash;I cannot shut the door of my father's house against the
-      preserver of his life 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&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A servant at this moment announced that Sir Arthur desired to speak to Mr.
-      Oldbuck in his dressing-room.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Let me show you the way," said Miss Wardour, who apparently dreaded a
-      continuation of her tete-a-tete with Lovel, and she conducted the
-      Antiquary accordingly to her father's apartment.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur, his legs swathed in flannel, was stretched on the couch.
-      "Welcome, Mr. Oldbuck," he said; "I trust you have come better off than I
-      have done from the inclemency of yesterday evening?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Truly, Sir Arthur, I was not so much exposed to it&mdash;I kept <i>terra
-      firma</i>&mdash;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,&mdash;to rise on the wings of the night-wind&mdash;to
-      dive into the bowels of the earth. What news from our subterranean Good
-      Hope!&mdash;the <i>terra incognita</i> of Glen-Withershins?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nothing good as yet," said the Baronet, turning himself hastily, as if
-      stung by a pang of the gout; "but Dousterswivel does not despair."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Does he not?" quoth Oldbuck; "I do though, under his favour. Why, old Dr.
-      H&mdash;n* 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&mdash;and I cannot see that those samples on the
-      table below differ much in quality."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * Probably Dr. Hutton, the celebrated geologist.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The learned doctor is not infallible, I presume?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No; but he is one of our first chemists; and this tramping philosopher of
-      yours&mdash;this Dousterswivel&mdash;is, I have a notion, one, of those
-      learned adventurers described by Kirchner, <i>Artem habent sine arte,
-      partem sine parte, quorum medium est mentiri, vita eorum mendicatum ire;</i>
-      that is to say, Miss Wardour"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is unnecessary to translate," said Miss Wardour&mdash;"I comprehend
-      your general meaning; but I hope Mr. Dousterswivel will turn out a more
-      trustworthy character."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I doubt it not a little," said the Antiquary,&mdash;"and we are a foul
-      way out if we cannot discover this infernal vein that he has prophesied
-      about these two years."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "<i>You</i> have no great interest in the matter, Mr. Oldbuck," said the
-      Baronet.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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 likely to be the termination of
-      the adventure. "I understand," he at length said, "that the young
-      gentleman, to whose gallantry and presence of mind we were so much
-      indebted last night, has favoured me with a visit&mdash;I am distressed
-      that I am unable to see him, or indeed any one, but an old friend like
-      you, Mr. Oldbuck."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A declination of the Antiquary's stiff backbone acknowledged the
-      preference.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You made acquaintance with this young gentleman in Edinburgh, I suppose?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Oldbuck told the circumstances of their becoming known to each other.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, then, my daughter is an older acquaintance, of Mr. Lovel than you
-      are," said the Baronet.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed! I was not aware of that," answered Oldbuck somewhat surprised.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I met Mr. Lovel," said Isabella, slightly colouring, "when I resided this
-      last spring with my aunt, Mrs. Wilmot."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In Yorkshire?&mdash;and what character did he bear then, or how was he
-      engaged?" said Oldbuck,&mdash;"and why did not you recognise him when I
-      introduced you?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Isabella answered the least difficult question, and passed over the other&mdash;"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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And pray, such being the case," replied the Antiquary, 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 had less of
-      the paltry pride of womankind about you, Miss Wardour."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There was a reason for it," said Sir Arthur with dignity; "you know the
-      opinions&mdash;prejudices, perhaps you will call them&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "True," said the Baronet, with complacency&mdash;"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 <i>Misbegot.</i> He is denominated, in the
-      Latin pedigree of our family, <i>Milcolumbus Nothus;</i> and his temporary
-      seizure of our property, and most unjust attempt to establish his own
-      illegitimate line 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I know the story," said Oldbuck, "and I was telling it to Lovel this
-      moment, with some of the wise maxims and consequences which it has
-      engrafted on your family 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 an excess of feeling. I
-      hope, Sir Arthur, you will not think the less of your life because it has
-      been preserved by such assistance?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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 lineage."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Come, I am glad of that&mdash;he'll 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&mdash;or, indeed, whether he does
-      or not&mdash;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 compliments, and remained in attendance on her father,
-      and then, taking him by the arm, he led him out of the castle.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      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
-      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,&mdash;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 returning along the
-      sands. The building flung its broad 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 chameleon 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 <i>cito
-      peritura!</i> 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&mdash;and it wrings my heart to say it&mdash;this ancient
-      family is going fast to the ground!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed!" answered Lovel&mdash;"you surprise me greatly."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We harden ourselves in vain," continued the Antiquary, pursuing his own
-      train of thought and feeling&mdash;"we harden ourselves in vain to treat
-      with the indifference they deserve, the changes of this trumpery whirligig
-      world. We strive ineffectually to be the self-sufficing invulnerable
-      being, the <i>teres atque rotundus</i> of the poet;&mdash;the stoical
-      exemption which philosophy affects to give us over the pains and vexations
-      of human life, is as imaginary as the state of mystical quietism and
-      perfection aimed at by some crazy enthusiasts."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And Heaven forbid that it should be otherwise!" said Lovel, warmly&mdash;"Heaven
-      forbid that any process of philosophy were capable so to sear and indurate
-      our feelings, that nothing should agitate them but what 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Antiquary regarded his youthful companion with a look half of pity,
-      half of sympathy, and shrugged up his shoulders as he replied&mdash;"Wait,
-      young man&mdash;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;&mdash;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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, Mr. Oldbuck, it may be so;&mdash;but as yet I resemble 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "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 landlouper, Dousterswivel"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I think I have seen that person, when, by some rare chance, I happened to
-      be in the coffee-room at Fairport;&mdash;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&mdash;was very
-      arbitrary in laying down and asserting his opinions, and mixed the terms
-      of science with a strange jargon of mysticism. A simple youth whispered me
-      that he was an <i>Illumine',</i> and carried on an intercourse with the
-      invisible world."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O, the same&mdash;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 charlatan&mdash;talks of the <i>magisterium</i>&mdash;of
-      sympathies and antipathies&mdash;of the cabala&mdash;of the divining-rod&mdash;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 caliph for a day, as Honest
-      Abon Hassan wished to be, I would scourge me these jugglers out of the
-      commonwealth 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 honourable family!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But how could he impose upon Sir Arthur to any ruinous extent?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, I don't know. Sir Arthur is a good honourable gentleman; but, as you
-      may see from his loose ideas concerning the Pikish language, he is by no
-      means very strong in the understanding. His estate is strictly entailed,
-      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&mdash;I fear on Sir Arthur's guarantee. Some gentlemen&mdash;I
-      was ass enough to be one&mdash;took small shares in the concern, and Sir
-      Arthur himself made great outlay; we were trained on by specious
-      appearances and more specious lies; and now, like John Bunyan, we awake,
-      and behold it is a dream!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am surprised that you, Mr. Oldbuck, should have encouraged Sir Arthur
-      by your example."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why," said Oldbuck, dropping his large grizzled eyebrow, "I am something
-      surprised and ashamed at it myself; it was not the lucre of gain&mdash;nobody
-      cares less for money (to be a prudent man) than I do&mdash;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 perhaps
-      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&mdash;n
-      him) of appearances of old shafts, and vestiges of mining operations,
-      conducted in a manner quite different from those of modern times; and I&mdash;in
-      short, I was a fool, and there is an end. My loss is not much worth
-      speaking about; 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."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here the conversation paused, until renewed in the next CHAPTER.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-              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 unaccustomed spirit
-              Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
-                                    Romeo and Juliet.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      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?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He had had the pleasure," Lovel answered, "to see her at Mrs. Wilmot's,
-      in Yorkshire."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed! you never mentioned that to me before, and you did not accost her
-      as an old acquaintance."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I&mdash;I did not know," said Lovel, a good deal embarrassed, "it was the
-      same lady, till we met; and then it was my duty to wait till she should
-      recognise me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am aware of your delicacy: the knight's a punctilious 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?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What if I should answer your question by another," replied Lovel, "and
-      ask you what is your opinion of dreams?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Of dreams, you foolish lad!&mdash;why, what should I think of them but as
-      the deceptions of imagination when reason drops the reins? I know no
-      difference betwixt them and the hallucinations of madness&mdash;the
-      unguided horses run away with the carriage in both cases, only in the one
-      the coachman is drunk, and in the other he slumbers. What says our Marcus
-      Tullius&mdash;<i>Si insanorum visis fides non est habenda, cur credatur
-      somnientium visis, quae multo etiam perturbatiora sunt, non intelligo.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes, sir; but Cicero also tells us, that as he who passes the whole day
-      in darting the javelin must sometimes hit the mark, so, amid the cloud of
-      nightly dreams, some may occur consonant to future events."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay&mdash;that is to say, <i>you</i> have hit the mark in your own sage
-      opinion? Lord! Lord! how this world is given to folly! Well, I will allow
-      for once the Oneirocritical science&mdash;I will give faith to the
-      exposition of dreams, and say a Daniel hath arisen to interpret them, if
-      you can prove to me that that dream of yours has pointed to a prudent line
-      of conduct."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Tell me, then," answered Lovel, "why when I was hesitating whether to
-      abandon an enterprise, which I have perhaps rashly undertaken, I should
-      last night dream I saw your ancestor pointing to a motto which encouraged
-      me to perseverance?&mdash;why should I have thought of those words which I
-      cannot remember to have heard before, which are in a language unknown to
-      me, and which yet conveyed, when translated, a lesson which I could so
-      plainly apply to my own circumstances?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Antiquary burst into a fit of laughing. "Excuse me, my young friend&mdash;but
-      it is thus we silly mortals deceive ourselves, and look out of doors for
-      motives which originate in our own wilful will. I think I can help out the
-      cause of your vision. You were so abstracted in your contemplations
-      yesterday after dinner, as to pay little attention to the discourse
-      between Sir Arthur and me, until we fell upon the controversy concerning
-      the Piks, which terminated so abruptly;&mdash;but I remember producing to
-      Sir Arthur a book printed by my ancestor, and making him observe the
-      motto; your mind was bent elsewhere, but your ear had mechanically
-      received and retained the sounds, and your busy fancy, stirred by Grizel's
-      legend I presume, had introduced this scrap of German into your dream. As
-      for the waking wisdom which seized on so frivolous a circumstance as an
-      apology for persevering in some course which it could find no better
-      reason to justify, it is exactly one of those juggling tricks which the
-      sagest of us play off now and then, to gratify our inclination at the
-      expense of our understanding."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I own it," said Lovel, blushing deeply;&mdash;"I believe you are right,
-      Mr. Oldbuck, and I ought to sink in your esteem for attaching a moment's
-      consequence to such a frivolity;&mdash;but I was tossed by contradictory
-      wishes and resolutions, and you know how slight a line will tow a boat
-      when afloat on the billows, though a cable would hardly move her when
-      pulled up on the beach."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Right, right," exclaimed the Antiquary. "Fall in my opinion!&mdash;not a
-      whit&mdash;I love thee the better, man;&mdash;why, we have story for story
-      against each other, and I can think with less shame on having exposed
-      myself about that cursed Praetorium&mdash;though I am still convinced
-      Agricola's camp must have been somewhere in this neighbourhood. And now,
-      Lovel, my good lad, be sincere with me&mdash;What make you from
-      Wittenberg?&mdash;why have you left your own country and professional
-      pursuits, for an idle residence in such a place as Fairport? A truant
-      disposition, I fear."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Even so," replied Lovel, patiently submitting to an interrogatory which
-      he could not well evade. "Yet I am so detached from all the world, have so
-      few in whom I am interested, or who are interested in me, that my very
-      state of destitution gives me independence. He whose good or evil fortune
-      affects himself alone, has the best right to pursue it according to his
-      own fancy."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Pardon me, young man," said Oldbuck, laying his hand kindly on his
-      shoulder, and making a full halt&mdash;"<i>sufflamina</i>&mdash;a little
-      patience, if you please. I will suppose that you have no friends to share
-      or rejoice in your success in life&mdash;that you cannot look back to
-      those to whom you owe gratitude, or forward to those to whom you ought to
-      afford protection; but it is no less incumbent on you to move steadily in
-      the path of duty&mdash;for your active exertions are due not only to
-      society, but in humble gratitude to the Being who made you a member of it,
-      with powers to serve yourself and others."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But I am unconscious of possessing such powers," said Lovel, somewhat
-      impatiently. "I ask nothing of society but the permission of walking
-      innoxiously through the path of life, without jostling others, or
-      permitting myself to be jostled. I owe no man anything&mdash;I have the
-      means of maintaining, myself with complete independence; and so moderate
-      are my wishes in this respect, that even these means, however limited,
-      rather exceed than fall short of them."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nay, then," said Oldbuck, removing his hand, and turning again to the
-      road, "if you are so true a philosopher as to think you have money enough,
-      there's no more to be said&mdash;I cannot pretend to be entitled to advise
-      you;&mdash;you have attained the <i>acme'</i>&mdash;the summit of
-      perfection. And how came Fairport to be the selected abode of so much
-      self-denying philosophy? It is as if a worshipper of the true religion had
-      set up his staff by choice among the multifarious idolaters of the land of
-      Egypt. There is not a man in Fairport who is not a devoted worshipper of
-      the Golden Calf&mdash;the mammon of unrighteousness. Why, even I, man, am
-      so infected by the bad neighbourhood, that I feel inclined occasionally to
-      become an idolater myself."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My principal amusements being literary," answered Lovel, "and
-      circumstances which I cannot mention having induced me, for a time at
-      least, to relinquish the military service, I have pitched on Fairport as a
-      place where I might follow my pursuits without any of those temptations to
-      society which a more elegant circle might have presented to me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aha!" replied Oldbuck, knowingly,&mdash;"I begin to understand your
-      application of my ancestor's motto. You are a candidate for public favour,
-      though not in the way I first suspected,&mdash;you are ambitious to shine
-      as a literary character, and you hope to merit favour by labour and
-      perseverance?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel, who was rather closely pressed by the inquisitiveness of the old
-      gentleman, concluded it would be best to let him remain in the error which
-      he had gratuitously adopted.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have been at times foolish enough," he replied, "to nourish some
-      thoughts of the kind."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ah, poor fellow! nothing can be more melancholy; unless, as young men
-      sometimes do, you had fancied yourself in love with some trumpery specimen
-      of womankind, which is indeed, as Shakspeare truly says, pressing to
-      death, whipping, and hanging all at once."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      He then proceeded with inquiries, which he was sometimes kind enough to
-      answer himself. For this good old gentleman had, from his antiquarian
-      researches, acquired a delight in building theories out of premises which
-      were often far from affording sufficient ground for them; and being, as
-      the reader must have remarked, sufficiently opinionative, he did not
-      readily brook being corrected, either in matter of fact or judgment, even
-      by those who were principally interested in the subjects on which he
-      speculated. He went on, therefore, chalking out Lovel's literary career
-      for him.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And with what do you propose to commence your debut as a man of letters?&mdash;But
-      I guess&mdash;poetry&mdash;poetry&mdash;the soft seducer of youth. Yes!
-      there is an acknowledging modesty of confusion in your eye and manner. And
-      where lies your vein?&mdash;are you inclined to soar to the higher regions
-      of Parnassus, or to flutter around the base of the hill?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have hitherto attempted only a few lyrical pieces," said Lovel.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Just as I supposed&mdash;pruning your wing, and hopping from spray to
-      spray. But I trust you intend a bolder flight. Observe, I would by no
-      means recommend your persevering in this unprofitable pursuit&mdash;but
-      you say you are quite independent of the public caprice?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Entirely so," replied Lovel.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And that you are determined not to adopt a more active course of life?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "For the present, such is my resolution," replied the young man.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, then, it only remains for me to give you my best advice and
-      assistance in the object of your pursuit. I have myself published two
-      essays in the Antiquarian Repository,&mdash;and therefore am an author of
-      experience, There was my Remarks on Hearne's edition of Robert of
-      Gloucester, signed <i>Scrutator;</i> and the other signed <i>Indagator,</i>
-      upon a passage in Tacitus. I might add, what attracted considerable notice
-      at the time, and that is my paper in the Gentleman's Magazine, upon the
-      inscription of OElia Lelia, which I subscribed <i>OEdipus.</i> So you see
-      I am not an apprentice in the mysteries of author-craft, and must
-      necessarily understand the taste and temper of the times. And now, once
-      more, what do you intend to commence with?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have no instant thoughts of publishing."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ah! that will never do; you must have the fear of the public before your
-      eyes in all your undertakings. Let us see now: A collection of fugitive
-      pieces; but no&mdash;your fugitive poetry is apt to become stationary with
-      the bookseller. It should be something at once solid and attractive&mdash;none
-      of your romances or anomalous novelties&mdash;I would have you take high
-      ground at once. Let me see: What think you of a real epic?&mdash;the grand
-      old-fashioned historical poem which moved through twelve or twenty-four
-      books. We'll have it so&mdash;I'll supply you with a subject&mdash;The
-      battle between the Caledonians and Romans&mdash;The Caledoniad; or,
-      Invasion Repelled;&mdash;let that be the title&mdash;it will suit the
-      present taste, and you may throw in a touch of the times."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But the invasion of Agricola was <i>not</i> repelled."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No; but you are a poet&mdash;free of the corporation, and as little bound
-      down to truth or probability as Virgil himself&mdash;You may defeat the
-      Romans in spite of Tacitus."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And pitch Agricola's camp at the Kaim of&mdash;what do you call it,"
-      answered Lovel, "in defiance of Edie Ochiltree?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No more of that, an thou lovest me&mdash;And yet, I dare say, ye may
-      unwittingly speak most correct truth in both instances, in despite of the
-      <i>toga</i> of the historian and the blue gown of the mendicant."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Gallantly counselled!&mdash;Well, I will do my best&mdash;your kindness
-      will assist me with local information."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Will I not, man?&mdash;why, I will write the critical and historical
-      notes on each canto, and draw out the plan of the story myself. I pretend
-      to some poetical genius, Mr. Lovel, only I was never able to write
-      verses."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is a pity, sir, that you should have failed in a qualification
-      somewhat essential to the art."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Essential?&mdash;not a whit&mdash;it is the mere mechanical department. A
-      man may be a poet without measuring spondees and dactyls like the
-      ancients, or clashing the ends of lines into rhyme like the moderns, as
-      one may be an architect though unable to labour like a stone-mason&mdash;Dost
-      think Palladio or Vitruvius ever carried a hod?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In that case, there should be two authors to each poem&mdash;one to think
-      and plan, another to execute."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, it would not be amiss; at any rate, we'll make the experiment;&mdash;not
-      that I would wish to give my name to the public&mdash;assistance from a
-      learned friend might be acknowledged in the preface after what flourish
-      your nature will&mdash;I am a total stranger to authorial vanity."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel was much entertained by a declaration not very consistent with the
-      eagerness wherewith his friend seemed to catch at an opportunity of coming
-      before the public, though in a manner which rather resembled stepping up
-      behind a carriage than getting into one. The Antiquary was indeed
-      uncommonly delighted; for, like many other men who spend their lives in
-      obscure literary research, he had a secret ambition to appear in print,
-      which was checked by cold fits of diffidence, fear of criticism, and
-      habits of indolence and procrastination. "But," thought he, "I may, like a
-      second Teucer, discharge my shafts from behind the shield of my ally; and,
-      admit that he should not prove to be a first-rate poet, I am in no shape
-      answerable for his deficiencies, and the good notes may very probably help
-      off an indifferent text. But he is&mdash;he must be a good poet; he has
-      the real Parnassian abstraction&mdash;seldom answers a question till it is
-      twice repeated&mdash;drinks his tea scalding, and eats without knowing
-      what he is putting into his mouth. This is the real <i>aestus,</i> the <i>awen</i>
-      of the Welsh bards, the <i>divinus afflatus</i> that transports the poet
-      beyond the limits of sublunary things. His visions, too, are very
-      symptomatical of poetic fury&mdash;I must recollect to send Caxon to see
-      he puts out his candle to-night&mdash;poets and visionaries are apt to be
-      negligent in that respect." Then, turning to his companion, he expressed
-      himself aloud in continuation&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes, my dear Lovel, you shall have full notes; and, indeed, think we may
-      introduce the whole of the Essay on Castrametation into the appendix&mdash;it
-      will give great value to the work. Then we will revive the good old forms
-      so disgracefully neglected in modern times. You shall invoke the Muse&mdash;and
-      certainly she ought to be propitious to an author who, in an apostatizing
-      age, adheres with the faith of Abdiel to the ancient form of adoration.&mdash;Then
-      we must have a vision&mdash;in which the Genius of Caledonia shall appear
-      to Galgacus, and show him a procession of the real Scottish monarchs:&mdash;and
-      in the notes I will have a hit at Boethius&mdash;No; I must not touch that
-      topic, now that Sir Arthur is likely to have vexation enough besides&mdash;but
-      I'll annihilate Ossian, Macpherson, and Mac-Cribb."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But we must consider the expense of publication," said Lovel, willing to
-      try whether this hint would fall like cold water on the blazing zeal of
-      his self-elected coadjutor.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Expense!" said Mr. Oldbuck, pausing, and mechanically fumbling in his
-      pocket&mdash;"that is true;&mdash;I would wish to do something&mdash;but
-      you would not like to publish by subscription?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "By no means," answered Lovel.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, no!" gladly acquiesced the Antiquary&mdash;"it is not respectable.
-      I'll tell you what: I believe I know a bookseller who has a value for my
-      opinion, and will risk print and paper, and I will get as many copies sold
-      for you as I can."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O, I am no mercenary author," answered Lovel, smiling; "I only wish to be
-      out of risk of loss."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hush! hush! we'll take care of that&mdash;throw it all on the publishers.
-      I do long to see your labours commenced. You will choose blank verse,
-      doubtless?&mdash;it is more grand and magnificent for an historical
-      subject; and, what concerneth you, my friend, it is, I have an idea, more
-      easily written."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      This conversation brought them to Monkbarns, where the Antiquary had to
-      undergo a chiding from his sister, who, though no philosopher, was waiting
-      to deliver a lecture to him in the portico. "Guide us, Monkbarns! are
-      things no dear eneugh already, but ye maun be raising the very fish on us,
-      by giving that randy, Luckie Mucklebackit, just what she likes to ask?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, Grizel," said the sage, somewhat abashed at this unexpected attack,
-      "I thought I made a very fair bargain."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A fair bargain! when ye gied the limmer a full half o' what she seekit!&mdash;An
-      ye will be a wife-carle, and buy fish at your ain hands, ye suld never bid
-      muckle mair than a quarter. And the impudent quean had the assurance to
-      come up and seek a dram&mdash;But I trow, Jenny and I sorted her!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Truly," said Oldbuck (with a sly look to his companion), "I think our
-      estate was gracious that kept us out of hearing of that controversy.&mdash;Well,
-      well, Grizel, I was wrong for once in my life <i>ultra crepidam</i>&mdash;I
-      fairly admit. But hang expenses!&mdash;care killed a cat&mdash;we'll eat
-      the fish, cost what it will.&mdash;And then, Lovel, you must know I
-      pressed you to stay here to-day, the rather because our cheer will be
-      better than usual, yesterday having been a gaude' day&mdash;I love the
-      reversion of a feast better than the feast itself. I delight in the <i>analecta,</i>
-      the <i>collectanea,</i> as I may call them, of the preceding day's dinner,
-      which appear on such occasions&mdash;And see, there is Jenny going to ring
-      the dinner-bell."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-        Be this letter delivered with haste&mdash;haste&mdash;post-haste!
-        Ride, villain, ride,&mdash;for thy life&mdash;for thy life&mdash;for thy life.
-                  Ancient Indorsation of Letters of Importance.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Leaving Mr. Oldbuck and his friend to enjoy their hard bargain of fish, we
-      beg leave to transport the reader to the back-parlour of the post-master's
-      house at Fairport, where his wife, he himself being absent, was employed
-      in assorting for delivery the letters which had come by the Edinburgh
-      post. This is very often in country towns the period of the day when
-      gossips find it particularly agreeable to call on the man or woman of
-      letters, in order, from the outside of the epistles, and, if they are not
-      belied, occasionally from the inside also, to amuse themselves with
-      gleaning information, or forming conjectures about the correspondence and
-      affairs of their neighbours. Two females of this description were, at the
-      time we mention, assisting, or impeding, Mrs. Mailsetter in her official
-      duty.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Eh, preserve us, sirs!" said the butcher's wife, "there's ten&mdash;
-      eleven&mdash;twall letters to Tennant and Co.&mdash;thae folk do mair
-      business than a' the rest o' the burgh."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay; but see, lass," answered the baker's lady, "there's twa o' them
-      faulded unco square, and sealed at the tae side&mdash;I doubt there will
-      be protested bills in them."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Is there ony letters come yet for Jenny Caxon?" inquired the woman of
-      joints and giblets; "the lieutenant's been awa three weeks."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Just ane on Tuesday was a week," answered the dame of letters.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Wast a ship-letter?" asked the Fornerina.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In troth wast."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It wad be frae the lieutenant then," replied the mistress of the rolls,
-      somewhat disappointed&mdash;"I never thought he wad hae lookit ower his
-      shouther after her."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Od, here's another," quoth Mrs. Mailsetter. "A ship-letter&mdash;post-mark,
-      Sunderland." All rushed to seize it.&mdash;"Na, na, leddies," said Mrs.
-      Mailsetter, interfering; "I hae had eneugh o' that wark&mdash;Ken ye that
-      Mr. Mailsetter got an unco rebuke frae the secretary at Edinburgh, for a
-      complaint that was made about the letter of Aily Bisset's that ye opened,
-      Mrs. Shortcake?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Me opened!" answered the spouse of the chief baker of Fairport; "ye ken
-      yoursell, madam, it just cam open o' free will in my hand&mdash;what could
-      I help it?&mdash;folk suld seal wi' better wax."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Weel I wot that's true, too," said Mrs. Mailsetter, who kept a shop of
-      small wares, "and we have got some that I can honestly recommend, if ye
-      ken onybody wanting it. But the short and the lang o't is, that we'll lose
-      the place gin there's ony mair complaints o' the kind."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hout, lass&mdash;the provost will take care o' that."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, na, I'll neither trust to provost nor bailier" said the postmistress,&mdash;"but
-      I wad aye be obliging and neighbourly, and I'm no again your looking at
-      the outside of a letter neither&mdash;See, the seal has an anchor on't&mdash;he's
-      done't wi' ane o' his buttons, I'm thinking."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Show me! show me!" quoth the wives of the chief butcher and chief baker;
-      and threw themselves on the supposed love-letter, like the weird sisters
-      in Macbeth upon the pilot's thumb, with curiosity as eager and scarcely
-      less malignant. Mrs. Heukbane was a tall woman&mdash;she held the precious
-      epistle up between her eyes and the window. Mrs. Shortcake, a little squat
-      personage, strained and stood on tiptoe to have her share of the
-      investigation.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, it's frae him, sure eneugh," said the butcher's lady;&mdash;"I can
-      read Richard Taffril on the corner, and it's written, like John Thomson's
-      wallet, frae end to end."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Haud it lower down, madam," exclaimed Mrs. Shortcake, in a tone above the
-      prudential whisper which their occupation required&mdash;"haud it lower
-      down&mdash;Div ye think naebody can read hand o' writ but yoursell?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Whist, whist, sirs, for God's sake!" said Mrs. Mailsetter, "there's
-      somebody in the shop,"&mdash;then aloud&mdash;"Look to the customers,
-      Baby!"&mdash;Baby answered from without in a shrill tone&mdash;"It's
-      naebody but Jenny Caxon, ma'am, to see if there's ony letters to her."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Tell her," said the faithful postmistress, winking to her compeers, "to
-      come back the morn at ten o'clock, and I'll let her ken&mdash;we havena
-      had time to sort the mail letters yet&mdash;she's aye in sic a hurry, as
-      if her letters were o' mair consequence than the best merchant's o' the
-      town."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Poor Jenny, a girl of uncommon beauty and modesty, could only draw her
-      cloak about her to hide the sigh of disappointment and return meekly home
-      to endure for another night the sickness of the heart occasioned by hope
-      delayed.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There's something about a needle and a pole," said Mrs. Shortcake, to
-      whom her taller rival in gossiping had at length yielded a peep at the
-      subject of their curiosity.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Now, that's downright shamefu'," said Mrs. Heukbane, "to scorn the poor
-      silly gait of a lassie after he's keepit company wi' her sae lang, and had
-      his will o' her, as I make nae doubt he has."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's but ower muckle to be doubted," echoed Mrs. Shortcake;&mdash;"to
-      cast up to her that her father's a barber and has a pole at his door, and
-      that she's but a manty-maker hersell! Hout fy for shame!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hout tout, leddies," cried Mrs. Mailsetter, "ye're clean wrang&mdash;It's
-      a line out o' ane o' his sailors' sangs that I have heard him sing, about
-      being true like the needle to the pole."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Weel, weel, I wish it may be sae," said the charitable Dame Heukbane,&mdash;"but
-      it disna look weel for a lassie like her to keep up a correspondence wi'
-      ane o' the king's officers."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I'm no denying that," said Mrs. Mailsetter; "but it's a great advantage
-      to the revenue of the post-office thae love-letters. See, here's five or
-      six letters to Sir Arthur Wardour&mdash;maist o' them sealed wi' wafers,
-      and no wi' wax. There will be a downcome, there, believe me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay; they will be business letters, and no frae ony o' his grand friends,
-      that seals wi' their coats of arms, as they ca' them," said Mrs. Heukbane;&mdash;"pride
-      will hae a fa'&mdash;he hasna settled his account wi' my gudeman, the
-      deacon, for this twalmonth&mdash;he's but slink, I doubt."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nor wi' huz for sax months," echoed Mrs. Shortcake&mdash;"He's but a
-      brunt crust."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There's a letter," interrupted the trusty postmistress, "from his son,
-      the captain, I'm thinking&mdash;the seal has the same things wi' the
-      Knockwinnock carriage. He'll be coming hame to see what he can save out o'
-      the fire."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The baronet thus dismissed, they took up the esquire&mdash;"Twa letters
-      for Monkbarns&mdash;they're frae some o' his learned friends now; see sae
-      close as they're written, down to the very seal&mdash;and a' to save
-      sending a double letter&mdash;that's just like Monkbarns himsell. When he
-      gets a frank he fills it up exact to the weight of an unce, that a
-      carvy-seed would sink the scale&mdash;but he's neer a grain abune it. Weel
-      I wot I wad be broken if I were to gie sic weight to the folk that come to
-      buy our pepper and brimstone, and suchlike sweetmeats."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He's a shabby body the laird o' Monkbarns," said Mrs. Heukbane; "he'll
-      make as muckle about buying a forequarter o' lamb in August as about a
-      back sey o' beef. Let's taste another drop of the sinning" (perhaps she
-      meant <i>cinnamon</i>) "waters, Mrs. Mailsetter, my dear. Ah, lasses! an
-      ye had kend his brother as I did&mdash;mony a time he wad slip in to see
-      me wi' a brace o' wild deukes in his pouch, when my first gudeman was awa
-      at the Falkirk tryst&mdash;weel, weel&mdash;we'se no speak o' that
-      e'enow."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I winna say ony ill o'this Monkbarns," said Mrs. Shortcake; "his brother
-      neer brought me ony wild-deukes, and this is a douce honest man; we serve
-      the family wi' bread, and he settles wi' huz ilka week&mdash;only he was
-      in an unco kippage when we sent him a book instead o' the <i>nick-sticks,</i>*
-      whilk, he said, were the true ancient way o' counting between tradesmen
-      and customers; and sae they are, nae doubt."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * Note E. Nick-sticks.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But look here, lasses," interrupted Mrs. Mailsetter, "here's a sight for
-      sair e'en! What wad ye gie to ken what's in the inside o' this letter?
-      This is new corn&mdash;I haena seen the like o' this&mdash;For William
-      Lovel, Esquire, at Mrs. Hadoway's, High Street, Fairport, by Edinburgh, N.
-      B. This is just the second letter he has had since he was here."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Lord's sake, let's see, lass!&mdash;Lord's sake, let's see!&mdash;that's
-      him that the hale town kens naething about&mdash;and a weel-fa'ard lad he
-      is; let's see, let's see!" Thus ejaculated the two worthy representatives
-      of mother Eve.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, na, sirs," exclaimed Mrs. Mailsetter; "haud awa&mdash;bide aff, I
-      tell you; this is nane o' your fourpenny cuts that we might make up the
-      value to the post-office amang ourselves if ony mischance befell it;&mdash;the
-      postage is five-and-twenty shillings&mdash;and here's an order frae the
-      Secretary to forward it to the young gentleman by express, if he's no at
-      hame. Na, na, sirs, bide aff;&mdash;this maunna be roughly guided."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But just let's look at the outside o't, woman."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Nothing could be gathered from the outside, except remarks on the various
-      properties which philosophers ascribe to matter,&mdash;length, breadth,
-      depth, and weight, The packet was composed of strong thick paper,
-      imperviable by the curious eyes of the gossips, though they stared as if
-      they would burst from their sockets. The seal was a deep and well-cut
-      impression of arms, which defied all tampering.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Od, lass," said Mrs. Shortcake, weighing it in her hand, and wishing,
-      doubtless, that the too, too solid wax would melt and dissolve itself, "I
-      wad like to ken what's in the inside o' this, for that Lovel dings a' that
-      ever set foot on the plainstanes o' Fairport&mdash;naebody kens what to
-      make o' him."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="image-0009" id="image-0009">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
-    </p>
-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/pa185.jpg" alt="Mrs. Heukbane and Mrs. Shortcake "
-      width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
-      "Weel, weel, leddies," said the postmistress, "we'se sit down and crack
-      about it.&mdash;Baby, bring ben the tea-water&mdash;Muckle obliged to ye
-      for your cookies, Mrs. Shortcake&mdash;and we'll steek the shop, and cry
-      ben Baby, and take a hand at the cartes till the gudeman comes hame&mdash;and
-      then we'll try your braw veal sweetbread that ye were so kind as send me,
-      Mrs. Heukbane."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But winna ye first send awa Mr. Lovel's letter?" said Mrs. Heukbane.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth I kenna wha to send wi't till the gudeman comes hame, for auld
-      Caxon tell'd me that Mr. Lovel stays a' the day at Monkbarns&mdash;he's in
-      a high fever, wi' pu'ing the laird and Sir Arthur out o' the sea."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Silly auld doited carles!" said Mrs. Shortcake; "what gar'd them gang to
-      the douking in a night like yestreen!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I was gi'en to understand it was auld Edie that saved them," said Mrs.
-      Heukbane&mdash;"Edie Ochiltree, the Blue-Gown, ye ken; and that he pu'd
-      the hale three out of the auld fish-pound, for Monkbarns had threepit on
-      them to gang in till't to see the wark o' the monks lang syne."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hout, lass, nonsense!" answered the postmistress; "I'll tell ye, a' about
-      it, as Caxon tell'd it to me. Ye see, Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour, and Mr.
-      Lovel, suld hae dined at Monkbarns"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But, Mrs. Mailsetter," again interrupted Mrs. Heukbane, "will ye no be
-      for sending awa this letter by express?&mdash;there's our powny and our
-      callant hae gane express for the office or now, and the powny hasna gane
-      abune thirty mile the day;&mdash;Jock was sorting him up as I came ower
-      by."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, Mrs. Heukbane," said the woman of letters, pursing up her mouth, "ye
-      ken my gudeman likes to ride the expresses himsell&mdash;we maun gie our
-      ain fish-guts to our ain sea-maws&mdash;it's a red half-guinea to him
-      every time he munts his mear; and I dare say he'll be in sune&mdash;or I
-      dare to say, it's the same thing whether the gentleman gets the express
-      this night or early next morning."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Only that Mr. Lovel will be in town before the express gaes aff," said
-      Mrs. Heukbane; "and where are ye then, lass? But ye ken yere ain ways
-      best."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Weel, weel, Mrs. Heukbane," answered Mrs. Mailsetter, a little out of
-      humour, and even out of countenance, "I am sure I am never against being
-      neighbour-like, and living and letting live, as they say; and since I hae
-      been sic a fule as to show you the post-office order&mdash;ou, nae doubt,
-      it maun be obeyed. But I'll no need your callant, mony thanks to ye&mdash;I'll
-      send little Davie on your powny, and that will be just five-and-threepence
-      to ilka ane o' us, ye ken."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Davie! the Lord help ye, the bairn's no ten year auld; and, to be plain
-      wi' ye, our powny reists a bit, and it's dooms sweer to the road, and
-      naebody can manage him but our Jock."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I'm sorry for that," answered the postmistress, gravely; "it's like we
-      maun wait then till the gudeman comes hame, after a'&mdash;for I wadna
-      like to be responsible in trusting the letter to sic a callant as Jock&mdash;our
-      Davie belangs in a manner to the office."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aweel, aweel, Mrs. Mailsetter, I see what ye wad be at&mdash;but an ye
-      like to risk the bairn, I'll risk the beast."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Orders were accordingly given. The unwilling pony was brought out of his
-      bed of straw, and again equipped for service&mdash;Davie (a leathern
-      post-bag strapped across his shoulders) was perched upon the saddle, with
-      a tear in his eye, and a switch in his hand. Jock good-naturedly led the
-      animal out of town, and, by the crack of his whip, and the whoop and
-      halloo of his too well-known voice, compelled it to take the road towards
-      Monkbarns.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Meanwhile the gossips, like the sibyls after consulting their leaves,
-      arranged and combined the information of the evening, which flew next
-      morning through a hundred channels, and in a hundred varieties, through
-      the world of Fairport. Many, strange, and inconsistent, were the rumours
-      to which their communications and conjectures gave rise. Some said Tennant
-      and Co. were broken, and that all their bills had come back protested&mdash;others
-      that they had got a great contract from Government, and letters from the
-      principal merchants at Glasgow, desiring to have shares upon a premium.
-      One report stated, that Lieutenant Taffril had acknowledged a private
-      marriage with Jenny Caxon&mdash;another, that he had sent her a letter
-      upbraiding her with the lowness of her birth and education, and bidding
-      her an eternal adieu. It was generally rumoured that Sir Arthur Wardour's
-      affairs had fallen into irretrievable confusion, and this report was only
-      doubted by the wise, because it was traced to Mrs. Mailsetter's shop,&mdash;a
-      source more famous for the circulation of news than for their accuracy.
-      But all agreed that a packet from the Secretary of State's office, had
-      arrived, directed for Mr. Lovel, and that it had been forwarded by an
-      orderly dragoon, despatched from the head-quarters at Edinburgh, who had
-      galloped through Fairport without stopping, except just to inquire the way
-      to Monkbarns. The reason of such an extraordinary mission to a very
-      peaceful and retired individual, was variously explained. Some said Lovel
-      was an emigrant noble, summoned to head an insurrection that had broken
-      out in La Vende'e&mdash;others that he was a spy&mdash;others that he was
-      a general officer, who was visiting the coast privately&mdash;others that
-      he was a prince of the blood, who was travelling <i>incognito.</i>
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Meanwhile the progress of the packet which occasioned so much speculation,
-      towards its destined owner at Monkbarns, had been perilous and
-      interrupted. The bearer, Davie Mailsetter, as little resembling a bold
-      dragoon as could well be imagined, was carried onwards towards Monkbarns
-      by the pony, so long as the animal had in his recollection the crack of
-      his usual instrument of chastisement, and the shout of the butcher's boy.
-      But feeling how Davie, whose short legs were unequal to maintain his
-      balance, swung to and fro upon his back, the pony began to disdain furthur
-      compliance with the intimations he had received. First, then, he slackened
-      his pace to a walk This was no point of quarrel between him and his rider,
-      who had been considerably discomposed by the rapidity of his former
-      motion, and who now took the opportunity of his abated pace to gnaw a
-      piece of gingerbread, which had been thrust into his hand by his mother in
-      order to reconcile this youthful emissary of the post-office to the
-      discharge of his duty. By and by, the crafty pony availed himself of this
-      surcease of discipline to twitch the rein out of Davies hands, and applied
-      himself to browse on the grass by the side of the lane. Sorely astounded
-      by these symptoms of self-willed rebellion, and afraid alike to sit or to
-      fall, poor Davie lifted up his voice and wept aloud. The pony, hearing
-      this pudder over his head, began apparently to think it would be best both
-      for himself and Davie to return from whence they came, and accordingly
-      commenced a retrograde movement towards Fairport. But, as all retreats are
-      apt to end in utter rout, so the steed, alarmed by the boy's cries, and by
-      the flapping of the reins, which dangled about his forefeet&mdash;finding
-      also his nose turned homeward, began to set off at a rate which, if Davie
-      kept the saddle (a matter extremely dubious), would soon have presented
-      him at Heukbane's stable-door,&mdash;when, at a turn of the road, an
-      intervening auxiliary, in the shape of old Edie Ochiltree, caught hold of
-      the rein, and stopped his farther proceeding. "Wha's aught ye, callant?
-      whaten a gate's that to ride?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I canna help it!" blubbered the express; "they ca' me little Davie."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And where are ye gaun?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I'm gaun to Monkbarns wi' a letter."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Stirra, this is no the road to Monkbarns."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But Davie could oinly answer the expostulation with sighs and tears.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Old Edie was easily moved to compassion where childhood was in the
-      case.--"I wasna gaun that gate," he thought, "but it's the best o' my way
-      o' life that I canna be weel out o' my road. They'll gie me quarters at
-      Monkbarns readily eneugh, and I'll e'en hirple awa there wi' the wean, for
-      it will knock its hams out, puir thing, if there's no somebody to guide
-      the pony.&mdash;Sae ye hae a letter, hinney? will ye let me see't?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I'm no gaun to let naebody see the letter," sobbed the boy, "till I gie't
-      to Mr. Lovel, for I am a faithfu' servant o' the office&mdash;if it werena
-      for the powny."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Very right, my little man," said Ochiltree, turning the reluctant pony's
-      head towards Monkbarns; "but we'll guide him atween us, if he's no a' the
-      sweerer."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Upon the very height of Kinprunes, to which Monkbarns had invited Lovel
-      after their dinner, the Antiquary, again reconciled to the once degraded
-      spot, was expatiating upon the topics the scenery afforded for a
-      description of Agricola's camp at the dawn of morning, when his eye was
-      caught by the appearance of the mendicant and his protegee. "What the
-      devil!&mdash;here comes Old Edie, bag and baggage, I think."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The beggar explained his errand, and Davie, who insisted upon a literal
-      execution of his commission by going on to Monkbarns, was with difficulty
-      prevailed upon to surrender the packet to its proper owner, although he
-      met him a mile nearer than the place he had been directed to. "But my
-      minnie said, I maun be sure to get twenty shillings and five shillings for
-      the postage, and ten shillings and sixpence for the express&mdash;there's
-      the paper."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Let me see&mdash;let me see," said Oldbuck, putting on his spectacles,
-      and examining the crumpled copy of regulations to which Davie appealed.
-      "Express, per man and horse, one day, not to exceed ten shillings and
-      sixpence. One day? why, it's not an hour&mdash;Man and horse? why, 'tis a
-      monkey on a starved cat!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Father wad hae come himsell," said Davie, "on the muckle red mear, an ye
-      wad hae bidden till the morn's night."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Four-and-twenty hours after the regular date of delivery! You little
-      cockatrice egg, do you understand the art of imposition so early?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hout Monkbarns! dinna set your wit against a bairn," said the beggar;
-      "mind the butcher risked his beast, and the wife her wean, and I am sure
-      ten and sixpence isna ower muckle. Ye didna gang sae near wi' Johnnie
-      Howie, when"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel, who, sitting on the supposed <i>Praetorium,</i> had glanced over
-      the contents of the packet, now put an end to the altercation by paying
-      Davies demand; and then turning to Mr. Oldbuck, with a look of much
-      agitation, he excused himself from returning with him to Monkbarns' that
-      evening.&mdash;"I must instantly go to Fairport, and perhaps leave it on a
-      moment's notice;&mdash;your kindness, Mr. Oldbuck, I can never forget."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No bad news, I hope?" said the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Of a very chequered complexion," answered his friend. "Farewell&mdash;in
-      good or bad fortune I will not forget your regard."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nay, nay&mdash;stop a moment. If&mdash;if&mdash;" (making an effort)&mdash;"if
-      there be any pecuniary inconvenience&mdash;I have fifty&mdash;or a hundred
-      guineas at your service&mdash;till&mdash;till Whitsunday&mdash;or indeed
-      as long as you please."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am much obliged, Mr. Oldbuck, but I am amply provided," said his
-      mysterious young friend. "Excuse me&mdash;I really cannot sustain further
-      conversation at present. I will write or see you, before I leave Fairport&mdash;that
-      is, if I find myself obliged to go."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      So saying, he shook the Antiquary's hand warmly, turned from him, and
-      walked rapidly towards the town, "staying no longer question."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Very extraordinary indeed!" said Oldbuck;&mdash;"but there's something
-      about this lad I can never fathom; and yet I cannot for my heart think ill
-      of him neither. I must go home and take off the fire in the Green Room,
-      for none of my womankind will venture into it after twilight."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And how am I to win hame?" blubbered the disconsolate express.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's a fine night," said the Blue-Gown, looking up to the skies; "I had
-      as gude gang back to the town, and take care o' the wean."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Do so, do so, Edie;" and rummaging for some time in his huge waistcoat
-      pocket till he found the object of his search, the Antiquary added,
-      "there's sixpence to ye to buy sneeshin."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-     "I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal has not
-     given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged; it could
-     not be else. I have drunk medicines."
-                            Second Part of Henry IV.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Regular for a fortnight were the inquiries of the Antiquary at the veteran
-      Caxon, whether he had heard what Mr. Lovel was about; and as regular were
-      Caxon's answers, "that the town could learn naething about him whatever,
-      except that he had received anither muckle letter or twa frae the south,
-      and that he was never seen on the plainstanes at a'."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "How does he live, Caxon?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou, Mrs. Hadoway just dresses him a beefsteak or a muttonchop, or makes
-      him some Friar's chicken, or just what she likes hersell, and he eats it
-      in the little red parlour off his bedroom. She canna get him to say that
-      he likes ae thing better than anither; and she makes him tea in a morning,
-      and he settles honourably wi' her every week."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But does he never stir abroad?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He has clean gi'en up walking, and he sits a' day in his room reading or
-      writing; a hantle letters he has written, but he wadna put them into our
-      post-house, though Mrs. Hadoway offered to carry them hersell, but sent
-      them a' under ae cover to the sheriff; and it's Mrs. Mailsetter's belief,
-      that the sheriff sent his groom to put them into the post-office at
-      Tannonburgh; it's my puir thought, that he jaloused their looking into his
-      letters at Fairport; and weel had he need, for my puir daughter Jenny"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Tut, don't plague me with your womankind, Caxon. About this poor young
-      lad.&mdash;Does he write nothing but letters?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou, ay&mdash;hale sheets o' other things, Mrs. Hadoway says. She wishes
-      muckle he could be gotten to take a walk; she thinks he's but looking very
-      puirly, and his appetite's clean gane; but he'll no hear o' ganging ower
-      the door-stane&mdash;him that used to walk sae muckle too."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "That's wrong&mdash;I have a guess what he's busy about; but he must not
-      work too hard neither. I'll go and see him this very day&mdash;he's deep,
-      doubtless, in the Caledoniad."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Having formed this manful resolution, Mr. Oldbuck equipped himself for the
-      expedition with his thick walking-shoes and gold-headed cane, muttering
-      the while the words of Falstaff which we have chosen for the motto of this
-      CHAPTER; for the Antiquary was himself rather surprised at the degree of
-      attachment which he could not but acknowledge be entertained for this
-      stranger. The riddle was notwithstanding easily solved. Lovel had many
-      attractive qualities, but he won our Antiquary's heart by being on most
-      occasions an excellent listener.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A walk to Fairport had become somewhat of an adventure with Mr. Oldbuck,
-      and one which he did not often care to undertake. He hated greetings in
-      the market-place; and there were generally loiterers in the streets to
-      persecute him, either about the news of the day, or about some petty
-      pieces of business. So, on this occasion, he had no sooner entered the
-      streets of Fairport, than it was "Good-morrow, Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;a sight
-      o' you's gude, for sair een: what d'ye think of the news in the Sun the
-      day?&mdash;they say the great attempt will be made in a fortnight."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I wish to the Lord it were made and over, that I might hear no more about
-      it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Monkbarns, your honour," said the nursery and seedsman, "I hope the
-      plants gied satisfaction?&mdash;and if ye wanted ony flower-roots fresh
-      frae Holland, or" (this in a lower key) "an anker or twa o' Cologne gin,
-      ane o' our brigs cam in yestreen."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Thank ye, thank ye,&mdash;no occasion at present, Mr. Crabtree," said the
-      Antiquary, pushing resolutely onward.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mr. Oldbuck," said the town-clerk (a more important person, who came in
-      front and ventured to stop the old gentleman), "the provost, understanding
-      you were in town, begs on no account that you'll quit it without seeing
-      him; he wants to speak to ye about bringing the water frae the
-      Fairwell-spring through a part o' your lands."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What the deuce!&mdash;have they nobody's land but mine to cut and carve
-      on?&mdash;I won't consent, tell them."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And the provost," said the clerk, going on, without noticing the rebuff,
-      "and the council, wad be agreeable that you should hae the auld stones at
-      Donagild's chapel, that ye was wussing to hae."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Eh!&mdash;what?&mdash;Oho! that's another story&mdash;Well, well, I'll
-      call upon the provost, and we'll talk about it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But ye maun speak your mind on't forthwith, Monkbarns, if ye want the
-      stones; for Deacon Harlewalls thinks the carved through-stanes might be
-      put with advantage on the front of the new council-house&mdash;that is,
-      the twa cross-legged figures that the callants used to ca' Robin and
-      Bobbin, ane on ilka door-cheek; and the other stane, that they ca'd Ailie
-      Dailie, abune the door. It will be very tastefu', the Deacon says, and
-      just in the style of modern Gothic."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Lord deliver me from this Gothic generation!" exclaimed the Antiquary,&mdash;"A
-      monument of a knight-templar on each side of a Grecian porch, and a
-      Madonna on the top of it!&mdash;<i>O crimini!</i>&mdash;Well, tell the
-      provost I wish to have the stones, and we'll not differ about the
-      water-course. It's lucky I happened to come this way to-day."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      They parted mutually satisfied; but the wily clerk had most reason to
-      exult in the dexterity he had displayed, since the whole proposal of an
-      exchange between the monuments (which the council had determined to remove
-      as a nuisance, because they encroached three feet upon the public road),
-      and the privilege of conveying the water to the burgh through the estate
-      of Monkbarns, was an idea which had originated with himself upon the
-      pressure of the moment.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Through these various entanglements, Monkbarns (to use the phrase by which
-      he was distinguished in the country) made his way at length to Mrs.
-      Hadoway's. This good woman was the widow of a late clergyman at Fairport,
-      who had been reduced by her husband's untimely death, to that state of
-      straitened and embarrassed circumstances in which the widows of the Scotch
-      clergy are too often found. The tenement which she occupied, and the
-      furniture of which she was possessed, gave her the means of letting a part
-      of her house; and as Lovel had been a quiet, regular, and profitable
-      lodger, and had qualified the necessary intercourse which they had
-      together with a great deal of gentleness and courtesy, Mrs. Hadoway, not,
-      perhaps, much used to such kindly treatment, had become greatly attached
-      to her lodger, and was profuse in every sort of personal attention which
-      circumstances permitted her to render him. To cook a dish somewhat better
-      than ordinary for "the poor young gentleman's dinner;" to exert her
-      interest with those who remembered her husband, or loved her for her own
-      sake and his, in order to procure scarce vegetables, or something which
-      her simplicity supposed might tempt her lodger's appetite, was a labour in
-      which she delighted, although she anxiously concealed it from the person
-      who was its object. She did not adopt this secrecy of benevolence to avoid
-      the laugh of those who might suppose that an oval face and dark eyes, with
-      a clear brown complexion, though belonging to a woman of five-and-forty,
-      and enclosed within a widow's close-drawn pinners, might possibly still
-      aim at making conquests; for, to say truth, such a ridiculous suspicion
-      having never entered into her own head, she could not anticipate its
-      having birth in that of any one else. But she concealed her attentions
-      solely out of delicacy to her guest, whose power of repaying them she
-      doubted as much as she believed in his inclination to do so, and in his
-      being likely to feel extreme pain at leaving any of her civilities
-      unrequited. She now opened the door to Mr. Oldbuck, and her surprise at
-      seeing him brought tears into her eyes, which she could hardly restrain.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am glad to see you, sir&mdash;I am very glad to see you. My poor
-      gentleman is, I am afraid, very unwell; and oh, Mr. Oldbuck, he'll see
-      neither doctor, nor minister, nor writer! And think what it would be, if,
-      as my poor Mr. Hadoway used to say, a man was to die without advice of the
-      three learned faculties!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Greatly better than with them," grumbled the cynical Antiquary. "I tell
-      you, Mrs. Hadoway, the clergy live by our sins, the medical faculty by our
-      diseases, and the law gentry by our misfortunes."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O fie, Monkbarns!&mdash;to hear the like o' that frae you!&mdash;But yell
-      walk up and see the poor young lad?&mdash;Hegh sirs? sae young and
-      weel-favoured&mdash;and day by day he has eat less and less, and now he
-      hardly touches onything, only just pits a bit on the plate to make fashion&mdash;and
-      his poor cheek has turned every day thinner and paler, sae that he now
-      really looks as auld as me, that might be his mother&mdash;no that I might
-      be just that neither, but something very near it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why does he not take some exercise?" said Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I think we have persuaded him to do that, for he has bought a horse from
-      Gibbie Golightly, the galloping groom. A gude judge o' horse-flesh Gibbie
-      tauld our lass that he was&mdash;for he offered him a beast he thought wad
-      answer him weel eneugh, as he was a bookish man, but Mr. Lovel wadna look
-      at it, and bought ane might serve the Master o' Morphie&mdash;they keep it
-      at the Graeme's Arms, ower the street;&mdash;and he rode out yesterday
-      morning and this morning before breakfast&mdash;But winna ye walk up to
-      his room?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Presently, presently. But has he no visitors?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O dear, Mr. Oldbuck, not ane; if he wadna receive them when he was weel
-      and sprightly, what chance is there of onybody in Fairport looking in upon
-      him now?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, ay, very true,&mdash;I should have been surprised had it been
-      otherwise&mdash;Come, show me up stairs, Mrs. Hadoway, lest I make a
-      blunder, and go where I should not."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The good landlady showed Mr. Oldbuck up her narrow staircase, warning him
-      of every turn, and lamenting all the while that he was laid under the
-      necessity of mounting up so high. At length she gently tapped at the door
-      of her guest's parlour. "Come in," said Lovel; and Mrs. Hadoway ushered in
-      the Laird of Monkbarns.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The little apartment was neat and clean, and decently furnished&mdash;ornamented,
-      too, by such relics of her youthful arts of sempstress-ship as Mrs.
-      Hadoway had retained; but it was close, overheated, and, as it appeared to
-      Oldbuck, an unwholesome situation for a young person in delicate health,&mdash;an
-      observation which ripened his resolution touching a project that had
-      already occurred to him in Lovel's behalf. With a writing-table before
-      him, on which lay a quantity of books and papers, Lovel was seated on a
-      couch, in his night-gown and slippers. Oldbuck was shocked at the change
-      which had taken place in his personal appearance. His cheek and brow had
-      assumed a ghastly white, except where a round bright spot of hectic red
-      formed a strong and painful contrast, totally different from the general
-      cast of hale and hardy complexion which had formerly overspread and
-      somewhat embrowned his countenance. Oldbuck observed, that the dress he
-      wore belonged to a deep mourning suit, and a coat of the same colour hung
-      on a chair near to him. As the Antiquary entered, Lovel arose and came
-      forward to welcome him.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "This is very kind," he said, shaking him by the hand, and thanking him
-      warmly for his visit&mdash;"this is very kind, and has anticipated a visit
-      with which I intended to trouble you. You must know I have become a
-      horseman lately."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I understand as much from Mrs. Hadoway&mdash;I only hope, my good young
-      friend, you have been fortunate in a quiet horse. I myself inadvertently
-      bought one from the said Gibbie Golightly, which brute ran two miles on
-      end with me after a pack of hounds, with which I had no more to do than
-      the last year's snow; and after affording infinite amusement, I suppose,
-      to the whole hunting field, he was so good as to deposit me in a dry ditch&mdash;I
-      hope yours is a more peaceful beast?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I hope, at least, we shall make our excursions on a better plan of mutual
-      understanding."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "That is to say, you think yourself a good horseman?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I would not willingly," answered Lovel, "confess myself a very bad one."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No&mdash;all you young fellows think that would be equal to calling
-      yourselves tailors at once&mdash;But have you had experience? for, <i>crede
-      experto,</i> a horse in a passion is no joker."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, I should be sorry to boast myself as a great horseman; but when I
-      acted as aide-de-camp to Sir&mdash;&mdash;in the cavalry action at&mdash;,
-      last year, I saw many better cavaliers than myself dismounted."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ah! you have looked in the face of the grisly god of arms then?&mdash;you
-      are acquainted with the frowns of Mars armipotent? That experience fills
-      up the measure of your qualifications for the epopea! The Britons,
-      however, you will remember, fought in chariots&mdash;<i>covinarii</i> is
-      the phrase of Tacitus;&mdash;you recollect the fine description of their
-      dashing among the Roman infantry, although the historian tells us how ill
-      the rugged face of the ground was calculated for equestrian combat; and
-      truly, upon the whole, what sort of chariots could be driven in Scotland
-      anywhere but on turnpike roads, has been to me always matter of amazement.
-      And well now&mdash;has the Muse visited you?&mdash;have you got anything
-      to show me?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My time," said Lovel, with a glance at his black dress, "has been less
-      pleasantly employed."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The death of a friend?" said the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes, Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;of almost the only friend I could ever boast of
-      possessing."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed? Well, young man," replied his visitor, in a tone of seriousness
-      very different from his affected gravity, "be comforted. To have lost a
-      friend by death while your mutual regard was warm and unchilled, while the
-      tear can drop unembittered by any painful recollection of coldness or
-      distrust or treachery, is perhaps an escape from a more heavy
-      dispensation. Look round you&mdash;how few do you see grow old in the
-      affections of those with whom their early friendships were formed! Our
-      sources of common pleasure gradually dry up as we journey on through the
-      vale of Bacha, and we hew out to ourselves other reservoirs, from which
-      the first companions of our pilgrimage are excluded;&mdash;jealousies,
-      rivalries, envy, intervene to separate others from our side, until none
-      remain but those who are connected with us rather by habit than
-      predilection, or who, allied more in blood than in disposition, only keep
-      the old man company in his life, that they may not be forgotten at his
-      death&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                    <i>Haec data poena diu viventibus.</i>
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Ah, Mr. Lovel! if it be your lot to reach the chill, cloudy, and
-      comfortless evening of life, you will remember the sorrows of your youth
-      as the light shadowy clouds that intercepted for a moment the beams of the
-      sun when it was rising. But I cram these words into your ears against the
-      stomach of your sense."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am sensible of your kindness," answered the youth; "but the wound that
-      is of recent infliction must always smart severely, and I should be little
-      comforted under my present calamity&mdash;forgive me for saying so&mdash;by
-      the conviction that life had nothing in reserve for me but a train of
-      successive sorrows. And permit me to add, you, Mr. Oldbuck, have least
-      reason of many men to take so gloomy a view of life. You have a competent
-      and easy fortune&mdash;are generally respected&mdash;may, in your own
-      phrase, <i>vacare musis,</i> indulge yourself in the researches to which
-      your taste addicts you; you may form your own society without doors&mdash;and
-      within you have the affectionate and sedulous attention of the nearest
-      relatives."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, yes&mdash;the womankind, for womankind, are, thanks to my training,
-      very civil and tractable&mdash;do not disturb me in my morning studies&mdash;creep
-      across the floor with the stealthy pace of a cat, when it suits me to take
-      a nap in my easy-chair after dinner or tea. All this is very well; but I
-      want something to exchange ideas with&mdash;something to talk to."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then why do you not invite your nephew, Captain M'Intyre, who is
-      mentioned by every one as a fine spirited young fellow, to become a member
-      of your family?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Who?" exclaimed Monkbarns, "my nephew Hector?&mdash;the Hotspur of the
-      North? Why, Heaven love you, I would as soon invite a firebrand into my
-      stackyard. He's an Almanzor, a Chamont&mdash;has a Highland pedigree as
-      long as his claymore, and a claymore as long as the High Street of
-      Fairport, which he unsheathed upon the surgeon the last time he was at
-      Fairport. I expect him here one of these days; but I will keep him at
-      staff's end, I promise you. He an inmate of my house! to make my very
-      chairs and tables tremble at his brawls. No, no&mdash;I'll none of Hector
-      M'Intyre. But hark ye, Lovel;&mdash;you are a quiet, gentle-tempered lad;
-      had not you better set up your staff at Monkbarns for a month or two,
-      since I conclude you do not immediately intend to leave this country?&mdash;I
-      will have a door opened out to the garden&mdash;it will cost but a trifle&mdash;there
-      is the space for an old one which was condemned long ago&mdash;by which
-      said door you may pass and repass into the Green Chamber at pleasure, so
-      you will not interfere with the old man, nor he with you. As for your
-      fare, Mrs. Hadoway tells me you are, as she terms it, very moderate of
-      your mouth, so you will not quarrel with my humble table. Your washing"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hold, my dear Mr. Oldbuck," interposed Lovel, unable to repress a smile;
-      "and before your hospitality settles all my accommodations, let me thank
-      you most sincerely for so kind an offer&mdash;it is not at present in my
-      power to accept of it; but very likely, before I bid adieu to Scotland, I
-      shall find an opportunity to pay you a visit of some length."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Mr. Oldbuck's countenance fell. "Why, I thought I had hit on the very
-      arrangement that would suit us both,&mdash;and who knows what might happen
-      in the long run, and whether we might ever part? Why, I am master of my
-      acres, man&mdash;there is the advantage of being descended from a man of
-      more sense than pride&mdash;they cannot oblige me to transmit my goods
-      chattels, and heritages, any way but as I please. No string of substitute
-      heirs of entail, as empty and unsubstantial as the morsels of paper strung
-      to the train of a boy's kite, to cumber my flights of inclination, and my
-      humours of predilection. Well,&mdash;I see you won't be tempted at present&mdash;but
-      Caledonia goes on I hope?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O certainly," said Lovel; "I cannot think of relinquishing a plan so
-      hopeful."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is indeed," said the Antiquary, looking gravely upward,&mdash;for,
-      though shrewd and acute enough in estimating the variety of plans formed
-      by others, he had a very natural, though rather disproportioned good
-      opinion of the importance of those which originated with himself&mdash;"it
-      is indeed one of those undertakings which, if achieved with spirit equal
-      to that which dictates its conception, may redeem from the charge of
-      frivolity the literature of the present generation."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here he was interrupted by a knock at the room door, which introduced a
-      letter for Mr. Lovel. The servant waited, Mrs. Hadoway said, for an
-      answer. "You are concerned in this matter, Mr. Oldbuck," said Lovel, after
-      glancing over the billet, and handing it to the Antiquary as he spoke.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      It was a letter from Sir Arthur Wardour, couched in extremely civil
-      language, regetting that a fit of the gout had prevented his hitherto
-      showing Mr. Lovel the attentions to which his conduct during a late
-      perilous occasion had so well entitled him&mdash;apologizing for not
-      paying his respects in person, but hoping Mr. Lovel would dispense with
-      that ceremony, and be a member of a small party which proposed to visit
-      the ruins of Saint Ruth's priory on the following day, and afterwards to
-      dine and spend the evening at Knockwinnock Castle. Sir Arthur concluded
-      with saying, that he had sent to request the Monkbarns family to join the
-      party of pleasure which he thus proposed. The place of rendezvous was
-      fixed at a turnpike-gate, which was about an equal distance from all the
-      points from which the company were to assemble.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What shall we do?" said Lovel, looking at the Antiquary, but pretty
-      certain of the part he would take.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Go, man&mdash;we'll go, by all means. Let me see&mdash;it will cost a
-      post-chaise though, which will hold you and me, and Mary M'Intyre, very
-      well&mdash;and the other womankind may go to the manse&mdash;and you can
-      come out in the chaise to Monkbarns, as I will take it for the day."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, I rather think I had better ride."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "True, true, I forgot your Bucephalus. You are a foolish lad, by the by,
-      for purchasing the brute outright; you should stick to eighteenpence a
-      side, if you will trust any creature's legs in preference to your own."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, as the horse's have the advantage of moving considerably faster, and
-      are, besides, two pair to one, I own I incline"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Enough said&mdash;enough said&mdash;do as you please. Well then, I'll
-      bring either Grizel or the minister, for I love to have my full pennyworth
-      out of post-horses&mdash;and we meet at Tirlingen turnpike on Friday, at
-      twelve o'clock precisely. "&mdash;And with this ageement the friends
-      separated.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-          Of seats they tell, where priests, 'mid tapers dim,
-          Breathed the warm prayer, or tuned the midnight hymn
-               To scenes like these the fainting soul retired;
-               Revenge and Anger in these cells expired:
-             By Pity soothed, Remorse lost half her fears,
-             And softened Pride dropped penitential tears.
-                           Crabbe's Borough.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The morning of Friday was as serene and beautiful as if no pleasure party
-      had been intended; and that is a rare event, whether in novel-writing or
-      real life. Lovel, who felt the genial influence of the weather, and
-      rejoiced at the prospect of once more meeting with Miss Wardour, trotted
-      forward to the place of rendezvous with better spirits than he had for
-      some time enjoyed. His prospects seemed in many respects to open and
-      brighten before him&mdash;and hope, although breaking like the morning sun
-      through clouds and showers, appeared now about to illuminate the path
-      before him. He was, as might have been expected from this state of
-      spirits, first at the place of meeting,&mdash;and, as might also have been
-      anticipated, his looks were so intently directed towards the road from
-      Knockwinnock Castles that he was only apprized of the arrival of the
-      Monkbarns division by the gee-hupping of the postilion, as the post-chaise
-      lumbered up behind him. In this vehicle were pent up, first, the stately
-      figure of Mr. Oldbuck himself; secondly, the scarce less portly person of
-      the Reverend Mr. Blattergowl, minister of Trotcosey, the parish in which
-      Monkbarns and Knockwinnock were both situated. The reverend gentleman was
-      equipped in a buzz wig, upon the top of which was an equilateral cocked
-      hat. This was the paragon of the three yet remaining wigs of the parish,
-      which differed, as Monkbarns used to remark, like the three degrees of
-      comparison&mdash;Sir Arthur's ramilies being the positive, his own bob-wig
-      the comparative, and the overwhelming grizzle of the worthy clergyman
-      figuring as the superlative. The superintendent of these antique
-      garnitures, deeming, or affecting to deem, that he could not well be
-      absent on an occasion which assembled all three together, had seated
-      himself on the board behind the carriage, "just to be in the way in case
-      they wanted a touch before the gentlemen sat down to dinner." Between the
-      two massive figures of Monkbarns and the clergyman was stuck, by way of
-      bodkin, the slim form of Mary M'Intyre, her aunt having preferred a visit
-      to the manse, and a social chat with Miss Beckie Blattergowl, to
-      investigating the ruins of the priory of Saint Ruth.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As greetings passed between the members of the Monkbarns party and Mr.
-      Lovel, the Baronet's carriage, an open barouche, swept onward to the place
-      of appointment, making, with its smoking bays, smart drivers, arms,
-      blazoned panels, and a brace of outriders, a strong contrast with the
-      battered vehicle and broken-winded hacks which had brought thither the
-      Antiquary and his followers. The principal seat of the carriage was
-      occupied by Sir Arthur and his daughter. At the first glance which passed
-      betwixt Miss Wardour and Lovel, her colour rose considerably;&mdash;but
-      she had apparently made up her mind to receive him as a friend, and only
-      as such, and there was equal composure and courtesy in the mode of her
-      reply to his fluttered salutation. Sir Arthur halted the barouche to shake
-      his preserver kindly by the hand, and intimate the pleasure he had on this
-      opportunity of returning him his personal thanks; then mentioned to him,
-      in a tone of slight introduction, "Mr. Dousterswivel, Mr. Lovel."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel took the necessary notice of the German adept, who occupied the
-      front seat of the carriage, which is usually conferred upon dependants or
-      inferiors. The ready grin and supple inclination with which his
-      salutation, though slight, was answered by the foreigner, increased the
-      internal dislike which Lovel had already conceived towards him; and it was
-      plain, from the lower of the Antiquary's shaggy eye-brow, that he too
-      looked with displeasure on this addition to the company. Little more than
-      distant greeting passed among the members of the party, until, having
-      rolled on for about three miles beyond the place at which they met, the
-      carriages at length stopped at the sign of the Four Horse-shoes, a small
-      hedge inn, where Caxon humbly opened the door, and let down the step of
-      the hack-chaise, while the inmates of the barouche were, by their more
-      courtly attendants, assisted to leave their equipage.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here renewed greetings passed: the young ladies shook hands; and Oldbuck,
-      completely in his element, placed himself as guide and cicerone at the
-      head of the party, who were now to advance on foot towards the object of
-      their curiosity. He took care to detain Lovel close beside him as the best
-      listener of the party, and occasionally glanced a word of explanation and
-      instruction to Miss Wardour and Mary M'Intyre, who followed next in order.
-      The Baronet and the clergyman he rather avoided, as he was aware both of
-      them conceived they understood such matters as well, or better than he
-      did; and Dousterswivel, besides that he looked on him as a charlatan, was
-      so nearly connected with his apprehended loss in the stock of the mining
-      company, that he could not abide the sight of him. These two latter
-      satellites, therefore, attended upon the orb of Sir Arthur, to whom,
-      moreover, as the most important person of the society, they were naturally
-      induced to attach themselves.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      It frequently happens that the most beautiful points of Scottish scenery
-      lie hidden in some sequestered dell, and that you may travel through the
-      country in every direction without being aware of your vicinity to what is
-      well worth seeing, unless intention or accident carry you to the very
-      spot. This is particularly the case in the country around Fairport, which
-      is, generally speaking, open, unenclosed, and bare. But here and there the
-      progress of rills, or small rivers, has formed dells, glens, or as they
-      are provincially termed, <i>dens,</i> on whose high and rocky banks trees
-      and shrubs of all kinds find a shelter, and grow with a luxuriant
-      profusion, which is the more gratifying, as it forms an unexpected
-      contrast with the general face of the country. This was eminently the case
-      with the approach to the ruins of Saint Ruth, which was for some time
-      merely a sheep-track, along the side of a steep and bare hill. By degrees,
-      however, as this path descended, and winded round the hillside, trees
-      began to appear, at first singly, stunted, and blighted, with locks of
-      wool upon their trunks, and their roots hollowed out into recesses, in
-      which the sheep love to repose themselves&mdash;a sight much more
-      gratifying to the eye of an admirer of the picturesque than to that of a
-      planter or forester. By and by the trees formed groups, fringed on the
-      edges, and filled up in the middle, by thorns and hazel bushes; and at
-      length these groups closed so much together, that although a broad glade
-      opened here and there under their boughs, or a small patch of bog or heath
-      occurred which had refused nourishment to the seed which they sprinkled
-      round, and consequently remained open and waste, the scene might on the
-      whole be termed decidedly woodland. The sides of the valley began to
-      approach each other more closely; the rush of a brook was heard below, and
-      between the intervals afforded by openings in the natural wood, its waters
-      were seen hurling clear and rapid under their silvan canopy.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Oldbuck now took upon himself the full authority of cicerone, and
-      anxiously directed the company not to go a foot-breadth off the track
-      which he pointed out to them, if they wished to enjoy in full perfection
-      what they came to see. "You are happy in me for a guide, Miss Wardour,"
-      exclaimed the veteran, waving his hand and head in cadence as he repeated
-      with emphasis,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-               I know each lane, and every alley green,
-               Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood,
-               And every bosky bower from side to side. *
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      * (Milton's <i>Comus.</i>)
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Ah! deuce take it!&mdash;that spray of a bramble has demolished all
-      Caxon's labours, and nearly canted my wig into the stream&mdash;so much
-      for recitations, <i>hors de propos.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Never mind, my dear sir," said Miss Wardour; "you have your faithful
-      attendant ready to repair such a disaster when it happens, and when you
-      appear with it as restored to its original splendour, I will carry on the
-      quotation:
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
-                And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
-               And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
-                       Flames on the forehead"&mdash;*
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      * (<i>Lycidas.</i>)
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O! enough, enough!" answered Oldbuck; "I ought to have known what it was
-      to give you advantage over me&mdash;But here is what will stop your career
-      of satire, for you are an admirer of nature, I know." In fact, when they
-      had followed him through a breach in a low, ancient, and ruinous wall,
-      they came suddenly upon a scene equally unexpected and interesting.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      They stood pretty high upon the side of the glen, which had suddenly
-      opened into a sort of amphitheatre to give room for a pure and profound
-      lake of a few acres extent, and a space of level ground around it. The
-      banks then arose everywhere steeply, and in some places were varied by
-      rocks&mdash;in others covered with the copse, which run up, feathering
-      their sides lightly and irregularly, and breaking the uniformity of the
-      green pasture-ground.&mdash;Beneath, the lake discharged itself into the
-      huddling and tumultuous brook, which had been their companion since they
-      had entered the glen. At the point at which it issued from "its parent
-      lake," stood the ruins which they had come to visit. They were not of
-      great extent; but the singular beauty, as well as the wild and sequestered
-      character of the spot on which they were situated, gave them an interest
-      and importance superior to that which attaches itself to architectural
-      remains of greater consequence, but placed near to ordinary houses, and
-      possessing less romantic accompaniments. The eastern window of the church
-      remained entire, with all its ornaments and tracery work; and the sides,
-      upheld by flying buttresses whose airy support, detached from the wall
-      against which they were placed, and ornamented with pinnacles and carved
-      work, gave a variety and lightness to the building. The roof and western
-      end of the church were completely ruinous; but the latter appeared to have
-      made one side of a square, of which the ruins of the conventual buildings
-      formed other two, and the gardens a fourth. The side of these buildings
-      which overhung the brook, was partly founded on a steep and precipitous
-      rock; for the place had been occasionally turned to military purposes, and
-      had been taken with great slaughter during Montrose's wars. The ground
-      formerly occupied by the garden was still marked by a few orchard trees.
-      At a greater distance from the buildings were detached oaks and elms and
-      chestnuts, growing singly, which had attained great size. The rest of the
-      space between the ruins and the hill was a close-cropt sward, which the
-      daily pasture of the sheep kept in much finer order than if it had been
-      subjected to the scythe and broom. The whole scene had a repose, which was
-      still and affecting without being monotonous. The dark, deep basin, in
-      which the clear blue lake reposed, reflecting the water lilies which grew
-      on its surface, and the trees which here and there threw their arms from
-      the banks, was finely contrasted with the haste and tumult of the brook
-      which broke away from the outlet, as if escaping from confinement and
-      hurried down the glen, wheeling around the base of the rock on which the
-      ruins were situated, and brawling in foam and fury with every shelve and
-      stone which obstructed its passage. A similar contrast was seen between
-      the level green meadow, in which the ruins were situated, and the large
-      timber-trees which were scattered over it, compared with the precipitous
-      banks which arose at a short distance around, partly fringed with light
-      and feathery underwood, partly rising in steeps clothed with purple heath,
-      and partly more abruptly elevated into fronts of grey rock, chequered with
-      lichen, and with those hardy plants which find root even in the most arid
-      crevices of the crags.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There was the retreat of learning in the days of darkness, Mr. Lovel!"
-      said Oldbuck,&mdash;around whom the company had now grouped themselves
-      while they admired the unexpected opening of a prospect so romantic;&mdash;"there
-      reposed the sages who were aweary of the world, and devoted either to that
-      which was to come, or to the service of the generations who should follow
-      them in this. I will show you presently the library;&mdash;see that
-      stretch of wall with square-shafted windows&mdash;there it existed,
-      stored, as an old manuscript in my possession assures me, with five
-      thousand volumes. And here I might well take up the lamentation of the
-      learned Leland, who, regretting the downfall of the conventual libraries,
-      exclaims, like Rachel weeping for her children, that if the Papal laws,
-      decrees, decretals, clementines, and other such drugs of the devil&mdash;yea,
-      if Heytesburg's sophisms, Porphyry's universals, Aristotle's logic, and
-      Dunse's divinity, with such other lousy legerdemains (begging your pardon,
-      Miss Wardour) and fruits of the bottomless pit,&mdash;had leaped out of
-      our libraries, for the accommodation of grocers, candlemakers,
-      soapsellers, and other worldly occupiers, we might have been therewith
-      contented. But to put our ancient chronicles, our noble histories, our
-      learned commentaries, and national muniments, to such offices of contempt
-      and subjection, has greatly degraded our nation, and showed ourselves
-      dishonoured in the eyes of posterity to the utmost stretch of time&mdash;O
-      negligence most unfriendly to our land!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And, O John Knox" said the Baronet, "through whose influence, and under
-      whose auspices, the patriotic task was accomplished!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Antiquary, somewhat in the situation of a woodcock caught in his own
-      springe, turned short round and coughed, to excuse a slight blush as he
-      mustered his answer&mdash;"as to the Apostle of the Scottish Reformation"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But Miss Wardour broke in to interrupt a conversation so dangerous. "Pray,
-      who was the author you quoted, Mr. Oldbuck?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The learned Leland, Miss Wardour, who lost his senses on witnessing the
-      destruction of the conventual libraries in England."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Now, I think," replied the young lady, "his misfortune may have saved the
-      rationality of some modern antiquaries, which would certainly have been
-      drowned if so vast a lake of learning had not been diminished by
-      draining."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, thank Heaven, there is no danger now&mdash;they have hardly left us
-      a spoonful in which to perform the dire feat."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      So saying, Mr. Oldbuck led the way down the bank, by a steep but secure
-      path, which soon placed them on the verdant meadow where the ruins stood.
-      "There they lived," continued the Antiquary, "with nought to do but to
-      spend their time in investigating points of remote antiquity, transcribing
-      manuscripts, and composing new works for the information of posterity."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And," added the Baronet, "in exercising the rites of devotion with a pomp
-      and ceremonial worthy of the office of the priesthood."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And if Sir Arthur's excellence will permit," said the German, with a low
-      bow, "the monksh might also make de vary curious experiment in deir
-      laboraties, both in chemistry and <i>magia naturalis.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I think," said the clergyman, "they would have enough to do in collecting
-      the teinds of the parsonage and vicarage of three good parishes."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And all," added Miss Wardour, nodding to the Antiquary, "without
-      interruption from womankind."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "True, my fair foe," said Oldbuck; "this was a paradise where no Eve was
-      admitted, and we may wonder the rather by what chance the good fathers
-      came to lose it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      With such criticisms on the occupations of those by whom the ruins had
-      been formerly possessed, they wandered for some time from one moss-grown
-      shrine to another, under the guidance of Oldbuck, who explained, with much
-      plausibility, the ground-plan of the edifice, and read and expounded to
-      the company the various mouldering inscriptions which yet were to be
-      traced upon the tombs of the dead, or under the vacant niches of the
-      sainted images.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What is the reason," at length Miss Wardour asked the Antiquary, "why
-      tradition has preserved to us such meagre accounts of the inmates of these
-      stately edifices, raised with such expense of labour and taste, and whose
-      owners were in their times personages of such awful power and importance?
-      The meanest tower of a freebooting baron or squire who lived by his lance
-      and broadsword, is consecrated by its appropriate legend, and the shepherd
-      will tell you with accuracy the names and feats of its inhabitants;&mdash;but
-      ask a countryman concerning these beautiful and extensive remains&mdash;these
-      towers, these arches, and buttresses, and shafted windows, reared at such
-      cost,&mdash;three words fill up his answer&mdash;they were made up by the
-      monks lang syne.'"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The question was somewhat puzzling. Sir Arthur looked upward, as if hoping
-      to be inspired with an answer&mdash;Oldbuck shoved back his wig&mdash;the
-      clergyman was of opinion that his parishioners were too deeply impressed
-      with the true presbyterian doctrine to preserve any records concerning the
-      papistical cumberers of the land, offshoots as they were of the great
-      overshadowing tree of iniquity, whose roots are in the bowels of the seven
-      hills of abomination&mdash;Lovel thought the question was best resolved by
-      considering what are the events which leave the deepest impression on the
-      minds of the common people&mdash;"These," he contended, "were not such as
-      resemble the gradual progress of a fertilizing river, but the headlong and
-      precipitous fury of some portentous flood. The eras by which the vulgar
-      compute time, have always reference to some period of fear and
-      tribulation, and they date by a tempest, an earthquake, or burst of civil
-      commotion. When such are the facts most alive, in the memory of the common
-      people, we cannot wonder," he concluded, "that the ferocious warrior is
-      remembered, and the peaceful abbots are abandoned to forgetfulness and
-      oblivion."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If you pleashe, gentlemans and ladies, and ashking pardon of Sir Arthur
-      and Miss Wardour, and this worthy clergymansh, and my goot friend Mr.
-      Oldenbuck, who is my countrymansh, and of goot young Mr. Lofel also, I
-      think it is all owing to de hand of glory."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The hand of what?" exclaimed Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "De hand of glory, my goot Master Oldenbuck, which is a vary great and
-      terrible secrets&mdash;which de monksh used to conceal their treasures
-      when they were triven from their cloisters by what you call de Reform."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, indeed! tell us about that," said Oldbuck, "for these are secrets
-      worth knowing."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, my goot Master Oldenbuck, you will only laugh at me&mdash;But de
-      hand of glory is vary well known in de countries where your worthy
-      progenitors did live&mdash;and it is hand cut off from a dead man, as has
-      been hanged for murther, and dried very nice in de shmoke of juniper wood;
-      and if you put a little of what you call yew wid your juniper, it will not
-      be any better&mdash;that is, it will not be no worse&mdash;then you do
-      take something of de fatsh of de bear, and of de badger, and of de great
-      eber, as you call de grand boar, and of de little sucking child as has not
-      been christened (for dat is very essentials), and you do make a candle,
-      and put it into de hand of glory at de proper hour and minute, with de
-      proper ceremonish, and he who seeksh for treasuresh shall never find none
-      at all."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I dare take my corporal oath of that conclusion," said the Antiquary.
-      "And was it the custom, Mr. Dousterswivel, in Westphalia, to make use of
-      this elegant candelabrum?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Alwaysh, Mr. Oldenbuck, when you did not want nobody to talk of nothing
-      you wash doing about&mdash;And the monksh alwaysh did this when they did
-      hide their church-plates, and their great chalices, and de rings, wid very
-      preshious shtones and jewels."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But, notwithstanding, you knights of the Rosy Cross have means, no doubt,
-      of breaking the spell, and discovering what the poor monks have put
-      themselves to so much trouble to conceal?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ah! goot Mr. Oldenbuck," replied the adept, shaking his head
-      mysteriously, "you was very hard to believe; but if you had seen de great
-      huge pieces of de plate so massive, Sir Arthur,&mdash;so fine fashion,
-      Miss Wardour&mdash;and de silver cross dat we did find (dat was Schroepfer
-      and my ownself) for de Herr Freygraf, as you call de Baron Von
-      Blunderhaus, I do believe you would have believed then."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Seeing <i>is</i> believing indeed. But what was your art&mdash;what was
-      your mystery, Mr. Dousterswivel?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aha, Mr. Oldenbuck! dat is my little secret, mine goot sir&mdash;you sall
-      forgife me that I not tell that. But I will tell you dere are various ways&mdash;yes,
-      indeed, dere is de dream dat you dream tree times&mdash;dat is a vary goot
-      way."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am glad of that," said Oldbuck; "I have a friend" (with a side-glance
-      to Lovel) "who is peculiarly favoured by the visits of Queen Mab."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Den dere is de sympathies, and de antipathies, and de strange properties
-      and virtues natural of divers herb, and of de little divining-rod."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I would gladly rather see some of these wonders than hear of them," said
-      Miss Wardour.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ah, but, my much-honoured young lady, this is not de time or de way to do
-      de great wonder of finding all de church's plate and treasure; but to
-      oblige you, and Sir Arthur my patron, and de reverend clergymans, and goot
-      Mr. Oldenbuck, and young Mr. Lofel, who is a very goot young gentleman
-      also, I will show you dat it is possible, a vary possible, to discover de
-      spring, of water, and de little fountain hidden in de ground, without any
-      mattock, or spade, or dig at all."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Umph!" quoth the Antiquary, "I have heard of that conundrum. That will be
-      no very productive art in our country;&mdash;you should carry that
-      property to Spain or Portugal, and turn it to good account."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ah! my goot Master Oldenbuck, dere is de Inquisition and de Auto-da-fe&mdash;they
-      would burn me, who am but a simple philosopher, for one great conjurer."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "They would cast away their coals then," said Oldbuck; "but," continued
-      he, in a whisper to Lovel, "were they to pillory him for one of the most
-      impudent rascals that ever wagged a tongue, they would square the
-      punishment more accurately with his deserts. But let us see: I think he is
-      about to show us some of his legerdemain."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In truth, the German was now got to a little copse-thicket at some
-      distance from the ruins, where he affected busily to search for such a
-      wand as would suit the purpose of his mystery: and after cutting and
-      examining, and rejecting several, he at length provided himself with a
-      small twig of hazel terminating in a forked end, which he pronounced to
-      possess the virtue proper for the experiment that he was about to exhibit.
-      Holding the forked ends of the wand, each between a finger and thumb, and
-      thus keeping the rod upright, he proceeded to pace the ruined aisles and
-      cloisters, followed by the rest of the company in admiring procession. "I
-      believe dere was no waters here," said the adept, when he had made the
-      round of several of the buildings, without perceiving any of those
-      indications which he pretended to expect&mdash;"I believe those Scotch
-      monksh did find de water too cool for de climate, and alwaysh drank de
-      goot comfortable, Rhinewine. But, aha!&mdash;see there!" Accordingly, the
-      assistants observed the rod to turn in his fingers, although he pretended
-      to hold it very tight.&mdash;"Dere is water here about, sure enough," and,
-      turning this way and that way, as the agitation of the divining-rod seemed
-      to increase or diminish, he at length advanced into the midst of a vacant
-      and roofless enclosure which had been the kitchen of the priory, when the
-      rod twisted itself so as to point almost straight downwards. "Here is de
-      place," said the adept, "and if you do not find de water here, I will give
-      you all leave to call me an impudent knave."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I shall take that license," whispered the Antiquary to Lovel, "whether
-      the water is discovered or no."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A servant, who had come up with a basket of cold refreshments, was now
-      despatched to a neighbouring forester's hut for a mattock and pick-axe.
-      The loose stones and rubbish being removed from the spot indicated by the
-      German, they soon came to the sides of a regularly-built well; and when a
-      few feet of rubbish were cleared out by the assistance of the forester and
-      his sons, the water began to rise rapidly, to the delight of the
-      philosopher, the astonishment of the ladies, Mr. Blattergowl, and Sir
-      Arthur, the surprise of Lovel, and the confusion of the incredulous
-      Antiquary. He did not fail, however, to enter his protest in Lovers ear
-      against the miracle. "This is a mere trick," he said; "the rascal had made
-      himself sure of the existence of this old well, by some means or other,
-      before he played off this mystical piece of jugglery. Mark what he talks
-      of next. I am much mistaken if this is not intended as a prelude to some
-      more serious fraud. See how the rascal assumes consequence, and plumes
-      himself upon the credit of his success, and how poor Sir Arthur takes in
-      the tide of nonsense which he is delivering to him as principles of occult
-      science!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You do see, my goot patron, you do see, my goot ladies, you do see,
-      worthy Dr. Bladderhowl, and even Mr. Lofel and Mr. Oldenbuck may see, if
-      they do will to see, how art has no enemy at all but ignorance. Look at
-      this little slip of hazel nuts&mdash;it is fit for nothing at all but to
-      whip de little child"&mdash;("I would choose a cat and nine tails for your
-      occasions," whispered Oldbuck apart)&mdash;"and you put it in the hands of
-      a philosopher&mdash;paf! it makes de grand discovery. But this is nothing,
-      Sir Arthur,&mdash;nothing at all, worthy Dr. Botherhowl&mdash;nothing at
-      all, ladies&mdash;nothing at all, young Mr. Lofel and goot Mr. Oldenbuck,
-      to what art can do. Ah! if dere was any man that had de spirit and de
-      courage, I would show him better things than de well of water&mdash;I
-      would show him"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And a little money would be necessary also, would it not?" said the
-      Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Bah! one trifle, not worth talking about, maight be necessaries,"
-      answered the adept.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I thought as much," rejoined the Antiquary, drily; "and I, in the
-      meanwhile, without any divining-rod, will show you an excellent venison
-      pasty, and a bottle of London particular Madeira, and I think that will
-      match all that Mr. Dousterswivel's art is like to exhibit."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The feast was spread <i>fronde super viridi,</i> as Oldbuck expressed
-      himself, under a huge old tree called the Prior's Oak, and the company,
-      sitting down around it, did ample honour to the contents of the basket.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-               As when a Gryphon through the wilderness,
-               With winged course, o'er hill and moory dale,
-                 Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
-                 Had from his wakeful custody purloined
-                  The guarded gold: So eagerly the Fiend&mdash;
-                                   Paradise Lost.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      When their collation was ended, Sir Arthur resumed the account of the
-      mysteries of the divining-rod, as a subject on which he had formerly
-      conversed with Dousterswivel. "My friend Mr. Oldbuck will now be prepared,
-      Mr. Dousterswivel, to listen with more respect to the stories you have
-      told us of the late discoveries in Germany by the brethren of your
-      association."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ah, Sir Arthur, that was not a thing to speak to those gentlemans,
-      because it is want of credulity&mdash;what you call faith&mdash;that
-      spoils the great enterprise."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "At least, however, let my daughter read the narrative she has taken down
-      of the story of Martin Waldeck."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ah! that was vary true story&mdash;but Miss Wardour, she is so sly and so
-      witty, that she has made it just like one romance&mdash;as well as Goethe
-      or Wieland could have done it, by mine honest wort."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "To say the truth, Mr. Dousterswivel," answered Miss Wardour, "the
-      romantic predominated in the legend so much above the probable, that it
-      was impossible for a lover of fairyland like me to avoid lending a few
-      touches to make it perfect in its kind. But here it is, and if you do not
-      incline to leave this shade till the heat of the day has somewhat
-      declined, and will have sympathy with my bad composition, perhaps Sir
-      Arthur or Mr. Oldbuck will read it to us."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not I," said Sir Arthur; "I was never fond of reading aloud."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nor I," said Oldbuck, "for I have forgot my spectacles. But here is
-      Lovel, with sharp eyes and a good voice; for Mr. Blattergowl, I know,
-      never reads anything, lest he should be suspected of reading his sermons."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The task was therefore imposed upon Lovel, who received, with some
-      trepidation, as Miss Wardour delivered, with a little embarrassment, a
-      paper containing the lines traced by that fair hand, the possession of
-      which he coveted as the highest blessing the earth could offer to him. But
-      there was a necessity of suppressing his emotions; and after glancing over
-      the manuscript, as if to become acquainted with the character, he
-      collected himself, and read the company the following tale:&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <h3>
-      The Fortunes of Martin Waldeck.&lt;/h3
-    </h3>
-    <p>
-      The solitudes of the Harz forest in Germany, but especially the mountains
-      called Blocksberg, or rather Brockenberg, are the chosen scenes for tales
-      of witches, demons, and apparitions.
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-[The outline of this story is taken from the German, though the Author
-    is at present unable to say in which of the various collections of the
-    popular legends in that language the original is to be found.]
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The occupation of the inhabitants, who are either miners or foresters, is
-      of a kind that renders them peculiarly prone to superstition, and the
-      natural phenomena which they witness in pursuit of their solitary or
-      subterraneous profession, are often set down by them to the interference
-      of goblins or the power of magic. Among the various legends current in
-      that wild country, there is a favourite one, which supposes the Harz to be
-      haunted by a sort of tutelar demon, in the shape of a wild man, of huge
-      stature, his head wreathed with oak leaves, and his middle cinctured with
-      the same, bearing in his hand a pine torn up by the roots. It is certain
-      that many persons profess to have seen such a form traversing, with huge
-      strides, in a line parallel to their own course, the opposite ridge of a
-      mountain, when divided from it by a narrow glen; and indeed the fact of
-      the apparition is so generally admitted, that modern scepticism has only
-      found refuge by ascribing it to optical deception. *
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      *The shadow of the person who sees the phantom, being reflected upon a
-      cloud of mist, like the image of the magic lantern upon a white sheet, is
-      supposed to have formed the apparition.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In elder times, the intercourse of the demon with the inhabitants was more
-      familiar, and, according to the traditions of the Harz, he was wont, with
-      the caprice usually ascribed to these earth-born powers, to interfere with
-      the affairs of mortals, sometimes for their weal, sometimes for their wo.
-      But it was observed that even his gifts often turned out, in the long run,
-      fatal to those on whom they were bestowed, and it was no uncommon thing
-      for the pastors, in their care of their flocks, to compose long sermons,
-      the burden whereof was a warning against having any intercourse, direct or
-      indirect, with the Harz demon. The fortunes of Martin Waldeck have been
-      often quoted by the aged to their giddy children, when they were heard to
-      scoff at a danger which appeared visionary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A travelling capuchin had possessed himself of the pulpit of the thatched
-      church at a little hamlet called <i>Morgenbrodt,</i> lying in the Harz
-      district, from which he declaimed against the wickedness of the
-      inhabitants, their communication with fiends, witches, and fairies, and,
-      in particular, with the woodland goblin of the Harz. The doctrines of
-      Luther had already begun to spread among the peasantry (for the incident
-      is placed under the reign of Charles V. ), and they laughed to scorn the
-      zeal with which the venerable man insisted upon his topic. At length, as
-      his vehemence increased with opposition, so their opposition rose in
-      proportion to his vehemence. The inhabitants did not like to hear an
-      accustomed quiet demon, who had inhabited the Brockenberg for so many
-      ages, summarily confounded with Baal-peor, Ashtaroth, and Beelzebub
-      himself, and condemned without reprieve to the bottomless Tophet. The
-      apprehensions that the spirit might avenge himself on them for listening
-      to such an illiberal sentence, added to their national interest in his
-      behalf. A travelling friar, they said, that is here to-day and away
-      to-morrow, may say what he pleases: but it is we, the ancient and constant
-      inhabitants of the country, that are left at the mercy of the insulted
-      demon, and must, of course, pay for all. Under the irritation occasioned
-      by these reflections, the peasants from injurious language betook
-      themselves to stones, and having pebbled the priest pretty handsomely,
-      they drove him out of the parish to preach against demons elsewhere.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Three young men, who had been present and assisting on this occasion were
-      upon their return to the hut where they carried on the laborious and mean
-      occupation of preparing charcoal for the smelting furnaces. On the way,
-      their conversation naturally turned upon the demon of the Harz and the
-      doctrine of the capuchin. Max and George Waldeck, the two elder brothers,
-      although they allowed the language of the capuchin to have been indiscreet
-      and worthy of censure, as presuming to determine upon the precise
-      character and abode of the spirit, yet contended it was dangerous, in the
-      highest degree, to accept of his gifts, or hold any communication with
-      him, He was powerful, they allowed, but wayward and capricious, and those
-      who had intercourse with him seldom came to a good end. Did he not give
-      the brave knight, Ecbert of Rabenwald, that famous black steed, by means
-      of which he vanquished all the champions at the great tournament at
-      Bremen? and did not the same steed afterwards precipitate itself with its
-      rider into an abyss so steep and fearful, that neither horse nor man were
-      ever seen more? Had he not given to Dame Gertrude Trodden a curious spell
-      for making butter come? and was she not burnt for a witch by the grand
-      criminal judge of the Electorate, because she availed herself of his gift?
-      But these, and many other instances which they quoted, of mischance and
-      ill-luck ultimately attending on the apparent benefits conferred by the
-      Harz spirit, failed to make any impression upon Martin Waldeck, the
-      youngest of the brothers.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Martin was youthful, rash, and impetuous; excelling in all the exercises
-      which distinguish a mountaineer, and brave and undaunted from his familiar
-      intercourse with the dangers that attend them. He laughed at the timidity
-      of his brothers. "Tell me not of such folly," he said; "the demon is a
-      good demon&mdash;he lives among us as if he were a peasant like ourselves&mdash;haunts
-      the lonely crags and recesses of the mountains like a huntsman or goatherd&mdash;and
-      he who loves the Harz forest and its wild scenes cannot be indifferent to
-      the fate of the hardy children of the soil. But, if the demon were as
-      malicious as you would make him, how should he derive power over mortals,
-      who barely avail themselves of his gifts, without binding themselves to
-      submit to his pleasure? When you carry your charcoal to the furnace, is
-      not the money as good that is paid you by blaspheming Blaize, the old
-      reprobate overseer, as if you got it from the pastor himself? It is not
-      the goblins gifts which can endanger you, then, but it is the use you
-      shall make of them that you must account for. And were the demon to appear
-      to me at this moment, and indicate to me a gold or silver mine, I would
-      begin to dig away even before his back were turned,&mdash;and I would
-      consider myself as under protection of a much Greater than he, while I
-      made a good use of the wealth he pointed out to me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      To this the elder brother replied, that wealth ill won was seldom well
-      spent; while Martin presumptuously declared, that the possession of all
-      the treasures of the Harz would not make the slightest alteration on his
-      habits, morals, or character.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      His brother entreated Martin to talk less wildly upon the subject, and
-      with some difficulty contrived to withdraw his attention, by calling it to
-      the consideration of the approaching boar-chase. This talk brought them to
-      their hut, a wretched wigwam, situated upon one side of a wild, narrow,
-      and romantic dell, in the recesses of the Brockenberg. They released their
-      sister from attending upon the operation of charring the wood, which
-      requires constant attention, and divided among themselves the duty of
-      watching it by night, according to their custom, one always waking, while
-      his brothers slept.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Max Waldeck, the eldest, watched during the first two hours of the night,
-      and was considerably alarmed by observing, upon the opposite bank of the
-      glen, or valley, a huge fire surrounded by some figures that appeared to
-      wheel around it with antic gestures. Max at first bethought him of calling
-      up his brothers; but recollecting the daring character of the youngest,
-      and finding it impossible to wake the elder without also disturbing Martin&mdash;conceiving
-      also what he saw to be an illusion of the demon, sent perhaps in
-      consequence of the venturous expressions used by Martin on the preceding
-      evening, he thought it best to betake himself to the safeguard of such
-      prayers as he could murmur over, and to watch in great terror and
-      annoyance this strange and alarming apparition. After blazing for some
-      time, the fire faded gradually away into darkness, and the rest of Max's
-      watch was only disturbed by the remembrance of its terrors.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      George now occupied the place of Max, who had retired to rest. The
-      phenomenon of a huge blazing fire, upon the opposite bank of the glen,
-      again presented itself to the eye of the watchman. It was surrounded as
-      before by figures, which, distinguished by their opaque forms, being
-      between the spectator and the red glaring light, moved and fluctuated
-      around it as if engaged in some mystical ceremony. George, though equally
-      cautious, was of a bolder character than his elder brother. He resolved to
-      examine more nearly the object of his wonder; and, accordingly after
-      crossing the rivulet which divided the glen, he climbed up the opposite
-      bank, and approached within an arrow's flight of the fire, which blazed
-      apparently with the same fury as when he first witnessed it.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The appearance, of the assistants who surrounded it resembled those
-      phantoms which are seen in a troubled dream, and at once confirmed the
-      idea he had entertained from the first, that they did not belong to the
-      human world. Amongst these strange unearthly forms, George Waldeck
-      distinguished that of a giant overgrown with hair, holding an uprooted fir
-      in his hand, with which, from time to time, he seemed to stir the blazing
-      fire, and having no other clothing than a wreath of oak leaves around his
-      forehead and loins. George's heart sunk within him at recognising the
-      well-known apparition of the Harz demon, as he had been often described to
-      him by the ancient shepherds and huntsmen who had seen his form traversing
-      the mountains. He turned, and was about to fly; but upon second thoughts,
-      blaming his own cowardice, he recited mentally the verse of the Psalmist,
-      "All good angels, praise the Lord!" which is in that country supposed
-      powerful as an exorcism, and turned himself once more towards the place
-      where he had seen the fire. But it was no longer visible.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The pale moon alone enlightened the side of the valley; and when George,
-      with trembling steps, a moist brow, and hair bristling upright under his
-      collier's cap, came to the spot on which the fire had been so lately
-      visible, marked as it was by a scathed oak-tree, there appeared not on the
-      heath the slightest vestiges of what he had seen. The moss and wild
-      flowers were unscorched, and the branches of the oak-tree, which had so
-      lately appeared enveloped in wreaths of flame and smoke, were moist with
-      the dews of midnight.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      George returned to his hut with trembling steps, and, arguing like his
-      elder brother, resolved to say nothing of what he had seen, lest he should
-      awake in Martin that daring curiosity which he almost deemed to be allied
-      with impiety.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      It was now Martin's turn to watch. The household cock had given his first
-      summons, and the night was well-nigh spent. Upon examining the state of
-      the furnace in which the wood was deposited in order to its being <i>coked</i>
-      or <i>charred,</i> he was surprised to find that the fire had not been
-      sufficiently maintained; for in his excursion and its consequences, George
-      had forgot the principal object of his watch. Martin's first thought was
-      to call up the slumberers; but observing that both his brothers slept
-      unwontedly deep and heavily, he respected their repose, and set himself to
-      supply the furnace with fuel without requiring their aid. What he heaped
-      upon it was apparently damp and unfit for the purpose, for the fire seemed
-      rather to decay than revive. Martin next went to collect some boughs from
-      a stack which had been carefully cut and dried for this purpose; but, when
-      he returned, he found the fire totally extinguished. This was a serious
-      evil, and threatened them with loss of their trade for more than one day.
-      The vexed and mortified watchman set about to strike a light in order to
-      rekindle the fire but the tinder was moist, and his labour proved in this
-      respect also ineffectual. He was now about to call up his brothers, for
-      circumstances seemed to be pressing, when flashes of light glimmered not
-      only through the window, but through every crevice of the rudely built
-      hut, and summoned him to behold the same apparition which had before
-      alarmed the successive watches of his brethren. His first idea was, that
-      the Muhllerhaussers, their rivals in trade, and with whom they had had
-      many quarrels, might have encroached upon their bounds for the purpose of
-      pirating their wood; and he resolved to awake his brothers, and be
-      revenged on them for their audacity. But a short reflection and
-      observation on the gestures and manner of those who seemed to "work in the
-      fire," induced him to dismiss this belief, and although rather sceptical
-      in such matters, to conclude that what he saw was a supernatural
-      phenomenon. "But be they men or fiends," said the undaunted forester,
-      "that busy themselves yonder with such fantastical rites and gestures, I
-      will go and demand a light to rekindle our furnace." He, relinquished at
-      the same time the idea of awaking his brethren. There was a belief that
-      such adventures as he was about to undertake were accessible only to one
-      person at a time; he feared also that his brothers, in their scrupulous
-      timidity, might interfere to prevent his pursuing the investigation he had
-      resolved to commence; and, therefore, snatching his boar-spear from the
-      wall, the undaunted Martin Waldeck set forth on the adventure alone.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      With the same success as his brother George, but with courage far
-      superior, Martin crossed the brook, ascended the hill, and approached so
-      near the ghostly assembly, that he could recognise, in the presiding
-      figure, the attributes of the Harz demon. A cold shuddering assailed him
-      for the first time in his life; but the recollection that he had at a
-      distance dared and even courted the intercourse which was now about to
-      take place, confirmed his staggering courage; and pride supplying what he
-      wanted in resolution, he advanced with tolerable firmness towards the
-      fire, the figures which surrounded it appearing still more wild,
-      fantastical, and supernatural, the more near he approached to the
-      assembly. He was received with a loud shout of discordant and unnatural
-      laughter, which, to his stunned ears, seemed more alarming than a
-      combination of the most dismal and melancholy sounds that could be
-      imagined. "Who art thou?" said the giant, compressing his savage and
-      exaggerated features into a sort of forced gravity, while they were
-      occasionally agitated by the convulsion of the laughter which he seemed to
-      suppress.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Martin Waldeck, the forester," answered the hardy youth;&mdash;"and who
-      are you?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The King of the Waste and of the Mine," answered the spectre;&mdash;"and
-      why hast thou dared to encroach on my mysteries?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I came in search of light to rekindle my fire," answered Martin, hardily,
-      and then resolutely asked in his turn, "What mysteries are those that you
-      celebrate here?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We celebrate," answered the complaisant demon, "the wedding of Hermes
-      with the Black Dragon&mdash;But take thy fire that thou camest to seek,
-      and begone! no mortal may look upon us and live."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The peasant struck his spear-point into a large piece of blazing wood,
-      which he heaved up with some difficulty, and then turned round to regain
-      his hut, the shouts of laughter being renewed behind him with treble
-      violence, and ringing far down the narrow valley. When Martin returned to
-      the hut, his first care, however much astonished with what he had seen,
-      was to dispose the kindled coal among the fuel so as might best light the
-      fire of his furnace; but after many efforts, and all exertions of bellows
-      and fire-prong, the coal he had brought from the demon's fire became
-      totally extinct without kindling any of the others. He turned about, and
-      observed the fire still blazing on the hill, although those who had been
-      busied around it had disappeared. As he conceived the spectre had been
-      jesting with him, he gave way to the natural hardihood of his temper, and,
-      determining to see the adventure to an end, resumed the road to the fire,
-      from which, unopposed by the demon, he brought off in the same manner a
-      blazing piece of charcoal, but still without being able to succeed in
-      lighting his fire. Impunity having increased his rashness, he resolved
-      upon a third experiment, and was as successful as before in reaching the
-      fire; but when he had again appropriated a piece of burning coal, and had
-      turned to depart, he heard the harsh and supernatural voice which had
-      before accosted him, pronounce these words, "Dare not return hither a
-      fourth time!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The attempt to kindle the fire with this last coal having proved as
-      ineffectual as on the former occasions, Martin relinquished the hopeless
-      attempt, and flung himself on his bed of leaves, resolving to delay till
-      the next morning the communication of his supernatural adventure to his
-      brothers. He was awakened from a heavy sleep into which he had sunk, from
-      fatigue of body and agitation of mind, by loud exclamations of surprise
-      and joy. His brothers, astonished at finding the fire extinguished when
-      they awoke, had proceeded to arrange the fuel in order to renew it, when
-      they found in the ashes three huge metallic masses, which their skill (for
-      most of the peasants in the Harz are practical mineralogists) immediately
-      ascertained to be pure gold.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      It was some damp upon their joyful congratulations when they learned from
-      Martin the mode in which he had obtained this treasure, to which their own
-      experience of the nocturnal vision induced them to give full credit. But
-      they were unable to resist the temptation of sharing in their brother's
-      wealth. Taking now upon him as head of the house, Martin Waldeck bought
-      lands and forests, built a castle, obtained a patent of nobility, and,
-      greatly to the indignation of the ancient aristocracy of the
-      neighbourhood, was invested with all the privileges of a man of family.
-      His courage in public war, as well as in private feuds, together with the
-      number of retainers whom he kept in pay, sustained him for some time
-      against the odium which was excited by his sudden elevation, and the
-      arrogance of his pretensions.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And now it was seen in the instance of Martin Waldeck, as it has been in
-      that of many others, how little mortals can foresee the effect of sudden
-      prosperity on their own disposition. The evil propensities in his nature,
-      which poverty had checked and repressed, ripened and bore their unhallowed
-      fruit under the influence of temptation and the means of indulgence. As
-      Deep calls unto Deep, one bad passion awakened another the fiend of
-      avarice invoked that of pride, and pride was to be supported by cruelty
-      and oppression. Waldeck's character, always bold and daring but rendered
-      harsh and assuming by prosperity, soon made him odious, not to the nobles
-      only, but likewise to the lower ranks, who saw, with double dislike, the
-      oppressive rights of the feudal nobility of the empire so remorselessly
-      exercised by one who had risen from the very dregs of the people. His
-      adventure, although carefully concealed, began likewise to be whispered
-      abroad, and the clergy already stigmatized as a wizard and accomplice of
-      fiends, the wretch, who, having acquired so huge a treasure in so strange
-      a manner, had not sought to sanctify it by dedicating a considerable
-      portion to the use of the church. Surrounded by enemies, public and
-      private, tormented by a thousand feuds, and threatened by the church with
-      excommunication, Martin Waldeck, or, as we must now call him, the Baron
-      von Waldeck, often regretted bitterly the labours and sports of his
-      unenvied poverty. But his courage failed him not under all these
-      difficulties, and seemed rather to augment in proportion to the danger
-      which darkened around him, until an accident precipitated his fall.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A proclamation by the reigning Duke of Brunswick had invited to a solemn
-      tournament all German nobles of free and honourable descent; and Martin
-      Waldeck, splendidly armed, accompanied by his two brothers, and a
-      gallantly-equipped retinue, had the arrogance to appear among the chivalry
-      of the province, and demand permission to enter the lists. This was
-      considered as filling up the measure of his presumption. A thousand voices
-      exclaimed, "We will have no cinder-sifter mingle in our games of
-      chivalry." Irritated to frenzy, Martin drew his sword and hewed down the
-      herald, who, in compliance with the general outcry, opposed his entry into
-      the lists. An hundred swords were unsheathed to avenge what was in those
-      days regarded as a crime only inferior to sacrilege or regicide. Waldeck,
-      after defending himself like a lion, was seized, tried on the spot by the
-      judges of the lists, and condemned, as the appropriate punishment for
-      breaking the peace of his sovereign, and violating the sacred person of a
-      herald-at-arms, to have his right hand struck from his body, to be
-      ignominiously deprived of the honour of nobility, of which he was
-      unworthy, and to be expelled from the city. When he had been stripped of
-      his arms, and sustained the mutilation imposed by this severe sentence,
-      the unhappy victim of ambition was abandoned to the rabble, who followed
-      him with threats and outcries levelled alternately against the necromancer
-      and oppressor, which at length ended in violence. His brothers (for his
-      retinue were fled and dispersed) at length succeeded in rescuing him from
-      the hands of the populace, when, satiated with cruelty, they had left him
-      half dead through loss of blood, and through the outrages he had
-      sustained. They were not permitted, such was the ingenious cruelty of
-      their enemies, to make use of any other means of removing him, excepting
-      such a collier's cart as they had themselves formerly used, in which they
-      deposited their brother on a truss of straw, scarcely expecting to reach
-      any place of shelter ere death should release him from his misery.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      When the Waldecks, journeying in this miserable manner, had approached the
-      verge of their native country, in a hollow way, between two mountains,
-      they perceived a figure advancing towards them, which at first sight
-      seemed to be an aged man. But as he approached, his limbs and stature
-      increased, the cloak fell from his shoulders, his pilgrim's staff was
-      changed into an uprooted pine-tree, and the gigantic figure of the Harz
-      demon passed before them in his terrors. When he came opposite to the cart
-      which contained the miserable Waldeck, his huge features dilated into a
-      grin of unutterable contempt and malignity, as he asked the sufferer, "How
-      like you the fire my coals have kindled?" The power of motion, which
-      terror suspended in his two brothers, seemed to be restored to Martin by
-      the energy of his courage. He raised himself on the cart, bent his brows,
-      and, clenching his fist, shook it at the spectre with a ghastly look of
-      hate and defiance. The goblin vanished with his usual tremendous and
-      explosive laugh, and left Waldeck exhausted with this effort of expiring
-      nature.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The terrified brethren turned their vehicle toward the towers of a
-      convent, which arose in a wood of pine-trees beside the road. They were
-      charitably received by a bare-footed and long-bearded capuchin, and Martin
-      survived only to complete the first confession he had made since the day
-      of his sudden prosperity, and to receive absolution from the very priest
-      whom, precisely on that day three years, he had assisted to pelt out of
-      the hamlet of Morgenbrodt. The three years of precarious prosperity were
-      supposed to have a mysterious correspondence with the number of his visits
-      to the spectral fire upon the bill.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The body of Martin Waldeck was interred in the convent where he expired,
-      in which his brothers, having assumed the habit of the order, lived and
-      died in the performance of acts of charity and devotion. His lands, to
-      which no one asserted any claim, lay waste until they were reassumed by
-      the emperor as a lapsed fief, and the ruins of the castle, which Waldeck
-      had called by his own name, are still shunned by the miner and forester as
-      haunted by evil spirits. Thus were the miseries attendant upon wealth,
-      hastily attained and ill employed, exemplified in the fortunes of Martin
-      Waldeck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER NINETEENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                 Here has been such a stormy encounter
-                 Betwixt my cousin Captain, and this soldier,
-                 About I know not what!&mdash;nothing, indeed;
-                 Competitions, degrees, and comparatives
-                          Of soldiership!&mdash;
-                                    A Faire Qurrell.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The attentive audience gave the fair transcriber of the foregoing legend
-      the thanks which politeness required. Oldbuck alone curled up his nose,
-      and observed, that Miss Wardour's skill was something like that of the
-      alchemists, for she had contrived to extract a sound and valuable moral
-      out of a very trumpery and ridiculous legend. "It is the fashion, as I am
-      given to understand, to admire those extravagant fictions&mdash;for me,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                            &mdash;I bear an English heart,
-             Unused at ghosts and rattling bones to start."
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "Under your favour, my goot Mr. Oldenbuck," said the German, "Miss Wardour
-      has turned de story, as she does every thing as she touches, very pretty
-      indeed; but all the history of de Harz goblin, and how he walks among de
-      desolate mountains wid a great fir-tree for his walking cane, and wid de
-      great green bush around his head and his waist&mdash;that is as true as I
-      am an honest man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There is no disputing any proposition so well guaranteed," answered the
-      Antiquary, drily. But at this moment the approach of a stranger cut short
-      the conversation.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The new comer was a handsome young man, about five-and-twenty, in a
-      military undress, and bearing, in his look and manner, a good deal of the
-      martial profession&mdash;nay, perhaps a little more than is quite
-      consistent with the ease of a man of perfect good-breeding, in whom no
-      professional habit ought to predominate. He was at once greeted by the
-      greater part of the company. "My dear Hector!" said Miss M'Intyre, as she
-      rose to take his hand&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hector, son of Priam, whence comest thou?" said the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "From Fife, my liege," answered the young soldier, and continued, when he
-      had politely saluted the rest of the company, and particularly Sir Arthur
-      and his daughter&mdash;"I learned from one of the servants, as I rode
-      towards Monkbarns to pay my respects to you, that I should find the
-      present company in this place, and I willingly embrace the opportunity to
-      pay my respects to so many of my friends at once."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And to a new one also, my trusty Trojan," said Oldbuck. "Mr. Lovel, this
-      is my nephew, Captain M'Intyre&mdash;Hector, I recommend Mr. Lovel to your
-      acquaintance."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The young soldier fixed his keen eye upon Lovel, and paid his compliment
-      with more reserve than cordiality and as our acquaintance thought his
-      coldness almost supercilious, he was equally frigid and haughty in making
-      the necessary return to it; and thus a prejudice seemed to arise between
-      them at the very commencement of their acquaintance.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The observations which Lovel made during the remainder of this pleasure
-      party did not tend to reconcile him with this addition to their society.
-      Captain M'Intyre, with the gallantry to be expected from his age and
-      profession, attached himself to the service of Miss Wardour, and offered
-      her, on every possible opportunity, those marks of attention which Lovel
-      would have given the world to have rendered, and was only deterred from
-      offering by the fear of her displeasure. With forlorn dejection at one
-      moment, and with irritated susceptibility at another, he saw this handsome
-      young soldier assume and exercise all the privileges of a <i>cavaliere
-      servente.</i> He handed Miss Wardour's gloves, he assisted her in putting
-      on her shawl, he attached himself to her in the walks, had a hand ready to
-      remove every impediment in her path, and an arm to support her where it
-      was rugged or difficult; his conversation was addressed chiefly to her,
-      and, where circumstances permitted, it was exclusively so. All this, Lovel
-      well knew, might be only that sort of egotistical gallantry which induces
-      some young men of the present day to give themselves the air of engrossing
-      the attention of the prettiest women in company, as if the others were
-      unworthy of their notice. But he thought he observed in the conduct of
-      Captain M'Intyre something of marked and peculiar tenderness, which was
-      calculated to alarm the jealousy of a lover. Miss Wardour also received
-      his attentions; and although his candour allowed they were of a kind which
-      could not be repelled without some strain of affectation, yet it galled
-      him to the heart to witness that she did so.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The heart-burning which these reflections occasioned proved very
-      indifferent seasoning to the dry antiquarian discussions with which
-      Oldbuck, who continued to demand his particular attention, was
-      unremittingly persecuting him; and he underwent, with fits of impatience
-      that amounted almost to loathing, a course of lectures upon monastic
-      architecture, in all its styles, from the massive Saxon to the florid
-      Gothic, and from that to the mixed and composite architecture of James the
-      First's time, when, according to Oldbuck, all orders were confounded, and
-      columns of various descriptions arose side by side, or were piled above
-      each other, as if symmetry had been forgotten, and the elemental
-      principles of art resolved into their primitive confusion. "What can be
-      more cutting to the heart than the sight of evils," said Oldbuck, in
-      rapturous enthusiasm, "which we are compelled to behold, while we do not
-      possess the power of remedying them?" Lovel answered by an involulatary
-      groan. "I see, my dear young friend, and most congenial spirit, that you
-      feel these enormities almost as much as I do. Have you ever approached
-      them, or met them, without longing to tear, to deface, what is so
-      dishonourable?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dishonourable!" echoed Lovel&mdash;"in what respect dishonourable?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I mean, disgraceful to the arts."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Where? how?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Upon the portico, for example, of the schools of Oxford, where, at
-      immense expense, the barbarous, fantastic, and ignorant architect has
-      chosen to represent the whole five orders of architecture on the front of
-      one building."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      By such attacks as these, Oldbuck, unconscious of the torture he was
-      giving, compelled Lovel to give him a share of his attention,&mdash;as a
-      skilful angler, by means of his line, maintains an influence over the most
-      frantic movements of his agonized prey.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      They were now on their return to the spot where they had left the
-      carriages; and it is inconceivable how often, in the course of that short
-      walk, Lovel, exhausted by the unceasing prosing of his worthy companion,
-      mentally bestowed on the devil, or any one else that would have rid him of
-      hearing more of them, all the orders and disorders of architecture which
-      had been invented or combined from the building of Solomon's temple
-      downwards. A slight incident occurred, however, which sprinkled a little
-      patience on the heat of his distemperature.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Miss Wardour, and her self-elected knight companion, rather preceded the
-      others in the narrow path, when the young lady apparently became desirous
-      to unite herself with the rest of the party, and, to break off her <i>tete-a-tete</i>
-      with the young officer, fairly made a pause until Mr. Oldbuck came up. "I
-      wished to ask you a question, Mr. Oldbuck, concerning the date of these
-      interesting ruins."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      It would be doing injustice to Miss Wardour's <i>savoir faire,</i> to
-      suppose she was not aware that such a question would lead to an answer of
-      no limited length. The Antiquary, starting like a war-horse at the trumpet
-      sound, plunged at once into the various arguments for and against the date
-      of 1273, which had been assigned to the priory of St. Ruth by a late
-      publication on Scottish architectural antiquities. He raked up the names
-      of all the priors who had ruled the institution, of the nobles who had
-      bestowed lands upon it, and of the monarchs who had slept their last sleep
-      among its roofless courts. As a train which takes fire is sure to light
-      another, if there be such in the vicinity, the Baronet, catching at the
-      name of one of his ancestors which occurred in Oldbuck's disquisition,
-      entered upon an account of his wars, his conquests, and his trophies; and
-      worthy Dr. Blattergowl was induced, from the mention of a grant of lands,
-      <i>cum decimis inclusis tam vicariis quam garbalibus, et nunquan antea
-      separatis,</i> to enter into a long explanation concerning the
-      interpretation given by the Teind Court in the consideration of such a
-      clause, which had occurred in a process for localling his last
-      augmentation of stipend. The orators, like three racers, each pressed
-      forward to the goal, without much regarding how each crossed and jostled
-      his competitors. Mr. Oldbuck harangued, the Baronet declaimed, Mr.
-      Blattergowl prosed and laid down the law, while the Latin forms of feudal
-      grants were mingled with the jargon of blazonry, and the yet more
-      barbarous phraseology of the Teind Court of Scotland. "He was," exclaimed
-      Oldbuck, speaking of the Prior Adhemar, "indeed an exemplary prelate; and,
-      from his strictness of morals, rigid execution of penance, joined to the
-      charitable disposition of his mind, and the infirmities endured by his
-      great age and ascetic habits"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here he chanced to cough, and Sir Arthur burst in, or rather continued&mdash;"was
-      called popularly Hell-in-Harness; he carried a shield, gules with a sable
-      fess, which we have since disused, and was slain at the battle of Vernoil,
-      in France, after killing six of the English with his own"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Decreet of certification," proceeded the clergyman, in that prolonged,
-      steady, prosing tone, which, however overpowered at first by the vehemence
-      of competition, promised, in the long run, to obtain the ascendancy in
-      this strife of narrators;&mdash;"Decreet of certification having gone out,
-      and parties being held as confessed, the proof seemed to be held as
-      concluded, when their lawyer moved to have it opened up, on the allegation
-      that they had witnesses to bring forward, that they had been in the habit
-      of carrying the ewes to lamb on the teind-free land; which was a mere
-      evasion, for"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But here the Baronet and Mr. Oldbuck having recovered their wind, and
-      continued their respective harangues, the three <i>strands</i> of the
-      conversation, to speak the language of a rope-work, were again twined
-      together into one undistinguishable string of confusion.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Yet, howsoever uninteresting this piebald jargon might seem, it was
-      obviously Miss Wardour's purpose to give it her attention, in preference
-      to yielding Captain M'Intyre an opportunity of renewing their private
-      conversation. So that, after waiting for a little time with displeasure,
-      ill concealed by his haughty features, he left her to enjoy her bad taste,
-      and taking his sister by the arm, detained her a little behind the rest of
-      the party.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "So I find, Mary, that your neighbour has neither become more lively nor
-      less learned during my absence."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We lacked your patience and wisdom to instruct us, Hector."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Thank you, my dear sister. But you have got a wiser, if not so lively an
-      addition to your society, than your unworthy brother&mdash;Pray, who is
-      this Mr. Lovel, whom our old uncle has at once placed so high in his good
-      graces?&mdash;he does not use to be so accessible to strangers."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mr. Lovel, Hector, is a very gentleman-like young man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay,&mdash;that is to say, he bows when he comes into a room, and wears a
-      coat that is whole at the elbows."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, brother; it says a great deal more. It says that his manners and
-      discourse express the feelings and education of the higher class."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But I desire to know what is his birth and his rank in society, and what
-      is his title to be in the circle in which I find him domesticated?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If you mean, how he comes to visit at Monkbarns, you must ask my uncle,
-      who will probably reply, that he invites to his own house such company as
-      he pleases; and if you mean to ask Sir Arthur, you must know that Mr.
-      Lovel rendered Miss Wardour and him a service of the most important kind."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What! that romantic story is true, then?&mdash;And pray, does the
-      valorous knight aspire, as is befitting on such occasions, to the hand of
-      the young lady whom he redeemed from peril? It is quite in the rule of
-      romance, I am aware; and I did think that she was uncommonly dry to me as
-      we walked together, and seemed from time to time as if she watched whether
-      she was not giving offence to her gallant cavalier."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dear Hector," said his sister, "if you really continue to nourish any
-      affection for Miss Wardour"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If, Mary?&mdash;what an <i>if</i> was there!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "&mdash;I own I consider your perseverance as hopeless."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And why hopeless, my sage sister?" asked Captain M'Intyre: "Miss Wardour,
-      in the state of her father's affairs, cannot pretend to much fortune;&mdash;and,
-      as to family, I trust that of Mlntyre is not inferior."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But, Hector," continued his sister, "Sir Arthur always considers us as
-      members of the Monkbarns family."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Sir Arthur may consider what he pleases," answered the Highlander
-      scornfully; "but any one with common sense will consider that the wife
-      takes rank from the husband, and that my father's pedigree of fifteen
-      unblemished descents must have ennobled my mother, if her veins had been
-      filled with printer's ink."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "For God's sake, Hector," replied his anxious sister, "take care of
-      yourself! a single expression of that kind, repeated to my uncle by an
-      indiscreet or interested eavesdropper, would lose you his favour for ever,
-      and destroy all chance of your succeeding to his estate."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Be it so," answered the heedless young man; "I am one of a profession
-      which the world has never been able to do without, and will far less
-      endure to want for half a century to come; and my good old uncle may tack
-      his good estate and his plebeian name to your apron-string if he pleases,
-      Mary, and you may wed this new favourite of his if you please, and you may
-      both of you live quiet, peaceable, well-regulated lives, if it pleases
-      Heaven. My part is taken&mdash;I'll fawn on no man for an inheritance
-      which should be mine by birth."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Miss M'Intyre laid her hand on her brother's arm, and entreated him to
-      suppress his vehemence. "Who," she said, "injures or seeks to injure you,
-      but your own hasty temper?&mdash;what dangers are you defying, but those
-      you have yourself conjured up?&mdash;Our uncle has hitherto been all that
-      is kind and paternal in his conduct to us, and why should you suppose he
-      will in future be otherwise than what he has ever been, since we were left
-      as orphans to his care?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He is an excellent old gentleman, I must own," replied M'Intyre, "and I
-      am enraged at myself when I chance to offend him; but then his eternal
-      harangues upon topics not worth the spark of a flint&mdash;his
-      investigations about invalided pots and pans and tobacco-stoppers past
-      service&mdash;all these things put me out of patience. I have something of
-      Hotspur in me, sister, I must confess."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Too much, too much, my dear brother! Into how many risks, and, forgive me
-      for saying, some of them little creditable, has this absolute and violent
-      temper led you! Do not let such clouds darken the time you are now to pass
-      in our neighbourhood, but let our old benefactor see his kinsman as he is&mdash;generous,
-      kind, and lively, without being rude, headstrong, and impetuous."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well," answered Captain M'Intyre, "I am schooled&mdash;good-manners be my
-      speed! I'll do the civil thing by your new friend&mdash;I'll have some
-      talk with this Mr. Lovel."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      With this determination, in which he was for the time perfectly sincere,
-      he joined the party who were walking before them. The treble disquisition
-      was by this time ended; and Sir Arthur was speaking on the subject of
-      foreign news, and the political and military situation of the country,
-      themes upon which every man thinks himself qualified to give an opinion.
-      An action of the preceding year having come upon the <i>tapis,</i> Lovel,
-      accidentally mingling in the conversation, made some assertion concerning
-      it, of the accuracy of which Captain M'Intyre seemed not to be convinced,
-      although his doubts were politely expressed.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You must confess yourself in the wrong here, Hector," said his uncle,
-      "although I know no man less willing to give up an argument; but you were
-      in England at the time, and Mr. Lovel was probably concerned in the
-      affair."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am speaking to a military man, then?" said M'Intyre; "may I inquire to
-      what regiment Mr. Lovel belongs?"&mdash;Mr. Lovel gave him the number of
-      the regiment. "It happens strangely that we should never have met before,
-      Mr. Lovel. I know your regiment very well, and have served along with them
-      at different times."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A blush crossed Lovel's countenance. "I have not lately been with my
-      regiment," he replied; "I served the last campaign upon the staff of
-      General Sir&mdash;&mdash;."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed! that is more wonderful than the other circumstance!&mdash;for
-      although I did not serve with General Sir&mdash;&mdash;, yet I had an
-      opportunity of knowing the names of the officers who held situations in
-      his family, and I cannot recollect that of Lovel."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      At this observation Lovel again blushed so deeply as to attract the
-      attention of the whole company, while, a scornful laugh seemed to indicate
-      Captain M'Intyre's triumph. "There is something strange in this," said
-      Oldbuck to himself; "but I will not readily give up my phoenix of
-      post-chaise companions&mdash;all his actions, language, and bearing, are
-      those of a gentleman."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel in the meanwhile had taken out his pocket-book, and selecting a
-      letter, from which he took off the envelope, he handed it to Mlntyre. "You
-      know the General's hand, in all probability&mdash;I own I ought not to
-      show these exaggerated expressions of his regard and esteem for me." The
-      letter contained a very handsome compliment from the officer in question
-      for some military service lately performed. Captain M'Intyre, as he
-      glanced his eye over it, could not deny that it was written in the
-      General's hand, but drily observed, as he returned it, that the address
-      was wanting. "The address, Captain M'Intyre," answered Lovel, in the same
-      tone, "shall be at your service whenever you choose to inquire after it!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I certainly shall not fail to do so," rejoined the soldier.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Come, come," exclaimed Oldbuck, "what is the meaning of all this? Have we
-      got Hiren here?&mdash;We'll have no swaggering youngsters. Are you come
-      from the wars abroad, to stir up domestic strife in our peaceful land? Are
-      you like bull-dog puppies, forsooth, that when the bull, poor fellow, is
-      removed from the ring, fall to brawl among themselves, worry each other,
-      and bite honest folk's shins that are standing by?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur trusted, he said, the young gentlemen would not so far forget
-      themselves as to grow warm upon such a trifling subject as the back of a
-      letter.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Both the disputants disclaimed any such intention, and, with high colour
-      and flashing eyes, protested they were never so cool in their lives. But
-      an obvious damp was cast over the party;&mdash;they talked in future too
-      much by the rule to be sociable, and Lovel, conceiving himself the object
-      of cold and suspicious looks from the rest of the company, and sensible
-      that his indirect replies had given them permission to entertain strange
-      opinions respecting him, made a gallant determination to sacrifice the
-      pleasure he had proposed in spending the day at Knockwinnock.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      He affected, therefore, to complain of a violent headache, occasioned by
-      the heat of the day, to which he had not been exposed since his illness,
-      and made a formal apology to Sir Arthur, who, listening more to recent
-      suspicion than to the gratitude due for former services, did not press him
-      to keep his engagement more than good-breeding exactly demanded.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      When Lovel took leave of the ladies, Miss Wardour's manner seemed more
-      anxious than he had hitherto remarked it. She indicated by a glance of her
-      eye towards Captain M'Intyre, perceptible only by Lovel, the subject of
-      her alarm, and hoped, in a voice greatly under her usual tone, it was not
-      a less pleasant engagement which deprived them of the pleasure of Mr.
-      Lovel's company. "No engagement had intervened," he assured her; "it was
-      only the return of a complaint by which he had been for some time
-      occasionally attacked."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The best remedy in such a case is prudence, and I&mdash;every friend of
-      Mr. Lovel's will expect him to employ it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel bowed low and coloured deeply, and Miss Wardour, as if she felt that
-      she had said too much, turned and got into the carriage. Lovel had next to
-      part with Oldbuck, who, during this interval, had, with Caxon's
-      assistance, been arranging his disordered periwig, and brushing his coat,
-      which exhibited some marks of the rude path they had traversed. "What,
-      man!" said Oldbuck, "you are not going to leave us on account of that
-      foolish Hector's indiscreet curiosity and vehemence? Why, he is a
-      thoughtless boy&mdash;a spoiled child from the time he was in the nurse's
-      arms&mdash;he threw his coral and bells at my head for refusing him a bit
-      of sugar; and you have too much sense to mind such a shrewish boy: <i>aequam
-      servare mentem</i> is the motto of our friend Horace. I'll school Hector
-      by and by, and put it all to rights." But Lovel persisted in his design of
-      returning to Fairport.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Antiquary then assumed a graver tone.&mdash;"Take heed, young man, to
-      your present feelings. Your life has been given you for useful and
-      valuable purposes, and should be reserved to illustrate the literature of
-      your country, when you are not called upon to expose it in her defence, or
-      in the rescue of the innocent. Private war, a practice unknown to the
-      civilised ancients, is, of all the absurdities introduced by the Gothic
-      tribes, the most gross, impious, and cruel. Let me hear no more of these
-      absurd quarrels, and I will show you the treatise upon the duello, which I
-      composed when the town-clerk and provost Mucklewhame chose to assume the
-      privileges of gentlemen, and challenged each other. I thought of printing
-      my Essay, which is signed <i>Pacificator;</i> but there was no need, as
-      the matter was taken up by the town-council of the borough."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But I assure you, my dear sir, there is nothing between Captain M'Intyre
-      and me that can render such respectable interference necessary."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "See it be so; for otherwise, I will stand second to both parties."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      So saying, the old gentleman got into the chaise, close to which Miss
-      M'Intyre had detained her brother, upon the same principle that the owner
-      of a quarrelsome dog keeps him by his side to prevent his fastening upon
-      another. But Hector contrived to give her precaution the slip, for, as he
-      was on horseback, he lingered behind the carriages until they had fairly
-      turned the corner in the road to Knockwinnock, and then, wheeling his
-      horse's head round, gave him the spur in the opposite direction.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A very few minutes brought him up with Lovel, who, perhaps anticipating
-      his intention, had not put his horse beyond a slow walk, when the clatter
-      of hoofs behind him announced Captain Mlntyre. The young soldier, his
-      natural heat of temper exasperated by the rapidity of motion, reined his
-      horse up suddenly and violently by Lovel's side, and touching his hat
-      slightly, inquired, in a very haughty tone of voice, "What am I to
-      understand, sir, by your telling me that your address was at my service?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Simply, sir," replied Lovel, "that my name is Lovel, and that my
-      residence is, for the present, Fairport, as you will see by this card."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And is this all the information you are disposed to give me?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I see no right you have to require more."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I find you, sir, in company with my sister," said the young soldier, "and
-      I have a right to know who is admitted into Miss M'Intyre's society."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I shall take the liberty of disputing that right," replied Lovel, with a
-      manner as haughty as that of the young soldier;&mdash;"you find me in
-      society who are satisfied with the degree of information on my affairs
-      which I have thought proper to communicate, and you, a mere stranger, have
-      no right to inquire further."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mr. Lovel, if you served as you say you have"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If!" interrupted Lovel,&mdash;"<i>if</i> I have served as <i>I say</i> I
-      have?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes, sir, such is my expression&mdash;<i>if</i> you have so served, you
-      must know that you owe me satisfaction either in one way or other."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If that be your opinion, I shall be proud to give it to you, Captain
-      M'Intyre, in the way in which the word is generally used among gentlemen."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Very well, sir," rejoined Hector, and, turning his horse round, galloped
-      off to overtake his party.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      His absence had already alarmed them, and his sister, having stopped the
-      carriage, had her neck stretched out of the window to see where he was.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What is the matter with you now?" said the Antiquary, "riding to and fro
-      as your neck were upon the wager&mdash;why do you not keep up with the
-      carriage?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I forgot my glove, sir," said Hector.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Forgot your glove!&mdash;I presume you meant to say you went to throw it
-      down&mdash;But I will take order with you, my young gentleman&mdash;you
-      shall return with me this night to Monkbarns." So saying, he bid the
-      postilion go on.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER TWENTIETH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                         &mdash;If you fail Honour here,
-                 Never presume to serve her any more;
-                 Bid farewell to the integrity of armes;
-                    And the honourable name of soldier
-            Fall from you, like a shivered wreath of laurel
-            By thunder struck from a desertlesse forehead.
-                                    A Faire Quarrell.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Early the next morning, a gentleman came to wait upon Mr. Lovel, who was
-      up and ready to receive him. He was a military gentleman, a friend of
-      Captain M'Intyre's, at present in Fairport on the recruiting service.
-      Lovel and he were slightly known to each other. "I presume, sir," said Mr.
-      Lesley (such was the name of the visitor), "that you guess the occasion of
-      my troubling you so early?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A message from Captain M'Intyre, I presume?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The same. He holds himself injured by the manner in which you declined
-      yesterday to answer certain inquiries which he conceived himself entitled
-      to make respecting a gentleman whom he found in intimate society with his
-      family."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "May I ask, if you, Mr. Lesley, would have inclined to satisfy
-      interrogatories so haughtily and unceremoniously put to you?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Perhaps not;&mdash;and therefore, as I know the warmth of my friend
-      M'Intyre on such occasions, I feel very desirous of acting as peacemaker.
-      From Mr. Lovel's very gentleman-like manners, every one must strongly wish
-      to see him repel all that sort of dubious calumny which will attach itself
-      to one whose situation is not fully explained. If he will permit me, in
-      friendly conciliation, to inform Captain M'Intyre of his real name, for we
-      are led to conclude that of Lovel is assumed"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I beg your pardon, sir, but I cannot admit that inference."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "&mdash;Or at least," said Lesley, proceeding, "that it is not the name by
-      which Mr. Lovel has been at all times distinguished&mdash;if Mr. Lovel
-      will have the goodness to explain this circumstance, which, in my opinion,
-      he should do in justice to his own character, I will answer for the
-      amicable arrangement of this unpleasant business."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Which is to say, Mr. Lesley, that if I condescend to answer questions
-      which no man has a right to ask, and which are now put to me under penalty
-      of Captain M'Intyre's resentment, Captain MIntyre will condescend to rest
-      satisfied? Mr. Lesley, I have just one word to say on this subject&mdash;I
-      have no doubt my secret, if I had one, might be safely entrusted to your
-      honour, but I do not feel called upon to satisfy the curiosity of any one.
-      Captain M'Intyre met me in society which of itself was a warrant to all
-      the world, and particularly ought to be such to him, that I was a
-      gentleman. He has, in my opinion, no right to go any further, or to
-      inquire the pedigree, rank, or circumstances, of a stranger, who, without
-      seeking any intimate connection with him, or his, chances to dine with his
-      uncle, or walk in company with his sister."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In that case, Captain M'Intyre requests you to be informed, that your
-      farther visits at Monkbarns, and all connection with Miss M'Intyre, must
-      be dropt, as disagreeable to him."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I shall certainly," said Lovel, "visit Mr. Oldbuck when it suits me,
-      without paying the least respect to his nephew's threats or irritable
-      feelings. I respect the young lady's name too much (though nothing can be
-      slighter than our acquaintance) to introduce it into such a discussion."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Since that is your resolution, sir," answered Lesley, "Captain M'Intyre
-      requests that Mr. Lovel, unless he wishes to be announced as a very
-      dubious character, will favour him with a meeting this evening, at seven,
-      at the thorn-tree in the little valley close by the ruins of St. Ruth."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Most unquestionably, I will wait upon him. There is only one difficulty&mdash;I
-      must find a friend to accompany me, and where to seek one on this short
-      notice, as I have no acquaintance in Fairport&mdash;I will be on the spot,
-      however&mdash;Captain M'Intyre may be assured of that."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lesley had taken his hat, and was as far as the door of the apartment,
-      when, as if moved by the peculiarity of Lovel's situation, he returned,
-      and thus addressed him: "Mr. Lovel, there is something so singular in all
-      this, that I cannot help again resuming the argument. You must be yourself
-      aware at this moment of the inconvenience of your preserving an incognito,
-      for which, I am convinced, there can be no dishonourable reason. Still,
-      this mystery renders it difficult for you to procure the assistance of a
-      friend in a crisis so delicate&mdash;nay, let me add, that many persons
-      will even consider it as a piece of Quixotry in M'Intyre to give you a
-      meeting, while your character and circumstances are involved in such
-      obscurity."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I understand your innuendo, Mr. Lesley," rejoined Lovel; and though I
-      might be offended at its severity, I am not so, because it is meant
-      kindly. But, in my opinion, he is entitled to all the privileges of a
-      gentleman, to whose charge, during the time he has been known in the
-      society where he happens to move, nothing can be laid that is unhandsome
-      or unbecoming. For a friend, I dare say I shall find some one or other who
-      will do me that good turn; and if his experience be less than I could
-      wish, I am certain not to suffer through that circumstance when you are in
-      the field for my antagonist."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I trust you will not," said Lesley; "but as I must, for my own sake, be
-      anxious to divide so heavy a responsibility with a capable assistant,
-      allow me to say, that Lieutenant Taffril's gun-brig is come into the
-      roadstead, and he himself is now at old Caxon's, where he lodges. I think
-      you have the same degree of acquaintance with him as with me, and, as I am
-      sure I should willingly have rendered you such a service were I not
-      engaged on the other side, I am convinced he will do so at your first
-      request."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "At the thorn-tree, then, Mr. Lesley, at seven this evening&mdash;the
-      arms, I presume, are pistols?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Exactly. M'Intyre has chosen the hour at which he can best escape from
-      Monkbarns&mdash;he was with me this morning by five, in order to return
-      and present himself before his uncle was up. Good-morning to you, Mr.
-      Lovel." And Lesley left the apartment.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel was as brave as most men; but none can internally regard such a
-      crisis as now approached, without deep feelings of awe and uncertainty. In
-      a few hours he might be in another world to answer for an action which his
-      calmer thought told him was unjustifiable in a religious point of view, or
-      he might be wandering about in the present like Cain, with the blood of
-      his brother on his head. And all this might be saved by speaking a single
-      word. Yet pride whispered, that to speak that word now, would be ascribed
-      to a motive which would degrade him more low than even the most injurious
-      reasons that could be assigned for his silence. Every one, Miss Wardour
-      included, must then, he thought, account him a mean dishonoured poltroon,
-      who gave to the fear of meeting Captain M'Intyre the explanation he had
-      refused to the calm and handsome expostulations of Mr. Lesley. M'Intyre's
-      insolent behaviour to himself personally, the air of pretension which he
-      assumed towards Miss Wardour, and the extreme injustice, arrogance, and
-      incivility of his demands upon a perfect stranger, seemed to justify him
-      in repelling his rude investigation. In short, he formed the resolution
-      which might have been expected from so young a man,&mdash;to shut the
-      eyes, namely, of his calmer reason, and follow the dictates of his
-      offended pride. With this purpose he sought Lieutenant Taffril.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The lieutenant received him with the good breeding of a gentleman and the
-      frankness of a sailor, and listened with no small surprise to the detail
-      which preceded his request that he might be favoured with his company at
-      his meeting with Captain M'Intyre. When he had finished, Taffril rose up
-      and walked through his apartment once or twice. "This is a most singular
-      circumstance," he said, "and really"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am conscious, Mr. Taffril, how little I am entitled to make my present
-      request, but the urgency of circumstances hardly leaves me an
-      alternative."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Permit me to ask you one question," asked the sailor;&mdash;"is there
-      anything of which you are ashamed in the circumstances which you have
-      declined to communicate."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Upon my honour, no; there is nothing but what, in a very short time, I
-      trust I may publish to the whole world."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I hope the mystery arises from no false shame at the lowness of your
-      friends perhaps, or connections?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, on my word," replied Lovel.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have little sympathy for that folly," said Taffril&mdash;"indeed I
-      cannot be supposed to have any; for, speaking of my relations, I may be
-      said to have come myself from before the mast, and I believe I shall very
-      soon form a connection, which the world will think low enough, with a very
-      amiable girl, to whom I have been attached since we were next-door
-      neighbours, at a time when I little thought of the good fortune which has
-      brought me forward in the service."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I assure you, Mr. Taffril," replied Lovel, "whatever were the rank of my
-      parents, I should never think of concealing it from a spirit of petty
-      pride. But I am so situated at present, that I cannot enter on the subject
-      of my family with any propriety."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is quite enough," said the honest sailor&mdash;"give me your hand;
-      I'll see you as well through this business as I can, though it is but an
-      unpleasant one after all&mdash;But what of that? our own honour has the
-      next call on us after our country;&mdash;you are a lad of spirit, and I
-      own I think Mr. Hector M'Intyre, with his long pedigree and his airs of
-      family, very much of a jackanapes. His father was a soldier of fortune as
-      I am a sailor&mdash;he himself, I suppose, is little better, unless just
-      as his uncle pleases; and whether one pursues fortune by land, or sea,
-      makes no great difference, I should fancy."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "None in the universe, certainly," answered Lovel.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well," said his new ally, "we will dine together and arrange matters for
-      this rencounter. I hope you understand the use of the weapon?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not particularly," Lovel replied.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am sorry for that&mdash;M'Intyre is said to be a marksman."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am sorry for it also," said Lovel, "both for his sake and my own: I
-      must then, in self-defence, take my aim as well as I can."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well," added Taffril, "I will have our surgeon's mate on the field&mdash;a
-      good clever young fellow at caulking a shot-hole. I will let Lesley, who
-      is an honest fellow for a landsman, know that he attends for the benefit
-      of either party. Is there anything I can do for you in case of an
-      accident?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have but little occasion to trouble you," said Lovel. "This small
-      billet contains the key of my escritoir, and my very brief secret. There
-      is one letter in the escritoir" (digesting a temporary swelling of the
-      heart as he spoke), "which I beg the favour of you to deliver with your
-      own hand."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I understand," said the sailor. "Nay, my friend, never be ashamed for the
-      matter&mdash;an affectionate heart may overflow for an instant at the
-      eyes, if the ship were clearing for action; and, depend on it, whatever
-      your injunctions are, Dan Taffril will regard them like the bequest of a
-      dying brother. But this is all stuff;&mdash;we must get our things in
-      fighting order, and you will dine with me and my little surgeon's mate, at
-      the Graeme's-Arms over the way, at four o'clock."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Agreed," said Lovel.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Agreed," said Taffril; and the whole affair was arranged.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      It was a beautiful summer evening, and the shadow of the solitary
-      thorn-tree was lengthening upon the short greensward of the narrow valley,
-      which was skirted by the woods that closed around the ruins of St. Ruth. *
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * [Supposed to have been suggested by the old Abbey of Arbroath in *
-      Forfarshire.]
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="image-0010" id="image-0010">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
-    </p>
-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/pa261.jpg" alt="St. Ruth (arbroath Abbey) " width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
-      Lovel and Lieutenant Taffril, with the surgeon, came upon the ground with
-      a purpose of a nature very uncongenial to the soft, mild, and pacific
-      character of the hour and scene. The sheep, which during the ardent heat
-      of the day had sheltered in the breaches and hollows of the gravelly bank,
-      or under the roots of the aged and stunted trees, had now spread
-      themselves upon the face of the hill to enjoy their evening's pasture, and
-      bleated, to each other with that melancholy sound which at once gives life
-      to a landscape, and marks its solitude.&mdash;Taffril and Lovel came on in
-      deep conference, having, for fear of discovery, sent their horses back to
-      the town by the Lieutenant's servant. The opposite party had not yet
-      appeared on the field. But when they came upon the ground, there sat upon
-      the roots of the old thorn a figure as vigorous in his decay as the
-      moss-grown but strong and contorted boughs which served him for a canopy.
-      It was old Ochiltree. "This is embarrassing enough," said Lovel:&mdash;"How
-      shall we get rid of this old fellow?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Here, father Adam," cried Taffril, who knew the mendicant of yore&mdash;"here's
-      half-a-crown for you. You must go to the Four Horse-shoes yonder&mdash;the
-      little inn, you know, and inquire for a servant with blue and yellow
-      livery. If he is not come, you'll wait for him, and tell him we shall be
-      with his master in about an hour's time. At any rate, wait there till we
-      come back,&mdash;and&mdash;Get off with you&mdash;Come, come, weigh
-      anchor."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I thank ye for your awmous," said Ochiltree, pocketing the piece of
-      money; "but I beg your pardon, Mr. Taffril&mdash;I canna gang your errand
-      e'en now."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why not, man? what can hinder you?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I wad speak a word wi' young Mr. Lovel."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "With me?" answered Lovel: "what would you say with me? Come, say on, and
-      be brief."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The mendicant led him a few paces aside. "Are ye indebted onything to the
-      Laird o' Monkbarns?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indebted!&mdash;no, not I&mdash;what of that?&mdash;what makes you think
-      so?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ye maun ken I was at the shirra's the day; for, God help me, I gang about
-      a' gates like the troubled spirit; and wha suld come whirling there in a
-      post-chaise, but Monkbarns in an unco carfuffle&mdash;now, it's no a
-      little thing that will make his honour take a chaise and post-horse twa
-      days rinnin'."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, well; but what is all this to me?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou, ye'se hear, ye'se hear. Weel, Monkbarns is closeted wi' the shirra
-      whatever puir folk may be left thereout&mdash;ye needna doubt that&mdash;the
-      gentlemen are aye unco civil amang themsells."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "For heaven's sake, my old friend"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Canna ye bid me gang to the deevil at ance, Mr. Lovel? it wad be mair
-      purpose fa'ard than to speak o' heaven in that impatient gate."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But I have private business with Lieutenant Taffril here."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Weel, weel, a' in gude time," said the beggar&mdash;"I can use a little
-      wee bit freedom wi' Mr. Daniel Taffril;&mdash;mony's the peery and the tap
-      I worked for him langsyne, for I was a worker in wood as weel as a
-      tinkler."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You are either mad, Adam, or have a mind to drive me mad."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nane o' the twa," said Edie, suddenly changing his manner from the
-      protracted drawl of the mendicant to a brief and decided tone. "The shirra
-      sent for his clerk, and as the lad is rather light o' the tongue, I fand
-      it was for drawing a warrant to apprehend you&mdash;I thought it had been
-      on a <i>fugie</i> warrant for debt; for a' body kens the laird likes
-      naebody to pit his hand in his pouch&mdash;But now I may haud my tongue,
-      for I see the M'Intyre lad and Mr. Lesley coming up, and I guess that
-      Monkbarns's purpose was very kind, and that yours is muckle waur than it
-      should be."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The antagonist now approached, and saluted with the stern civility which
-      befitted the occasion. "What has this old fellow to do here?" said
-      M'Intyre.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am an auld fallow," said Edie, "but I am also an auld soldier o' your
-      father's, for I served wi' him in the 42d."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Serve where you please, you have no title to intrude on us," said
-      M'Intyre, "or"&mdash;and he lifted his cane <i>in terrorem,</i> though
-      without the idea of touching the old man.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But Ochiltree's courage was roused by the insult. "Haud down your switch,
-      Captain M'Intyre! I am an auld soldier, as I said before, and I'll take
-      muckle frae your father's son; but no a touch o' the wand while my
-      pike-staff will haud thegither."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, well, I was wrong&mdash;I was wrong," said M'Intyre; "here's a
-      crown for you&mdash;go your ways&mdash;what's the matter now?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The old man drew himself up to the full advantage of his uncommon height,
-      and in despite of his dress, which indeed had more of the pilgrim than the
-      ordinary beggar, looked from height, manner, and emphasis of voice and
-      gesture, rather like a grey palmer or eremite preacher, the ghostly
-      counsellor of the young men who were around him, than the object of their
-      charity. His speech, indeed, was as homely as his habit, but as bold and
-      unceremonious as his erect and dignified demeanour. "What are ye come here
-      for, young men?" he said, addressing himself to the surprised audience;
-      "are ye come amongst the most lovely works of God to break his laws? Have
-      ye left the works of man, the houses and the cities that are but clay and
-      dust, like those that built them&mdash;and are ye come here among the
-      peaceful hills, and by the quiet waters, that will last whiles aught
-      earthly shall endure, to destroy each other's lives, that will have but an
-      unco short time, by the course of nature, to make up a lang account at the
-      close o't? O sirs! hae ye brothers, sisters, fathers, that hae tended ye,
-      and mothers that hae travailed for ye, friends that hae ca'd ye like a
-      piece o' their ain heart? and is this the way ye tak to make them
-      childless and brotherless and friendless? Ohon! it's an ill feight whar he
-      that wins has the warst o't. Think on't, bairns. I'm a puir man&mdash;but
-      I'm an auld man too&mdash;and what my poverty takes awa frae the weight o'
-      my counsel, grey hairs and a truthfu' heart should add it twenty times.
-      Gang hame, gang hame, like gude lads&mdash;the French will be ower to
-      harry us ane o' thae days, and ye'll hae feighting eneugh, and maybe auld
-      Edie will hirple out himsell if he can get a feal-dyke to lay his gun
-      ower, and may live to tell you whilk o' ye does the best where there's a
-      good cause afore ye."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      There was something in the undaunted and independent manner, hardy
-      sentiment, and manly rude elocution of the old man, that had its effect
-      upon the party, and particularly on the seconds, whose pride was
-      uninterested in bringing the dispute to a bloody arbitrament, and who, on
-      the contrary, eagerly watched for an opportunity to recommend
-      reconciliation.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Upon my word, Mr. Lesley," said Taffril, "old Adam speaks like an oracle.
-      Our friends here were very angry yesterday, and of course very foolish;&mdash;today
-      they should be cool, or at least we must be so in their behalf. I think
-      the word should be forget and forgive on both sides,&mdash;that we should
-      all shake hands, fire these foolish crackers in the air, and go home to
-      sup in a body at the Graeme's-Arms."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I would heartily recommend it," said Lesley; "for, amidst a great deal of
-      heat and irritation on both sides, I confess myself unable to discover any
-      rational ground of quarrel."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Gentlemen," said M'Intyre, very coldly, "all this should have been
-      thought of before. In my opinion, persons that have carried this matter so
-      far as we have done, and who should part without carrying it any farther,
-      might go to supper at the Graeme's-Arms very joyously, but would rise the
-      next morning with reputations as ragged as our friend here, who has
-      obliged us with a rather unnecessary display of his oratory. I speak for
-      myself, that I find myself bound to call upon you to proceed without more
-      delay."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And I," said Lovel, "as I never desired any, have also to request these
-      gentlemen to arrange preliminaries as fast as possible."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Bairns! bairns!" cried old Ochiltree; but perceiving he was no longer
-      attended to&mdash;"Madmen, I should say&mdash;but your blood be on your
-      heads!" And the old man drew off from the ground, which was now measured
-      out by the seconds, and continued muttering and talking to himself in
-      sullen indignation, mixed with anxiety, and with a strong feeling of
-      painful curiosity. Without paying farther attention to his presence or
-      remonstrances, Mr. Lesley and the Lieutenant made the necessary
-      arrangements for the duel, and it was agreed that both parties should fire
-      when Mr. Lesley dropped his handkerchief.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The fatal sign was given, and both fired almost in the same moment.
-      Captain M'Intyre's ball grazed the side of his opponent, but did not draw
-      blood. That of Lovel was more true to the aim; M'Intyre reeled and fell.
-      Raising himself on his arm, his first exclamation was, "It is nothing&mdash;it
-      is nothing&mdash;give us the other pistols." But in an instant he said, in
-      a lower tone, "I believe I have enough&mdash;and what's worse, I fear I
-      deserve it. Mr. Lovel, or whatever your name is, fly and save yourself&mdash;Bear
-      all witness, I provoked this matter." Then raising himself again on his
-      arm, he added, "Shake hands, Lovel&mdash;I believe you to be a gentleman&mdash;forgive
-      my rudeness, and I forgive you my death&mdash;My poor sister!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The surgeon came up to perform his part of the tragedy, and Lovel stood
-      gazing on the evil of which he had been the active, though unwilling
-      cause, with a dizzy and bewildered eye. He was roused from his trance by
-      the grasp of the mendicant. "Why stand you gazing on your deed?&mdash;What's
-      doomed is doomed&mdash;what's done is past recalling. But awa, awa, if ye
-      wad save your young blood from a shamefu' death&mdash;I see the men out by
-      yonder that are come ower late to part ye&mdash;but, out and alack! sune
-      eneugh, and ower sune, to drag ye to prison."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He is right&mdash;he is right," exclaimed Taffril; "you must not attempt
-      to get on the high-road&mdash;get into the wood till night. My brig will
-      be under sail by that time, and at three in the morning, when the tide
-      will serve, I shall have the boat waiting for you at the Mussel-crag.
-      Away-away, for Heaven's sake!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O yes! fly, fly!" repeated the wounded man, his words faltering with
-      convulsive sobs.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Come with me," said the mendicant, almost dragging him off; "the
-      Captain's plan is the best&mdash;I'll carry ye to a place where ye might
-      be concealed in the meantime, were they to seek ye 'wi' sleuth-hounds."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Go, go," again urged Lieutenant Taffril&mdash;"to stay here is mere
-      madness."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It was worse madness to have come hither," said Lovel, pressing his hand&mdash;"But
-      farewell!" And he followed Ochiltree into the recesses of the wood.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                      &mdash;The Lord Abbot had a soul
-               Subtile and quick, and searching as the fire;
-               By magic stairs he went as deep as hell,
-               And if in devils' possession gold be kept,
-         He brought some sure from thence&mdash;'tis hid in caves,
-                        Known, save to me, to none.&mdash;
-                                   The Wonder of a Kingdome.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Lovel almost mechanically followed the beggar, who led the way with a
-      hasty and steady pace, through bush and bramble, avoiding the beaten path,
-      and often turning to listen whether there were any sounds of pursuit
-      behind them. They sometimes descended into the very bed of the torrent,
-      sometimes kept a narrow and precarious path, that the sheep (which, with
-      the sluttish negligence towards property of that sort universal in
-      Scotland, were allowed to stray in the copse) had made along the very
-      verge of its overhanging banks. From time to time Lovel had a glance of
-      the path which he had traversed the day before in company with Sir Arthur,
-      the Antiquary, and the young ladies. Dejected, embarrassed, and occupied
-      by a thousand inquietudes, as he then was, what would he now have given to
-      regain the sense of innocence which alone can counter-balance a thousand
-      evils! "Yet, then," such was his hasty and involuntary reflection, "even
-      then, guiltless and valued by all around me, I thought myself unhappy.
-      What am I now, with this young man's blood upon my hands?&mdash;the
-      feeling of pride which urged me to the deed has now deserted me, as the
-      actual fiend himself is said to do those whom he has tempted to guilt."
-      Even his affection for Miss Wardour sunk for the time before the first
-      pangs of remorse, and he thought he could have encountered every agony of
-      slighted love to have had the conscious freedom from blood-guiltiness
-      which he possessed in the morning.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      These painful reflections were not interrupted by any conversation on the
-      part of his guide, who threaded the thicket before him, now holding back
-      the sprays to make his path easy, now exhorting him to make haste, now
-      muttering to himself, after the custom of solitary and neglected old age,
-      words which might have escaped Lovel's ear even had he listened to them,
-      or which, apprehended and retained, were too isolated to convey any
-      connected meaning,&mdash;a habit which may be often observed among people
-      of the old man's age and calling.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      At length, as Lovel, exhausted by his late indisposition, the harrowing
-      feelings by which he was agitated, and the exertion necessary to keep up
-      with his guide in a path so rugged, began to flag and fall behind, two or
-      three very precarious steps placed him on the front of a precipice
-      overhung with brushwood and copse. Here a cave, as narrow in its entrance
-      as a fox-earth, was indicated by a small fissure in the rock, screened by
-      the boughs of an aged oak, which, anchored by its thick and twisted roots
-      in the upper part of the cleft, flung its branches almost straight outward
-      from the cliff, concealing it effectually from all observation. It might
-      indeed have escaped the attention even of those who had stood at its very
-      opening, so uninviting was the portal at which the beggar entered. But
-      within, the cavern was higher and more roomy, cut into two separate
-      branches, which, intersecting each other at right angles, formed an emblem
-      of the cross, and indicated the abode of an anchoret of former times.
-      There are many caves of the same kind in different parts of Scotland. I
-      need only instance those of Gorton, near Rosslyn, in a scene well known to
-      the admirers of romantic nature.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The light within the eave was a dusky twilight at the entrance, which
-      failed altogether in the inner recesses. "Few folks ken o' this place,"
-      said the old man; "to the best o'my knowledge, there's just twa living by
-      mysell, and that's Jingling Jock and the Lang Linker. I have had mony a
-      thought, that when I fand mysell auld and forfairn, and no able to enjoy
-      God's blessed air ony langer, I wad drag mysell here wi' a pickle
-      ait-meal; and see, there's a bit bonny dropping well that popples that
-      self-same gate simmer and winter;&mdash;and I wad e'en streek mysell out
-      here, and abide my removal, like an auld dog that trails its useless
-      ugsome carcass into some bush or bracken no to gie living things a scunner
-      wi' the sight o't when it's dead&mdash;Ay, and then, when the dogs barked
-      at the lone farm-stead, the gudewife wad cry, Whisht, stirra, that'll be
-      auld Edie,' and the bits o' weans wad up, puir things, and toddle to the
-      door to pu' in the auld Blue-Gown that mends a' their bonny-dies&mdash;But
-      there wad be nae mair word o' Edie, I trow."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      He then led Lovel, who followed him unresistingly, into one of the
-      interior branches of the cave. "Here," he said, "is a bit turnpike-stair
-      that gaes up to the auld kirk abune. Some folks say this place was howkit
-      out by the monks lang syne to hide their treasure in, and some said that
-      they used to bring things into the abbey this gate by night, that they
-      durstna sae weel hae brought in by the main port and in open day&mdash;And
-      some said that ane o' them turned a saint (or aiblins wad hae had folk
-      think sae), and settled him down in this Saint Ruth's cell, as the auld
-      folks aye ca'd it, and garr'd big the stair, that he might gang up to the
-      kirk when they were at the divine service. The Laird o' Monkbarns wad hae
-      a hantle to say about it, as he has about maist things, if he ken'd only
-      about the place. But whether it was made for man's devices or God's
-      service, I have seen ower muckle sin done in it in my day, and far ower
-      muckle have I been partaker of&mdash;ay, even here in this dark cove. Mony
-      a gudewife's been wondering what for the red cock didna craw her up in the
-      morning, when he's been roasting, puir fallow, in this dark hole&mdash;And,
-      ohon! I wish that and the like o' that had been the warst o't! Whiles they
-      wad hae heard the din we were making in the very bowels o' the earth, when
-      Sanders Aikwood, that was forester in thae days, the father o' Ringan that
-      now is, was gaun daundering about the wood at e'en, to see after the
-      Laird's game and whiles he wad hae seen a glance o' the light frae the
-      door o' the cave, flaughtering against the hazels on the other bank;&mdash;and
-      then siccan stories as Sanders had about the worricows and gyre-carlins
-      that haunted about the auld wa's at e'en, and the lights that he had seen,
-      and the cries that he had heard, when there was nae mortal e'e open but
-      his ain; and eh! as he wad thrum them ower and ower to the like o' me
-      ayont the ingle at e'en, and as I wad gie the auld silly carle grane for
-      grane, and tale for tale, though I ken'd muckle better about it than ever
-      he did. Ay, ay&mdash;they were daft days thae;&mdash;but they were a'
-      vanity, and waur,&mdash;and it's fitting that they wha hae led a light and
-      evil life, and abused charity when they were young, suld aiblins come to
-      lack it when they are auld."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      While Ochiltree was thus recounting the exploits and tricks of his earlier
-      life, with a tone in which glee and compunction alternately predominated,
-      his unfortunate auditor had sat down upon the hermit's seat, hewn out of
-      the solid rock, and abandoned himself to that lassitude, both of mind and
-      body, which generally follows a course of events that have agitated both,
-      The effect of his late indisposition, which had much weakened his system,
-      contributed to this lethargic despondency. "The puir bairn!" said auld
-      Edie, "an he sleeps in this damp hole, he'll maybe wauken nae mair, or
-      catch some sair disease. It's no the same to him as to the like o' us,
-      that can sleep ony gate an anes our wames are fu'. Sit up, Maister Lovel,
-      lad! After a's come and gane, I dare say the captain-lad will do weel
-      eneugh&mdash;and, after a', ye are no the first that has had this
-      misfortune. I hae seen mony a man killed, and helped to kill them mysell,
-      though there was nae quarrel between us&mdash;and if it isna wrang to kill
-      folk we have nae quarrel wi', just because they wear another sort of a
-      cockade, and speak a foreign language, I canna see but a man may have
-      excuse for killing his ain mortal foe, that comes armed to the fair field
-      to kill him. I dinna say it's right&mdash;God forbid&mdash;or that it isna
-      sinfu' to take away what ye canna restore, and that's the breath of man,
-      whilk is in his nostrils; but I say it is a sin to be forgiven if it's
-      repented of. Sinfu' men are we a'; but if ye wad believe an auld grey
-      sinner that has seen the evil o' his ways, there is as much promise atween
-      the twa boards o' the Testament as wad save the warst o' us, could we but
-      think sae."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      With such scraps of comfort and of divinity as he possessed, the mendicant
-      thus continued to solicit and compel the attention of Lovel, until the
-      twilight began to fade into night. "Now," said Ochiltree, "I will carry ye
-      to a mair convenient place, where I hae sat mony a time to hear the howlit
-      crying out of the ivy tod, and to see the moonlight come through the auld
-      windows o' the ruins. There can be naebody come here after this time o'
-      night; and if they hae made ony search, thae blackguard shirra'-officers
-      and constables, it will hae been ower lang syne. Od, they are as great
-      cowards as ither folk, wi' a' their warrants and king's keys*&mdash;I hae
-      gien some o' them a gliff in my day, when they were coming rather ower
-      near me&mdash;But, lauded be grace for it! they canna stir me now for ony
-      waur than an auld man and a beggar, and my badge is a gude protection; and
-      then Miss Isabella Wardour is a tower o' strength, ye ken"&mdash;(Lovel
-      sighed)&mdash;"Aweel, dinna be cast down&mdash;bowls may a' row right yet&mdash;gie
-      the lassie time to ken her mind. She's the wale o' the country for beauty,
-      and a gude friend o' mine&mdash;I gang by the bridewell as safe as by the
-      kirk on a Sabbath&mdash;deil ony o' them daur hurt a hair o' auld Edie's
-      head now; I keep the crown o' the causey when I gae to the borough, and
-      rub shouthers wi' a bailie wi' as little concern as an he were a brock."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * The king's keys are, in law phrase, the crow-bars and hammers used to
-      force doors and locks, in execution of the king's warrant.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      While the mendicant spoke thus, he was busied in removing a few loose
-      stones in one angle of the eave, which obscured the entrance of the
-      staircase of which he had spoken, and led the way into it, followed by
-      Lovel in passive silence.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The air's free eneugh," said the old man; "the monks took care o' that,
-      for they werena a lang-breathed generation, I reckon; they hae contrived
-      queer tirlie-wirlie holes, that gang out to the open air, and keep the
-      stair as caller as a kail-blade."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel accordingly found the staircase well aired, and, though narrow, it
-      was neither ruinous nor long, but speedily admitted them into a narrow
-      gallery contrived to run within the side wall of the chancel, from which
-      it received air and light through apertures ingeniously hidden amid the
-      florid ornaments of the Gothic architecture.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "This secret passage ance gaed round great part o' the biggin," said the
-      beggar, "and through the wa' o' the place I've heard Monkbarns ca' the
-      Refractory" [meaning probably <i>Refectory</i>], "and so awa to the
-      Prior's ain house. It's like he could use it to listen what the monks were
-      saying at meal-time,&mdash;and then he might come ben here and see that
-      they were busy skreighing awa wi' the psalms doun below there; and then,
-      when he saw a' was right and tight, he might step awa and fetch in a
-      bonnie lass at the cove yonder&mdash;for they were queer hands the monks,
-      unless mony lees is made on them. But our folk were at great pains lang
-      syne to big up the passage in some parts, and pu' it down in others, for
-      fear o' some uncanny body getting into it, and finding their way down to
-      the cove: it wad hae been a fashious job that&mdash;by my certie, some o'
-      our necks wad hae been ewking."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      They now came to a place where the gallery was enlarged into a small
-      circle, sufficient to contain a stone seat. A niche, constructed exactly
-      before it, projected forward into the chancel, and as its sides were
-      latticed, as it were, with perforated stone-work, it commanded a full view
-      of the chancel in every direction, and was probably constructed, as Edie
-      intimated, to be a convenient watch-tower, from which the superior priest,
-      himself unseen, might watch the behaviour of his monks, and ascertain, by
-      personal inspection, their punctual attendance upon those rites of
-      devotion which his rank exempted him from sharing with them. As this niche
-      made one of a regular series which stretched along the wall of the
-      chancel, and in no respect differed from the rest when seen from below,
-      the secret station, screened as it was by the stone figure of St. Michael
-      and the dragon, and the open tracery around the niche, was completely hid
-      from observation. The private passage, confined to its pristine breadth,
-      had originally continued beyond this seat; but the jealous precautions of
-      the vagabonds who frequented the cave of St. Ruth had caused them to build
-      it carefully up with hewn stones from the ruin.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We shall be better here," said Edie, seating himself on the stone bench,
-      and stretching the lappet of his blue gown upon the spot, when he motioned
-      Lovel to sit down beside him&mdash;"we shall be better here than doun
-      below; the air's free and mild, and the savour of the wallflowers, and
-      siccan shrubs as grow on thae ruined wa's, is far mair refreshing than the
-      damp smell doun below yonder. They smell sweetest by night-time thae
-      flowers, and they're maist aye seen about rained buildings. Now, Maister
-      Lovel, can ony o' you scholars gie a gude reason for that?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel replied in the negative.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am thinking," resumed the beggar, "that they'll be, like mony folk's
-      gude gifts, that often seem maist gracious in adversity&mdash;or maybe
-      it's a parable, to teach us no to slight them that are in the darkness of
-      sin and the decay of tribulation, since God sends odours to refresh the
-      mirkest hour, and flowers and pleasant bushes to clothe the ruined
-      buildings. And now I wad like a wise man to tell me whether Heaven is
-      maist pleased wi' the sight we are looking upon&mdash;thae pleasant and
-      quiet lang streaks o' moonlight that are lying sae still on the floor o'
-      this auld kirk, and glancing through the great pillars and stanchions o'
-      the carved windows, and just dancing like on the leaves o' the dark ivy as
-      the breath o' wind shakes it&mdash;I wonder whether this is mair pleasing
-      to Heaven than when it was lighted up wi' lamps, and candles nae doubt,
-      and roughies,* and wi' the mirth and the frankincent that they speak of in
-      the Holy Scripture, and wi' organs assuredly, and men and women singers,
-      and sackbuts, and dulcimers, and a' instruments o' music&mdash;I wonder if
-      that was acceptable, or whether it is of these grand parafle o' ceremonies
-      that holy writ says, It is an abomination to me.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * Links, or torches.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      I am thinking, Maister Lovel, if twa puir contrite spirits like yours and
-      mine fand grace to make our petition"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here Lovel laid his hand eagerly on the mendicant's arm, saying,&mdash;"Hush!
-      I heard some one speak."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am dull o' hearing," answered Edie, in a whisper, "but we're surely
-      safe here&mdash;where was the sound?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lovel pointed to the door of the chancel, which, highly ornamented,
-      occupied the west end of the building, surmounted by the carved window,
-      which let in a flood of moonlight over it.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "They can be nane o' our folk," said Edie in the same low and cautious
-      tone; "there's but twa o' them kens o' the place, and they're mony a mile
-      off, if they are still bound on their weary pilgrimage. I'll never think
-      it's the officers here at this time o' night. I am nae believer in auld
-      wives' stories about ghaists, though this is gey like a place for them&mdash;But
-      mortal, or of the other world, here they come!&mdash;twa men and a light."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And in very truth, while the mendicant spoke, two human figures darkened
-      with their shadows the entrance of the chancel&mdash;which had before
-      opened to the moon-lit meadow beyond, and the small lantern which one of
-      them displayed, glimmered pale in the clear and strong beams of the moon,
-      as the evening star does among the lights of the departing day. The first
-      and most obvious idea was, that, despite the asseverations of Edie
-      Ochiltree, the persons who approached the ruins at an hour so uncommon
-      must be the officers of justice in quest of Lovel. But no part of their
-      conduct confirmed the suspicion. A touch and a whisper from the old man
-      warned Lovel that his best course was to remain quiet, and watch their
-      motions from their present place of concealment. Should anything appear to
-      render retreat necessary, they had behind them the private stair-case and
-      cavern, by means of which they could escape into the wood long before any
-      danger of close pursuit. They kept themselves, therefore, as still as
-      possible, and observed with eager and anxious curiosity every accent and
-      motion of these nocturnal wanderers.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      After conversing together some time in whispers, the two figures advanced
-      into the middle of the chancel; and a voice, which Lovel at once
-      recognised, from its tone and dialect, to be that of Dousterswivel,
-      pronounced in a louder but still a smothered tone, "Indeed, mine goot sir,
-      dere cannot be one finer hour nor season for dis great purpose. You shall
-      see, mine goot sir, dat it is all one bibble-babble dat Mr. Oldenbuck
-      says, and dat he knows no more of what he speaks than one little child.
-      Mine soul! he expects to get as rich as one Jew for his poor dirty one
-      hundred pounds, which I care no more about, by mine honest wort, than I
-      care for an hundred stivers. But to you, my most munificent and reverend
-      patron, I will show all de secrets dat art can show&mdash;ay, de secret of
-      de great Pymander."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="image-0011" id="image-0011">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
-    </p>
-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/pa278.jpg" alt="The Ruins of St. Ruth " width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
-      "That other ane," whispered Edie, "maun be, according to a' likelihood,
-      Sir Arthur Wardour&mdash;I ken naebody but himsell wad come here at this
-      time at e'en wi' that German blackguard;&mdash;ane wad think he's
-      bewitched him&mdash;he gars him e'en trow that chalk is cheese. Let's see
-      what they can be doing."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      This interruption, and the low tone in which Sir Arthur spoke, made Lovel
-      lose all Sir Arthur's answer to the adept, excepting the last three
-      emphatic words, "Very great expense;" to which Dousterswivel at once
-      replied&mdash;"Expenses!&mdash;to be sure&mdash;dere must be de great
-      expenses. You do not expect to reap before you do sow de seed: de expense
-      is de seed&mdash;de riches and de mine of goot metal, and now de great big
-      chests of plate, they are de crop&mdash;vary goot crop too, on mine wort.
-      Now, Sir Arthur, you have sowed this night one little seed of ten guineas
-      like one pinch of snuff, or so big; and if you do not reap de great
-      harvest&mdash;dat is, de great harvest for de little pinch of seed, for it
-      must be proportions, you must know&mdash;then never call one honest man,
-      Herman Dousterswivel. Now you see, mine patron&mdash;for I will not
-      conceal mine secret from you at all&mdash;you see this little plate of
-      silver; you know de moon measureth de whole zodiack in de space of
-      twenty-eight day&mdash;every shild knows dat. Well, I take a silver plate
-      when she is in her fifteenth mansion, which mansion is in de head of <i>Libra,</i>
-      and I engrave upon one side de worts, [Shedbarschemoth Schartachan]&mdash;dat
-      is, de Emblems of de Intelligence of de moon&mdash;and I make this picture
-      like a flying serpent with a turkey-cock's head&mdash;vary well. Then upon
-      this side I make de table of de moon, which is a square of nine,
-      multiplied into itself, with eighty-one numbers on every side, and
-      diameter nine&mdash;dere it is done very proper. Now I will make dis avail
-      me at de change of every quarter-moon dat I shall find by de same
-      proportions of expenses I lay out in de suffumigations, as nine, to de
-      product of nine multiplied into itself&mdash;But I shall find no more
-      to-night as maybe two or dree times nine, because dere is a thwarting
-      power in de house of ascendency."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But, Dousterswivel," said the simple Baronet, "does not this look like
-      magic?&mdash;I am a true though unworthy son of the Episcopal church, and
-      I will have nothing to do with the foul fiend."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Bah! bah!&mdash;not a bit magic in it at all&mdash;not a bit&mdash;It is
-      all founded on de planetary influence, and de sympathy and force of
-      numbers. I will show you much finer dan dis. I do not say dere is not de
-      spirit in it, because of de suffumigation; but, if you are not afraid, he
-      shall not be invisible."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have no curiosity to see him at all," said the Baronet, whose courage
-      seemed, from a certain quaver in his accent, to have taken a fit of the
-      ague.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dat is great pity," said Dousterswivel; "I should have liked to show you
-      de spirit dat guard dis treasure like one fierce watchdog&mdash;but I know
-      how to manage him;&mdash;you would not care to see him?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not at all," answered the Baronet, in a tone of feigned indifference; "I
-      think we have but little time."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You shall pardon me, my patron; it is not yet twelve, and twelve precise
-      is just our planetary hours; and I could show you de spirit vary well, in
-      de meanwhile, just for pleasure. You see I would draw a pentagon within a
-      circle, which is no trouble at all, and make my suffumigation within it,
-      and dere we would be like in one strong castle, and you would hold de
-      sword while I did say de needful worts. Den you should see de solid wall
-      open like de gate of ane city, and den&mdash;let me see&mdash;ay, you
-      should see first one stag pursued by three black greyhounds, and they
-      should pull him down as they do at de elector's great hunting-match; and
-      den one ugly, little, nasty black negro should appear and take de stag
-      from them&mdash;and paf&mdash;all should be gone; den you should hear
-      horns winded dat all de ruins should ring&mdash;mine wort, they should
-      play fine hunting piece, as goot as him you call'd Fischer with his oboi;
-      vary well&mdash;den comes one herald, as we call Ernhold, winding his horn&mdash;and
-      den come de great Peolphan, called de mighty Hunter of de North, mounted
-      on hims black steed. But you would not care to see all this?"*
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * Note F. Witchcraft.
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
- "Why, I am not afraid," answered the poor Baronet,&mdash;"if&mdash;that is&mdash;does
-anything&mdash;any great mischiefs, happen on such occasions?"
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "Bah! mischiefs? no!&mdash;sometimes if de circle be no quite just, or de
-      beholder be de frightened coward, and not hold de sword firm and straight
-      towards him, de Great Hunter will take his advantage, and drag him
-      exorcist out of de circle and throttle him. Dat does happens."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well then, Dousterswivel, with every confidence in my courage and your
-      skill, we will dispense with this apparition, and go on to the business of
-      the night."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "With all mine heart&mdash;it is just one thing to me&mdash;and now it is
-      de time&mdash;hold you de sword till I kindle de little what you call
-      chip."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Dousterswivel accordingly set fire to a little pile of chips, touched and
-      prepared with some bituminous substance to make them burn fiercely; and
-      when the flame was at the highest, and lightened, with its shortlived
-      glare, all the ruins around, the German flung in a handful of perfumes
-      which produced a strong and pungent odour. The exorcist and his pupil both
-      were so much affected as to cough and sneeze heartily; and, as the vapour
-      floated around the pillars of the building, and penetrated every crevice,
-      it produced the same effect on the beggar and Lovel.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Was that an echo?" said the Baronet, astonished at the sternutation which
-      resounded from above; "or"&mdash;drawing close to the adept, "can it be
-      the spirit you talked of, ridiculing our attempt upon his hidden
-      treasures?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "N&mdash;n&mdash;no," muttered the German, who began to partake of his
-      pupil's terrors, "I hope not."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here a violent of sneezing, which the mendicant was unable to suppress,
-      and which could not be considered by any means as the dying fall of an
-      echo, accompanied by a grunting half-smothered cough, confounded the two
-      treasure-seekers. "Lord have mercy on us!" said the Baronet.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "<i>Alle guten Geistern loben den Herrn!</i>" ejaculated the terrified
-      adept. "I was begun to think," he continued, after a moment's silence,
-      "that this would be de bestermost done in de day-light&mdash;we was
-      bestermost to go away just now."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You juggling villain!" said the Baronet, in whom these expressions
-      awakened a suspicion that overcame his terrors, connected as it was with
-      the sense of desperation arising from the apprehension of impending ruin&mdash;"you
-      juggling mountebank! this is some legerdemain trick of yours to get off
-      from the performance of your promise, as you have so often done before.
-      But, before Heaven! I will this night know what I have trusted to when I
-      suffered you to fool me on to my ruin! Go on, then&mdash;come fairy, come
-      fiend, you shall show me that treasure, or confess yourself a knave and an
-      impostor, or, by the faith of a desperate and ruined man, I'll send you
-      where you shall see spirits enough."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The treasure-finder, trembling between his terror for the supernatural
-      beings by whom he supposed himself to be surrounded, and for his life,
-      which seemed to be at the mercy of a desperate man, could only bring out,
-      "Mine patron, this is not the allerbestmost usage. Consider, mine honoured
-      sir, that de spirits"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here Edie, who began to enter into the humour of the scene, uttered an
-      extraordinary howl, being an exaltation and a prolongation of the most
-      deplorable whine in which he was accustomed to solicit charity.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Dousterswivel flung himself on his knees&mdash;"Dear Sir Arthurs, let us
-      go, or let me go!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, you cheating scoundrel!" said the knight, unsheathing the sword which
-      he had brought for the purposes of the exorcism, "that shift shall not
-      serve you&mdash;Monkbarns warned me long since of your juggling pranks&mdash;I
-      will see this treasure before you leave this place, or I will have you
-      confess yourself an impostor, or, by Heaven, I'll run this sword through
-      you, though all the spirits of the dead should rise around us!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "For de lofe of Heaven be patient, mine honoured patron, and you shall
-      hafe all de treasure as I knows of&mdash;yes, you shall indeed&mdash;But
-      do not speak about de spirits&mdash;it makes dem angry."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Edie Ochiltree here prepared himself to throw in another groan, but was
-      restrained by Lovel, who began to take a more serious interest, as he
-      observed the earnest and almost desperate demeanour of Sir Arthur.
-      Dousterswivel, having at once before his eyes the fear of the foul fiend,
-      and the violence of Sir Arthur, played his part of a conjuror extremely
-      ill, hesitating to assume the degree of confidence necessary to deceive
-      the latter, lest it should give offence to the invisible cause of his
-      alarm. However, after rolling his eyes, muttering and sputtering German
-      exorcisms, with contortions of his face and person, rather flowing from
-      the impulse of terror than of meditated fraud, he at length proceeded to a
-      corner of the building where a flat stone lay upon the ground, bearing
-      upon its surface the effigy of an armed warrior in a recumbent posture
-      carved in bas-relief. He muttered to Sir Arthur, "Mine patrons, it is here&mdash;Got
-      save us all!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur, who, after the first moment of his superstitious fear was
-      over, seemed to have bent up all his faculties to the pitch of resolution
-      necessary to carry on the adventure, lent the adept his assistance to turn
-      over the stone, which, by means of a lever that the adept had provided,
-      their joint force with difficulty effected. No supernatural light burst
-      forth from below to indicate the subterranean treasury, nor was there any
-      apparition of spirits, earthly or infernal. But when Dousterswivel had,
-      with great trepidation, struck a few strokes with a mattock, and as
-      hastily thrown out a shovelful or two of earth (for they came provided
-      with the tools necessary for digging), something was heard to ring like
-      the sound of a falling piece of metal, and Dousterswivel, hastily catching
-      up the substance which produced it, and which his shovel had thrown out
-      along with the earth, exclaimed, "On mine dear wort, mine patrons, dis is
-      all&mdash;it is indeed; I mean all we can do to-night;"&mdash;and he gazed
-      round him with a cowering and fearful glance, as if to see from what
-      corner the avenger of his imposture was to start forth.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Let me see it," said Sir Arthur; and then repeated, still more sternly,
-      "I will be satisfied&mdash;I will judge by mine own eyes." He accordingly
-      held the object to the light of the lantern. It was a small case, or
-      casket,&mdash;for Lovel could not at the distance exactly discern its
-      shape, which, from the Baronet's exclamation as he opened it, he concluded
-      was filled with coin. "Ay," said the Baronet, "this is being indeed in
-      good luck! and if it omens proportional success upon a larger venture, the
-      venture shall be made. That six hundred of Goldieword's, added to the
-      other incumbent claims, must have been ruin indeed. If you think we can
-      parry it by repeating this experiment&mdash;suppose when the moon next
-      changes,&mdash;I will hazard the necessary advance, come by it how I may."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Oh, mine good patrons, do not speak about all dat," said Dousterswivel,
-      "as just now, but help me to put de shtone to de rights, and let us begone
-      our own ways." And accordingly, so soon as the stone was replaced, he
-      hurried Sir Arthur, who was now resigned once more to his guidance, away
-      from a spot, where the German's guilty conscience and superstitious fears
-      represented goblins as lurking behind each pillar with the purpose of
-      punishing his treachery.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Saw onybody e'er the like o' that!" said Edie, when they had disappeared
-      like shadows through the gate by which they had entered&mdash;"saw ony
-      creature living e'er the like o' that!&mdash;But what can we do for that
-      puir doited deevil of a knight-baronet? Od, he showed muckle mair spunk,
-      too, than I thought had been in him&mdash;I thought he wad hae sent cauld
-      iron through the vagabond&mdash;Sir Arthur wasna half sae bauld at
-      Bessie's-apron yon night&mdash;but then, his blood was up even now, and
-      that makes an unco difference. I hae seen mony a man wad hae felled
-      another an anger him, that wadna muckle hae liked a clink against
-      Crummies-horn yon time. But what's to be done?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I suppose," said Lovel, "his faith in this fellow is entirely restored by
-      this deception, which, unquestionably, he had arranged beforehand."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What! the siller?&mdash;Ay, ay&mdash;trust him for that&mdash;they that
-      hide ken best where to find. He wants to wile him out o' his last guinea,
-      and then escape to his ain country, the land-louper. I wad likeit weel
-      just to hae come in at the clipping-time, and gien him a lounder wi' my
-      pike-staff; he wad hae taen it for a bennison frae some o' the auld dead
-      abbots. But it's best no to be rash; sticking disna gang by strength, but
-      by the guiding o' the gally. I'se be upsides wi' him ae day."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What if you should inform Mr. Oldbuck?" said Lovel.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou, I dinna ken&mdash;Monkbarns and Sir Arthur are like, and yet they're
-      no like neither. Monkbarns has whiles influence wi' him, and whiles Sir
-      Arthur cares as little about him as about the like o' me. Monkbarns is no
-      that ower wise himsell, in some things;&mdash;he wad believe a bodle to be
-      an auld Roman coin, as he ca's it, or a ditch to be a camp, upon ony
-      leasing that idle folk made about it. I hae garr'd him trow mony a queer
-      tale mysell, gude forgie me. But wi' a' that, he has unco little sympathy
-      wi' ither folks; and he's snell and dure eneugh in casting up their
-      nonsense to them, as if he had nane o' his ain. He'll listen the hale day,
-      an yell tell him about tales o' Wallace, and Blind Harry, and Davie
-      Lindsay; but ye maunna speak to him about ghaists or fairies, or spirits
-      walking the earth, or the like o' that;&mdash;he had amaist flung auld
-      Caxon out o' the window (and he might just as weel hae flung awa his best
-      wig after him), for threeping he had seen a ghaist at the humlock-knowe.
-      Now, if he was taking it up in this way, he wad set up the tother's birse,
-      and maybe do mair ill nor gude&mdash;he's done that twice or thrice about
-      thae mine-warks; ye wad thought Sir Arthur had a pleasure in gaun on wi'
-      them the deeper, the mair he was warned against it by Monkbarns."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What say you then," said Lovel, "to letting Miss Wardour know the
-      circumstance?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou, puir thing, how could she stop her father doing his pleasure?&mdash;and,
-      besides, what wad it help? There's a sough in the country about that six
-      hundred pounds, and there's a writer chield in Edinburgh has been driving
-      the spur-rowels o' the law up to the head into Sir Arthur's sides to gar
-      him pay it, and if he canna, he maun gang to jail or flee the country.
-      He's like a desperate man, and just catches at this chance as a' he has
-      left, to escape utter perdition; so what signifies plaguing the puir
-      lassie about what canna be helped? And besides, to say the truth, I wadna
-      like to tell the secret o' this place. It's unco convenient, ye see
-      yoursell, to hae a hiding-hole o' ane's ain; and though I be out o' the
-      line o' needing ane e'en now, and trust in the power o' grace that I'll
-      neer do onything to need ane again, yet naebody kens what temptation ane
-      may be gien ower to&mdash;and, to be brief, I downa bide the thought of
-      anybody kennin about the place;&mdash;they say, keep a thing seven year,
-      an' yell aye find a use for't&mdash;and maybe I may need the cove, either
-      for mysell, or for some ither body."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      This argument, in which Edie Ochiltree, notwithstanding his scraps of
-      morality and of divinity, seemed to take, perhaps from old habit, a
-      personal interest, could not be handsomely controverted by Lovel, who was
-      at that moment reaping the benefit of the secret of which the old man
-      appeared to be so jealous.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      This incident, however, was of great service to Lovel, as diverting his
-      mind from the unhappy occurrence of the evening, and considerably rousing
-      the energies which had been stupefied by the first view of his calamity.
-      He reflected that it by no means necessarily followed that a dangerous
-      wound must be a fatal one&mdash;that he had been hurried from the spot
-      even before the surgeon had expressed any opinion of Captain M'Intyre's
-      situation&mdash;and that he had duties on earth to perform, even should
-      the very worst be true, which, if they could not restore his peace of mind
-      or sense of innocence, would furnish a motive for enduring existence, and
-      at the same time render it a course of active benevolence.&mdash;Such were
-      Lovel's feelings, when the hour arrived when, according to Edie's
-      calculation&mdash;who, by some train or process of his own in observing
-      the heavenly bodies, stood independent of the assistance of a watch or
-      time-keeper&mdash;it was fitting they should leave their hiding-place, and
-      betake themselves to the seashore, in order to meet Lieutenant Taffril's
-      boat according to appointment.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      They retreated by the same passage which had admitted them to the prior's
-      secret seat of observation, and when they issued from the grotto into the
-      wood, the birds which began to chirp, and even to sing, announced that the
-      dawn was advanced. This was confirmed by the light and amber clouds that
-      appeared over the sea, as soon as their exit from the copse permitted them
-      to view the horizon.&mdash;Morning, said to be friendly to the muses, has
-      probably obtained this character from its effect upon the fancy and
-      feelings of mankind. Even to those who, like Lovel, have spent a sleepless
-      and anxious night, the breeze of the dawn brings strength and quickening
-      both of mind and body. It was, therefore, with renewed health and vigour
-      that Lovel, guided by the trusty mendicant, brushed away the dew as he
-      traversed the downs which divided the Den of St. Ruth, as the woods
-      surrounding the ruins were popularly called, from the sea-shore.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The first level beam of the sun, as his brilliant disk began to emerge
-      from the ocean, shot full upon the little gun-brig which was lying-to in
-      the offing&mdash;close to the shore the boat was already waiting, Taffril
-      himself, with his naval cloak wrapped about him, seated in the stern. He
-      jumped ashore when he saw the mendicant and Lovel approach, and, shaking
-      the latter heartily by the hand, begged him not to be cast down.
-      "M'Intyre's wound," he said, "was doubtful, but far from desperate." His
-      attention had got Lovel's baggage privately sent on board the brig; "and,"
-      he said, "he trusted that, if Lovel chose to stay with the vessel, the
-      penalty of a short cruise would be the only disagreeable consequence of
-      his rencontre. As for himself, his time and motions were a good deal at
-      his own disposal, he said, excepting the necessary obligation of remaining
-      on his station."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We will talk of our farther motions," said Lovel, "as we go on board."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Then turning to Edie, he endeavoured to put money into his hand. "I
-      think," said Edie, as he tendered it back again, "the hale folk here have
-      either gane daft, or they hae made a vow to rain my trade, as they say
-      ower muckle water drowns the miller. I hae had mair gowd offered me within
-      this twa or three weeks than I ever saw in my life afore. Keep the siller,
-      lad&mdash;yell hae need o't, I'se warrant ye, and I hae nane my claes is
-      nae great things, and I get a blue gown every year, and as mony siller
-      groats as the king, God bless him, is years auld&mdash;you and I serve the
-      same master, ye ken, Captain Taffril; there's rigging provided for&mdash;and
-      my meat and drink I get for the asking in my rounds, or, at an orra time,
-      I can gang a day without it, for I make it a rule never to pay for nane;&mdash;so
-      that a' the siller I need is just to buy tobacco and sneeshin, and maybe a
-      dram at a time in a cauld day, though I am nae dram-drinker to be a
-      gaberlunzie;&mdash;sae take back your gowd, and just gie me a lily-white
-      shilling."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Upon these whims, which he imagined intimately connected with the honour
-      of his vagabond profession, Edie was flint and adamant, not to be moved by
-      rhetoric or entreaty; and therefore Lovel was under the necessity of again
-      pocketing his intended bounty, and taking a friendly leave of the
-      mendicant by shaking him by the hand, and assuring him of his cordial
-      gratitude for the very important services which he had rendered him,
-      recommending, at the same time, secrecy as to what they had that night
-      witnessed.&mdash;"Ye needna doubt that," said Ochiltree; "I never tell'd
-      tales out o' yon cove in my life, though mony a queer thing I hae seen
-      in't."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The boat now put off. The old man remained looking after it as it made
-      rapidly towards the brig under the impulse of six stout rowers, and Lovel
-      beheld him again wave his blue bonnet as a token of farewell ere he turned
-      from his fixed posture, and began to move slowly along the sands as if
-      resuming his customary perambulations.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <br /><br /> <br /><br />
-    </p>
-    <hr />
-    <p>
-      <br /> <br />
-    </p>
-    <h2>
-      VOLUME II.
-    </h2>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0001" id="Alink2HCH0001">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER FIRST.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                 Wiser Raymondus, in his closet pent,
-                 Laughs at such danger and adventurement
-              When half his lands are spent in golden smoke,
-              And now his second hopeful glasse is broke,
-                 But yet, if haply his third furnace hold,
-                Devoteth all his pots and pans to gold.*
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      * The author cannot remember where these lines are to be found: perhaps in
-      Bishop Hall's Satires. [They occur in Book iv. Satire iii.]
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      About a week after the adventures commemorated in our last CHAPTER, Mr.
-      Oldbuck, descending to his breakfast-parlour, found that his womankind
-      were not upon duty, his toast not made, and the silver jug, which was wont
-      to receive his libations of mum, not duly aired for its reception.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "This confounded hot-brained boy!" he said to himself; "now that he begins
-      to get out of danger, I can tolerate this life no longer. All goes to
-      sixes and sevens&mdash;an universal saturnalia seems to be proclaimed in
-      my peaceful and orderly family. I ask for my sister&mdash;no answer. I
-      call, I shout&mdash;I invoke my inmates by more names than the Romans gave
-      to their deities&mdash;at length Jenny, whose shrill voice I have heard
-      this half-hour lilting in the Tartarean regions of the kitchen,
-      condescends to hear me and reply, but without coming up stairs, so the
-      conversation must be continued at the top of my lungs. "&mdash;Here he
-      again began to hollow aloud&mdash;"Jenny, where's Miss Oldbuck?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Miss Grizzy's in the captain's room."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Umph!&mdash;I thought so&mdash;and where's my niece?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Miss Mary's making the captain's tea."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Umph! I supposed as much again&mdash;and where's Caxon?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Awa to the town about the captain's fowling-gun, and his setting-dog."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And who the devil's to dress my periwig, you silly jade?&mdash;when you
-      knew that Miss Wardour and Sir Arthur were coming here early after
-      breakfast, how could you let Caxon go on such a Tomfool's errand?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Me! what could I hinder him?&mdash;your honour wadna hae us contradict
-      the captain e'en now, and him maybe deeing?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dying!" said the alarmed Antiquary,&mdash;"eh! what? has he been worse?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, he's no nae waur that I ken of."*
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * It is, I believe, a piece of free-masonry, or a point of conscience,
-      among the Scottish lower orders, never to admit that a patient is doing
-      better. The closest approach to recovery which they can be brought to
-      allow, is, that the pairty inquired after is "Nae waur."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then he must be better&mdash;and what good is a dog and a gun to do here,
-      but the one to destroy all my furniture, steal from my larder, and perhaps
-      worry the cat, and the other to shoot somebody through the head. He has
-      had gunning and pistolling enough to serve him one while, I should think."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here Miss Oldbuck entered the parlour, at the door of which Oldbuck was
-      carrying on this conversation, he bellowing downward to Jenny, and she
-      again screaming upward in reply.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dear brother," said the old lady, "ye'll cry yoursell as hoarse as a
-      corbie&mdash;is that the way to skreigh when there's a sick person in the
-      house?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Upon my word, the sick person's like to have all the house to himself,&mdash;
-      I have gone without my breakfast, and am like to go without my wig; and I
-      must not, I suppose, presume to say I feel either hunger or cold, for fear
-      of disturbing the sick gentleman who lies six rooms off, and who feels
-      himself well enough to send for his dog and gun, though he knows I detest
-      such implements ever since our elder brother, poor Williewald, marched out
-      of the world on a pair of damp feet, caught in the Kittlefitting-moss. But
-      that signifies nothing; I suppose I shall be expected by and by to lend a
-      hand to carry Squire Hector out upon his litter, while he indulges his
-      sportsmanlike propensities by shooting my pigeons, or my turkeys&mdash;I
-      think any of the <i>ferae naturae</i> are safe from him for one while."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Miss M'Intyre now entered, and began to her usual morning's task of
-      arranging her uncle's breakfast, with the alertness of one who is too late
-      in setting about a task, and is anxious to make up for lost time. But this
-      did not avail her. "Take care, you silly womankind&mdash;that mum's too
-      near the fire&mdash;the bottle will burst; and I suppose you intend to
-      reduce the toast to a cinder as a burnt-offering for Juno, or what do you
-      call her&mdash;the female dog there, with some such Pantheon kind of a
-      name, that your wise brother has, in his first moments of mature
-      reflection, ordered up as a fitting inmate of my house (I thank him), and
-      meet company to aid the rest of the womankind of my household in their
-      daily conversation and intercourse with him."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dear uncle, don't be angry about the poor spaniel; she's been tied up at
-      my brother's lodgings at Fairport, and she's broke her chain twice, and
-      came running down here to him; and you would not have us beat the faithful
-      beast away from the door?&mdash;it moans as if it had some sense of poor
-      Hector's misfortune, and will hardly stir from the door of his room."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why," said his uncle, "they said Caxon had gone to Fairport after his dog
-      and gun."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O dear sir, no," answered Miss M'Intyre, "it was to fetch some dressings
-      that were wanted, and Hector only wished him to bring out his gun, as he
-      was going to Fairport at any rate."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, then, it is not altogether so foolish a business, considering what
-      a mess of womankind have been about it&mdash;Dressings, quotha?&mdash;and
-      who is to dress my wig?&mdash;But I suppose Jenny will undertake"&mdash;continued
-      the old bachelor, looking at himself in the glass&mdash;"to make it
-      somewhat decent. And now let us set to breakfast&mdash;with what appetite
-      we may. Well may I say to Hector, as Sir Isaac Newton did to his dog
-      Diamond, when the animal (I detest dogs) flung down the taper among
-      calculations which had occupied the philosopher for twenty years, and
-      consumed the whole mass of materials&mdash;Diamond, Diamond, thou little
-      knowest the mischief thou hast done!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I assure you, sir," replied his niece, "my brother is quite sensible of
-      the rashness of his own behaviour, and allows that Mr. Lovel behaved very
-      handsomely."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And much good that will do, when he has frightened the lad out of the
-      country! I tell thee, Mary, Hector's understanding, and far more that of
-      feminity, is inadequate to comprehend the extent of the loss which he has
-      occasioned to the present age and to posterity&mdash;<i>aureum quidem opus</i>&mdash;a
-      poem on such a subject, with notes illustrative of all that is clear, and
-      all that is dark, and all that is neither dark nor clear, but hovers in
-      dusky twilight in the region of Caledonian antiquities. I would have made
-      the Celtic panegyrists look about them. Fingal, as they conceitedly term
-      Fin-Mac-Coul, should have disappeared before my search, rolling himself in
-      his cloud like the spirit of Loda. Such an opportunity can hardly again
-      occur to an ancient and grey-haired man; and to see it lost by the madcap
-      spleen of a hot-headed boy! But I submit&mdash;Heaven's will be done!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Thus continued the Antiquary to <i>maunder,</i> as his sister expressed
-      it, during the whole time of breakfast, while, despite of sugar and honey,
-      and all the comforts of a Scottish morning tea-table, his reflections
-      rendered the meal bitter to all who heard them. But they knew the nature
-      of the man. "Monkbarns's bark," said Miss Griselda Oldbuck, in
-      confidential intercourse with Miss Rebecca Blattergowl, "is muckle waur
-      than his bite."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In fact, Mr. Oldbuck had suffered in mind extremely while his nephew was
-      in actual danger, and now felt himself at liberty, upon his returning
-      health, to indulge in complaints respecting the trouble he had been put
-      to, and the interruption of his antiquarian labours. Listened to,
-      therefore, in respectful silence, by his niece and sister, he unloaded his
-      discontent in such grumblings as we have rehearsed, venting many a sarcasm
-      against womankind, soldiers, dogs, and guns, all which implements of
-      noise, discord, and tumult, as he called them, he professed to hold in
-      utter abomination.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      This expectoration of spleen was suddenly interrupted by the noise of a
-      carriage without, when, shaking off all sullenness at the sound, Oldbuck
-      ran nimbly up stairs and down stairs, for both operations were necessary
-      ere he could receive Miss Wardour and her father at the door of his
-      mansion.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A cordial greeting passed on both sides. And Sir Arthur, referring to his
-      previous inquiries by letter and message, requested to be particularly
-      informed of Captain M'Intyre's health.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Better than he deserves," was the answer&mdash;"better than he deserves,
-      for disturbing us with his vixen brawls, and breaking God's peace and the
-      King's."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The young gentleman," Sir Arthur said, "had been imprudent; but he
-      understood they were indebted to him for the detection of a suspicious
-      character in the young man Lovel."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No more suspicious than his own," answered the Antiquary, eager in his
-      favourites defence;&mdash;"the young gentleman was a little foolish and
-      headstrong, and refused to answer Hector's impertinent interrogatories&mdash;
-      that is all. Lovel, Sir Arthur, knows how to choose his confidants better&mdash;Ay,
-      Miss Wardour, you may look at me&mdash;but it is very true;&mdash;it was
-      in my bosom that he deposited the secret cause of his residence at
-      Fairport; and no stone should have been left unturned on my part to assist
-      him in the pursuit to which he had dedicated himself."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      On hearing this magnanimous declaration on the part of the old Antiquary,
-      Miss Wardour changed colour more than once, and could hardly trust her own
-      ears. For of all confidants to be selected as the depositary of love
-      affairs,&mdash;and such she naturally supposed must have been the subject
-      of communication,&mdash;next to Edie Ochiltree, Oldbuck seemed the most
-      uncouth and extraordinary; nor could she sufficiently admire or fret at
-      the extraordinary combination of circumstances which thus threw a secret
-      of such a delicate nature into the possession of persons so unfitted to be
-      entrusted with it. She had next to fear the mode of Oldbuck's entering
-      upon the affair with her father, for such, she doubted not, was his
-      intention. She well knew that the honest gentleman, however vehement in
-      his prejudices, had no great sympathy with those of others, and she had to
-      fear a most unpleasant explosion upon an <i>e'claircissement</i> taking
-      place between them. It was therefore with great anxiety that she heard her
-      father request a private interview, and observed Oldbuck readily arise and
-      show the way to his library. She remained behind, attempting to converse
-      with the ladies of Monkbarns, but with the distracted feelings of Macbeth,
-      when compelled to disguise his evil conscience by listening and replying
-      to the observations of the attendant thanes upon the storm of the
-      preceding night, while his whole soul is upon the stretch to listen for
-      the alarm of murder, which he knows must be instantly raised by those who
-      have entered the sleeping apartment of Duncan. But the conversation of the
-      two virtuosi turned on a subject very different from that which Miss
-      Wardour apprehended.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mr. Oldbuck," said Sir Arthur, when they had, after a due exchange of
-      ceremonies, fairly seated themselves in the <i>sanctum sanctorum</i> of
-      the Antiquary,&mdash;"you, who know so much of my family matters, may
-      probably be surprised at the question I am about to put to you."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, Sir Arthur, if it relates to money, I am very sorry, but"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It does relate to money matters, Mr. Oldbuck."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Really, then, Sir Arthur," continued the Antiquary, "in the present state
-      of the money-market&mdash;and stocks being so low"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You mistake my meaning, Mr. Oldbuck," said the Baronet; "I wished to ask
-      your advice about laying out a large sum of money to advantage."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The devil!" exclaimed the Antiquary; and, sensible that his involuntary
-      ejaculation of wonder was not over and above civil, he proceeded to
-      qualify it by expressing his joy that Sir Arthur should have a sum of
-      money to lay out when the commodity was so scarce. "And as for the mode of
-      employing it," said he, pausing, "the funds are low at present, as I said
-      before, and there are good bargains of land to be had. But had you not
-      better begin by clearing off encumbrances, Sir Arthur?&mdash;There is the
-      sum in the personal bond&mdash;and the three notes of hand," continued he,
-      taking out of the right-hand drawer of his cabinet a certain red
-      memorandum-book, of which Sir Arthur, from the experience of former
-      frequent appeals to it, abhorred the very sight&mdash;"with the interest
-      thereon, amounting altogether to&mdash;let me see"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "To about a thousand pounds," said Sir Arthur, hastily; "you told me the
-      amount the other day."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But there's another term's interest due since that, Sir Arthur, and it
-      amounts (errors excepted) to eleven hundred and thirteen pounds, seven
-      shillings, five pennies, and three-fourths of a penny sterling&mdash;But
-      look over the summation yourself."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I daresay you are quite right, my dear sir," said the Baronet, putting
-      away the book with his hand, as one rejects the old-fashioned civility
-      that presses food upon you after you have eaten till you nauseate&mdash;
-      "perfectly right, I dare say; and in the course of three days or less you
-      shall have the full value&mdash;that is, if you choose to accept it in
-      bullion."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Bullion! I suppose you mean lead. What the deuce! have we hit on the vein
-      then at last? But what could I do with a thousand pounds' worth, and
-      upwards, of lead? The former abbots of Trotcosey might have roofed their
-      church and monastery with it indeed&mdash;but for me"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "By bullion," said the Baronet, "I mean the precious metals,&mdash;gold
-      and silver."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay! indeed?&mdash;and from what Eldorado is this treasure to be
-      imported?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not far from hence," said Sir Arthur, significantly. "And naow I think of
-      it, you shall see the whole process, on one small condition."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And what is that?" craved the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, it will be necessary for you to give me your friendly assistance, by
-      advancing one hundred pounds or thereabouts."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Mr. Oldbuck, who had already been grasping in idea the sum, principal and
-      interest, of a debt which he had long regarded as wellnigh desperate, was
-      so much astounded at the tables being so unexpectedly turned upon him,
-      that he could only re-echo, in an accent of wo and surprise, the words,
-      "Advance one hundred pounds!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes, my good sir," continued Sir Arthur; "but upon the best possible
-      security of being repaid in the course of two or three days."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      There was a pause&mdash;either Oldbuck's nether jaw had not recovered its
-      position, so as to enable him to utter a negative, or his curiosity kept
-      him silent.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I would not propose to you," continued Sir Arthur, "to oblige me thus
-      far, if I did not possess actual proofs of the reality of those
-      expectations which I now hold out to you. And I assure you, Mr. Oldbuck,
-      that in entering fully upon this topic, it is my purpose to show my
-      confidence in you, and my sense of your kindness on many former
-      occasions."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Mr. Oldbuck professed his sense of obligation, but carefully avoided
-      committing himself by any promise of farther assistance.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mr. Dousterswivel," said Sir Arthur, "having discovered"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here Oldbuck broke in, his eyes sparkling with indignation. "Sir Arthur, I
-      have so often warned you of the knavery of that rascally quack, that I
-      really wonder you should quote him to me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But listen&mdash;listen," interrupted Sir Arthur in his turn, "it will do
-      you no harm. In short, Dousterswivel persuaded me to witness an experiment
-      which he had made in the ruins of St. Ruth&mdash;and what do you think we
-      found?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Another spring of water, I suppose, of which the rogue had beforehand
-      taken care to ascertain the situation and source."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, indeed&mdash;a casket of gold and silver coins&mdash;here they are."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      With that, Sir Arthur drew from his pocket a large ram's horn, with a
-      copper cover, containing a considerable quantity of coins, chiefly silver,
-      but with a few gold pieces intermixed. The Antiquary's eyes glistened as
-      he eagerly spread them out on the table.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Upon my word&mdash;Scotch, English, and foreign coins, of the fifteenth
-      and sixteenth centuries, and some of them <i>rari&mdash;et rariores&mdash;etiam
-      rarissimi!</i> Here is the bonnet-piece of James V., the unicorn of James
-      II.,&mdash;ay, and the gold festoon of Queen Mary, with her head and the
-      Dauphin's. And these were really found in the ruins of St. Ruth?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Most assuredly&mdash;my own eyes witnessed it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well," replied Oldbuck; "but you must tell me the when&mdash;the
-      where-the how."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The when," answered Sir Arthur, "was at midnight the last full moon&mdash;the
-      where, as I have told you, in the ruins of St. Ruth's priory&mdash;the
-      how, was by a nocturnal experiment of Dousterswivel, accompanied only by
-      myself."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed!" said Oldbuck; "and what means of discovery did you employ?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Only a simple suffumigation," said the Baronet, "accompanied by availing
-      ourselves of the suitable planetary hour."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Simple suffumigation? simple nonsensification&mdash;planetary hour?
-      planetary fiddlestick! <i>Sapiens dominabitur astris.</i> My dear Sir
-      Arthur, that fellow has made a gull of you above ground and under ground,
-      and he would have made a gull of you in the air too, if he had been by
-      when you was craned up the devil's turnpike yonder at Halket-head&mdash;to
-      be sure the transformation would have been then peculiarly <i>apropos.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, Mr. Oldbuck, I am obliged to you for your indifferent opinion of my
-      discernment; but I think you will give me credit for having seen what I <i>say</i>
-      I saw."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Certainly, Sir Arthur," said the Antiquary,&mdash;"to this extent at
-      least, that I know Sir Arthur Wardour will not say he saw anything but
-      what he <i>thought</i> he saw."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, then," replied the Baronet, "as there is a heaven above us, Mr.
-      Oldbuck, I saw, with my own eyes, these coins dug out of the chancel of
-      St. Ruth at midnight. And as to Dousterswivel, although the discovery be
-      owing to his science, yet, to tell the truth, I do not think he would have
-      had firmness of mind to have gone through with it if I had not been beside
-      him."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay! indeed?" said Oldbuck, in the tone used when one wishes to hear the
-      end of a story before making any comment.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes truly," continued Sir Arthur&mdash;"I assure you I was upon my guard&mdash;we
-      did hear some very uncommon sounds, that is certain, proceeding from among
-      the ruins."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Oh, you did?" said Oldbuck; "an accomplice hid among them, I suppose?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not a jot," said the Baronet;&mdash;"the sounds, though of a hideous and
-      preternatural character, rather resembled those of a man who sneezes
-      violently than any other&mdash;one deep groan I certainly heard besides;
-      and Dousterswivel assures me that he beheld the spirit Peolphan, the Great
-      Hunter of the North&mdash;(look for him in your Nicolaus Remigius, or
-      Petrus Thyracus, Mr. Oldbuck)&mdash;who mimicked the motion of
-      snuff-taking and its effects."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "These indications, however singular as proceeding from such a personage,
-      seem to have been <i>apropos</i> to the matter," said the Antiquary; "for
-      you see the case, which includes these coins, has all the appearance of
-      being an old-fashioned Scottish snuff-mill. But you persevered, in spite
-      of the terrors of this sneezing goblin?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, I think it probable that a man of inferior sense or consequence
-      might have given way; but I was jealous of an imposture, conscious of the
-      duty I owed to my family in maintaining my courage under every
-      contingency, and therefore I compelled Dousterswivel, by actual and
-      violent threats, to proceed with what he was about to do;&mdash;and, sir,
-      the proof of his skill and honesty is this parcel of gold and silver
-      pieces, out of which I beg you to select such coins or medals as will best
-      suit your collection."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, Sir Arthur, since you are so good, and on condition you will permit
-      me to mark the value according to Pinkerton's catalogue and appreciation,
-      against your account in my red book, I will with pleasure select"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nay," said Sir Arthur Wardour, "I do not mean you should consider them as
-      anything but a gift of friendship and least of all would I stand by the
-      valuation of your friend Pinkerton, who has impugned the ancient and
-      trustworthy authorities upon which, as upon venerable and moss-grown
-      pillars, the credit of Scottish antiquities reposed."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, ay," rejoined Oldbuck, "you mean, I suppose, Mair and Boece, the
-      Jachin and Boaz, not of history but of falsification and forgery. And
-      notwithstanding all you have told me, I look on your friend Dousterswivel
-      to be as apocryphal as any of them."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why then, Mr. Oldbuck," said Sir Arthur, "not to awaken old disputes, I
-      suppose you think, that because I believe in the ancient history of my
-      country, I have neither eyes nor ears to ascertain what modern events pass
-      before me?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Pardon me, Sir Arthur," rejoined the Antiquary; "but I consider all the
-      affectation of terror which this worthy gentleman, your coadjutor, chose
-      to play off, as being merely one part of his trick or mystery. And with
-      respect to the gold or silver coins, they are so mixed and mingled in
-      country and date, that I cannot suppose they could be any genuine hoard,
-      and rather suppose them to be, like the purses upon the table of
-      Hudibras's lawyer&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                       &mdash;Money placed for show,
-                   Like nest-eggs, to make clients lay,
-                   And for his false opinions pay.&mdash;
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      It is the trick of all professions, my dear Sir Arthur. Pray, may I ask
-      you how much this discovery cost you?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "About ten guineas."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And you have gained what is equivalent to twenty in actual bullion, and
-      what may be perhaps worth as much more to such fools as ourselves, who are
-      willing to pay for curiosity. This was allowing you a tempting profit on
-      the first hazard, I must needs admit. And what is the next venture he
-      proposes?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "An hundred and fifty pounds;&mdash;I have given him one-third part of the
-      money, and I thought it likely you might assist me with the balance."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I should think that this cannot be meant as a parting blow&mdash;is not
-      of weight and importance sufficient; he will probably let us win this hand
-      also, as sharpers manage a raw gamester.&mdash;Sir Arthur, I hope you
-      believe I would serve you?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Certainly, Mr. Oldbuck; I think my confidence in you on these occasions
-      leaves no room to doubt that."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, then, allow me to speak to Dousterswivel. If the money can be
-      advanced usefully and advantageously for you, why, for old neighbourhood's
-      sake, you shall not want it but if, as I think, I can recover the treasure
-      for you without making such an advance, you will, I presume, have no
-      objection!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Unquestionably, I can have none whatsoever."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then where is Dousterswivel?" continued the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "To tell you the truth, he is in my carriage below; but knowing your
-      prejudice against him"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I thank Heaven, I am not prejudiced against any man, Sir Arthur: it is
-      systems, not individuals, that incur my reprobation." He rang the bell.
-      "Jenny, Sir Arthur and I offer our compliments to Mr. Dousterswivel, the
-      gentleman in Sir Arthur's carriage, and beg to have the pleasure of
-      speaking with him here."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Jenny departed and delivered her message. It had been by no means a part
-      of the project of Dousterswivel to let Mr. Oldbuck into his supposed
-      mystery. He had relied upon Sir Arthur's obtaining the necessary
-      accommodation without any discussion as to the nature of the application,
-      and only waited below for the purpose of possessing himself of the deposit
-      as soon as possible, for he foresaw that his career was drawing to a
-      close. But when summoned to the presence of Sir Arthur and Mr. Oldbuck, he
-      resolved gallantly to put confidence in his powers of impudence, of which,
-      the reader may have observed, his natural share was very liberal.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0002" id="Alink2HCH0002">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER SECOND.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                          &mdash;And this Doctor,
-             Your sooty smoky-bearded compeer, he
-             Will close you so much gold in a bolt's head,
-             And, on a turn, convey in the stead another
-             With sublimed mercury, that shall burst i' the heat,
-                      And all fly out <i>in fumo.</i>&mdash;
-                                        The Alchemist.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "How do you do, goot Mr. Oldenbuck? and I do hope your young gentleman,
-      Captain M'Intyre, is getting better again? Ach! it is a bat business when
-      young gentlemens will put lead balls into each other's body."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Lead adventures of all kinds are very precarious, Mr. Dousterswivel; but
-      I am happy to learn," continued the Antiquary, "from my friend Sir Arthur,
-      that you have taken up a better trade, and become a discoverer of gold."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ach, Mr. Oldenbuck, mine goot and honoured patron should not have told a
-      word about dat little matter; for, though I have all reliance&mdash;yes,
-      indeed, on goot Mr. Oldenbuck's prudence and discretion, and his great
-      friendship for Sir Arthur Wardour&mdash;yet, my heavens! it is an great
-      ponderous secret."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "More ponderous than any of the metal we shall make by it, I fear,"
-      answered Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dat is just as you shall have de faith and de patience for de grand
-      experiment&mdash;If you join wid Sir Arthur, as he is put one hundred and
-      fifty&mdash;see, here is one fifty in your dirty Fairport bank-note&mdash;you
-      put one other hundred and fifty in de dirty notes, and you shall have de
-      pure gold and silver, I cannot tell how much."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nor any one for you, I believe," said the Antiquary. "But, hark you, Mr.
-      Dousterswivel: Suppose, without troubling this same sneezing spirit with
-      any farther fumigations, we should go in a body, and having fair day-light
-      and our good consciences to befriend us, using no other conjuring
-      implements than good substantial pick-axes and shovels, fairly trench the
-      area of the chancel in the ruins of St. Ruth, from one end to the other,
-      and so ascertain the existence of this supposed treasure, without putting
-      ourselves to any farther expense&mdash;the ruins belong to Sir Arthur
-      himself, so there can be no objection&mdash;do you think we shall succeed
-      in this way of managing the matter?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Bah!&mdash;you will not find one copper thimble&mdash;But Sir Arthur will
-      do his pleasure. I have showed him how it is possible&mdash;very possible&mdash;to
-      have de great sum of money for his occasions&mdash;I have showed him de
-      real experiment. If he likes not to believe, goot Mr. Oldenbuck, it is
-      nothing to Herman Dousterswivel&mdash;he only loses de money and de gold
-      and de silvers&mdash;dat is all."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur Wardour cast an intimidated glance at Oldbuck who, especially
-      when present, held, notwithstanding their frequent difference of opinion,
-      no ordinary influence over his sentiments. In truth, the Baronet felt,
-      what he would not willingly have acknowledged, that his genius stood
-      rebuked before that of the Antiquary. He respected him as a shrewd,
-      penetrating, sarcastic character&mdash;feared his satire, and had some
-      confidence in the general soundness of his opinions. He therefore looked
-      at him as if desiring his leave before indulging his credulity.
-      Dousterswivel saw he was in danger of losing his dupe, unless he could
-      make some favourable impression on the adviser.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I know, my goot Mr. Oldenbuck, it is one vanity to speak to you about de
-      spirit and de goblin. But look at this curious horn;&mdash;I know, you
-      know de curiosity of all de countries, and how de great Oldenburgh horn,
-      as they keep still in the Museum at Copenhagen, was given to de Duke of
-      Oldenburgh by one female spirit of de wood. Now I could not put one trick
-      on you if I were willing&mdash;you who know all de curiosity so well&mdash;and
-      dere it is de horn full of coins;&mdash;if it had been a box or case, I
-      would have said nothing."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Being a horn," said Oldbuck, "does indeed strengthen your argument. It
-      was an implement of nature's fashioning, and therefore much used among
-      rude nations, although, it may be, the metaphorical horn is more frequent
-      in proportion to the progress of civilisation. And this present horn," he
-      continued, rubbing it upon his sleeve, "is a curious and venerable relic,
-      and no doubt was intended to prove a <i>cornucopia,</i> or horn of plenty,
-      to some one or other; but whether to the adept or his patron, may be
-      justly doubted."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, Mr. Oldenbuck, I find you still hard of belief&mdash;but let me
-      assure you, de monksh understood de <i>magisterium.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Let us leave talking of the <i>magisterium,</i> Mr. Dousterswivel, and
-      think a little about the magistrate. Are you aware that this occupation of
-      yours is against the law of Scotland, and that both Sir Arthur and myself
-      are in the commission of the peace?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mine heaven! and what is dat to de purpose when I am doing you all de
-      goot I can?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, you must know that when the legislature abolished the cruel laws
-      against witchcraft, they had no hope of destroying the superstitious
-      feelings of humanity on which such chimeras had been founded; and to
-      prevent those feelings from being tampered with by artful and designing
-      persons, it is enacted by the ninth of George the Second, chap. 5, that
-      whosoever shall pretend, by his alleged skill in any occult or crafty
-      science, to discover such goods as are lost, stolen or concealed, he shall
-      suffer punishment by pillory and imprisonment, as a common cheat and
-      impostor."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And is dat de laws?" asked Dousterswivel, with some agitation.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Thyself shall see the act," replied the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Den, gentlemens, I shall take my leave of you, dat is all; I do not like
-      to stand on your what you call pillory&mdash;it is very bad way to take de
-      air, I think; and I do not like your prisons no more, where one cannot
-      take de air at all."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If such be your taste, Mr. Dousterswivel," said the Antiquary, "I advise
-      you to stay where you are, for I cannot let you go, unless it be in the
-      society of a constable; and, moreover, I expect you will attend us just
-      now to the ruins of St. Ruth, and point out the place where you propose to
-      find this treasure."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mine heaven, Mr. Oldenbuck! what usage is this to your old friend, when I
-      tell you so plain as I can speak, dat if you go now, you will not get so
-      much treasure as one poor shabby sixpence?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I will try the experiment, however, and you shall be dealt with according
-      to its success,&mdash;always with Sir Arthur's permission."
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-Sir Arthur, during this investigation, had looked extremely embarrassed,
-and, to use a vulgar but expressive phrase, chop-fallen. Oldbuck's
-obstinate disbelief led him strongly to suspect the imposture of
-Dousterswivel, and the adept's mode of keeping his ground was less
-resolute than he had expected. Yet he did not entirely give him up.
-
- "Mr. Oldbuck," said the Baronet, "you do Mr. Dousterswivel less than
-justice. He has undertaken to make this discovery by the use of his art,
-and by applying characters descriptive of the Intelligences presiding
-over the planetary hour in which the experiment is to be made; and you
-require him to proceed, under pain of punishment, without allowing him
-the use of any of the preliminaries which he considers as the means of
-procuring success."
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "I did not say that exactly&mdash;I only required him to be present when
-      we make the search, and not to leave us during the interval. I fear he may
-      have some intelligence with the Intelligences you talk of, and that
-      whatever may be now hidden at Saint Ruth may disappear before we get
-      there."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, gentlemens," said Dousterswivel, sullenly, "I will make no
-      objections to go along with you but I tell you beforehand, you shall not
-      find so much of anything as shall be worth your going twenty yard from
-      your own gate."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We will put that to a fair trial," said the Antiquary; and the Baronet's
-      equipage being ordered, Miss Wardour received an intimation from her
-      father, that she was to remain at Monkbarns until his return from an
-      airing. The young lady was somewhat at a loss to reconcile this direction
-      with the communication which she supposed must have passed between Sir
-      Arthur and the Antiquary; but she was compelled, for the present, to
-      remain in a most unpleasant state of suspense.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The journey of the treasure-seekers was melancholy enough. Dousterswivel
-      maintained a sulky silence, brooding at once over disappointed expectation
-      and the risk of punishment; Sir Arthur, whose golden dreams had been
-      gradually fading away, surveyed, in gloomy prospect, the impending
-      difficulties of his situation; and Oldbuck, who perceived that his having
-      so far interfered in his neighbours affairs gave the Baronet a right to
-      expect some actual and efficient assistance, sadly pondered to what extent
-      it would be necessary to draw open the strings of his purse. Thus each
-      being wrapped in his own unpleasant ruminations, there was hardly a word
-      said on either side, until they reached the Four Horse-shoes, by which
-      sign the little inn was distinguished. They procured at this place the
-      necessary assistance and implements for digging, and, while they were busy
-      about these preparations, were suddenly joined by the old beggar, Edie
-      Ochiltree.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The Lord bless your honour," began the Blue-Gown, with the genuine
-      mendicant whine, "and long life to you!&mdash;weel pleased am I to hear
-      that young Captain M'Intyre is like to be on his legs again sune&mdash;Think
-      on your poor bedesman the day."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aha, old true-penny!" replied the Antiquary. "Why, thou hast never come
-      to Monkbarns since thy perils by rock and flood&mdash;here's something for
-      thee to buy snuff,"&mdash;and, fumbling for his purse, he pulled out at
-      the same time the horn which enclosed the coins.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, and there's something to pit it in," said the mendicant, eyeing the
-      ram's horn&mdash;"that loom's an auld acquaintance o' mine. I could take
-      my aith to that sneeshing-mull amang a thousand&mdash;I carried it for
-      mony a year, till I niffered it for this tin ane wi' auld George Glen, the
-      dammer and sinker, when he took a fancy till't doun at Glen-Withershins
-      yonder."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay! indeed?" said Oldbuck;&mdash;"so you exchanged it with a miner? but I
-      presume you never saw it so well filled before"&mdash;and opening it, he
-      showed the coins.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth, ye may swear that, Monkbarns: when it was mine it neer had abune
-      the like o' saxpenny worth o' black rappee in't at ance. But I reckon
-      ye'll be gaun to mak an antic o't, as ye hae dune wi' mony an orra thing
-      besides. Od, I wish anybody wad mak an antic o' me; but mony ane will find
-      worth in rousted bits o' capper and horn and airn, that care unco little
-      about an auld carle o' their ain country and kind."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You may now guess," said Oldbuck, turning to Sir Arthur, "to whose good
-      offices you were indebted the other night. To trace this cornucopia of
-      yours to a miner, is bringing it pretty near a friend of ours&mdash;I hope
-      we shall be as successful this morning, without paying for it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And whare is your honours gaun the day," said the mendicant, "wi' a' your
-      picks and shules?&mdash;Od, this will be some o' your tricks, Monkbarns:
-      ye'll be for whirling some o' the auld monks down by yonder out o' their
-      graves afore they hear the last call&mdash;but, wi' your leave, I'se
-      follow ye at ony rate, and see what ye mak o't."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The party soon arrived at the ruins of the priory, and, having gained the
-      chancel, stood still to consider what course they were to pursue next. The
-      Antiquary, meantime, addressed the adept.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Pray, Mr. Dousterswivel, what is your advice in this matter? Shall we
-      have most likelihood of success if we dig from east to west, or from west
-      to east?&mdash;or will you assist us with your triangular vial of May-dew,
-      or with your divining-rod of witches-hazel?&mdash;or will you have the
-      goodness to supply us with a few thumping blustering terms of art, which,
-      if they fail in our present service, may at least be useful to those who
-      have not the happiness to be bachelors, to still their brawling children
-      withal?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mr. Oldenbuck," said Dousterswivel, doggedly, "I have told you already
-      that you will make no good work at all, and I will find some way of mine
-      own to thank you for your civilities to me&mdash;yes, indeed."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If your honours are thinking of tirling the floor," said old Edie, "and
-      wad but take a puir body's advice, I would begin below that muckle stane
-      that has the man there streekit out upon his back in the midst o't."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have some reason for thinking favourably of that plan myself," said the
-      Baronet.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And I have nothing to say against it," said Oldbuck: "it was not unusual
-      to hide treasure in the tombs of the deceased&mdash;many instances might
-      be quoted of that from Bartholinus and others."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The tombstone, the same beneath which the coins had been found by Sir
-      Arthur and the German, was once more forced aside, and the earth gave easy
-      way to the spade.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's travell'd earth that," said Edie, "it howks gae eithly&mdash;I ken
-      it weel, for ance I wrought a simmer wi' auld Will Winnet, the bedral, and
-      howkit mair graves than ane in my day; but I left him in winter, for it
-      was unco cald wark; and then it cam a green Yule, and the folk died thick
-      and fast&mdash;for ye ken a green Yule makes a fat kirkyard; and I never
-      dowed to bide a hard turn o' wark in my life&mdash;sae aff I gaed, and
-      left Will to delve his last dwellings by himsell for Edie."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The diggers were now so far advanced in their labours as to discover that
-      the sides of the grave which they were clearing out had been originally
-      secured by four walls of freestone, forming a parallelogram, for the
-      reception, probably, of the coffin.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is worth while proceeding in our labours," said the Antiquary to Sir
-      Arthur, "were it but for curiosity's sake. I wonder on whose sepulchre
-      they have bestowed such uncommon pains."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The arms on the shield," said Sir Arthur, and sighed as he spoke it, "are
-      the same with those on Misticot's tower, supposed to have been built by
-      Malcolm the usurper. No man knew where he was buried, and there is an old
-      prophecy in our family, that bodes us no good when his grave shall be
-      discovered."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I wot," said the beggar, "I have often heard that when I was a bairn&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-              If Malcolm the Misticot's grave were fun',
-              The lands of Knockwinnock were lost and won."
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Oldbuck, with his spectacles on his nose, had already knelt down on the
-      monument, and was tracing, partly with his eye, partly with his finger,
-      the mouldered devices upon the effigy of the deceased warrior. "It is the
-      Knockwinnock arms, sure enough," he exclaimed, "quarterly with the coat of
-      Wardour."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Richard, called the red-handed Wardour, married Sybil Knockwinnock, the
-      heiress of the Saxon family, and by that alliance," said Sir Arthur,
-      "brought the castle and estate into the name of Wardour, in the year of
-      God 1150."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Very true, Sir Arthur; and here is the baton-sinister, the mark of
-      illegitimacy, extended diagonally through both coats upon the shield.
-      Where can our eyes have been, that they did not see this curious monument
-      before?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, whare was the through-stane, that it didna come before our een till
-      e'enow?" said Ochiltree; "for I hae ken'd this auld kirk, man and bairn,
-      for saxty lang years, and I neer noticed it afore; and it's nae sic mote
-      neither, but what ane might see it in their parritch."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      All were now induced to tax their memory as to the former state of the
-      ruins in that corner of the chancel, and all agreed in recollecting a
-      considerable pile of rubbish which must have been removed and spread
-      abroad in order to make the tomb visible. Sir Arthur might, indeed, have
-      remembered seeing the monument on the former occasion, but his mind was
-      too much agitated to attend to the circumstance as a novelty.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      While the assistants were engaged in these recollections and discussions,
-      the workmen proceeded with their labour. They had already dug to the depth
-      of nearly five feet, and as the flinging out the soil became more and more
-      difficult, they began at length to tire of the job.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We're down to the till now," said one of them, "and the neer a coffin or
-      onything else is here&mdash;some cunninger chiel's been afore us, I
-      reckon;"&mdash;and the labourer scrambled out of the grave.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hout, lad," said Edie, getting down in his room&mdash;"let me try my hand
-      for an auld bedral;&mdash;ye're gude seekers, but ill finders."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      So soon as he got into the grave, he struck his pike-staff forcibly down;
-      it encountered resistance in its descent, and the beggar exclaimed, like a
-      Scotch schoolboy when he finds anything, "Nae halvers and quarters&mdash;hale
-      o' mine ain and 'nane o' my neighbour's."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Everybody, from the dejected Baronet to the sullen adept, now caught the
-      spirit of curiosity, crowded round the grave, and would have jumped into
-      it, could its space have contained them. The labourers, who had begun to
-      flag in their monotonous and apparently hopeless task, now resumed their
-      tools, and plied them with all the ardour of expectation. Their shovels
-      soon grated upon a hard wooden surface, which, as the earth was cleared
-      away, assumed the distinct form of a chest, but greatly smaller than that
-      of a coffin. Now all hands were at work to heave it out of the grave, and
-      all voices, as it was raised, proclaimed its weight and augured its value.
-      They were not mistaken.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      When the chest or box was placed on the surface, and the lid forced up by
-      a pickaxe, there was displayed first a coarse canvas cover, then a
-      quantity of oakum, and beneath that a number of ingots of silver. A
-      general exclamation hailed a discovery so surprising and unexpected. The
-      Baronet threw his hands and eyes up to heaven, with the silent rapture of
-      one who is delivered from inexpressible distress of mind. Oldbuck, almost
-      unable to credit his eyes, lifted one piece of silver after another. There
-      was neither inscription nor stamp upon them, excepting one, which seemed
-      to be Spanish. He could have no doubt of the purity and great value of the
-      treasure before him. Still, however, removing piece by piece, he examined
-      row by row, expecting to discover that the lower layers were of inferior
-      value; but he could perceive no difference in this respect, and found
-      himself compelled to admit, that Sir Arthur had possessed himself of
-      bullion to the value, perhaps of a thousand pounds sterling. Sir Arthur
-      now promised the assistants a handsome recompense for their trouble, and
-      began to busy himself about the mode of conveying this rich windfall to
-      the Castle of Knockwinnock, when the adept, recovering from his surprise,
-      which had equalled that exhibited by any other individual of the party,
-      twitched his sleeve, and having offered his humble congratulations, turned
-      next to Oldbuck with an air of triumph.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I did tell you, my goot friend, Mr. Oldenbuck, dat I was to seek
-      opportunity to thank you for your civility; now do you not think I have
-      found out vary goot way to return thank?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, Mr. Dousterswivel, do you pretend to have had any hand in our good
-      success?&mdash;you forget you refused us all aid of your science, man; and
-      you are here without your weapons that should have fought the battle which
-      you pretend to have gained in our behalf: you have used neither charm,
-      lamen, sigil, talisman, spell, crystal, pentacle, magic mirror, nor
-      geomantic figure. Where be your periapts, and your abracadabras man? your
-      Mayfern, your vervain,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-           Your toad, your crow, your dragon, and your panther,
-           Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop,
-                Your Lato, Azoch, Zernich, Chibrit, Heautarit,
-           With all your broths, your menstrues, your materials,
-                      Would burst a man to name?&mdash;
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Ah! rare Ben Jonson! long peace to thy ashes for a scourge of the quacks
-      of thy day!&mdash;who expected to see them revive in our own?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The answer of the adept to the Antiquary's tirade we must defer to our
-      next CHAPTER.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0003" id="Alink2HCH0003">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER THIRD.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-   <i>Clause.</i>&mdash;You now shall know the king o' the beggars' treasure:&mdash;
-            Yes&mdash;ere to-morrow you shall find your harbour
-            Here,&mdash;fail me not, for if I live I'll fit you.
-                                       The Beggar's Bush.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The German, determined, it would seem, to assert the vantage-ground on
-      which the discovery had placed him, replied with great pomp and
-      stateliness to the attack of the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Maister Oldenbuck, all dis may be very witty and comedy, but I have
-      nothing to say&mdash;nothing at all&mdash;to people dat will not believe
-      deir own eye-sights. It is vary true dat I ave not any of de things of de
-      art, and it makes de more wonder what I has done dis day. But I would ask
-      of you, mine honoured and goot and generous patron, to put your hand into
-      your right-hand waistcoat pocket, and show me what you shall find dere."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur obeyed his direction, and pulled out the small plate of silver
-      which he had used under the adept's auspices upon the former occasion. "It
-      is very true," said Sir Arthur, looking gravely at the Antiquary; "this is
-      the graduated and calculated sigil by which Mr. Dousterswivel and I
-      regulated our first discovery."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Pshaw! pshaw! my dear friend," said Oldbuck, "you are too wise to believe
-      in the influence of a trumpery crown-piece, beat out thin, and a parcel of
-      scratches upon it. I tell thee, Sir Arthur, that if Dousterswivel had
-      known where to get this treasure himself, you would not have been lord of
-      the least share of it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In troth, please your honour," said Edie, who put in his word on all
-      occasions, "I think, since Mr. Dunkerswivel has had sae muckle merit in
-      discovering a' the gear, the least ye can do is to gie him that o't that's
-      left behind for his labour; for doubtless he that kend where to find sae
-      muckle will hae nae difficulty to find mair."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Dousterswivel's brow grew very dark at this proposal of leaving him to his
-      "ain purchase," as Ochiltree expressed it; but the beggar, drawing him
-      aside, whispered a word or two in his ear, to which he seemed to give
-      serious attention,
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Meanwhile Sir Arthur, his heart warm with his good fortune, said aloud,
-      "Never mind our friend Monkbarns, Mr. Dousterswivel, but come to the
-      Castle to-morrow, and I'll convince you that I am not ungrateful for the
-      hints you have given me about this matter&mdash;and the fifty Fairport
-      dirty notes, as you call them, are heartily at your service. Come, my
-      lads, get the cover of this precious chest fastened up again."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But the cover had in the confusion fallen aside among the rubbish, or the
-      loose earth which had been removed from the grave&mdash;in short, it was
-      not to be seen.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Never mind, my good lads, tie the tarpaulin over it, and get it away to
-      the carriage.&mdash;Monkbarns, will you walk? I must go back your way to
-      take up Miss Wardour."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And, I hope, to take up your dinner also, Sir Arthur, and drink a glass
-      of wine for joy of our happy adventure. Besides, you should write about
-      the business to the Exchequer, in case of any interference on the part of
-      the Crown. As you are lord of the manor, it will be easy to get a deed of
-      gift, should they make any claim. We must talk about it, though."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And I particularly recommend silence to all who are present," said Sir
-      Arthur, looking round. All bowed and professed themselves dumb.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, as to that," said Monkbarns, "recommending secrecy where a dozen of
-      people are acquainted with the circumstance to be concealed, is only
-      putting the truth in masquerade, for the story will be circulated under
-      twenty different shapes. But never mind&mdash;we will state the true one
-      to the Barons, and that is all that is necessary."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I incline to send off an express to-night," said the Baronet.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I can recommend your honour to a sure hand," said Ochiltree; "little
-      Davie Mailsetter, and the butcher's reisting powny."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We will talk over the matter as we go to Monkbarns," said Sir Arthur. "My
-      lads" (to the work-people), "come with me to the Four Horse-shoes, that I
-      may take down all your names.&mdash;Dousterswivel, I won't ask you to go
-      down to Monkbarns, as the laird and you differ so widely in opinion; but
-      do not fail to come to see me to-morrow."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Dousterswivel growled out an answer, in which the words, "duty,"&mdash;"mine
-      honoured patron,"&mdash;and "wait upon Sir Arthurs,"&mdash;were alone
-      distinguishable; and after the Baronet and his friend had left the ruins,
-      followed by the servants and workmen, who, in hope of reward and whisky,
-      joyfully attended their leader, the adept remained in a brown study by the
-      side of the open grave.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Who was it as could have thought this?" he ejaculated unconsciously.
-      "Mine heiligkeit! I have heard of such things, and often spoken of such
-      things&mdash;but, sapperment! I never, thought to see them! And if I had
-      gone but two or dree feet deeper down in the earth&mdash;mein himmel! it
-      had been all mine own&mdash;so much more as I have been muddling about to
-      get from this fool's man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here the German ceased his soliloquy, for, raising his eyes, he
-      encountered those of Edie Ochiltree, who had not followed the rest of the
-      company, but, resting as usual on his pike-staff, had planted himself on
-      the other side of the grave. The features of the old man, naturally shrewd
-      and expressive almost to an appearance of knavery, seemed in this instance
-      so keenly knowing, that even the assurance of Dousterswivel, though a
-      professed adventurer, sunk beneath their glances. But he saw the necessity
-      of an e'claircissement, and, rallying his spirits, instantly began to
-      sound the mendicant on the occurrences of the day. "Goot Maister Edies
-      Ochiltrees"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Edie Ochiltree, nae maister&mdash;your puir bedesman and the king's,"
-      answered the Blue-Gown.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Awell den, goot Edie, what do you think of all dis?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I was just thinking it was very kind (for I darena say very simple) o'
-      your honour to gie thae twa rich gentles, wha hae lands and lairdships,
-      and siller without end, this grand pose o' silver and treasure (three
-      times tried in the fire, as the Scripture expresses it), that might hae
-      made yoursell and ony twa or three honest bodies beside, as happy and
-      content as the day was lang."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed, Edie, mine honest friends, dat is very true; only I did not know,
-      dat is, I was not sure, where to find the gelt myself."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What! was it not by your honours advice and counsel that Monkbarns and
-      the Knight of Knockwinnock came here then?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aha&mdash;yes; but it was by another circumstance. I did not know dat dey
-      would have found de treasure, mine friend; though I did guess, by such a
-      tintamarre, and cough, and sneeze, and groan, among de spirit one other
-      night here, dat there might be treasure and bullion hereabout. Ach, mein
-      himmel! the spirit will hone and groan over his gelt, as if he were a
-      Dutch Burgomaster counting his dollars after a great dinner at the
-      Stadthaus."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And do you really believe the like o' that, Mr. Dusterdeevil!&mdash;a
-      skeelfu' man like you&mdash;hout fie!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mein friend," answered the adept, foreed by circumstances to speak
-      something nearer the truth than he generally used to do, "I believed it no
-      more than you and no man at all, till I did hear them hone and moan and
-      groan myself on de oder night, and till I did this day see de cause, which
-      was an great chest all full of de pure silver from Mexico&mdash;and what
-      would you ave nae think den?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And what wad ye gie to ony ane," said Edie, "that wad help ye to sic
-      another kistfu' o' silver!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Give?&mdash;mein himmel!&mdash;one great big quarter of it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Now if the secret were mine," said the mendicant, "I wad stand out for a
-      half; for you see, though I am but a puir ragged body, and couldna carry
-      silver or gowd to sell for fear o' being taen up, yet I could find mony
-      folk would pass it awa for me at unco muckle easier profit than ye're
-      thinking on."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ach, himmel!&mdash;Mein goot friend, what was it I said?&mdash;I did mean
-      to say you should have de tree quarter for your half, and de one quarter
-      to be my fair half."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, no, Mr. Dusterdeevil, we will divide equally what we find, like
-      brother and brother. Now, look at this board that I just flung into the
-      dark aisle out o' the way, while Monkbarns was glowering ower a' the
-      silver yonder. He's a sharp chiel Monkbarns&mdash;I was glad to keep the
-      like o' this out o' his sight. Ye'll maybe can read the character better
-      than me&mdash;I am nae that book learned, at least I'm no that muckle in
-      practice."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      With this modest declaration of ignorance, Ochiltree brought forth from
-      behind a pillar the cover of the box or chest of treasure, which, when
-      forced from its hinges, had been carelessly flung aside during the ardour
-      of curiosity to ascertain the contents which it concealed, and had been
-      afterwards, as it seems, secreted by the mendicant. There was a word and a
-      number upon the plank, and the beggar made them more distinct by spitting
-      upon his ragged blue handkerchief, and rubbing off the clay by which the
-      inscription was obscured. It was in the ordinary black letter.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Can ye mak ought o't?" said Edie to the adept.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "S," said the philosopher, like a child getting his lesson in the primer&mdash;"S,
-      T, A, R, C, H,&mdash;<i>Starch!</i>&mdash;dat is what de woman-washers put
-      into de neckerchers, and de shirt collar."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Search!" echoed Ochiltree; "na, na, Mr. Dusterdeevil, ye are mair of a
-      conjuror than a clerk&mdash;it's <i>search,</i> man, <i>search</i>&mdash;See,
-      there's the <i>Ye</i> clear and distinct."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aha! I see it now&mdash;it is <i>search&mdash;number one.</i> Mein
-      himmel! then there must be a <i>number two,</i> mein goot friend: for <i>search</i>
-      is what you call to seek and dig, and this is but <i>number one!</i> Mine
-      wort, there is one great big prize in de wheel for us, goot Maister
-      Ochiltree."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aweel, it may be sae; but we canna howk fort enow&mdash;we hae nae
-      shules, for they hae taen them a' awa&mdash;and it's like some o' them
-      will be sent back to fling the earth into the hole, and mak a' things trig
-      again. But an ye'll sit down wi' me a while in the wood, I'se satisfy your
-      honour that ye hae just lighted on the only man in the country that could
-      hae tauld about Malcolm Misticot and his hidden treasure&mdash;But first
-      we'll rub out the letters on this board, for fear it tell tales."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And, by the assistance of his knife, the beggar erased and defaced the
-      characters so as to make them quite unintelligible, and then daubed the
-      board with clay so as to obliterate all traces of the erasure.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Dousterswivel stared at him in ambiguous silence. There was an
-      intelligence and alacrity about all the old man's movements, which
-      indicated a person that could not be easily overreached, and yet (for even
-      rogues acknowledge in some degree the spirit of precedence) our adept felt
-      the disgrace of playing a secondary part, and dividing winnings with so
-      mean an associate. His appetite for gain, however, was sufficiently sharp
-      to overpower his offended pride, and though far more an impostor than a
-      dupe, he was not without a certain degree of personal faith even in the
-      gross superstitions by means of which he imposed upon others. Still, being
-      accustomed to act as a leader on such occasions, he felt humiliated at
-      feeling himself in the situation of a vulture marshalled to his prey by a
-      carrion-crow.&mdash;"Let me, however, hear this story to an end," thought
-      Dousterswivel, "and it will be hard if I do not make mine account in it
-      better as Maister Edie Ochiltrees makes proposes."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The adept, thus transformed into a pupil from a teacher of the mystic art,
-      followed Ochiltree in passive acquiescence to the Prior's Oak&mdash;a
-      spot, as the reader may remember, at a short distance from the ruins,
-      where the German sat down, and silence waited the old man's communication.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Maister Dustandsnivel," said the narrator, "it's an unco while since I
-      heard this business treated anent;&mdash;for the lairds of Knockwinnock,
-      neither Sir Arthur, nor his father, nor his grandfather&mdash;and I mind a
-      wee bit about them a'&mdash;liked to hear it spoken about; nor they dinna
-      like it yet&mdash;But nae matter; ye may be sure it was clattered about in
-      the kitchen, like onything else in a great house, though it were forbidden
-      in the ha'&mdash;and sae I hae heard the circumstance rehearsed by auld
-      servants in the family; and in thir present days, when things o' that
-      auld-warld sort arena keepit in mind round winter fire-sides as they used
-      to be, I question if there's onybody in the country can tell the tale but
-      mysell&mdash;aye out-taken the laird though, for there's a parchment book
-      about it, as I have heard, in the charter-room at Knockwinnock Castle."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, all dat is vary well&mdash;but get you on with your stories, mine
-      goot friend," said Dousterswivel.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aweel, ye see," continued the mendicant, "this was a job in the auld
-      times o' rugging and riving through the hale country, when it was ilka ane
-      for himsell, and God for us a'&mdash;when nae man wanted property if he
-      had strength to take it, or had it langer than he had power to keep it. It
-      was just he ower her, and she ower him, whichever could win upmost, a'
-      through the east country here, and nae doubt through the rest o' Scotland
-      in the self and same manner.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Sae in these days Sir Richard Wardour came into the land, and that was
-      the first o' the name ever was in this country. There's been mony o' them
-      sin' syne; and the maist, like him they ca'd Hell-in-Harness, and the rest
-      o' them, are sleeping down in yon ruins. They were a proud dour set o'
-      men, but unco brave, and aye stood up for the weel o' the country, God
-      sain them a'&mdash;there's no muckle popery in that wish. They ca'd them
-      the Norman Wardours, though they cam frae the south to this country. So
-      this Sir Richard, that they ca'd Red-hand, drew up wi' the auld
-      Knockwinnock o' that day&mdash;for then they were Knockwinnocks of that
-      Ilk&mdash;and wad fain marry his only daughter, that was to have the
-      castle and the land. Laith, laith was the lass&mdash;(Sybil Knockwinnock
-      they ca'd her that tauld me the tale)&mdash;laith, laith was she to gie
-      into the match, for she had fa'en a wee ower thick wi' a cousin o' her ain
-      that her father had some ill-will to; and sae it was, that after she had
-      been married to Sir Richard jimp four months&mdash;for marry him she maun,
-      it's like&mdash;ye'll no hinder her gieing them a present o' a bonny knave
-      bairn. Then there was siccan a ca'-thro', as the like was never seen; and
-      she's be burnt, and he's be slain, was the best words o' their mouths. But
-      it was a' sowdered up again some gait, and the bairn was sent awa, and
-      bred up near the Highlands, and grew up to be a fine wanle fallow, like
-      mony ane that comes o' the wrang side o' the blanket; and Sir Richard wi'
-      the Red-hand, he had a fair offspring o'his ain, and a was lound and quiet
-      till his head was laid in the ground. But then down came Malcolm Misticot&mdash;(Sir
-      Arthur says it should be <i>Misbegot,</i> but they aye ca'd him Misticot
-      that spoke o't lang syne)&mdash;down cam this Malcolm, the love-begot,
-      frae Glen-isla, wi' a string o' lang-legged Highlanders at his heels,
-      that's aye ready for onybody's mischief, and he threeps the castle and
-      lands are his ain as his mother's eldest son, and turns a' the Wardours
-      out to the hill. There was a sort of fighting and blude-spilling about it,
-      for the gentles took different sides; but Malcolm had the uppermost for a
-      lang time, and keepit the Castle of Knockwinnock, and strengthened it, and
-      built that muckle tower that they ca' Misticot's tower to this day."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mine goot friend, old Mr. Edie Ochiltree." interrupted the German, "this
-      is all as one like de long histories of a baron of sixteen quarters in
-      mine countries; but I would as rather hear of de silver and gold."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, ye see," continued the mendicant, "this Malcolm was weel helped by
-      an uncle, a brother o' his father's, that was Prior o' St. Ruth here; and
-      muckle treasure they gathered between them, to secure the succession of
-      their house in the lands of Knockwinnock. Folk said that the monks in thae
-      days had the art of multiplying metals&mdash;at ony rate, they were very
-      rich. At last it came to this, that the young Wardour, that was Red-hand's
-      son, challenged Misticot to fight with him in the lists as they ca'd them&mdash;that's
-      no lists or tailor's runds and selvedges o' claith, but a palin'-thing
-      they set up for them to fight in like game-cocks. Aweel, Misticot was
-      beaten, and at his brother's mercy&mdash;but he wadna touch his life, for
-      the blood of Knockwinnock that was in baith their veins: so Malcolm was
-      compelled to turn a monk, and he died soon after in the priory, of pure
-      despite and vexation. Naebody ever kenn'd whare his uncle the prior earded
-      him, or what he did wi' his gowd and silver, for he stood on the right o'
-      halie kirk, and wad gie nae account to onybody. But the prophecy gat
-      abroad in the country, that whenever Misticot's grave was fund out, the
-      estate of Knockwinnock should be lost and won."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ach! mine goot old friend, Maister Edie, and dat is not so very unlikely,
-      if Sir Arthurs will quarrel wit his goot friends to please Mr. Oldenbuck.&mdash;And
-      so you do tink dat dis golds and silvers belonged to goot Mr. Malcolm
-      Mishdigoat?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth do I, Mr. Dousterdeevil."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And you do believe dat dere is more of dat sorts behind?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "By my certie do I&mdash;How can it be otherwise?&mdash;<i>Search&mdash;No.
-      I</i>&mdash;that is as muckle as to say, search and ye'll find number twa.
-      Besides, yon kist is only silver, and I aye heard that' Misticot's pose
-      had muckle yellow gowd in't."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Den, mine goot friends," said the adept, jumping up hastily, "why do we
-      not set about our little job directly?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "For twa gude reasons," answered the beggar, who quietly kept his sitting
-      posture;&mdash;"first, because, as I said before, we have naething to dig
-      wi', for they hae taen awa the picks and shules; and, secondly, because
-      there will be a wheen idle gowks coming to glower at the hole as lang as
-      it is daylight, and maybe the laird may send somebody to fill it up&mdash;and
-      ony way we wad be catched. But if you will meet me on this place at twal
-      o'clock wi' a dark lantern, I'll hae tools ready, and we'll gang quietly
-      about our job our twa sells, and naebody the wiser for't."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Be&mdash;be&mdash;but, mine goot friend," said Dousterswivel, from whose
-      recollection his former nocturnal adventure was not to be altogether
-      erased, even by the splendid hopes which Edie's narrative held forth, "it
-      is not so goot or so safe, to be about goot Maister Mishdigoat's grabe at
-      dat time of night&mdash;you have forgot how I told you de spirits did hone
-      and mone dere. I do assure you, dere is disturbance dere."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If ye're afraid of ghaists," answered the mendicant, coolly, "I'll do the
-      job mysell, and bring your share o' the siller to ony place you like to
-      appoint."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No&mdash;no&mdash;mine excellent old Mr. Edie,&mdash;too much trouble for
-      you&mdash;I will not have dat&mdash;I will come myself&mdash;and it will
-      be bettermost; for, mine old friend, it was I, Herman Dousterswivel,
-      discovered Maister Mishdigoat's grave when I was looking for a place as to
-      put away some little trumpery coins, just to play one little trick on my
-      dear friend Sir Arthur, for a little sport and pleasures. Yes, I did take
-      some what you call rubbish, and did discover Maister Mishdigoat's own
-      monumentsh&mdash; It's like dat he meant I should be his heirs&mdash;so it
-      would not be civility in me not to come mineself for mine inheritance."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "At twal o'clock, then," said the mendicant, "we meet under this tree.
-      I'll watch for a while, and see that naebody meddles wi' the grave&mdash;it's
-      only saying the laird's forbade it&mdash;then get my bit supper frae
-      Ringan the poinder up by, and leave to sleep in his barn; and I'll slip
-      out at night, and neer be mist."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Do so, mine goot Maister Edie, and I will meet you here on this very
-      place, though all de spirits should moan and sneeze deir very brains out."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      So saying he shook hands with the old man, and with this mutual pledge of
-      fidelity to their appointment, they separated for the present.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0004" id="Alink2HCH0004">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER FOURTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                          &mdash;See thou shake the bags
-                 Of hoarding abbots; angels imprisoned
-                         Set thou at liberty&mdash;
-                Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back,
-                        If gold and silver beckon to come on.
-                                              King John.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The night set in stormy, with wind and occasional showers of rain. "Eh,
-      sirs," said the old mendicant, as he took his place on the sheltered side
-      of the large oak-tree to wait for his associate&mdash;"Eh, sirs, but human
-      nature's a wilful and wilyard thing!&mdash;Is it not an unco lucre o' gain
-      wad bring this Dousterdivel out in a blast o' wind like this, at twal
-      o'clock at night, to thir wild gousty wa's?&mdash;and amna I a bigger fule
-      than himsell to bide here waiting for him?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Having made these sage reflections, he wrapped himself close in his cloak,
-      and fixed his eye on the moon as she waded amid the stormy and dusky
-      clouds, which the wind from time to time drove across her surface. The
-      melancholy and uncertain gleams that she shot from between the passing
-      shadows fell full upon the rifted arches and shafted windows of the old
-      building, which were thus for an instant made distinctly visible in their
-      ruinous state, and anon became again a dark, undistinguished, and shadowy
-      mass. The little lake had its share of these transient beams of light, and
-      showed its waters broken, whitened, and agitated under the passing storm,
-      which, when the clouds swept over the moon, were only distinguished by
-      their sullen and murmuring plash against the beach. The wooded glen
-      repeated, to every successive gust that hurried through its narrow trough,
-      the deep and various groan with which the trees replied to the whirlwind,
-      and the sound sunk again, as the blast passed away, into a faint and
-      passing murmur, resembling the sighs of an exhausted criminal after the
-      first pangs of his torture are over. In these sounds, superstition might
-      have found ample gratification for that State of excited terror which she
-      fears and yet loves. But such feeling is made no part of Ochiltree's
-      composition. His mind wandered back to the scenes of his youth.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have kept guard on the outposts baith in Germany and America," he said
-      to himself, "in mony a waur night than this, and when I ken'd there was
-      maybe a dozen o' their riflemen in the thicket before me. But I was aye
-      gleg at my duty&mdash;naebody ever catched Edie sleeping."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As he muttered thus to himself, he instinctively shouldered his trusty
-      pike-staff, assumed the port of a sentinel on duty, and, as a step
-      advanced towards the tree, called, with a tone assorting better with his
-      military reminiscences than his present state&mdash;"Stand! who goes
-      there?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "De devil, goot Edie," answered Dousterswivel, "why does you speak so loud
-      as a baarenhauter, or what you call a factionary&mdash;I mean a sentinel?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Just because I thought I was a sentinel at that moment," answered the
-      mendicant. "Here's an awsome night! Hae ye brought the lantern and a pock
-      for the siller?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay-ay, mine goot friend," said the German, "here it is&mdash;my pair of
-      what you call saddlebag; one side will be for you, one side for me;&mdash;I
-      will put dem on my horse to save you de trouble, as you are old man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Have you a horse here, then?" asked Edie Ochiltree.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O yes, mine friend&mdash;tied yonder by de stile," responded the adept.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Weel, I hae just ae word to the bargain&mdash;there sall nane o' my gear
-      gang on your beast's back."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What was it as you would be afraid of?" said the foreigner.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Only of losing sight of horse, man, and money," again replied the
-      gaberlunzie.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Does you know dat you make one gentlemans out to be one great rogue?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mony gentlemen," replied Ochiltree, "can make that out for themselves&mdash;
-      But what's the sense of quarrelling?&mdash;If ye want to gang on, gang on&mdash;if
-      no&mdash;I'll gae back to the gude ait-straw in Ringan Aikwood's barn that
-      I left wi' right ill-will e'now, and I'll pit back the pick and shule whar
-      I got them."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Dousterswivel deliberated a moment, whether, by suffering Edie to depart,
-      he might not secure the whole of the expected wealth for his own exclusive
-      use. But the want of digging implements, the uncertainty whether, if he
-      had them, he could clear out the grave to a sufficient depth without
-      assistance, and, above all, the reluctance which he felt, owing to the
-      experience of the former night, to venture alone on the terrors of
-      Misticot's grave, satisfied him the attempt would be hazardous.
-      Endeavouring, therefore, to assume his usual cajoling tone, though
-      internally incensed, he begged "his goot friend Maister Edie Ochiltrees
-      would lead the way, and assured him of his acquiescence in all such an
-      excellent friend could propose."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aweel, aweel, then," said Edie, "tak gude care o' your feet amang the
-      lang grass and the loose stones. I wish we may get the light keepit in
-      neist, wi' this fearsome wind&mdash;but there's a blink o' moonlight at
-      times."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Thus saying, old Edie, closely accompanied by the adept, led the way
-      towards the ruins, but presently made a full halt in front of them.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ye're a learned man, Mr. Dousterdeevil, and ken muckle o' the marvellous
-      works o' nature&mdash;Now, will ye tell me ae thing?&mdash;D'ye believe in
-      ghaists and spirits that walk the earth?&mdash;d'ye believe in them, ay or
-      no?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Now, goot Mr. Edie," whispered Dousterswivel, in an expostulatory tone of
-      voice, "is this a times or a places for such a questions?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed is it, baith the tane and the t'other, Mr. Dustanshovel; for I
-      maun fairly tell ye, there's reports that auld Misticot walks. Now this
-      wad be an uncanny night to meet him in, and wha kens if he wad be ower
-      weel pleased wi' our purpose of visiting his pose?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "<i>Alle guten Geister</i>"&mdash;muttered the adept, the rest of the
-      conjuration being lost in a tremulous warble of his voice,&mdash;"I do
-      desires you not to speak so, Mr. Edie; for, from all I heard dat one other
-      night, I do much believes"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Now I," said Ochiltree, entering the chancel, and flinging abroad his arm
-      with an air of defiance, "I wadna gie the crack o' my thumb for him were
-      he to appear at this moment: he's but a disembodied spirit, as we are
-      embodied anes."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "For the lofe of heavens," said Dousterswivel, "say nothing at all neither
-      about somebodies or nobodies!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aweel," said the beggar (expanding the shade of the lantern), "here's the
-      stane, and, spirit or no spirit, I'se be a wee bit deeper in the grave;"
-      and he jumped into the place from which the precious chest had that
-      morning been removed. After striking a few strokes, he tired, or affected
-      to tire, and said to his companion, "I'm auld and failed now, and canna
-      keep at it&mdash;time about's fair play, neighbour; ye maun get in and tak
-      the shule a bit, and shule out the loose earth, and then I'll tak turn
-      about wi' you."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Dousterswivel accordingly took the place which the beggar had evacuated,
-      and toiled with all the zeal that awakened avarice, mingled with the
-      anxious wish to finish the undertaking and leave the place as soon as
-      possible, could inspire in a mind at once greedy, suspicious, and
-      timorous.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Edie, standing much at his ease by the side of the hole, contented himself
-      with exhorting his associate to labour hard. "My certie! few ever wrought
-      for siccan a day's wage; an it be but&mdash;say the tenth part o' the size
-      o' the kist, No. I., it will double its value, being filled wi' gowd
-      instead of silver. Od, ye work as if ye had been bred to pick and shule&mdash;ye
-      could win your round half-crown ilka day. Tak care o' your taes wi' that
-      stane!" giving a kick to a large one which the adept had heaved out with
-      difficulty, and which Edie pushed back again to the great annoyance of his
-      associate's shins.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Thus exhorted by the mendicant, Dousterswivel struggled and laboured among
-      the stones and stiff clay, toiling like a horse, and internally
-      blaspheming in German. When such an unhallowed syllable escaped his lips,
-      Edie changed his battery upon him.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O dinna swear! dinna swear! Wha kens whals listening!&mdash;Eh! gude
-      guide us, what's yon!&mdash;Hout, it's just a branch of ivy flightering
-      awa frae the wa'; when the moon was in, it lookit unco like a dead man's
-      arm wi' a taper in't&mdash;I thought it was Misticot himsell. But never
-      mind, work you away&mdash;fling the earth weel up by out o' the gate&mdash;Od,
-      if ye're no as clean a worker at a grave as Win Winnet himsell! What gars
-      ye stop now?&mdash;ye're just at the very bit for a chance."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Stop!" said the German, in a tone of anger and disappointment, "why, I am
-      down at de rocks dat de cursed ruins (God forgife me!) is founded upon."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Weel," said the beggar, "that's the likeliest bit of ony. It will be but
-      a muckle through-stane laid doun to kiver the gowd&mdash;tak the pick
-      till't, and pit mair strength, man&mdash;ae gude down-right devvel will
-      split it, I'se warrant ye&mdash;Ay, that will do Od, he comes on wi'
-      Wallace's straiks!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In fact, the adept, moved by Edie's exhortations, fetched two or three
-      desperate blows, and succeeded in breaking, not indeed that against which
-      he struck, which, as he had already conjectured, was the solid rock, but
-      the implement which he wielded, jarring at the same time his arms up to
-      the shoulder-blades.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hurra, boys!&mdash;there goes Ringan's pick-axe!" cried Edie "it's a
-      shame o' the Fairport folk to sell siccan frail gear. Try the shule&mdash;at
-      it again, Mr. Dusterdeevil."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The adept, without reply, scrambled out of the pit, which was now about
-      six feet deep, and addressed his associate in a voice that trembled with
-      anger. "Does you know, Mr. Edies Ochiltrees, who it is you put off your
-      gibes and your jests upon?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Brawly, Mr. Dusterdeevil&mdash;brawly do I ken ye, and has done mony a
-      day; but there's nae jesting in the case, for I am wearying to see ae our
-      treasures; we should hae had baith ends o' the pockmanky filled by this
-      time&mdash;I hope it's bowk eneugh to haud a' the gear?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Look you, you base old person," said the incensed philosopher, "if you do
-      put another jest upon me, I will cleave your skull-piece with this
-      shovels!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And whare wad my hands and my pike-staff be a' the time?" replied Edie,
-      in a tone that indicated no apprehension. "Hout, tout, Maister
-      Dusterdeevil, I haena lived sae lang in the warld neither, to be shuled
-      out o't that gate. What ails ye to be cankered, man, wi' your friends?
-      I'll wager I'll find out the treasure in a minute;" and he jumped into the
-      pit, and took up the spade.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I do swear to you," said the adept, whose suspicions were now fully
-      awake, "that if you have played me one big trick, I will give you one big
-      beating, Mr. Edies."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hear till him now!" said Ochiltree, "he kens how to gar folk find out the
-      gear&mdash;Od, I'm thinking he's been drilled that way himsell some day."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      At this insinuation, which alluded obviously to the former scene betwixt
-      himself and Sir Arthur, the philosopher lost the slender remnant of
-      patience he had left, and being of violent passions, heaved up the
-      truncheon of the broken mattock to discharge it upon the old man's head.
-      The blow would in all probability have been fatal, had not he at whom it
-      was aimed exclaimed in a stern and firm voice, "Shame to ye, man!&mdash;do
-      ye think Heaven or earth will suffer ye to murder an auld man that might
-      be your father?&mdash;Look behind ye, man!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Dousterswivel turned instinctively, and beheld, to his utter astonishment,
-      a tall dark figure standing close behind him. The apparition gave him no
-      time to proceed by exorcism or otherwise, but having instantly recourse to
-      the <i>voie de fait,</i> took measure of the adept's shoulders three or
-      four times with blows so substantial, that he fell under the weight of
-      them, and remained senseless for some minutes between fear and
-      stupefaction. When he came to himself, he was alone in the ruined chancel,
-      lying upon the soft and damp earth which had been thrown out of Misticot's
-      grave. He raised himself with a confused sensation of anger, pain, and
-      terror, and it was not until he had sat upright for some minutes, that he
-      could arrange his ideas sufficiently to recollect how he came there, or
-      with what purpose. As his recollection returned, he could have little
-      doubt that the bait held out to him by Ochiltree, to bring him to that
-      solitary spot, the sarcasms by which he had provoked him into a quarrel,
-      and the ready assistance which he had at hand for terminating it in the
-      manner in which it had ended, were all parts of a concerted plan to bring
-      disgrace and damage on Herman Dousterswivel. He could hardly suppose that
-      he was indebted for the fatigue, anxiety, and beating which he had
-      undergone, purely to the malice of Edie Ochiltree singly, but concluded
-      that the mendicant had acted a part assigned to him by some person of
-      greater importance. His suspicions hesitated between Oldbuck and Sir
-      Arthur Wardour. The former had been at no pains to conceal a marked
-      dislike of him&mdash;but the latter he had deeply injured; and although he
-      judged that Sir Arthur did not know the extent of his wrongs towards him,
-      yet it was easy to suppose he had gathered enough of the truth to make him
-      desirous of revenge. Ochiltree had alluded to at least one circumstance
-      which the adept had every reason to suppose was private between Sir Arthur
-      and himself, and therefore must have been learned from the former. The
-      language of Oldbuck also intimated a conviction of his knavery, which Sir
-      Arthur heard without making any animated defence. Lastly, the way in which
-      Dousterswivel supposed the Baronet to have exercised his revenge, was not
-      inconsistent with the practice of other countries with which the adept was
-      better acquainted than with those of North Britain. With him, as with many
-      bad men, to suspect an injury, and to nourish the purpose of revenge, was
-      one and the same movement. And before Dousterswivel had fairly recovered
-      his legs, he had mentally sworn the ruin of his benefactor, which,
-      unfortunately, he possessed too much the power of accelerating.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But although a purpose of revenge floated through his brain, it was no
-      time to indulge such speculations. The hour, the place, his own situation,
-      and perhaps the presence or near neighbourhood of his assailants, made
-      self-preservation the adept's first object. The lantern had been thrown
-      down and extinguished in the scuffle. The wind, which formerly howled so
-      loudly through the aisles of the ruin, had now greatly fallen, lulled by
-      the rain, which was descending very fast. The moon, from the same cause,
-      was totally obscured, and though Dousterswivel had some experience of the
-      ruins, and knew that he must endeavour to regain the eastern door of the
-      chancel, yet the confusion of his ideas was such, that he hesitated for
-      some time ere he could ascertain in what direction he was to seek it. In
-      this perplexity, the suggestions of superstition, taking the advantage of
-      darkness and his evil conscience, began again to present themselves to his
-      disturbed imagination. "But bah!" quoth he valiantly to himself, "it is
-      all nonsense all one part of de damn big trick and imposture. Devil! that
-      one thick-skulled Scotch Baronet, as I have led by the nose for five year,
-      should cheat Herman Dousterswivel!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As he had come to this conclusion, an incident occurred which tended
-      greatly to shake the grounds on which he had adopted it. Amid the
-      melancholy <i>sough</i> of the dying wind, and the plash of the rain-drops
-      on leaves and stones, arose, and apparently at no great distance from the
-      listener, a strain of vocal music so sad and solemn, as if the departed
-      spirits of the churchmen who had once inhabited these deserted ruins were
-      mourning the solitude and desolation to which their hallowed precincts had
-      been abandoned. Dousterswivel, who had now got upon his feet, and was
-      groping around the wall of the chancel, stood rooted to the ground on the
-      occurrence of this new phenomenon. Each faculty of his soul seemed for the
-      moment concentred in the sense of hearing, and all rushed back with the
-      unanimous information, that the deep, wild, and prolonged chant which he
-      now heard, was the appropriate music of one of the most solemn dirges of
-      the Church of Rome. Why performed in such a solitude, and by what class of
-      choristers, were questions which the terrified imagination of the adept,
-      stirred with all the German superstitions of nixies, oak-kings,
-      wer-wolves, hobgoblins, black spirits and white, blue spirits and grey,
-      durst not even attempt to solve.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Another of his senses was soon engaged in the investigation. At the
-      extremity of one of the transepts of the church, at the bottom of a few
-      descending steps, was a small iron-grated door, opening, as far as he
-      recollected, to a sort of low vault or sacristy. As he cast his eye in the
-      direction of the sound, he observed a strong reflection of red light
-      glimmering through these bars, and against the steps which descended to
-      them. Dousterswivel stood a moment uncertain what to do; then, suddenly
-      forming a desperate resolution, he moved down the aisle to the place from
-      which the light proceeded.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Aimage-0005" id="Aimage-0005">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
-    </p>
-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/pb052.jpg" alt="The Funeral of the Countess " width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
-      Fortified with the sign of the cross, and as many exorcisms as his memory
-      could recover, he advanced to the grate, from which, unseen, he could see
-      what passed in the interior of the vault. As he approached with timid and
-      uncertain steps, the chant, after one or two wild and prolonged cadences,
-      died away into profound silence. The grate, when he reached it, presented
-      a singular spectacle in the interior of the sacristy. An open grave, with
-      four tall flambeaus, each about six feet high, placed at the four corners&mdash;a
-      bier, having a corpse in its shroud, the arms folded upon the breast,
-      rested upon tressels at one side of the grave, as if ready to be interred&mdash;a
-      priest, dressed in his cope and stole, held open the service book&mdash;another
-      churchman in his vestments bore a holy-water sprinkler, and two boys in
-      white surplices held censers with incense&mdash;a man, of a figure once
-      tall and commanding, but now bent with age or infirmity, stood alone and
-      nearest to the coffin, attired in deep mourning&mdash;such were the most
-      prominent figures of the group. At a little distance were two or three
-      persons of both sexes, attired in long mourning hoods and cloaks; and five
-      or six others in the same lugubrious dress, still farther removed from the
-      body, around the walls of the vault, stood ranged in motionless order,
-      each bearing in his hand a huge torch of black wax. The smoky light from
-      so many flambeaus, by the red and indistinct atmosphere which it spread
-      around, gave a hazy, dubious, and as it were phantom-like appearance to
-      the outlines of this singular apparition, The voice of the priest&mdash;loud,
-      clear, and sonorous&mdash;now recited, from the breviary which he held in
-      his hand, those solemn words which the ritual of the Catholic church has
-      consecrated to the rendering of dust to dust. Meanwhile, Dousterswivel,
-      the place, the hour, and the surprise considered, still remained uncertain
-      whether what he saw was substantial, or an unearthly representation of the
-      rites to which in former times these walls were familiar, but which are
-      now rarely practised in Protestant countries, and almost never in
-      Scotland. He was uncertain whether to abide the conclusion of the
-      ceremony, or to endeavour to regain the chancel, when a change in his
-      position made him visible through the grate to one of the attendant
-      mourners. The person who first espied him indicated his discovery to the
-      individual who stood apart and nearest the coffin, by a sign, and upon his
-      making a sign in reply, two of the group detached themselves, and, gliding
-      along with noiseless steps, as if fearing to disturb the service, unlocked
-      and opened the grate which separated them from the adept. Each took him by
-      an arm, and exerting a degree of force, which he would have been incapable
-      of resisting had his fear permitted him to attempt opposition, they placed
-      him on the ground in the chancel, and sat down, one on each side of him,
-      as if to detain him. Satisfied he was in the power of mortals like
-      himself, the adept would have put some questions to them; but while one
-      pointed to the vault, from which the sound of the priest's voice was
-      distinctly heard, the other placed his finger upon his lips in token of
-      silence, a hint which the German thought it most prudent to obey. And thus
-      they detained him until a loud Alleluia, pealing through the deserted
-      arches of St. Ruth, closed the singular ceremony which it had been his
-      fortune to witness.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      When the hymn had died away with all its echoes, the voice of one of the
-      sable personages under whose guard the adept had remained, said, in a
-      familiar tone and dialect, "Dear sirs, Mr. Dousterswivel, is this you?
-      could not ye have let us ken an ye had wussed till hae been present at the
-      ceremony?&mdash;My lord couldna tak it weel your coming blinking and
-      jinking in, in that fashion."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In de name of all dat is gootness, tell me what you are?" interrupted the
-      German in his turn.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What I am? why, wha should I be but Ringan Aikwood, the Knockwinnock
-      poinder?&mdash;and what are ye doing here at this time o' night, unless ye
-      were come to attend the leddy's burial?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I do declare to you, mine goot Poinder Aikwood," said the German, raising
-      himself up, "that I have been this vary nights murdered, robbed, and put
-      in fears of my life."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Robbed! wha wad do sic a deed here?&mdash;Murdered! od ye speak pretty
-      blithe for a murdered man&mdash;Put in fear! what put you in fear, Mr.
-      Dousterswivel?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I will tell you, Maister Poinder Aikwood Ringan, just dat old miscreant
-      dog villain blue-gown, as you call Edie Ochiltrees."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I'll neer believe that," answered Ringan;&mdash;"Edie was ken'd to me,
-      and my father before me, for a true, loyal, and sooth-fast man; and, mair
-      by token, he's sleeping up yonder in our barn, and has been since ten at
-      e'en&mdash;Sae touch ye wha liket, Mr. Dousterswivel, and whether onybody
-      touched ye or no, I'm sure Edie's sackless."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Maister Ringan Aikwood Poinders, I do not know what you call sackless,&mdash;
-      but let alone all de oils and de soot dat you say he has, and I will tell
-      you I was dis night robbed of fifty pounds by your oil and sooty friend,
-      Edies Ochiltree; and he is no more in your barn even now dan I ever shall
-      be in de kingdom of heafen."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Weel, sir, if ye will gae up wi' me, as the burial company has dispersed,
-      we'se mak ye down a bed at the lodge, and we'se see if Edie's at the barn.
-      There was twa wild-looking chaps left the auld kirk when we were coming up
-      wi' the corpse, that's certain; and the priest, wha likes ill that ony
-      heretics should look on at our church ceremonies, sent twa o' the riding
-      saulies after them; sae we'll hear a' about it frae them."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Thus speaking, the kindly apparition, with the assistance of the mute
-      personage, who was his son, disencumbered himself of his cloak, and
-      prepared to escort Dousterswivel to the place of that rest which the adept
-      so much needed.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I will apply to the magistrates to-morrow," said the adept; "oder, I will
-      have de law put in force against all the peoples."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      While he thus muttered vengeance against the cause of his injury, he
-      tottered from among the ruins, supporting himself on Ringan and his son,
-      whose assistance his state of weakness rendered very necessary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      When they were clear of the priory, and had gained the little meadow in
-      which it stands, Dousterswivel could perceive the torches which had caused
-      him so much alarm issuing in irregular procession from the ruins, and
-      glancing their light, like that of the <i>ignis fatuus,</i> on the banks
-      of the lake. After moving along the path for some short space with a
-      fluctuating and irregular motion, the lights were at once extinguished.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We aye put out the torches at the Halie-cross Well on sic occasions,"
-      said the forester to his guest. And accordingly no farther visible sign of
-      the procession offered itself to Dousterswivel, although his ear could
-      catch the distant and decreasing echo of horses' hoofs in the direction
-      towards which the mourners had bent their course.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0005" id="Alink2HCH0005">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER FIFTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                       O weel may the boatie row
-                       And better may she speed,
-                      And weel may the boatie row
-                    That earns the bairnies' bread!
-                   The boatie rows, the boatie rows,
-                       The boatie rows fu' weel,
-                 And lightsome be their life that bear
-                       The merlin and the creel!
-                                        Old Ballad.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      We must now introduce our reader to the interior of the fisher's cottage
-      mentioned in CHAPTER eleventh of this edifying history. I wish I could say
-      that its inside was well arranged, decently furnished, or tolerably clean.
-      On the contrary, I am compelled to admit, there was confusion,&mdash;
-      there was dilapidation,&mdash;there was dirt good store. Yet, with all
-      this, there was about the inmates, Luckie Mucklebackit and her family, an
-      appearance of ease, plenty, and comfort, that seemed to warrant their old
-      sluttish proverb, "The clartier the cosier." A huge fire, though the
-      season was summer, occupied the hearth, and served at once for affording
-      light, heat, and the means of preparing food. The fishing had been
-      successful, and the family, with customary improvidence, had, since
-      unlading the cargo, continued an unremitting operation of broiling and
-      frying that part of the produce reserved for home consumption, and the
-      bones and fragments lay on the wooden trenchers, mingled with morsels of
-      broken bannocks and shattered mugs of half-drunk beer. The stout and
-      athletic form of Maggie herself, bustling here and there among a pack of
-      half-grown girls and younger children, of whom she chucked one now here
-      and another now there, with an exclamation of "Get out o' the gate, ye
-      little sorrow!" was strongly contrasted with the passive and
-      half-stupified look and manner of her husband's mother, a woman advanced
-      to the last stage of human life, who was seated in her wonted chair close
-      by the fire, the warmth of which she coveted, yet hardly seemed to be
-      sensible of&mdash;now muttering to herself, now smiling vacantly to the
-      children as they pulled the strings of her <i>toy</i> or close cap, or
-      twitched her blue checked apron. With her distaff in her bosom, and her
-      spindle in her hand, she plied lazily and mechanically the old-fashioned
-      Scottish thrift, according to the old-fashioned Scottish manner. The
-      younger children, crawling among the feet of the elder, watched the
-      progress of grannies spindle as it twisted, and now and then ventured to
-      interrupt its progress as it danced upon the floor in those vagaries which
-      the more regulated spinning-wheel has now so universally superseded, that
-      even the fated Princess in the fairy tale might roam through all Scotland
-      without the risk of piercing her hand with a spindle, and dying of the
-      wound. Late as the hour was (and it was long past midnight), the whole
-      family were still on foot, and far from proposing to go to bed; the dame
-      was still busy broiling car-cakes on the girdle, and the elder girl, the
-      half-naked mermaid elsewhere commemorated, was preparing a pile of
-      Findhorn haddocks (that is, haddocks smoked with green wood), to be eaten
-      along with these relishing provisions.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      While they were thus employed, a slight tap at the door, accompanied with
-      the question, "Are ye up yet, sirs?" announced a visitor. The answer, "Ay,
-      ay,&mdash;come your ways ben, hinny," occasioned the lifting of the latch,
-      and Jenny Rintherout, the female domestic of our Antiquary, made her
-      appearance.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, ay," exclaimed the mistress of the family&mdash;"Hegh, sirs! can this
-      be you, Jenny?&mdash;a sight o' you's gude for sair een, lass."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O woman, we've been sae ta'en up wi' Captain Hector's wound up by, that I
-      havena had my fit out ower the door this fortnight; but he's better now,
-      and auld Caxon sleeps in his room in case he wanted onything. Sae, as soon
-      as our auld folk gaed to bed, I e'en snodded my head up a bit, and left
-      the house-door on the latch, in case onybody should be wanting in or out
-      while I was awa, and just cam down the gate to see an there was ony cracks
-      amang ye."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, ay," answered Luckie Mucklebackit, "I see you hae gotten a' your
-      braws on; ye're looking about for Steenie now&mdash;but he's no at hame
-      the night; and ye'll no do for Steenie, lass&mdash;a feckless thing like
-      you's no fit to mainteen a man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Steenie will no do for me," retorted Jenny, with a toss of her head that
-      might have become a higher-born damsel; "I maun hae a man that can
-      mainteen his wife."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou ay, hinny&mdash;thae's your landward and burrows-town notions. My
-      certie!&mdash;fisherwives ken better&mdash;they keep the man, and keep the
-      house, and keep the siller too, lass."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A wheen poor drudges ye are," answered the nymph of the land to the nymph
-      of the sea. "As sune as the keel o' the coble touches the sand, deil a bit
-      mair will the lazy fisher loons work, but the wives maun kilt their coats,
-      and wade into the surf to tak the fish ashore. And then the man casts aff
-      the wat and puts on the dry, and sits down wi' his pipe and his gill-stoup
-      ahint the ingle, like ony auld houdie, and neer a turn will he do till the
-      coble's afloat again! And the wife she maun get the scull on her back, and
-      awa wi' the fish to the next burrows-town, and scauld and ban wi'ilka wife
-      that will scauld and ban wi'her till it's sauld&mdash;and that's the gait
-      fisher-wives live, puir slaving bodies."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Slaves?&mdash;gae wa', lass!&mdash;ca' the head o' the house slaves?
-      little ye ken about it, lass. Show me a word my Saunders daur speak, or a
-      turn he daur do about the house, without it be just to tak his meat, and
-      his drink, and his diversion, like ony o' the weans. He has mair sense
-      than to ca' anything about the bigging his ain, frae the rooftree down to
-      a crackit trencher on the bink. He kens weel eneugh wha feeds him, and
-      cleeds him, and keeps a' tight, thack and rape, when his coble is jowing
-      awa in the Firth, puir fallow. Na, na, lass!&mdash;them that sell the
-      goods guide the purse&mdash;them that guide the purse rule the house. Show
-      me ane o' yer bits o' farmer-bodies that wad let their wife drive the
-      stock to the market, and ca' in the debts. Na, na."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aweel, aweel, Maggie, ilka land has its ain lauch&mdash;But where's
-      Steenie the night, when a's come and gane? And where's the gudeman?"*
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * Note G. Gynecocracy.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I hae putten the gudeman to his bed, for he was e'en sair forfain; and
-      Steenie's awa out about some barns-breaking wi' the auld gaberlunzie, Edie
-      Ochiltree: they'll be in sune, and ye can sit doun."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth, gudewife" (taking a seat), "I haena that muckle time to stop&mdash;but
-      I maun tell ye about the news. Yell hae heard o' the muckle kist o' gowd
-      that Sir Arthur has fund down by at St. Ruth?&mdash;He'll be grander than
-      ever now&mdash;he'll no can haud down his head to sneeze, for fear o'
-      seeing his shoon."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou ay&mdash;a' the country's heard o' that; but auld Edie says that they
-      ca' it ten times mair than ever was o't, and he saw them howk it up. Od,
-      it would be lang or a puir body that needed it got sic a windfa'."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, that's sure eneugh.&mdash;And yell hae heard o' the Countess o'
-      Glenallan being dead and lying in state, and how she's to be buried at St.
-      Ruth's as this night fa's, wi' torch-light; and a' the popist servants,
-      and Ringan Aikwood, that's a papist too, are to be there, and it will be
-      the grandest show ever was seen."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth, hinny," answered the Nereid, "if they let naebody but papists come
-      there, it'll no be muckle o' a show in this country, for the auld harlot,
-      as honest Mr. Blattergowl ca's her, has few that drink o' her cup o'
-      enchantments in this corner o' our chosen lands.&mdash;But what can ail
-      them to bury the auld carlin (a rudas wife she was) in the night-time?&mdash;I
-      dare say our gudemither will ken."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here she exalted her voice, and exclaimed twice or thrice, "Gudemither!
-      gudemither!" but, lost in the apathy of age and deafness, the aged sibyl
-      she addressed continued plying her spindle without understanding the
-      appeal made to her.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Speak to your grandmither, Jenny&mdash;Od, I wad rather hail the coble
-      half a mile aff, and the nor-wast wind whistling again in my teeth."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Grannie," said the little mermaid, in a voice to which the old woman was
-      better accustomed, "minnie wants to ken what for the Glenallan folk aye
-      bury by candle-light in the ruing of St. Ruth!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The old woman paused in the act of twirling the spindle, turned round to
-      the rest of the party, lifted her withered, trembling, and clay-coloured
-      hand, raised up her ashen-hued and wrinkled face, which the quick motion
-      of two light-blue eyes chiefly distinguished from the visage of a corpse,
-      and, as if catching at any touch of association with the living world,
-      answered, "What gars the Glenallan family inter their dead by torchlight,
-      said the lassie?&mdash;Is there a Glenallan dead e'en now?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We might be a' dead and buried too," said Maggie, "for onything ye wad
-      ken about it;"&mdash;and then, raising her voice to the stretch of her
-      mother-in-law's comprehension, she added,
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's the auld Countess, gudemither."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And is she ca'd hame then at last?" said the old woman, in a voice that
-      seemed to be agitated with much more feeling than belonged to her extreme
-      old age, and the general indifference and apathy of her manner&mdash;"is
-      she then called to her last account after her lang race o' pride and
-      power?&mdash;O God, forgie her!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But minnie was asking ye," resumed the lesser querist, "what for the
-      Glenallan family aye bury their dead by torch-light?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "They hae aye dune sae," said the grandmother, "since the time the Great
-      Earl fell in the sair battle o' the Harlaw, when they say the coronach was
-      cried in ae day from the mouth of the Tay to the Buck of the Cabrach, that
-      ye wad hae heard nae other sound but that of lamentation for the great
-      folks that had fa'en fighting against Donald of the Isles. But the Great
-      Earl's mither was living&mdash;they were a doughty and a dour race, the
-      women o' the house o' Glenallan&mdash;and she wad hae nae coronach cried
-      for her son, but had him laid in the silence o' midnight in his place o'
-      rest, without either drinking the dirge, or crying the lament. She said he
-      had killed enow that day he died, for the widows and daughters o' the
-      Highlanders he had slain to cry the coronach for them they had lost, and
-      for her son too; and sae she laid him in his gave wi' dry eyes, and
-      without a groan or a wail. And it was thought a proud word o' the family,
-      and they aye stickit by it&mdash;and the mair in the latter times, because
-      in the night-time they had mair freedom to perform their popish ceremonies
-      by darkness and in secrecy than in the daylight&mdash;at least that was
-      the case in my time; they wad hae been disturbed in the day-time baith by
-      the law and the commons of Fairport&mdash;they may be owerlooked now, as I
-      have heard: the warlds changed&mdash;I whiles hardly ken whether I am
-      standing or sitting, or dead or living."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And looking round the fire, as if in a state of unconscious uncertainty of
-      which she complained, old Elspeth relapsed into her habitual and
-      mechanical occupation of twirling the spindle.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Eh, sirs!" said Jenny Rintherout, under her breath to her gossip, "it's
-      awsome to hear your gudemither break out in that gait&mdash;it's like the
-      dead speaking to the living."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ye're no that far wrang, lass; she minds naething o' what passes the day&mdash;but
-      set her on auld tales, and she can speak like a prent buke. She kens mair
-      about the Glenallan family than maist folk&mdash;the gudeman's father was
-      their fisher mony a day. Ye maun ken the papists make a great point o'
-      eating fish&mdash;it's nae bad part o' their religion that, whatever the
-      rest is&mdash;I could aye sell the best o' fish at the best o' prices for
-      the Countess's ain table, grace be wi' her! especially on a Friday&mdash;But
-      see as our gudemither's hands and lips are ganging&mdash;now it's working
-      in her head like barm&mdash;she'll speak eneugh the night. Whiles she'll
-      no speak a word in a week, unless it be to the bits o' bairns."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hegh, Mrs. Mucklebackit, she's an awsome wife!" said Jenny in reply.
-      "D'ye think she's a'thegither right? Folk say she downa gang to the kirk,
-      or speak to the minister, and that she was ance a papist but since her
-      gudeman's been dead, naebody kens what she is. D'ye think yoursell that
-      she's no uncanny?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Canny, ye silly tawpie! think ye ae auld wife's less canny than anither?
-      unless it be Alison Breck&mdash;I really couldna in conscience swear for
-      her; I have kent the boxes she set fill'd wi' partans, when"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Whisht, whisht, Maggie," whispered Jenny&mdash;"your gudemither's gaun to
-      speak again."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Wasna there some ane o' ye said," asked the old sibyl, "or did I dream,
-      or was it revealed to me, that Joscelind, Lady Glenallan, is dead, an'
-      buried this night?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes, gudemither," screamed the daughter-in-law, "it's e'en sae."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And e'en sae let it be," said old Elspeth; "she's made mony a sair heart
-      in her day&mdash;ay, e'en her ain son's&mdash;is he living yet?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, he's living yet; but how lang he'll live&mdash;however, dinna ye mind
-      his coming and asking after you in the spring, and leaving siller?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It may be sae, Magge&mdash;I dinna mind it&mdash;but a handsome gentleman
-      he was, and his father before him. Eh! if his father had lived, they might
-      hae been happy folk! But he was gane, and the lady carried it in&mdash;ower
-      and out-ower wi' her son, and garr'd him trow the thing he never suld hae
-      trowed, and do the thing he has repented a' his life, and will repent
-      still, were his life as lang as this lang and wearisome ane o' mine."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O what was it, grannie?"&mdash;and "What was it, gudemither?"&mdash;and
-      "What was it, Luckie Elspeth?" asked the children, the mother, and the
-      visitor, in one breath.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Never ask what it was," answered the old sibyl, "but pray to God that ye
-      arena left to the pride and wilfu'ness o' your ain hearts: they may be as
-      powerful in a cabin as in a castle&mdash;I can bear a sad witness to that.
-      O that weary and fearfu' night! will it never gang out o' my auld head!&mdash;Eh!
-      to see her lying on the floor wi' her lang hair dreeping wi' the salt
-      water!&mdash;Heaven will avenge on a' that had to do wi't. Sirs! is my son
-      out wi' the coble this windy e'en?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, na, mither&mdash;nae coble can keep the sea this wind; he's sleeping
-      in his bed out-ower yonder ahint the hallan."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Is Steenie out at sea then?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, grannie&mdash;Steenie's awa out wi' auld Edie Ochiltree, the
-      gaberlunzie; maybe they'll be gaun to see the burial."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "That canna be," said the mother of the family; "we kent naething o't till
-      Jock Rand cam in, and tauld us the Aikwoods had warning to attend&mdash;
-      they keep thae things unco private&mdash;and they were to bring the corpse
-      a' the way frae the Castle, ten miles off, under cloud o' night. She has
-      lain in state this ten days at Glenallan House, in a grand chamber a' hung
-      wi' black, and lighted wi' wax cannle."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "God assoilzie her!" ejaculated old Elspeth, her head apparently still
-      occupied by the event of the Countess's death; "she was a hard-hearted
-      woman, but she's gaen to account for it a', and His mercy is infinite&mdash;
-      God grant she may find it sae!" And she relapsed into silence, which she
-      did not break again during the rest of the evening.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I wonder what that auld daft beggar carle and our son Steenie can be
-      doing out in sic a nicht as this," said Maggie Mucklebackit; and her
-      expression of surprise was echoed by her visitor. "Gang awa, ane o' ye,
-      hinnies, up to the heugh head, and gie them a cry in case they're within
-      hearing; the car-cakes will be burnt to a cinder."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The little emissary departed, but in a few minutes came running back with
-      the loud exclamation, "Eh, Minnie! eh, grannie! there's a white bogle
-      chasing twa black anes down the heugh."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A noise of footsteps followed this singular annunciation, and young
-      Steenie Mucklebackit, closely followed by Edie Ochiltree, bounced into the
-      hut. They were panting and out of breath. The first thing Steenie did was
-      to look for the bar of the door, which his mother reminded him had been
-      broken up for fire-wood in the hard winter three years ago; "for what
-      use," she said, "had the like o' them for bars?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There's naebody chasing us," said the beggar, after he had taken his
-      breath: "we're e'en like the wicked, that flee when no one pursueth."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth, but we were chased," said Steenie, "by a spirit or something
-      little better."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It was a man in white on horseback," said Edie, "for the soft grund that
-      wadna bear the beast, flung him about, I wot that weel; but I didna think
-      my auld legs could have brought me aff as fast; I ran amaist as fast as if
-      I had been at Prestonpans."*
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * [This refers to the flight of the government forces at the battle of
-      Prestonpans, 1745.]
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hout, ye daft gowks!" said Luckie Mucklebackit, "it will hae been some o'
-      the riders at the Countess's burial."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What!" said Edie, "is the auld Countess buried the night at St. Ruth's?
-      Ou, that wad be the lights and the noise that scarr'd us awa; I wish I had
-      ken'd&mdash;I wad hae stude them, and no left the man yonder&mdash;but
-      they'll take care o' him. Ye strike ower hard, Steenie I doubt ye
-      foundered the chield."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Neer a bit," said Steenie, laughing; "he has braw broad shouthers, and I
-      just took measure o' them wi' the stang. Od, if I hadna been something
-      short wi' him, he wad hae knockit your auld hams out, lad."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Weel, an I win clear o' this scrape," said Edie, "I'se tempt Providence
-      nae mair. But I canna think it an unlawfu' thing to pit a bit trick on sic
-      a landlouping scoundrel, that just lives by tricking honester folk."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But what are we to do with this?" said Steenie, producing a pocket-book.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Od guide us, man," said Edie in great alarm, "what garr'd ye touch the
-      gear? a very leaf o' that pocket-book wad be eneugh to hang us baith."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I dinna ken," said Steenie; "the book had fa'en out o' his pocket, I
-      fancy, for I fand it amang my feet when I was graping about to set him on
-      his logs again, and I just pat it in my pouch to keep it safe; and then
-      came the tramp of horse, and you cried, Rin, rin,' and I had nae mair
-      thought o' the book."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We maun get it back to the loon some gait or other; ye had better take it
-      yoursell, I think, wi' peep o' light, up to Ringan Aikwood's. I wadna for
-      a hundred pounds it was fund in our hands."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Steenie undertook to do as he was directed.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A bonny night ye hae made o't, Mr. Steenie," said Jenny Rintherout, who,
-      impatient of remaining so long unnoticed, now presented herself to the
-      young fisherman&mdash;"A bonny night ye hae made o't, tramping about wi'
-      gaberlunzies, and getting yoursell hunted wi' worricows, when ye suld be
-      sleeping in your bed, like your father, honest man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      This attack called forth a suitable response of rustic raillery from the
-      young fisherman. An attack was now commenced upon the car-cakes and smoked
-      fish, and sustained with great perseverance by assistance of a bicker or
-      two of twopenny ale and a bottle of gin. The mendicant then retired to the
-      straw of an out-house adjoining,&mdash;the children had one by one crept
-      into their nests,&mdash;the old grandmother was deposited in her
-      flock-bed,&mdash;Steenie, notwithstanding his preceding fatigue, had the
-      gallantry to accompany Miss Rintherout to her own mansion, and at what
-      hour he returned the story saith not,&mdash;and the matron of the family,
-      having laid the gathering-coal upon the fire, and put things in some sort
-      of order, retired to rest the last of the family.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0006" id="Alink2HCH0006">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER SIXTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                           &mdash;Many great ones
-          Would part with half their states, to have the plan
-                 And credit to beg in the first style.
-                                            Beggar's Bush.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Old Edie was stirring with the lark, and his first inquiry was after
-      Steenie and the pocket-book. The young fisherman had been under the
-      necessity of attending his father before daybreak, to avail themselves of
-      the tide, but he had promised that, immediately on his return, the
-      pocket-book, with all its contents, carefully wrapped up in a piece of
-      sail-cloth, should be delivered by him to Ringan Aikwood, for
-      Dousterswivel, the owner.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The matron had prepared the morning meal for the family, and, shouldering
-      her basket of fish, tramped sturdily away towards Fairport. The children
-      were idling round the door, for the day was fair and sun-shiney. The
-      ancient grandame, again seated on her wicker-chair by the fire, had
-      resumed her eternal spindle, wholly unmoved by the yelling and screaming
-      of the children, and the scolding of the mother, which had preceded the
-      dispersion of the family. Edie had arranged his various bags, and was
-      bound for the renewal of his wandering life, but first advanced with due
-      courtesy to take his leave of the ancient crone.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Gude day to ye, cummer, and mony ane o' them. I will be back about the
-      fore-end o'har'st, and I trust to find ye baith haill and fere."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Pray that ye may find me in my quiet grave," said the old woman, in a
-      hollow and sepulchral voice, but without the agitation of a single
-      feature.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ye're auld, cummer, and sae am I mysell; but we maun abide His will&mdash;
-      we'll no be forgotten in His good time."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nor our deeds neither," said the crone: "what's dune in the body maun be
-      answered in the spirit."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I wot that's true; and I may weel tak the tale hame to mysell, that hae
-      led a misruled and roving life. But ye were aye a canny wife. We're a'
-      frail&mdash;but ye canna hae sae muckle to bow ye down."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Less than I might have had&mdash;but mair, O far mair, than wad sink the
-      stoutest brig e'er sailed out o' Fairport harbour!&mdash;Didna somebody
-      say yestreen&mdash;at least sae it is borne in on my mind, but auld folk
-      hae weak fancies&mdash;did not somebody say that Joscelind, Countess of
-      Glenallan, was departed frae life?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "They said the truth whaever said it," answered old Edie; "she was buried
-      yestreen by torch-light at St. Ruth's, and I, like a fule, gat a gliff wi'
-      seeing the lights and the riders."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It was their fashion since the days of the Great Earl that was killed at
-      Harlaw;&mdash;they did it to show scorn that they should die and be buried
-      like other mortals; the wives o' the house of Glenallan wailed nae wail
-      for the husband, nor the sister for the brother.&mdash;But is she e'en
-      ca'd to the lang account?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "As sure," answered Edie, "as we maun a' abide it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then I'll unlade my mind, come o't what will."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      This she spoke with more alacrity than usually attended her expressions,
-      and accompanied her words with an attitude of the hand, as if throwing
-      something from her. She then raised up her form, once tall, and still
-      retaining the appearance of having been so, though bent with age and
-      rheumatism, and stood before the beggar like a mummy animated by some
-      wandering spirit into a temporary resurrection. Her light-blue eyes
-      wandered to and fro, as if she occasionally forgot and again remembered
-      the purpose for which her long and withered hand was searching among the
-      miscellaneous contents of an ample old-fashioned pocket. At length she
-      pulled out a small chip-box, and opening it, took out a handsome ring, in
-      which was set a braid of hair, composed of two different colours, black
-      and light brown, twined together, encircled with brilliants of
-      considerable value.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Gudeman," she said to Ochiltree, "as ye wad e'er deserve mercy, ye maun
-      gang my errand to the house of Glenallan, and ask for the Earl."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The Earl of Glenallan, cummer! ou, he winna see ony o' the gentles o' the
-      country, and what likelihood is there that he wad see the like o' an auld
-      gaberlunzie?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Gang your ways and try;&mdash;and tell him that Elspeth o' the
-      Craigburnfoot&mdash;he'll mind me best by that name&mdash;maun see him or
-      she be relieved frae her lang pilgrimage, and that she sends him that ring
-      in token of the business she wad speak o'."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Ochiltree looked on the ring with some admiration of its apparent value,
-      and then carefully replacing it in the box, and wrapping it in an old
-      ragged handkerchief, he deposited the token in his bosom.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Weel, gudewife," he said, "I'se do your bidding, or it's no be my fault.
-      But surely there was never sic a braw propine as this sent to a yerl by an
-      auld fishwife, and through the hands of a gaberlunzie beggar."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      With this reflection, Edie took up his pike-staff, put on his
-      broad-brimmed bonnet, and set forth upon his pilgrimage. The old woman
-      remained for some time standing in a fixed posture, her eyes directed to
-      the door through which her ambassador had departed. The appearance of
-      excitation, which the conversation had occasioned, gradually left her
-      features; she sank down upon her accustomed seat, and resumed her
-      mechanical labour of the distaff and spindle, with her wonted air of
-      apathy.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Edie Ochiltree meanwhile advanced on his journey. The distance to
-      Glenallan was ten miles, a march which the old soldier accomplished in
-      about four hours. With the curiosity belonging to his idle trade and
-      animated character, he tortured himself the whole way to consider what
-      could be the meaning of this mysterious errand with which he was
-      entrusted, or what connection the proud, wealthy, and powerful Earl of
-      Glenallan could have with the crimes or penitence of an old doting woman,
-      whose rank in life did not greatly exceed that of her messenger. He
-      endeavoured to call to memory all that he had ever known or heard of the
-      Glenallan family, yet, having done so, remained altogether unable to form
-      a conjecture on the subject. He knew that the whole extensive estate of
-      this ancient and powerful family had descended to the Countess, lately
-      deceased, who inherited, in a most remarkable degree, the stern, fierce,
-      and unbending character which had distinguished the house of Glenallan
-      since they first figured in Scottish annals. Like the rest of her
-      ancestors, she adhered zealously to the Roman Catholic faith, and was
-      married to an English gentleman of the same communion, and of large
-      fortune, who did not survive their union two years. The Countess was,
-      therefore, left an early widow, with the uncontrolled management of the
-      large estates of her two sons. The elder, Lord Geraldin, who was to
-      succeed to the title and fortune of Glenallan, was totally dependent on
-      his mother during her life. The second, when he came of age, assumed the
-      name and arms of his father, and took possession of his estate, according
-      to the provisions of the Countess's marriage-settlement. After this
-      period, he chiefly resided in England, and paid very few and brief visits
-      to his mother and brother; and these at length were altogether dispensed
-      with, in consequence of his becoming a convert to the reformed religion.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But even before this mortal offence was given to its mistress, his
-      residence at Glenallan offered few inducements to a gay young man like
-      Edward Geraldin Neville, though its gloom and seclusion seemed to suit the
-      retired and melancholy habits of his elder brother. Lord Geraldin, in the
-      outset of life, had been a young man of accomplishment and hopes. Those
-      who knew him upon his travels entertained the highest expectations of his
-      future career. But such fair dawns are often strangely overcast. The young
-      nobleman returned to Scotland, and after living about a year in his
-      mother's society at Glenallan House, he seemed to have adopted all the
-      stern gloom and melancholy of her character. Excluded from politics by the
-      incapacities attached to those of his religion, and from all lighter
-      avocationas by choice, Lord Geraldin led a life of the strictest
-      retirement. His ordinary society was composed of the clergyman of his
-      communion, who occasionally visited his mansion; and very rarely, upon
-      stated occasions of high festival, one or two families who still professed
-      the Catholic religion were formally entertained at Glenallan House. But
-      this was all; their heretic neighbours knew nothing of the family
-      whatever; and even the Catholics saw little more than the sumptuous
-      entertainment and solemn parade which was exhibited on those formal
-      occasions, from which all returned without knowing whether most to wonder
-      at the stern and stately demeanour of the Countess, or the deep and gloomy
-      dejection which never ceased for a moment to cloud the features of her
-      son. The late event had put him in possession of his fortune and title,
-      and the neighbourhood had already begun to conjecture whether gaiety would
-      revive with independence, when those who had some occasional acquaintance
-      with the interior of the family spread abroad a report, that the Earl's
-      constitution was undermined by religious austerities, and that in all
-      probability he would soon follow his mother to the grave. This event was
-      the more probable, as his brother had died of a lingering complaint,
-      which, in the latter years of his life, had affected at once his frame and
-      his spirits; so that heralds and genealogists were already looking back
-      into their records to discover the heir of this ill-fated family, and
-      lawyers were talking with gleesome anticipation, of the probability of a
-      "great Glenallan cause."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As Edie Ochiltree approached the front of Glenallan House,* an ancient
-      building of great extent, the most modern part of which had been designed
-      by the celebrated Inigo Jones, he began to consider in what way he should
-      be most likely to gain access for delivery of his message; and, after much
-      consideration, resolved to send the token to the Earl by one of the
-      domestics.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * [Supposed to represent Glammis Castle, in Forfarshire, with which the
-      Author was well acquainted.]
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      With this purpose he stopped at a cottage, where he obtained the means of
-      making up the ring in a sealed packet like a petition, addressed, <i>Forr
-      his hounor the Yerl of Glenllan&mdash;These.</i> But being aware that
-      missives delivered at the doors of great houses by such persons as
-      himself, do not always make their way according to address, Edie
-      determined, like an old soldier, to reconnoitre the ground before he made
-      his final attack. As he approached the porter's lodge, he discovered, by
-      the number of poor ranked before it, some of them being indigent persons
-      in the vicinity, and others itinerants of his own begging profession,&mdash;that
-      there was about to be a general dole or distribution of charity.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A good turn," said Edie to himself, "never goes unrewarded&mdash;I'll
-      maybe get a good awmous that I wad hae missed but for trotting on this
-      auld wife's errand."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Accordingly, he ranked up with the rest of this ragged regiment, assuming
-      a station as near the front as possible,&mdash;a distinction due, as he
-      conceived, to his blue gown and badge, no less than to his years and
-      experience; but he soon found there was another principle of precedence in
-      this assembly, to which he had not adverted.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Are ye a triple man, friend, that ye press forward sae bauldly?&mdash;I'm
-      thinking no, for there's nae Catholics wear that badge."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, na, I am no a Roman," said Edie.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then shank yoursell awa to the double folk, or single folk, that's the
-      Episcopals or Presbyterians yonder: it's a shame to see a heretic hae sic
-      a lang white beard, that would do credit to a hermit."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Ochiltree, thus rejected from the society of the Catholic mendicants, or
-      those who called themselves such, went to station himself with the paupers
-      of the communion of the church of England, to whom the noble donor
-      allotted a double portion of his charity. But never was a poor occasional
-      conformist more roughly rejected by a High-church congregation, even when
-      that matter was furiously agitated in the days of good Queen Anne.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "See to him wi' his badge!" they said;&mdash;"he hears ane o' the king's
-      Presbyterian chaplains sough out a sermon on the morning of every
-      birth-day, and now he would pass himsell for ane o' the Episcopal church!
-      Na, na!&mdash;we'll take care o' that."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Edie, thus rejected by Rome and Prelacy, was fain to shelter himself from
-      the laughter of his brethren among the thin group of Presbyterians, who
-      had either disdained to disguise their religious opinions for the sake of
-      an augmented dole, or perhaps knew they could not attempt the imposition
-      without a certainty of detection.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The same degree of precedence was observed in the mode of distributing the
-      charity, which consisted in bread, beef, and a piece of money, to each
-      individual of all the three classes. The almoner, an ecclesiastic of grave
-      appearance and demeanour, superintended in person the accommodation of the
-      Catholic mendicants, asking a question or two of each as he delivered the
-      charity, and recommending to their prayers the soul of Joscelind, late
-      Countess of Glenallan, mother of their benefactor. The porter,
-      distinguished by his long staff headed with silver, and by the black gown
-      tufted with lace of the same colour, which he had assumed upon the general
-      mourning in the family, overlooked the distribution of the dole among the
-      prelatists. The less-favoured kirk-folk were committed to the charge of an
-      aged domestic.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As this last discussed some disputed point with the porter, his name, as
-      it chanced to be occasionally mentioned, and then his features, struck
-      Ochiltree, and awakened recollections of former times. The rest of the
-      assembly were now retiring, when the domestic, again approaching the place
-      where Edie still lingered, said, in a strong Aberdeenshire accent, "Fat is
-      the auld feel-body deeing, that he canna gang avay, now that he's gotten
-      baith meat and siller?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Francis Macraw," answered Edie Ochiltree, "d'ye no mind Fontenoy, and
-      keep thegither front and rear?'"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ohon! ohon!" cried Francie, with a true north-country yell of
-      recognition, "naebody could hae said that word but my auld front-rank man,
-      Edie Ochiltree! But I'm sorry to see ye in sic a peer state, man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No sae ill aff as ye may think, Francis. But I'm laith to leave this
-      place without a crack wi' you, and I kenna when I may see you again, for
-      your folk dinna mak Protestants welcome, and that's ae reason that I hae
-      never been here before."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Fusht, fusht," said Francie, "let that flee stick i' the wa'&mdash;when
-      the dirt's dry it will rub out;&mdash;and come you awa wi' me, and I'll
-      gie ye something better thau that beef bane, man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Having then spoke a confidential word with the porter (probably to request
-      his connivance), and having waited until the almoner had returned into the
-      house with slow and solemn steps, Francie Macraw introduced his old
-      comrade into the court of Glenallan House, the gloomy gateway of which was
-      surmounted by a huge scutcheon, in which the herald and undertaker had
-      mingled, as usual, the emblems of human pride and of human nothingness,&mdash;the
-      Countess's hereditary coat-of-arms, with all its numerous quarterings,
-      disposed in a lozenge, and surrounded by the separate shields of her
-      paternal and maternal ancestry, intermingled with scythes, hour glasses,
-      skulls, and other symbols of that mortality which levels all distinctions.
-      Conducting his friend as speedily as possible along the large paved court,
-      Macraw led the way through a side-door to a small apartment near the
-      servants' hall, which, in virtue of his personal attendance upon the Earl
-      of Glenallan, he was entitled to call his own. To produce cold meat of
-      various kinds, strong beer, and even a glass of spirits, was no difficulty
-      to a person of Francis's importance, who had not lost, in his sense of
-      conscious dignity, the keen northern prudence which recommended a good
-      understanding with the butler. Our mendicant envoy drank ale, and talked
-      over old stories with his comrade, until, no other topic of conversation
-      occurring, he resolved to take up the theme of his embassy, which had for
-      some time escaped his memory.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He had a petition to present to the Earl," he said;&mdash;for he judged
-      it prudent to say nothing of the ring, not knowing, as he afterwards
-      observed, how far the manners of a single soldier* might have been
-      corrupted by service in a great house.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * A single soldier means, in Scotch, a private soldier.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hout, tout, man," said Francie, "the Earl will look at nae petitions&mdash;
-      but I can gie't to the almoner."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But it relates to some secret, that maybe my lord wad like best to see't
-      himsell."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I'm jeedging that's the very reason that the almoner will be for seeing
-      it the first and foremost."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But I hae come a' this way on purpose to deliver it, Francis, and ye
-      really maun help me at a pinch."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Neer speed then if I dinna," answered the Aberdeenshire man: "let them be
-      as cankered as they like, they can but turn me awa, and I was just
-      thinking to ask my discharge, and gang down to end my days at Inverurie."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      With this doughty resolution of serving his friend at all ventures, since
-      none was to be encountered which could much inconvenience himself, Francie
-      Macraw left the apartment. It was long before he returned, and when he
-      did, his manner indicated wonder and agitation.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am nae seer gin ye be Edie Ochiltree o' Carrick's company in the
-      Forty-twa, or gin ye be the deil in his likeness!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And what makes ye speak in that gait?" demanded the astonished mendicant.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Because my lord has been in sic a distress and surpreese as I neer saw a
-      man in my life. But he'll see you&mdash;I got that job cookit. He was like
-      a man awa frae himsell for mony minutes, and I thought he wad hae swarv't
-      a'thegither,&mdash;and fan he cam to himsell, he asked fae brought the
-      packet&mdash;and fat trow ye I said?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "An auld soger," says Edie&mdash;"that does likeliest at a gentle's door;
-      at a farmer's it's best to say ye're an auld tinkler, if ye need ony
-      quarters, for maybe the gudewife will hae something to souther."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But I said neer ane o' the twa," answered Francis; "my lord cares as
-      little about the tane as the tother&mdash;for he's best to them that can
-      souther up our sins. Sae I e'en said the bit paper was brought by an auld
-      man wi' a long fite beard&mdash;he might be a capeechin freer for fat I
-      ken'd, for he was dressed like an auld palmer. Sae ye'll be sent up for
-      fanever he can find mettle to face ye."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I wish I was weel through this business," thought Edie to himself; "mony
-      folk surmise that the Earl's no very right in the judgment, and wha can
-      say how far he may be offended wi' me for taking upon me sae muckle?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But there was now no room for retreat&mdash;a bell sounded from a distant
-      part of the mansion, and Macraw said, with a smothered accent, as if
-      already in his master's presence, "That's my lord's bell!&mdash;follow me,
-      and step lightly and cannily, Edie."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Edie followed his guide, who seemed to tread as if afraid of being
-      overheard, through a long passage, and up a back stair, which admitted
-      them into the family apartments. They were ample and extensive, furnished
-      at such cost as showed the ancient importance and splendour of the family.
-      But all the ornaments were in the taste of a former and distant period,
-      and one would have almost supposed himself traversing the halls of a
-      Scottish nobleman before the union of the crowns. The late Countess,
-      partly from a haughty contempt of the times in which she lived, partly
-      from her sense of family pride, had not permitted the furniture to be
-      altered or modernized during her residence at Glenallan House. The most
-      magnificent part of the decorations was a valuable collection of pictures
-      by the best masters, whose massive frames were somewhat tarnished by time.
-      In this particular also the gloomy taste of the family seemed to
-      predominate. There were some fine family portraits by Vandyke and other
-      masters of eminence; but the collection was richest in the Saints and
-      Martyrdoms of Domenichino, Velasquez, and Murillo, and other subjects of
-      the same kind, which had been selected in preference to landscapes or
-      historical pieces. The manner in which these awful, and sometimes
-      disgusting, subjects were represented, harmonized with the gloomy state of
-      the apartments,&mdash;a circumstance which was not altogether lost on the
-      old man, as he traversed them under the guidance of his quondam
-      fellow-soldier. He was about to express some sentiment of this kind, but
-      Francie imposed silence on him by signs, and opening a door at the end of
-      the long picture-gallery, ushered him into a small antechamber hung with
-      black. Here they found the almoner, with his ear turned to a door opposite
-      that by which they entered, in the attitude of one who listens with
-      attention, but is at the same time afraid of being detected in the act.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The old domestic and churchman started when they perceived each other. But
-      the almoner first recovered his recollection, and advancing towards
-      Macraw, said, under his breath, but with an authoritative tone, "How dare
-      you approach the Earl's apartment without knocking? and who is this
-      stranger, or what has he to do here?&mdash;Retire to the gallery, and wait
-      for me there."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's impossible just now to attend your reverence," answered Macraw,
-      raising his voice so as to be heard in the next room, being conscious that
-      the priest would not maintain the altercation within hearing of his
-      patron,&mdash;"the Earl's bell has rung."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      He had scarce uttered the words, when it was rung again with greater
-      violence than before; and the ecclesiastic, perceiving further
-      expostulation impossible, lifted his finger at Macraw, with a menacing
-      attitude, as he left the apartment.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I tell'd ye sae," said the Aberdeen man in a whisper to Edie, and then
-      proceeded to open the door near which they had observed the chaplain
-      stationed.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0007" id="Alink2HCH0007">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER SEVENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                             &mdash;This ring.&mdash;
-               This little ring, with necromantic force,
-               Has raised the ghost of pleasure to my fears,
-               Conjured the sense of honour and of love
-               Into such shapes, they fright me from myself.
-                                     The Fatal Marriage.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The ancient forms of mourning were observed in Glenallan House,
-      notwithstanding the obduracy with which the members of the family were
-      popularly supposed to refuse to the dead the usual tribute of lamentation.
-      It was remarked, that when she received the fatal letter announcing the
-      death of her second, and, as was once believed, her favourite son, the
-      hand of the Countess did not shake, nor her eyelid twinkle, any more than
-      upon perusal of a letter of ordinary business. Heaven only knows whether
-      the suppression of maternal sorrow, which her pride commanded, might not
-      have some effect in hastening her own death. It was at least generally
-      supposed that the apoplectic stroke, which so soon afterwards terminated
-      her existence, was, as it were, the vengeance of outraged Nature for the
-      restraint to which her feelings had been subjected. But although Lady
-      Glenallan forebore the usual external signs of grief, she had caused many
-      of the apartments, amongst others her own and that of the Earl, to be hung
-      with the exterior trappings of woe.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Earl of Glenallan was therefore seated in an apartment hung with black
-      cloth, which waved in dusky folds along its lofty walls. A screen, also
-      covered with black baize, placed towards the high and narrow window,
-      intercepted much of the broken light which found its way through the
-      stained glass, that represented, with such skill as the fourteenth century
-      possessed, the life and sorrows of the prophet Jeremiah. The table at
-      which the Earl was seated was lighted with two lamps wrought in silver,
-      shedding that unpleasant and doubtful light which arises from the mingling
-      of artificial lustre with that of general daylight. The same table
-      displayed a silver crucifix, and one or two clasped parchment books. A
-      large picture, exquisitely painted by Spagnoletto, represented the
-      martyrdom of St. Stephen, and was the only ornament of the apartment.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The inhabitant and lord of this disconsolate chamber was a man not past
-      the prime of life, yet so broken down with disease and mental misery, so
-      gaunt and ghastly, that he appeared but a wreck of manhood; and when he
-      hastily arose and advanced towards his visitor, the exertion seemed almost
-      to overpower his emaciated frame. As they met in the midst of the
-      apartment, the contrast they exhibited was very striking. The hale cheek,
-      firm step, erect stature, and undaunted presence and bearing of the old
-      mendicant, indicated patience and content in the extremity of age, and in
-      the lowest condition to which humanity can sink; while the sunken eye,
-      pallid cheek, and tottering form of the nobleman with whom he was
-      confronted, showed how little wealth, power, and even the advantages of
-      youth, have to do with that which gives repose to the mind, and firmness
-      to the frame.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Earl met the old man in the middle of the room, and having commanded
-      his attendant to withdraw into the gallery, and suffer no one to enter the
-      antechamber till he rung the bell, awaited, with hurried yet fearful
-      impatience, until he heard first the door of his apartment, and then that
-      of the antechamber, shut and fastened by the spring-bolt. When he was
-      satisfied with this security against being overheard, Lord Glenallan came
-      close up to the mendicant, whom he probably mistook for some person of a
-      religious order in disguise, and said, in a hasty yet faltering tone, "In
-      the name of all our religion holds most holy, tell me, reverend father,
-      what am I to expect from a communication opened by a token connected with
-      such horrible recollections?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The old man, appalled by a manner so different from what he had expected
-      from the proud and powerful nobleman, was at a loss how to answer, and in
-      what manner to undeceive him. "Tell me," continued the Earl, in a tone of
-      increasing trepidation and agony&mdash;"tell me, do you come to say that
-      all that has been done to expiate guilt so horrible, has been too little
-      and too trivial for the offence, and to point out new and more efficacious
-      modes of severe penance?&mdash;I will not blench from it, father&mdash;let
-      me suffer the pains of my crime here in the body, rather than hereafter in
-      the spirit!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Edie had now recollection enough to perceive, that if he did not interrupt
-      the frankness of Lord Glenallan's admissions, he was likely to become the
-      confidant of more than might be safe for him to know. He therefore uttered
-      with a hasty and trembling voice&mdash;"Your lordship's honour is mistaken&mdash;I
-      am not of your persuasion, nor a clergyman, but, with all reverence, only
-      puir Edie Ochiltree, the king's bedesman and your honour's."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      This explanation he accompanied by a profound bow after his manner, and
-      then, drawing himself up erect, rested his arm on his staff, threw back
-      his long white hair, and fixed his eyes upon the Earl, as he waited for an
-      answer.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And you are not then," said Lord Glenallan, after a pause of surprise&mdash;
-      "You are not then a Catholic priest?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "God forbid!" said Edie, forgetting in his confusion to whom he was
-      speaking; "I am only the king's bedesman and your honour's, as I said
-      before."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Earl turned hastily away, and paced the room twice or thrice, as if to
-      recover the effects of his mistake, and then, coming close up to the
-      mendicant, he demanded, in a stern and commanding tone, what he meant by
-      intruding himself on his privacy, and from whence he had got the ring
-      which he had thought proper to send him. Edie, a man of much spirit, was
-      less daunted at this mode of interrogation than he had been confused by
-      the tone of confidence in which the Earl had opened their conversation. To
-      the reiterated question from whom he had obtained the ring, he answered
-      composedly, "From one who was better known to the Earl than to him."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Better known to me, fellow?" said Lord Glenallan: "what is your meaning?&mdash;explain
-      yourself instantly, or you shall experience the consequence of breaking in
-      upon the hours of family distress."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It was auld Elspeth Mucklebackit that sent me here," said the beggar, "in
-      order to say"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You dote, old man!" said the Earl; "I never heard the name&mdash;but this
-      dreadful token reminds me"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I mind now, my lord," said Ochiltree, "she tauld me your lordship would
-      be mair familiar wi' her, if I ca'd her Elspeth o' the Craigburnfoot&mdash;she
-      had that name when she lived on your honour's land, that is, your honour's
-      worshipful mother's that was then&mdash;Grace be wi' her!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay," said the appalled nobleman, as his countenance sunk, and his cheek
-      assumed a hue yet more cadaverous; "that name is indeed written in the
-      most tragic page of a deplorable history. But what can she desire of me?
-      Is she dead or living?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Living, my lord; and entreats to see your lordship before she dies, for
-      she has something to communicate that hangs upon her very soul, and she
-      says she canna flit in peace until she sees you."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not until she sees me!&mdash;what can that mean? But she is doting with
-      age and infirmity. I tell thee, friend, I called at her cottage myself,
-      not a twelvemonth since, from a report that she was in distress, and she
-      did not even know my face or voice."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If your honour wad permit me," said Edie, to whom the length of the
-      conference restored a part of his professional audacity and native
-      talkativeness&mdash;"if your honour wad but permit me, I wad say, under
-      correction of your lordship's better judgment, that auld Elspeth's like
-      some of the ancient ruined strengths and castles that ane sees amang the
-      hills. There are mony parts of her mind that appear, as I may say, laid
-      waste and decayed, but then there's parts that look the steever, and the
-      stronger, and the grander, because they are rising just like to fragments
-      amaong the ruins o' the rest. She's an awful woman."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "She always was so," said the Earl, almost unconsciously echoing the
-      observation of the mendicant; "she always was different from other women&mdash;likest
-      perhaps to her who is now no more, in her temper and turn of mind.&mdash;She
-      wishes to see me, then?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Before she dies," said Edie, "she earnestly entreats that pleasure."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It will be a pleasure to neither of us," said the Earl, sternly, "yet she
-      shall be gratified. She lives, I think, on the sea-shore to the southward
-      of Fairport?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Just between Monkbarns and Knockwinnock Castle, but nearer to Monkbarns.
-      Your lordship's honour will ken the laird and Sir Arthur, doubtless?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A stare, as if he did not comprehend the question, was Lord Glenallan's
-      answer. Edie saw his mind was elsewhere, and did not venture to repeat a
-      query which was so little germain to the matter.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Are you a Catholic, old man?" demanded the Earl.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, my lord," said Ochiltree stoutly; for the remembrance of the unequal
-      division of the dole rose in his mind at the moment; "I thank Heaven I am
-      a good Protestant."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He who can conscientiously call himself <i>good,</i> has indeed reason to
-      thank Heaven, be his form of Christianity what it will&mdash;But who is he
-      that shall dare to do so!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not I," said Edie; "I trust to beware of the sin of presumption."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What was your trade in your youth?" continued the Earl.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A soldier, my lord; and mony a sair day's kemping I've seen. I was to
-      have been made a sergeant, but"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A soldier! then you have slain and burnt, and sacked and spoiled?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I winna say," replied Edie, "that I have been better than my neighbours;&mdash;it's
-      a rough trade&mdash;war's sweet to them that never tried it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And you are now old and miserable, asking from precarious charity the
-      food which in your youth you tore from the hand of the poor peasant?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am a beggar, it is true, my lord; but I am nae just sae miserable
-      neither. For my sins, I hae had grace to repent of them, if I might say
-      sae, and to lay them where they may be better borne than by me; and for my
-      food, naebody grudges an auld man a bit and a drink&mdash;Sae I live as I
-      can, and am contented to die when I am ca'd upon."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And thus, then, with little to look back upon that is pleasant or
-      praiseworthy in your past life&mdash;with less to look forward to on this
-      side of eternity, you are contented to drag out the rest of your
-      existence? Go, begone! and in your age and poverty and weariness, never
-      envy the lord of such a mansion as this, either in his sleeping or waking
-      moments&mdash;Here is something for thee."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Earl put into the old man's hand five or six guineas. Edie would
-      perhaps have stated his scruples, as upon other occasions, to the amount
-      of the benefaction, but the tone of Lord Glenallan was too absolute to
-      admit of either answer or dispute. The Earl then called his servant&mdash;"See
-      this old man safe from the castle&mdash;let no one ask him any questions&mdash;and
-      you, friend, begone, and forget the road that leads to my house."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "That would be difficult for me," said Edie, looking at the gold which he
-      still held in his hand, "that would be e'en difficult, since your honour
-      has gien me such gade cause to remember it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lord Glenallan stared, as hardly comprehending the old man's boldness in
-      daring to bandy words with him, and, with his hand, made him another
-      signal of departure, which the mendicant instantly obeyed.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0008" id="Alink2HCH0008">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER EIGHTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                For he was one in all their idle sport,
-               And like a monarch, ruled their little court
-               The pliant bow he formed, the flying ball,
-               The bat, the wicket, were his labours all.
-                                         Crabbe's Village.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Francis Macraw, agreeably to the commands of his master, attended the
-      mendicant, in order to see him fairly out of the estate, without
-      permitting him to have conversation, or intercourse, with any of the
-      Earl's dependents or domestics. But, judiciously considering that the
-      restriction did not extend to himself, who was the person entrusted with
-      the convoy, he used every measure in his power to extort from Edie the
-      nature of his confidential and secret interview with Lord Glenallan. But
-      Edie had been in his time accustomed to cross-examination, and easily
-      evaded those of his quondam comrade. "The secrets of grit folk," said
-      Ochiltree within himself, "are just like the wild beasts that are shut up
-      in cages. Keep them hard and fast sneaked up, and it's a' very weel or
-      better&mdash;but ance let them out, they will turn and rend you. I mind
-      how ill Dugald Gunn cam aff for letting loose his tongue about the Major's
-      leddy and Captain Bandilier."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Francis was therefore foiled in his assaults upon the fidelity of the
-      mendicant, and, like an indifferent chess-player, became, at every
-      unsuccessful movement, more liable to the counter-checks of his opponent.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Sae ye uphauld ye had nae particulars to say to my lord but about yer ain
-      matters?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, and about the wee bits o' things I had brought frae abroad," said
-      Edie. "I ken'd you popist folk are unco set on the relics that are fetched
-      frae far-kirks and sae forth."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth, my Lord maun be turned feel outright," said the domestic, "an he
-      puts himsell into sic a carfuffle, for onything ye could bring him, Edie."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I doubtna ye may say true in the main, neighbour," replied the beggar;
-      "but maybe he's had some hard play in his younger days, Francis, and that
-      whiles unsettles folk sair."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth, Edie, and ye may say that&mdash;and since it's like yell neer come
-      back to the estate, or, if ye dee, that ye'll no find me there, I'se e'en
-      tell you he had a heart in his young time sae wrecked and rent, that it's
-      a wonder it hasna broken outright lang afore this day."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, say ye sae?" said Ochiltree; "that maun hae been about a woman, I
-      reckon?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth, and ye hae guessed it," said Francie&mdash;"jeest a cusin o' his
-      nain&mdash;Miss Eveline Neville, as they suld hae ca'd her;&mdash;there
-      was a sough in the country about it, but it was hushed up, as the grandees
-      were concerned;&mdash;it's mair than twenty years syne&mdash;ay, it will
-      be three-and-twenty."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, I was in America then," said the mendicant, "and no in the way to
-      hear the country clashes."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There was little clash about it, man," replied Macraw; "he liked this
-      young leddy, ana suld hae married her, but his mother fand it out, and
-      then the deil gaed o'er Jock Webster. At last, the peer lass clodded
-      hersell o'er the scaur at the Craigburnfoot into the sea, and there was an
-      end o't."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "An end o't wi' the puir leddy," said the mendicant, "but, as I reckon,
-      nae end o't wi' the yerl."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nae end o't till his life makes an end," answered the Aberdonian.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But what for did the auld Countess forbid the marriage?" continued the
-      persevering querist.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Fat for!&mdash;she maybe didna weel ken for fat hersell, for she gar'd a'
-      bow to her bidding, right or wrang&mdash;But it was ken'd the young leddy
-      was inclined to some o' the heresies of the country&mdash;mair by token,
-      she was sib to him nearer than our Church's rule admits of. Sae the leddy
-      was driven to the desperate act, and the yerl has never since held his
-      head up like a man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Weel away!" replied Ochiltree:&mdash;"it's e'en queer I neer heard this
-      tale afore."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's e'en queer that ye heard it now, for deil ane o' the servants durst
-      hae spoken o't had the auld Countess been living. Eh, man, Edie! but she
-      was a trimmer&mdash;it wad hae taen a skeely man to hae squared wi' her!&mdash;But
-      she's in her grave, and we may loose our tongues a bit fan we meet a
-      friend.&mdash;But fare ye weel, Edie&mdash;I maun be back to the
-      evening-service. An' ye come to Inverurie maybe sax months awa, dinna
-      forget to ask after Francie Macraw."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      What one kindly pressed, the other as firmly promised; and the friends
-      having thus parted, with every testimony of mutual regard, the domestic of
-      Lord Glenallan took his road back to the seat of his master, leaving
-      Ochiltree to trace onward his habitual pilgrimage.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      It was a fine summer evening, and the world&mdash;that is, the little
-      circle which was all in all to the individual by whom it was trodden, lay
-      before Edie Ochiltree, for the choosing of his night's quarters. When he
-      had passed the less hospitable domains of Glenallan, he had in his option
-      so many places of refuge for the evening, that he was nice, and even
-      fastidious in the choice. Ailie Sim's public was on the road-side about a
-      mile before him, but there would be a parcel of young fellows there on the
-      Saturday night, and that was a bar to civil conversation. Other "gudemen
-      and gudewives," as the farmers and their dames are termed in Scotland,
-      successively presented themselves to his imagination. But one was deaf,
-      and could not hear him; another toothless, and could not make him hear; a
-      third had a cross temper; and a fourth an ill-natured house-dog. At
-      Monkbarns or Knockwinnock he was sure of a favourable and hospitable
-      reception; but they lay too distant to be conveniently reached that night.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I dinna ken how it is," said the old man, "but I am nicer about my
-      quarters this night than ever I mind having been in my life. I think,
-      having seen a' the braws yonder, and finding out ane may be happier
-      without them, has made me proud o' my ain lot&mdash;But I wuss it bode me
-      gude, for pride goeth before destruction. At ony rate, the warst barn e'er
-      man lay in wad be a pleasanter abode than Glenallan House, wi' a' the
-      pictures and black velvet, and silver bonny-wawlies belonging to it&mdash;
-      Sae I'll e'en settle at ance, and put in for Ailie Sims."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As the old man descended the hill above the little hamlet to which he was
-      bending his course, the setting sun had relieved its inmates from their
-      labour, and the young men, availing themselves of the fine evening, were
-      engaged in the sport of long-bowls on a patch of common, while the women
-      and elders looked on. The shout, the laugh, the exclamations of winners
-      and losers, came in blended chorus up the path which Ochiltree was
-      descending, and awakened in his recollection the days when he himself had
-      been a keen competitor, and frequently victor, in games of strength and
-      agility. These remembrances seldom fail to excite a sigh, even when the
-      evening of life is cheered by brighter prospects than those of our poor
-      mendicant. "At that time of day," was his natural reflection, "I would
-      have thought as little about ony auld palmering body that was coming down
-      the edge of Kinblythemont, as ony o' thae stalwart young chiels does
-      e'enow about auld Edie Ochiltree."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      He was, however, presently cheered, by finding that more importance was
-      attached to his arrival than his modesty had anticipated. A disputed cast
-      had occurred between the bands of players, and as the gauger favoured the
-      one party, and the schoolmaster the other, the matter might be said to be
-      taken up by the higher powers. The miller and smith, also, had espoused
-      different sides, and, considering the vivacity of two such disputants,
-      there was reason to doubt whether the strife might be amicably terminated.
-      But the first person who caught a sight of the mendicant exclaimed, "Ah!
-      here comes auld Edie, that kens the rules of a' country games better than
-      ony man that ever drave a bowl, or threw an axle-tree, or putted a stane
-      either;&mdash;let's hae nae quarrelling, callants&mdash;we'll stand by
-      auld Edie's judgment."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Edie was accordingly welcomed, and installed as umpire, with a general
-      shout of gratulation. With all the modesty of a Bishop to whom the mitre
-      is proffered, or of a new Speaker called to the chair, the old man
-      declined the high trust and responsibility with which it was proposed to
-      invest him, and, in requital for his self-denial and humility, had the
-      pleasure of receiving the reiterated assurances of young, old, and
-      middle-aged, that he was simply the best qualified person for the office
-      of arbiter "in the haill country-side." Thus encouraged, he proceeded
-      gravely to the execution of his duty, and, strictly forbidding all
-      aggravating expressions on either side, he heard the smith and gauger on
-      one side, the miller and schoolmaster on the other, as junior and senior
-      counsel. Edie's mind, however, was fully made up on the subject before the
-      pleading began; like that of many a judge, who must nevertheless go
-      through all the forms, and endure in its full extent the eloquence and
-      argumentation of the Bar. For when all had been said on both sides, and
-      much of it said over oftener than once, our senior, being well and ripely
-      advised, pronounced the moderate and healing judgment, that the disputed
-      cast was a drawn one, and should therefore count to neither party. This
-      judicious decision restored concord to the field of players; they began
-      anew to arrange their match and their bets, with the clamorous mirth usual
-      on such occasions of village sport, and the more eager were already
-      stripping their jackets, and committing them, with their coloured
-      handkerchiefs, to the care of wives, sisters, and mistresses. But their
-      mirth was singularly interrupted.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      On the outside of the group of players began to arise sounds of a
-      description very different from those of sport&mdash;that sort of
-      suppressed sigh and exclamation, with which the first news of calamity is
-      received by the hearers, began to be heard indistinctly. A buzz went about
-      among the women of "Eh, sirs! sae young and sae suddenly summoned!"&mdash;It
-      then extended itself among the men, and silenced the sounds of sportive
-      mirth.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      All understood at once that some disaster had happened in the country, and
-      each inquired the cause at his neighbour, who knew as little as the
-      querist. At length the rumour reached, in a distinct shape, the ears of
-      Edie Ochiltree, who was in the very centre of the assembly. The boat of
-      Mucklebackit, the fisherman whom we have so often mentioned, had been
-      swamped at sea, and four men had perished, it was affirmed, including
-      Mucklebackit and his son. Rumour had in this, however, as in other cases,
-      gone beyond the truth. The boat had indeed been overset; but Stephen, or,
-      as he was called, Steenie Mucklebackit, was the only man who had been
-      drowned. Although the place of his residence and his mode of life removed
-      the young man from the society of the country folks, yet they failed not
-      to pause in their rustic mirth to pay that tribute to sudden calamity
-      which it seldom fails to receive in cases of infrequent occurrence. To
-      Ochiltree, in particular, the news came like a knell, the rather that he
-      had so lately engaged this young man's assistance in an affair of sportive
-      mischief; and though neither loss nor injury was designed to the German
-      adept, yet the work was not precisely one in which the latter hours of
-      life ought to be occupied.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Misfortunes never come alone. While Ochiltree, pensively leaning upon his
-      staff, added his regrets to those of the hamlet which bewailed the young
-      man's sudden death, and internally blamed himself for the transaction in
-      which he had so lately engaged him, the old man's collar was seized by a
-      peace-officer, who displayed his baton in his right hand, and exclaimed,
-      "In the king's name."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The gauger and schoolmaster united their rhetoric, to prove to the
-      constable and his assistant that he had no right to arrest the king's
-      bedesman as a vagrant; and the mute eloquence of the miller and smith,
-      which was vested in their clenched fists, was prepared to give Highland
-      bail for their arbiter; his blue gown, they said, was his warrant for
-      travelling the country.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But his blue gown," answered the officer, "is nae protection for assault,
-      robbery, and murder; and my warrant is against him for these crimes."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Murder!" said Edie, "murder! wha did I e'er murder?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mr. German Doustercivil, the agent at Glen-Withershins mining-works."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Murder Doustersnivel?&mdash;hout, he's living, and life-like, man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nae thanks to you if he be; he had a sair struggle for his life, if a' be
-      true he tells, and ye maun answer for't at the bidding of the law."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The defenders of the mendicant shrunk back at hearing the atrocity of the
-      charges against him, but more than one kind hand thrust meat and bread and
-      pence upon Edie, to maintain him in the prison, to which the officers were
-      about to conduct him.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Thanks to ye! God bless ye a', bairns!&mdash;I've gotten out o' mony a
-      snare when I was waur deserving o' deliverance&mdash;I shall escape like a
-      bird from the fowler. Play out your play, and never mind me&mdash;I am
-      mair grieved for the puir lad that's gane, than for aught they can do to
-      me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Accordingly, the unresisting prisoner was led off, while he mechanically
-      accepted and stored in his wallets the alms which poured in on every hand,
-      and ere he left the hamlet, was as deep-laden as a government victualler.
-      The labour of bearing this accumulating burden was, however, abridged, by
-      the officer procuring a cart and horse to convey the old man to a
-      magistrate, in order to his examination and committal.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The disaster of Steenie, and the arrest of Edie, put a stop to the sports
-      of the village, the pensive inhabitants of which began to speculate upon
-      the vicissitudes of human affairs, which had so suddenly consigned one of
-      their comrades to the grave, and placed their master of the revels in some
-      danger of being hanged. The character of Dousterswivel being pretty
-      generally known, which was in his case equivalent to being pretty
-      generally detested, there were many speculations upon the probability of
-      the accusation being malicious. But all agreed, that if Edie Ochiltree
-      behoved in all events to suffer upon this occasion, it was a great pity he
-      had not better merited his fate by killing Dousterswivel outright.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0009" id="Alink2HCH0009">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER NINTH
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-               Who is he?&mdash;One that for the lack of land
-              Shall fight upon the water&mdash;he hath challenged
-              Formerly the grand whale; and by his titles
-                 Of Leviathan, Behemoth, and so forth.
-                 He tilted with a sword-fish&mdash;Marry, sir,
-                 Th' aquatic had the best&mdash;the argument
-                      Still galls our champion's breech.
-                                               Old Play.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "And the poor young fellow, Steenie Mucklebackit, is to be buried this
-      morning," said our old friend the Antiquary, as he exchanged his quilted
-      night-gown for an old-fashioned black coat in lieu of the snuff-coloured
-      vestment which he ordinarily wore, "and, I presume, it is expected that I
-      should attend the funeral?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou, ay," answered the faithful Caxon, officiously brushing the white
-      threads and specks from his patron's habit. "The body, God help us! was
-      sae broken against the rocks that they're fain to hurry the burial. The
-      sea's a kittle cast, as I tell my daughter, puir thing, when I want her to
-      get up her spirits; the sea, says I, Jenny, is as uncertain a calling"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "As the calling of an old periwig-maker, that's robbed of his business by
-      crops and the powder-tax. Caxon, thy topics of consolation are as ill
-      chosen as they are foreign to the present purpose. <i>Quid mihi cum
-      faemina</i>? What have I to do with thy womankind, who have enough and to
-      spare of mine own?&mdash;I pray of you again, am I expected by these poor
-      people to attend the funeral of their son?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou, doubtless, your honour is expected," answered Caxon; "weel I wot ye
-      are expected. Ye ken, in this country ilka gentleman is wussed to be sae
-      civil as to see the corpse aff his grounds; ye needna gang higher than the
-      loan-head&mdash;it's no expected your honour suld leave the land; it's
-      just a Kelso convoy, a step and a half ower the doorstane."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A Kelso convoy!" echoed the inquisitive Antiquary; "and why a Kelso
-      convoy more than any other?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dear sir," answered Caxon, "how should I ken? it's just a by-word."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Caxon," answered Oldbuck, "thou art a mere periwig-maker&mdash;Had I
-      asked Ochiltree the question, he would have had a legend ready made to my
-      hand."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My business," replied Caxon, with more animation than he commonly
-      displayed, "is with the outside of your honour's head, as ye are
-      accustomed to say."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "True, Caxon, true; and it is no reproach to a thatcher that he is not an
-      upholsterer."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      He then took out his memorandum-book and wrote down "Kelso convoy&mdash;said
-      to be a step and a half over the threshold. Authority&mdash;Caxon.&mdash;<i>Quaere</i>&mdash;
-      Whence derived? <i>Mem.</i> To write to Dr. Graysteel upon the subject."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Having made this entry, he resumed&mdash;"And truly, as to this custom of
-      the landlord attending the body of the peasant, I approve it, Caxon. It
-      comes from ancient times, and was founded deep in the notions of mutual
-      aid and dependence between the lord and cultivator of the soil. And herein
-      I must say, the feudal system&mdash;(as also in its courtesy towards
-      womankind, in which it exceeded)&mdash;herein, I say, the feudal usages
-      mitigated and softened the sternness of classical times. No man, Caxon,
-      ever heard of a Spartan attending the funeral of a Helot&mdash;yet I dare
-      be sworn that John of the Girnel&mdash;ye have heard of him, Caxon?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, ay, sir," answered Caxon; "naebody can hae been lang in your honour's
-      company without hearing of that gentleman."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well," continued the Antiquary, "I would bet a trifle there was not a <i>kolb
-      kerl,</i> or bondsman, or peasant, <i>ascriptus glebae,</i> died upon the
-      monks' territories down here, but John of the Girnel saw them fairly and
-      decently interred."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, but if it like your honour, they say he had mair to do wi' the births
-      than the burials. Ha! ha! ha!" with a gleeful chuckle.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Good, Caxon, very good!&mdash;why, you shine this morning."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And besides," added Caxon, slyly, encouraged by his patron's approbation,
-      "they say, too, that the Catholic priests in thae times gat something for
-      ganging about to burials."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Right, Caxon! right as my glove! By the by, I fancy that phrase comes
-      from the custom of pledging a glove as the signal of irrefragable faith&mdash;
-      right, I say, as my glove, Caxon&mdash;but we of the Protestant ascendency
-      have the more merit in doing that duty for nothing, which cost money in
-      the reign of that empress of superstition, whom Spenser, Caxon, terms in
-      his allegorical phrase,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                  &mdash;The daughter of that woman blind,
-                    Abessa, daughter of Corecca slow&mdash;
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      But why talk I of these things to thee?&mdash;my poor Lovel has spoiled
-      me, and taught me to speak aloud when it is much the same as speaking to
-      myself. Where's my nephew, Hector M'Intyre?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He's in the parlour, sir, wi' the leddies."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Very well," said the Antiquary, "I will betake me thither."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Now, Monkbarns," said his sister, on his entering the parlour, "ye maunna
-      be angry."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My dear uncle!" began Miss M'Intyre.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What's the meaning of all this?" said Oldbuck, in alarm of some impending
-      bad news, and arguing upon the supplicating tone of the ladies, as a
-      fortress apprehends an attack from the very first flourish of the trumpet
-      which announces the summons&mdash;"what's all this?&mdash;what do you
-      bespeak my patience for?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No particular matter, I should hope, sir," said Hector, who, with his arm
-      in a sling, was seated at the breakfast table;&mdash;"however, whatever it
-      may amount to I am answerable for it, as I am for much more trouble that I
-      have occasioned, and for which I have little more than thanks to offer."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, no! heartily welcome, heartily welcome&mdash;only let it be a warning
-      to you," said the Antiquary, "against your fits of anger, which is a short
-      madness&mdash;<i>Ira furor brevis</i>&mdash;but what is this new
-      disaster?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My dog, sir, has unfortunately thrown down"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If it please Heaven, not the lachrymatory from Clochnaben!" interjected
-      Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed, uncle," said the young lady, "I am afraid&mdash;it was that which
-      stood upon the sideboard&mdash;the poor thing only meant to eat the pat of
-      fresh butter."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In which she has fully succeeded, I presume, for I see that on the table
-      is salted. But that is nothing&mdash;my lachrymatory, the main pillar of
-      my theory on which I rested to show, in despite of the ignorant obstinacy
-      of Mac-Cribb, that the Romans had passed the defiles of these mountains,
-      and left behind them traces of their arts and arms, is gone&mdash;annihilated&mdash;reduced
-      to such fragments as might be the shreds of a broken-flowerpot!
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                            &mdash;Hector, I love thee,
-                  But never more be officer of mine."
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "Why, really, sir, I am afraid I should make a bad figure in a regiment of
-      your raising."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "At least, Hector, I would have you despatch your camp train, and travel
-      <i>expeditus,</i> or <i>relictis impedimentis.</i> You cannot conceive how
-      I am annoyed by this beast&mdash;she commits burglary, I believe, for I
-      heard her charged with breaking into the kitchen after all the doors were
-      locked, and eating up a shoulder of mutton. "&mdash;(Our readers, if they
-      chance to remember Jenny Rintherout's precaution of leaving the door open
-      when she went down to the fisher's cottage, will probably acquit poor Juno
-      of that aggravation of guilt which the lawyers call a <i>claustrum fregit,</i>
-      and which makes the distinction between burglary and privately stealing. )
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am truly sorry, sir," said Hector, "that Juno has committed so much
-      disorder; but Jack Muirhead, the breaker, was never able to bring her
-      under command. She has more travel than any bitch I ever knew, but"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then, Hector, I wish the bitch would travel herself out of my grounds."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We will both of us retreat to-morrow, or to-day, but I would not
-      willingly part from my mother's brother in unkindness about a paltry
-      pipkin."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O brother! brother!" ejaculated Miss M'Intyre, in utter despair at this
-      vituperative epithet.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, what would you have me call it?" continued Hector; "it was just such
-      a thing as they use in Egypt to cool wine, or sherbet, or water;&mdash;I
-      brought home a pair of them&mdash;I might have brought home twenty."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What!" said Oldbuck, "shaped such as that your dog threw down?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes, sir, much such a sort of earthen jar as that which was on the
-      sideboard. They are in my lodgings at Fairport; we brought a parcel of
-      them to cool our wine on the passage&mdash;they answer wonderfully well.
-      If I could think they would in any degree repay your loss, or rather that
-      they could afford you pleasure, I am sure I should be much honoured by
-      your accepting them."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed, my dear boy, I should be highly gratified by possessing them. To
-      trace the connection of nations by their usages, and the similarity of the
-      implements which they employ, has been long my favourite study. Everything
-      that can illustrate such connections is most valuable to me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, sir, I shall be much gratified by your acceptance of them, and a
-      few trifles of the same kind. And now, am I to hope you have forgiven me?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O, my dear boy, you are only thoughtless and foolish."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But Juno&mdash;she is only thoughtless too, I assure you&mdash;the
-      breaker tells me she has no vice or stubbornness."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, I grant Juno also a free pardon&mdash;conditioned, that you will
-      imitate her in avoiding vice and stubbornness, and that henceforward she
-      banish herself forth of Monkbarns parlour."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then, uncle," said the soldier, "I should have been very sorry and
-      ashamed to propose to you anything in the way of expiation of my own sins,
-      or those of my follower, that I thought <i>worth</i> your acceptance; but
-      now, as all is forgiven, will you permit the orphan-nephew, to whom you
-      have been a father, to offer you a trifle, which I have been assured is
-      really curious, and which only the cross accident of my wound has
-      prevented my delivering to you before? I got it from a French savant, to
-      whom I rendered some service after the Alexandria affair."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The captain put a small ring-case into the Antiquary's hands, which, when
-      opened, was found to contain an antique ring of massive gold, with a
-      cameo, most beautifully executed, bearing a head of Cleopatra. The
-      Antiquary broke forth into unrepressed ecstasy, shook his nephew cordially
-      by the hand, thanked him an hundred times, and showed the ring to his
-      sister and niece, the latter of whom had the tact to give it sufficient
-      admiration; but Miss Griselda (though she had the same affection for her
-      nephew) had not address enough to follow the lead.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's a bonny thing," she said, "Monkbarns, and, I dare say, a valuable;
-      but it's out o'my way&mdash;ye ken I am nae judge o' sic matters."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There spoke all Fairport in one voice!" exclaimed Oldbuck "it is the very
-      spirit of the borough has infected us all; I think I have smelled the
-      smoke these two days, that the wind has stuck, like a <i>remora,</i> in
-      the north-east&mdash;and its prejudices fly farther than its vapours.
-      Believe me, my dear Hector, were I to walk up the High Street of Fairport,
-      displaying this inestimable gem in the eyes of each one I met, no human
-      creature, from the provost to the town-crier, would stop to ask me its
-      history. But if I carried a bale of linen cloth under my arm, I could not
-      penetrate to the Horsemarket ere I should be overwhelmed with queries
-      about its precise texture and price. Oh, one might parody their brutal
-      ignorance in the words of Gray:
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                   Weave the warp and weave the woof,
-                   The winding-sheet of wit and sense,
-                   Dull garment of defensive proof,
-                  'Gainst all that doth not gather pence."
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The most remarkable proof of this peace-offering being quite acceptable
-      was, that while the Antiquary was in full declamation, Juno, who held him
-      in awe, according to the remarkable instinct by which dogs instantly
-      discover those who like or dislike them, had peeped several times into the
-      room, and encountering nothing very forbidding in his aspect, had at
-      length presumed to introduce her full person; and finally, becoming bold
-      by impunity, she actually ate up Mr. Oldbuck's toast, as, looking first at
-      one then at another of his audience, he repeated, with self-complacency,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                  "Weave the warp and weave the woof,&mdash;
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "You remember the passage in the Fatal Sisters, which, by the way, is not
-      so fine as in the original&mdash;But, hey-day! my toast has vanished!&mdash;I
-      see which way&mdash;Ah, thou type of womankind! no wonder they take
-      offence at thy generic appellation!"&mdash;(So saying, he shook his fist
-      at Juno, who scoured out of the parlour.)&mdash;"However, as Jupiter,
-      according to Homer, could not rule Juno in heaven, and as Jack Muirhead,
-      according to Hector M'Intyre, has been equally unsuccessful on earth, I
-      suppose she must have her own way." And this mild censure the brother and
-      sister justly accounted a full pardon for Juno's offences, and sate down
-      well pleased to the morning meal.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      When breakfast was over, the Antiquary proposed to his nephew to go down
-      with him to attend the funeral. The soldier pleaded the want of a mourning
-      habit.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O, that does not signify&mdash;your presence is all that is requisite. I
-      assure you, you will see something that will entertain&mdash;no, that's an
-      improper phrase&mdash;but that will interest you, from the resemblances
-      which I will point out betwixt popular customs on such occasions and those
-      of the ancients."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Heaven forgive me!" thought M'Intyre;&mdash;"I shall certainly misbehave,
-      and lose all the credit I have so lately and accidentally gained."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      When they set out, schooled as he was by the warning and entreating looks
-      of his sister, the soldier made his resolution strong to give no offence
-      by evincing inattention or impatience. But our best resolutions are frail,
-      when opposed to our predominant inclinations. Our Antiquary,&mdash;to
-      leave nothing unexplained, had commenced with the funeral rites of the
-      ancient Scandinavians, when his nephew interrupted him, in a discussion
-      upon the "age of hills," to remark that a large sea-gull, which flitted
-      around them, had come twice within shot. This error being acknowledged and
-      pardoned, Oldbuck resumed his disquisition.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "These are circumstances you ought to attend to and be familiar with, my
-      dear Hector; for, in the strange contingencies of the present war which
-      agitates every corner of Europe, there is no knowing where you may be
-      called upon to serve. If in Norway, for example, or Denmark, or any part
-      of the ancient Scania, or Scandinavia, as we term it, what could be more
-      convenient than to have at your fingers' ends the history and antiquities
-      of that ancient country, the <i>officina gentium,</i> the mother of modern
-      Europe, the nursery of those heroes,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-               Stern to inflict, and stubborn to endure,
-                         Who smiled in death?&mdash;
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      How animating, for example, at the conclusion of a weary march, to find
-      yourself in the vicinity of a Runic monument, and discover that you have
-      pitched your tent beside the tomb of a hero!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am afraid, sir, our mess would be better supplied if it chanced to be
-      in the neighbourhood of a good poultry-yard."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Alas, that you should say so! No wonder the days of Cressy and Agincourt
-      are no more, when respect for ancient valour has died away in the breasts
-      of the British soldiery."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "By no means, sir&mdash;by no manner of means. I dare say that Edward and
-      Henry, and the rest of these heroes, thought of their dinner, however,
-      before they thought of examining an old tombstone. But I assure you, we
-      are by no means insensible to the memoir of our fathers' fame; I used
-      often of an evening to get old Rory MAlpin to sing us songs out of Ossian
-      about the battles of Fingal and Lamon Mor, and Magnus and the Spirit of
-      Muirartach."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And did you believe," asked the aroused Antiquary, "did you absolutely
-      believe that stuff of Macpherson's to be really ancient, you simple boy?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Believe it, sir?&mdash;how could I but believe it, when I have heard the
-      songs sung from my infancy?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But not the same as Macpherson's English Ossian&mdash;you're not absurd
-      enough to say that, I hope?" said the Antiquary, his brow darkening with
-      wrath.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But Hector stoutly abode the storm; like many a sturdy Celt, he imagined
-      the honour of his country and native language connected with the
-      authenticity of these popular poems, and would have fought knee-deep, or
-      forfeited life and land, rather than have given up a line of them. He
-      therefore undauntedly maintained, that Rory MAlpin could repeat the whole
-      book from one end to another;&mdash;and it was only upon cross-examination
-      that he explained an assertion so general, by adding "At least, if he was
-      allowed whisky enough, he could repeat as long as anybody would hearken to
-      him."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, ay," said the Antiquary; "and that, I suppose, was not very long."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, we had our duty, sir, to attend to, and could not sit listening all
-      night to a piper."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But do you recollect, now," said Oldbuck, setting his teeth firmly
-      together, and speaking without opening them, which was his custom when
-      contradicted&mdash;"Do you recollect, now, any of these verses you thought
-      so beautiful and interesting&mdash;being a capital judge, no doubt, of
-      such things?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I don't pretend to much skill, uncle; but it's not very reasonable to be
-      angry with me for admiring the antiquities of my own country more than
-      those of the Harolds, Harfagers, and Hacos you are so fond of."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, these, sir&mdash;these mighty and unconquered Goths&mdash;<i>were</i>
-      your ancestors! The bare-breeched Celts whom theysubdued, and suffered
-      only to exist, like a fearful people, in the crevices of the rocks, were
-      but their Mancipia and Serfs!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Hector's brow now grew red in his turn. "Sir," he said, "I don't
-      understand the meaning of Mancipia and Serfs, but I conceive that such
-      names are very improperly applied to Scotch Highlanders: no man but my
-      mother's brother dared to have used such language in my presence; and I
-      pray you will observe, that I consider it as neither hospitable, handsome,
-      kind, nor generous usage towards your guest and your kinsman. My
-      ancestors, Mr. Oldbuck"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Were great and gallant chiefs, I dare say, Hector; and really I did not
-      mean to give you such immense offence in treating a point of remote
-      antiquity, a subject on which I always am myself cool, deliberate, and
-      unimpassioned. But you are as hot and hasty, as if you were Hector and
-      Achilles, and Agamemnon to boot."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am sorry I expressed myself so hastily, uncle, especially to you, who
-      have been so generous and good. But my ancestors"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No more about it, lad; I meant them no affront&mdash;none."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I'm glad of it, sir; for the house of M'Intyre"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Peace be with them all, every man of them," said the Antiquary. "But to
-      return to our subject&mdash;Do you recollect, I say, any of those poems
-      which afforded you such amusement?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Very hard this," thought M'Intyre, "that he will speak with such glee of
-      everything which is ancient, excepting my family. "&mdash;Then, after some
-      efforts at recollection, he added aloud, "Yes, sir,&mdash;I think I do
-      remember some lines; but you do not understand the Gaelic language."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And will readily excuse hearing it. But you can give me some idea of the
-      sense in our own vernacular idiom?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I shall prove a wretched interpreter," said M'Intyre, running over the
-      original, well garnished with <i>aghes, aughs,</i> and <i>oughs,</i> and
-      similar gutterals, and then coughing and hawking as if the translation
-      stuck in his throat. At length, having premised that the poem was a
-      dialogue between the poet Oisin, or Ossian, and Patrick, the tutelar Saint
-      of Ireland, and that it was difficult, if not impossible, to render the
-      exquisite felicity of the first two or three lines, he said the sense was
-      to this purpose:
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                      "Patrick the psalm-singer,
-            Since you will not listen to one of my stories,
-                      Though you never heard it before,
-                             I am sorry to tell you
-                  You are little better than an ass"&mdash;
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "Good! good!" exclaimed the Antiquary; "but go on. Why, this is, after
-      all, the most admirable fooling&mdash;I dare say the poet was very right.
-      What says the Saint?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He replies in character," said M'Intyre; "but you should hear MAlpin sing
-      the original. The speeches of Ossian come in upon a strong deep bass&mdash;those
-      of Patrick are upon a tenor key."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Like MAlpin's drone and small pipes, I suppose," said Oldbuck. "Well?
-      Pray go on."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well then, Patrick replies to Ossian:
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                     Upon my word, son of Fingal,
-                     While I am warbling the psalms,
-                     The clamour of your old women's tales
-                     Disturbs my devotional exercises."
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "Excellent!&mdash;why, this is better and better. I hope Saint Patrick
-      sung better than Blattergowl's precentor, or it would be hang&mdash;choice
-      between the poet and psalmist. But what I admire is the courtesy of these
-      two eminent persons towards each other. It is a pity there should not be a
-      word of this in Macpherson's translation."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If you are sure of that," said M'Intyre, gravely, "he must have taken
-      very unwarrantable liberties with his original."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It will go near to be thought so shortly&mdash;but pray proceed."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then," said M'Intyre, "this is the answer of Ossian:
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                     Dare you compare your psalms,
-                            You son of a&mdash;"
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "Son of a what?" exclaimed Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It means, I think," said the young soldier, with some reluctance, "son of
-      a female dog:
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                           Do you compare your psalms,
-                To the tales of the bare-arm'd Fenians"
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "Are you sure you are translating that last epithet correctly, Hector?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Quite sure, sir," answered Hector, doggedly.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Because I should have thought the nudity might have been quoted as
-      existing in a different part of the body."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Disdaining to reply to this insinuation, Hector proceeded in his
-      recitation:
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                        "I shall think it no great harm
-             To wring your bald head from your shoulders&mdash;
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      But what is that yonder?" exclaimed Hector, interrupting himself.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "One of the herd of Proteus," said the Antiquary&mdash;"a <i>phoca,</i> or
-      seal, lying asleep on the beach."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Upon which M'Intyre, with the eagerness of a young sportsman, totally
-      forgot both Ossian, Patrick, his uncle, and his wound, and exclaiming&mdash;"I
-      shall have her! I shall have her!" snatched the walking-stick out of the
-      hand of the astonished Antiquary, at some risk of throwing him down, and
-      set off at full speed to get between the animal and the sea, to which
-      element, having caught the alarm, she was rapidly retreating.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Not Sancho, when his master interrupted his account of the combatants of
-      Pentapolin with the naked arm, to advance in person to the charge of the
-      flock of sheep, stood more confounded than Oldbuck at this sudden escapade
-      of his nephew.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Is the devil in him," was his first exclamation, "to go to disturb the
-      brute that was never thinking of him!"&mdash;Then elevating his voice,
-      "Hector&mdash;nephew&mdash;fool&mdash;let alone the <i>Phoca</i>&mdash;let
-      alone the <i>Phoca</i>!&mdash; they bite, I tell you, like furies. He
-      minds me no more than a post. There&mdash;there they are at it&mdash;Gad,
-      the <i>Phoca</i> has the best of it! I am glad to see it," said he, in the
-      bitterness of his heart, though really alarmed for his nephew's safety&mdash;"I
-      am glad to see it, with all my heart and spirit."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In truth, the seal, finding her retreat intercepted by the light-footed
-      soldier, confronted him manfully, and having sustained a heavy blow
-      without injury, she knitted her brows, as is the fashion of the animal
-      when incensed, and making use at once of her fore-paws and her unwieldy
-      strength, wrenched the weapon out of the assailant's hand, overturned him
-      on the sands, and scuttled away into the sea, without doing him any
-      farther injury. Captain M'Intyre, a good deal out of countenance at the
-      issue of his exploit, just rose in time to receive the ironical
-      congratulations of his uncle, upon a single combat worthy to be
-      commemorated by Ossian himself, "since," said the Antiquary, "your
-      magnanimous opponent has fled, though not upon eagle's wings, from the foe
-      that was low&mdash;Egad, she walloped away with all the grace of triumph,
-      and has carried my stick off also, by way of <i>spolia opima.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      M'Intyre had little to answer for himself, except that a Highlander could
-      never pass a deer, a seal, or a salmon, where there was a possibility of
-      having a trial of skill with them, and that he had forgot one of his arms
-      was in a sling. He also made his fall an apology for returning back to
-      Monkbarns, and thus escape the farther raillery of his uncle, as well as
-      his lamentations for his walking-stick.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I cut it," he said, "in the classic woods of Hawthornden, when I did not
-      expect always to have been a bachelor&mdash;I would not have given it for
-      an ocean of seals&mdash;O Hector! Hector!&mdash;thy namesake was born to
-      be the prop of Troy, and thou to be the plague of Monkbarns!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0010" id="Alink2HCH0010">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER TENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-             Tell me not of it, friend&mdash;when the young weep,
-         Their tears are luke-warm brine;&mdash;from your old eyes
-             Sorrow falls down like hail-drops of the North,
-             Chilling the furrows of our withered cheeks,
-              Cold as our hopes, and hardened as our feeling&mdash;
-          Theirs, as they fall, sink sightless&mdash;ours recoil,
-             Heap the fair plain, and bleaken all before us.
-                               Old Play.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The Antiquary, being now alone, hastened his pace, which had been retarded
-      by these various discussions, and the rencontre which had closed them, and
-      soon arrived before the half-dozen cottages at Mussel-crag. They had now,
-      in addition to their usual squalid and uncomfortable appearance, the
-      melancholy attributes of the house of mourning. The boats were all drawn
-      up on the beach; and, though the day was fine, and the season favourable,
-      the chant, which is used by the fishers when at sea, was silent, as well
-      as the prattle of the children, and the shrill song of the mother, as she
-      sits mending her nets by the door. A few of the neighbours, some in their
-      antique and well-saved suits of black, others in their ordinary clothes,
-      but all bearing an expression of mournful sympathy with distress so sudden
-      and unexpected, stood gathered around the door of Mucklebackit's cottage,
-      waiting till "the body was lifted." As the Laird of Monkbarns approached,
-      they made way for him to enter, doffing their hats and bonnets as he
-      passed, with an air of melancholy courtesy, and he returned their salutes
-      in the same manner.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In the inside of the cottage was a scene which our Wilkie alone could have
-      painted, with that exquisite feeling of nature that characterises his
-      enchanting productions.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The body was laid in its coffin within the wooden bedstead which the young
-      fisher had occupied while alive. At a little distance stood the father,
-      whose rugged weather-beaten countenance, shaded by his grizzled hair, had
-      faced many a stormy night and night-like day. He was apparently revolving
-      his loss in his mind, with that strong feeling of painful grief peculiar
-      to harsh and rough characters, which almost breaks forth into hatred
-      against the world, and all that remain in it, after the beloved object is
-      withdrawn. The old man had made the most desperate efforts to save his
-      son, and had only been withheld by main force from renewing them at a
-      moment when, without the possibility of assisting the sufferer, he must
-      himself have perished. All this apparently was boiling in his
-      recollection. His glance was directed sidelong towards the coffin, as to
-      an object on which he could not stedfastly look, and yet from which he
-      could not withdraw his eyes. His answers to the necessary questions which
-      were occasionally put to him, were brief, harsh, and almost fierce. His
-      family had not yet dared to address to him a word, either of sympathy or
-      consolation. His masculine wife, virago as she was, and absolute mistress
-      of the family, as she justly boasted herself, on all ordinary occasions,
-      was, by this great loss, terrified into silence and submission, and
-      compelled to hide from her husband's observation the bursts of her female
-      sorrow. As he had rejected food ever since the disaster had happened, not
-      daring herself to approach him, she had that morning, with affectionate
-      artifice, employed the youngest and favourite child to present her husband
-      with some nourishment. His first action was to put it from him with an
-      angry violence that frightened the child; his next, to snatch up the boy
-      and devour him with kisses. "Yell be a bra' fallow, an ye be spared,
-      Patie,&mdash;but ye'll never&mdash;never can be&mdash;what he was to me!&mdash;He
-      has sailed the coble wi' me since he was ten years auld, and there wasna
-      the like o' him drew a net betwixt this and Buchan-ness.&mdash;They say
-      folks maun submit&mdash;I will try."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And he had been silent from that moment until compelled to answer the
-      necessary questions we have already noticed. Such was the disconsolate
-      state of the father.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In another corner of the cottage, her face covered by her apron, which was
-      flung over it, sat the mother&mdash;the nature of her grief sufficiently
-      indicated by the wringing of her hands, and the convulsive agitation of
-      the bosom, which the covering could not conceal. Two of her gossips,
-      officiously whispering into her ear the commonplace topic of resignation
-      under irremediable misfortune, seemed as if they were endeavouring to stun
-      the grief which they could not console.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The sorrow of the children was mingled with wonder at the preparations
-      they beheld around them, and at the unusual display of wheaten bread and
-      wine, which the poorest peasant, or fisher, offers to the guests on these
-      mournful occasions; and thus their grief for their brother's death was
-      almost already lost in admiration of the splendour of his funeral.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But the figure of the old grandmother was the most remarkable of the
-      sorrowing group. Seated on her accustomed chair, with her usual air of
-      apathy, and want of interest in what surrounded her, she seemed every now
-      and then mechanically to resume the motion of twirling her spindle; then
-      to look towards her bosom for the distaff, although both had been laid
-      aside. She would then cast her eyes about, as if surprised at missing the
-      usual implements of her industry, and appear struck by the black colour of
-      the gown in which they had dressed her, and embarrassed by the number of
-      persons by whom she was surrounded. Then, finally, she would raise her
-      head with a ghastly look, and fix her eyes upon the bed which contained
-      the coffin of her grandson, as if she had at once, and for the first time,
-      acquired sense to comprehend her inexpressible calamity. These alternate
-      feelings of embarrassment, wonder, and grief, seemed to succeed each other
-      more than once upon her torpid features. But she spoke not a word&mdash;neither
-      had she shed a tear&mdash;nor did one of the family understand, either
-      from look or expression, to what extent she comprehended the uncommon
-      bustle around her. Thus she sat among the funeral assembly like a
-      connecting link between the surviving mourners and the dead corpse which
-      they bewailed&mdash;a being in whom the light of existence was already
-      obscured by the encroaching shadows of death.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      When Oldbuck entered this house of mourning, he was received by a general
-      and silent inclination of the head, and, according to the fashion of
-      Scotland on such occasions, wine and spirits and bread were offered round
-      to the guests. Elspeth, as these refreshments were presented, surprised
-      and startled the whole company by motioning to the person who bore them to
-      stop; then, taking a glass in her hand, she rose up, and, as the smile of
-      dotage played upon her shrivelled features, she pronounced, with a hollow
-      and tremulous voice, "Wishing a' your healths, sirs, and often may we hae
-      such merry meetings!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      All shrunk from the ominous pledge, and set down the untasted liquor with
-      a degree of shuddering horror, which will not surprise those who know how
-      many superstitions are still common on such occasions among the Scottish
-      vulgar. But as the old woman tasted the liquor, she suddenly exclaimed
-      with a sort of shriek, "What's this?&mdash;this is wine&mdash;how should
-      there be wine in my son's house?&mdash;Ay," she continued with a
-      suppressed groan, "I mind the sorrowful cause now," and, dropping the
-      glass from her hand, she stood a moment gazing fixedly on the bed in which
-      the coffin of her grandson was deposited, and then sinking gradually into
-      her seat, she covered her eyes and forehead with her withered and pallid
-      hand.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      At this moment the clergyman entered the cottage. Mr. Blattergowl, though
-      a dreadful proser, particularly on the subject of augmentations,
-      localities, teinds, and overtures in that session of the General Assembly,
-      to which, unfortunately for his auditors, he chanced one year to act as
-      moderator, was nevertheless a good man, in the old Scottish presbyterian
-      phrase, God-ward and man-ward. No divine was more attentive in visiting
-      the sick and afflicted, in catechising the youth, in instructing the
-      ignorant, and in reproving the erring. And hence, notwithstanding
-      impatience of his prolixity and prejudices, personal or professional, and
-      notwithstanding, moreover, a certain habitual contempt for his
-      understanding, especially on affairs of genius and taste, on which
-      Blattergowl was apt to be diffuse, from his hope of one day fighting his
-      way to a chair of rhetoric or belles lettres,&mdash; notwithstanding, I
-      say, all the prejudices excited against him by these circumstances, our
-      friend the Antiquary looked with great regard and respect on the said
-      Blattergowl, though I own he could seldom, even by his sense of decency
-      and the remonstrances of his womankind, be <i>hounded out,</i> as he
-      called it, to hear him preach. But he regularly took shame to himself for
-      his absence when Blattergowl came to Monkbarns to dinner, to which he was
-      always invited of a Sunday, a mode of testifying his respect which the
-      proprietor probably thought fully as agreeable to the clergyman, and
-      rather more congenial to his own habits.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      To return from a digression which can only serve to introduce the honest
-      clergyman more particularly to our readers, Mr. Blattergowl had no sooner
-      entered the hut, and received the mute and melancholy salutations of the
-      company whom it contained, than he edged himself towards the unfortunate
-      father, and seemed to endeavour to slide in a few words of condolence or
-      of consolation. But the old man was incapable as yet of receiving either;
-      he nodded, however, gruffly, and shook the clergyman's hand in
-      acknowledgment of his good intentions, but was either unable or unwilling
-      to make any verbal reply.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The minister next passed to the mother, moving along the floor as slowly,
-      silently, and gradually, as if he had been afraid that the ground would,
-      like unsafe ice, break beneath his feet, or that the first echo of a
-      footstep was to dissolve some magic spell, and plunge the hut, with all
-      its inmates, into a subterranean abyss. The tenor of what he had said to
-      the poor woman could only be judged by her answers, as, half-stifled by
-      sobs ill-repressed, and by the covering which she still kept over her
-      countenance, she faintly answered at each pause in his speech&mdash;"Yes,
-      sir, yes!&mdash;Ye're very gude&mdash;ye're very gude!&mdash;Nae doubt,
-      nae doubt!&mdash;It's our duty to submit!&mdash;But, oh dear! my poor
-      Steenie! the pride o' my very heart, that was sae handsome and comely, and
-      a help to his family, and a comfort to us a', and a pleasure to a' that
-      lookit on him!&mdash;Oh, my bairn! my bairn! my bairn! what for is thou
-      lying there!&mdash;and eh! what for am I left to greet for ye!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      There was no contending with this burst of sorrow and natural affection.
-      Oldbuck had repeated recourse to his snuff-box to conceal the tears which,
-      despite his shrewd and caustic temper, were apt to start on such
-      occasions. The female assistants whimpered, the men held their bonnets to
-      their faces, and spoke apart with each other. The clergyman, meantime,
-      addressed his ghostly consolation to the aged grandmother. At first she
-      listened, or seemed to listen, to what he said, with the apathy of her
-      usual unconsciousness. But as, in pressing this theme, he approached so
-      near to her ear that the sense of his words became distinctly intelligible
-      to her, though unheard by those who stood more distant, her countenance at
-      once assumed that stern and expressive cast which characterized her
-      intervals of intelligence. She drew up her head and body, shook her head
-      in a manner that showed at least impatience, if not scorn of his counsel,
-      and waved her hand slightly, but with a gesture so expressive, as to
-      indicate to all who witnessed it a marked and disdainful rejection of the
-      ghostly consolation proffered to her. The minister stepped back as if
-      repulsed, and, by lifting gently and dropping his hand, seemed to show at
-      once wonder, sorrow, and compassion for her dreadful state of mind. The
-      rest of the company sympathized, and a stifled whisper went through them,
-      indicating how much her desperate and determined manner impressed them
-      with awe, and even horror.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In the meantime, the funeral company was completed, by the arrival of one
-      or two persons who had been expected from Fairport. The wine and spirits
-      again circulated, and the dumb show of greeting was anew interchanged. The
-      grandame a second time took a glass in her hand, drank its contents, and
-      exclaimed, with a sort of laugh,&mdash;"Ha! ha! I hae tasted wine twice in
-      ae day&mdash;Whan did I that before, think ye, cummers?&mdash;Never since"&mdash;and
-      the transient glow vanishing from her countenance, she set the glass down,
-      and sunk upon the settle from whence she had risen to snatch at it.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As the general amazement subsided, Mr. Oldbuck, whose heart bled to
-      witness what he considered as the errings of the enfeebled intellect
-      struggling with the torpid chill of age and of sorrow, observed to the
-      clergyman that it was time to proceed with the ceremony. The father was
-      incapable of giving directions, but the nearest relation of the family
-      made a sign to the carpenter, who in such cases goes through the duty of
-      the undertaker, to proceed in his office. The creak of the screw-nails
-      presently announced that the lid of the last mansion of mortality was in
-      the act of being secured above its tenant. The last act which separates us
-      for ever, even from the mortal relies of the person we assemble to mourn,
-      has usually its effect upon the most indifferent, selfish, and
-      hard-hearted. With a spirit of contradiction, which we may be pardoned for
-      esteeming narrow-minded, the fathers of the Scottish kirk rejected, even
-      on this most solemn occasion, the form of an address to the Divinity, lest
-      they should be thought to give countenance to the rituals of Rome or of
-      England. With much better and more liberal judgment, it is the present
-      practice of most of the Scottish clergymen to seize this opportunity of
-      offering a prayer, and exhortation, suitable to make an impression upon
-      the living, while they are yet in the very presence of the relics of him
-      whom they have but lately seen such as they themselves, and who now is
-      such as they must in their time become. But this decent and praiseworthy
-      practice was not adopted at the time of which I am treating, or at least,
-      Mr. Blattergowl did not act upon it, and the ceremony proceeded without
-      any devotional exercise.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The coffin, covered with a pall, and supported upon hand-spikes by the
-      nearest relatives, now only waited the father to support the head, as is
-      customary. Two or three of these privileged persons spoke to him, but he
-      only answered by shaking his hand and his head in token of refusal. With
-      better intention than judgment, the friends, who considered this as an act
-      of duty on the part of the living, and of decency towards the deceased,
-      would have proceeded to enforce their request, had not Oldbuck interfered
-      between the distressed father and his well-meaning tormentors, and
-      informed them, that he himself, as landlord and master to the deceased,
-      "would carry his head to the grave." In spite of the sorrowful occasion,
-      the hearts of the relatives swelled within them at so marked a distinction
-      on the part of the laird; and old Alison Breck, who was present among
-      other fish-women, swore almost aloud, "His honour Monkbarns should never
-      want sax warp of oysters in the season" (of which fish he was understood
-      to be fond), "if she should gang to sea and dredge for them hersell, in
-      the foulest wind that ever blew." And such is the temper of the Scottish
-      common people, that, by this instance of compliance with their customs,
-      and respect for their persons, Mr. Oldbuck gained more popularity than by
-      all the sums which he had yearly distributed in the parish for purposes of
-      private or general charity.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The sad procession now moved slowly forward, preceded by the beadles, or
-      saulies, with their batons,&mdash;miserable-looking old men, tottering as
-      if on the edge of that grave to which they were marshalling another, and
-      clad, according to Scottish guise, with threadbare black coats, and
-      hunting-caps decorated with rusty crape. Monkbarns would probably have
-      remonstrated against this superfluous expense, had he been consulted; but,
-      in doing so, he would have given more offence than he gained popularity by
-      condescending to perform the office of chief-mourner. Of this he was quite
-      aware, and wisely withheld rebuke, where rebuke and advice would have been
-      equally unavailing. In truth, the Scottish peasantry are still infected
-      with that rage for funeral ceremonial, which once distinguished the
-      grandees of the kingdom so much, that a sumptuary law was made by the
-      Parliament of Scotland for the purpose of restraining it; and I have known
-      many in the lowest stations, who have denied themselves not merely the
-      comforts, but almost the necessaries of life, in order to save such a sum
-      of money as might enable their surviving friends to bury them like
-      Christians, as they termed it; nor could their faithful executors be
-      prevailed upon, though equally necessitous, to turn to the use and
-      maintenance of the living the money vainly wasted upon the interment of
-      the dead.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The procession to the churchyard, at about half-a-mile's distance, was
-      made with the mournful solemnity usual on these occasions,&mdash;the body
-      was consigned to its parent earth,&mdash;and when the labour of the
-      gravediggers had filled up the trench, and covered it with fresh sod, Mr.
-      Oldbuck, taking his hat off, saluted the assistants, who had stood by in
-      melancholy silence, and with that adieu dispersed the mourners.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The clergyman offered our Antiquary his company to walk homeward; but Mr.
-      Oldbuck had been so much struck with the deportment of the fisherman and
-      his mother, that, moved by compassion, and perhaps also, in some degree,
-      by that curiosity which induces us to seek out even what gives us pain to
-      witness, he preferred a solitary walk by the coast, for the purpose of
-      again visiting the cottage as he passed.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0011" id="Alink2HCH0011">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER ELEVENTH
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-              What is this secret sin, this untold tale,
-              That art cannot extract, nor penance cleanse?
-                    &mdash;Her muscles hold their place;
-              Nor discomposed, nor formed to steadiness,
-               No sudden flushing, and no faltering lip.&mdash;
-                                     Mysterious Mother.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The coffin had been borne from the place where it rested. The mourners, in
-      regular gradation, according to their rank or their relationship to the
-      deceased, had filed from the cottage, while the younger male children were
-      led along to totter after the bier of their brother, and to view with
-      wonder a ceremonial which they could hardly comprehend. The female gossips
-      next rose to depart, and, with consideration for the situation of the
-      parents, carried along with them the girls of the family, to give the
-      unhappy pair time and opportunity to open their hearts to each other and
-      soften their grief by communicating it. But their kind intention was
-      without effect. The last of them had darkened the entrance of the cottage,
-      as she went out, and drawn the door softly behind her, when the father,
-      first ascertaining by a hasty glance that no stranger remained, started
-      up, clasped his hands wildly above his head, uttered a cry of the despair
-      which he had hitherto repressed, and, in all the impotent impatience of
-      grief, half rushed half staggered forward to the bed on which the coffin
-      had been deposited, threw himself down upon it, and smothering, as it
-      were, his head among the bed-clothes, gave vent to the full passion of his
-      sorrow. It was in vain that the wretched mother, terrified by the
-      vehemence of her husband's affliction&mdash;affliction still more fearful
-      as agitating a man of hardened manners and a robust frame&mdash;suppressed
-      her own sobs and tears, and, pulling him by the skirts of his coat,
-      implored him to rise and remember, that, though one was removed, he had
-      still a wife and children to comfort and support. The appeal came at too
-      early a period of his anguish, and was totally unattended to; he continued
-      to remain prostrate, indicating, by sobs so bitter and violent, that they
-      shook the bed and partition against which it rested, by clenched hands
-      which grasped the bed-clothes, and by the vehement and convulsive motion
-      of his legs, how deep and how terrible was the agony of a father's sorrow.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O, what a day is this! what a day is this!" said the poor mother, her
-      womanish affliction already exhausted by sobs and tears, and now almost
-      lost in terror for the state in which she beheld her husband&mdash;"O,
-      what an hour is this! and naebody to help a poor lone woman&mdash;O,
-      gudemither, could ye but speak a word to him!&mdash;wad ye but bid him be
-      comforted!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      To her astonishment, and even to the increase of her fear, her husband's
-      mother heard and answered the appeal. She rose and walked across the floor
-      without support, and without much apparent feebleness, and standing by the
-      bed on which her son had extended himself, she said, "Rise up, my son, and
-      sorrow not for him that is beyond sin and sorrow and temptation. Sorrow is
-      for those that remain in this vale of sorrow and darkness&mdash;I, wha
-      dinna sorrow, and wha canna sorrow for ony ane, hae maist need that ye
-      should a' sorrow for me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The voice of his mother, not heard for years as taking part in the active
-      duties of life, or offering advice or consolation, produced its effect
-      upon her son. He assumed a sitting posture on the side of the bed, and his
-      appearance, attitude, and gestures, changed from those of angry despair to
-      deep grief and dejection. The grandmother retired to her nook, the mother
-      mechanically took in her hand her tattered Bible, and seemed to read,
-      though her eyes were drowned with tears.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      They were thus occupied, when a loud knock was heard at the door.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hegh, sirs!" said the poor mother, "wha is that can be coming in that
-      gate e'enow?&mdash;They canna hae heard o' our misfortune, I'm sure."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The knock being repeated, she rose and opened the door, saying
-      querulously, "Whatna gait's that to disturb a sorrowfu' house?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A tall man in black stood before her, whom she instantly recognised to be
-      Lord Glenallan. "Is there not," he said, "an old woman lodging in this or
-      one of the neighbouring cottages, called Elspeth, who was long resident at
-      Craigburnfoot of Glenallan?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's my gudemither, my lord," said Margaret; "but she canna see onybody
-      e'enow&mdash;Ohon! we're dreeing a sair weird&mdash;we hae had a heavy
-      dispensation!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "God forbid," said Lord Glenallan, "that I should on light occasion
-      disturb your sorrow;&mdash;but my days are numbered&mdash;your
-      mother-in-law is in the extremity of age, and, if I see her not to-day, we
-      may never meet on this side of time."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And what," answered the desolate mother, "wad ye see at an auld woman,
-      broken down wi' age and sorrow and heartbreak? Gentle or semple shall not
-      darken my door the day my bairn's been carried out a corpse."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      While she spoke thus, indulging the natural irritability of disposition
-      and profession, which began to mingle itself with her grief when its first
-      uncontrolled bursts were gone by, she held the door about one-third part
-      open, and placed herself in the gap, as if to render the visitor's
-      entrance impossible. But the voice of her husband was heard from within&mdash;"Wha's
-      that, Maggie? what for are ye steaking them out?&mdash;let them come in;
-      it doesna signify an auld rope's end wha comes in or wha gaes out o' this
-      house frae this time forward."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The woman stood aside at her husband's command, and permitted Lord
-      Glenallan to enter the hut. The dejection exhibited in his broken frame
-      and emaciated countenance, formed a strong contrast with the effects of
-      grief, as they were displayed in the rude and weatherbeaten visage of the
-      fisherman, and the masculine features of his wife. He approached the old
-      woman as she was seated on her usual settle, and asked her, in a tone as
-      audible as his voice could make it, "Are you Elspeth of the Craigburnfoot
-      of Glenallan?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Wha is it that asks about the unhallowed residence of that evil woman?"
-      was the answer returned to his query.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The unhappy Earl of Glenallan."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Earl!&mdash;Earl of Glenallan!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He who was called William Lord Geraldin," said the Earl; "and whom his
-      mother's death has made Earl of Glenallan."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Open the bole," said the old woman firmly and hastily to her
-      daughter-in-law, "open the bole wi' speed, that I may see if this be the
-      right Lord Geraldin&mdash;the son of my mistress&mdash;him that I received
-      in my arms within the hour after he was born&mdash;him that has reason to
-      curse me that I didna smother him before the hour was past!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The window, which had been shut in order that a gloomy twilight might add
-      to the solemnity of the funeral meeting, was opened as she commanded, and
-      threw a sudden and strong light through the smoky and misty atmosphere of
-      the stifling cabin. Falling in a stream upon the chimney, the rays
-      illuminated, in the way that Rembrandt would have chosen, the features of
-      the unfortunate nobleman, and those of the old sibyl, who now, standing
-      upon her feet, and holding him by one hand, peered anxiously in his
-      features with her light-blue eyes, and holding her long and withered
-      fore-finger within a small distance of his face, moved it slowly as if to
-      trace the outlines and reconcile what she recollected with that she now
-      beheld. As she finished her scrutiny, she said, with a deep sigh, "It's a
-      sair&mdash;sair change; and wha's fault is it?&mdash;but that's written
-      down where it will be remembered&mdash;it's written on tablets of brass
-      with a pen of steel, where all is recorded that is done in the flesh.&mdash;And
-      what," she said after a pause, "what is Lord Geraldin seeking from a poor
-      auld creature like me, that's dead already, and only belongs sae far to
-      the living that she isna yet laid in the moulds?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nay," answered Lord Glenallan, "in the name of Heaven, why was it that
-      you requested so urgently to see me?&mdash;and why did you back your
-      request by sending a token which you knew well I dared not refuse?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As he spoke thus, he took from his purse the ring which Edie Ochiltree had
-      delivered to him at Glenallan House. The sight of this token produced a
-      strange and instantaneous effect upon the old woman. The palsy of fear was
-      immediately added to that of age, and she began instantly to search her
-      pockets with the tremulous and hasty agitation of one who becomes first
-      apprehensive of having lost something of great importance;&mdash;then, as
-      if convinced of the reality of her fears, she turned to the Earl, and
-      demanded, "And how came ye by it then?&mdash;how came ye by it? I thought
-      I had kept it sae securely&mdash;what will the Countess say?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You know," said the Earl, "at least you must have heard, that my mother
-      is dead."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dead! are ye no imposing upon me? has she left a' at last, lands and
-      lordship and lineages?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "All, all," said the Earl, "as mortals must leave all human vanities."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I mind now," answered Elspeth&mdash;"I heard of it before but there has
-      been sic distress in our house since, and my memory is sae muckle impaired&mdash;
-      But ye are sure your mother, the Lady Countess, is gane hame?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Earl again assured her that her former mistress was no more.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then," said Elspeth, "it shall burden my mind nae langer!&mdash;When she
-      lived, wha dared to speak what it would hae displeased her to hae had
-      noised abroad? But she's gane&mdash;and I will confess all."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Then turning to her son and daughter-in-law, she commanded them
-      imperatively to quit the house, and leave Lord Geraldin (for so she still
-      called him) alone with her. But Maggie Mucklebackit, her first burst of
-      grief being over, was by no means disposed in her own house to pay passive
-      obedience to the commands of her mother-in-law, an authority which is
-      peculiarly obnoxious to persons in her rank of life, and which she was the
-      more astonished at hearing revived, when it seemed to have been so long
-      relinquished and forgotten.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It was an unco thing," she said, in a grumbling tone of voice,&mdash;for
-      the rank of Lord Glenallan was somewhat imposing&mdash;"it was an unco
-      thing to bid a mother leave her ain house wi' the tear in her ee, the
-      moment her eldest son had been carried a corpse out at the door o't."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The fisherman, in a stubborn and sullen tone, added to the same purpose.
-      "This is nae day for your auld-warld stories, mother. My lord, if he be a
-      lord, may ca' some other day&mdash;or he may speak out what he has gotten
-      to say if he likes it; there's nane here will think it worth their while
-      to listen to him or you either. But neither for laird or loon, gentle or
-      semple, will I leave my ain house to pleasure onybody on the very day my
-      poor"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here his voice choked, and he could proceed no farther; but as he had
-      risen when Lord Glenallan came in, and had since remained standing, he now
-      threw himself doggedly upon a seat, and remained in the sullen posture of
-      one who was determined to keep his word.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But the old woman, whom this crisis seemed to repossess in all those
-      powers of mental superiority with which she had once been eminently
-      gifted, arose, and advancing towards him, said, with a solemn voice, "My
-      son, as ye wad shun hearing of your mother's shame&mdash;as ye wad not
-      willingly be a witness of her guilt&mdash;as ye wad deserve her blessing
-      and avoid her curse, I charge ye, by the body that bore and that nursed
-      ye, to leave me at freedom to speak with Lord Geraldin, what nae mortal
-      ears but his ain maun listen to. Obey my words, that when ye lay the
-      moulds on my head&mdash;and, oh that the day were come!&mdash;ye may
-      remember this hour without the reproach of having disobeyed the last
-      earthly command that ever your mother wared on you."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The terms of this solemn charge revived in the fisherman's heart the habit
-      of instinctive obedience in which his mother had trained him up, and to
-      which he had submitted implicitly while her powers of exacting it remained
-      entire. The recollection mingled also with the prevailing passion of the
-      moment; for, glancing his eye at the bed on which the dead body had been
-      laid, he muttered to himself, "<i>He</i> never disobeyed <i>me,</i> in
-      reason or out o' reason, and what for should I vex <i>her</i>?" Then,
-      taking his reluctant spouse by the arm, he led her gently out of the
-      cottage, and latched the door behind them as he left it.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As the unhappy parents withdrew, Lord Glenallan, to prevent the old woman
-      from relapsing into her lethargy, again pressed her on the subject of the
-      communication which she proposed to make to him.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ye will have it sune eneugh," she replied;&mdash;"my mind's clear eneugh
-      now, and there is not&mdash;I think there is not&mdash;a chance of my
-      forgetting what I have to say. My dwelling at Craigburnfoot is before my
-      een, as it were present in reality:&mdash;the green bank, with its
-      selvidge, just where the burn met wi' the sea&mdash;the twa little barks,
-      wi' their sails furled, lying in the natural cove which it formed&mdash;the
-      high cliff that joined it with the pleasure-grounds of the house of
-      Glenallan, and hung right ower the stream&mdash;Ah! yes&mdash;I may forget
-      that I had a husband and have lost him&mdash; that I hae but ane alive of
-      our four fair sons&mdash;that misfortune upon misfortune has devoured our
-      ill-gotten wealth&mdash;that they carried the corpse of my son's
-      eldest-born frae the house this morning&mdash;But I never can forget the
-      days I spent at bonny Craigburnfoot!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You were a favourite of my mother," said Lord Glenallan, desirous to
-      bring her back to the point, from which she was wandering.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I was, I was,&mdash;ye needna mind me o' that. She brought me up abune my
-      station, and wi' knowledge mair than my fellows&mdash;but, like the
-      tempter of auld, wi' the knowledge of gude she taught me the knowledge of
-      evil."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "For God's sake, Elspeth," said the astonished Earl, "proceed, if you can,
-      to explain the dreadful hints you have thrown out! I well know you are
-      confidant to one dreadful secret, which should split this roof even to
-      hear it named&mdash;but speak on farther."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I will," she said&mdash;"I will!&mdash;just bear wi' me for a little;"&mdash;and
-      again she seemed lost in recollection, but it was no longer tinged with
-      imbecility or apathy. She was now entering upon the topic which had long
-      loaded her mind, and which doubtless often occupied her whole soul at
-      times when she seemed dead to all around her. And I may add, as a
-      remarkable fact, that such was the intense operation of mental energy upon
-      her physical powers and nervous system, that, notwithstanding her
-      infirmity of deafness, each word that Lord Glenallan spoke during this
-      remarkable conference, although in the lowest tone of horror or agony,
-      fell as full and distinct upon Elspeth's ear as it could have done at any
-      period of her life. She spoke also herself clearly, distinctly, and
-      slowly, as if anxious that the intelligence she communicated should be
-      fully understood; concisely at the same time, and with none of the
-      verbiage or circumlocutory additions natural to those of her sex and
-      condition. In short, her language bespoke a better education, as well as
-      an uncommonly firm and resolved mind, and a character of that sort from
-      which great virtues or great crimes may be naturally expected. The tenor
-      of her communication is disclosed in the following CHAPTER.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0012" id="Alink2HCH0012">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER TWELFTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                    Remorse&mdash;she neer forsakes us&mdash;
-            A bloodhound staunch&mdash;she tracks our rapid step
-            Through the wild labyrinth of youthful frenzy,
-            Unheard, perchance, until old age hath tamed us
-         Then in our lair, when Time hath chilled our joints,
-             And maimed our hope of combat, or of flight,
-             We hear her deep-mouthed bay, announcing all
-             Of wrath, and wo, and punishment that bides us.
-                                            Old Play.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "I need not tell you," said the old woman, addressing the Earl of
-      Glenallan, "that I was the favourite and confidential attendant of
-      Joscelind, Countess of Glenallan, whom God assoilzie!"&mdash;(here she
-      crossed herself)&mdash;"and I think farther, ye may not have forgotten
-      that I shared her regard for mony years. I returned it by the maist
-      sincere attachment, but I fell into disgrace frae a trifling act of
-      disobedience, reported to your mother by ane that thought, and she wasna
-      wrang, that I was a spy upon her actions and yours."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I charge thee, woman," said the Earl, in a voice trembling with passion,
-      "name not her name in my hearing!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I must," returned the penitent firmly and calmly, "or how can you
-      understand me?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Earl leaned upon one of the wooden chairs of the hut, drew his hat
-      over his face, clenched his hands together, set his teeth like one who
-      summons up courage to undergo a painful operation, and made a signal to
-      her to proceed.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I say, then," she resumed, "that my disgrace with my mistress was chiefly
-      owing to Miss Eveline Neville, then bred up in Glenallan House as the
-      daughter of a cousin-german and intimate friend of your father that was
-      gane. There was muckle mystery in her history,&mdash;but wha dared to
-      inquire farther than the Countess liked to tell?&mdash;All in Glenallan
-      House loved Miss Neville&mdash;all but twa, your mother and mysell&mdash;we
-      baith hated her."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "God! for what reason, since a creature so mild, so gentle, so formed to
-      inspire affection, never walked on this wretched world?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It may hae been sae," rejoined Elspeth, "but your mother hated a' that
-      cam of your father's family&mdash;a' but himsell. Her reasons related to
-      strife which fell between them soon after her marriage; the particulars
-      are naething to this purpose. But oh! doubly did she hate Eveline Neville
-      when she perceived that there was a growing kindness atween you and that
-      unfortunate young leddy! Ye may mind that the Countess's dislike didna
-      gang farther at first than just showing o' the cauld shouther&mdash;at
-      least it wasna seen farther; but at the lang run it brak out into such
-      downright violence that Miss Neville was even fain to seek refuge at
-      Knockwinnock Castle with Sir Arthur's leddy, wha (God sain her!) was then
-      wi' the living."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You rend my heart by recalling these particulars&mdash;But go on,&mdash;and
-      may my present agony be accepted as additional penance for the involuntary
-      crime!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "She had been absent some months," continued Elspeth, "when I was ae night
-      watching in my hut the return of my husband from fishing, and shedding in
-      private those bitter tears that my proud spirit wrung frae me whenever I
-      thought on my disgrace. The sneck was drawn, and the Countess your mother
-      entered my dwelling. I thought I had seen a spectre, for even in the
-      height of my favour, this was an honour she had never done me, and she
-      looked as pale and ghastly as if she had risen from the grave. She sat
-      down, and wrung the draps from her hair and cloak,&mdash;for the night was
-      drizzling, and her walk had been through the plantations, that were a'
-      loaded with dew. I only mention these things that you may understand how
-      weel that night lives in my memory,&mdash;and weel it may. I was surprised
-      to see her, but I durstna speak first, mair than if I had seen a phantom&mdash;
-      Na, I durst not, my lord, I that hae seen mony sights of terror, and never
-      shook at them. Sae, after a silence, she said, Elspeth Cheyne (for she
-      always gave me my maiden name), are not ye the daughter of that Reginald
-      Cheyne who died to save his master, Lord Glenallan, on the field of
-      Sheriffmuir?' And I answered her as proudly as hersell nearly&mdash;As
-      sure as you are the daughter of that Earl of Glenallan whom my father
-      saved that day by his own death.'"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here she made a deep pause.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And what followed?&mdash;what followed?&mdash;For Heaven's sake, good
-      woman&mdash;But why should I use that word?&mdash;Yet, good or bad, I
-      command you to tell me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And little I should value earthly command," answered Elspeth, "were there
-      not a voice that has spoken to me sleeping and waking, that drives me
-      forward to tell this sad tale. Aweel, my Lord&mdash;the Countess said to
-      me, My son loves Eveline Neville&mdash;they are agreed&mdash;they are
-      plighted: should they have a son, my right over Glenallan merges&mdash;I
-      sink from that moment from a Countess into a miserable stipendiary
-      dowager, I who brought lands and vassals, and high blood and ancient fame,
-      to my husband, I must cease to be mistress when my son has an heir-male.
-      But I care not for that&mdash;had he married any but one of the hated
-      Nevilles, I had been patient. But for them&mdash;that they and their
-      descendants should enjoy the right and honours of my ancestors, goes
-      through my heart like a two-edged dirk. And this girl&mdash;I detest her!'&mdash;And
-      I answered, for my heart kindled at her words, that her hate was equalled
-      by mine."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Wretch!" exclaimed the Earl, in spite of his determination to preserve
-      silence&mdash;"wretched woman! what cause of hate could have arisen from a
-      being so innocent and gentle?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I hated what my mistress hated, as was the use with the liege vassals of
-      the house of Glenallan; for though, my Lord, I married under my degree,
-      yet an ancestor of yours never went to the field of battle, but an
-      ancestor of the frail, demented, auld, useless wretch wha now speaks with
-      you, carried his shield before him. But that was not a'," continued the
-      beldam, her earthly and evil passions rekindling as she became heated in
-      her narration&mdash;"that was not a'; I hated Miss Eveline Neville for her
-      ain sake, I brought her frae England, and, during our whole journey, she
-      gecked and scorned at my northern speech and habit, as her southland
-      leddies and kimmers had done at the boarding-school, as they cald it"&mdash;(and,
-      strange as it may seem, she spoke of an affront offered by a heedless
-      school-girl without intention, with a degree of inveteracy which, at such
-      a distance of time, a mortal offence would neither have authorized or
-      excited in any well-constituted mind)&mdash;"Yes, she scorned and jested
-      at me&mdash;but let them that scorn the tartan fear the dirk!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      She paused, and then went on&mdash;"But I deny not that I hated her mair
-      than she deserved. My mistress, the Countess, persevered and said, Elspeth
-      Cheyne, this unruly boy will marry with the false English blood. Were days
-      as they have been, I could throw her into the Massymore* of Glenallan, and
-      fetter him in the Keep of Strathbonnel.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * <i>Massa-mora,</i> an ancient name for a dungeon, derived from the
-      Moorish language, perhaps as far back as the time of the Crusades.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But these times are past, and the authority which the nobles of the land
-      should exercise is delegated to quibbling lawyers and their baser
-      dependants. Hear me, Elspeth Cheyne! if you are your father's daughter as
-      I am mine, I will find means that they shall not marry. She walks often to
-      that cliff that overhangs your dwelling to look for her lover's boat&mdash;(ye
-      may remember the pleasure ye then took on the sea, my Lord)&mdash;let him
-      find her forty fathom lower than he expects!'&mdash;Yes! ye may stare and
-      frown and clench your hand; but, as sure as I am to face the only Being I
-      ever feared&mdash;and, oh that I had feared him mair!&mdash;these were
-      your mother's words. What avails it to me to lie to you?&mdash;But I wadna
-      consent to stain my hand with blood.&mdash;Then she said, By the religion
-      of our holy Church they are ower <i>sibb</i> thegither. But I expect
-      nothing but that both will become heretics as well as disobedient
-      reprobates;'&mdash;that was her addition to that argument. And then, as
-      the fiend is ever ower busy wi' brains like mine, that are subtle beyond
-      their use and station, I was unhappily permitted to add&mdash;But they
-      might be brought to think themselves sae <i>sibb</i> as no Christian law
-      will permit their wedlock.'"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here the Earl of Glenallan echoed her words, with a shriek so piercing as
-      almost to rend the roof of the cottage.&mdash;"Ah! then Eveline Neville
-      was not the&mdash;the"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The daughter, ye would say, of your father?" continued Elspeth. "No&mdash;be
-      it a torment or be it a comfort to you&mdash;ken the truth, she was nae
-      mair a daughter of your father's house than I am."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Woman, deceive me not!&mdash;make me not curse the memory of the parent I
-      have so lately laid in the grave, for sharing in a plot the most cruel,
-      the most infernal"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Bethink ye, my Lord Geraldin, ere ye curse the memory of a parent that's
-      gane, is there none of the blood of Glenallan living, whose faults have
-      led to this dreadfu' catastrophe?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mean you my brother?&mdash;he, too, is gone," said the Earl.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No," replied the sibyl, "I mean yoursell, Lord Geraldin. Had you not
-      transgressed the obedience of a son by wedding Eveline Neville in secret
-      while a guest at Knockwinnock, our plot might have separated you for a
-      time, but would have left at least your sorrows without remorse to canker
-      them. But your ain conduct had put poison in the weapon that we threw, and
-      it pierced you with the mair force because ye cam rushing to meet it. Had
-      your marriage been a proclaimed and acknowledged action, our stratagem to
-      throw an obstacle into your way that couldna be got ower, neither wad nor
-      could hae been practised against ye."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Great Heaven!" said the unfortunate nobleman&mdash;"it is as if a film
-      fell from my obscured eyes! Yes, I now well understand the doubtful hints
-      of consolation thrown out by my wretched mother, tending indirectly to
-      impeach the evidence of the horrors of which her arts had led me to
-      believe myself guilty."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "She could not speak mair plainly," answered Elspeth, "without confessing
-      her ain fraud,&mdash;and she would have submitted to be torn by wild
-      horses, rather than unfold what she had done; and if she had still lived,
-      so would I for her sake. They were stout hearts the race of Glenallan,
-      male and female, and sae were a' that in auld times cried their
-      gathering-word of <i>Clochnaben</i>&mdash;they stood shouther to shouther&mdash;nae
-      man parted frae his chief for love of gold or of gain, or of right or of
-      wrang. The times are changed, I hear, now."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The unfortunate nobleman was too much wrapped up in his own confused and
-      distracted reflections, to notice the rude expressions of savage fidelity,
-      in which, even in the latest ebb of life, the unhappy author of his
-      misfortunes seemed to find a stern and stubborn source of consolation.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Great Heaven!" he exclaimed, "I am then free from a guilt the most
-      horrible with which man can be stained, and the sense of which, however
-      involuntary, has wrecked my peace, destroyed my health, and bowed me down
-      to an untimely grave. Accept," he fervently uttered, lifting his eyes
-      upwards, "accept my humble thanks! If I live miserable, at least I shall
-      not die stained with that unnatural guilt!&mdash;And thou&mdash;proceed if
-      thou hast more to tell&mdash;proceed, while thou hast voice to speak it,
-      and I have powers to listen."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes," answered the beldam, "the hour when you shall hear, and I shall
-      speak, is indeed passing rapidly away. Death has crossed your brow with
-      his finger, and I find his grasp turning every day coulder at my heart.
-      Interrupt me nae mair with exclamations and groans and accusations, but
-      hear my tale to an end! And then&mdash;if ye be indeed sic a Lord of
-      Glenallan as I hae heard of in <i>my</i> day&mdash;make your merrymen
-      gather the thorn, and the brier, and the green hollin, till they heap them
-      as high as the house-riggin', and burn! burn! burn! the auld witch
-      Elspeth, and a' that can put ye in mind that sic a creature ever crawled
-      upon the land!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Go on," said the Earl, "go on&mdash;I will not again interrupt you."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      He spoke in a half-suffocated yet determined voice, resolved that no
-      irritability on his part should deprive him of this opportunity of
-      acquiring proofs of the wonderful tale he then heard. But Elspeth had
-      become exhausted by a continuous narration of such unusual length; the
-      subsequent part of her story was more broken, and though still distinctly
-      intelligible in most parts, had no longer the lucid conciseness which the
-      first part of her narrative had displayed to such an astonishing degree.
-      Lord Glenallan found it necessary, when she had made some attempts to
-      continue her narrative without success, to prompt her memory by demanding&mdash;"What
-      proofs she could propose to bring of the truth of a narrative so different
-      from that which she had originally told?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The evidence," she replied, "of Eveline Neville's real birth was in the
-      Countess's possession, with reasons for its being for some time kept
-      private;&mdash;they may yet be found, if she has not destroyed them, in
-      the left hand drawer of the ebony cabinet that stood in the dressing-room.
-      These she meant to suppress for the time, until you went abroad again,
-      when she trusted, before your return, to send Miss Neville back to her ain
-      country, or to get her settled in marriage."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But did you not show me letters of my father's, which seemed to me,
-      unless my senses altogether failed me in that horrible moment, to avow his
-      relationship to&mdash;to the unhappy"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We did; and, with my testimony, how could you doubt the fact, or her
-      either? But we suppressed the true explanation of these letters, and that
-      was, that your father thought it right the young leddy should pass for his
-      daughter for a while, on account o'some family reasons that were amang
-      them."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But wherefore, when you learned our union, was this dreadful artifice
-      persisted in?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It wasna," she replied, "till Lady Glenallan had communicated this fause
-      tale, that she suspected ye had actually made a marriage&mdash;nor even
-      then did you avow it sae as to satisfy her whether the ceremony had in
-      verity passed atween ye or no&mdash;But ye remember, O ye canna but
-      remember weel, what passed in that awfu' meeting!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Woman! you swore upon the gospels to the fact which you now disavow."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I did,&mdash;and I wad hae taen a yet mair holy pledge on it, if there
-      had been ane&mdash;I wad not hae spared the blood of my body, or the guilt
-      of my soul, to serve the house of Glenallan."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Wretch! do you call that horrid perjury, attended with consequences yet
-      more dreadful&mdash;do you esteem that a service to the house of your
-      benefactors?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I served her, wha was then the head of Glenallan, as she required me to
-      serve her. The cause was between God and her conscience&mdash;the manner
-      between God and mine&mdash;She is gane to her account, and I maun follow.
-      Have I taulds you a'?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No," answered Lord Glenallan&mdash;"you have yet more to tell&mdash;you
-      have to tell me of the death of the angel whom your perjury drove to
-      despair, stained, as she thought herself, with a crime so horrible. Speak
-      truth&mdash;was that dreadful&mdash;was that horrible incident"&mdash;he
-      could scarcely articulate the words&mdash;"was it as reported? or was it
-      an act of yet further, though not more atrocious cruelty, inflicted by
-      others?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I understand you," said Elspeth. "But report spoke truth;&mdash;our false
-      witness was indeed the cause, but the deed was her ain distracted act. On
-      that fearfu' disclosure, when ye rushed frae the Countess's presence and
-      saddled your horse, and left the castle like a fire-flaught, the Countess
-      hadna yet discovered your private marriage; she hadna fund out that the
-      union, which she had framed this awfu' tale to prevent, had e'en taen
-      place. Ye fled from the house as if the fire o' Heaven was about to fa'
-      upon it, and Miss Neville, atween reason and the want o't, was put under
-      sure ward. But the ward sleep't, and the prisoner waked&mdash;the window
-      was open&mdash;the way was before her&mdash;there was the cliff, and there
-      was the sea!&mdash;O, when will I forget that!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And thus died," said the Earl, "even so as was reported?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, my lord. I had gane out to the cove&mdash;the tide was in, and it
-      flowed, as ye'll remember, to the foot o' that cliff&mdash;it was a great
-      convenience that for my husband's trade&mdash;Where am I wandering?&mdash;I
-      saw a white object dart frae the tap o' the cliff like a sea-maw through
-      the mist, and then a heavy flash and sparkle of the waters showed me it
-      was a human creature that had fa'en into the waves. I was bold and strong,
-      and familiar with the tide. I rushed in and grasped her gown, and drew her
-      out and carried her on my shouthers&mdash;I could hae carried twa sic then&mdash;carried
-      her to my hut, and laid her on my bed. Neighbours cam and brought help;
-      but the words she uttered in her ravings, when she got back the use of
-      speech, were such, that I was fain to send them awa, and get up word to
-      Glenallan House. The Countess sent down her Spanish servant Teresa&mdash;if
-      ever there was a fiend on earth in human form, that woman was ane. She and
-      I were to watch the unhappy leddy, and let no other person approach.&mdash;God
-      knows what Teresa's part was to hae been&mdash;she tauld it not to me&mdash;but
-      Heaven took the conclusion in its ain hand. The poor leddy! she took the
-      pangs of travail before her time, bore a male child, and died in the arms
-      of me&mdash;of her mortal enemy! Ay, <i>ye</i> may weep&mdash;she was a
-      sightly creature to see to&mdash;but think ye, if I didna mourn her then,
-      that I can mourn her now? Na, na, I left Teresa wi' the dead corpse and
-      new-born babe, till I gaed up to take the Countess's commands what was to
-      be done. Late as it was, I ca'd her up, and she gar'd me ca' up your
-      brother"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My brother?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes, Lord Geraldin, e'en your brother, that some said she aye wished to
-      be her heir. At ony rate, he was the person maist concerned in the
-      succession and heritance of the house of Glenallan."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And is it possible to believe, then, that my brother, out of avarice to
-      grasp at my inheritance, would lend himself to such a base and dreadful
-      stratagem?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Your mother believed it," said the old beldam with a fiendish laugh&mdash;"it
-      was nae plot of my making; but what they did or said I will not say,
-      because I did not hear. Lang and sair they consulted in the black wainscot
-      dressing-room; and when your brother passed through the room where I was
-      waiting, it seemed to me (and I have often thought sae since syne) that
-      the fire of hell was in his cheek and een. But he had left some of it with
-      his mother, at ony rate. She entered the room like a woman demented, and
-      the first words she spoke were, Elspeth Cheyne, did you ever pull a
-      new-budded flower?' I answered, as ye may believe, that I often had.
-      Then,' said she, ye will ken the better how to blight the spurious and
-      heretical blossom that has sprung forth this night to disgrace my father's
-      noble house&mdash;See here;'&mdash;(and she gave me a golden bodkin)&mdash;nothing
-      but gold must shed the blood of Glenallan. This child is already as one of
-      the dead, and since thou and Teresa alone ken that it lives, let it be
-      dealt upon as ye will answer to me!' and she turned away in her fury, and
-      left me with the bodkin in my hand.&mdash;Here it is; that and the ring of
-      Miss Neville, are a' I hae preserved of my ill-gotten gear&mdash;for
-      muckle was the gear I got. And weel hae I keepit the secret, but no for
-      the gowd or gear either."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Her long and bony hand held out to Lord Glenallan a gold bodkin, down
-      which in fancy he saw the blood of his infant trickling.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Wretch! had you the heart?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I kenna if I could hae had it or no. I returned to my cottage without
-      feeling the ground that I trode on; but Teresa and the child were gane&mdash;
-      a' that was alive was gane&mdash;naething left but the lifeless corpse."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And did you never learn my infant's fate?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I could but guess. I have tauld ye your mother's purpose, and I ken
-      Teresa was a fiend. She was never mair seen in Scotland, and I have heard
-      that she returned to her ain land. A dark curtain has fa'en ower the past,
-      and the few that witnessed ony part of it could only surmise something of
-      seduction and suicide. You yourself"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I know&mdash;I know it all," answered the Earl.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You indeed know all that I can say&mdash;And now, heir of Glenallan, can
-      you forgive me?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Aimage-0006" id="Aimage-0006">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
-    </p>
-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/pb150.jpg" alt="Lord Glenallen and Elspeth " width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
-      "Ask forgiveness of God, and not of man," said the Earl, turning away.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And how shall I ask of the pure and unstained what is denied to me by a
-      sinner like mysell? If I hae sinned, hae I not suffered?&mdash;Hae I had a
-      day's peace or an hour's rest since these lang wet locks of hair first lay
-      upon my pillow at Craigburnfoot?&mdash;Has not my house been burned, wi'
-      my bairn in the cradle?&mdash;Have not my boats been wrecked, when a'
-      others weather'd the gale?&mdash;Have not a' that were near and dear to me
-      dree'd penance for my sin?&mdash;Has not the fire had its share o' them&mdash;the
-      winds had their part&mdash;the sea had her part?&mdash;And oh!" she added,
-      with a lengthened groan, looking first upwards towards Heaven, and then
-      bending her eyes on the floor&mdash;"O that the earth would take her part,
-      that's been lang lang wearying to be joined to it!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lord Glenallan had reached the door of the cottage, but the generosity of
-      his nature did not permit him to leave the unhappy woman in this state of
-      desperate reprobation. "May God forgive thee, wretched woman," he said,
-      "as sincerely as I do!&mdash;Turn for mercy to Him who can alone grant
-      mercy, and may your prayers be heard as if they were mine own!&mdash;I
-      will send a religious man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, na&mdash;nae priest! nae priest!" she ejaculated; and the door of the
-      cottage opening as she spoke, prevented her from proceeding.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0013" id="Alink2HCH0013">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-          Still in his dead hand clenched remain the strings
-              That thrill his father's heart&mdash;e'en as the limb,
-          Lopped off and laid in grave, retains, they tell us,
-              Strange commerce with the mutilated stump,
-          Whose nerves are twinging still in maimed existence.
-                                           Old Play.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The Antiquary, as we informed the reader in the end of the thirty-first
-      CHAPTER, [tenth] had shaken off the company of worthy Mr. Blattergowl,
-      although he offered to entertain him with an abstract of the ablest speech
-      he had ever known in the teind court, delivered by the procurator for the
-      church in the remarkable case of the parish of Gatherem. Resisting this
-      temptation, our senior preferred a solitary path, which again conducted
-      him to the cottage of Mucklebackit. When he came in front of the
-      fisherman's hut, he observed a man working intently, as if to repair a
-      shattered boat which lay upon the beach, and going up to him was surprised
-      to find it was Mucklebackit himself. "I am glad," he said in a tone of
-      sympathy&mdash;"I am glad, Saunders, that you feel yourself able to make
-      this exertion."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And what would ye have me to do," answered the fisher gruffly, "unless I
-      wanted to see four children starve, because ane is drowned? It's weel wi'
-      you gentles, that can sit in the house wi' handkerchers at your een when
-      ye lose a friend; but the like o' us maun to our wark again, if our hearts
-      were beating as hard as my hammer."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Without taking more notice of Oldbuck, he proceeded in his labour; and the
-      Antiquary, to whom the display of human nature under the influence of
-      agitating passions was never indifferent, stood beside him, in silent
-      attention, as if watching the progress of the work. He observed more than
-      once the man's hard features, as if by the force of association, prepare
-      to accompany the sound of the saw and hammer with his usual symphony of a
-      rude tune, hummed or whistled,&mdash;and as often a slight twitch of
-      convulsive expression showed, that ere the sound was uttered, a cause for
-      suppressing it rushed upon his mind. At length, when he had patched a
-      considerable rent, and was beginning to mend another, his feelings
-      appeared altogether to derange the power of attention necessary for his
-      work. The piece of wood which he was about to nail on was at first too
-      long; then he sawed it off too short, then chose another equally ill
-      adapted for the purpose. At length, throwing it down in anger, after
-      wiping his dim eye with his quivering hand, he exclaimed, "There is a
-      curse either on me or on this auld black bitch of a boat, that I have
-      hauled up high and dry, and patched and clouted sae mony years, that she
-      might drown my poor Steenie at the end of them, an' be d&mdash;d to her!"
-      and he flung his hammer against the boat, as if she had been the
-      intentional cause of his misfortune. Then recollecting himself, he added,
-      "Yet what needs ane be angry at her, that has neither soul nor sense?&mdash;though
-      I am no that muckle better mysell. She's but a rickle o' auld rotten deals
-      nailed thegither, and warped wi' the wind and the sea&mdash;and I am a
-      dour carle, battered by foul weather at sea and land till I am maist as
-      senseless as hersell. She maun be mended though again the morning tide&mdash;that's
-      a thing o' necessity."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Thus speaking, he went to gather together his instruments, and attempt to
-      resume his labour,&mdash;but Oldbuck took him kindly by the arm. "Come,
-      come," he said, "Saunders, there is no work for you this day&mdash;I'll
-      send down Shavings the carpenter to mend the boat, and he may put the
-      day's work into my account&mdash;and you had better not come out
-      to-morrow, but stay to comfort your family under this dispensation, and
-      the gardener will bring you some vegetables and meal from Monkbarns."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I thank ye, Monkbarns," answered the poor fisher; "I am a plain-spoken
-      man, and hae little to say for mysell; I might hae learned fairer fashions
-      frae my mither lang syne, but I never saw muckle gude they did her;
-      however, I thank ye. Ye were aye kind and neighbourly, whatever folk says
-      o' your being near and close; and I hae often said, in thae times when
-      they were ganging to raise up the puir folk against the gentles&mdash;I
-      hae often said, neer a man should steer a hair touching to Monkbarns while
-      Steenie and I could wag a finger&mdash;and so said Steenie too. And,
-      Monkbarns, when ye laid his head in the grave (and mony thanks for the
-      respect), ye, saw the mouls laid on an honest lad that likit you weel,
-      though he made little phrase about it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Oldbuck, beaten from the pride of his affected cynicism, would not
-      willingly have had any one by on that occasion to quote to him his
-      favourite maxims of the Stoic philosophy. The large drops fell fast from
-      his own eyes, as he begged the father, who was now melted at recollecting
-      the bravery and generous sentiments of his son, to forbear useless sorrow,
-      and led him by the arm towards his own home, where another scene awaited
-      our Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As he entered, the first person whom he beheld was Lord Glenallan. Mutual
-      surprise was in their countenances as they saluted each other&mdash;with
-      haughty reserve on the part of Mr. Oldbuck, and embarrassment on that of
-      the Earl.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My Lord Glenallan, I think?" said Mr. Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes&mdash;much changed from what he was when he knew Mr. Oldbuck."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I do not mean," said the Antiquary, "to intrude upon your lordship&mdash;I
-      only came to see this distressed family."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And you have found one, sir, who has still greater claims on your
-      compassion."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My compassion? Lord Glenallan cannot need my compassion. If Lord
-      Glenallan could need it, I think he would hardly ask it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Our former acquaintance," said the Earl&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Is of such ancient date, my lord&mdash;was of such short duration, and
-      was connected with circumstances so exquisitely painful, that I think we
-      may dispense with renewing it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      So saying, the Antiquary turned away, and left the hut; but Lord Glenallan
-      followed him into the open air, and, in spite of a hasty "Good morning, my
-      lord," requested a few minutes' conversation, and the favour of his advice
-      in an important matter.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Your lordship will find many more capable to advise you, my lord, and by
-      whom your intercourse will be deemed an honour. For me, I am a man retired
-      from business and the world, and not very fond of raking up the past
-      events of my useless life;&mdash;and forgive me if I say, I have
-      particular pain in reverting to that period of it when I acted like a
-      fool, and your lordship like"&mdash;He stopped short.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Like a villain, you would say," said Lord Glenallan&mdash;"for such I
-      must have appeared to you."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My lord&mdash;my lord, I have no desire to hear your shrift," said the
-      Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But, sir, if I can show you that I am more sinned against than sinning&mdash;
-      that I have been a man miserable beyond the power of description, and who
-      looks forward at this moment to an untimely grave as to a haven of rest,
-      you will not refuse the confidence which, accepting your appearance at
-      this critical moment as a hint from Heaven, I venture thus to press on
-      you."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Assuredly, my lord, I shall shun no longer the continuation of this
-      extraordinary interview."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I must then recall to you our occasional meetings upwards of twenty years
-      since at Knockwinnock Castle,&mdash;and I need not remind you of a lady
-      who was then a member of that family."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The unfortunate Miss Eveline Neville, my lord; I remember it well."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Towards whom you entertained sentiments"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Very different from those with which I before and since have regarded her
-      sex. Her gentleness, her docility, her pleasure in the studies which I
-      pointed out to her, attached my affections more than became my age though
-      that was not then much advanced&mdash;or the solidity of my character. But
-      I need not remind your lordship of the various modes in which you indulged
-      your gaiety at the expense of an awkward and retired student, embarrassed
-      by the expression of feelings so new to him, and I have no doubt that the
-      young lady joined you in the well-deserved ridicule&mdash;it is the way of
-      womankind. I have spoken at once to the painful circumstances of my
-      addresses and their rejection, that your lordship may be satisfied
-      everything is full in my memory, and may, so far as I am concerned, tell
-      your story without scruple or needless delicacy."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I will," said Lord Glenallan. "But first let me say, you do injustice to
-      the memory of the gentlest and kindest, as well as to the most unhappy of
-      women, to suppose she could make a jest of the honest affection of a man
-      like you. Frequently did she blame me, Mr. Oldbuck, for indulging my
-      levity at your expense&mdash;may I now presume you will excuse the gay
-      freedoms which then offended you?&mdash;my state of mind has never since
-      laid me under the necessity of apologizing for the inadvertencies of a
-      light and happy temper."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My lord, you are fully pardoned," said Mr. Oldbuck. "You should be aware,
-      that, like all others, I was ignorant at the time that I placed myself in
-      competition with your lordship, and understood that Miss Neville was in a
-      state of dependence which might make her prefer a competent independence
-      and the hand of an honest man&mdash;But I am wasting time&mdash;I would I
-      could believe that the views entertained towards her by others were as
-      fair and honest as mine!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mr. Oldbuck, you judge harshly."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not without cause, my lord. When I only, of all the magistrates of this
-      county&mdash;having neither, like some of them, the honour to be connected
-      with your powerful family&mdash;nor, like others, the meanness to fear it,&mdash;
-      when I made some inquiry into the manner of Miss Neville's death&mdash;I
-      shake you, my lord, but I must be plain&mdash;I do own I had every reason
-      to believe that she had met most unfair dealing, and had either been
-      imposed upon by a counterfeit marriage, or that very strong measures had
-      been adopted to stifle and destroy the evidence of a real union. And I
-      cannot doubt in my own mind, that this cruelty on your lordship's part,
-      whether coming of your own free will, or proceeding from the influence of
-      the late Countess, hurried the unfortunate young lady to the desperate act
-      by which her life was terminated."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You are deceived, Mr. Oldbuck, into conclusions which are not just,
-      however naturally they flow from the circumstances. Believe me, I
-      respected you even when I was most embarrassed by your active attempts to
-      investigate our family misfortunes. You showed yourself more worthy of
-      Miss Neville than I, by the spirit with which you persisted in vindicating
-      her reputation even after her death. But the firm belief that your
-      well-meant efforts could only serve to bring to light a story too horrible
-      to be detailed, induced me to join my unhappy mother in schemes to remove
-      or destroy all evidence of the legal union which had taken place between
-      Eveline and myself. And now let us sit down on this bank,&mdash;for I feel
-      unable to remain longer standing,&mdash;and have the goodness to listen to
-      the extraordinary discovery which I have this day made."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      They sate down accordingly; and Lord Glenallan briefly narrated his
-      unhappy family history&mdash;his concealed marriage&mdash;the horrible
-      invention by which his mother had designed to render impossible that union
-      which had already taken place. He detailed the arts by which the Countess,
-      having all the documents relative to Miss Neville's birth in her hands,
-      had produced those only relating to a period during which, for family
-      reasons, his father had consented to own that young lady as his natural
-      daughter, and showed how impossible it was that he could either suspect or
-      detect the fraud put upon him by his mother, and vouched by the oaths of
-      her attendants, Teresa and Elspeth. "I left my paternal mansion," he
-      concluded, "as if the furies of hell had driven me forth, and travelled
-      with frantic velocity I knew not whither. Nor have I the slightest
-      recollection of what I did or whither I went, until I was discovered by my
-      brother. I will not trouble you with an account of my sick-bed and
-      recovery, or how, long afterwards, I ventured to inquire after the sharer
-      of my misfortunes, and heard that her despair had found a dreadful remedy
-      for all the ills of life. The first thing that roused me to thought was
-      hearing of your inquiries into this cruel business; and you will hardly
-      wonder, that, believing what I did believe, I should join in those
-      expedients to stop your investigation, which my brother and mother had
-      actively commenced. The information which I gave them concerning the
-      circumstances and witnesses of our private marriage enabled them to baffle
-      your zeal. The clergyman, therefore, and witnesses, as persons who had
-      acted in the matter only to please the powerful heir of Glenallan, were
-      accessible to his promises and threats, and were so provided for, that
-      they had no objections to leave this country for another. For myself, Mr.
-      Oldbuck," pursued this unhappy man, "from that moment I considered myself
-      as blotted out of the book of the living, and as having nothing left to do
-      with this world. My mother tried to reconcile me to life by every art&mdash;even
-      by intimations which I can now interpret as calculated to produce a doubt
-      of the horrible tale she herself had fabricated. But I construed all she
-      said as the fictions of maternal affection. I will forbear all reproach.
-      She is no more&mdash;and, as her wretched associate said, she knew not how
-      the dart was poisoned, or how deep it must sink, when she threw it from
-      her hand. But, Mr. Oldbuck, if ever, during these twenty years, there
-      crawled upon earth a living being deserving of your pity, I have been that
-      man. My food has not nourished me&mdash;my sleep has not refreshed me&mdash;my
-      devotions have not comforted me&mdash;all that is cheering and necessary
-      to man has been to me converted into poison. The rare and limited
-      intercourse which I have held with others has been most odious to me. I
-      felt as if I were bringing the contamination of unnatural and
-      inexpressible guilt among the gay and the innocent. There have been
-      moments when I had thoughts of another description&mdash;to plunge into
-      the adventures of war, or to brave the dangers of the traveller in foreign
-      and barbarous climates&mdash;to mingle in political intrigue, or to retire
-      to the stern seclusion of the anchorites of our religion;&mdash;all these
-      are thoughts which have alternately passed through my mind, but each
-      required an energy, which was mine no longer, after the withering stroke I
-      had received. I vegetated on as I could in the same spot&mdash;fancy,
-      feeling, judgment, and health, gradually decaying, like a tree whose bark
-      has been destroyed,&mdash;when first the blossoms fade, then the boughs,
-      until its state resembles the decayed and dying trunk that is now before
-      you. Do you now pity and forgive me?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My lord," answered the Antiquary, much affected, "my pity&mdash;my
-      forgiveness, you have not to ask, for your dismal story is of itself not
-      only an ample excuse for whatever appeared mysterious in your conduct, but
-      a narrative that might move your worst enemies (and I, my lord, was never
-      of the number) to tears and to sympathy. But permit me to ask what you now
-      mean to do, and why you have honoured me, whose opinion can be of little
-      consequence, with your confidence on this occasion?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mr. Oldbuck," answered the Earl, "as I could never have foreseen the
-      nature of that confession which I have heard this day, I need not say that
-      I had no formed plan of consulting you, or any one, upon affairs the
-      tendency of which I could not even have suspected. But I am without
-      friends, unused to business, and, by long retirement, unacquainted alike
-      with the laws of the land and the habits of the living generation; and
-      when, most unexpectedly, I find myself immersed in the matters of which I
-      know least, I catch, like a drowning man, at the first support that
-      offers. You are that support, Mr. Oldbuck. I have always heard you
-      mentioned as a man of wisdom and intelligence&mdash;I have known you
-      myself as a man of a resolute and independent spirit;&mdash;and there is
-      one circumstance," said he, "which ought to combine us in some degree&mdash;our
-      having paid tribute to the same excellence of character in poor Eveline.
-      You offered yourself to me in my need, and you were already acquainted
-      with the beginning of my misfortunes. To you, therefore, I have recourse
-      for advice, for sympathy, for support."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You shall seek none of them in vain, my lord," said Oldbuck, "so far as
-      my slender ability extends;&mdash;and I am honoured by the preference,
-      whether it arises from choice, or is prompted by chance. But this is a
-      matter to be ripely considered. May I ask what are your principal views at
-      present?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "To ascertain the fate of my child," said the Earl, "be the consequences
-      what they may, and to do justice to the honour of Eveline, which I have
-      only permitted to be suspected to avoid discovery of the yet more horrible
-      taint to which I was made to believe it liable."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And the memory of your mother?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Must bear its own burden," answered the Earl with a sigh: "better that
-      she were justly convicted of deceit, should that be found necessary, than
-      that others should be unjustly accused of crimes so much more dreadful."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then, my lord," said Oldbuck, "our first business must be to put the
-      information of the old woman, Elspeth, into a regular and authenticated
-      form."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "That," said Lord Glenallan, "will be at present, I fear, impossible. She
-      is exhausted herself, and surrounded by her distressed family. To-morrow,
-      perhaps, when she is alone&mdash;and yet I doubt, from her imperfect sense
-      of right and wrong, whether she would speak out in any one's presence but
-      my own. I am too sorely fatigued."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then, my lord," said the Antiquary, whom the interest of the moment
-      elevated above points of expense and convenience, which had generally more
-      than enough of weight with him, "I would propose to your lordship, instead
-      of returning, fatigued as you are, so far as to Glenallan House, or taking
-      the more uncomfortable alternative of going to a bad inn at Fairport, to
-      alarm all the busybodies of the town&mdash;I would propose, I say, that
-      you should be my guest at Monkbarns for this night. By to-morrow these
-      poor people will have renewed their out-of-doors vocation&mdash;for sorrow
-      with them affords no respite from labour,&mdash;and we will visit the old
-      woman Elspeth alone, and take down her examination."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      After a formal apology for the encroachment, Lord Glenallan agreed to go
-      with him, and underwent with patience in their return home the whole
-      history of John of the Girnel, a legend which Mr. Oldbuck was never known
-      to spare any one who crossed his threshold.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The arrival of a stranger of such note, with two saddle-horses and a
-      servant in black, which servant had holsters on his saddle-bow, and a
-      coronet upon the holsters, created a general commotion in the house of
-      Monkbarns. Jenny Rintherout, scarce recovered from the hysterics which she
-      had taken on hearing of poor Steenie's misfortune, chased about the
-      turkeys and poultry, cackled and screamed louder than they did, and ended
-      by killing one-half too many. Miss Griselda made many wise reflections on
-      the hot-headed wilfulness of her brother, who had occasioned such
-      devastation, by suddenly bringing in upon them a papist nobleman. And she
-      ventured to transmit to Mr. Blattergowl some hint of the unusual slaughter
-      which had taken place in the <i>basse-cour,</i> which brought the honest
-      clergyman to inquire how his friend Monkbarns had got home, and whether he
-      was not the worse of being at the funeral, at a period so near the ringing
-      of the bell for dinner, that the Antiquary had no choice left but to
-      invite him to stay and bless the meat. Miss M'Intyre had on her part some
-      curiosity to see this mighty peer, of whom all had heard, as an eastern
-      caliph or sultan is heard of by his subjects, and felt some degree of
-      timidity at the idea of encountering a person, of whose unsocial habits
-      and stern manners so many stories were told, that her fear kept at least
-      pace with her curiosity. The aged housekeeper was no less flustered and
-      hurried in obeying the numerous and contradictory commands of her
-      mistress, concerning preserves, pastry and fruit, the mode of marshalling
-      and dishing the dinner, the necessity of not permitting the melted butter
-      to run to oil, and the danger of allowing Juno&mdash;who, though formally
-      banished from the parlour, failed not to maraud about the out-settlements
-      of the family&mdash;to enter the kitchen.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The only inmate of Monkbarns who remained entirely indifferent on this
-      momentous occasion was Hector M'Intyre, who cared no more for an Earl than
-      he did for a commoner, and who was only interested in the unexpected
-      visit, as it might afford some protection against his uncle's displeasure,
-      if he harboured any, for his not attending the funeral, and still more
-      against his satire upon the subject of his gallant but unsuccessful single
-      combat with the <i>phoca,</i> or seal.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      To these, the inmates of his household, Oldbuck presented the Earl of
-      Glenallan, who underwent, with meek and subdued civility, the prosing
-      speeches of the honest divine, and the lengthened apologies of Miss
-      Griselda Oldbuck, which her brother in vain endeavoured to abridge. Before
-      the dinner hour, Lord Glenallan requested permission to retire a while to
-      his chamber. Mr. Oldbuck accompanied his guest to the Green Room, which
-      had been hastily prepared for his reception. He looked around with an air
-      of painful recollection.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I think," at length he observed, "I think, Mr. Oldbuck, that I have been
-      in this apartment before."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes, my lord," answered Oldbuck, "upon occasion of an excursion hither
-      from Knockwinnock&mdash;and since we are upon a subject so melancholy, you
-      may perhaps remember whose taste supplied these lines from Chaucer, which
-      now form the motto of the tapestry."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I guess", said the Earl, "though I cannot recollect. She excelled me,
-      indeed, in literary taste and information, as in everything else; and it
-      is one of the mysterious dispensations of Providence, Mr. Oldbuck, that a
-      creature so excellent in mind and body should have been cut off in so
-      miserable a manner, merely from her having formed a fatal attachment to
-      such a wretch as I am."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Mr. Oldbuck did not attempt an answer to this burst of the grief which lay
-      ever nearest to the heart of his guest, but, pressing Lord Glenallan's
-      hand with one of his own, and drawing the other across his shaggy
-      eyelashes, as if to brush away a mist that intercepted his sight, he left
-      the Earl at liberty to arrange himself previous to dinner.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0014" id="Alink2HCH0014">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER FOURTEENTH
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                           &mdash;Life, with you,
-            Glows in the brain and dances in the arteries;
-           'Tis like the wine some joyous guest hath quaffed,
-                 That glads the heart and elevates the fancy:
-                 Mine is the poor residuum of the cup,
-             Vapid, and dull, and tasteless, only soiling,
-             With its base dregs, the vessel that contains it.
-                                            Old Play.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "Now, only think what a man my brother is, Mr. Blattergowl, for a wise man
-      and a learned man, to bring this Yerl into our house without speaking a
-      word to a body! And there's the distress of thae Mucklebackits&mdash;we
-      canna get a fin o' fish&mdash;and we hae nae time to send ower to Fairport
-      for beef, and the mutton's but new killed&mdash;and that silly fliskmahoy,
-      Jenny Rintherout, has taen the exies, and done naething but laugh and
-      greet, the skirl at the tail o' the guffaw, for twa days successfully&mdash;and
-      now we maun ask that strange man, that's as grand and as grave as the Yerl
-      himsell, to stand at the sideboard! and I canna gang into the kitchen to
-      direct onything, for he's hovering there, making some pousowdie* for my
-      Lord, for he doesna eat like ither folk neither&mdash;And how to sort the
-      strange servant man at dinner time&mdash;I am sure, Mr. Blattergowl,
-      a'thegither, it passes my judgment."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * <i>Pousowdie,</i>&mdash;Miscellaneous mess.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Truly, Miss Griselda," replied the divine, "Monkbarns was inconsiderate.
-      He should have taen a day to see the invitation, as they do wi' the
-      titular's condescendence in the process of valuation and sale. But the
-      great man could not have come on a sudden to ony house in this parish
-      where he could have been better served with <i>vivers</i>&mdash;that I
-      must say&mdash;and also that the steam from the kitchen is very gratifying
-      to my nostrils;&mdash;and if ye have ony household affairs to attend to,
-      Mrs. Griselda, never make a stranger of me&mdash;I can amuse mysell very
-      weel with the larger copy of Erskine's Institutes."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And taking down from the window-seat that amusing folio, (the Scottish
-      Coke upon Littleton), he opened it, as if instinctively, at the tenth
-      title of Book Second, "of Teinds or Tythes," and was presently deeply
-      wrapped up in an abstruse discussion concerning the temporality of
-      benefices.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The entertainment, about which Miss Oldbuck expressed so much anxiety, was
-      at length placed upon the table; and the Earl of Glenallan, for the first
-      time since the date of his calamity, sat at a stranger's board, surrounded
-      by strangers. He seemed to himself like a man in a dream, or one whose
-      brain was not fully recovered from the effects of an intoxicating potion.
-      Relieved, as he had that morning been, from the image of guilt which had
-      so long haunted his imagination, he felt his sorrows as a lighter and more
-      tolerable load, but was still unable to take any share in the conversation
-      that passed around him. It was, indeed, of a cast very different from that
-      which he had been accustomed to. The bluntness of Oldbuck, the tiresome
-      apologetic harangues of his sister, the pedantry of the divine, and the
-      vivacity of the young soldier, which savoured much more of the camp than
-      of the court, were all new to a nobleman who had lived in a retired and
-      melancholy state for so many years, that the manners of the world seemed
-      to him equally strange and unpleasing. Miss M'Intyre alone, from the
-      natural politeness and unpretending simplicity of her manners, appeared to
-      belong to that class of society to which he had been accustomed in his
-      earlier and better days.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Nor did Lord Glenallan's deportment less surprise the company. Though a
-      plain but excellent family-dinner was provided (for, as Mr. Blattergowl
-      had justly said, it was impossible to surprise Miss Griselda when her
-      larder was empty), and though the Antiquary boasted his best port, and
-      assimilated it to the Falernian of Horace, Lord Glenallan was proof to the
-      allurements of both. His servant placed before him a small mess of
-      vegetables, that very dish, the cooking of which had alarmed Miss
-      Griselda, arranged with the most minute and scrupulous neatness. He ate
-      sparingly of these provisions; and a glass of pure water, sparkling from
-      the fountain-head, completed his repast. Such, his servant said, had been
-      his lordship's diet for very many years, unless upon the high festivals of
-      the Church, or when company of the first rank were entertained at
-      Glenallan House, when he relaxed a little in the austerity of his diet,
-      and permitted himself a glass or two of wine. But at Monkbarns, no
-      anchoret could have made a more simple and scanty meal.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Antiquary was a gentleman, as we have seen, in feeling, but blunt and
-      careless in expression, from the habit of living with those before whom he
-      had nothing to suppress. He attacked his noble guest without scruple on
-      the severity of his regimen.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A few half-cold greens and potatoes&mdash;a glass of ice-cold water to
-      wash them down&mdash;antiquity gives no warrant for it, my lord. This
-      house used to be accounted a <i>hospitium,</i> a place of retreat for
-      Christians; but your lordship's diet is that of a heathen Pythagorean, or
-      Indian Bramin&mdash;nay, more severe than either, if you refuse these fine
-      apples."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am a Catholic, you are aware," said Lord Glenallan, wishing to escape
-      from the discussion, "and you know that our church"&mdash;&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Lays down many rules of mortification," proceeded the dauntless
-      Antiquary; "but I never heard that they were quite so rigorously practised&mdash;Bear
-      witness my predecessor, John of the Girnel, or the jolly Abbot, who gave
-      his name to this apple, my lord."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And as he pared the fruit, in spite of his sister's "O fie, Monkbarns!"
-      and the prolonged cough of the minister, accompanied by a shake of his
-      huge wig, the Antiquary proceeded to detail the intrigue which had given
-      rise to the fame of the abbot's apple with more slyness and
-      circumstantiality than was at all necessary. His jest (as may readily be
-      conceived) missed fire, for this anecdote of conventual gallantry failed
-      to produce the slightest smile on the visage of the Earl. Oldbuck then
-      took up the subject of Ossian, Macpherson, and Mac-Cribb; but Lord
-      Glenallan had never so much as heard of any of the three, so little
-      conversant had he been with modern literature. The conversation was now in
-      some danger of flagging, or of falling into the hands of Mr. Blattergowl,
-      who had just pronounced the formidable word, "teind-free," when the
-      subject of the French Revolution was started&mdash;a political event on
-      which Lord Glenallan looked with all the prejudiced horror of a bigoted
-      Catholic and zealous aristocrat. Oldbuck was far from carrying his
-      detestation of its principles to such a length.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There were many men in the first Constituent Assembly," he said, "who
-      held sound Whiggish doctrines, and were for settling the Constitution with
-      a proper provision for the liberties of the people. And if a set of
-      furious madmen were now in possession of the government, it was," he
-      continued, "what often happened in great revolutions, where extreme
-      measures are adopted in the fury of the moment, and the State resembles an
-      agitated pendulum which swings from side to side for some time ere it can
-      acquire its due and perpendicular station. Or it might be likened to a
-      storm or hurricane, which, passing over a region, does great damage in its
-      passage, yet sweeps away stagnant and unwholesome vapours, and repays, in
-      future health and fertility, its immediate desolation and ravage."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Earl shook his head; but having neither spirit nor inclination for
-      debate, he suffered the argument to pass uncontested.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      This discussion served to introduce the young soldier's experiences; and
-      he spoke of the actions in which he, had been engaged, with modesty, and
-      at the same time with an air of spirit and zeal which delighted the Earl,
-      who had been bred up, like others of his house, in the opinion that the
-      trade of arms was the first duty of man, and believed that to employ them
-      against the French was a sort of holy warfare.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What would I give," said he apart to Oldbuck, as they rose to join the
-      ladies in the drawing-room, "what would I give to have a son of such
-      spirit as that young gentleman!&mdash;He wants something of address and
-      manner, something of polish, which mixing in good society would soon give
-      him; but with what zeal and animation he expresses himself&mdash;how fond
-      of his profession&mdash;how loud in the praise of others&mdash;how modest
-      when speaking of himself!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hector is much obliged to you, my lord," replied his uncle, gratified,
-      yet not so much so as to suppress his consciousness of his own mental
-      superiority over the young soldier; "I believe in my heart nobody ever
-      spoke half so much good of him before, except perhaps the sergeant of his
-      company, when was wheedling a Highland recruit to enlist with him. He is a
-      good lad notwithstanding, although he be not quite the hero your lordship
-      supposes him, and although my commendations rather attest the kindness
-      than the vivacity of his character. In fact, his high spirit is a sort of
-      constitutional vehemence, which attends him in everything he sets about,
-      and is often very inconvenient to his friends. I saw him to-day engage in
-      an animated contest with a <i>phoca,</i> or seal (<i>sealgh,</i> our
-      people more properly call them, retaining the Gothic guttural <i>gh</i>),
-      with as much vehemence as if he had fought against Dumourier&mdash;Marry,
-      my lord, the <i>phoca</i> had the better, as the said Dumourier had of
-      some other folks. And he'll talk with equal if not superior rapture of the
-      good behaviour of a pointer bitch, as of the plan of a campaign."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He shall have full permission to sport over my grounds," said the Earl,
-      "if he is so fond of that exercise."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You will bind him to you, my lord," said Monkbarns, "body and soul: give
-      him leave to crack off his birding-piece at a poor covey of partridges or
-      moor-fowl, and he's yours for ever&mdash;I will enchant him by the
-      intelligence. But O, my lord, that you could have seen my phoenix Lovel!&mdash;the
-      very prince and chieftain of the youth of this age; and not destitute of
-      spirit neither&mdash;I promise you he gave my termagant kinsman a <i>quid
-      pro quo</i>&mdash;a Rowland for his Oliver, as the vulgar say, alluding to
-      the two celebrated Paladins of Charlemagne."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      After coffee, Lord Glenallan requested a private interview with the
-      Antiquary, and was ushered to his library.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I must withdraw you from your own amiable family," he said, "to involve
-      you in the perplexities of an unhappy man. You are acquainted with the
-      world, from which I have long been banished; for Glenallan House has been
-      to me rather a prison than a dwelling, although a prison which I had
-      neither fortitude nor spirit to break from."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Let me first ask your lordship," said the Antiquary, "what are your own
-      wishes and designs in this matter?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I wish most especially," answered Lord Glenallan, "to declare my luckless
-      marriage, and to vindicate the reputation of the unhappy Eveline&mdash;that
-      is, if you see a possibility of doing so without making public the conduct
-      of my mother."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "<i>Suum cuique tribuito,</i>" said the Antiquary; "do right to everyone.
-      The memory of that unhappy young lady has too long suffered, and I think
-      it might be cleared without further impeaching that of your mother, than
-      by letting it be understood in general that she greatly disapproved and
-      bitterly opposed the match. All&mdash;forgive me, my lord&mdash;all who
-      ever heard of the late Countess of Glenallan, will learn that without much
-      surprise."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But you forget one horrible circumstance, Mr. Oldbuck," said the Earl, in
-      an agitated voice.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am not aware of it," replied the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The fate of the infant&mdash;its disappearance with the confidential
-      attendant of my mother, and the dreadful surmises which may be drawn from
-      my conversation with Elspeth."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If you would have my free opinion, my lord," answered Mr. Oldbuck, "and
-      will not catch too rapidly at it as matter of hope, I would say that it is
-      very possible the child yet lives. For thus much I ascertained, by my
-      former inquiries concerning the event of that deplorable evening, that a
-      child and woman were carried that night from the cottage at the
-      Craigburnfoot in a carriage and four by your brother Edward Geraldin
-      Neville, whose journey towards England with these companions I traced for
-      several stages. I believed then it was a part of the family compact to
-      carry a child whom you meant to stigmatize with illegitimacy, out of that
-      country where chance might have raised protectors and proofs of its
-      rights. But I now think that your brother, having reason, like yourself,
-      to believe the child stained with shame yet more indelible, had
-      nevertheless withdrawn it, partly from regard to the honour of his house,
-      partly from the risk to which it might have been exposed in the
-      neighbourhood of the Lady Glenallan."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      As he spoke, the Earl of Glenallan grew extremely pale, and had nearly
-      fallen from his chair.&mdash;The alarmed Antiquary ran hither and thither
-      looking for remedies; but his museum, though sufficiently well filled with
-      a vast variety of useless matters, contained nothing that could be
-      serviceable on the present or any other occasion. As he posted out of the
-      room to borrow his sister's salts, he could not help giving a
-      constitutional growl of chagrin and wonder at the various incidents which
-      had converted his mansion, first into an hospital for a wounded duellist,
-      and now into the sick chamber of a dying nobleman. "And yet," said he, "I
-      have always kept aloof from the soldiery and the peerage. My <i>coenobitium</i>
-      has only next to be made a lying-in hospital, and then, I trow, the
-      transformation will be complete."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      When he returned with the remedy, Lord Glenallan was much better. The new
-      and unexpected light which Mr. Oldbuck had thrown upon the melancholy
-      history of his family had almost overpowered him. "You think, then, Mr.
-      Oldbuck&mdash;for you are capable of thinking, which I am not&mdash;you
-      think, then, that it is possible&mdash;that is, not impossible&mdash;my
-      child may yet live?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I think," said the Antiquary, "it is impossible that it could come to any
-      violent harm through your brother's means. He was known to be a gay and
-      dissipated man, but not cruel nor dishonourable; nor is it possible, that,
-      if he had intended any foul play, he would have placed himself so forward
-      in the charge of the infant, as I will prove to your lordship he did."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      So saying, Mr. Oldbuck opened a drawer of the cabinet of his ancestor
-      Aldobrand, and produced a bundle of papers tied with a black ribband, and
-      labelled,&mdash;Examinations, etc., taken by Jonathan Oldbuck, J. P., upon
-      the 18th of February, 17&mdash;; a little under was written, in a small
-      hand, <i>Eheu Evelina</i>! The tears dropped fast from the Earl's eyes, as
-      he endeavoured, in vain, to unfasten the knot which secured these
-      documents.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Your lordship," said Mr. Oldbuck, "had better not read these at present.
-      Agitated as you are, and having much business before you, you must not
-      exhaust your strength. Your brother's succession is now, I presume, your
-      own, and it will be easy for you to make inquiry among his servants and
-      retainers, so as to hear where the child is, if, fortunately, it shall be
-      still alive."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I dare hardly hope it," said the Earl, with a deep sigh. "Why should my
-      brother have been silent to me?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nay, my lord, why should he have communicated to your lordship the
-      existence of a being whom you must have supposed the offspring of"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Most true&mdash;there is an obvious and a kind reason for his being
-      silent. If anything, indeed, could have added to the horror of the ghastly
-      dream that has poisoned my whole existence, it must have been the
-      knowledge that such a child of misery existed."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then," continued the Antiquary, "although it would be rash to conclude,
-      at the distance of more than twenty years, that your son must needs be
-      still alive because he was not destroyed in infancy, I own I think you
-      should instantly set on foot inquiries."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It shall be done," replied Lord Glenallan, catching eagerly at the hope
-      held out to him, the first he had nourished for many years;&mdash;"I will
-      write to a faithful steward of my father, who acted in the same capacity
-      under my brother Neville&mdash;But, Mr. Oldbuck, I am not my brother's
-      heir."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed!&mdash;I am sorry for that, my lord&mdash;it is a noble estate,
-      and the ruins of the old castle of Neville's-Burgh alone, which are the
-      most superb relics of Anglo-Norman architecture in that part of the
-      country, are a possession much to be coveted. I thought your father had no
-      other son or near relative."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He had not, Mr. Oldbuck," replied Lord Glenallan; "but my brother adopted
-      views in politics, and a form of religion, alien from those which had been
-      always held by our house. Our tempers had long differed, nor did my
-      unhappy mother always think him sufficiently observant to her. In short,
-      there was a family quarrel, and my brother, whose property was at his own
-      free disposal, availed himself of the power vested in him to choose a
-      stranger for his heir. It is a matter which never struck me as being of
-      the least consequence&mdash;for if worldly possessions could alleviate
-      misery, I have enough and to spare. But now I shall regret it, if it
-      throws any difficulty in the way of our inquiries&mdash;and I bethink me
-      that it may; for in case of my having a lawful son of my body, and my
-      brother dying without issue, my father's possessions stood entailed upon
-      my son. It is not therefore likely that this heir, be he who he may, will
-      afford us assistance in making a discovery which may turn out so much to
-      his own prejudice."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And in all probability the steward your lordship mentions is also in his
-      service," said the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is most likely; and the man being a Protestant&mdash;how far it is
-      safe to entrust him"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I should hope, my lord," said Oldbuck gravely, "that a Protestant may be
-      as trustworthy as a Catholic. I am doubly interested in the Protestant
-      faith, my lord. My ancestor, Aldobrand Oldenbuck, printed the celebrated
-      Confession of Augsburg, as I can show by the original edition now in this
-      house."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have not the least doubt of what you say, Mr. Oldbuck," replied the
-      Earl, "nor do I speak out of bigotry or intolerance; but probably the
-      Protestant steward will favour the Protestant heir rather than the
-      Catholic&mdash;if, indeed, my son has been bred in his father's faith&mdash;or,
-      alas! if indeed he yet lives."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We must look close into this," said Oldbuck, "before committing
-      ourselves. I have a literary friend at York, with whom I have long
-      corresponded on the subject of the Saxon horn that is preserved in the
-      Minster there; we interchanged letters for six years, and have only as yet
-      been able to settle the first line of the inscription. I will write
-      forthwith to this gentleman, Dr. Dryasdust, and be particular in my
-      inquiries concerning the character, etc., of your brother's heir, of the
-      gentleman employed in his affairs, and what else may be likely to further
-      your lordship's inquiries. In the meantime your lordship will collect the
-      evidence of the marriage, which I hope can still be recovered?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Unquestionably," replied the Earl: "the witnesses, who were formerly
-      withdrawn from your research, are still living. My tutor, who solemnized
-      the marriage, was provided for by a living in France, and has lately
-      returned to this country as an emigrant, a victim of his zeal for loyalty,
-      legitimacy, and religion."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "That's one lucky consequence of the French, revolution, my lord&mdash;you
-      must allow that, at least," said Oldbuck: "but no offence; I will act as
-      warmly in your affairs as if I were of your own faith in politics and
-      religion. And take my advice&mdash;If you want an affair of consequence
-      properly managed, put it into the hands of an antiquary; for as they are
-      eternally exercising their genius and research upon trifles, it is
-      impossible they can be baffled in affairs of importance;&mdash;use makes
-      perfect&mdash;and the corps that is most frequently drilled upon the
-      parade, will be most prompt in its exercise upon the day of battle. And,
-      talking upon that subject, I would willingly read to your lordship, in
-      order to pass away the time betwixt and supper"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I beg I may not interfere with family arrangements," said Lord Glenallan,
-      "but I never taste anything after sunset."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nor I either, my lord," answered his host, "notwithstanding it is said to
-      have been the custom of the ancients. But then I dine differently from
-      your lordship, and therefore am better enabled to dispense with those
-      elaborate entertainments which my womankind (that is, my sister and niece,
-      my lord) are apt to place on the table, for the display rather of their
-      own house-wifery than the accommodation of our wants. However, a broiled
-      bone, or a smoked haddock, or an oyster, or a slice of bacon of our own
-      curing, with a toast and a tankard&mdash;or something or other of that
-      sort, to close the orifice of the stomach before going to bed, does not
-      fall under my restriction, nor, I hope, under your lordship's."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My no-supper is literal, Mr. Oldbuck; but I will attend you at your meal
-      with pleasure."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, my lord," replied the Antiquary, "I will endeavour to entertain
-      your ears at least, since I cannot banquet your palate. What I am about to
-      read to your lordship relates to the upland glens."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lord Glenallan, though he would rather have recurred to the subject of his
-      own uncertainties, was compelled to make a sign of rueful civility and
-      acquiescence.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Antiquary, therefore, took out his portfolio of loose sheets, and
-      after premising that the topographical details here laid down were
-      designed to illustrate a slight essay upon castrametation, which had been
-      read with indulgence at several societies of Antiquaries, he commenced as
-      follows: "The subject, my lord, is the hill-fort of Quickens-bog, with the
-      site of which your lordship is doubtless familiar&mdash;it is upon your
-      store-farm of Mantanner, in the barony of Clochnaben."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I think I have heard the names of these places," said the Earl, in answer
-      to the Antiquary's appeal.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Heard the name? and the farm brings him six hundred a-year&mdash;O Lord!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Such was the scarce-subdued ejaculation of the Antiquary. But his
-      hospitality got the better of his surprise, and he proceeded to read his
-      essay with an audible voice, in great glee at having secured a patient,
-      and, as he fondly hoped, an interested hearer.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Quickens-bog may at first seem to derive its name from the plant <i>Quicken,</i>
-      by which, <i>Scottice,</i> we understand couch-grass, dog-grass, or the <i>Triticum
-      repens</i> of Linnaeus, and the common English monosyllable <i>Bog,</i> by
-      which we mean, in popular language, a marsh or morass&mdash;in Latin, <i>Palus.</i>
-      But it may confound the rash adopters of the more obvious etymological
-      derivations, to learn that the couch-grass or dog-grass, or, to speak
-      scientifically, the <i>Triticum repens</i> of Linnaeus, does not grow
-      within a quarter of a mile of this castrum or hill-fort, whose ramparts
-      are uniformly clothed with short verdant turf; and that we must seek a bog
-      or <i>palus</i> at a still greater distance, the nearest being that of
-      Gird-the-mear, a full half-mile distant. The last syllable, <i>bog,</i> is
-      obviously, therefore, a mere corruption of the Saxon <i>Burgh,</i> which
-      we find in the various transmutations of <i>Burgh, Burrow, Brough, Bruff,
-      Buff,</i> and <i>Boff,</i> which last approaches very near the sound in
-      question&mdash;since, supposing the word to have been originally <i>borgh,</i>
-      which is the genuine Saxon spelling, a slight change, such as modern
-      organs too often make upon ancient sounds, will produce first <i>Bogh,</i>
-      and then, <i>elisa H,</i> or compromising and sinking the guttural,
-      agreeable to the common vernacular practice, you have either <i>Boff</i>
-      or <i>Bog</i> as it happens. The word <i>Quickens</i> requires in like
-      manner to be altered,&mdash;decomposed, as it were,&mdash;and reduced to
-      its original and genuine sound, ere we can discern its real meaning. By
-      the ordinary exchange of the <i>Qu</i> into <i>Wh,</i> familiar to the
-      rudest tyro who has opened a book of old Scottish poetry, we gain either
-      Whilkens, or Whichensborgh&mdash;put we may suppose, by way of question,
-      as if those who imposed the name, struck with the extreme antiquity of the
-      place, had expressed in it an interrogation, To whom did this fortress
-      belong?'&mdash;Or, it might be <i>Whackens-burgh,</i> from the Saxon <i>Whacken,</i>
-      to strike with the hand, as doubtless the skirmishes near a place of such
-      apparent consequence must have legitimated such a derivation," etc. etc.
-      etc.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      I will be more merciful to my readers than Oldbuck was to his guest; for,
-      considering his opportunities of gaining patient attention from a person
-      of such consequence as Lord Glenallan were not many, he used, or rather
-      abused, the present to the uttermost.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0015" id="Alink2HCH0015">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                         Crabbed age and youth
-                         Cannot live together:&mdash;
-                         Youth is full of pleasance,
-                              Age is full of care;
-                         Youth like summer morn,
-                         Age like winter weather;
-                         Youth like summer brave,
-                         Age like winter bare.
-                                      Shakspeare.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      In the morning of the following day, the Antiquary, who was something of a
-      sluggard, was summoned from his bed a full hour earlier than his custom by
-      Caxon. "What's the matter now?" he exclaimed, yawning and stretching forth
-      his hand to the huge gold repeater, which, bedded upon his India silk
-      handkerchief, was laid safe by his pillow&mdash;"what's the matter now,
-      Caxon?&mdash;it can't be eight o'clock yet."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, sir,&mdash;but my lord's man sought me out, for he fancies me your
-      honour's valley-de-sham,&mdash;and sae I am, there's nae doubt o't, baith
-      your honour's and the minister's&mdash;at least ye hae nae other that I
-      ken o'&mdash;and I gie a help to Sir Arthur too, but that's mair in the
-      way o' my profession."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, well&mdash;never mind that," said the Antiquary&mdash;"happy is he
-      that is his own valley-de-sham, as you call it&mdash;But why disturb my
-      morning's rest?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou, sir, the great man's been up since peep o' day, and he's steered the
-      town to get awa an express to fetch his carriage, and it will be here
-      briefly, and he wad like to see your honour afore he gaes awa."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Gadso!" ejaculated Oldbuck, "these great men use one's house and time as
-      if they were their own property. Well, it's once and away. Has Jenny come
-      to her senses yet, Caxon?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth, sir, but just middling," replied the barber; "she's been in a
-      swither about the jocolate this morning, and was like to hae toomed it a'
-      out into the slap-bason, and drank it hersell in her ecstacies&mdash;but
-      she's won ower wi't, wi' the help o' Miss M'Intyre."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then all my womankind are on foot and scrambling, and I must enjoy my
-      quiet bed no longer, if I would have a well-regulated house&mdash;Lend me
-      my gown. And what are the news at Fairport?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ou, sir, what can they be about but this grand news o' my lord," answered
-      the old man, "that hasna been ower the door-stane, they threep to me, for
-      this twenty years&mdash;this grand news of his coming to visit your
-      honour?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aha!" said Monkbarns; "and what do they say of that, Caxon?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "'Deed, sir, they hae various opinions. Thae fallows, that are the
-      democraws, as they ca' them, that are again' the king and the law, and
-      hairpowder and dressing o' gentlemen's wigs&mdash;a wheen blackguards&mdash;they
-      say he's come doun to speak wi' your honour about bringing doun his hill
-      lads and Highland tenantry to break up the meetings of the Friends o' the
-      People;&mdash;and when I said your honour never meddled wi' the like o'
-      sic things where there was like to be straiks and bloodshed, they said, if
-      ye didna, your nevoy did, and that he was weel ken'd to be a kingsman that
-      wad fight knee-deep, and that ye were the head and he was the hand, and
-      that the Yerl was to bring out the men and the siller."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Come," said the Antiquary, laughing&mdash;"I am glad the war is to cost
-      me nothing but counsel."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, na," said Caxon&mdash;"naebody thinks your honour wad either fight
-      yoursell, or gie ony feck o' siller to ony side o' the question."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Umph! well, that's the opinion of the democraws, as you call them&mdash;What
-      say the rest o' Fairport?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In troth," said the candid reporter, "I canna say it's muckle better.
-      Captain Coquet, of the volunteers&mdash;that's him that's to be the new
-      collector,&mdash;and some of the other gentlemen of the Blue and a' Blue
-      Club, are just saying it's no right to let popists, that hae sae mony
-      French friends as the Yerl of Glenallan, gang through the country, and&mdash;but
-      your honour will maybe be angry?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not I, Caxon," said Oldbuck; "fire away as if you were Captain Coquet's
-      whole platoon&mdash;I can stand it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Weel then, they say, sir, that as ye didna encourage the petition about
-      the peace, and wadna petition in favour of the new tax, and as you were
-      again' bringing in the yeomanry at the meal mob, but just for settling the
-      folk wi' the constables&mdash;they say ye're no a gude friend to
-      government; and that thae sort o' meetings between sic a powerfu' man as
-      the Yerl, and sic a wise man as you,&mdash;Od they think they suld be
-      lookit after; and some say ye should baith be shankit aff till Edinburgh
-      Castle."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "On my word," said the Antiquary, "I am infinitely obliged to my
-      neighbours for their good opinion of me! And so I, that have never
-      interfered with their bickerings, but to recommend quiet and moderate
-      measures, am given up on both sides as a man very likely to commit high
-      treason, either against King or People?&mdash;Give me my coat, Caxon&mdash;give
-      me my coat;&mdash;it's lucky I live not in their report. Have you heard
-      anything of Taffril and his vessel?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Caxon's countenance fell.&mdash;"Na, sir, and the winds hae been high, and
-      this is a fearfu' coast to cruise on in thae eastern gales,&mdash;the
-      headlands rin sae far out, that a veshel's embayed afore I could sharp a
-      razor; and then there's nae harbour or city of refuge on our coast&mdash;a'
-      craigs and breakers;&mdash;a veshel that rins ashore wi' us flees asunder
-      like the powther when I shake the pluff&mdash;and it's as ill to gather
-      ony o't again. I aye tell my daughter thae things when she grows wearied
-      for a letter frae Lieutenant Taffril&mdash;It's aye an apology for him. Ye
-      sudna blame him, says I, hinny, for ye little ken what may hae happened."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, ay, Caxon, thou art as good a comforter as a valet-de-chambre.&mdash;Give
-      me a white stock, man,&mdash;dye think I can go down with a handkerchief
-      about my neck when I have company?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dear sir, the Captain says a three-nookit hankercher is the maist
-      fashionable overlay, and that stocks belang to your honour and me that are
-      auld warld folk. I beg pardon for mentioning us twa thegither, but it was
-      what he said."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The Captain's a puppy, and you are a goose, Caxon."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's very like it may be sae," replied the acquiescent barber: "I am sure
-      your honour kens best."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Before breakfast, Lord Glenallan, who appeared in better spirits than he
-      had evinced in the former evening, went particularly through the various
-      circumstances of evidence which the exertions of Oldbuck had formerly
-      collected; and pointing out the means which he possessed of completing the
-      proof of his marriage, expressed his resolution instantly to go through
-      the painful task of collecting and restoring the evidence concerning the
-      birth of Eveline Neville, which Elspeth had stated to be in his mother's
-      possession.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And yet, Mr. Oldbuck," he said, "I feel like a man who receives important
-      tidings ere he is yet fully awake, and doubt whether they refer to actual
-      life, or are not rather a continuation of his dream. This woman&mdash;this
-      Elspeth,&mdash;she is in the extremity of age, and approaching in many
-      respects to dotage. Have I not&mdash;it is a hideous question&mdash;have I
-      not been hasty in the admission of her present evidence, against that
-      which she formerly gave me to a very&mdash;very different purpose?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Mr. Oldbuck paused a moment, and then answered with firmness&mdash;"No, my
-      lord; I cannot think you have any reason to suspect the truth of what she
-      has told you last, from no apparent impulse but the urgency of conscience.
-      Her confession was voluntary, disinterested, distinct, consistent with
-      itself, and with all the other known circumstances of the case. I would
-      lose no time, however, in examining and arranging the other documents to
-      which she has referred; and I also think her own statement should be taken
-      down, if possible in a formal manner. We thought of setting about this
-      together. But it will be a relief to your lordship, and moreover have a
-      more impartial appearance, were I to attempt the investigation alone in
-      the capacity of a magistrate. I will do this&mdash;at least I will attempt
-      it, so soon as I shall see her in a favourable state of mind to undergo an
-      examination."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lord Glenallan wrung the Antiquary's hand in token of grateful
-      acquiescence. "I cannot express to you," he said, "Mr. Oldbuck, how much
-      your countenance and cooperation in this dark and most melancholy business
-      gives me relief and confidence. I cannot enough applaud myself for
-      yielding to the sudden impulse which impelled me, as it were, to drag you
-      into my confidence, and which arose from the experience I had formerly of
-      your firmness in discharge of your duty as a magistrate, and as a friend
-      to the memory of the unfortunate. Whatever the issue of these matters may
-      prove,&mdash;and I would fain hope there is a dawn breaking on the
-      fortunes of my house, though I shall not live to enjoy its light,&mdash;but
-      whatsoever be the issue, you have laid my family and me under the most
-      lasting obligation."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My lord," answered the Antiquary, "I must necessarily have the greatest
-      respect for your lordship's family, which I am well aware is one of the
-      most ancient in Scotland, being certainly derived from Aymer de Geraldin,
-      who sat in parliament at Perth, in the reign of Alexander II., and who by
-      the less vouched, yet plausible tradition of the country, is said to have
-      been descended from the Marmor of Clochnaben. Yet, with all my veneration
-      for your ancient descent, I must acknowledge that I find myself still more
-      bound to give your lordship what assistance is in my limited power, from
-      sincere sympathy with your sorrows, and detestation at the frauds which
-      have so long been practised upon you.&mdash;But, my lord, the matin meal
-      is, I see, now prepared&mdash;Permit me to show your lordship the way
-      through the intricacies of my <i>cenobitium,</i> which is rather a
-      combination of cells, jostled oddly together, and piled one upon the top
-      of the other, than a regular house. I trust you will make yourself some
-      amends for the spare diet of yesterday."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But this was no part of Lord Glenallan's system. Having saluted the
-      company with the grave and melancholy politeness which distinguished his
-      manners, his servant placed before him a slice of toasted bread, with a
-      glass of fair water, being the fare on which he usually broke his fast.
-      While the morning's meal of the young soldier and the old Antiquary was
-      despatched in much more substantial manner, the noise of wheels was heard.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Your lordship's carriage, I believe," said Oldbuck, stepping to the
-      window. "On my word, a handsome <i>quadriga,</i>&mdash;for such, according
-      to the best <i>scholium,</i> was the <i>vox signata</i> of the Romans for
-      a chariot which, like that of your lordship, was drawn by four horses."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And I will venture to say," cried Hector, eagerly gazing from the window,
-      "that four handsomer or better-matched bays never were put in harness&mdash;What
-      fine forehands!&mdash;what capital chargers they would make!&mdash; Might
-      I ask if they are of your lordship's own breeding?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I&mdash;I&mdash;rather believe so," said Lord Glenallan; "but I have been
-      so negligent of my domestic matters, that I am ashamed to say I must apply
-      to Calvert" (looking at the domestic).
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "They are of your lordship's own breeding," said Calvert, "got by Mad Tom
-      out of Jemina and Yarico, your lordship's brood mares."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Are there more of the set?" said Lord Glenallan.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Two, my lord,&mdash;one rising four, the other five off this grass, both
-      very handsome."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then let Dawkins bring them down to Monkbarns to-morrow," said the Earl&mdash;"I
-      hope Captain M'Intyre will accept them, if they are at all fit for
-      service."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Captain M'Intyre's eyes sparkled, and he was profuse in grateful
-      acknowledgments; while Oldbuck, on the other hand, seizing the Earl's
-      sleeve, endeavoured to intercept a present which boded no good to his
-      corn-chest and hay-loft.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My lord&mdash;my lord&mdash;much obliged&mdash;much obliged&mdash;But
-      Hector is a pedestrian, and never mounts on horseback in battle&mdash;he
-      is a Highland soldier, moreover, and his dress ill adapted for cavalry
-      service. Even Macpherson never mounted his ancestors on horseback, though
-      he has the impudence to talk of their being car-borne&mdash;and that, my
-      lord, is what is running in Hector's head&mdash;it is the vehicular, not
-      the equestrian exercise, which he envies&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum
-                           Collegisse juvat.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      His noddle is running on a curricle, which he has neither money to buy,
-      nor skill to drive if he had it; and I assure your lordship, that the
-      possession of two such quadrupeds would prove a greater scrape than any of
-      his duels, whether with human foe or with my friend the <i>phoca.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You must command us all at present, Mr. Oldbuck," said the Earl politely;
-      "but I trust you will not ultimately prevent my gratifying my young friend
-      in some way that may afford him pleasure."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Anything useful, my lord," said Oldbuck, "but no <i>curriculum</i>&mdash;I
-      protest he might as rationally propose to keep a <i>quadriga</i> at once&mdash;And
-      now I think of it, what is that old post-chaise from Fairport come
-      jingling here for?&mdash;I did not send for it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "<i>I</i> did, sir," said Hector, rather sulkily, for he was not much
-      gratified by his uncle's interference to prevent the Earl's intended
-      generosity, nor particularly inclined to relish either the disparagement
-      which he cast upon his skill as a charioteer, or the mortifying allusion
-      to his bad success in the adventures of the duel and the seal.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You did, sir?" echoed the Antiquary, in answer to his concise
-      information. "And pray, what may be your business with a post-chaise? Is
-      this splendid equipage&mdash;this <i>biga,</i> as I may call it&mdash;to
-      serve for an introduction to a <i>quadriga</i> or a <i>curriculum</i>?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Really, sir," replied the young soldier, "if it be necessary to give you
-      such a specific explanation, I am going to Fairport on a little business."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Will you permit me to inquire into the nature of that business, Hector?"
-      answered his uncle, who loved the exercise of a little brief authority
-      over his relative. "I should suppose any regimental affairs might be
-      transacted by your worthy deputy the sergeant&mdash;an honest gentleman,
-      who is so good as to make Monkbarns his home since his arrival among us&mdash;I
-      should, I say, suppose that he may transact any business of yours, without
-      your spending a day's pay on two dog-horses, and such a combination of
-      rotten wood, cracked glass, and leather&mdash;such a skeleton of a
-      post-chaise, as that before the door."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is not regimental business, sir, that calls me; and, since you insist
-      upon knowing, I must inform you Caxon has brought word this morning that
-      old Ochiltree, the beggar, is to be brought up for examination to-day,
-      previous to his being committed for trial; and I'm going to see that the
-      poor old fellow gets fair play&mdash;that's all."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay?&mdash;I heard something of this, but could not think it serious. And
-      pray, Captain Hector, who are so ready to be every man's second on all
-      occasions of strife, civil or military, by land, by water, or on the
-      sea-beach, what is your especial concern with old Edie Ochiltree?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He was a soldier in my father's company, sir," replied Hector; "and
-      besides, when I was about to do a very foolish thing one day, he
-      interfered to prevent me, and gave me almost as much good advice, sir, as
-      you could have done yourself."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And with the same good effect, I dare be sworn for it&mdash;eh, Hector?&mdash;
-      Come, confess it was thrown away."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed it was, sir; but I see no reason that my folly should make me less
-      grateful for his intended kindness."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Bravo, Hector! that's the most sensible thing I ever heard you say. But
-      always tell me your plans without reserve,&mdash;why, I will go with you
-      myself, man. I am sure the old fellow is not guilty, and I will assist him
-      in such a scrape much more effectually than you can do. Besides, it will
-      save thee half-a-guinea, my lad&mdash;a consideration which I heartily
-      pray you to have more frequently before your eyes."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Lord Glenallan's politeness had induced him to turn away and talk with the
-      ladies, when the dispute between the uncle and nephew appeared to grow
-      rather too animated to be fit for the ear of a stranger, but the Earl
-      mingled again in the conversation when the placable tone of the Antiquary
-      expressed amity. Having received a brief account of the mendicant, and of
-      the accusation brought against him, which Oldbuck did not hesitate to
-      ascribe to the malice of Dousterswivel, Lord Glenallan asked, whether the
-      individual in question had not been a soldier formerly?&mdash;He was
-      answered in the affirmative.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Had he not," continued his Lordship, "a coarse blue coat, or gown, with a
-      badge?&mdash;was he not a tall, striking-looking old man, with grey beard
-      and hair, who kept his body remarkably erect, and talked with an air of
-      ease and independence, which formed a strong contrast to his profession?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "All this is an exact picture of the man," refumed Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, then," continued Lord Glenallan, "although I fear I can be of no use
-      to him in his present condition, yet I owe him a debt of gratitude for
-      being the first person who brought me some tidings of the utmost
-      importance. I would willingly offer him a place of comfortable retirement,
-      when he is extricated from his present situation."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I fear, my lord," said Oldbuck, "he would have difficulty in reconciling
-      his vagrant habits to the acceptance of your bounty, at least I know the
-      experiment has been tried without effect. To beg from the public at large
-      he considers as independence, in comparison to drawing his whole support
-      from the bounty of an individual. He is so far a true philosopher, as to
-      be a contemner of all ordinary rules of hours and times. When he is hungry
-      he eats; when thirsty he drinks; when weary he sleeps; and with such
-      indifference with respect to the means and appliances about which we make
-      a fuss, that I suppose he was never ill dined or ill lodged in his life.
-      Then he is, to a certain extent, the oracle of the district through which
-      he travels&mdash;their genealogist, their newsman, their master of the
-      revels, their doctor at a pinch, or their divine;&mdash;I promise you he
-      has too many duties, and is too zealous in performing them, to be easily
-      bribed to abandon his calling. But I should be truly sorry if they sent
-      the poor light-hearted old man to lie for weeks in a jail. I am convinced
-      the confinement would break his heart."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Thus finished the conference. Lord Glenallan, having taken leave of the
-      ladies, renewed his offer to Captain M'Intyre of the freedom of his manors
-      for sporting, which was joyously accepted.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I can only add," he said, "that if your spirits are not liable to be
-      damped by dull company, Glenallan House is at all times open to you. On
-      two days of the week, Friday and Saturday, I keep my apartment, which will
-      be rather a relief to you, as you will be left to enjoy the society of my
-      almoner, Mr. Gladsmoor, who is a scholar and a man of the world."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Hector, his heart exulting at the thoughts of ranging through the
-      preserves of Glenallan House, and over the well-protected moors of
-      Clochnaben&mdash;nay, joy of joys! the deer-forest of Strath-Bonnel&mdash;made
-      many acknowledgements of the honour and gratitude he felt. Mr. Oldbuck was
-      sensible of the Earl's attention to his nephew; Miss M'Intyre was pleased
-      because her brother was gratified; and Miss Griselda Oldbuck looked
-      forward with glee to the potting of whole bags of moorfowl and black-game,
-      of which Mr. Blattergowl was a professed admirer. Thus,&mdash; which is
-      always the case when a man of rank leaves a private family where he has
-      studied to appear obliging,&mdash;all were ready to open in praise of the
-      Earl as soon as he had taken his leave, and was wheeled off in his chariot
-      by the four admired bays. But the panegyric was cut short, for Oldbuck and
-      his nephew deposited themselves in the Fairport hack, which, with one
-      horse trotting, and the other urged to a canter, creaked, jingled, and
-      hobbled towards that celebrated seaport, in a manner that formed a strong
-      contrast to the rapidity and smoothness with which Lord Glenallan's
-      equipage had seemed to vanish from their eyes.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0016" id="Alink2HCH0016">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-              Yes! I love justice well&mdash;as well as you do&mdash;
-             But since the good dame's blind, she shall excuse me
-              If, time and reason fitting, I prove dumb;&mdash;
-                  The breath I utter now shall be no means
-                  To take away from me my breath in future.
-                                          Old Play.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      By dint of charity from the town's-people in aid of the load of provisions
-      he had brought with him into durance, Edie Ochiltree had passed a day or
-      two's confinement without much impatience, regretting his want of freedom
-      the less, as the weather proved broken and rainy.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The prison," he said, "wasna sae dooms bad a place as it was ca'd. Ye had
-      aye a good roof ower your head to fend aff the weather, and, if the
-      windows werena glazed, it was the mair airy and pleasant for the summer
-      season. And there were folk enow to crack wi', and he had bread eneugh to
-      eat, and what need he fash himsell about the rest o't?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The courage of our philosophical mendicant began, however, to abate, when
-      the sunbeams shone fair on the rusty bars of his grated dungeon, and a
-      miserable linnet, whose cage some poor debtor had obtained permission to
-      attach to the window, began to greet them with his whistle.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ye're in better spirits than I am," said Edie, addressing the bird, "for
-      I can neither whistle nor sing for thinking o' the bonny burnsides and
-      green shaws that I should hae been dandering beside in weather like this.
-      But hae&mdash;there's some crumbs t'ye, an ye are sae merry; and troth ye
-      hae some reason to sing an ye kent it, for your cage comes by nae faut o'
-      your ain, and I may thank mysell that I am closed up in this weary place."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Ochiltree's soliloquy was disturbed by a peace-officer, who came to summon
-      him to attend the magistrate. So he set forth in awful procession between
-      two poor creatures, neither of them so stout as he was himself, to be
-      conducted into the presence of inquisitorial justice. The people, as the
-      aged prisoner was led along by his decrepit guards, exclaimed to each
-      other, "Eh! see sic a grey-haired man as that is, to have committed a
-      highway robbery, wi' ae fit in the grave!"&mdash;And the children
-      congratulated the officers, objects of their alternate dread and sport,
-      Puggie Orrock and Jock Ormston, on having a prisoner as old as themselves.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Thus marshalled forward, Edie was presented (by no means for the first
-      time) before the worshipful Bailie Littlejohn, who, contrary to what his
-      name expressed, was a tall portly magistrate, on whom corporation crusts
-      had not been conferred in vain. He was a zealous loyalist of that zealous
-      time, somewhat rigorous and peremptory in the execution of his duty, and a
-      good deal inflated with the sense of his own power and importance;&mdash;otherwise
-      an honest, well-meaning, and useful citizen.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Bring him in! bring him in!" he exclaimed. "Upon my word these are awful
-      and unnatural times! the very bedesmen and retainers of his Majesty are
-      the first to break his laws. Here has been an old Blue-Gown committing
-      robbery&mdash;I suppose the next will reward the royal charity which
-      supplies him with his garb, pension, and begging license, by engaging in
-      high-treason, or sedition at least&mdash;But bring him in."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Edie made his obeisance, and then stood, as usual, firm and erect, with
-      the side of his face turned a little upward, as if to catch every word
-      which the magistrate might address to him. To the first general questions,
-      which respected only his name and calling, the mendicant answered with
-      readiness and accuracy; but when the magistrate, having caused his clerk
-      to take down these particulars, began to inquire whereabout the mendicant
-      was on the night when Dousterswivel met with his misfortune, Edie demurred
-      to the motion. "Can ye tell me now, Bailie, you that understands the law,
-      what gude will it do me to answer ony o' your questions?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Good?&mdash;no good certainly, my friend, except that giving a true
-      account of yourself, if you are innocent, may entitle me to set you at
-      liberty."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But it seems mair reasonable to me now, that you, Bailie, or anybody that
-      has anything to say against me, should prove my guilt, and no to be
-      bidding me prove my innocence."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I don't sit here," answered the magistrate, "to dispute points of law
-      with you. I ask you, if you choose to answer my question, whether you were
-      at Ringan Aikwood, the forester's, upon the day I have specified?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Really, sir, I dinna feel myself called on to remember," replied the
-      cautious bedesman.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Or whether, in the course of that day or night," continued the
-      magistrate, "you saw Steven, or Steenie, Mucklebackit?&mdash;you knew him,
-      I suppose?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O, brawlie did I ken Steenie, puir fallow," replied the prisoner;&mdash;"but
-      I canna condeshend on ony particular time I have seen him lately."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Were you at the ruins of St. Ruth any time in the course of that
-      evening?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Bailie Littlejohn," said the mendicant, "if it be your honour's pleasure,
-      we'll cut a lang tale short, and I'll just tell ye, I am no minded to
-      answer ony o' thae questions&mdash;I'm ower auld a traveller to let my
-      tongue bring me into trouble."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Write down," said the magistrate, "that he declines to answer all
-      interrogatories, in respect that by telling the truth he might be brought
-      to trouble."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, na," said Ochiltree, "I'll no hae that set down as ony part o' my
-      answer&mdash;but I just meant to say, that in a' my memory and practice, I
-      never saw ony gude come o' answering idle questions."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Write down," said the Bailie, "that, being acquainted with judicial
-      interrogatories by long practice, and having sustained injury by answering
-      questions put to him on such occasions, the declarant refuses."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Na, na, Bailie," reiterated Edie, "ye are no to come in on me that gait
-      neither."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dictate the answer yourself then, friend," said the magistrate, "and the
-      clerk will take it down from your own mouth."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, ay," said Edie&mdash;"that's what I ca' fair play; I'se do that
-      without loss o' time. Sae, neighbour, ye may just write down, that Edie
-      Ochiltree, the declarant, stands up for the liberty&mdash;na, I maunna say
-      that neither&mdash;I am nae liberty-boy&mdash;I hae fought again' them in
-      the riots in Dublin&mdash;besides, I have ate the King's bread mony a day.
-      Stay, let me see. Ay&mdash;write that Edie Ochiltree, the Blue-Gown,
-      stands up for the prerogative&mdash;(see that ye spell that word right&mdash;it's
-      a lang ane)&mdash;for the prerogative of the subjects of the land, and
-      winna answer a single word that sall be asked at him this day, unless he
-      sees a reason fort. Put down that, young man."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then, Edie," said the magistrate, "since you will give no information on
-      the subject, I must send you back to prison till you shall be delivered in
-      due course of law."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aweel, sir, if it's Heaven's will and man's will, nae doubt I maun
-      submit," replied the mendicant. "I hae nae great objection to the prison,
-      only that a body canna win out o't; and if it wad please you as weel,
-      Bailie, I wad gie you my word to appear afore the Lords at the Circuit, or
-      in ony other coart ye like, on ony day ye are pleased to appoint."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I rather think, my good friend," answered Bailie Littlejohn, "your word
-      might be a slender security where your neck may be in some danger. I am
-      apt to think you would suffer the pledge to be forfeited. If you could
-      give me sufficient security, indeed"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      At this moment the Antiquary and Captain M'Intyre entered the apartment.&mdash;"Good
-      morning to you, gentlemen," said the magistrate; "you find me toiling in
-      my usual vocation&mdash;looking after the iniquities of the people&mdash;labouring
-      for the <i>respublica,</i> Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;serving the King our master,
-      Captain M'Intyre,&mdash;for I suppose you know I have taken up the sword?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is one of the emblems of justice, doubtless," answered the Antiquary;&mdash;"but
-      I should have thought the scales would have suited you better, Bailie,
-      especially as you have them ready in the warehouse."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Very good, Monkbarns&mdash;excellent! But I do not take the sword up as
-      justice, but as a soldier&mdash;indeed I should rather say the musket and
-      bayonet&mdash;there they stand at the elbow of my gouty chair, for I am
-      scarce fit for drill yet&mdash;a slight touch of our old acquaintance <i>podagra;</i>
-      I can keep my feet, however, while our sergeant puts me through the
-      manual. I should like to know, Captain M'Intyre, if he follows the
-      regulations correctly&mdash;he brings us but awkwardly to the <i>present.</i>"
-      And he hobbled towards his weapon to illustrate his doubts and display his
-      proficiency.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I rejoice we have such zealous defenders, Bailie," replied Mr. Oldbuck;
-      "and I dare say Hector will gratify you by communicating his opinion on
-      your progress in this new calling. Why, you rival the Hecate' of the
-      ancients, my good sir&mdash;a merchant on the Mart, a magistrate in the
-      Townhouse, a soldier on the Links&mdash;<i>quid non pro patria?</i> But my
-      business is with the justice; so let commerce and war go slumber."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, my good sir," said the Bailie, "and what commands have you for me?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, here's an old acquaintance of mine, called Edie Ochiltree, whom some
-      of your myrmidons have mewed up in jail on account of an alleged assault
-      on that fellow Dousterswivel, of whose accusation I do not believe one
-      word."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The magistrate here assumed a very grave countenance. "You ought to have
-      been informed that he is accused of robbery, as well as assault&mdash;a
-      very serious matter indeed; it is not often such criminals come under my
-      cognizance."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And," replied Oldbuck, "you are tenacious of the opportunity of making
-      the very most of such as occur. But is this poor old man's case really so
-      very bad?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is rather out of rule," said the Bailie&mdash;"but as you are in the
-      commission, Monkbarns, I have no hesitation to show you Dousterswivel's
-      declaration, and the rest of the precognition." And he put the papers into
-      the Antiquary's hands, who assumed his spectacles, and sat down in a
-      corner to peruse them.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The officers, in the meantime, had directions to remove their prisoner
-      into another apartment; but before they could do so, M'Intyre took an
-      opportunity to greet old Edie, and to slip a guinea into his hand.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Lord bless your honour!" said the old man; "it's a young soldier's gift,
-      and it should surely thrive wi' an auld ane. I'se no refuse it, though
-      it's beyond my rules; for if they steek me up here, my friends are like
-      eneugh to forget me&mdash;out o'sight out o'mind, is a true proverb; and
-      it wadna be creditable for me, that am the king's bedesman, and entitled
-      to beg by word of mouth, to be fishing for bawbees out at the jail window
-      wi' the fit o' a stocking, and a string." As he made this observation he
-      was conducted out of the apartment.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Mr. Dousterswivel's declaration contained an exaggerated account of the
-      violence he had sustained, and also of his loss.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But what I should have liked to have asked him," said Monkbarns, "would
-      have been his purpose in frequenting the ruins of St. Ruth, so lonely a
-      place, at such an hour, and with such a companion as Edie Ochiltree. There
-      is no road lies that way, and I do not conceive a mere passion for the
-      picturesque would carry the German thither in such a night of storm and
-      wind. Depend upon it, he has been about some roguery, and in all
-      probability hath been caught in a trap of his own setting&mdash;<i>Nec lex
-      justitior ulla.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The magistrate allowed there was something mysterious in that
-      circumstance, and apologized for not pressing Dousterswivel, as his
-      declaration was voluntarily emitted. But for the support of the main
-      charge, he showed the declaration of the Aikwoods concerning the state in
-      which Dousterswivel was found, and establishing the important fact that
-      the mendicant had left the barn in which he was quartered, and did not
-      return to it again. Two people belonging to the Fairport undertaker, who
-      had that night been employed in attending the funeral of Lady Glenallan,
-      had also given declarations, that, being sent to pursue two suspicious
-      persons who left the ruins of St. Ruth as the funeral approached, and who,
-      it was supposed, might have been pillaging some of the ornaments prepared
-      for the ceremony, they had lost and regained sight of them more than once,
-      owing to the nature of the ground, which was unfavourable for riding, but
-      had at length fairly lodged them both in Mucklebackit's cottage. And one
-      of the men added, that "he, the declarant, having dismounted from his
-      horse, and gone close up to the window of the hut, he saw the old
-      Blue-Gown and young Steenie Mucklebackit, with others, eating and drinking
-      in the inside, and also observed the said Steenie Mucklebackit show a
-      pocket-book to the others;&mdash;and declarant has no doubt that Ochiltree
-      and Steenie Mucklebackit were the persons whom he and his comrade had
-      pursued, as above mentioned." And being interrogated why he did not enter
-      the said cottage, declares, "he had no warrant so to do; and that as
-      Mucklebackit and his family were understood to be rough-handed folk, he,
-      the declarant, had no desire to meddle or make with their affairs, <i>Causa
-      scientiae patet.</i> All which he declares to be truth," etc.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What do you say to that body of evidence against your friend?" said the
-      magistrate, when he had observed the Antiquary had turned the last leaf.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, were it in the case of any other person, I own I should say it
-      looked, <i>prima facie,</i> a little ugly; but I cannot allow anybody to
-      be in the wrong for beating Dousterswivel&mdash;Had I been an hour
-      younger, or had but one single flash of your warlike genius, Bailie, I
-      should have done it myself long ago. He is <i>nebulo nebulonum,</i> an
-      impudent, fraudulent, mendacious quack, that has cost me a hundred pounds
-      by his roguery, and my neighbour Sir Arthur, God knows how much. And
-      besides, Bailie, I do not hold him to be a sound friend to Government."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed?" said Bailie Littlejohn; "if I thought that, it would alter the
-      question considerably."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Right&mdash;for, in beating him," observed Oldbuck, "the bedesman must
-      have shown his gratitude to the king by thumping his enemy; and in robbing
-      him, he would only have plundered an Egyptian, whose wealth it is lawful
-      to spoil. Now, suppose this interview in the ruins of St. Ruth had
-      relation to politics,&mdash;and this story of hidden treasure, and so
-      forth, was a bribe from the other side of the water for some great man, or
-      the funds destined to maintain a seditious club?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My dear sir," said the magistrate, catching at the idea, "you hit my very
-      thoughts! How fortunate should I be if I could become the humble means of
-      sifting such a matter to the bottom!&mdash;Don't you think we had better
-      call out the volunteers, and put them on duty?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not just yet, while <i>podagra</i> deprives them of an essential member
-      of their body. But will you let me examine Ochiltree?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Certainly; but you'll make nothing of him. He gave me distinctly to
-      understand he knew the danger of a judicial declaration on the part of an
-      accused person, which, to say the truth, has hanged many an honester man
-      than he is."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, but, Bailie," continued Oldbuck, "you have no objection to let me
-      try him?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "None in the world, Monkbarns. I hear the sergeant below&mdash;I'll
-      rehearse the manual in the meanwhile. Baby, carry my gun and bayonet down
-      to the room below&mdash;it makes less noise there when we ground arms."
-      And so exit the martial magistrate, with his maid behind him bearing his
-      weapons.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A good squire that wench for a gouty champion," observed Oldbuck.&mdash;
-      "Hector, my lad, hook on, hook on&mdash;Go with him, boy&mdash;keep him
-      employed, man, for half-an-hour or so&mdash;butter him with some warlike
-      terms&mdash;praise his dress and address."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Captain M'Intyre, who, like many of his profession, looked down with
-      infinite scorn on those citizen soldiers who had assumed arms without any
-      professional title to bear them, rose with great reluctance, observing
-      that he should not know what to say to Mr. Littlejohn; and that to see an
-      old gouty shop-keeper attempting the exercise and duties of a private
-      soldier, was really too ridiculous.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It may be so, Hector," said the Antiquary, who seldom agreed with any
-      person in the immediate proposition which was laid down&mdash;"it may
-      possibly be so in this and some other instances; but at present the
-      country resembles the suitors in a small-debt court, where parties plead
-      in person, for lack of cash to retain the professed heroes of the bar. I
-      am sure in the one case we never regret the want of the acuteness and
-      eloquence of the lawyers; and so, I hope, in the other, we may manage to
-      make shift with our hearts and muskets, though we shall lack some of the
-      discipline of you martinets."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have no objection, I am sure, sir, that the whole world should fight if
-      they please, if they will but allow me to be quiet," said Hector, rising
-      with dogged reluctance.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes, you are a very quiet personage indeed," said his uncle, "whose
-      ardour for quarrelling cannot pass so much as a poor <i>phoca</i> sleeping
-      upon the beach!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But Hector, who saw which way the conversation was tending, and hated all
-      allusions to the foil he had sustained from the fish, made his escape
-      before the Antiquary concluded the sentence.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0017" id="Alink2HCH0017">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-            Well, well, at worst, 'tis neither theft nor coinage,
-             Granting I knew all that you charge me with.
-            What though the tomb hath borne a second birth,
-             And given the wealth to one that knew not on't,
-                     Yet fair exchange was never robbery,
-                         Far less pure bounty&mdash;
-                                          Old Play.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The Antiquary, in order to avail himself of the permission given him to
-      question the accused party, chose rather to go to the apartment in which
-      Ochiltree was detained, than to make the examination appear formal by
-      bringing him again into the magistrate's office. He found the old man
-      seated by a window which looked out on the sea; and as he gazed on that
-      prospect, large tears found their way, as if unconsciously, to his eye,
-      and from thence trickled down his cheeks and white beard. His features
-      were, nevertheless, calm and composed, and his whole posture and mien
-      indicated patience and resignation. Oldbuck had approached him without
-      being observed, and roused him out of his musing by saying kindly, "I am
-      sorry, Edie, to see you so much cast down about this matter."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Aimage-0007" id="Aimage-0007">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
-    </p>
-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/pb206.jpg" alt="The Antiquary Visits Edie in Prison "
-      width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
-      The mendicant started, dried his eyes very hastily with the sleeve of his
-      gown, and endeavouring to recover his usual tone of indifference and
-      jocularity, answered, but with a voice more tremulous than usual, "I might
-      weel hae judged, Monkbarns, it was you, or the like o' you, was coming in
-      to disturb me&mdash;for it's ae great advantage o' prisons and courts o'
-      justice, that ye may greet your een out an ye like, and nane o' the folk
-      that's concerned about them will ever ask you what it's for."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, Edie," replied Oldbuck, "I hope your present cause of distress is
-      not so bad but it may be removed."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And I had hoped, Monkbarns," answered the mendicant, in a tone of
-      reproach, "that ye had ken'd me better than to think that this bit
-      trifling trouble o' my ain wad bring tears into my auld een, that hae seen
-      far different kind o' distress.&mdash;Na, na!&mdash;But here's been the
-      puir lass, Caxon's daughter, seeking comfort, and has gotten unco little&mdash;
-      there's been nae speerings o' Taffril's gunbrig since the last gale; and
-      folk report on the key that a king's ship had struck on the Reef of
-      Rattray, and a' hands lost&mdash;God forbid! for as sure as you live,
-      Monkbarns, the puir lad Lovel, that ye liked sae weel, must have
-      perished."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "God forbid indeed!" echoed the Antiquary, turning pale&mdash;"I would
-      rather Monkbarns House were on fire. My poor dear friend and coadjutor! I
-      will down to the quay instantly."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I'm sure yell learn naething mair than I hae tauld ye, sir," said
-      Ochiltree, "for the officer-folk here were very civil (that is, for the
-      like o' them), and lookit up ae their letters and authorities, and could
-      throw nae light on't either ae way or another."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It can't be true! it shall not be true!" said the Antiquary, "And I won't
-      believe it if it were!&mdash;Taffril's an excellent sea man, and Lovel (my
-      poor Lovel!) has all the qualities of a safe and pleasant companion by
-      land or by sea&mdash;one, Edie, whom, from the ingenuousness of his
-      disposition, I would choose, did I ever go a sea-voyage (which I never do,
-      unless across the ferry), <i>fragilem mecum solvere phaselum,</i> to be
-      the companion of my risk, as one against whom the elements could nourish
-      no vengeance. No, Edie, it is not, and cannot be true&mdash;it is a
-      fiction of the idle jade Rumour, whom I wish hanged with her trumpet about
-      her neck, that serves only with its screech-owl tones to fright honest
-      folks out of their senses.&mdash;Let me know how you got into this scrape
-      of your own."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Are ye axing me as a magistrate, Monkbarns, or is it just for your ain
-      satisfaction!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "For my own satisfaction solely," replied the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Put up your pocket-book and your keelyvine pen then, for I downa speak
-      out an ye hae writing materials in your hands&mdash;they're a scaur to
-      unlearned folk like me&mdash;Od, ane o' the clerks in the neist room will
-      clink down, in black and white, as muckle as wad hang a man, before ane
-      kens what he's saying."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Monkbarns complied with the old man's humour, and put up his
-      memorandum-book.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Edie then went with great frankness through the part of the story already
-      known to the reader, informing the Antiquary of the scene which he had
-      witnessed between Dousterswivel and his patron in the ruins of St. Ruth,
-      and frankly confessing that he could not resist the opportunity of
-      decoying the adept once more to visit the tomb of Misticot, with the
-      purpose of taking a comic revenge upon him for his quackery. He had easily
-      persuaded Steenie, who was a bold thoughtless young fellow, to engage in
-      the frolic along with him, and the jest had been inadvertently carried a
-      great deal farther than was designed. Concerning the pocket-book, he
-      explained that he had expressed his surprise and sorrow as soon as he
-      found it had been inadvertently brought off: and that publicly, before all
-      the inmates of the cottage, Steenie had undertaken to return it the next
-      day, and had only been prevented by his untimely fate.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Antiquary pondered a moment, and then said, "Your account seems very
-      probable, Edie, and I believe it from what I know of the parties. But I
-      think it likely that you know a great deal more than you have thought it
-      proper to tell me, about this matter of the treasure trove&mdash;I suspect
-      you have acted the part of the Lar Familiaris in Plautus&mdash;a sort of
-      Brownie, Edie, to speak to your comprehension, who watched over hidden
-      treasures.&mdash;I do bethink me you were the first person we met when Sir
-      Arthur made his successful attack upon Misticot's grave, and also that
-      when the labourers began to flag, you, Edie, were again the first to leap
-      into the trench, and to make the discovery of the treasure. Now you must
-      explain all this to me, unless you would have me use you as ill as Euclio
-      does Staphyla in the <i>Aulularia.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Lordsake, sir," replied the mendicant, "what do I ken about your
-      Howlowlaria?&mdash;it's mair like a dog's language than a man's."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You knew, however, of the box of treasure being there?" continued
-      Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dear sir," answered Edie, assuming a countenance of great simplicity,
-      "what likelihood is there o'that? d'ye think sae puir an auld creature as
-      me wad hae kend o' sic a like thing without getting some gude out o't?&mdash;and
-      ye wot weel I sought nane and gat nane, like Michael Scott's man. What
-      concern could I hae wi't?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "That's just what I want you to explain to me," said Oldbuck; "for I am
-      positive you knew it was there."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Your honour's a positive man, Monkbarns&mdash;and, for a positive man, I
-      must needs allow ye're often in the right."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You allow, then, Edie, that my belief is well founded?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Edie nodded acquiescence.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then please to explain to me the whole affair from beginning to end,"
-      said the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If it were a secret o' mine, Monkbarns," replied the beggar, "ye suldna
-      ask twice; for I hae aye said ahint your back, that for a' the nonsense
-      maggots that ye whiles take into your head, ye are the maist wise and
-      discreet o' a' our country gentles. But I'se een be open-hearted wi' you,
-      and tell you that this is a friend's secret, and that they suld draw me
-      wi' wild horses, or saw me asunder, as they did the children of Ammon,
-      sooner than I would speak a word mair about the matter, excepting this,
-      that there was nae ill intended, but muckle gude, and that the purpose was
-      to serve them that are worth twenty hundred o' me. But there's nae law, I
-      trow, that makes it a sin to ken where ither folles siller is, if we didna
-      pit hand til't oursell?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Oldbuck walked once or twice up and down the room in profound thought,
-      endeavouring to find some plausible reason for transactions of a nature so
-      mysterious&mdash;but his ingenuity was totally at fault. He then placed
-      himself before the prisoner.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "This story of yours, friend Edie, is an absolute enigma, and would
-      require a second OEdipus to solve it&mdash;who OEdipus was, I will tell
-      you some other time if you remind me&mdash;However, whether it be owing to
-      the wisdom or to the maggots with which you compliment me, I am strongly
-      disposed to believe that you have spoken the truth, the rather that you
-      have not made any of those obtestations of the superior powers, which I
-      observe you and your comrades always make use of when you mean to deceive
-      folks." (Here Edie could not suppress a smile.) "If, therefore, you will
-      answer me one question, I will endeavour to procure your liberation."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If ye'll let me hear the question," said Edie, with the caution of a
-      canny Scotchman, "I'll tell you whether I'll answer it or no."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is simply," said the Antiquary, "Did Dousterswivel know anything about
-      the concealment of the chest of bullion?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He, the ill-fa'ard loon!" answered Edie, with much frankness of manner&mdash;
-      "there wad hae been little speerings o't had Dustansnivel ken'd it was
-      there&mdash;it wad hae been butter in the black dog's hause."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I thought as much," said Oldbuck. "Well, Edie, if I procure your freedom,
-      you must keep your day, and appear to clear me of the bail-bond, for these
-      are not times for prudent men to incur forfeitures, unless you can point
-      out another <i>Aulam auri plenam quadrilibrem</i>&mdash;another <i>Search,
-      No. I.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ah!" said the beggar, shaking his head, "I doubt the bird's flown that
-      laid thae golden eggs&mdash;for I winna ca' her goose, though that's the
-      gait it stands in the story-buick&mdash;But I'll keep my day, Monkbarns;
-      ye'se no loss a penny by me&mdash;And troth I wad fain be out again, now
-      the weather's fine&mdash;and then I hae the best chance o' hearing the
-      first news o' my friends."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, Edie, as the bouncing and thumping beneath has somewhat ceased, I
-      presume Bailie Littlejohn has dismissed his military preceptor, and has
-      retired from the labours of Mars to those of Themis&mdash;I will have some
-      conversation with him&mdash;But I cannot and will not believe any of those
-      wretched news you were telling me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "God send your honour may be right!" said the mendicant, as Oldbuck left
-      the room.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Antiquary found the magistrate, exhausted with the fatigues of the
-      drill, reposing in his gouty chair, humming the air, "How merrily we live
-      that soldiers be!" and between each bar comforting himself with a spoonful
-      of mock-turtle soup. He ordered a similar refreshment for Oldbuck, who
-      declined it, observing, that, not being a military man, he did not feel
-      inclined to break his habit of keeping regular hours for meals&mdash;"Soldiers
-      like you, Bailie, must snatch their food as they find means and time. But
-      I am sorry to hear ill news of young Taffril's brig."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ah, poor fellow!" said the bailie, "he was a credit to the town&mdash;much
-      distinguished on the first of June."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But," said Oldbuck, "I am shocked to hear you talk of him in the
-      preterite tense."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth, I fear there may be too much reason for it, Monkbarns;&mdash;and
-      yet let us hope the best. The accident is said to have happened in the
-      Rattray reef of rocks, about twenty miles to the northward, near
-      Dirtenalan Bay&mdash;I have sent to inquire about it&mdash;and your nephew
-      run out himself as if he had been flying to get the Gazette of a victory."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here Hector entered, exclaiming as he came in, "I believe it's all a
-      damned lie&mdash;I can't find the least authority for it, but general
-      rumour."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And pray, Mr. Hector," said his uncle, "if it had been true, whose fault
-      would it have been that Lovel was on board?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not mine, I am sure," answered Hector; "it would have been only my
-      misfortune."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed!" said his uncle, "I should not have thought of that."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, sir, with all your inclination to find me in the wrong," replied the
-      young soldier, "I suppose you will own my intention was not to blame in
-      this case. I did my best to hit Lovel, and if I had been successful, 'tis
-      clear my scrape would have been his, and his scrape would have been mine."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And whom or what do you intend to hit now, that you are lugging with you
-      that leathern magazine there, marked Gunpowder?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I must be prepared for Lord Glenallan's moors on the twelfth, sir," said
-      M'Intyre.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ah, Hector! thy great <i>chasse,</i> as the French call it, would take
-      place best&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                   Omne cum Proteus pecus agitaret altos
-                            Visere montes&mdash;
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Could you meet but with a martial <i>phoca,</i> instead of an unwarlike
-      heath-bird."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The devil take the seal, sir, or <i>phoca,</i> if you choose to call it
-      so! It's rather hard one can never hear the end of a little piece of folly
-      like that."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, well," said Oldbuck, "I am glad you have the grace to be ashamed of
-      it&mdash;as I detest the whole race of Nimrods, I wish them all as well
-      matched. Nay, never start off at a jest, man&mdash;I have done with the <i>phoca</i>&mdash;though,
-      I dare say, the Bailie could tell us the value of seal-skins just now."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "They are up," said the magistrate, "they are well up&mdash;the fishing
-      has been unsuccessful lately."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We can bear witness to that," said the tormenting Antiquary, who was
-      delighted with the hank this incident had given him over the young
-      sportsman: One word more, Hector, and
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-              We'll hang a seal-skin on thy recreant limbs.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Aha, my boy! Come, never mind it; I must go to business.&mdash;Bailie, a
-      word with you: you must take bail&mdash;moderate bail, you understand&mdash;for
-      old Ochiltree's appearance."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You don't consider what you ask," said the Bailie; "the offence is
-      assault and robbery."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hush! not a word about it," said the Antiquary. "I gave you a hint before&mdash;I
-      will possess you more fully hereafter&mdash;I promise you, there is a
-      secret."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But, Mr. Oldbuck, if the state is concerned, I, who do the whole drudgery
-      business here, really have a title to be consulted, and until I am"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hush! hush!" said the Antiquary, winking and putting his finger to his
-      nose,&mdash;"you shall have the full credit, the entire management,
-      whenever matters are ripe. But this is an obstinate old fellow, who will
-      not hear of two people being as yet let into his mystery, and he has not
-      fully acquainted me with the clew to Dousterswivel's devices."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aha! so we must tip that fellow the alien act, I suppose?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "To say truth, I wish you would."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Say no more," said the magistrate; "it shall forthwith be done&mdash;he
-      shall be removed <i>tanquam suspect</i>&mdash;I think that's one of your
-      own phrases, Monkbarns?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is classical, Bailie&mdash;you improve."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, public business has of late pressed upon me so much, that I have
-      been obliged to take my foreman into partnership. I have had two several
-      correspondences with the Under Secretary of State&mdash;one on the
-      proposed tax on Riga hemp-seed, and the other on putting down political
-      societies. So you might as well communicate to me as much as you know of
-      this old fellow's discovery of a plot against the state."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I will, instantly, when I am master of it," replied Oldbuck&mdash;-"I
-      hate the trouble of managing such matters myself. Remember, however, I did
-      not say decidedly a plot against the state I only say I hope to discover,
-      by this man's means, a foul plot."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If it be a plot at all, there must be treason in it, or sedition at
-      least," said the Bailie&mdash;"Will you bail him for four hundred merks?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Four hundred merks for an old Blue-Gown! Think on the act 1701 regulating
-      bail-bonds!&mdash;Strike off a cipher from the sum&mdash;I am content to
-      bail him for forty merks."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, Mr. Oldbuck, everybody in Fairport is always willing to oblige you&mdash;and
-      besides, I know that you are a prudent man, and one that would be as
-      unwilling to lose forty, as four hundred merks. So I will accept your
-      bail, <i>meo periculo</i>&mdash;what say you to that law phrase again? I
-      had it from a learned counsel. I will vouch it, my lord, he said, <i>meo
-      periculo.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And I will vouch for Edie Ochiltree, <i>meo periculo,</i> in like
-      manner," said Oldbuck. "So let your clerk draw out the bail-bond, and I
-      will sign it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      When this ceremony had been performed, the Antiquary communicated to Edie
-      the joyful tidings that he was once more at liberty, and directed him to
-      make the best of his way to Monkbarns House, to which he himself returned
-      with his nephew, after having perfected their good work.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0018" id="Alink2HCH0018">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                Full of wise saws and modern instances.
-                                       As You Like It.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "I wish to Heaven, Hector," said the Antiquary, next morning after
-      breakfast, "you would spare our nerves, and not be keeping snapping that
-      arquebuss of yours."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, sir, I'm sure I'm sorry to disturb you," said his nephew, still
-      handling his fowling-piece;&mdash;"but it's a capital gun&mdash;it's a Joe
-      Manton, that cost forty guineas."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A fool and his money are soon parted, nephew&mdash;there is a Joe Miller
-      for your Joe Manton," answered the Antiquary; "I am glad you have so many
-      guineas to throw away."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Every one has their fancy, uncle,&mdash;you are fond of books."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, Hector," said the uncle, "and if my collection were yours, you would
-      make it fly to the gunsmith, the horse-market, the dog-breaker,&mdash; <i>Coemptos
-      undique nobiles libros&mdash;mutare loricis Iberis.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I could not use your books, my dear uncle," said the young soldier,
-      "that's true; and you will do well to provide for their being in better
-      hands. But don't let the faults of my head fall on my heart&mdash;I would
-      not part with a Cordery that belonged to an old friend, to get a set of
-      horses like Lord Glenallan's."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I don't think you would, lad&mdash;I don't think you would," said his
-      softening relative. "I love to tease you a little sometimes; it keeps up
-      the spirit of discipline and habit of subordination&mdash;You will pass
-      your time happily here having me to command you, instead of Captain, or
-      Colonel, or Knight in Arms,' as Milton has it; and instead of the French,"
-      he continued, relapsing into his ironical humour, "you have the <i>Gens
-      humida ponti</i>&mdash;for, as Virgil says,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-              Sternunt se somno diversae in littore phocae;
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      which might be rendered,
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                   Here phocae slumber on the beach,
-                  Within our Highland Hector's reach.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Nay, if you grow angry, I have done. Besides, I see old Edie in the
-      court-yard, with whom I have business. Good-bye, Hector&mdash;Do you
-      remember how she splashed into the sea like her master Proteus, <i>et se
-      jactu dedit aequor in altum</i>?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      M'Intyre,&mdash;waiting, however, till the door was shut,&mdash;then gave
-      way to the natural impatience of his temper.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "My uncle is the best man in the world, and in his way the kindest; but
-      rather than hear any more about that cursed <i>phoca,</i> as he is pleased
-      to call it, I would exchange for the West Indies, and never see his face
-      again."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Miss M'Intyre, gratefully attached to her uncle, and passionately fond of
-      her brother, was, on such occasions, the usual envoy of reconciliation.
-      She hastened to meet her uncle on his return, before he entered the
-      parlour.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, now, Miss Womankind, what is the meaning of that imploring
-      countenance?&mdash;has Juno done any more mischief?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, uncle; but Juno's master is in such fear of your joking him about the
-      seal&mdash;I assure you, he feels it much more than you would wish;&mdash;it's
-      very silly of him, to be sure; but then you can turn everybody so sharply
-      into ridicule"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, my dear," answered Oldbuck, propitiated by the compliment, "I will
-      rein in my satire, and, if possible, speak no more of the <i>phoca</i>&mdash;I
-      will not even speak of sealing a letter, but say <i>umph,</i> and give a
-      nod to you when I want the wax-light&mdash;I am not <i>monitoribus asper,</i>
-      but, Heaven knows, the most mild, quiet, and easy of human beings, whom
-      sister, niece, and nephew, guide just as best pleases them."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      With this little panegyric on his own docility, Mr. Oldbuck entered the
-      parlour, and proposed to his nephew a walk to the Mussel-crag. "I have
-      some questions to ask of a woman at Mucklebackit's cottage," he observed,
-      "and I would willingly have a sensible witness with me&mdash;so, for fault
-      of a better, Hector, I must be contented with you."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There is old Edie, sir, or Caxon&mdash;could not they do better than me?"
-      answered M'Intyre, feeling somewhat alarmed at the prospect of a long <i>tete-a-tete</i>
-      with his uncle.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Upon my word, young man, you turn me over to pretty companions, and I am
-      quite sensible of your politeness," replied Mr. Oldbuck. "No, sir, I
-      intend the old Blue-Gown shall go with me&mdash;not as a competent
-      witness, for he is, at present, as our friend Bailie Littlejohn says
-      (blessings on his learning!) <i>tanquam suspectus,</i> and you are <i>suspicione
-      major,</i> as our law has it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I wish I were a major, sir," said Hector, catching only the last, and, to
-      a soldier's ear, the most impressive word in the sentence,&mdash;"but,
-      without money or interest, there is little chance of getting the step."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, well, most doughty son of Priam," said the Antiquary, "be ruled by
-      your friends, and there's no saying what may happen&mdash;Come away with
-      me, and you shall see what may be useful to you should you ever sit upon a
-      court-martial, sir."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have been on many a regimental court-martial, sir," answered Captain
-      M'Intyre. "But here's a new cane for you."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Much obliged, much obliged."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I bought it from our drum-major," added M'Intyre, "who came into our
-      regiment from the Bengal army when it came down the Red Sea. It was cut on
-      the banks of the Indus, I assure you."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Upon my word, 'tis a fine ratan, and well replaces that which the <i>ph</i>&mdash;
-      Bah! what was I going to say?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The party, consisting of the Antiquary, his nephew, and the old beggar,
-      now took the sands towards Mussel-crag&mdash;the former in the very
-      highest mood of communicating information, and the others, under a sense
-      of former obligation, and some hope for future favours, decently attentive
-      to receive it. The uncle and nephew walked together, the mendicant about a
-      step and a half behind, just near enough for his patron to speak to him by
-      a slight inclination of his neck, and without the trouble of turning
-      round. (Petrie, in his Essay on Good-breeding, dedicated to the
-      magistrates of Edinburgh, recommends, upon his own experience, as tutor in
-      a family of distinction, this attitude to all led captains, tutors,
-      dependants, and bottle-holders of every description. ) Thus escorted, the
-      Antiquary moved along full of his learning, like a lordly man of war, and
-      every now and then yawing to starboard and larboard to discharge a
-      broadside upon his followers.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And so it is your opinion," said he to the mendicant, "that this windfall&mdash;this
-      <i>arca auri,</i> as Plautus has it, will not greatly avail Sir Arthur in
-      his necessities?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Unless he could find ten times as much," said the beggar, "and that I am
-      sair doubtful of;&mdash;I heard Puggie Orrock, and the tother thief of a
-      sheriff-officer, or messenger, speaking about it&mdash;and things are ill
-      aff when the like o' them can speak crousely about ony gentleman's
-      affairs. I doubt Sir Arthur will be in stane wa's for debt, unless there's
-      swift help and certain."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You speak like a fool," said the Antiquary.&mdash;"Nephew, it is a
-      remarkable thing, that in this happy country no man can be legally
-      imprisoned for debt."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed, sir?" said M'Intyre; "I never knew that before&mdash;that part of
-      our law would suit some of our mess well."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And if they arena confined for debt," said Ochiltree, "what is't that
-      tempts sae mony puir creatures to bide in the tolbooth o' Fairport yonder?&mdash;they
-      a' say they were put there by their creditors&mdash;Od! they maun like it
-      better than I do, if they're there o' free will."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A very natural observation, Edie, and many of your betters would make the
-      same; but it is founded entirely upon ignorance of the feudal system.
-      Hector, be so good as to attend, unless you are looking out for another&mdash;
-      Ahem!" (Hector compelled himself to give attention at this hint. ) "And
-      you, Edie, it may be useful to you <i>reram cognoscere causas.</i> The
-      nature and origin of warrant for caption is a thing <i>haud alienum a
-      Scaevolae studiis.</i>&mdash;You must know then, once more, that nobody
-      can be arrested in Scotland for debt."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I haena muckle concern wi' that, Monkbarns," said the old man, "for
-      naebody wad trust a bodle to a gaberlunzie."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I pr'ythee, peace, man&mdash;As a compulsitor, therefore, of payment,
-      that being a thing to which no debtor is naturally inclined, as I have too
-      much reason to warrant from the experience I have had with my own,&mdash;we
-      had first the letters of four forms, a sort of gentle invitation, by which
-      our sovereign lord the king, interesting himself, as a monarch should, in
-      the regulation of his subjects' private affairs, at first by mild
-      exhortation, and afterwards by letters of more strict enjoinment and more
-      hard compulsion&mdash;What do you see extraordinary about that bird,
-      Hector?&mdash;it's but a seamaw."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's a pictarnie, sir," said Edie.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, what an if it were&mdash;what does that signify at present?&mdash;But
-      I see you're impatient; so I will waive the letters of four forms, and
-      come to the modern process of diligence.&mdash;You suppose, now, a man's
-      committed to prison because he cannot pay his debt? Quite otherwise: the
-      truth is, the king is so good as to interfere at the request of the
-      creditor, and to send the debtor his royal command to do him justice
-      within a certain time&mdash;fifteen days, or six, as the case may be.
-      Well, the man resists and disobeys: what follows? Why, that he be lawfully
-      and rightfully declared a rebel to our gracious sovereign, whose command
-      he has disobeyed, and that by three blasts of a horn at the market-place
-      of Edinburgh, the metropolis of Scotland. And he is then legally
-      imprisoned, not on account of any civil debt, but because of his
-      ungrateful contempt of the royal mandate. What say you to that, Hector?&mdash;there's
-      something you never knew before."*
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * The doctrine of Monkbarns on the origin of imprisonment for civil debt
-      in Scotland, may appear somewhat whimsical, but was referred to, and
-      admitted to be correct, by the Bench of the Supreme Scottish Court, on 5th
-      December 1828, in the case of Thom <i>v.</i> Black. In fact, the Scottish
-      law is in this particular more jealous of the personal liberty of the
-      subject than any other code in Europe.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, uncle; but, I own, if I wanted money to pay my debts, I would rather
-      thank the king to send me some, than to declare me a rebel for not doing
-      what I could not do."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Your education has not led you to consider these things," replied his
-      uncle; "you are incapable of estimating the elegance of the legal fiction,
-      and the manner in which it reconciles that duress, which, for the
-      protection of commerce, it has been found necessary to extend towards
-      refractory debtors, with the most scrupulous attention to the liberty of
-      the subject."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I don't know, sir," answered the unenlightened Hector; "but if a man must
-      pay his debt or go to jail, it signifies but little whether he goes as a
-      debtor or a rebel, I should think. But you say this command of the king's
-      gives a license of so many days&mdash;Now, egad, were I in the scrape, I
-      would beat a march and leave the king and the creditor to settle it among
-      themselves before they came to extremities."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "So wad I," said Edie; "I wad gie them leg-bail to a certainty."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "True," replied Monkbarns; "but those whom the law suspects of being
-      unwilling to abide her formal visit, she proceeds with by means of a
-      shorter and more unceremonious call, as dealing with persons on whom
-      patience and favour would be utterly thrown away."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay," said Ochiltree, "that will be what they ca' the fugie-warrants&mdash;I
-      hae some skeel in them. There's Border-warrants too in the south country,
-      unco rash uncanny things;&mdash;I was taen up on ane at Saint James's
-      Fair, and keepit in the auld kirk at Kelso the haill day and night; and a
-      cauld goustie place it was, I'se assure ye.&mdash;But whatna wife's this,
-      wi' her creel on her back? It's puir Maggie hersell, I'm thinking."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      It was so. The poor woman's sense of her loss, if not diminished, was
-      become at least mitigated by the inevitable necessity of attending to the
-      means of supporting her family; and her salutation to Oldbuck was made in
-      an odd mixture between the usual language of solicitation with which she
-      plied her customers, and the tone of lamentation for her recent calamity.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "How's a' wi' ye the day, Monkbarns? I havena had the grace yet to come
-      down to thank your honour for the credit ye did puir Steenie, wi' laying
-      his head in a rath grave, puir fallow. "&mdash;Here she whimpered and
-      wiped her eyes with the corner of her blue apron&mdash;"But the fishing
-      comes on no that ill, though the gudeman hasna had the heart to gang to
-      sea himsell&mdash; Atweel I would fain tell him it wad do him gude to put
-      hand to wark&mdash;but I'm maist fear'd to speak to him&mdash;and it's an
-      unco thing to hear ane o' us speak that gate o' a man&mdash;However, I hae
-      some dainty caller haddies, and they sall be but three shillings the
-      dozen, for I hae nae pith to drive a bargain ennow, and maun just tak what
-      ony Christian body will gie, wi' few words and nae flyting."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What shall we do, Hector?" said Oldbuck, pausing: "I got into disgrace
-      with my womankind for making a bad bargain with her before. These maritime
-      animals, Hector, are unlucky to our family."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Pooh, sir, what would you do?&mdash;give poor Maggie what she asks, or
-      allow me to send a dish of fish up to Monkbarns."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And he held out the money to her; but Maggie drew back her hand. "Na, na,
-      Captain; ye're ower young and ower free o' your siller&mdash;ye should
-      never tak a fish-wife's first bode; and troth I think maybe a flyte wi'
-      the auld housekeeper at Monkbarns, or Miss Grizel, would do me some gude&mdash;And
-      I want to see what that hellicate quean Jenny Ritherout's doing&mdash;folk
-      said she wasna weel&mdash;She'll be vexing hersell about Steenie, the
-      silly tawpie, as if he wad ever hae lookit ower his shouther at the like
-      o'her!&mdash;Weel, Monkbarns, they're braw caller haddies, and they'll bid
-      me unco little indeed at the house if ye want crappit-heads the day."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And so on she paced with her burden,&mdash;grief, gratitude for the
-      sympathy of her betters, and the habitual love of traffic and of gain,
-      chasing each other through her thoughts.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And now that we are before the door of their hut," said Ochiltree, "I wad
-      fain ken, Monkbarns, what has gar'd ye plague yoursell wi' me a' this
-      length? I tell ye sincerely I hae nae pleasure in ganging in there. I
-      downa bide to think how the young hae fa'en on a' sides o' me, and left me
-      an useless auld stump wi' hardly a green leaf on't."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "This old woman," said Oldbuck, "sent you on a message to the Earl of
-      Glenallan, did she not?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay!" said the surprised mendicant; "how ken ye that sae weel?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Lord Glenallan told me himself," answered the Antiquary; "so there is no
-      delation&mdash;no breach of trust on your part; and as he wishes me to
-      take her evidence down on some important family matters, I chose to bring
-      you with me, because in her situation, hovering between dotage and
-      consciousness, it is possible that your voice and appearance may awaken
-      trains of recollection which I should otherwise have no means of exciting.
-      The human mind&mdash;what are you about, Hector?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I was only whistling for the dog, sir," replied the Captain "she always
-      roves too wide&mdash;I knew I should be troublesome to you."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not at all, not at all," said Oldbuck, resuming the subject of his
-      disquisition&mdash;"the human mind is to be treated like a skein of
-      ravelled silk, where you must cautiously secure one free end before you
-      can make any progress in disentangling it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I ken naething about that," said the gaberlunzie; "but an my auld
-      acquaintance be hersell, or anything like hersell, she may come to wind us
-      a pirn. It's fearsome baith to see and hear her when she wampishes about
-      her arms, and gets to her English, and speaks as if she were a prent book,
-      let a-be an auld fisher's wife. But, indeed, she had a grand education,
-      and was muckle taen out afore she married an unco bit beneath hersell.
-      She's aulder than me by half a score years&mdash;but I mind weel eneugh
-      they made as muckle wark about her making a half-merk marriage wi' Simon
-      Mucklebackit, this Saunders's father, as if she had been ane o' the
-      gentry. But she got into favour again, and then she lost it again, as I
-      hae heard her son say, when he was a muckle chield; and then they got
-      muckle siller, and left the Countess's land, and settled here. But things
-      never throve wi' them. Howsomever, she's a weel-educate woman, and an she
-      win to her English, as I hae heard her do at an orra time, she may come to
-      fickle us a'."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0019" id="Alink2HCH0019">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER NINETEENTH
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-           Life ebbs from such old age, unmarked and silent,
-           As the slow neap-tide leaves yon stranded galley.&mdash;
-              Late she rocked merrily at the least impulse
-              That wind or wave could give; but now her keel
-              Is settling on the sand, her mast has ta'en
-           An angle with the sky, from which it shifts not.
-              Each wave receding shakes her less and less,
-              Till, bedded on the strand, she shall remain
-                               Useless as motionless.
-                                                 Old Play.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      As the Antiquary lifted the latch of the hut, he was surprised to hear the
-      shrill tremulous voice of Elspeth chanting forth an old ballad in a wild
-      and doleful recitative.
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                "The herring loves the merry moonlight,
-                     The mackerel loves the wind,
-                But the oyster loves the dredging sang,
-                     For they come of a gentle kind."
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      A diligent collector of these legendary scraps of ancient poetry, his foot
-      refused to cross the threshold when his ear was thus arrested, and his
-      hand instinctively took pencil and memorandum-book. From time to time the
-      old woman spoke as if to the children&mdash;"Oh ay, hinnies, whisht!
-      whisht! and I'll begin a bonnier ane than that&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                 "Now haud your tongue, baith wife and carle,
-                      And listen, great and sma',
-                  And I will sing of Glenallan's Earl
-                     That fought on the red Harlaw.
-
-                 "The cronach's cried on Bennachie,
-                       And doun the Don and a',
-                  And hieland and lawland may mournfu' be
-                       For the sair field of Harlaw.&mdash;
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      I dinna mind the neist verse weel&mdash;my memory's failed, and theres
-      unco thoughts come ower me&mdash;God keep us frae temptation!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here her voice sunk in indistinct muttering.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's a historical ballad," said Oldbuck, eagerly, "a genuine and
-      undoubted fragment of minstrelsy! Percy would admire its simplicity&mdash;
-      Ritson could not impugn its authenticity."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, but it's a sad thing," said Ochiltree, "to see human nature sae far
-      owertaen as to be skirling at auld sangs on the back of a loss like hers."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hush! hush!" said the Antiquary&mdash;"she has gotten the thread of the
-      story again. "&mdash;And as he spoke, she sung&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-              "They saddled a hundred milk-white steeds,
-                   They hae bridled a hundred black,
-               With a chafron of steel on each horse's head,
-                  And a good knight upon his back. "&mdash;
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "Chafron!" exclaimed the Antiquary,&mdash;"equivalent, perhaps, to <i>cheveron;</i>&mdash;the
-      word's worth a dollar,"&mdash;and down it went in his red book.
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                  "They hadna ridden a mile, a mile,
-                        A mile, but barely ten,
-                   When Donald came branking down the brae
-                       Wi' twenty thousand men.
-
-                 "Their tartans they were waving wide,
-                       Their glaives were glancing clear,
-                  Their pibrochs rung frae side to side,
-                       Would deafen ye to hear.
-
-                 "The great Earl in his stirrups stood
-                      That Highland host to see:
-                  Now here a knight that's stout and good
-                         May prove a jeopardie:
-
-                 "What wouldst thou do, my squire so gay,
-                       That rides beside my reyne,
-                   Were ye Glenallan's Earl the day,
-                       And I were Roland Cheyne?
-
-                 "To turn the rein were sin and shame,
-                       To fight were wondrous peril,
-                 What would ye do now, Roland Cheyne,
-                       Were ye Glenallan's Earl?'
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Ye maun ken, hinnies, that this Roland Cheyne, for as poor and auld as I
-      sit in the chimney-neuk, was my forbear, and an awfu' man he was that
-      dayin the fight, but specially after the Earl had fa'en, for he blamed
-      himsell for the counsel he gave, to fight before Mar came up wi' Mearns,
-      and Aberdeen, and Angus."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Her voice rose and became more animated as she recited the warlike counsel
-      of her ancestor&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                  "Were I Glenallan's Earl this tide,
-                      And ye were Roland Cheyne,
-                  The spur should be in my horse's side,
-                     And the bridle upon his mane.
-
-                 "If they hae twenty thousand blades,
-                       And we twice ten times ten,
-                  Yet they hae but their tartan plaids,
-                       And we are mail-clad men.
-
-                 "My horse shall ride through ranks sae rude,
-                      As through the moorland fern,
-                 Then neer let the gentle Norman blude
-                      Grow cauld for Highland kerne.'"
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "Do you hear that, nephew?" said Oldbuck;&mdash;"you observe your Gaelic
-      ancestors were not held in high repute formerly by the Lowland warriors."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I hear," said Hector, "a silly old woman sing a silly old song. I am
-      surprised, sir, that you, who will not listen to Ossian's songs of Selma,
-      can be pleased with such trash. I vow, I have not seen or heard a worse
-      halfpenny ballad; I don't believe you could match it in any pedlar's pack
-      in the country. I should be ashamed to think that the honour of the
-      Highlands could be affected by such doggrel. "&mdash;And, tossing up his
-      head, he snuffed the air indignantly.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Apparently the old woman heard the sound of their voices; for, ceasing her
-      song, she called out, "Come in, sirs, come in&mdash;good-will never halted
-      at the door-stane."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      They entered, and found to their surprise Elspeth alone, sitting "ghastly
-      on the hearth," like the personification of Old Age in the Hunter's song
-      of the Owl,* "wrinkled, tattered, vile, dim-eyed, discoloured, torpid."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * See Mrs. Grant on the Highland Superstitions, vol. ii. p. 260, for this
-      fine translation from the Gaelic.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "They're a' out," she said, as they entered; "but an ye will sit a blink,
-      somebody will be in. If ye hae business wi' my gude-daughter, or my son,
-      they'll be in belyve,&mdash;I never speak on business mysell. Bairns, gie
-      them seats&mdash;the bairns are a' gane out, I trow,"&mdash;looking around
-      her;&mdash;"I was crooning to keep them quiet a wee while since; but they
-      hae cruppen out some gate. Sit down, sirs, they'll be in belyve;" and she
-      dismissed her spindle from her hand to twirl upon the floor, and soon
-      seemed exclusively occupied in regulating its motion, as unconscious of
-      the presence of the strangers as she appeared indifferent to their rank or
-      business there.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I wish," said Oldbuck, "she would resume that canticle, or legendary
-      fragment. I always suspected there was a skirmish of cavalry before the
-      main battle of the Harlaw."*
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * Note H. Battle of Harlaw.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If your honour pleases," said Edie, "had ye not better proceed to the
-      business that brought us a' here? I'se engage to get ye the sang ony
-      time."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I believe you are right, Edie&mdash;<i>Do manus</i>&mdash;I submit. But
-      how shall we manage? She sits there the very image of dotage. Speak to
-      her, Edie&mdash;try if you can make her recollect having sent you to
-      Glenallan House."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Edie rose accordingly, and, crossing the floor, placed himself in the same
-      position which he had occupied during his former conversation with her.
-      "I'm fain to see ye looking sae weel, cummer; the mair, that the black ox
-      has tramped on ye since I was aneath your roof-tree."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay," said Elspeth; but rather from a general idea of misfortune, than any
-      exact recollection of what had happened,&mdash;"there has been distress
-      amang us of late&mdash;I wonder how younger folk bide it&mdash;I bide it
-      ill. I canna hear the wind whistle, and the sea roar, but I think I see
-      the coble whombled keel up, and some o' them struggling in the waves!&mdash;Eh,
-      sirs; sic weary dreams as folk hae between sleeping and waking, before
-      they win to the lang sleep and the sound! I could amaist think whiles my
-      son, or else Steenie, my oe, was dead, and that I had seen the burial.
-      Isna that a queer dream for a daft auld carline? What for should ony o'
-      them dee before me?&mdash;it's out o' the course o' nature, ye ken."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I think you'll make very little of this stupid old woman," said Hector,&mdash;who
-      still nourished, perhaps, some feelings of the dislike excited by the
-      disparaging mention of his countrymen in her lay&mdash;"I think you'll
-      make but little of her, sir; and it's wasting our time to sit here and
-      listen to her dotage."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hector," said the Antiquary, indignantly, "if you do not respect her
-      misfortunes, respect at least her old age and grey hairs: this is the last
-      stage of existence, so finely treated by the Latin poet&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                                &mdash;Omni
-               Membrorum damno major dementia, quae nec
-               Nomina, servorum, nec vultus agnoscit amici,
-               Cum queis preterita coenavit nocte, nec illos
-                            Quos genuit, quos eduxit."
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "That's Latin!" said Elspeth, rousing herself as if she attended to the
-      lines, which the Antiquary recited with great pomp of diction&mdash;"that's
-      Latin!" and she cast a wild glance around her&mdash;"Has there a priest
-      fund me out at last?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You see, nephew, her comprehension is almost equal to your own of that
-      fine passage."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I hope you think, sir, that I knew it to be Latin as well as she did?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, as to that&mdash;But stay, she is about to speak."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I will have no priest&mdash;none," said the beldam, with impotent
-      vehemence; "as I have lived I will die&mdash;none shall say that I
-      betrayed my mistress, though it were to save my soul!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "That bespoke a foul conscience," said the mendicant;&mdash;"I wuss she
-      wad mak a clean breast, an it were but for her sake;" and he again
-      assailed her.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Weel, gudewife, I did your errand to the Yerl."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "To what Earl? I ken nae Earl;&mdash;I ken'd a Countess ance&mdash;I wish
-      to Heaven I had never ken'd her! for by that acquaintance, neighbour,
-      their cam,"&mdash; and she counted her withered fingers as she spoke
-      "first Pride, then Malice, then Revenge, then False Witness; and Murder
-      tirl'd at the door-pin, if he camna ben. And werena thae pleasant guests,
-      think ye, to take up their quarters in ae woman's heart? I trow there was
-      routh o' company."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But, cummer," continued the beggar, "it wasna the Countess of Glenallan I
-      meant, but her son, him that was Lord Geraldin."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I mind it now," she said; "I saw him no that langsyne, and we had a heavy
-      speech thegither. Eh, sirs! the comely young lord is turned as auld and
-      frail as I am: it's muckle that sorrow and heartbreak, and crossing of
-      true love, will do wi' young blood. But suldna his mither hae lookit to
-      that hersell?&mdash;we were but to do her bidding, ye ken. I am sure
-      there's naebody can blame me&mdash;he wasna my son, and she was my
-      mistress. Ye ken how the rhyme says&mdash;I hae maist forgotten how to
-      sing, or else the tune's left my auld head&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                  "He turn'd him right and round again,
-                       Said, Scorn na at my mither;
-                   Light loves I may get mony a ane,
-                       But minnie neer anither.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Then he was but of the half blude, ye ken, and her's was the right
-      Glenallan after a'. Na, na, I maun never maen doing and suffering for the
-      Countess Joscelin&mdash;never will I maen for that."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Then drawing her flax from the distaff, with the dogged air of one who is
-      resolved to confess nothing, she resumed her interrupted occupation.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I hae heard," said the mendicant, taking his cue from what Oldbuck had
-      told him of the family history&mdash;"I hae heard, cummer, that some ill
-      tongue suld hae come between the Earl, that's Lord Geraldin, and his young
-      bride."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ill tongue?" she said in hasty alarm; "and what had she to fear frae an
-      ill tongue?&mdash;she was gude and fair eneugh&mdash;at least a' body said
-      sae. But had she keepit her ain tongue aff ither folk, she might hae been
-      living like a leddy for a' that's come and gane yet."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But I hae heard say, gudewife," continued Ochiltree, "there was a clatter
-      in the country, that her husband and her were ower sibb when they
-      married."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Wha durst speak o' that?" said the old woman hastily; "wha durst say they
-      were married?&mdash;wha ken'd o' that?&mdash;Not the Countess&mdash;not I.
-      If they wedded in secret, they were severed in secret&mdash;They drank of
-      the fountains of their ain deceit."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, wretched beldam!" exclaimed Oldbuck, who could keep silence no
-      longer, "they drank the poison that you and your wicked mistress prepared
-      for them."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ha, ha!" she replied, "I aye thought it would come to this. It's but
-      sitting silent when they examine me&mdash;there's nae torture in our days;
-      and if there is, let them rend me!&mdash;It's ill o' the vassal's mouth
-      that betrays the bread it eats."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Speak to her, Edie," said the Antiquary; "she knows your voice, and
-      answers to it most readily."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We shall mak naething mair out o' her," said Ochiltree. "When she has
-      clinkit hersell down that way, and faulded her arms, she winna speak a
-      word, they say, for weeks thegither. And besides, to my thinking, her face
-      is sair changed since we cam in. However, I'se try her ance mair to
-      satisfy your honour.&mdash;So ye canna keep in mind, cummer, that your
-      auld mistress, the Countess Joscelin, has been removed?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Removed!" she exclaimed; for that name never failed to produce its usual
-      effect upon her; "then we maun a' follow&mdash;a' maun ride when she is in
-      the saddle. Tell them to let Lord Geraldin ken we're on before them. Bring
-      my hood and scarf&mdash;ye wadna hae me gang in the carriage wi' my leddy,
-      and my hair in this fashion?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      She raised her shrivelled arms, and seemed busied like a woman who puts on
-      her cloak to go abroad, then dropped them slowly and stiffly; and the same
-      idea of a journey still floating apparently through her head, she
-      proceeded, in a hurried and interrupted manner,&mdash;"Call Miss Neville&mdash;What
-      do you mean by Lady Geraldin? I said Eveline Neville, not Lady Geraldin&mdash;
-      there's no Lady Geraldin; tell her that, and bid her change her wet gown,
-      and no' look sae pale. Bairn! what should she do wi' a bairn?&mdash;maidens
-      hae nane, I trow.&mdash;Teresa&mdash;Teresa&mdash;my lady calls us!&mdash;Bring
-      a candle;&mdash;the grand staircase is as mirk as a Yule midnight&mdash;We
-      are coming, my lady!"&mdash;With these words she sunk back on the settle,
-      and from thence sidelong to the floor. *
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * Note I. Elspeth's death.
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
- Edie ran to support her, but hardly got her in his arms, before he said,
-"It's a' ower&mdash;she has passed away even with that last word."
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "Impossible," said Oldbuck, hastily advancing, as did his nephew. But
-      nothing was more certain. She had expired with the last hurried word that
-      left her lips; and all that remained before them were the mortal relics of
-      the creature who had so long struggled with an internal sense of concealed
-      guilt, joined to all the distresses of age and poverty.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "God grant that she be gane to a better place!" said Edie, as he looked on
-      the lifeless body; "but oh! there was something lying hard and heavy at
-      her heart. I have seen mony a ane dee, baith in the field o' battle, and a
-      fair-strae death at hame; but I wad rather see them a' ower again, as sic
-      a fearfu' flitting as hers!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We must call in the neighbours," said Oldbuck, when he had somewhat
-      recovered his horror and astonishment, "and give warning of this
-      additional calamity. I wish she could have been brought to a confession.
-      And, though of far less consequence, I could have wished to transcribe
-      that metrical fragment. But Heaven's will must be done!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      They left the hut accordingly, and gave the alarm in the hamlet, whose
-      matrons instantly assembled to compose the limbs and arrange the body of
-      her who might be considered as the mother of their settlement. Oldbuck
-      promised his assistance for the funeral.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Your honour," said Alison Breck, who was next in age to the deceased,
-      "suld send doun something to us for keeping up our hearts at the lykewake,
-      for a' Saunders's gin, puir man, was drucken out at the burial o' Steenie,
-      and we'll no get mony to sit dry-lipped aside the corpse. Elspeth was unco
-      clever in her young days, as I can mind right weel, but there was aye a
-      word o' her no being that chancy. Ane suldna speak ill o' the dead&mdash;mair
-      by token, o' ane's cummer and neighbour&mdash;but there was queer things
-      said about a leddy and a bairn or she left the Craigburnfoot. And sae, in
-      gude troth, it will be a puir lykewake, unless your honour sends us
-      something to keep us cracking."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You shall have some whisky," answered Oldbuck, "the rather that you have
-      preserved the proper word for that ancient custom of watching the dead.
-      You observe, Hector, this is genuine Teutonic, from the Gothic <i>Leichnam,</i>
-      a corpse. It is quite erroneously called <i>Late-wake,</i> though Brand
-      favours that modern corruption and derivation."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I believe," said Hector to himself, "my uncle would give away Monkbarns
-      to any one who would come to ask it in genuine Teutonic! Not a drop of
-      whisky would the old creatures have got, had their president asked it for
-      the use of the <i>Late-wake.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      While Oldbuck was giving some farther directions, and promising
-      assistance, a servant of Sir Arthur's came riding very hard along the
-      sands, and stopped his horse when he saw the Antiquary. "There had
-      something," he said, "very particular happened at the Castle"&mdash;(he
-      could not, or would not, explain what)&mdash;"and Miss Wardour had sent
-      him off express to Monkbarns, to beg that Mr. Oldbuck would come to them
-      without a moment's delay."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am afraid," said the Antiquary, "his course also is drawing to a close.
-      What can I do?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Do, sir?" exclaimed Hector, with his characteristic impatience,&mdash;"get
-      on the horse, and turn his head homeward&mdash;you will be at Knockwinnock
-      Castle in ten minutes."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He is quite a free goer," said the servant, dismounting to adjust the
-      girths and stirrups,&mdash;"he only pulls a little if he feels a dead
-      weight on him."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I should soon be a dead weight <i>off</i> him, my friend," said the
-      Antiquary.&mdash;"What the devil, nephew, are you weary of me? or do you
-      suppose me weary of my life, that I should get on the back of such a
-      Bucephalus as that? No, no, my friend, if I am to be at Knockwinnock
-      to-day, it must be by walking quietly forward on my own feet, which I will
-      do with as little delay as possible. Captain M'Intyre may ride that animal
-      himself, if he pleases."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have little hope I could be of any use, uncle, but I cannot think of
-      their distress without wishing to show sympathy at least&mdash;so I will
-      ride on before, and announce to them that you are coming.&mdash;I'll
-      trouble you for your spurs, my friend."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You will scarce need them, sir," said the man, taking them off at the
-      same time, and buckling them upon Captain Mlntyre's heels, "he's very
-      frank to the road."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Oldbuck stood astonished at this last act of temerity, "are you mad,
-      Hector?" he cried, "or have you forgotten what is said by Quintus Curtius,
-      with whom, as a soldier, you must needs be familiar,&mdash;<i>Nobilis
-      equus umbra quidem virgae regitur; ignavus ne calcari quidem excitari
-      potest;</i> which plainly shows that spurs are useless in every case, and,
-      I may add, dangerous in most."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But Hector, who cared little for the opinion of either Quintus Curtius or
-      of the Antiquary, upon such a topic, only answered with a heedless "Never
-      fear&mdash;never fear, sir."
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-              With that he gave his able horse the head,
-              And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
-              Against the panting sides of his poor jade,
-                Up to the rowel-head; and starting so,
-                He seemed in running to devour the way,
-                      Staying no longer question.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "There they go, well matched," said Oldbuck, looking after them as they
-      started&mdash;"a mad horse and a wild boy, the two most unruly creatures
-      in Christendom! and all to get half an hour sooner to a place where nobody
-      wants him; for I doubt Sir Arthur's griefs are beyond the cure of our
-      light horseman. It must be the villany of Dousterswivel, for whom Sir
-      Arthur has done so much; for I cannot help observing, that, with some
-      natures, Tacitus's maxim holdeth good: <i>Beneficia eo usque laeta sunt
-      dum videntur exsolvi posse; ubi multum antevenere, pro gratia odium
-      redditur,</i>&mdash;from which a wise man might take a caution, not to
-      oblige any man beyond the degree in which he may expect to be requited,
-      lest he should make his debtor a bankrupt in gratitude."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Murmuring to himself such scraps of cynical philosophy, our Antiquary
-      paced the sands towards Knockwinnock; but it is necessary we should
-      outstrip him, for the purpose of explaining the reasons of his being so
-      anxiously summoned thither.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0020" id="Alink2HCH0020">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER TWENTIETH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-             So, while the Goose, of whom the fable told,
-                Incumbent, brooded o'er her eggs of gold,
-             With hand outstretched, impatient to destroy,
-                Stole on her secret nest the cruel Boy,
-             Whose gripe rapacious changed her splendid dream,
-            &mdash;For wings vain fluttering, and for dying scream.
-                                   The Loves of the Sea-weeds.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      From the time that Sir Arthur Wardour had become possessor of the treasure
-      found in Misticot's grave, he had been in a state of mind more resembling
-      ecstasy than sober sense. Indeed, at one time his daughter had become
-      seriously apprehensive for his intellect; for, as he had no doubt that he
-      had the secret of possessing himself of wealth to an unbounded extent, his
-      language and carriage were those of a man who had acquired the
-      philosopher's stone. He talked of buying contiguous estates, that would
-      have led him from one side of the island to the other, as if he were
-      determined to brook no neighbour save the sea. He corresponded with an
-      architect of eminence, upon a plan of renovating the castle of his
-      forefathers on a style of extended magnificence that might have rivalled
-      that of Windsor, and laying out the grounds on a suitable scale. Troops of
-      liveried menials were already, in fancy, marshalled in his halls, and&mdash;for
-      what may not unbounded wealth authorize its possessor to aspire to?&mdash;the
-      coronet of a marquis, perhaps of a duke, was glittering before his
-      imagination. His daughter&mdash;to what matches might she not look
-      forward? Even an alliance with the blood-royal was not beyond the sphere
-      of his hopes. His son was already a general&mdash;and he himself whatever
-      ambition could dream of in its wildest visions.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In this mood, if any one endeavoured to bring Sir Arthur down to the
-      regions of common life, his replies were in the vein of Ancient Pistol&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                   A fico for the world, and worldlings base
-                   I speak of Africa and golden joys!
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The reader may conceive the amazement of Miss Wardour, when, instead of
-      undergoing an investigation concerning the addresses of Lovel, as she had
-      expected from the long conference of her father with Mr. Oldbuck, upon the
-      morning of the fated day when the treasure was discovered, the
-      conversation of Sir Arthur announced an imagination heated with the hopes
-      of possessing the most unbounded wealth. But she was seriously alarmed
-      when Dousterswivel was sent for to the Castle, and was closeted with her
-      father&mdash;his mishap condoled with&mdash;his part taken, and his loss
-      compensated. All the suspicions which she had long entertained respecting
-      this man became strengthened, by observing his pains to keep up the golden
-      dreams of her father, and to secure for himself, under various pretexts,
-      as much as possible out of the windfall which had so strangely fallen to
-      Sir Arthur's share.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Other evil symptoms began to appear, following close on each other.
-      Letters arrived every post, which Sir Arthur, as soon as he had looked at
-      the directions, flung into the fire without taking the trouble to open
-      them. Miss Wardour could not help suspecting that these epistles, the
-      contents of which seemed to be known to her father by a sort of intuition,
-      came from pressing creditors. In the meanwhile, the temporary aid which he
-      had received from the treasure dwindled fast away. By far the greater part
-      had been swallowed up by the necessity of paying the bill of six hundred
-      pounds, which had threatened Sir Arthur with instant distress. Of the
-      rest, some part was given to the adept, some wasted upon extravagances
-      which seemed to the poor knight fully authorized by his full-blown hopes,&mdash;and
-      some went to stop for a time the mouths of such claimants as, being weary
-      of fair promises, had become of opinion with Harpagon, that it was
-      necessary to touch something substantial. At length circumstances
-      announced but too plainly, that it was all expended within two or three
-      days after its discovery; and there appeared no prospect of a supply. Sir
-      Arthur, naturally impatient, now taxed Dousterswivel anew with breach of
-      those promises through which he had hoped to convert all his lead into
-      gold. But that worthy gentleman's turn was now served; and as he had grace
-      enough to wish to avoid witnessing the fall of the house which he had
-      undermined, he was at the trouble of bestowing a few learned terms of art
-      upon Sir Arthur, that at least he might not be tormented before his time.
-      He took leave of him, with assurances that he would return to Knockwinnock
-      the next morning, with such information as would not fail to relieve Sir
-      Arthur from all his distresses.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "For, since I have consulted in such matters, I ave never," said Mr.
-      Herman Dousterswivel, "approached so near de <i>arcanum,</i> what you call
-      de great mystery,&mdash;de Panchresta&mdash;de Polychresta&mdash;I do know
-      as much of it as Pelaso de Taranta, or Basilius&mdash;and either I will
-      bring you in two and tree days de No. III. of Mr. Mishdigoat, or you shall
-      call me one knave myself, and never look me in de face again no more at
-      all."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The adept departed with this assurance, in the firm resolution of making
-      good the latter part of the proposition, and never again appearing before
-      his injured patron. Sir Arthur remained in a doubtful and anxious state of
-      mind. The positive assurances of the philosopher, with the hard words
-      Panchresta, Basilius, and so forth, produced some effect on his mind. But
-      he had been too often deluded by such jargon, to be absolutely relieved of
-      his doubt, and he retired for the evening into his library, in the fearful
-      state of one who, hanging over a precipice, and without the means of
-      retreat, perceives the stone on which he rests gradually parting from the
-      rest of the crag, and about to give way with him.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The visions of hope decayed, and there increased in proportion that
-      feverish agony of anticipation with which a man, educated in a sense of
-      consequence, and possessed of opulence,&mdash;the supporter of an ancient
-      name, and the father of two promising children,&mdash;foresaw the hour
-      approaching which should deprive him of all the splendour which time had
-      made familiarly necessary to him, and send him forth into the world to
-      struggle with poverty, with rapacity, and with scorn. Under these dire
-      forebodings, his temper, exhausted by the sickness of delayed hope, became
-      peevish and fretful, and his words and actions sometimes expressed a
-      reckless desperation, which alarmed Miss Wardour extremely. We have seen,
-      on a former occasion, that Sir Arthur was a man of passions lively and
-      quick, in proportion to the weakness of his character in other respects;
-      he was unused to contradiction, and if he had been hitherto, in general,
-      good-humoured and cheerful, it was probably because the course of his life
-      had afforded no such frequent provocation as to render his irritability
-      habitual.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      On the third morning after Dousterswivel's departure, the servant, as
-      usual, laid on the breakfast table the newspaper and letters of the day.
-      Miss Wardour took up the former to avoid the continued ill-humour of her
-      father, who had wrought himself into a violent passion, because the toast
-      was over-browned.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I perceive how it is," was his concluding speech on this interesting
-      subject,&mdash;"my servants, who have had their share of my fortune, begin
-      to think there is little to be made of me in future. But while I <i>am</i>
-      the scoundrel's master I will be so, and permit no neglect&mdash;no, nor
-      endure a hair's-breadth diminution of the respect I am entitled to exact
-      from them."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am ready to leave your honour's service this instant," said the
-      domestic upon whom the fault had been charged, "as soon as you order
-      payment of my wages."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur, as if stung by a serpent, thrust his hand into his pocket, and
-      instantly drew out the money which it contained, but which was short of
-      the man's claim. "What money have you got, Miss Wardour?" he said, in a
-      tone of affected calmness, but which concealed violent agitation.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Miss Wardour gave him her purse; he attempted to count the bank notes
-      which it contained, but could not reckon them. After twice miscounting the
-      sum, he threw the whole to his daughter, and saying, in a stern voice,
-      "Pay the rascal, and let him leave the house instantly!" he strode out of
-      the room.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The mistress and servant stood alike astonished at the agitation and
-      vehemence of his manner.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am sure, ma'am, if I had thought I was particularly wrang, I wadna hae
-      made ony answer when Sir Arthur challenged me. I hae been lang in his
-      service, and he has been a kind master, and you a kind mistress, and I wad
-      like ill ye should think I wad start for a hasty word. I am sure it was
-      very wrang o' me to speak about wages to his honour, when maybe he has
-      something to vex him. I had nae thoughts o' leaving the family in this
-      way."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Go down stair, Robert," said his mistress&mdash;"something has happened
-      to fret my father&mdash;go down stairs, and let Alick answer the bell."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      When the man left the room, Sir Arthur re-entered, as if he had been
-      watching his departure. "What's the meaning of this?" he said hastily, as
-      he observed the notes lying still on the table&mdash;"Is he not gone? Am I
-      neither to be obeyed as a master or a father?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He is gone to give up his charge to the housekeeper, sir,&mdash;I thought
-      there was not such instant haste."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There <i>is</i> haste, Miss Wardour," answered her father, interrupting
-      her;&mdash;"What I do henceforth in the house of my forefathers, must be
-      done speedily, or never."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      He then sate down, and took up with a trembling hand the basin of tea
-      prepared for him, protracting the swallowing of it, as if to delay the
-      necessity of opening the post-letters which lay on the table, and which he
-      eyed from time to time, as if they had been a nest of adders ready to
-      start into life and spring upon him.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You will be happy to hear," said Miss Wardour, willing to withdraw her
-      father's mind from the gloomy reflections in which he appeared to be
-      plunged, "you will be happy to hear, sir, that Lieutenant Taffril's
-      gun-brig has got safe into Leith Roads&mdash;I observe there had been
-      apprehensions for his safety&mdash;I am glad we did not hear them till
-      they were contradicted."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And what is Taffril and his gun-brig to me?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Sir!" said Miss Wardour in astonishment; for Sir Arthur, in his ordinary
-      state of mind, took a fidgety sort of interest in all the gossip of the
-      day and country.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I say," he repeated in a higher and still more impatient key, "what do I
-      care who is saved or lost? It's nothing to me, I suppose?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I did not know you were busy, Sir Arthur; and thought, as Mr. Taffril is
-      a brave man, and from our own country, you would be happy to hear"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Oh, I am happy&mdash;as happy as possible&mdash;and, to make you happy
-      too, you shall have some of my good news in return." And he caught up a
-      letter. "It does not signify which I open first&mdash;they are all to the
-      same tune."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      He broke the seal hastily, ran the letter over, and then threw it to his
-      daughter. "Ay&mdash;I could not have lighted more happily!&mdash;this
-      places the copestone."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Miss Wardour, in silent terror, took up the letter. "Read it&mdash;read it
-      aloud!" said her father; "it cannot be read too often; it will serve to
-      break you in for other good news of the same kind."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      She began to read with a faltering voice, "Dear Sir."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He <i>dears</i> me too, you see, this impudent drudge of a writer's
-      office, who, a twelvemonth since, was not fit company for my second table&mdash;I
-      suppose I shall be dear Knight' with him by and by."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dear Sir," resumed Miss Wardour; but, interrupting herself, "I see the
-      contents are unpleasant, sir&mdash;it will only vex you my reading them
-      aloud."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If you will allow me to know my own pleasure, Miss Wardour, I entreat you
-      to go on&mdash;I presume, if it were unnecessary, I should not ask you to
-      take the trouble."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Having been of late taken into copartnery," continued Miss Wardour,
-      reading the letter, "by Mr. Gilbert Greenhorn, son of your late
-      correspondent and man of business, Girnigo Greenhorn, Esq., writer to the
-      signet, whose business I conducted as parliament-house clerk for many
-      years, which business will in future be carried on under the firm of
-      Greenhorn and Grinderson (which I memorandum for the sake of accuracy in
-      addressing your future letters), and having had of late favours of yours,
-      directed to my aforesaid partner, Gilbert Greenhorn, in consequence of his
-      absence at the Lamberton races, have the honour to reply to your said
-      favours."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You see my friend is methodical, and commences by explaining the causes
-      which have procured me so modest and elegant a correspondent. Go on&mdash;I
-      can bear it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And he laughed that bitter laugh which is perhaps the most fearful
-      expression of mental misery. Trembling to proceed, and yet afraid to
-      disobey, Miss Wardour continued to read&mdash;"I am for myself and
-      partner, sorry we cannot oblige you by looking out for the sums you
-      mention, or applying for a suspension in the case of Goldiebirds' bond,
-      which would be more inconsistent, as we have been employed to act as the
-      said Goldiebirds' procurators and attorneys, in which capacity we have
-      taken out a charge of horning against you, as you must be aware by the
-      schedule left by the messenger, for the sum of four thousand seven hundred
-      and fifty-six pounds five shillings and sixpence one-fourth of a penny
-      sterling, which, with annual-rent and expenses effeiring, we presume will
-      be settled during the currency of the charge, to prevent further trouble.
-      Same time, I am under the necessity to observe our own account, amounting
-      to seven hundred and sixty-nine pounds ten shillings and sixpence, is also
-      due, and settlement would be agreeable; but as we hold your rights,
-      title-deeds, and documents in hypothec, shall have no objection to give
-      reasonable time&mdash;say till the next money term. I am, for myself and
-      partner, concerned to add, that Messrs. Goldiebirds' instructions to us
-      are to proceed <i>peremptorie</i> and <i>sine mora,</i> of which I have
-      the pleasure to advise you, to prevent future mistakes, reserving to
-      ourselves otherwise to age' as accords. I am, for self and partner, dear
-      sir, your obliged humble servant, Gabriel Grinderson, for Greenhorn and
-      Grinderson."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ungrateful villain!" said Miss Wardour.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, no&mdash;it's in the usual rule, I suppose; the blow could not have
-      been perfect if dealt by another hand&mdash;it's all just as it should
-      be," answered the poor Baronet, his affected composure sorely belied by
-      his quivering lip and rolling eye&mdash;"But here's a postscript I did not
-      notice&mdash;come, finish the epistle."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have to add (not for self but partner) that Mr. Greenhorn will
-      accommodate you by taking your service of plate, or the bay horses, if
-      sound in wind and limb, at a fair appreciation, in part payment of your
-      accompt."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "G&mdash;d confound him!" said Sir Arthur, losing all command of himself
-      at this condescending proposal: "his grandfather shod my father's horses,
-      and this descendant of a scoundrelly blacksmith proposes to swindle me out
-      of mine! But I will write him a proper answer."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And he sate down and began to write with great vehemence, then stopped and
-      read aloud:&mdash;"Mr. Gilbert Greenhorn,&mdash;in answer to two letters
-      of a late date, I received a letter from a person calling himself
-      Grinderson, and designing himself as your partner. When I address any one,
-      I do not usually expect to be answered by deputy&mdash;I think I have been
-      useful to your father, and friendly and civil to yourself, and therefore
-      am now surprised&mdash;And yet," said he, stopping short, "why should I be
-      surprised at that or anything else? or why should I take up my time in
-      writing to such a scoundrel?&mdash;I shan't be always kept in prison, I
-      suppose; and to break that puppy's bones when I get out, shall be my first
-      employment."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In prison, sir?" said Miss Wardour, faintly.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, in prison to be sure. Do you make any question about that? Why, Mr.
-      what's his name's fine letter for self and partner seems to be thrown away
-      on you, or else you have got four thousand so many hundred pounds, with
-      the due proportion of shillings, pence, and half-pence, to pay that
-      aforesaid demand, as he calls it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I, sir? O if I had the means!&mdash;But where's my brother?&mdash;why
-      does he not come, and so long in Scotland? He might do something to assist
-      us."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Who, Reginald?&mdash;I suppose he's gone with Mr. Gilbert Greenhorn, or
-      some such respectable person, to the Lamberton races&mdash;I have expected
-      him this week past; but I cannot wonder that my children should neglect me
-      as well as every other person. But I should beg your pardon, my love, who
-      never either neglected or offended me in your life."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And kissing her cheek as she threw her arms round his neck, he experienced
-      that consolation which a parent feels, even in the most distressed state,
-      in the assurance that he possesses the affection of a child.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Miss Wardour took the advantage of this revulsion of feeling, to endeavour
-      to soothe her father's mind to composure. She reminded him that he had
-      many friends.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I had many once," said Sir Arthur; "but of some I have exhausted their
-      kindness with my frantic projects; others are unable to assist me&mdash;others
-      are unwilling. It is all over with me. I only hope Reginald will take
-      example by my folly."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Should I not send to Monkbarns, sir?" said his daughter.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "To what purpose? He cannot lend me such a sum, and would not if he could,
-      for he knows I am otherwise drowned in debt; and he would only give me
-      scraps of misanthropy and quaint ends of Latin."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But he is shrewd and sensible, and was bred to business, and, I am sure,
-      always loved this family."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes, I believe he did. It is a fine pass we are come to, when the
-      affection of an Oldbuck is of consequence to a Wardour! But when matters
-      come to extremity, as I suppose they presently will&mdash;it may be as
-      well to send for him. And now go take your walk, my dear&mdash;my mind is
-      more composed than when I had this cursed disclosure to make. You know the
-      worst, and may daily or hourly expect it. Go take your walk&mdash;I would
-      willingly be alone for a little while."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      When Miss Wardour left the apartment, her first occupation was to avail
-      herself of the half permission granted by her father, by despatching to
-      Monkbarns the messenger, who, as we have already seen, met the Antiquary
-      and his nephew on the sea-beach.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Little recking, and indeed scarce knowing, where she was wandering, chance
-      directed her into the walk beneath the Briery Bank, as it was called. A
-      brook, which in former days had supplied the castle-moat with water, here
-      descended through a narrow dell, up which Miss Wardour's taste had
-      directed a natural path, which was rendered neat and easy of ascent,
-      without the air of being formally made and preserved. It suited well the
-      character of the little glen, which was overhung with thickets and
-      underwood, chiefly of larch and hazel, intermixed with the usual varieties
-      of the thorn and brier. In this walk had passed that scene of explanation
-      between Miss Wardour and Lovel which was overheard by old Edie Ochiltree.
-      With a heart softened by the distress which approached her family, Miss
-      Wardour now recalled every word and argument which Lovel had urged in
-      support of his suit, and could not help confessing to herself, it was no
-      small subject of pride to have inspired a young man of his talents with a
-      passion so strong and disinterested. That he should have left the pursuit
-      of a profession in which he was said to be rapidly rising, to bury himself
-      in a disagreeable place like Fairport, and brood over an unrequited
-      passion, might be ridiculed by others as romantic, but was naturally
-      forgiven as an excess of affection by the person who was the object of his
-      attachment. Had he possessed an independence, however moderate, or
-      ascertained a clear and undisputed claim to the rank in society he was
-      well qualified to adorn, she might now have had it in her power to offer
-      her father, during his misfortunes, an asylum in an establishment of her
-      own. These thoughts, so favourable to the absent lover, crowded in, one
-      after the other, with such a minute recapitulation of his words, looks,
-      and actions, as plainly intimated that his former repulse had been
-      dictated rather by duty than inclination. Isabella was musing alternately
-      upon this subject, and upon that of her father's misfortunes, when, as the
-      path winded round a little hillock covered with brushwood, the old
-      Blue-Gown suddenly met her.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      With an air as if he had something important and mysterious to
-      communicate, he doffed his bonnet, and assumed the cautious step and voice
-      of one who would not willingly be overheard. "I hae been wishing muckle to
-      meet wi' your leddyship&mdash;for ye ken I darena come to the house for
-      Dousterswivel."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I heard indeed," said Miss Wardour, dropping an alms into the bonnet&mdash;"I
-      heard that you had done a very foolish, if not a very bad thing, Edie&mdash;
-      and I was sorry to hear it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hout, my bonny leddy&mdash;fulish? A' the world's fules&mdash;and how
-      should auld Edie Ochiltree be aye wise?&mdash;And for the evil&mdash;let
-      them wha deal wi' Dousterswivel tell whether he gat a grain mair than his
-      deserts."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "That may be true, Edie, and yet," said Miss Wardour, "you may have been
-      very wrong."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Weel, weel, we'se no dispute that e'ennow&mdash;it's about yoursell I'm
-      gaun to speak. Div ye ken what's hanging ower the house of Knockwinnock?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Great distress, I fear, Edie," answered Miss Wardour; "but I am surprised
-      it is already so public."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Public!&mdash;Sweepclean, the messenger, will be there the day wi' a' his
-      tackle. I ken it frae ane o' his concurrents, as they ca' them, that's
-      warned to meet him; and they'll be about their wark belyve; whare they
-      clip, there needs nae kame&mdash;they shear close eneugh."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Are you sure this bad hour, Edie, is so very near?&mdash;come, I know, it
-      will."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's e'en as I tell you, leddy. But dinna be cast down&mdash;there's a
-      heaven ower your head here, as weel as in that fearful night atween the
-      Ballyburghness and the Halket-head. D'ye think He, wha rebuked the waters,
-      canna protect you against the wrath of men, though they be armed with
-      human authority?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is indeed all we have to trust to."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ye dinna ken&mdash;ye dinna ken: when the night's darkest, the dawn's
-      nearest. If I had a gude horse, or could ride him when I had him, I reckon
-      there wad be help yet. I trusted to hae gotten a cast wi' the Royal
-      Charlotte, but she's coupit yonder, it's like, at Kittlebrig. There was a
-      young gentleman on the box, and he behuved to drive; and Tam Sang, that
-      suld hae mair sense, he behuved to let him, and the daft callant couldna
-      tak the turn at the corner o' the brig; and od! he took the curbstane, and
-      he's whomled her as I wad whomle a toom bicker&mdash;it was a luck I hadna
-      gotten on the tap o' her. Sae I came down atween hope and despair, to see
-      if ye wad send me on."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And, Edie&mdash;where would ye go?" said the young lady.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "To Tannonburgh, my leddy" (which was the first stage from Fairport, but a
-      good deal nearer to Knockwinnock), "and that without delay&mdash;it's a'
-      on your ain business."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Our business, Edie? Alas! I give you all credit for your good meaning;
-      but"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There's nae <i>buts</i> about it, my leddy, for gang I maun," said the
-      persevering Blue-Gown.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But what is it that you would do at Tannonburgh?&mdash;or how can your
-      going there benefit my father's affairs?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed, my sweet leddy," said the gaberlunzie, "ye maun just trust that
-      bit secret to auld Edie's grey pow, and ask nae questions about it.
-      Certainly if I wad hae wared my life for you yon night, I can hae nae
-      reason to play an ill pliskie t'ye in the day o' your distress."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, Edie, follow me then," said Miss Wardour, "and I will try to get
-      you sent to Tannonburgh."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mak haste then, my bonny leddy&mdash;mak haste, for the love o'
-      goodness!"&mdash; and he continued to exhort her to expedition until they
-      reached the Castle.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0021" id="Alink2HCH0021">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-               Let those go see who will&mdash;I like it not&mdash;
-               For, say he was a slave to rank and pomp,
-               And all the nothings he is now divorced from
-                 By the hard doom of stern necessity:
-                 Yet it is sad to mark his altered brow,
-                 Where Vanity adjusts her flimsy veil
-               O'er the deep wrinkles of repentant anguish.
-                                         Old Play.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      When Miss Wardour arrived in the court of the Castle, she was apprized by
-      the first glance that the visit of the officers of the law had already
-      taken place. There was confusion, and gloom and sorrow, and curiosity
-      among the domestics, while the retainers of the law went from place to
-      place, making an inventory of the goods and chattels falling under their
-      warrant of distress, or poinding, as it is called in the law of Scotland.
-      Captain M'Intyre flew to her, as, struck dumb with the melancholy
-      conviction of her father's ruin, she paused upon the threshold of the
-      gateway.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dear Miss Wardour," he said, "do not make yourself uneasy; my uncle is
-      coming immediately, and I am sure he will find some way to clear the house
-      of these rascals."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Alas! Captain M'Intyre, I fear it will be too late."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No," answered Edie, impatiently&mdash;"could I but get to Tannonburgh. In
-      the name of Heaven, Captain, contrive some way to get me on, and ye'll do
-      this poor ruined family the best day's doing that has been done them since
-      Redhand's days&mdash;for as sure as e'er an auld saw came true,
-      Knockwinnock house and land will be lost and won this day."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, what good can you do, old man?" said Hector.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But Robert, the domestic with whom Sir Arthur had been so much displeased
-      in the morning, as if he had been watching for an opportunity to display
-      his zeal, stepped hastily forward and said to his mistress, "If you
-      please, ma'am, this auld man, Ochiltree, is very skeely and auld-farrant
-      about mony things, as the diseases of cows and horse, and sic like, and I
-      am sure be disna want to be at Tannonburgh the day for naething, since he
-      insists on't this gate; and, if your leddyship pleases, I'll drive him
-      there in the taxed-cart in an hour's time. I wad fain be of some use&mdash;I
-      could bite my very tongue out when I think on this morning."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I am obliged to you, Robert," said Miss Wardour; "and if you really think
-      it has the least chance of being useful"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In the name of God," said the old man, "yoke the cart, Robie, and if I am
-      no o' some use, less or mair, I'll gie ye leave to fling me ower
-      Kittlebrig as ye come back again. But, O man, haste ye, for time's
-      precious this day."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Robert looked at his mistress as she retired into the house, and seeing he
-      was not prohibited, flew to the stable-yard, which was adjacent to the
-      court, in order to yoke the carriage; for, though an old beggar was the
-      personage least likely to render effectual assistance in a case of
-      pecuniary distress, yet there was among the common people of Edie's
-      circle, a general idea of his prudence and sagacity, which authorized
-      Robert's conclusion that he would not so earnestly have urged the
-      necessity of this expedition had he not been convinced of its utility. But
-      so soon as the servant took hold of a horse to harness him for the
-      taxed-cart, an officer touched him on the shoulder&mdash;"My friend, you
-      must let that beast alone&mdash;he's down in the schedule."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What!" said Robert, "am I not to take my master's horse to go my young
-      leddy's errand?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You must remove nothing here," said the man of office, "or you will be
-      liable for all consequences."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What the devil, sir," said Hector, who having followed to examine
-      Ochiltree more closely on the nature of his hopes and expectations,
-      already began to bristle like one of the terriers of his own native
-      mountains, and sought but a decent pretext for venting his displeasure,
-      "have you the impudence to prevent the young lady's servant from obeying
-      her orders?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      There was something in the air and tone of the young soldier, which seemed
-      to argue that his interference was not likely to be confined to mere
-      expostulation; and which, if it promised finally the advantages of a
-      process of battery and deforcement, would certainly commence with the
-      unpleasant circumstances necessary for founding such a complaint. The
-      legal officer, confronted with him of the military, grasped with one
-      doubtful hand the greasy bludgeon which was to enforce his authority, and
-      with the other produced his short official baton, tipped with silver, and
-      having a movable ring upon it&mdash;"Captain M'Intyre,&mdash;Sir, I have
-      no quarrel with you,&mdash;but if you interrupt me in my duty, I will
-      break the wand of peace, and declare myself deforced."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And who the devil cares," said Hector, totally ignorant of the words of
-      judicial action, "whether you declare yourself divorced or married? And as
-      to breaking your wand, or breaking the peace, or whatever you call it, all
-      I know is, that I will break your bones if you prevent the lad from
-      harnessing the horses to obey his mistress's orders."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I take all who stand here to witness," said the messenger, "that I showed
-      him my blazon, and explained my character. He that will to Cupar maun to
-      Cupar,"&mdash;and he slid his enigmatical ring from one end of the baton
-      to the other, being the appropriate symbol of his having been forcibly
-      interrupted in the discharge of his duty.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Honest Hector, better accustomed to the artillery of the field than to
-      that of the law, saw this mystical ceremony with great indifference; and
-      with like unconcern beheld the messenger sit down to write out an
-      execution of deforcement. But at this moment, to prevent the well-meaning
-      hot-headed Highlander from running the risk of a severe penalty, the
-      Antiquary arrived puffing and blowing, with his handkerchief crammed under
-      his hat, and his wig upon the end of his stick.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What the deuce is the matter here?" he exclaimed, hastily adjusting his
-      head-gear; "I have been following you in fear of finding your idle
-      loggerhead knocked against one rock or other, and here I find you parted
-      with your Bucephalus, and quarrelling with Sweepclean. A messenger,
-      Hector, is a worse foe than a <i>phoca,</i> whether it be the <i>phoca
-      barbata,</i> or the <i>phoca vitulina</i> of your late conflict."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "D&mdash;n the <i>phoca,</i> sir," said Hector, "whether it be the one or
-      the other&mdash;I say d&mdash;n them both particularly! I think you would
-      not have me stand quietly by and see a scoundrel like this, because he
-      calls himself a king's messenger, forsooth&mdash;(I hope the king has many
-      better for his meanest errands)&mdash;insult a young lady of family and
-      fashion like Miss Wardour?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Rightly argued, Hector," said the Antiquary; "but the king, like other
-      people, has now and then shabby errands, and, in your ear, must have
-      shabby fellows to do them. But even supposing you unacquainted with the
-      statutes of William the Lion, in which <i>capite quarto versu quinto,</i>
-      this crime of deforcement is termed <i>despectus Domini Regis</i>&mdash;a
-      contempt, to wit, of the king himself, in whose name all legal diligence
-      issues,&mdash; could you not have inferred, from the information I took so
-      much pains to give you to-day, that those who interrupt officers who come
-      to execute letters of caption, are <i>tanquam participes criminis
-      rebellionis?</i> seeing that he who aids a rebel, is himself, <i>quodammodo,</i>
-      an accessory to rebellion&mdash;But I'll bring you out of this scrape."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      He then spoke to the messenger, who, upon his arrival, had laid aside all
-      thoughts of making a good by-job out of the deforcement, and accepted Mr.
-      Oldbuck's assurances that the horse and taxed-cart should be safely
-      returned in the course of two or three hours.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Very well, sir," said the Antiquary, "since you are disposed to be so
-      civil, you shall have another job in your own best way&mdash;a little cast
-      of state politics&mdash;a crime punishable <i>per Legem Juliam,</i> Mr.
-      Sweepclean&mdash; Hark thee hither."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And after a whisper of five minutes, he gave him a slip of paper, on
-      receiving which, the messenger mounted his horse, and, with one of his
-      assistants, rode away pretty sharply. The fellow who remained seemed to
-      delay his operations purposely, proceeded in the rest of his duty very
-      slowly, and with the caution and precision of one who feels himself
-      overlooked by a skilful and severe inspector.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In the meantime, Oldbuck, taking his nephew by the arm, led him into the
-      house, and they were ushered into the presence of Sir Arthur Wardour, who,
-      in a flutter between wounded pride, agonized apprehension, and vain
-      attempts to disguise both under a show of indifference, exhibited a
-      spectacle of painful interest.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Happy to see you, Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;always happy to see my friends in
-      fair weather or foul," said the poor Baronet, struggling not for
-      composure, but for gaiety&mdash;an affectation which was strongly
-      contrasted by the nervous and protracted grasp of his hand, and the
-      agitation of his whole demeanour&mdash;"I am happy to see you. You are
-      riding, I see&mdash;I hope in this confusion your horses are taken good
-      care of&mdash;I always like to have my friend's horses looked after&mdash;Egad!
-      they will have all my care now, for you see they are like to leave me none
-      of my own&mdash;he! he! he! eh, Mr. Oldbuck?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      This attempt at a jest was attended by a hysterical giggle, which poor Sir
-      Arthur intended should sound as an indifferent laugh.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You know I never ride, Sir Arthur," said the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I beg your pardon; but sure I saw your nephew arrive on horseback a short
-      time since. We must look after officers' horses, and his was as handsome a
-      grey charger as I have seen."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur was about to ring the bell, when Mr. Oldbuck said, "My nephew
-      came on your own grey horse, Sir Arthur."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Mine!" said the poor Baronet; "mine was it? then the sun had been in my
-      eyes. Well, I'm not worthy having a horse any longer, since I don't know
-      my own when I see him."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Good Heaven!" thought Oldbuck, "how is this man altered from the formal
-      stolidity of his usual manner!&mdash;he grows wanton under adversity&mdash;<i>Sed
-      pereunti mille figurae.</i>"&mdash;He then proceeded aloud&mdash;"Sir
-      Arthur, we must necessarily speak a little on business."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "To be sure," said Sir Arthur; "but it was so good that I should not know
-      the horse I have ridden these five years&mdash;ha! ha! ha!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Sir Arthur," said the Antiquary, "don't let us waste time which is
-      precious; we shall have, I hope, many better seasons for jesting&mdash; <i>desipere
-      in loco</i> is the maxim of Horace. I more than suspect this has been
-      brought on by the villany of Dousterswivel."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Don't mention his name, sir!" said Sir Arthur; and his manner entirely
-      changed from a fluttered affectation of gaiety to all the agitation of
-      fury; his eyes sparkled, his mouth foamed, his hands were clenched&mdash;
-      "don't mention his name, sir," he vociferated, "unless you would see me go
-      mad in your presence! That I should have been such a miserable dolt&mdash;
-      such an infatuated idiot&mdash;such a beast endowed with thrice a beast's
-      stupidity, to be led and driven and spur-galled by such a rascal, and
-      under such ridiculous pretences!&mdash;Mr. Oldbuck, I could tear myself
-      when I think of it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I only meant to say," answered the Antiquary, "that this fellow is like
-      to meet his reward; and I cannot but think we shall frighten something out
-      of him that may be of service to you. He has certainly had some unlawful
-      correspondence on the other side of the water."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Has he?&mdash;has he?&mdash;has he indeed?&mdash;then d&mdash;n the
-      house-hold goods, horses, and so forth&mdash;I will go to prison a happy
-      man, Mr. Oldbuck. I hope in heaven there's a reasonable chance of his
-      being hanged?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Why, pretty fair," said Oldbuck, willing to encourage this diversion, in
-      hopes it might mitigate the feelings which seemed like to overset the poor
-      man's understanding; "honester men have stretched a rope, or the law has
-      been sadly cheated&mdash;But this unhappy business of yours&mdash;can
-      nothing be done? Let me see the charge."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      He took the papers; and, as he read them, his countenance grew hopelessly
-      dark and disconsolate. Miss Wardour had by this time entered the
-      apartment, and fixing her eyes on Mr. Oldbuck, as if she meant to read her
-      fate in his looks, easily perceived, from the change in his eye, and the
-      dropping of his nether-jaw, how little was to be hoped.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We are then irremediably ruined, Mr. Oldbuck?" said the young lady.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Irremediably?&mdash;I hope not&mdash;but the instant demand is very
-      large, and others will, doubtless, pour in."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, never doubt that, Monkbarns," said Sir Arthur; "where the slaughter
-      is, the eagles will be gathered together. I am like a sheep which I have
-      seen fall down a precipice, or drop down from sickness&mdash;if you had
-      not seen a single raven or hooded crow for a fortnight before, he will not
-      lie on the heather ten minutes before half-a-dozen will be picking out his
-      eyes (and he drew his hand over his own), and tearing at his heartstrings
-      before the poor devil has time to die. But that d&mdash;d long-scented
-      vulture that dogged me so long&mdash;you have got him fast, I hope?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Fast enough," said the Antiquary; "the gentleman wished to take the wings
-      of the morning, and bolt in the what d'ye call it,&mdash;the coach and
-      four there. But he would have found twigs limed for him at Edinburgh. As
-      it is, he never got so far, for the coach being overturned&mdash;as how
-      could it go safe with such a Jonah?&mdash;he has had an infernal tumble,
-      is carried into a cottage near Kittlebrig, and to prevent all possibility
-      of escape, I have sent your friend Sweepclean to bring him back to
-      Fairport <i>in nomine regis,</i> or to act as his sick-nurse at
-      Kittlebrig, as is most fitting. And now, Sir Arthur, permit me to have
-      some conversation with you on the present unpleasant state of your
-      affairs, that we may see what can be done for their extrication;" and the
-      Antiquary led the way into the library, followed by the unfortunate
-      gentleman.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      They had been shut up together for about two hours, when Miss Wardour
-      interrupted them with her cloak on as if prepared for a journey. Her
-      countenance was very pale, yet expressive of the composure which
-      characterized her disposition.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The messenger is returned, Mr. Oldbuck."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Returned?&mdash;What the devil! he has not let the fellow go?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No&mdash;I understand he has carried him to confinement; and now he is
-      returned to attend my father, and says he can wait no longer."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A loud wrangling was now heard on the staircase, in which the voice of
-      Hector predominated. "You an officer, sir, and these ragamuffins a party!
-      a parcel of beggarly tailor fellows&mdash;tell yourselves off by nine, and
-      we shall know your effective strength."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The grumbling voice of the man of law was then heard indistinctly
-      muttering a reply, to which Hector retorted&mdash;"Come, come, sir, this
-      won't do;&mdash;march your party, as you call them, out of this house
-      directly, or I'll send you and them to the right about presently."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The devil take Hector," said the Antiquary, hastening to the scene of
-      action; "his Highland blood is up again, and we shall have him fighting a
-      duel with the bailiff. Come, Mr. Sweepclean, you must give us a little
-      time&mdash;I know you would not wish to hurry Sir Arthur."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "By no means, sir," said the messenger, putting his hat off, which he had
-      thrown on to testify defiance of Captain M'Intyre's threats; "but your
-      nephew, sir, holds very uncivil language, and I have borne too much of it
-      already; and I am not justified in leaving my prisoner any longer after
-      the instructions I received, unless I am to get payment of the sums
-      contained in my diligence." And he held out the caption, pointing with the
-      awful truncheon, which he held in his right hand, to the formidable line
-      of figures jotted upon the back thereof.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Hector, on the other hand, though silent from respect to his uncle,
-      answered this gesture by shaking his clenched fist at the messenger with a
-      frown of Highland wrath.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Foolish boy, be quiet," said Oldbuck, "and come with me into the room&mdash;
-      the man is doing his miserable duty, and you will only make matters worse
-      by opposing him.&mdash;I fear, Sir Arthur, you must accompany this man to
-      Fairport; there is no help for it in the first instance&mdash;I will
-      accompany you, to consult what further can be done&mdash;My nephew will
-      escort Miss Wardour to Monkbarns, which I hope she will make her residence
-      until these unpleasant matters are settled."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I go with my father, Mr. Oldbuck," said Miss Wardour firmly&mdash;"I have
-      prepared his clothes and my own&mdash;I suppose we shall have the use of
-      the carriage?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Anything in reason, madam," said the messenger; "I have ordered it out,
-      and it's at the door&mdash;I will go on the box with the coachman&mdash;I
-      have no desire to intrude&mdash;but two of the concurrents must attend on
-      horseback."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I will attend too," said Hector, and he ran down to secure a horse for
-      himself.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "We must go then," said the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "To jail," said the Baronet, sighing involuntarily. "And what of that?" he
-      resumed, in a tone affectedly cheerful&mdash;"it is only a house we can't
-      get out of, after all&mdash;Suppose a fit of the gout, and Knockwinnock
-      would be the same&mdash;Ay, ay, Monkbarns&mdash;we'll call it a fit of the
-      gout without the d&mdash;d pain."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      But his eyes swelled with tears as he spoke, and his faltering accent
-      marked how much this assumed gaiety cost him. The Antiquary wrung his
-      hand, and, like the Indian Banians, who drive the real terms of an
-      important bargain by signs, while they are apparently talking of
-      indifferent matters, the hand of Sir Arthur, by its convulsive return of
-      the grasp, expressed his sense of gratitude to his friend, and the real
-      state of his internal agony.&mdash;They stepped slowly down the
-      magnificent staircase&mdash;every well-known object seeming to the
-      unfortunate father and daughter to assume a more prominent and distinct
-      appearance than usual, as if to press themselves on their notice for the
-      last time.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      At the first landing-place, Sir Arthur made an agonized pause; and as he
-      observed the Antiquary look at him anxiously, he said with assumed dignity&mdash;"Yes,
-      Mr. Oldbuck, the descendant of an ancient line&mdash;the representative of
-      Richard Redhand and Gamelyn de Guardover, may be pardoned a sigh when he
-      leaves the castle of his fathers thus poorly escorted. When I was sent to
-      the Tower with my late father, in the year 1745, it was upon a charge
-      becoming our birth&mdash;upon an accusation of high treason, Mr. Oldbuck;&mdash;we
-      were escorted from Highgate by a troop of life-guards, and committed upon
-      a secretary of state's warrant; and now, here I am, in my old age, dragged
-      from my household by a miserable creature like that" (pointing to the
-      messenger), "and for a paltry concern of pounds, shillings, and pence."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "At least," said Oldbuck, "you have now the company of a dutiful daughter,
-      and a sincere friend, if you will permit me to say so, and that may be
-      some consolation, even without the certainty that there can be no hanging,
-      drawing, or quartering, on the present occasion. But I hear that choleric
-      boy as loud as ever. I hope to God he has got into no new broil!&mdash;it
-      was an accursed chance that brought him here at all."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In fact, a sudden clamour, in which the loud voice and somewhat northern
-      accent of Hector was again preeminently distinguished, broke off this
-      conversation. The cause we must refer to the next CHAPTER.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0022" id="Alink2HCH0022">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-           Fortune, you say, flies from us&mdash;She but circles,
-           Like the fleet sea-bird round the fowler's skiff,&mdash;
-               Lost in the mist one moment, and the next
-               Brushing the white sail with her whiter wing,
-               As if to court the aim.&mdash;Experience watches,
-                                And has her on the wheel&mdash;
-                                               Old Play.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The shout of triumph in Hector's warlike tones was not easily
-      distinguished from that of battle. But as he rushed up stairs with a
-      packet in his hand, exclaiming, "Long life to an old soldier! here comes
-      Edie with a whole budget of good news!" it became obvious that his present
-      cause of clamour was of an agreeable nature. He delivered the letter to
-      Oldbuck, shook Sir Arthur heartily by the hand, and wished Miss Wardour
-      joy, with all the frankness of Highland congratulation. The messenger, who
-      had a kind of instinctive terror for Captain M'Intyre, drew towards his
-      prisoner, keeping an eye of caution on the soldier's motions.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Don't suppose I shall trouble myself about you, you dirty fellow," said
-      the soldier; "there's a guinea for the fright I have given you; and here
-      comes an old <i>forty-two</i> man, who is a fitter match for you than I
-      am."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The messenger (one of those dogs who are not too scornful to eat dirty
-      puddings) caught in his hand the guinea which Hector chucked at his face;
-      and abode warily and carefully the turn which matters were now to take.
-      All voices meanwhile were loud in inquiries, which no one was in a hurry
-      to answer.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What is the matter, Captain M'Intyre?" said Sir Arthur.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ask old Edie," said Hector;&mdash;"I only know all's safe and well."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What is all this, Edie?" said Miss Wardour to the mendicant.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Your leddyship maun ask Monkbarns, for he has gotten the yepistolary
-      correspondensh."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "God save the king!" exclaimed the Antiquary at the first glance at the
-      contents of his packet, and, surprised at once out of decorum, philosophy,
-      and phlegm, he skimmed his cocked hat in the air, from which it descended
-      not again, being caught in its fall by a branch of the chandelier. He
-      next, looking joyously round, laid a grasp on his wig, which he perhaps
-      would have sent after the beaver, had not Edie stopped his hand,
-      exclaiming "Lordsake! he's gaun gyte!&mdash;mind Caxon's no here to repair
-      the damage."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Every person now assailed the Antiquary, clamouring to know the cause of
-      so sudden a transport, when, somewhat ashamed of his rapture, he fairly
-      turned tail, like a fox at the cry of a pack of hounds, and ascending the
-      stair by two steps at a time, gained the upper landing-place, where,
-      turning round, he addressed the astonished audience as follows:&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Aimage-0008" id="Aimage-0008">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
-    </p>
-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/pb271.jpg" alt="My Good Friends, 'favete Linguis' "
-      width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
-      "My good friends, <i>favete linguis</i>&mdash;To give you information, I
-      must first, according to logicians, be possessed of it myself; and,
-      therefore, with your leaves, I will retire into the library to examine
-      these papers&mdash;Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour will have the goodness to
-      step into the parlour&mdash;Mr. Sweepclean, <i>secede paulisper,</i> or,
-      in your own language, grant us a supersedere of diligence for five minutes&mdash;Hector,
-      draw off your forces, and make your bear-garden flourish elsewhere&mdash;and,
-      finally, be all of good cheer till my return, which will be <i>instanter.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The contents of the packet were indeed so little expected, that the
-      Antiquary might be pardoned, first his ecstasy, and next his desire of
-      delaying to communicate the intelligence they conveyed, until it was
-      arranged and digested in his own mind.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Within the envelope was a letter addressed to Jonathan Oldbuck, Esq. of
-      Monkbarns, of the following purport:&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dear Sir,&mdash;To you, as my father's proved and valued friend, I
-      venture to address myself, being detained here by military duty of a very
-      pressing nature. You must by this time be acquainted with the entangled
-      state of our affairs; and I know it will give you great pleasure to learn,
-      that I am as fortunately as unexpectedly placed in a situation to give
-      effectual assistance for extricating them. I understand Sir Arthur is
-      threatened with severe measures by persons who acted formerly as his
-      agents; and, by advice of a creditable man of business here, I have
-      procured the enclosed writing, which I understand will stop their
-      proceedings until their claim shall be legally discussed, and brought down
-      to its proper amount. I also enclose bills to the amount of one thousand
-      pounds to pay any other pressing demands, and request of your friendship
-      to apply them according to your discretion. You will be surprised I give
-      you this trouble, when it would seem more natural to address my father
-      directly in his own affairs. But I have yet had no assurance that his eyes
-      are opened to the character of a person against whom you have often, I
-      know, warned him, and whose baneful influence has been the occasion of
-      these distresses. And as I owe the means of relieving Sir Arthur to the
-      generosity of a matchless friend, it is my duty to take the most certain
-      measures for the supplies being devoted to the purpose for which they were
-      destined,&mdash;and I know your wisdom and kindness will see that it is
-      done. My friend, as he claims an interest in your regard, will explain
-      some views of his own in the enclosed letter. The state of the post-office
-      at Fairport being rather notorious, I must send this letter to
-      Tannonburgh; but the old man Ochiltree, whom particular circumstances have
-      recommended as trustworthy, has information when the packet is likely to
-      reach that place, and will take care to forward it. I expect to have soon
-      an opportunity to apologize in person for the trouble I now give, and have
-      the honour to be your very faithful servant,
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Reginald Gamelyn Wardour." "Edinburgh, 6th August, 179-."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Antiquary hastily broke the seal of the enclosure, the contents of
-      which gave him equal surprise and pleasure. When he had in some measure
-      composed himself after such unexpected tidings, he inspected the other
-      papers carefully, which all related to business&mdash;put the bills into
-      his pocket-book, and wrote a short acknowledgment to be despatched by that
-      day's post, for he was extremely methodical in money matters&mdash;and
-      lastly, fraught with all the importance of disclosure, he descended to the
-      parlour.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Sweepclean," said he, as he entered, to the officer who stood
-      respectfully at the door, "you must sweep yourself clean out of
-      Knockwinnock Castle, with all your followers, tag-rag and bob-tail. Seest
-      thou this paper, man?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "A sist on a bill o' suspension," said the messenger, with a disappointed
-      look;&mdash;"I thought it would be a queer thing if ultimate diligence was
-      to be done against sic a gentleman as Sir Arthur&mdash;Weel, sir, I'se go
-      my ways with my party&mdash;And who's to pay my charges?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "They who employed thee," replied Oldbuck, "as thou full well dost know.&mdash;But
-      here comes another express: this is a day of news, I think."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      This was Mr. Mailsetter on his mare from Fairport, with a letter for Sir
-      Arthur, another to the messenger, both of which, he said, he was directed
-      to forward instantly. The messenger opened his, observing that Greenhorn
-      and Grinderson were good enough men for his expenses, and here was a
-      letter from them desiring him to stop the diligence. Accordingly, he
-      immediately left the apartment, and staying no longer than to gather his
-      posse together, he did then, in the phrase of Hector, who watched his
-      departure as a jealous mastiff eyes the retreat of a repulsed beggar,
-      evacuate Flanders.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur's letter was from Mr. Greenhorn, and a curiosity in its way. We
-      give it, with the worthy Baronet's comments.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Sir&mdash;[Oh! I am <i>dear</i> sir no longer; folks are only dear to
-      Messrs. Greenhorn and Grinderson when they are in adversity]&mdash;Sir, I
-      am much concerned to learn, on my return from the country, where I was
-      called on particular business [a bet on the sweepstakes, I suppose], that
-      my partner had the impropriety, in my absence, to undertake the concerns
-      of Messrs. Goldiebirds in preference to yours, and had written to you in
-      an unbecoming manner. I beg to make my most humble apology, as well as Mr.
-      Grindersons&mdash;[come, I see he can write for himself and partner too]&mdash;and
-      trust it is impossible you can think me forgetful of, or ungrateful for,
-      the constant patronage which my family [<i>his</i> family! curse him for a
-      puppy!] have uniformly experienced from that of Knockwinnock. I am sorry
-      to find, from an interview I had this day with Mr. Wardour, that he is
-      much irritated, and, I must own, with apparent reason. But in order to
-      remedy as much as in me lies the mistake of which he complains [pretty
-      mistake, indeed! to clap his patron into jail], I have sent this express
-      to discharge all proceedings against your person or property; and at the
-      same time to transmit my respectful apology. I have only to add, that Mr.
-      Grinderson is of opinion, that if restored to your confidence, he could
-      point out circumstances connected with Messrs. Goldiebirds' present claim
-      which would greatly reduce its amount [so, so, willing to play the rogue
-      on either side]; and that there is not the slightest hurry in settling the
-      balance of your accompt with us; and that I am, for Mr. G. as well as
-      myself, Dear Sir [O ay, he has written himself into an approach to
-      familiarity], your much obliged and most humble servant,
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Gilbert Greenhorn."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well said, Mr. Gilbert Greenhorn," said Monkbarns; "I see now there is
-      some use in having two attorneys in one firm. Their movements resemble
-      those of the man and woman in a Dutch baby-house. When it is fair weather
-      with the client, out comes the gentleman partner to fawn like a spaniel;
-      when it is foul, forth bolts the operative brother to pin like a bull-dog.
-      Well, I thank God that my man of business still wears an equilateral
-      cocked hat, has a house in the Old Town, is as much afraid of a horse as I
-      am myself, plays at golf of a Saturday, goes to the kirk of a Sunday, and,
-      in respect he has no partner, hath only his own folly to apologize for."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There are some writers very honest fellows," said Hector; "I should like
-      to hear any one say that my cousin, Donald M'Intyre, Strathtudlem's
-      seventh son (the other six are in the army), is not as honest a fellow"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No doubt, no doubt, Hector, all the M'Intyres are so; they have it by
-      patent, man&mdash;But I was going to say, that in a profession where
-      unbounded trust is necessarily reposed, there is nothing surprising that
-      fools should neglect it in their idleness, and tricksters abuse it in
-      their knavery. But it is the more to the honour of those (and I will vouch
-      for many) who unite integrity with skill and attention, and walk
-      honourably upright where there are so many pitfalls and stumbling-blocks
-      for those of a different character. To such men their fellow citizens may
-      safely entrust the care of protecting their patrimonial rights, and their
-      country the more sacred charge of her laws and privileges."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "They are best aff, however, that hae least to do with them," said
-      Ochiltree, who had stretched his neck into the parlour door; for the
-      general confusion of the family not having yet subsided, the domestics,
-      like waves after the fall of a hurricane, had not yet exactly regained
-      their due limits, but were roaming wildly through the house.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aha, old Truepenny, art thou there?" said the Antiquary. "Sir Arthur, let
-      me bring in the messenger of good luck, though he is but a lame one. You
-      talked of the raven that scented out the slaughter from afar; but here's a
-      blue pigeon (somewhat of the oldest and toughest, I grant) who smelled the
-      good news six or seven miles off, flew thither in the taxed-cart, and
-      returned with the olive branch."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ye owe it o' to puir Robie that drave me;&mdash;puir fallow," said the
-      beggar, "he doubts he's in disgrace wi' my leddy and Sir Arthur."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Robert's repentant and bashful face was seen over the mendicant's
-      shoulder.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "In disgrace with me?" said Sir Arthur&mdash;"how so?"&mdash;for the
-      irritation into which he had worked himself on occasion of the toast had
-      been long forgotten. "O, I recollect&mdash;Robert, I was angry, and you
-      were wrong;&mdash;go about your work, and never answer a master that
-      speaks to you in a passion."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nor any one else," said the Antiquary; "for a soft answer turneth away
-      wrath."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And tell your mother, who is so ill with the rheumatism, to come down to
-      the housekeeper to-morrow," said Miss Wardour, "and we will see what can
-      be of service to her."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "God bless your leddyship," said poor Robert, "and his honour Sir Arthur,
-      and the young laird, and the house of Knockwinnock in a' its branches, far
-      and near!&mdash;it's been a kind and gude house to the puir this mony
-      hundred years."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There"&mdash;said the Antiquary to Sir Arthur&mdash;"we won't dispute&mdash;but
-      there you see the gratitude of the poor people naturally turns to the
-      civil virtues of your family. You don't hear them talk of Redhand, or
-      Hell-in-Harness. For me, I must say, <i>Odi accipitrem qui semper vivit in
-      armis</i>&mdash;so let us eat and drink in peace, and be joyful, Sir
-      Knight."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A table was quickly covered in the parlour, where the party sat joyously
-      down to some refreshment. At the request of Oldbuck, Edie Ochiltree was
-      permitted to sit by the sideboard in a great leathern chair, which was
-      placed in some measure behind a screen.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I accede to this the more readily," said Sir Arthur, "because I remember
-      in my fathers days that chair was occupied by Ailshie Gourlay, who, for
-      aught I know, was the last privileged fool, or jester, maintained by any
-      family of distinction in Scotland."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Aweel, Sir Arthur," replied the beggar, who never hesitated an instant
-      between his friend and his jest, "mony a wise man sits in a fule's seat,
-      and mony a fule in a wise man's, especially in families o' distinction."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Miss Wardour, fearing the effect of this speech (however worthy of Ailsbie
-      Gourlay, or any other privileged jester) upon the nerves of her father,
-      hastened to inquire whether ale and beef should not be distributed to the
-      servants and people whom the news had assembled round the Castle.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Surely, my love," said her father; "when was it ever otherwise in our
-      families when a siege had been raised?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, a siege laid by Saunders Sweepclean the bailiff, and raised by Edie
-      Ochiltree the gaberlunzie, <i>par nobile fratrum,</i>" said Oldbuck, "and
-      well pitted against each other in respectability. But never mind, Sir
-      Arthur&mdash; these are such sieges and such reliefs as our time of day
-      admits of&mdash;and our escape is not less worth commemorating in a glass
-      of this excellent wine&mdash;Upon my credit, it is Burgundy, I think."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Were there anything better in the cellar," said Miss Wardour, "it would
-      be all too little to regale you after your friendly exertions."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Say you so?" said the Antiquary: "why, then, a cup of thanks to you, my
-      fair enemy, and soon may you be besieged as ladies love best to be, and
-      sign terms of capitulation in the chapel of Saint Winnox!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Miss Wardour blushed&mdash;Hector coloured, and then grew pale.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur answered, "My daughter is much obliged to you, Monkbarns; but
-      unless you'll accept of her yourself, I really do not know where a poor
-      knight's daughter is to seek for an alliance in these mercenary times."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Me, mean ye, Sir Arthur? No, not I! I will claim privilege of the duello,
-      and, as being unable to encounter my fair enemy myself, I will appear by
-      my champion&mdash;But of this matter hereafter. What do you find in the
-      papers there, Hector, that you hold your head down over them as if your
-      nose were bleeding?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Nothing particular, sir; but only that, as my arm is now almost quite
-      well, I think I shall relieve you of my company in a day or two, and go to
-      Edinburgh. I see Major Neville is arrived there. I should like to see
-      him."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Major whom?" said his uncle.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Major Neville, sir," answered the young soldier.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And who the devil is Major Neville?" demanded the Antiquary.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O, Mr. Oldbuck," said Sir Arthur, "you must remember his name frequently
-      in the newspapers&mdash;a very distinguished young officer indeed. But I
-      am happy to say that Mr. M'Intyre need not leave Monkbarns to see him, for
-      my son writes that the Major is to come with him to Knockwinnock, and I
-      need not say how happy I shall be to make the young gentlemen acquainted,&mdash;unless,
-      indeed, they are known to each other already."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "No, not personally," answered Hector, "but I have had occasion to hear a
-      good deal of him, and we have several mutual friends&mdash;your son being
-      one of them. But I must go to Edinburgh; for I see my uncle is beginning
-      to grow tired of me, and I am afraid"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "That you will grow tired of him?" interrupted Oldbuck,&mdash;"I fear
-      that's past praying for. But you have forgotten that the ecstatic twelfth
-      of August approaches, and that you are engaged to meet one of Lord
-      Glenallan's gamekeepers, God knows where, to persecute the peaceful
-      feathered creation."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "True, true, uncle&mdash;I had forgot that," exclaimed the volatile
-      Hector; "but you said something just now that put everything out of my
-      head."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "An it like your honours," said old Edie, thrusting his white head from
-      behind the screen, where he had been plentifully regaling himself with ale
-      and cold meat&mdash;"an it like your honours, I can tell ye something that
-      will keep the Captain wi' us amaist as weel as the pouting&mdash;Hear ye
-      na the French are coming?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The French, you blockhead?" answered Oldbuck&mdash;"Bah!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have not had time," said Sir Arthur Wardour, "to look over my
-      lieutenancy correspondence for the week&mdash;indeed, I generally make a
-      rule to read it only on Wednesdays, except in pressing cases,&mdash;for I
-      do everything by method; but from the glance I took of my letters, I
-      observed some alarm was entertained."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Alarm?" said Edie, "troth there's alarm, for the provost's gar'd the
-      beacon light on the Halket-head be sorted up (that suld hae been sorted
-      half a year syne) in an unco hurry, and the council hae named nae less a
-      man than auld Caxon himsell to watch the light. Some say it was out o'
-      compliment to Lieutenant Taffril,&mdash;for it's neist to certain that
-      he'll marry Jenny Caxon,&mdash;some say it's to please your honour and
-      Monkbarns that wear wigs&mdash;and some say there's some auld story about
-      a periwig that ane o' the bailies got and neer paid for&mdash;Onyway,
-      there he is, sitting cockit up like a skart upon the tap o' the craig, to
-      skirl when foul weather comes."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "On mine honour, a pretty warder," said Monkbarns; "and what's my wig to
-      do all the while?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I asked Caxon that very question," answered Ochiltree, "and he said he
-      could look in ilka morning, and gie't a touch afore he gaed to his bed,
-      for there's another man to watch in the day-time, and Caxon says he'll
-      friz your honour's wig as weel sleeping as wauking."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      This news gave a different turn to the conversation, which ran upon
-      national defence, and the duty of fighting for the land we live in, until
-      it was time to part. The Antiquary and his nephew resumed their walk
-      homeward, after parting from Knockwinnock with the warmest expressions of
-      mutual regard, and an agreement to meet again as soon as possible.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0023" id="Alink2HCH0023">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-              Nay, if she love me not, I care not for her:
-              Shall I look pale because the maiden blooms
-              Or sigh because she smiles, and smiles on others
-              Not I, by Heaven!&mdash;I hold my peace too dear,
-                    To let it, like the plume upon her cap,
-             Shake at each nod that her caprice shall dictate.
-                                          Old Play.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      "Hector," said his uncle to Captain M'Intyre, in the course of their walk
-      homeward, "I am sometimes inclined to suspect that, in one respect, you
-      are a fool."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "If you only think me so in <i>one</i> respect, sir, I am sure you do me
-      more grace than I expected or deserve."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I mean in one particular <i>par excellence,</i>" answered the Antiquary.
-      "I have sometimes thought that you have cast your eyes upon Miss Wardour."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, sir," said M'Intyre, with much composure.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, sir," echoed his uncle&mdash;"Deuce take the fellow! he answers me
-      as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world, that he, a captain
-      in the army, and nothing at all besides, should marry the daughter of a
-      baronet."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I presume to think, sir," said the young Highlander, "there would be no
-      degradation on Miss Wardour's part in point of family."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "O, Heaven forbid we should come on that topic!&mdash;No, no, equal both&mdash;both
-      on the table-land of gentility, and qualified to look down on every <i>roturier</i>
-      in Scotland."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And in point of fortune we are pretty even, since neither of us have got
-      any," continued Hector. "There may be an error, but I cannot plead guilty
-      to presumption."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But here lies the error, then, if you call it so," replied his uncle:
-      "she won't have you, Hector."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed, sir?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It is very sure, Hector; and to make it double sure, I must inform you
-      that she likes another man. She misunderstood some words I once said to
-      her, and I have since been able to guess at the interpretation she put on
-      them. At the time I was unable to account for her hesitation and blushing;
-      but, my poor Hector, I now understand them as a death-signal to your hopes
-      and pretensions. So I advise you to beat your retreat and draw off your
-      forces as well as you can, for the fort is too well garrisoned for you to
-      storm it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have no occasion to beat any retreat, uncle," said Hector, holding
-      himself very upright, and marching with a sort of dogged and offended
-      solemnity; "no man needs to retreat that has never advanced. There are
-      women in Scotland besides Miss Wardour, of as good family"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And better taste," said his uncle; "doubtless there are, Hector; and
-      though I cannot say but that she is one of the most accomplished as well
-      as sensible girls I have seen, yet I doubt, much of her merit would be
-      cast away on you. A showy figure, now, with two cross feathers above her
-      noddle&mdash;one green, one blue; who would wear a riding-habit of the
-      regimental complexion, drive a gig one day, and the next review the
-      regiment on the grey trotting pony which dragged that vehicle, <i>hoc erat
-      in votis;</i>&mdash;these are the qualities that would subdue you,
-      especially if she had a taste for natural history, and loved a specimen of
-      a <i>phoca.</i>"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It's a little hard, sir," said Hector, "I must have that cursed seal
-      thrown into my face on all occasions&mdash;but I care little about it&mdash;and
-      I shall not break my heart for Miss Wardour. She is free to choose for
-      herself, and I wish her all happiness."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Magnanimously resolved, thou prop of Troy! Why, Hector, I was afraid of a
-      scene. Your sister told me you were desperately in love with Miss
-      Wardour."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Sir," answered the young man, "you would not have me desperately in love
-      with a woman that does not care about me?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, nephew," said the Antiquary, more seriously, "there is doubtless
-      much sense in what you say; yet I would have given a great deal, some
-      twenty or twenty-five years since, to have been able to think as you do."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Anybody, I suppose, may think as they please on such subjects," said
-      Hector.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not according to the old school," said Oldbuck; "but, as I said before,
-      the practice of the modern seems in this case the most prudential, though,
-      I think, scarcely the most interesting. But tell me your ideas now on this
-      prevailing subject of an invasion. The cry is still, They come."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Hector, swallowing his mortification, which he was peculiarly anxious to
-      conceal from his uncle's satirical observation, readily entered into a
-      conversation which was to turn the Antiquary's thoughts from Miss Wardour
-      and the seal. When they reached Monkbarns, the communicating to the ladies
-      the events which had taken place at the castle, with the
-      counter-information of how long dinner had waited before the womankind had
-      ventured to eat it in the Antiquary's absence, averted these delicate
-      topics of discussion.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The next morning the Antiquary arose early, and, as Caxon had not yet made
-      his appearance, he began mentally to feel the absence of the petty news
-      and small talk of which the ex-peruquier was a faithful reporter, and
-      which habit had made as necessary to the Antiquary as his occasional pinch
-      of snuff, although he held, or affected to hold, both to be of the same
-      intrinsic value. The feeling of vacuity peculiar to such a deprivation,
-      was alleviated by the appearance of old Ochiltree, sauntering beside the
-      clipped yew and holly hedges, with the air of a person quite at home.
-      Indeed, so familiar had he been of late, that even Juno did not bark at
-      him, but contented herself with watching him with a close and vigilant
-      eye. Our Antiquary stepped out in his night-gown, and instantly received
-      and returned his greeting.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "They are coming now, in good earnest, Monkbarns. I just cam frae Fairport
-      to bring ye the news, and then I'll step away back again. The Search has
-      just come into the bay, and they say she's been chased by a French fleet.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The Search?" said Oldbuck, reflecting a moment. "Oho!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Ay, ay, Captain Taffril's gun-brig, the Search."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What? any relation to <i>Search, No. II.?</i>" said Oldbuck, catching at
-      the light which the name of the vessel seemed to throw on the mysterious
-      chest of treasure.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The mendicant, like a man detected in a frolic, put his bonnet before his
-      face, yet could not help laughing heartily.&mdash;"The deil's in you,
-      Monkbarns, for garring odds and evens meet. Wha thought ye wad hae laid
-      that and that thegither? Od, I am clean catch'd now."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I see it all," said Oldbuck, "as plain as the legend on a medal of high
-      preservation&mdash;the box in which the' bullion was found belonged to the
-      gun-brig, and the treasure to my phoenix?"&mdash;(Edie nodded assent),&mdash;"and
-      was buried there that Sir Arthur might receive relief in his
-      difficulties?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "By me," said Edie, "and twa o' the brig's men&mdash;but they didna ken
-      its contents, and thought it some bit smuggling concern o' the Captain's.
-      I watched day and night till I saw it in the right hand; and then, when
-      that German deevil was glowering at the lid o' the kist (they liked mutton
-      weel that licked where the yowe lay), I think some Scottish deevil put it
-      into my head to play him yon ither cantrip. Now, ye see, if I had said
-      mair or less to Bailie Littlejohn, I behoved till hae come out wi' a' this
-      story; and vexed would Mr. Lovel hae been to have it brought to light&mdash;sae
-      I thought I would stand to onything rather than that."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I must say he has chosen his confidant well," said Oldbuck, "though
-      somewhat strangely."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I'll say this for mysell, Monkbarns," answered the mendicant, "that I am
-      the fittest man in the haill country to trust wi' siller, for I neither
-      want it, nor wish for it, nor could use it if I had it. But the lad hadna
-      muckle choice in the matter, for he thought he was leaving the country for
-      ever (I trust he's mistaen in that though); and the night was set in when
-      we learned, by a strange chance, Sir Arthur's sair distress, and Lovel was
-      obliged to be on board as the day dawned. But five nights afterwards the
-      brig stood into the bay, and I met the boat by appointment, and we buried
-      the treasure where ye fand it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "This was a very romantic, foolish exploit," said Oldbuck: "why not trust
-      me, or any other friend?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The blood o' your sister's son," replied Edie, "was on his hands, and him
-      maybe dead outright&mdash;what time had he to take counsel?&mdash;or how
-      could he ask it of you, by onybody?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You are right. But what if Dousterswivel had come before you?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "There was little fear o' his coming there without Sir Arthur: he had
-      gotten a sair gliff the night afore, and never intended to look near the
-      place again, unless he had been brought there sting and ling. He ken'd
-      weel the first pose was o' his ain hiding, and how could he expect a
-      second? He just havered on about it to make the mair o' Sir Arthur."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Then how," said Oldbuck, "should Sir Arthur have come there unless the
-      German had brought him?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Umph!" answered Edie drily. "I had a story about Misticot wad hae brought
-      him forty miles, or you either. Besides, it was to be thought he would be
-      for visiting the place he fand the first siller in&mdash;he ken'd na the
-      secret o' that job. In short, the siller being in this shape, Sir Arthur
-      in utter difficulties, and Lovel determined he should never ken the hand
-      that helped him,&mdash;for that was what he insisted maist upon,&mdash;we
-      couldna think o' a better way to fling the gear in his gate, though we
-      simmered it and wintered it e'er sae lang. And if by ony queer mischance
-      Doustercivil had got his claws on't, I was instantly to hae informed you
-      or the Sheriff o' the haill story."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, notwithstanding all these wise precautions, I think your
-      contrivance succeeded better than such a clumsy one deserved, Edie. But
-      how the deuce came Lovel by such a mass of silver ingots?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "That's just what I canna tell ye&mdash;But they were put on board wi' his
-      things at Fairport, it's like, and we stowed them into ane o' the
-      ammunition-boxes o' the brig, baith for concealment and convenience of
-      carriage."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Lord!" said Oldbuck, his recollection recurring to the earlier part of
-      his acquaintance with Lovel; "and this young fellow, who was putting
-      hundreds on so strange a hazard, I must be recommending a subscription to
-      him, and paying his bill at the Ferry! I never will pay any person's bill
-      again, that's certain.&mdash;And you kept up a constant correspondence
-      with Lovel, I suppose?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I just gat ae bit scrape o' a pen frae him, to say there wad, as
-      yesterday fell, be a packet at Tannonburgh, wi' letters o' great
-      consequence to the Knockwinnock folk; for they jaloused the opening of our
-      letters at Fairport&mdash;And that's a's true; I hear Mrs. Mailsetter is
-      to lose her office for looking after other folk's business and neglecting
-      her ain."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And what do you expect now, Edie, for being the adviser, and messenger,
-      and guard, and confidential person in all these matters?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Deil haet do I expect&mdash;excepting that a' the gentles will come to
-      the gaberlunzie's burial; and maybe ye'll carry the head yoursell, as ye
-      did puir Steenie Mucklebackit's.&mdash;What trouble was't to me? I was
-      ganging about at ony rate&mdash;Oh, but I was blythe when I got out of
-      Prison, though; for I thought, what if that weary letter should come when
-      I am closed up here like an oyster, and a' should gang wrang for want o't?
-      and whiles I thought I maun mak a clean breast and tell you a' about it;
-      but then I couldna weel do that without contravening Mr. Lovel's positive
-      orders; and I reckon he had to see somebody at Edinburgh afore he could do
-      what he wussed to do for Sir Arthur and his family."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, and to your public news, Edie&mdash;So they are still coming are
-      they?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth they say sae, sir; and there's come down strict orders for the
-      forces and volunteers to be alert; and there's a clever young officer to
-      come here forthwith, to look at our means o' defence&mdash;I saw the
-      Bailies lass cleaning his belts and white breeks&mdash;I gae her a hand,
-      for ye maun think she wasna ower clever at it, and sae I gat a' the news
-      for my pains."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And what think you, as an old soldier?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth I kenna&mdash;an they come so mony as they speak o', they'll be
-      odds against us. But there's mony yauld chields amang thae volunteers; and
-      I mauna say muckle about them that's no weel and no very able, because I
-      am something that gate mysell&mdash;But we'se do our best."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What! so your martial spirit is rising again, Edie?
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                Even in our ashes glow their wonted fires!
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      I would not have thought you, Edie, had so much to fight for?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "<i>Me</i> no muckle to fight for, sir?&mdash;isna there the country to
-      fight for, and the burnsides that I gang daundering beside, and the
-      hearths o'the gudewives that gie me my bit bread, and the bits o' weans
-      that come toddling to play wi' me when I come about a landward town?&mdash;Deil!"
-      he continued, grasping his pike-staff with great emphasis, "an I had as
-      gude pith as I hae gude-will, and a gude cause, I should gie some o' them
-      a day's kemping."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Bravo, bravo, Edie! The country's in little ultimate danger, when the
-      beggar's as ready to fight for his dish as the laird for his land."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Their further conversation reverted to the particulars of the night passed
-      by the mendicant and Lovel in the ruins of St. Ruth; by the details of
-      which the Antiquary was highly amused.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I would have given a guinea," he said, "to have seen the scoundrelly
-      German under the agonies of those terrors, which it is part of his own
-      quackery to inspire into others; and trembling alternately for the fury of
-      his patron, and the apparition of some hobgoblin."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Troth," said the beggar, "there was time for him to be cowed; for ye wad
-      hae thought the very spirit of Hell-in-Harness had taken possession o' the
-      body o' Sir Arthur. But what will come o' the land-louper?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have had a letter this morning, from which I understand he has
-      acquitted you of the charge he brought against you, and offers to make
-      such discoveries as will render the settlement of Sir Arthur's affairs a
-      more easy task than we apprehended&mdash;So writes the Sheriff; and adds,
-      that he has given some private information of importance to Government, in
-      consideration of which, I understand he will be sent back to play the
-      knave in his own country."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And a' the bonny engines, and wheels, and the coves, and sheughs, doun at
-      Glenwithershins yonder, what's to come o' them?" said Edie.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I hope the men, before they are dispersed, will make a bonfire of their
-      gimcracks, as an army destroy their artillery when forced to raise a
-      siege. And as for the holes, Edie, I abandon them as rat-traps, for the
-      benefit of the next wise men who may choose to drop the substance to
-      snatch at a shadow."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hech, sirs! guide us a'! to burn the engines? that's a great waste&mdash;Had
-      ye na better try to get back part o' your hundred pounds wi' the sale o'
-      the materials?" he continued, with a tone of affected condolence.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Not a farthing," said the Antiquary, peevishly, taking a turn from him,
-      and making a step or two away. Then returning, half-smiling at his own
-      pettishness, he said, "Get thee into the house, Edie, and remember my
-      counsel, never speak to me about a mine, nor to my nephew Hector about a
-      <i>phoca,</i> that is a sealgh, as you call it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I maun be ganging my ways back to Fairport," said the wanderer; "I want
-      to see what they're saying there about the invasion;&mdash;but I'll mind
-      what your honour says, no to speak to you about a sealgh, or to the
-      Captain about the hundred pounds that you gied to Douster"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Confound thee!&mdash;I desired thee not to mention that to me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Dear me!" said Edie, with affected surprise; "weel, I thought there was
-      naething but what your honour could hae studden in the way o' agreeable
-      conversation, unless it was about the Praetorian yonder, or the bodle that
-      the packman sauld to ye for an auld coin."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Pshaw! pshaw!" said the Antiquary, turning from him hastily, and
-      retreating into the house.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The mendicant looked after him a moment, and with a chuckling laugh, such
-      as that with which a magpie or parrot applauds a successful exploit of
-      mischief, he resumed once more the road to Fairport. His habits had given
-      him a sort of restlessness, much increased by the pleasure he took in
-      gathering news; and in a short time he had regained the town which he left
-      in the morning, for no reason that he knew himself, unless just to "hae a
-      bit crack wi' Monkbarns."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Alink2HCH0024" id="Alink2HCH0024">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH.
-    </h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                    Red glared the beacon on Pownell
-                        On Skiddaw there were three;
-                    The bugle horn on moor and fell
-                        Was heard continually.
-                                     James Hogg.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The watch who kept his watch on the hill, and looked towards Birnam,
-      probably conceived himself dreaming when he first beheld the fated grove
-      put itself into motion for its march to Dunsinane. Even so old Caxon, as
-      perched in his hut, he qualified his thoughts upon the approaching
-      marriage of his daughter, and the dignity of being father-in-law to
-      Lieutenant Taffril, with an occasional peep towards the signal-post with
-      which his own corresponded, was not a little surprised by observing a
-      light in that direction. He rubbed his eyes, looked again, adjusting his
-      observation by a cross-staff which had been placed so as to bear upon the
-      point. And behold, the light increased, like a comet to the eye of the
-      astronomer, "with fear of change perplexing nations."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The Lord preserve us!" said Caxon, "what's to be done now? But there will
-      be wiser heads than mine to look to that, sae I'se e'en fire the beacon."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And he lighted the beacon accordingly, which threw up to the sky a long
-      wavering train of light, startling the sea-fowl from their nests, and
-      reflected far beneath by the reddening billows of the sea. The brother
-      warders of Caxon being equally diligent, caught, and repeated his signal.
-      The lights glanced on headlands and capes and inland hills, and the whole
-      district was alarmed by the signal of invasion. *
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      * Note J. Alarms of Invasion.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Our Antiquary, his head wrapped warm in two double night-caps, was quietly
-      enjoying his repose, when it was suddenly broken by the screams of his
-      sister, his niece, and two maid-servants.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "What the devil is the matter?" said he, starting up in his bed&mdash;
-      "womankind in my room at this hour of night!&mdash;are ye all mad?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The beacon, uncle!" said Miss M'Intyre.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The French coming to murder us!" screamed Miss Griselda.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The beacon! the beacon!&mdash;the French! the French!&mdash;murder!
-      murder! and waur than murder!"&mdash;cried the two handmaidens, like the
-      chorus of an opera.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="Aimage-0009" id="Aimage-0009">
-      <!-- IMG --></a>
-    </p>
-    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-      <img src="images/pb294.jpg" alt="The Antiquary Arming " width="100%" /><br />
-    </div>
-    <!-- IMAGE END -->
-    <p>
-      "The French?" said Oldbuck, starting up&mdash;"get out of the room,
-      womankind that you are, till I get my things on&mdash;And hark ye, bring
-      me my sword."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Whilk o' them, Monkbarns?" cried his sister, offering a Roman falchion of
-      brass with the one hand, and with the other an Andrea Ferrara without a
-      handle.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The langest, the langest," cried Jenny Rintherout, dragging in a
-      two-handed sword of the twelfth century.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Womankind," said Oldbuck in great agitation, "be composed, and do not
-      give way to vain terror&mdash;Are you sure they are come?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Sure, sure!" exclaimed Jenny&mdash;"ower sure!&mdash;a' the sea
-      fencibles, and the land fencibles, and the volunteers and yeomanry, are on
-      fit, and driving to Fairport as hard as horse and man can gang&mdash;and
-      auld Mucklebackit's gane wi' the lave&mdash;muckle gude he'll do!&mdash;Hech,
-      sirs!&mdash;<i>he'll</i> be missed the morn wha wad hae served king and
-      country weel!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Give me," said Oldbuck, "the sword which my father wore in the year
-      forty-five&mdash;it hath no belt or baldrick&mdash;but we'll make shift."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      So saying he thrust the weapon through the cover of his breeches pocket.
-      At this moment Hector entered, who had been to a neighbouring height to
-      ascertain whether the alarm was actual.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Where are your arms, nephew?" exclaimed Oldbuck&mdash;"where is your
-      double-barrelled gun, that was never out of your hand when there was no
-      occasion for such vanities?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Pooh! pooh! sir," said Hector, "who ever took a fowling-piece on action?
-      I have got my uniform on, you see&mdash;I hope I shall be of more use if
-      they will give me a command than I could be with ten double-barrels. And
-      you, sir, must get to Fairport, to give directions for quartering and
-      maintaining the men and horses, and preventing confusion."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You are right, Hector,&mdash;l believe I shall do as much with my head as
-      my hand too. But here comes Sir Arthur Wardour, who, between ourselves, is
-      not fit to accomplish much either one way or the other."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Sir Arthur was probably of a different opinion; for, dressed in his
-      lieutenancy uniform, he was also on the road to Fairport, and called in
-      his way to take Mr. Oldbuck with him, having had his original opinion of
-      his sagacity much confirmed by late events. And in spite of all the
-      entreaties of the womankind that the Antiquary would stay to garrison
-      Monkbarns, Mr. Oldbuck, with his nephew, instantly accepted Sir Arthur's
-      offer.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Those who have witnessed such a scene can alone conceive the state of
-      bustle in Fairport. The windows were glancing with a hundred lights,
-      which, appearing and disappearing rapidly, indicated the confusion within
-      doors. The women of lower rank assembled and clamoured in the
-      market-place. The yeomanry, pouring from their different glens, galloped
-      through the streets, some individually, some in parties of five or six, as
-      they had met on the road. The drums and fifes of the volunteers beating to
-      arms, were blended with the voice of the officers, the sound of the
-      bugles, and the tolling of the bells from the steeple. The ships in the
-      harbour were lit up, and boats from the armed vessels added to the bustle,
-      by landing men and guns destined to assist in the defence of the place.
-      This part of the preparations was superintended by Taffril with much
-      activity. Two or three light vessels had already slipped their cables and
-      stood out to sea, in order to discover the supposed enemy.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Such was the scene of general confusion, when Sir Arthur Wardour, Oldbuck,
-      and Hector, made their way with difficulty into the principal square,
-      where the town-house is situated. It was lighted up, and the magistracy,
-      with many of the neighbouring gentlemen, were assembled. And here, as upon
-      other occasions of the like kind in Scotland, it was remarkable how the
-      good sense and firmness of the people supplied almost all the deficiencies
-      of inexperience.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The magistrates were beset by the quarter-masters of the different corps
-      for billets for men and horses. "Let us," said Bailie Littlejohn, "take
-      the horses into our warehouses, and the men into our parlours&mdash;share
-      our supper with the one, and our forage with the other. We have made
-      ourselves wealthy under a free and paternal government, and now is the
-      time to show we know its value."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A loud and cheerful acquiescence was given by all present, and the
-      substance of the wealthy, with the persons of those of all ranks, were
-      unanimously devoted to the defence of the country.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Captain M'Intyre acted on this occasion as military adviser and
-      aide-de-camp to the principal magistrate, and displayed a degree of
-      presence of mind, and knowledge of his profession, totally unexpected by
-      his uncle, who, recollecting his usual <i>insouciance</i> and impetuosity,
-      gazed at him with astonishment from time to time, as he remarked the calm
-      and steady manner in which he explained the various measures of precaution
-      that his experience suggested, and gave directions for executing them. He
-      found the different corps in good order, considering the irregular
-      materials of which they were composed, in great force of numbers and high
-      confidence and spirits. And so much did military experience at that moment
-      overbalance all other claims to consequence, that even old Edie, instead
-      of being left, like Diogenes at Sinope, to roll his tub when all around
-      were preparing for defence, had the duty assigned him of superintending
-      the serving out of the ammunition, which he executed with much discretion.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Two things were still anxiously expected&mdash;the presence of the
-      Glenallan volunteers, who, in consideration of the importance of that
-      family, had been formed into a separate corps, and the arrival of the
-      officer before announced, to whom the measures of defence on that coast
-      had been committed by the commander-in-chief, and whose commission would
-      entitle him to take upon himself the full disposal of the military force.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      At length the bugles of the Glenallan yeomanry were heard, and the Earl
-      himself, to the surprise of all who knew his habits and state of health,
-      appeared at their head in uniform. They formed a very handsome and
-      well-mounted squadron, formed entirely out of the Earl's Lowland tenants,
-      and were followed by a regiment of five hundred men, completely equipped
-      in the Highland dress, whom he had brought down from the upland glens,
-      with their pipes playing in the van. The clean and serviceable appearance
-      of this band of feudal dependants called forth the admiration of Captain
-      M'Intyre; but his uncle was still more struck by the manner in which, upon
-      this crisis, the ancient military spirit of his house seemed to animate
-      and invigorate the decayed frame of the Earl, their leader. He claimed,
-      and obtained for himself and his followers, the post most likely to be
-      that of danger, displayed great alacrity in making the necessary
-      dispositions, and showed equal acuteness in discussing their propriety.
-      Morning broke in upon the military councils of Fairport, while all
-      concerned were still eagerly engaged in taking precautions for their
-      defence.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      At length a cry among the people announced, "There's the brave Major
-      Neville come at last, with another officer;" and their post-chaise and
-      four drove into the square, amidst the huzzas of the volunteers and
-      inhabitants. The magistrates, with their assessors of the lieutenancy,
-      hastened to the door of their town-house to receive him; but what was the
-      surprise of all present, but most especially that of the Antiquary, when
-      they became aware, that the handsome uniform and military cap disclosed
-      the person and features of the pacific Lovel! A warm embrace, and a hearty
-      shake of the hand, were necessary to assure him that his eyes were doing
-      him justice. Sir Arthur was no less surprised to recognise his son,
-      Captain Wardour, in Lovel's, or rather Major Neville's company. The first
-      words of the young officers were a positive assurance to all present, that
-      the courage and zeal which they had displayed were entirely thrown away,
-      unless in so far as they afforded an acceptable proof of their spirit and
-      promptitude.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "The watchman at Halket-head," said Major Neville, "as we discovered by an
-      investigation which we made in our route hither, was most naturally misled
-      by a bonfire which some idle people had made on the hill above
-      Glenwithershins, just in the line of the beacon with which his
-      corresponded."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Oldbuck gave a conscious look to Sir Arthur, who returned it with one
-      equally sheepish, and a shrug of the shoulders.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It must have been the machinery which we condemned to the flames in our
-      wrath," said the Antiquary, plucking up heart, though not a little ashamed
-      of having been the cause of so much disturbance&mdash;"The devil take
-      Dousterswivel with all my heart!&mdash;I think he has bequeathed us a
-      legacy of blunders and mischief, as if he had lighted some train of
-      fireworks at his departure. I wonder what cracker will go off next among
-      our shins. But yonder comes the prudent Caxon.&mdash;Hold up your head,
-      you ass&mdash;your betters must bear the blame for you&mdash;And here,
-      take this what-d'ye-call it"&mdash;(giving him his sword)&mdash;"I wonder
-      what I would have said yesterday to any man that would have told me I was
-      to stick such an appendage to my tail."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Here he found his arm gently pressed by Lord Glenallan, who dragged him
-      into a separate apartment. "For God's sake, who is that young gentleman
-      who is so strikingly like"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Like the unfortunate Eveline," interrupted Oldbuck. "I felt my heart warm
-      to him from the first, and your lordship has suggested the very cause."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "But who&mdash;who is he?" continued Lord Glenallan, holding the Antiquary
-      with a convulsive grasp.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Formerly I would have called him Lovel, but now he turns out to be Major
-      Neville."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Whom my brother brought up as his natural son&mdash;whom he made his heir&mdash;
-      Gracious Heaven! the child of my Eveline!"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Hold, my lord&mdash;hold!" said Oldbuck, "do not give too hasty way to
-      such a presumption;&mdash;what probability is there?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Probability? none! There is certainty! absolute certainty! The agent I
-      mentioned to you wrote me the whole story&mdash;I received it yesterday,
-      not sooner. Bring him, for God's sake, that a father's eyes may bless him
-      before he departs."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I will; but for your own sake and his, give him a few moments for
-      preparation."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      And, determined to make still farther investigation before yielding his
-      entire conviction to so strange a tale, he sought out Major Neville, and
-      found him expediting the necessary measures for dispersing the force which
-      had been assembled.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Pray, Major Neville, leave this business for a moment to Captain Wardour
-      and to Hector, with whom, I hope, you are thoroughly reconciled" (Neville
-      laughed, and shook hands with Hector across the table), "and grant me a
-      moment's audience."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You have a claim on me, Mr. Oldbuck, were my business more urgent," said
-      Neville, "for having passed myself upon you under a false name, and
-      rewarding your hospitality by injuring your nephew."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You served him as he deserved," said Oldbuck&mdash;"though, by the way,
-      he showed as much good sense as spirit to-day&mdash;Egad! if he would rub
-      up his learning, and read Caesar and Polybus, and the <i>Stratagemata
-      Polyaeni,</i> I think he would rise in the army&mdash;and I will certainly
-      lend him a lift."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "He is heartily deserving of it," said Neville; "and I am glad you excuse
-      me, which you may do the more frankly, when you know that I am so
-      unfortunate as to have no better right to the name of Neville, by which I
-      have been generally distinguished, than to that of Lovel, under which you
-      knew me."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Indeed! then, I trust, we shall find out one for you to which you shall
-      have a firm and legal title."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Sir!&mdash;I trust you do not think the misfortune of my birth a fit
-      subject"&mdash;
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "By no means, young man," answered the Antiquary, interrupting him;&mdash;"I
-      believe I know more of your birth than you do yourself&mdash;and, to
-      convince you of it, you were educated and known as a natural son of
-      Geraldin Neville of Neville's-Burgh, in Yorkshire, and I presume, as his
-      destined heir?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Pardon me&mdash;no such views were held out to me. I was liberally
-      educated, and pushed forward in the army by money and interest; but I
-      believe my supposed father long entertained some ideas of marriage, though
-      he never carried them into effect."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "You say your <i>supposed</i> father?&mdash;What leads you to suppose Mr.
-      Geraldin Neville was not your real father?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I know, Mr. Oldbuck, that you would not ask these questions on a point of
-      such delicacy for the gratification of idle curiosity. I will therefore
-      tell you candidly, that last year, while we occupied a small town in
-      French Flanders, I found in a convent, near which I was quartered, a woman
-      who spoke remarkably good English&mdash;She was a Spaniard&mdash;her name
-      Teresa D'Acunha. In the process of our acquaintance, she discovered who I
-      was, and made herself known to me as the person who had charge of my
-      infancy. She dropped more than one hint of rank to which I was entitled,
-      and of injustice done to me, promising a more full disclosure in case of
-      the death of a lady in Scotland, during whose lifetime she was determined
-      to keep the secret. She also intimated that Mr. Geraldin Neville was not
-      my father. We were attacked by the enemy, and driven from the town, which
-      was pillaged with savage ferocity by the republicans. The religious orders
-      were the particular objects of their hate and cruelty. The convent was
-      burned, and several nuns perished&mdash; among others Teresa; and with her
-      all chance of knowing the story of my birth: tragic by all accounts it
-      must have been."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "<i>Raro antecedentem scelestum,</i> or, as I may here say, <i>scelestam,</i>"
-      said Oldbuck, "<i>deseruit poena</i>&mdash;even Epicureans admitted that.
-      And what did you do upon this?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I remonstrated with Mr. Neville by letter, and to no purpose. I then
-      obtained leave of absence, and threw myself at his feet, conjuring him to
-      complete the disclosure which Teresa had begun. He refused, and, on my
-      importunity, indignantly upbraided me with the favours he had already
-      conferred. I thought he abused the power of a benefactor, as he was
-      compelled to admit he had no title to that of a father, and we parted in
-      mutual displeasure. I renounced the name of Neville, and assumed that
-      under which you knew me. It was at this time, when residing with a friend
-      in the north of England who favoured my disguise, that I became acquainted
-      with Miss Wardour, and was romantic enough to follow her to Scotland. My
-      mind wavered on various plans of life, when I resolved to apply once more
-      to Mr. Neville for an explanation of the mystery of my birth. It was long
-      ere I received an answer; you were present when it was put into my hands.
-      He informed me of his bad state of health, and conjured me, for my own
-      sake, to inquire no farther into the nature of his connection with me, but
-      to rest satisfied with his declaring it to be such and so intimate, that
-      he designed to constitute me his heir. When I was preparing to leave
-      Fairport to join him, a second express brought me word that he was no
-      more. The possession of great wealth was unable to suppress the remorseful
-      feelings with which I now regarded my conduct to my benefactor, and some
-      hints in his letter appearing to intimate there was on my birth a deeper
-      stain than that of ordinary illegitimacy, I remembered certain prejudices
-      of Sir Arthur."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And you brooded over these melancholy ideas until you were ill, instead
-      of coming to me for advice, and telling me the whole story?" said Oldbuck.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Exactly; then came my quarrel with Captain M'Intyre, and my compelled
-      departure from Fairport and its vicinity."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "From love and from poetry&mdash;Miss Wardour and the Caledoniad?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Most true."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And since that time you have been occupied, I suppose, with plans for Sir
-      Arthur's relief?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Yes, sir; with the assistance of Captain Wardour at Edinburgh."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "And Edie Ochiltree here&mdash;you see I know the whole story. But how
-      came you by the treasure?"
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "It was a quantity of plate which had belonged to my uncle, and was left
-      in the custody of a person at Fairport. Some time before his death he had
-      sent orders that it should be melted down. He perhaps did not wish me to
-      see the Glenallan arms upon it."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "Well, Major Neville&mdash;or let me say, Lovel, being the name in which I
-      rather delight&mdash;you must, I believe, exchange both of your <i>alias's</i>
-      for the style and title of the Honourable William Geraldin, commonly
-      called Lord Geraldin."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Antiquary then went through the strange and melancholy circumstances
-      concerning his mother's death.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      "I have no doubt," he said, "that your uncle wished the report to be
-      believed, that the child of this unhappy marriage was no more&mdash;perhaps
-      he might himself have an eye to the inheritance of his brother&mdash;he
-      was then a gay wild young man&mdash;But of all intentions against your
-      person, however much the evil conscience of Elspeth might lead her to
-      inspect him from the agitation in which he appeared, Teresa's story and
-      your own fully acquit him. And now, my dear sir, let me have the pleasure
-      of introducing a son to a father."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      We will not attempt to describe such a meeting. The proofs on all sides
-      were found to be complete, for Mr. Neville had left a distinct account of
-      the whole transaction with his confidential steward in a sealed packet,
-      which was not to be opened until the death of the old Countess; his motive
-      for preserving secrecy so long appearing to have been an apprehension of
-      the effect which the discovery, fraught with so much disgrace, must
-      necessarily produce upon her haughty and violent temper.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In the evening of that day, the yeomanry and volunteers of Glenallan drank
-      prosperity to their young master. In a month afterwards Lord Geraldin was
-      married to Miss Wardour, the Antiquary making the lady a present of the
-      wedding ring&mdash;a massy circle of antique chasing, bearing the motto of
-      Aldobrand Oldenbuck, <i>Kunst macht gunst.</i>
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Old Edie, the most important man that ever wore a blue gown, bowls away
-      easily from one friend's house to another, and boasts that he never
-      travels unless on a sunny day. Latterly, indeed, he has given some
-      symptoms of becoming stationary, being frequently found in the corner of a
-      snug cottage between Monkbarns and Knockwinnock, to which Caxon retreated
-      upon his daughter's marriage, in order to be in the neighbourhood of the
-      three parochial wigs, which he continues to keep in repair, though only
-      for amusement. Edie has been heard to say, "This is a gey bein place, and
-      it's a comfort to hae sic a corner to sit in in a bad day." It is thought,
-      as he grows stiffer in the joints, he will finally settle there.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The bounty of such wealthy patrons as Lord and Lady Geraldin flowed
-      copiously upon Mrs. Hadoway and upon the Mucklebackits. By the former it
-      was well employed, by the latter wasted. They continue, however, to
-      receive it, but under the administration of Edie Ochiltree; and they do
-      not accept it without grumbling at the channel through which it is
-      conveyed.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Hector is rising rapidly in the army, and has been more than once
-      mentioned in the Gazette, and rises proportionally high in his uncle's
-      favour; and what scarcely pleases the young soldier less, he has also shot
-      two seals, and thus put an end to the Antiquary's perpetual harping upon
-      the story of the <i>phoca.</i>People talk of a marriage between Miss
-      M'Intyre and Captain Wardour; but this wants confirmation.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The Antiquary is a frequent visitor at Knockwinnock and Glenallan House,
-      ostensibly for the sake of completing two essays, one on the mail-shirt of
-      the Great Earl, and the other on the left-hand gauntlet of
-      Hell-in-Harness. He regularly inquires whether Lord Geraldin has commenced
-      the Caledoniad, and shakes his head at the answers he receives. <i>En
-      attendant,</i> however, he has completed his notes, which, we believe,
-      will be at the service of any one who chooses to make them public without
-      risk or expense to THE ANTIQUARY.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      <a name="link2H_NOTE" id="link2H_NOTE">
-      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 4em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-    <h2>
-      NOTES TO THE ANTIQUARY.
-    </h2>
-    <p>
-      Note A, p. #.&mdash;Mottoes.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      ["It was in correcting the proof-sheets of this novel that Scott first
-      took to equipping his chapters with mottoes of his own fabrication. On one
-      occasion he happened to ask John Ballantyne, who was sitting by him, to
-      hunt for a particular passage in Beaumont and Fletcher. John did as he was
-      bid, but did not succeed in discovering the lines. 'Hang it, Johnnie,'
-      cried Scott, 'I believe I can make a motto sooner than you will find one.'
-      He did so accordingly; and from that hour, whenever memory failed to
-      suggest an appropriate epigraph, he had recourse to the inexhaustible
-      mines of "old play" or "old ballad," to which we owe some of the most
-      exquisite verses that ever flowed from his pen."&mdash;<i>J. G. Lockhart.</i>
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      See also the Introduction to "Chronicles of the Canongate," vol. xix.]
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Note B, p. #.&mdash;Sandy Gordon's Itinerarium.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      [This well-known work, the "Itinerarium Septentrionale, or a Journey thro'
-      most of the Counties of Scotland, and those in the North of England," was
-      published at London in 1727, folio. The author states, that in prosecuting
-      his work he "made a pretty laborious progress through almost every part of
-      Scotland for three years successively." Gordon was a native of
-      Aberdeenshire, and had previously spent some years in travelling abroad,
-      probably as a tutor. He became Secretary to the London Society of
-      Antiquaries in 1736. This office he resigned in 1741, and soon after went
-      out to South Carolina with Governor Glen, where he obtained a considerable
-      grant of land. On his death, about the year 1753, he is said to have left
-      "a handsome estate to his family."&mdash;See <i>Literary Anecdotes of
-      Bowyer,</i> by John Nichols, vol. v., p. 329, etc.]
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Note C, p. #.&mdash;Praetorium.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      It may be worth while to mention that the incident of the supposed
-      Praetorium actually happened to an antiquary of great learning and
-      acuteness, Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, one of the Barons of the Scottish
-      Court of Exchequer, and a parliamentary commissioner for arrangement of
-      the Union between England and Scotland. As many of his writings show, Sir
-      John was much attached to the study of Scottish antiquities. He had a
-      small property in Dumfriesshire, near the Roman station on the hill called
-      Burrenswark. Here he received the distinguished English antiquarian Roger
-      Gale, and of course conducted him to see this remarkable spot, where the
-      lords of the world have left such decisive marks of their martial labours.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      An aged shepherd whom they had used as a guide, or who had approached them
-      from curiosity, listened with mouth agape to the dissertations on foss and
-      vellum, ports <i>dextra, sinistra,</i> and <i>decumana,</i> which Sir John
-      Clerk delivered <i>ex cathedra,</i> and his learned visitor listened with
-      the deference to the dignity of a connoisseur on his own ground. But when
-      the cicerone proceeded to point out a small hillock near the centre of the
-      enclosure as the Praetorium, Corydon's patience could hold no longer, and,
-      like Edie Ochiltree, he forgot all reverence, and broke in with nearly the
-      same words&mdash;"Praetorium here, Praetorium there, I made the bourock
-      mysell with a flaughter-spade." The effect of this undeniable evidence on
-      the two lettered sages may be left to the reader's imagination.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The late excellent and venerable John Clerk of Eldin, the celebrated
-      author of <i>Naval Tactics,</i> used to tell this story with glee, and
-      being a younger son of Sir John's was perhaps present on the occasion.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Note D, p. #.&mdash;Mr. Rutherfurd's Dream
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The legend of Mrs. Grizel Oldbuck was partly taken from an extraordinary
-      story which happened about seventy years since, in the South of Scotland,
-      so peculiar in its circumstances that it merits being mentioned in this
-      place. Mr. Rutherfurd of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the
-      vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated
-      arrears of teind (or tithe) for which he was said to be indebted to a
-      noble family, the titulars (lay impropriators of the tithes). Mr.
-      Rutherfurd was strongly impressed with the belief that his father had, by
-      a form of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased these lands
-      from the titular, and therefore that the present prosecution was
-      groundless. But, after an industrious search among his father's papers, an
-      investigation of the public records, and a careful inquiry among all
-      persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence could
-      be recovered to support his defence. The period was now near at hand when
-      he conceived the loss of his lawsuit to be inevitable, and he had formed
-      his determination to ride to Edinburgh next day, and make the best bargain
-      he could in the way of compromise. He went to bed with this resolution
-      and, with all the circumstances of the case floating upon his mind, had a
-      dream to the following purpose:&mdash;His father, who had been many years
-      dead, appeared to him, he thought, and asked him why he was disturbed in
-      his mind. In dreams men are not surprised at such apparitions. Mr.
-      Rutherfurd thought that he informed his father of the cause of his
-      distress, adding that the payment of a considerable sum of money was the
-      more unpleasant to him, because he had a strong consciousness that it was
-      not due, though he was unable to recover any evidence in support of his
-      belief, "You are right, my son," replied the paternal shade; "I did
-      acquire right to these teinds, for payment of which you are now
-      prosecuted. The papers relating to the transaction are in the hands of Mr.&mdash;,
-      a writer (or attorney), who is now retired from professional business, and
-      resides at Inveresk, near Edinburgh. He was a person whom I employed on
-      that occasion for a particular reason, but who never on any other occasion
-      transacted business on my account. It is very possible," pursued the
-      vision, "that Mr.&mdash;may have forgotten a matter which is now of a very
-      old date; but you may call it to his recollection by this token, that when
-      I came to pay his account, there was difficulty in getting change for a
-      Portugal piece of gold, and that we were forced to drink out the balance
-      at a tavern."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Mr. Rutherfurd awakened in the morning with all the words of the vision
-      imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to ride across the
-      country to Inveresk, instead of going straight to Edinburgh. When he came
-      there he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream, a very old man;
-      without saying anything of the vision, he inquired whether he remembered
-      having conducted such a matter for his deceased father. The old gentleman
-      could not at first bring the circumstance to his recollection, but on
-      mention of the Portugal piece of gold, the whole returned upon his memory;
-      he made an immediate search for the papers, and recovered them,&mdash;so
-      that Mr. Rutherfurd carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to gain
-      the cause which he was on the verge of losing.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The author has often heard this story told by persons who had the best
-      access to know the facts, who were not likely themselves to be deceived,
-      and were certainly incapable of deception. He cannot therefore refuse to
-      give it credit, however extraordinary the circumstances may appear. The
-      circumstantial character of the information given in the dream, takes it
-      out of the general class of impressions of the kind which are occasioned
-      by the fortuitous coincidence of actual events with our sleeping thoughts.
-      On the other hand, few will suppose that the laws of nature were
-      suspended, and a special communication from the dead to the living
-      permitted, for the purpose of saving Mr. Rutherfurd a certain number of
-      hundred pounds. The author's theory is, that the dream was only the
-      recapitulation of information which Mr. Rutherfurd had really received
-      from his father while in life, but which at first he merely recalled as a
-      general impression that the claim was settled. It is not uncommon for
-      persons to recover, during sleep, the thread of ideas which they have lost
-      during their waking hours.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      It may be added, that this remarkable circumstance was attended with bad
-      consequences to Mr. Rutherfurd; whose health and spirits were afterwards
-      impaired by the attention which he thought himself obliged to pay to the
-      visions of the night.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Note E, p. #.&mdash;Nick-sticks.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A sort of tally generally used by bakers of the olden time in settling
-      with their customers. Each family had its own nick-stick, and for each
-      loaf as delivered a notch was made on the stick. Accounts in Exchequer,
-      kept by the same kind of check, may have occasioned the Antiquary's
-      partiality. In Prior's time the English bakers had the same sort of
-      reckoning.
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                   Have you not seen a baker's maid,
-                   Between two equal panniers sway'd?
-                   Her tallies useless lie and idle,
-                     If placed exactly in the middle.
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      Note F, p. #.&mdash;Witchcraft.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      A great deal of stuff to the same purpose with that placed in the mouth of
-      the German adept, may be found in Reginald Scott's <i>Discovery of
-      Witchcraft,</i> Third Edition, folio, London, 1665. The Appendix is
-      entitled, "An Excellent Discourse of the Nature and Substances of Devils
-      and Spirits, in two Books; the first by the aforesaid author (Reginald
-      Scott), the Second now added in this Third Edition as succedaneous to the
-      former, and conducing to the completing of the whole work." This Second
-      Book, though stated as succedaneous to the first, is, in fact, entirely at
-      variance with it; for the work of Reginald Scott is a compilation of the
-      absurd and superstitious ideas concerning witches so generally entertained
-      at the time, and the pretended conclusion is a serious treatise on the
-      various means of conjuring astral spirits.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      [Scott's <i>Discovery of Witchcraft</i> was first published in the reign
-      of Queen Elizabeth, London, 1584.]
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Note G, p. #.&mdash;Gynecocracy.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      In the fishing villages on the Firths of Forth and Tay, as well as
-      elsewhere in Scotland, the government is gynecocracy, as described in the
-      text. In the course of the late war, and during the alarm of invasion, a
-      fleet of transports entered the Firth of Forth under the convoy of some
-      ships of war, which would reply to no signals. A general alarm was
-      excited, in consequence of which, all the fishers, who were enrolled as
-      sea-fencibles, got on board the gun-boats which they were to man as
-      occasion should require, and sailed to oppose the supposed enemy. The
-      foreigners proved to be Russians, with whom we were then at peace. The
-      county gentlemen of Mid-Lothian, pleased with the zeal displayed by the
-      sea-fencibles at a critical moment, passed a vote for presenting the
-      community of fishers with a silver punch-bowl, to be used on occasions of
-      festivity. But the fisher-women, on hearing what was intended, put in
-      their claim to have some separate share in the intended honorary reward.
-      The men, they said, were their husbands; it was they who would have been
-      sufferers if their husbands had been killed, and it was by their
-      permission and injunctions that they embarked on board the gun-boats for
-      the public service. They therefore claimed to share the reward in some
-      manner which should distinguish the female patriotism which they had shown
-      on the occasion. The gentlemen of the county willingly admitted the claim;
-      and without diminishing the value of their compliment to the men, they
-      made the females a present of a valuable broach, to fasten the plaid of
-      the queen of the fisher-women for the time.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      It may be further remarked, that these Nereids are punctilious among
-      themselves, and observe different ranks according to the commodities they
-      deal in. One experienced dame was heard to characterise a younger damsel
-      as "a puir silly thing, who had no ambition, and would never," she
-      prophesied, "rise above the <i>mussel-line</i> of business."
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Note H, p. #.&mdash;Battle of Harlaw.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The great battle of Harlaw, here and formerly referred to, might be said
-      to determine whether the Gaelic or the Saxon race should be predominant in
-      Scotland. Donald, Lord of the Isles, who had at that period the power of
-      an independent sovereign, laid claim to the Earldom of Ross during the
-      Regency of Robert, Duke of Albany. To enforce his supposed right, he
-      ravaged the north with a large army of Highlanders and Islesmen. He was
-      encountered at Harlaw, in the Garioch, by Alexander, Earl of Mar, at the
-      head of the northern nobility and gentry of Saxon and Norman descent. The
-      battle was bloody and indecisive; but the invader was obliged to retire in
-      consequence of the loss he sustained, and afterwards was compelled to make
-      submission to the Regent, and renounce his pretensions to Ross; so that
-      all the advantages of the field were gained by the Saxons. The battle of
-      Harlaw was fought 24th July 1411.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Note I, p. #.&mdash;Elspeth's death.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The concluding circumstance of Elspeth's death is taken from an incident
-      said to have happened at the funeral of John, Duke of Roxburghe. All who
-      were acquainted with that accomplished nobleman must remember that he was
-      not more remarkable for creating and possessing a most curious and
-      splendid library, than for his acquaintance with the literary treasures it
-      contained. In arranging his books, fetching and replacing the volumes
-      which he wanted, and carrying on all the necessary intercourse which a man
-      of letters holds with his library, it was the Duke's custom to employ, not
-      a secretary or librarian, but a livery servant, called Archie, whom habit
-      had made so perfectly acquainted with the library, that he knew every
-      book, as a shepherd does the individuals of his flock, by what is called
-      head-mark, and could bring his master whatever volume he wanted, and
-      afford all the mechanical aid the Duke required in his literary
-      researches. To secure the attendance of Archie, there was a bell hung in
-      his room, which was used on no occasion except to call him individually to
-      the Duke's study.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      His Grace died in Saint James's Square, London, in the year 1804; the body
-      was to be conveyed to Scotland, to lie in state at his mansion of Fleurs,
-      and to be removed from thence to the family burial-place at Bowden.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      At this time, Archie, who had been long attacked by a liver-complaint, was
-      in the very last stage of that disease. Yet he prepared himself to
-      accompany the body of the master whom he had so long and so faithfully
-      waited upon. The medical persons assured him he could not survive the
-      journey. It signified nothing, he said, whether he died in England or
-      Scotland; he was resolved to assist in rendering the last honours to the
-      kind master from whom he had been inseparable for so many years, even if
-      he should expire in the attempt. The poor invalid was permitted to attend
-      the Duke's body to Scotland; but when they reached Fleurs he was totally
-      exhausted, and obliged to keep his bed, in a sort of stupor which
-      announced speedy dissolution. On the morning of the day fixed for removing
-      the dead body of the Duke to the place of burial, the private bell by
-      which he was wont to summon his attendant to his study was rung violently.
-      This might easily happen in the confusion of such a scene, although the
-      people of the neighbourhood prefer believing that the bell sounded of its
-      own accord. Ring, however, it did; and Archie, roused by the well-known
-      summons, rose up in his bed, and faltered, in broken accents, "Yes, my
-      Lord Duke&mdash;yes&mdash;I will wait on your Grace instantly;" and with
-      these words on his lips he is said to have fallen back and expired.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Note J, p. #.&mdash;Alarm of invasion.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The story of the false alarm at Fairport, and the consequences, are taken
-      from a real incident. Those who witnessed the state of Britain, and of
-      Scotland in particular, from the period that succeeded the war which
-      commenced in 1803 to the battle of Trafalgar, must recollect those times
-      with feelings which we can hardly hope to make the rising generation
-      comprehend. Almost every individual was enrolled either in a military or
-      civil capacity, for the purpose of contributing to resist the
-      long-suspended threats of invasion, which were echoed from every quarter.
-      Beacons were erected along the coast, and all through the country, to give
-      the signal for every one to repair to the post where his peculiar duty
-      called him, and men of every description fit to serve held themselves in
-      readiness on the shortest summons. During this agitating period, and on
-      the evening of the 2d February 1804, the person who kept watch on the
-      commanding station of Home Castle, being deceived by some accidental fire
-      in the county of Northumberland, which he took for the corresponding
-      signal-light in that county with which his orders were to communicate,
-      lighted up his own beacon. The signal was immediately repeated through all
-      the valleys on the English Border. If the beacon at Saint Abb's Head had
-      been fired, the alarm would have run northward, and roused all Scotland.
-      But the watch at this important point judiciously considered, that if
-      there had been an actual or threatened descent on our eastern sea-coast,
-      the alarm would have come along the coast and not from the interior of the
-      country.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      Through the Border counties the alarm spread with rapidity, and on no
-      occasion when that country was the scene of perpetual and unceasing war,
-      was the summons to arms more readily obeyed. In Berwickshire,
-      Roxburghshire, and Selkirkshire, the volunteers and militia got under arms
-      with a degree of rapidity and alacrity which, considering the distance
-      individuals lived from each other, had something in it very surprising&mdash;they
-      poured to the alarm-posts on the sea-coast in a state so well armed and so
-      completely appointed, with baggage, provisions, etc., as was accounted by
-      the best military judges to render them fit for instant and effectual
-      service.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      There were some particulars in the general alarm which are curious and
-      interesting. The men of Liddesdale, the most remote point to the westward
-      which the alarm reached, were so much afraid of being late in the field,
-      that they put in requisition all the horses they could find, and when they
-      had thus made a forced march out of their own country, they turned their
-      borrowed steeds loose to find their way back through the hills, and they
-      all got back safe to their own stables. Another remarkable circumstance
-      was, the general cry of the inhabitants of the smaller towns for arms,
-      that they might go along with their companions. The Selkirkshire Yeomanry
-      made a remarkable march, for although some of the individuals lived at
-      twenty and thirty miles' distance from the place where they mustered, they
-      were nevertheless embodied and in order in so short a period, that they
-      were at Dalkeith, which was their alarm-post, about one o'clock on the day
-      succeeding the first signal, with men and horses in good order, though the
-      roads were in a bad state, and many of the troopers must have ridden forty
-      or fifty miles without drawing bridle. Two members of the corps chanced to
-      be absent from their homes, and in Edinburgh on private business. The
-      lately married wife of one of these gentlemen, and the widowed mother of
-      the other, sent the arms, uniforms, and chargers of the two troopers, that
-      they might join their companions at Dalkeith. The author was very much
-      struck by the answer made to him by the last-mentioned lady, when he paid
-      her some compliment on the readiness which she showed in equipping her son
-      with the means of meeting danger, when she might have left him a fair
-      excuse for remaining absent. "Sir," she replied, with the spirit of a
-      Roman matron, "none can know better than you that my son is the only prop
-      by which, since his father's death, our family is supported. But I would
-      rather see him dead on that hearth, than hear that he had been a horse's
-      length behind his companions in the defence of his king and country." The
-      author mentions what was immediately under his own eye, and within his own
-      knowledge; but the spirit was universal, wherever the alarm reached, both
-      in Scotland and England.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The account of the ready patriotism displayed by the country on this
-      occasion, warmed the hearts of Scottishmen in every corner of the world.
-      It reached the ears of the well-known Dr. Leyden, whose enthusiastic love
-      of Scotland, and of his own district of Teviotdale, formed a distinguished
-      part of his character. The account which was read to him when on a
-      sick-bed, stated (very truly) that the different corps, on arriving at
-      their alarm-posts, announced themselves by their music playing the tunes
-      peculiar to their own districts, many of which have been gathering-signals
-      for centuries. It was particularly remembered, that the Liddesdale men,
-      before mentioned, entered Kelso playing the lively tune&mdash;
-    </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-                       O wha dare meddle wi' me,
-                       And wha dare meddle wi' me!
-                       My name it is little Jock Elliot,
-                       And wha dare meddle wi' me!
-</pre>
-    <p>
-      The patient was so delighted with this display of ancient Border spirit,
-      that he sprung up in his bed, and began to sing the old song with such
-      vehemence of action and voice, that his attendants, ignorant of the cause
-      of excitation, concluded that the fever had taken possession of his brain;
-      and it was only the entry of another Borderer, Sir John Malcolm, and the
-      explanation which he was well qualified to give, that prevented them from
-      resorting to means of medical coercion.
-    </p>
-    <p>
-      The circumstances of this false alarm and its consequences may be now held
-      of too little importance even for a note upon a work of fiction; but, at
-      the period when it happened, it was hailed by the country as a propitious
-      omen, that the national force, to which much must naturally have been
-      trusted, had the spirit to look in the face the danger which they had
-      taken arms to repel; and every one was convinced, that on whichever side
-      God might bestow the victory, the invaders would meet with the most
-      determined opposition from the children of the soil.
-    </p>
-    <div style="height: 6em;">
-      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
-    </div>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-
-
-
-
-
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-<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
-<html lang="en">
-<head>
-<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
-
-<title>The Antiquary, Complete
-    by Sir Walter Scott
-</title>
-<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg">
-<style type="text/css">
-    <!--
-		body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify}
-    P { text-indent:   1em;
-        margin-top:    .75em;
-        margin-bottom: .75em; }
-    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; }
-    HR  { width: 33%; text-align: center; }
-		blockquote {font-size: 97%; }
-		.figleft   {float: left;}
-    .figright  {float: right;}
-    .toc       { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;}
-    CENTER { padding: 10px;}
-		PRE    { font-family: Times; font-size: 97%; margin-left: 15%;}
-    // -->
-</style>
-
-</head>
-<body>
-
-<h2>
-    <a href="#contents">THE ANTIQUARY</a>
-</h2>
-<h2>
-    By Sir Walter Scott
-</h2>
-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Antiquary, Complete, by Sir Walter Scott
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
-
-
-Title: The Antiquary, Complete
-
-Author: Sir Walter Scott
-
-Release Date: October 25, 2006 [EBook #7005]
-[Last Updated: September 4, 2010]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANTIQUARY, COMPLETE ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-
-<h2>
-    THE ANTIQUARY
-</h2>
-<h2>
-    BY SIR WALTER SCOTT
-</h2>
-
-
-<a name="image-0001"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/bookcover.jpg" height="1073" width="754"
-alt="Bookcover
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<a name="image-0002"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/spines.jpg" height="1079" width="398"
-alt="Spines
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<a name="2H_4_0001"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    THE ANTIQUARY
-</h2>
-<br><br>
-<h2>
-    BY SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.
-</h2>
-<br><br>
-<a name="image-0003"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/titlepage1.jpg" height="1002" width="634"
-alt="Titlepage
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-
-<br><br>
-
-<a name="image-0004"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" height="504" width="749"
-alt="Frontispiece
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-
-
-
-<br><br>
-<hr>
-<a name="contents"></a>
-<br><br>
-
-
-<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
-<center>
-<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
-<tr><td>
-
-
-<a href="p1.htm">&nbsp;<b>VOLUME ONE</b></a></td></tr><tr><td>
-
-<a href="p2.htm"><b>VOLUME TWO</b></a>
-
-
-</td></tr>
-</table>
-</center>
-
-<br><br>
-<hr>
-<br><br>
-
-
-<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
-<center>
-<table summary="">
-<tr><td>
-
-<h3><a href="p1.htm">VOLUME ONE</a></h3>
-
-<p class="toc"><a href="p1.htm#image-0001">
-Bookcover
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p1.htm#image-0002">
-Spines
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p1.htm#image-0003">
-Titlepage
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p1.htm#image-0004">
-Frontispiece
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p1.htm#image-0005">
-The Antiquary and Lovel&mdash;the Sanctum
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p1.htm#image-0006">
-Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p1.htm#image-0007">
-The Rescue of Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p1.htm#image-0008">
-Eddie Ochiltree Visits Miss Wardour
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p1.htm#image-0009">
-Mrs. Heukbane and Mrs. Shortcake
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p1.htm#image-0010">
-St. Ruth (arbroath Abbey)
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p1.htm#image-0011">
-The Ruins of St. Ruth
-</a></p>
-
-<br><br>
-<h3><a href="p2.htm">VOLUME TWO</a></h3>
-
-
-<p class="toc"><a href="p2.htm#image-0001">
-Bookcover
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p2.htm#image-0002">
-Spines
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p2.htm#image-0003">
-Titlepage
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p2.htm#image-0004">
-Frontispiece-2
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p2.htm#image-0005">
-The Funeral of the Countess
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p2.htm#image-0006">
-Lord Glenallen and Elspeth
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p2.htm#image-0007">
-The Antiquary Visits Edie in Prison
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p2.htm#image-0008">
-My Good Friends, 'favete Linguis'
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="p2.htm#image-0009">
-The Antiquary Arming
-</a></p>
-
-
-</td></tr>
-</table>
-</center>
-
-<br><br>
-<hr>
-<br><br>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ILLUSTRATORS</h2>
-
-<br><br>
-
-
-<center>
-<table summary="">
-<tr><td>
-
-
-<h2>Subject or Title
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-</h2>
-</td>
-<td>
-<h2>Original Drawing
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-</h2>
-</td>
-<td>
-<h2>Etching
-</h2>
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-The Antiquary and Lovel&mdash;Kinpurnes
-</td>
-<td>
-J. B. MacDonald
-</td>
-<td>
-T. J. Dagleish
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-The Antiquary and Lovel&mdash;The Sanctum&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-</td>
-<td>
-Robert Herdman
-</td>
-<td>
-B. Dammon
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour
-</td>
-<td>
-J. MacWhirter
-</td>
-<td>
-Alex Ansted
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-Rescue of Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour
-</td>
-<td>
-Sam Bough
-</td>
-<td>
-C. de Billy
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-Edie Ochiltree visits Miss Wardour
-</td>
-<td>
-W. McTaggart
-</td>
-<td>
-C. O. Murray
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-Mrs. Heukbane and Mrs. Shortcake
-</td>
-<td>
-Original Etching by:
-</td>
-<td>
-George Cruikshank
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-St. Ruth (Arbroath Abbey)
-</td>
-<td>
-Photo Etching by:
-</td>
-<td>
-John Andrew &amp; Son Co.
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-Ruins of St. Ruth
-</td>
-<td>
-Original Etching by:
-</td>
-<td>
-J. Moyr Smith
-</td></tr>
-
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-Breakfast at Monkbarns
-</td>
-<td>
-A. H. Tourrier
-</td>
-<td>
-P. Tesysonnieres
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-The Funeral of the Countess
-</td>
-<td>
-A. H. Tourrier
-</td>
-<td>
-V. Focillon
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-Lord Glenallen and Elspeth
-</td>
-<td>
-A. H. Tourrier
-</td>
-<td>
-Charles Courtry
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-The Antiquary Visits Edie in Prison
-</td>
-<td>
-A. H. Tourrier
-</td>
-<td>
-W. Nooth
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-"My good friends, 'favete linguis'"
-</td>
-<td>
-Original Etching by:
-</td>
-<td>
-George Cruikshank
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-The Antiquary Arming
-</td>
-<td>
-A. H. Tourrier
-</td>
-<td>
-H. C. Manesse
-
-
-
-
-
-</td></tr>
-</table>
-</center>
-
-
-<br><br><br><br>
-
-<center>
-<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3>
-<tr><td>
-
-
-<a href="p1.htm">&nbsp;<b>VOLUME ONE</b></a></td></tr><tr><td>
-
-<a href="p2.htm"><b>VOLUME TWO</b></a>
-
-
-</td></tr>
-</table>
-</center>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg's The Antiquary, Complete, by Sir Walter Scott
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diff --git a/old/orig7005-h/p1.htm b/old/orig7005-h/p1.htm
deleted file mode 100644
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--- a/old/orig7005-h/p1.htm
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-<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
-<html lang="en"><!-- FIXME -->
-<head>
-<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
-    content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
-
-<title>The Antiquary
-    by Sir Walter Scott
-</title>
-
-<style type="text/css">
-    <!--
-		body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify}
-    P { text-indent:   1em;
-        margin-top:    .75em;
-        margin-bottom: .75em; }
-    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; }
-    HR  { width: 33%; text-align: center; }
-		blockquote {font-size: 97%; }
-		.figleft   {float: left;}
-    .figright  {float: right;}
-    .toc       { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;}
-    CENTER { padding: 10px;}
-		PRE    { font-family: Times; font-size: 97%; margin-left: 15%;}
-    // -->
-</style>
-
-</head>
-<body>
-
-<h2>
-    THE ANTIQUARY
-</h2>
-<h2>
-    BY SIR WALTER SCOTT
-</h2>
-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Antiquary, Volume 1, by Sir Walter Scott
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
-
-
-Title: The Antiquary, Volume 1
-
-Author: Sir Walter Scott
-
-Release Date: August 16, 2004 [EBook #7003]
-[Last Updated: September 4, 2010]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANTIQUARY, VOLUME 1 ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-
-<a name="image-0001"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/bookcover.jpg" height="1073" width="754"
-alt="Bookcover
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<a name="image-0002"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/spines.jpg" height="1079" width="398"
-alt="Spines
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<a name="2H_4_0001"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    THE ANTIQUARY
-</h2>
-<br><br>
-<h2>
-    BY SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.
-</h2>
-<br><br>
-<a name="image-0003"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/titlepage1.jpg" height="1002" width="634"
-alt="Titlepage
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-
-<br><br>
-
-<a name="image-0004"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" height="504" width="749"
-alt="Frontispiece
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-
-
-
-<br><br>
-<hr>
-<br><br>
-
-
-<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
-<center>
-<table summary="">
-<tr><td>
-
-
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_0003">
-VOLUME ONE
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_INTR">
-INTRODUCTION
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_0005">
-EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0001">
-CHAPTER FIRST.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0002">
-CHAPTER SECOND.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0003">
-CHAPTER THIRD.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0004">
-CHAPTER FOURTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0005">
-CHAPTER FIFTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0006">
-CHAPTER SIXTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0007">
-CHAPTER SEVENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0008">
-CHAPTER EIGHTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0009">
-CHAPTER NINTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0010">
-CHAPTER TENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0011">
-CHAPTER ELEVENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0012">
-CHAPTER TWELFTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0013">
-CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0014">
-CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0015">
-CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0016">
-CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0017">
-CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0018">
-CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0019">
-CHAPTER NINETEENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0020">
-CHAPTER TWENTIETH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0021">
-CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.
-</a></p>
-
-</td></tr>
-</table>
-</center>
-
-<br><br>
-<hr>
-<br><br>
-
-
-<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
-<center>
-<table summary="">
-<tr><td>
-
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0001">
-Bookcover
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0002">
-Spines
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0003">
-Titlepage
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0004">
-Frontispiece
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0005">
-The Antiquary and Lovel&mdash;the Sanctum
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0006">
-Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0007">
-The Rescue of Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0008">
-Eddie Ochiltree Visits Miss Wardour
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0009">
-Mrs. Heukbane and Mrs. Shortcake
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0010">
-St. Ruth (arbroath Abbey)
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0011">
-The Ruins of St. Ruth
-</a></p>
-
-
-</td></tr>
-</table>
-</center>
-
-<br><br>
-<hr>
-<br><br>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ILLUSTRATORS</h2>
-
-<br><br>
-
-
-<center>
-<table summary="">
-<tr><td>
-
-
-<h2>Subject or Title
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-</h2>
-</td>
-<td>
-<h2>Original Drawing
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-</h2>
-</td>
-<td>
-<h2>Etching
-</h2>
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-The Antiquary and Lovel&mdash;Kinpurnes
-</td>
-<td>
-J. B. MacDonald
-</td>
-<td>
-T. J. Dagleish
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-The Antiquary and Lovel&mdash;The Sanctum&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-</td>
-<td>
-Robert Herdman
-</td>
-<td>
-B. Dammon
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour
-</td>
-<td>
-J. MacWhirter
-</td>
-<td>
-Alex Ansted
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-Rescue of Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour
-</td>
-<td>
-Sam Bough
-</td>
-<td>
-C. de Billy
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-Edie Ochiltree visits Miss Wardour
-</td>
-<td>
-W. McTaggart
-</td>
-<td>
-C. O. Murray
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-Mrs. Heukbane and Mrs. Shortcake
-</td>
-<td>
-Original Etching by:
-</td>
-<td>
-George Cruikshank
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-St. Ruth (Arbroath Abbey)
-</td>
-<td>
-Photo Etching by:
-</td>
-<td>
-John Andrew &amp; Son Co.
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-Ruins of St. Ruth
-</td>
-<td>
-Original Etching by:
-</td>
-<td>
-J. Moyr Smith
-
-</td></tr>
-</table>
-</center>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<br><br><br><br><br>
-
-
-
-
-<a name="2H_4_0003"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    VOLUME ONE
-</h2>
-<pre>
-           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&mdash;-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
-</pre>
-<a name="2H_INTR"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    INTRODUCTION
-</h2>
-<p>
-    The present work completes a series of fictitious narratives, intended to
-    illustrate the manners of Scotland at three different periods. <i>Waverley</i>
-    embraced the age of our fathers, <i>Guy Mannering</i> that of our own youth,
-    and the <i>Antiquary</i> refers to the last ten years of the eighteenth
-    century. I have, in the two last narratives especially, sought my
-    principal personages in the class of society who are the last to feel the
-    influence of that general 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 eloquence of Scripture, in the mouths
-    of those of an elevated understanding, give pathos to their grief, and
-    dignity to their resentment.
-</p>
-<p>
-    I have been more solicitous to describe manners minutely than to arrange
-    in any case an artificial and combined narrative, and have but to regret
-    that I felt myself unable to unite these two requisites of a good Novel.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The knavery of the adept in the following sheets may 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<br>
-<hr>
-<br>
-
-<p>
-    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,
-    respecting the character of Jonathan Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I may here state generally, that although I have deemed historical
-    personages free subjects of delineation, 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, followed 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 resemblance to real
-    individuals. Yet I must own my attempts 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 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 character of a
-    very intimate friend* of my father's family."
-</p>
-<p>
-    * [The late George Constable of Wallace Craigie, near Dundee.]
-</p>
-<p>
-    I have only farther to request the reader not to suppose that my late
-    respected friend resembled Mr. Oldbuck, 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 soundness
-    of thought, rendered more forcible by an occasional quaintness of
-    expression, were, the author conceives, the only qualities in which the
-    creature of his imagination resembled his benevolent and excellent old
-    friend.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The prominent part performed by the Beggar in the following narrative,
-    induces the author to prefix a few remarks of that character, as it
-    formerly existed in Scotland, though it is now scarcely to be traced.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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
-    <i>Reliquiae Divi Sancti Andreae,</i> 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. Oldbuck to regret its
-    extinction. He conceives them to be descended from the ancient bards, and
-    proceeds:&mdash;-"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 ancient surnames of Scotland, from old
-    experience and observation. Some of them I have discoursed, and found to
-    have reason and discretion. One of then 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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, his
-    patched cloak giving him the privilege of the ancient jester. To be a
-    <i>gude crack,</i> that is, to possess talents for conversation, was essential
-    to the trade of a "puir body" of the more esteemed class; and Burns, who
-    delighted in the amusement their discourse afforded, seems to have looked
-    forward with gloomy firmness to the possibility 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 considered the
-    consummation as not utterly impossible. Thus in the fine dedication of
-    his works to Gavin Hamilton, he says,&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                     And when I downa yoke a naig,
-                    Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Again, in his Epistle to Davie, a brother Poet, he states, that in their
-    closing career&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                     The last o't, the warst o't,
-                         Is only just to beg.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    And after having remarked, that
-</p>
-<pre>
-                  To lie in kilns and barns at e'en,
-                  When banes are crazed and blude is thin,
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Is doubtless great distress; the bard reckons up, with true poetical
-    spirit, the free enjoyment of the beauties of nature, which might
-    counterbalance the hardship and uncertainty of the life, 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    As the life of a Scottish mendicant of the eighteenth century seems to
-    have been contemplated without much 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, intact, some privileges. A lodging, such as it
-    was, was readily granted to them in some of the out-houses, and the usual
-    <i>awmous</i> (alms) of a handful of meal (called a <i>gowpen</i>) 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 "twalpenny,"
-    or English penny, which was expended in snuff or whiskey. In fact, these
-    indolent peripatetics suffered much less real hardship and want of food,
-    than the poor peasants from whom they received alms.
-</p>
-<p>
-    If, in addition to his personal qualifications, the mendicant 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 parson of great
-    importance.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 Catholic Church, and who where 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 number of years which his Majesty
-    has lived; and one Blue-Gown additional is put on the roll for every
-    returning royal birth-day. On the same auspicious era, each Bedesman
-    receives a new cloak, or gown of coarse cloth, the colour light blue,
-    with a pewter badge, which confers on them the general privilege of
-    asking alms through all Scotland,&mdash;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 birth-day, 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 Johnson's "Hermit hoar" to his
-    proselyte,
-</p>
-<pre>
-                   Come, my lad, and drink some beer.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<h4>
-    BLEW GOWNIS.
-</h4>
-<pre>
-    In the Account of Sir Robert Melvill of Murdocarney,
-    Treasurer-Depute of King James VI., there are the following Payments:&mdash;
-
-                              "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 viii xx viii elnis clayth; price of the elne
-    xxiiij <i>s. </i>                             Inde, ij <i>c</i>j <i>li. </i>xij <i>s. </i>
-
-    "Item, for sextene elnis bukrum to the saidis gownis, price of the elne x
-    <i>s. </i>                                    Inde, viij <i>li. </i>
-
-    "Item, twentie four pursis, and in ilk purse twentie four schelling
-                                        Inde, xxciij <i>li. </i> xvj <i>s. </i>
-    "Item, the price of ilk purse iiij <i>d. </i>      Inde, viij <i>s. </i>
-
-    "Item, for making of the saidis gownis       viij <i>li.</i>"
-
-    In the Account of John, Earl of Mar, Great Treasurer of Scotland, and of
-    Sir Gideon Murray of Enbank, Treasurer-Depute, the Blue-Gowns also appear
-    thus:&mdash;
-
-
-                              "Junij 1617.
-
-   "Item, to James Murray, merchant, for fyftene scoir sex elnis and aine
-   half elne of blew claith to be gownis to fyftie ane aigeit men, according
-   to the yeiris of his Majesteis age, at xl <i>s. </i> the elne
-                                        Inde, vj <i>c</i> xiij <i>li. </i>
-
-    "Item, to workmen for careing the blewis to James Aikman, tailyeour, his
-    hous xiij <i>s. </i> iiij <i>d. </i>
-
-    "Item, for sex elnis and ane half of harden to the saidis gownis, at vj
-    <i>s. </i> viij <i>d. </i> the elne                 Inde, xliij <i>s. </i>iiij <i>d. </i>
-
-    "Item, to the said workmen for careing of the gownis fra the said James
-    Aikman's hous to the palace of Halyrudehous xviij <i>s. </i>
-
-    "Item, for making the saidis fyftie ane gownis, at xij <i>s. </i> the peice
-                                        Inde, xxx <i>li. </i>xij <i>s. </i>
-
-    "Item, for fyftie ane pursis to the said puire menlj <i>s. </i>
-
-    "Item, to Sir Peter Young, li <i>s. </i> to be put in everie ane of the saidis
-    ljpursis to the said poore men j <i>c</i>xxxl jj <i>s. </i>
-
-    "Item, to the said Sir Peter, to buy breid and drink to the said puir men
-    vj <i>li. </i>xiij <i>s. </i>iiij <i>d. </i>
-
-    "Item, to the said Sir Peter, to be delt amang uther puire folk j <i>c</i>li.
-
-    "Item, upoun the last day of Junii 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 <i>c li.</i>"
-</pre>
-
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The author has in his youth repeatedly seen and conversed 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 soldierlike or
-    military manner and address. His features were intelligent, with a
-    powerful expression of sarcasm. His motions 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. Andrew 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 Shakespeare's jesters, though without using, like them,
-    the cloak of insanity. It was some fear of Andrew's satire, as much as a
-    feeling 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 established character for wit glides through the fashionable world,
-    Many of his good things are held in remembrance, but are generally too
-    local and personal to be introduced here.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 Doctor 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 window 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, Dr. Douglas observed, that the laird was no
-    doubt a humourist 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    This singular mendicant had generally, or was supposed to have, much
-    money about his person, as would have been thought the value of his life
-    among modern foot-pads. On one occasion, a country gentleman, generally
-    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.&mdash;"I can give you change for a note, laird," replied Andrew.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Like most who have arisen to the head of their profession, the modern
-    degradation which mendicity has undergone 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 <i>laudator temporis acti</i>
-    closed his wanderings, the author never heard with certainty; but most
-    probably, as Burns says,
-</p>
-<pre>
-                   &mdash;he died a cadger-powny's death,
-                          At some dike side.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The author may add another picture of the same kind as Edie Ochiltree and
-    Andrew Gemmells; considering these illustrations as a sort of gallery,
-    open to the reception of anything which may elucidate former manners, or
-    amuse the reader.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 Potterrow-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 Andrew
-    Gemmells' sarcastic humour and stately deportment. 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 where 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
-    Saturday, "on a shoulder of mutton and potatoes," adding, "ye'll 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, considering the character and circumstances of
-    the old man, to decline the invitation.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Such are a few traits of Scottish mendicity, designed to throw light 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
-    importance assigned him; and have shown, that we have known one beggar
-    take a hand at cards with a person of distinction, and another give
-    dinner parties.
-</p>
-<p>
-    I know not if it be worth while to observe, that the Antiquary,* was not
-    so well received on its first appearance as either of its predecessors,
-    though in course of time it rose to equal, and, with some readers,
-    superior popularity.
-</p>
-<p>
-    * Note A. Mottoes.
-</p>
-<a name="2H_4_0005"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
-</h2>
-<h3>
-    TO
-</h3>
-<h3>
-    THE ANTIQUARY.
-</h3>
-<p>
-    "THE ANTIQUARY" was begun in 1815; the bargain for its publication by
-    Constable was made in the October of that year. On December 22 Scott
-    wrote to Morritt: "I shall set myself seriously to 'The Antiquary,' of
-    which I have only a very general sketch at present; but when once I get
-    my pen to the paper it will walk fast enough. I am sometimes tempted to
-    leave it alone, and try whether it will not write as well without the
-    assistance of my head as with it,&mdash;a hopeful prospect for the reader!'"
-    It is amazing enough that he even constructed "a general sketch," for to
-    such sketches he confesses that he never could keep constant. "I have
-    generally written to the middle of one of these novels without having the
-    least idea how it was to end,&mdash;in short, in the <i>hab nab at a venture
-    style</i> of composition" (Journal, Feb. 24, 1828). Yet it is almost
-    impossible but that the plot of "The Antiquary" should have been duly
-    considered. Scott must have known from the first who Lovel was to turn
-    out to be, and must have recognised in the hapless bride of Lord
-    Glenallan the object of the Antiquary's solitary and unfortunate passion.
-    To introduce another Wandering Heir immediately after the Harry Bertram
-    of "Guy Mannering" was rather audacious. But that old favourite, the Lost
-    Heir, is nearly certain to be popular. For the Antiquary's immortal
-    sorrow Scott had a model in his own experience. "What a romance to
-		tell!&mdash;and told, I fear, it will one day be. And then my three years of
-    dreaming and my two years of wakening will be chronicled doubtless. But
-    the dead will feel no pain." The dead, as Aristotle says, if they care
-    for such things at all, care no more than we do for what has passed in a
-    dream.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The general sketch probably began to take full shape about the last day
-    of 1815. On December 29 Scott wrote to Ballantyne:&mdash;
-</p>
-
-<pre>
-
-          DEAR JAMES,&mdash;
-               I've done, thank'God, with the long yarns
-                   Of the most prosy of Apostles&mdash;Paul, 1
-               And now advance, sweet heathen of Monkbarns,
-                  Step out, old quizz, as fast as I can scrawl.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    In "The Antiquary" Scott had a subject thoroughly to his mind. He had
-    been an antiquary from his childhood. His earliest pence had been devoted
-    to that collection of printed ballads which is still at Abbotsford. These
-    he mentions in the unfinished fragment of his "Reliquiae Trotcosienses,"
-    in much the same words as in his manuscript note on one of the seven
-    volumes.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "This little collection of Stall tracts and ballads was formed by me,
-    when a boy, from the baskets of the travelling pedlars. Until put into
-    its present decent binding it had such charms for the servants that it
-    was repeatedly, and with difficulty, recovered from their clutches. It
-    contains most of the pieces that were popular about thirty years since,
-    and, I dare say, many that could not now be procured for any price
-    (1810)."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Nor did he collect only&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                      "The rare melody of some old ditties
-          That first were sung to please King Pepin's cradle.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "Walter had soon begun to gather out-of-the-way things of all sorts. He
-    had more books than shelves [sic]; a small painted cabinet with Scotch
-    and Roman coins in it, and so forth. A claymore and Lochaber axe, given
-    him by old Invernahyle, mounted guard on a little print of Prince
-    Charlie; and Broughton's Saucer was hooked up on the wall below it."
-    He had entered literature through the ruined gateway of archleology, in
-    the "Border Minstrelsy," and his last project was an edition of
-    Perrault's "Contes de Ma Mere l'Oie." As pleasant to him as the purchase
-    of new lands like Turn Again, bought dearly, as in Monkbarns's case, from
-    "bonnet lauds," was a fresh acquisition of an old book or of old armour.
-    Yet, with all his enthusiasm, he did not please the antiquaries of his
-    own day. George Chalmers, in Constable's "Life and Correspondence"
-    (i. 431), sneers at his want of learning. "His notes are loose and
-    unlearned, as they generally are." Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, his
-    friend in life, disported himself in jealous and ribald mockery of
-    Scott's archaeological knowledge, when Scott was dead. In a letter of
-    the enigmatic Thomas Allen, or James Stuart Hay, father of John Sobieski
-    and Charles Edward Stuart, this mysterious person avers that he never
-    knew Scott's opinion to be held as of any value by antiquaries (1829).
-    They probably missed in him "a sort of pettifogging intimacy with dates,
-    names, and trifling matters of fact,&mdash;a tiresome and frivolous accuracy
-    of memory" which Sir Arthur Wardour reproves in Monkbarns. Scott, in
-    brief, was not as Dry-as-dust; all the dead bones that he touches come
-    to life. He was as great an archeologist as a poet can be, and, with
-    Virgil, was the greatest antiquary among poets. Like Monkbarns, he was
-    not incapable of being beguiled. As Oldbuck bought the bodle from the
-    pedlar at the price of a rare coin, so Scott took Surtees's "Barthram's
-    Dirge," and his Latin legend of the tourney with the spectre knight, for
-    genuine antiquities. No Edie Ochiltree ever revealed to him the truth
-    about these forgeries, and the spectre knight, with the ballad of
-    "Anthony Featherstonhaugh," hold their own in "Marmion," to assure the
-    world that this antiquary was gullible when the sleight was practised by
-    a friend. "Non est tanti," he would have said, had he learned the truth;
-    for he was ever conscious of the humorous side of the study of the
-    mouldering past. "I do not know anything which relieves the mind so much
-    from the sullens as a trifling discourse about antiquarian oldwomanries.
-    It is like knitting a stocking,&mdash;diverting the mind without occupying
-    it." ("Journal," March 9, 1828).
-</p>
-<p>
-    Begun about Jan. 1, 1816, "The Antiquary" was published before May 16,
-    1816, when Scott writes to say that he has sent Mr. Morritt the novel
-    "some time since." "It is not so interesting as its predecessors; the
-    period does not admit of so much romantic situation. But it has been
-    more fortunate than any of them in the sale, for six thousand went off
-    in the first six days, and it is now at press again." The Preface of the
-    first edition ends with the melancholy statement that the author "takes
-    his respectful leave, as one who is not likely again to solicit favour."
-    Apparently Scott had already determined not to announce his next novels
-    ("The Black Dwarf" and "Old Mortality") as "by the Author of Waverley."
-    Mr. Constable, in the biography of his father, says (iii. 84): "Even
-    before the publication of 'The Antiquary,' John Ballantyne had been
-    impowered by the Author to negotiate with Mr. Murray and Mr. Blackwood
-    for the first series of the 'Tales of my Landlord.'" The note of
-    withdrawal from the stage, in the first edition of "The Antiquary," was
-    probably only a part of another experiment on public sagacity. As
-    Lockhart says, Mr. Murray and Mr. Blackwood thought that the consequent
-    absence of the Author of "Waverley's" name from the "Tales of my
-    Landlord" would "check very much the first success of the book;" but
-    they risked this, "to disturb Constable's tenure."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Scott's temporary desertion of Constable in the "Tales of my Landlord"
-    may have had various motives. There was a slight grudge against
-    Constable, born of some complications of the Ballantynes' affairs.
-    Perhaps the mere amusement of the experiment on public sagacity was one
-    of the more powerful reasons for the change. In our day Lord Lytton and
-    Mr. Trollope made similar trials of their popularity when anonymous, the
-    former author with the greater success. The idea of these masquerades and
-    veils of the incognito appears to have bewitched Constable. William
-    Godwin was writing for him his novel "Mandeville," and Godwin had
-    obviously been counselled to try a disguise. He says (Jan. 30, 1816) "I
-    have amused my imagination a thousand times since last we parted with the
-    masquerade you devised for me. The world is full of wonder. An old
-    favourite is always reviewed with coldness. . . . 'Pooh,' they say;
-    'Godwin has worn his pen to the stump!' . . . But let me once be equipped
-    with a significant mask and an unknown character from your masquerade
-    shop, and admitted to figure in with the 'Last Minstrel,' the 'Lady of
-    the Lake,' and 'Guy Mannering' in the Scottish carnival, Gods! how the
-    boys and girls will admire me! 'Here is a new wonder!' they will say.
-    'Ah, this is something like! Here is Godwin beaten on his own ground. . .
-    Here is for once a Scottish writer that they cannot say has anything of
-    the Scotchman about him.'"
-</p>
-<p>
-    However, Mr. Godwin did not don the mask and domino. "Mandeville" came
-    out about the same time as "Rob Roy;" but the "craziness of the public"
-    for the Author of "Waverley" was not changed into a passion for the
-    father-in-law of Shelley.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "'The Antiquary,' after a little pause of hesitation, attained popularity
-    not inferior to 'Guy Mannering,' and though the author appears for a
-    moment to have shared the doubts which he read in the countenance of
-    James Ballantyne, it certainly was, in the sequel, his chief favourite
-    among all his novels.'"
-</p>
-<p>
-    As Scott said to Terry, "If a man will paint from nature, he will be
-    likely to amuse those who are daily looking at it." The years which saw
-    the first appearance of "Guy Mannering" also witnessed that of "Emma." By
-    the singular chance, or law, which links great authors closely in time,
-    giving us novelists in pairs, Miss Austen was "drawing from nature" at
-    the very moment when Scott was wedding nature with romance. How
-    generously and wisely he admired her is familiar, and it may, to some,
-    seem curious that he never deliberately set himself to a picture of
-    ordinary life, free from the intrusion of the unusual, of the heroic.
-    Once, looking down at the village which lies on the Tweed, opposite
-    Melrose, he remarked that under its roofs tragedies and tales were
-    doubtless being lived. 'I undertake to say there is some real romance at
-    this moment going on down there, that, if it could have justice done to
-    it, would be well worth all the fiction that was ever spun out of human
-    brains.'  But the example he gave was terrible,&mdash;"anything more dreadful
-    was never conceived by Crabbe;" yet, adds Lockhart, "it would never have
-    entered into his head to elaborate such a tale." He could not dwell in
-    the unbroken gloom dear to some modern malingerers. But he could easily
-    have made a tale of common Scotch life, dark with the sorrow of
-    Mucklebackit, and bright with the mirth of Cuddie Headrigg. There was,
-    however, this difficulty,&mdash;that Scott cared not to write a story of a
-    single class. "From the peer to the ploughman," all society mingles in
-    each of his novels. A fiction of middle-class life did not allure him,
-    and he was not at the best, but at his worst, as Sydney Smith observed,
-    in the light talk of society. He could admire Miss Austen, and read her
-    novels again and again; but had he attempted to follow her, by way of
-    variety, then inevitably wild as well as disciplined humour would have
-    kept breaking in, and his fancy would have wandered like the old knights
-    of Arthur's Court, "at adventure." "St. Ronan's Well" proved the truth of
-    all this. Thus it happens that, in "The Antiquary," with all his sympathy
-    for the people, with all his knowledge of them, he does not confine
-    himself to their cottages. As Lockhart says, in his admirable piece of
-    criticism, he preferred to choose topics in which he could display "his
-    highest art, that of skilful contrast."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Even the tragic romance of "Waverley" does not set off its Macwheebles
-    and Callum Begs better than the oddities of Jonathan Oldbuck and his
-    circle are relieved, on the one hand by the stately gloom of the
-    Glenallans, on the other by the stern affliction of the poor fisherman,
-    who, when discovered repairing "the auld black bitch of a boat," in which
-    his boy had been lost, and congratulated by his visitors on being capable
-    of the exertion, makes answer, "And what would you have me to do, unless
-    I wanted to see four children starve, because one is drowned? It 's weel
-    with you gentles, that can sit in the house with handkerchers at your
-    een, when ye lose a friend; but the like o' us maun to our work again,
-    if our hearts were beating as hard as ony hammer." And to his work again
-    Scott had to go when he lost the partner of his life.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The simple unsought charm which Lockhart notes in "The Antiquary" may
-    have passed away in later works, when what had been the amusement of
-    happy days became the task of sadness. But this magic "The Antiquary"
-    keeps perhaps beyond all its companions,&mdash;the magic of pleasant memories
-    and friendly associations. The sketches of the epoch of expected
-    invasion, with its patriotic musters and volunteer drillings, are
-    pictures out of that part in the author's life which, with his early
-    Highland wanderings ("Waverley") and his Liddesdale raids ("Guy
-    Mannering"), was most dear to him. In "Redgauntlet," again, he makes, as
-    Alan Fairford, a return on his youth and his home, and in "Rob Roy" he
-    revives his Highland recollections, his Highland lairds of "the blawing,
-    bleezing stories." None of the rest of the tales are so intimate in their
-    connection with Scott's own personal history. "The Antiquary" has always,
-    therefore, been held in the very first rank of his novels.
-</p>
-<p>
-    As far as plot goes, though Godwin denied that it had any story, "The
-    Antiquary" may be placed among the most careful. The underplot of the
-    Glenallans, gloomy almost beyond endurance, is very ingeniously made to
-    unravel the mystery of Lovel. The other side-narrative, that of
-    Dousterswivel, is the weak point of the whole; but this Scott justifies
-    by "very late instances of the force of superstitious credulity, to a
-    much greater extent." Some occurrence of the hour may have suggested the
-    knavish adept with his divining-rod. But facts are never a real excuse
-    for the morally incredible, or all but incredible, in fiction. On the
-    wealth and vraisemblance and variety of character it were superfluous to
-    dilate. As in Shakspeare, there is not even a minor person but lives and
-    is of flesh and blood, if we except, perhaps, Dousterswivel and Sir
-    Arthur Wardour. Sir Arthur is only Sir Robert Hazlewood over again, with
-    a slightly different folly and a somewhat more amiable nature. Lovel's
-    place, as usual, is among the shades of heroes, and his love-affair is
-    far less moving, far more summarily treated, than that of Jenny Caxon.
-    The skilful contrasts are perhaps most remarkable when we compare Elspeth
-    of the Burnfoot with the gossiping old women in the post-office at
-    Fairport,&mdash;a town studied perhaps from Arbroath. It was the opinion of
-    Sydney Smith that every one of the novels, before "The Fortunes of
-    Nigel," contained a Meg Merrilies and a Dominie Sampson. He may have
-    recognized a male Meg in Edie Ochiltree,&mdash;the invaluable character who is
-    always behind a wall, always overhears everything, and holds the threads
-    of the plot. Or he may have been hypercritical enough to think that
-    Elspeth of the Burnfoot is the Meg of the romance. Few will agree with
-    him that Meg Merrilies, in either of these cases, is "good, but good too
-    often."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The supposed "originals" of certain persons in the tale have been topics
-    of discussion. The character of Oldbuck, like most characters in fiction,
-    is a combination of traits observed in various persons. Scott says, in a
-    note to the Ashiestiel fragment of Autobiography, that Mr. George
-    Constable, an old friend of his father's, "had many of those
-    peculiarities of character which long afterwards I tried to develop in
-    the character of Jonathan Oldbuck." Sir Walter, when a child, made Mr.
-    Constable's acquaintance at Prestonpans in 1777, where he explored the
-    battle-field "under the learned guidance of Dalgetty." Mr. Constable
-    first introduced him to Shakspeare's plays, and gave him his first German
-    dictionary. Other traits may have been suggested by John Clerk of Eldin,
-    whose grandfather was the hero of the story "Praetorian here, Praetorian
-    there, I made it wi' a flaughter spade." Lockhart is no doubt right in
-    thinking that Oldbuck is partly a caricature of Oldbuck's creator,&mdash;Sir
-    Walter indeed frankly accepted the kinship; and the book which he began
-    on his own collection he proposed to style "Reliquim Trotcosienses; or,
-    the Gabions of Jonathan Oldbuck."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Another person who added a few points to Oldbuck was "Sandy Gordon,"
-    author of the "Itinerarium Septentrionale" (1726), the very folio which
-    Monkbarns carried in the dilatory coach to Queensferry. Gordon had been
-    a student in the University of Aberdeen; he was an amateur in many arts,
-    but antiquarianism was his favourite hobby. He was an acquaintance of Sir
-    John Clerk of Eldin, the hero of the Praetorium. The words of Gordon in
-    his "Itinerarium," where he describes the battle of the Grampians, have
-    supplied, or suggested, the speech of Monkbarns at the Kaim of Kinprunes.
-    The great question was, Where is the Mons Grampius of Tacitus? Dismissing
-    Camden's Grantsbain, because he does not know where it is, Gordon says,
-    "As for our Scotch Antiquaries, they are so divided that some will have
-    it to be in the shire of Angus, or in the Mearns, some at the Blair of
-    Athol in Perthshire, or Ardoch in Strathallan, and others at
-    Inverpeffery." Gordon votes for Strathern, "half a mile short of the Kirk
-    of Comrie." This spot is both at the foot of the Montes Grampii, "and
-    boasts a Roman camp capable of holding an army fit to encounter so
-    formidable a number as thirty thousand Caledonians. . . . Here is the
-    Porta Decumana, opposite the Prcetoria, together with the dextra and
-    sinistra gates," all discovered by Sandy Gordon. "Moreover, the situation
-    of the ground is so very exact with the description given by Tacitus,
-    that in all my travels through Britain I never beheld anything with more
-    pleasure. . . . Nor is it difficult, in viewing this ground, to say where
-    the Covinarii, or Charioteers, stood. In fine, to an Antiquary, this is a
-    ravishing scene." He adds the argument "that Galgacus's name still
-    remains on this ground, for the moor on which the camp stood is called to
-    this day Galdachan, or Galgachan Rosmoor." All this lore Gordon
-    illustrates by an immense chart of a camp, and a picture of very small
-    Montes Grampii, about the size and shape of buns. The plate is dedicated
-    to his excellency General Wade.
-</p>
-<p>
-    In another point Monkbapns borrows from Gordon. Sandy has a plate (page
-    20) of "The Roman Sacellum of Mars Signifer, vulgarly called 'Arthur's
-    Oon.' With regard to its shape, it is not unlike the famous Pantheon at
-    Rome before the noble Portico was added to it by Marcus Agrippa." Gordon
-    agrees with Stukeley in attributing Arthur's Oon to Agricola, and here
-    Monkbarns and Lovel adopt almost his words. "Time has left Julius
-    Agricola's very name on the place; . . . and if ever those initial
-    letters J. A. M. P. M. P. T., mentioned by Sir Robert Sibbald, were
-    engraven on a stone in this building, it may not be reckoned altogether
-    absurd that they should bear this reading, JULIUS AGRICOLA MAGNUS
-    PIETATIS MONUMENTUM POSUIT TEMPLUM; but this my reader may
-    either accept or reject as he pleases. However, I think it may be as
-    probably received as that inscription on Caligula's Pharos in Holland,
-    which having these following letters, C. C. P. F., is read Caius Caligula
-    Pharum Fecit." "This," Monkbarns adds, "has ever been recorded as a sound
-    exposition."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The character of Edie Ochiltree, Scott himself avers to have been
-    suggested by Andrew Gemmells, pleasantly described in the Introduction.
-    Mr. Chambers, in "Illustrations of the Author of 'Waverley," clears up a
-    point doubtful in Scott's memory, by saying that Geimells really was a
-    Blue-Gown. He rode a horse of his own, and at races was a bookmaker. He
-    once dropped at Rutherford, in Teviotdale, a clue of yarn containing
-    twenty guineas. Like Edie Ochiltree, he had served at Fontenoy. He died
-    at Roxburgh Newton in 1793, at the age of one hundred and five, according
-    to his own reckoning. "His wealth was the means of enriching a nephew in
-    Ayrshire, who is now (1825) a considerable landholder there, and belongs
-    to a respectable class of society."
-</p>
-<p>
-    An old Irus of similar character patrolled Teviotdale, while Andrew
-    Gemmells was attached to Ettrick and Yarrow. This was Blind Willie Craw.
-    Willie was the Society Journal of Hawick, and levied blackmail on the
-    inhabitants. He is thus described by Mr. Grieve, in the Diary already
-    quoted: "He lived at Branxholme Town, in a free house set apart for the
-    gamekeeper, and for many a year carried all the bread from Hawick used in
-    my father's family. He came in that way at breakfast-time, and got a
-    wallet which he put it in, and returned at dinner-time with the 'bawbee
-    rows' and two loaves. He laid the town of Hawick under contribution for
-    bawbees, and he knew the history of every individual, and went rhyming
-    through the town from door to door; and as he knew something against
-    every one which they would rather wish should not be rehearsed, a bawbee
-    put a stop to the paragraph which they wished suppressed. Willie Craw was
-    the son of a gamekeeper of the duke's, and enjoyed a free house at
-    Branxholme Town as long as he lived."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Had Burns ever betaken himself to the gaberlunzie's life, which he speaks
-    of in one of his poems as "the last o't, the worst o't," he would have
-    proved a much more formidable satirist than poor Willie Craw, the last of
-    the "blind crowders." Burns wrote, of course, in a spirit of reckless
-    humour; but he could not, even in sport, have alluded to the life as
-    "suited to his habits and powers," had gaberlunzies been mere mendicants.
-    In Herd's collection of Ballads is one on the ancient Scottish beggar:&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                In Scotland there lived a humble beggar,
-                  He had nor house, nor hald, nor hame;
-                  But he was well liked by ilk a body,
-                And they gave him sunkets to rax his wame.
-
-                A sieve fu' o' meal, a handfu' o' groats,
-                  A dad o' a bannock, or pudding bree,
-                  Cauld porridge, or the lickings o' plates,
-                Wad make him as blythe as a body could be.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The dress and trade of the beggar are said to have been adopted by James
-    V. in his adventures, and tradition attributes to him a song, "The
-    Gaberlunzie Man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    One of Edie's most charming traits is his readiness to "fight for his
-    dish, like the laird for his land," when a French invasion was expected.
-    Scott places the date of "The False Alarm," when he himself rode a
-    hundred miles to join his regiment, on Feb. 2, 1804.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lockhart gives it as an event of 1805 (vol. ii. p. 275). The occasion
-    gave great pleasure to Scott, on account of the patriotism and courage
-    displayed by all classes. "Me no muckle to fight for?" says Edie. "Isna
-    there the country to fight for, and the burns I gang dandering beside,
-    and the hearths o' the gudewives that gie me my bit bread, and the bits
-    o' weans that come toddling to play wi' me when I come about a landward
-    town?" Edie had fought at Fontenoy, and was of the old school. Scott
-    would have been less pleased with a recruit from St. Boswells, on the
-    Tweed. This man was a shoemaker, John Younger, a very intelligent and
-    worthy person, famous as an angler and writer on angling, who has left an
-    account of the "False Alarm" in his memoirs. His view was that the
-    people, unlike Edie, had nothing to fight for, that only the rich had any
-    reason to be patriotic, that the French had no quarrel with the poor. In
-    fact, Mr. Younger was a cosmopolitan democrat, and sneered at the old
-    Border glories of the warlike days. Probably, however, he would have done
-    his duty, had the enemy landed, and, like Edie, might have remembered the
-    "burns he dandered beside," always with a fishingrod in his hand.
-</p>
-<pre>
-     The Editor cannot resist the temptation to add that the patriotic
-     lady mentioned in Scott's note, who "would rather have seen her son
-     dead on that hearth than hear that he had been a horse's length
-     behind his companions," was his paternal great-grandmother, Mrs.
-     John Lang. Her husband, who died shortly afterwards, so that she was
-     a widow when Scott conversed with her, chanced to be chief
-     magistrate of Selkirk. His family was aroused late one night by the
-     sound of a carriage hurrying down the steep and narrow street. Lord
-     Napier was bringing, probably from Hawick, the tidings that the
-     beacons were ablaze. The town-bell was instantly rung, the
-     inhabitants met in the marketplace, where Scott's statue now stands,
-     and the whole force, with one solitary exception, armed and marched
-     to Dalkeith. According to the gentleman whose horse and arms were
-     sent on to meet him, it was intended, if the French proved
-     victorious, that the population of the Border towns should abandon
-     their homes and retire to the hills.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    No characters in the "Antiquary," except Monkbarns and Edie Ochiltree,
-    seem to have been borrowed from notable originals. The frauds of
-    Dousterswivel, Scott says, are rendered plausible by "very late instances
-    of the force of superstitious credulity to a much greater extent." He can
-    hardly be referring to the career of Cagliostro, but he may have had in
-    his memory some unsuccessful mining speculations by Charles Earl of
-    Traquair, who sought for lead and found little or none in Traquair hills.
-    The old "Statistical Account of Scotland" (vol. xii. p. 370) says nothing
-    about imposture, and merely remarks that "the noble family of Traquair
-    have made several attempts to discover lead mines, and have found
-    quantities of the ore of that metal, though not adequate to indemnify the
-    expenses of working, and have therefore given up the attempt." This was
-    published in 1794, so twenty years had passed when "The Antiquary" was
-    written. If there was here an "instance of superstitious credulity," it
-    was not "a very late instance." The divining, or "dowsing," rod of
-    Dousterswivel still keeps its place in mining superstition and in the
-    search for wells.
-</p>
-<pre>
-With "The Antiquary" most contemporary reviews of the novels lose their
-interest. Their author had firmly established his position, at least till
-"The Monastery" caused some murmurings. Even the "Quarterly Review" was
-infinitely more genial in its reception of "The Antiquary" than of "Guy
-Mannering." The critic only grumbled at Lovel's feverish dreams, which,
-he thought, showed an intention to introduce the marvellous. He
-complained of "the dark dialect of Anglified Erse," but found comfort in
-the glossary appended. The "Edinburgh Review" pronounced the chapter on
-the escape from the tide to be "I the very best description we have ever
-met, inverse or in prose, in ancient or in modern writing." No reviewer
-seems to have noticed that the sun is made to set in the sea, on the east
-coast of Scotland. The "Edinburgh," however, declared that the Antiquary,
-"at least in so far as he is an Antiquary," was the chief blemish on the
-book. The "sweet heathen of Monkbarns" has not suffered from this
-disparagement. The "British Critic" pledged its reputation that Scott was
-the author. If an argument were wanted, "it would be that which has been
-applied to prove the authenticity of the last book of the Iliad,&mdash;that
-Homer must have written it, because no one else could." Alas! that
-argument does not convince German critics.
-                                            ANDREW LANG.
-</pre>
-<a name="2HCH0001"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER FIRST.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-               Go call a coach, and let a coach be called,
-               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.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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 Scotland, provided himself with a ticket in one of those
-    public 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 possession. 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," <i>anglice,</i> a cellar, opening to the High
-    Street by a straight and steep stair, at the bottom of which she sold
-    tape, thread, needles, skeins of worsted, coarse linen 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 numerous articles which, piled on each side of
-    the descent, indicated the profession of the trader below.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The written hand-bill, which, pasted on a projecting board, announced
-    that the Queensferry Diligence, or Hawes Fly, departed precisely at
-    twelve o'clock on Tuesday, the fifteenth July 17&mdash;, in order to secure
-    for travellers the opportunity of passing the Firth with the flood-tide,
-    lied 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 Automedon, that, in such cases, a little space
-    was to be allowed for the chance of filling up the vacant places&mdash;or the
-    said Automedon might have been attending a funeral, and be delayed by the
-    necessity of stripping his vehicle of its lugubrious trappings&mdash;or he
-    might have staid to take a half-mutchkin extraordinary with his crony the
-    hostler&mdash;or&mdash;in short, he did not make his appearance.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The young gentleman, who began to grow somewhat impatient, was now joined
-    by a companion in this petty misery of human life&mdash;the person who had
-    taken out the other place. He who is bent upon a journey is usually
-    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 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 arrangement for his baggage
-    before the arrival of his competitors. 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    He was a good-looking man of the age of sixty, perhaps older,&mdash;but his
-    hale complexion and firm step announced 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
-    enlivened by a cast of ironical humour. His dress was uniform, and of a
-    colour becoming his age and gravity; a wig, well dressed and powdered,
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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&mdash;I am too late after all!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The young man relieved his anxiety, by telling him the coach had not yet
-    appeared. The old gentleman, apparently conscious of his own want of
-    punctuality, did not 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&mdash;&mdash;, that if he had known he was to have had so much
-    time, he would have put another word or two to their bargain,&mdash;then told
-    the boy to mind his business, and he would be as thriving a lad as ever
-    dusted a duodecimo. 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    At length, after one or two impatient glances at the progress of the
-    minute-hand of the clock, having compared 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Good woman,&mdash;what the d&mdash;l is her name?&mdash;Mrs. Macleuchar!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mrs. Macleuchar,&mdash;Good woman" (with an elevated voice)&mdash;then apart, "Old
-    doited hag, she's as deaf as a post&mdash;I say, Mrs. Macleuchar!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am just serving a customer.&mdash;Indeed, hinny, it will no be a bodle
-    cheaper than I tell ye."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Woman," reiterated the traveller, "do you think we can stand here all
-    day till you have cheated that poor servant wench out of her half-year's
-    fee and bountith?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Cheated!" retorted Mrs. Macleuchar, eager to take up the quarrel upon a
-    defensible ground; "I scorn your words, sir: you are an uncivil person,
-    and I desire you will not stand there, to slander me at my ain
-    stair-head."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The woman," said the senior, looking with an arch glance at his destined
-    travelling companion, "does not understand the words of action.&mdash;Woman,"
-    again turning to the vault, "I arraign not thy character, but I desire to
-    know what is become of thy coach?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What's your wull?" answered Mrs. Macleuchar, relapsing into deafness.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We have taken places, ma'am," said the younger stranger, "in your
-    diligence for Queensferry"&mdash;&mdash;"Which should have been half-way on the
-    road before now," continued 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&mdash;and your
-    cursed coach"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The coach?&mdash;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?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What else could have kept us broiling in the sun by the side of the
-    gutter here, you&mdash;you faithless woman, eh?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 exclaimed, with well-feigned
-    astonishment, "Gude guide us&mdash;saw ever onybody the like o' that?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes, you abominable woman," vociferated the traveller, "many have seen
-    the like of it, and all will see the like of it that have anything to do
-    with your trolloping sex;" then pacing with great indignation before the
-    door of the shop, still as he passed and repassed, like a vessel who
-    gives her broadside as she comes abreast of a hostile fortress, he shot
-    down complaints, threats, and reproaches, on the embarrassed Mrs.
-    Macleuchar. He would take a post-chaise&mdash;he would call a hackney
-		coach&mdash;he would take four horses&mdash;he must&mdash;he would be on the north side,
-    to-day&mdash;and all the expense of his journey, besides damages, direct and
-    consequential, arising from delay, should be accumulated on the devoted
-    head of Mrs. Macleuchar.
-</p>
-<p>
-    There, was something so comic in his pettish resentment, 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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?&mdash;Dost thou know the consequence of seducing the lieges by false
-    reports?&mdash;dost thou know it might be brought under the statute of
-    leasing-making? Answer&mdash;and for once in thy long, useless, and evil life,
-    let it be in the words of truth and sincerity,&mdash;hast thou such a
-		coach?&mdash;is it <i>in rerum natura?</i>&mdash;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?&mdash;Hast thou, I say, such a
-    coach? ay or no?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O dear, yes, sir; the neighbours ken the diligence weel, green picked
-    oat wi' red&mdash;three yellow wheels and a black ane."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Woman, thy special description will not serve&mdash;it may be only a lie with
-    a circumstance."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O, man, man!" said the overwhelmed Mrs. Macleuchar, totally exhausted at
-    having been so long the butt of his rhetoric, "take back your three
-    shillings, and make me quit o' ye."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not so fast, not so fast, woman&mdash;Will three shillings transport me to
-    Queensferry, agreeably to thy treacherous program?&mdash;or will it requite
-    the damage I may sustain by leaving my business undone, or repay the
-    expenses which I must disburse if I am obliged to tarry a day at the
-    South Ferry for lack of tide?&mdash;Will it hire, I say, a pinnace, for which
-    alone the regular price is five shillings?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    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
-    dispatch 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 window 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. Macleuchar, should be held
-    responsible for all the consequences that might ensue.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 colophon. 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 relish, or perhaps understand, his answer, and pronounced the
-    book to be Sandy Gordon's <i>Itinerarium Septentrionale,</i>* a book
-    illustrative of the Roman remains in Scotland.
-</p>
-<p>
-    * Note B. Sandy Gordon's <i>Itinerarium.</i>
-</p>
-<p>
-    The querist, unappalled 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 acquaintance enough with the classics to render him
-    an interested and intelligent auditor when they were enlarged upon. The
-    elder traveller, observing with pleasure the capacity of his temporary
-    companion to understand and answer him, plunged, nothing loath, into a
-    sea of discussion concerning urns, vases, votive, altars, Roman camps,
-    and the rules of castrametation.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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.
-    Macleuchar, 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 disquisition than the retardation of his journey.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 apprized the
-    coachman of this important deficiency. "It's Jamie Martingale that
-    furnishes the naigs on contract, and uphauds them," answered John, "and I
-    am not entitled to make any stop, or to suffer prejudice by the like of
-    these accidents."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And when you go to&mdash;I mean to the place you deserve to go to, you
-    scoundrel,&mdash;who do you think will uphold <i>you</i> 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    I like so little to analyze the complication of the causes which
-    influence actions, that I will not venture to ascertain whether our
-    Antiquary's humanity to the poor horse was not in some degree aided by
-    his desire of showing his companion a Pict's camp, or Round-about, a
-    subject 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 suffered 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 sea-weed, which were
-    visible along the skirts of the shore, that the hour of tide was past.
-    The young traveller 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 actually 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The d&mdash;l's in the diligence and the old hag, it belongs to!&mdash;Diligence,
-    quoth I? Thou shouldst have called it the Sloth&mdash;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'll have a
-    snack here at the Hawes, which is a very decent sort of a place, and I'll
-    be very happy to finish the account I was giving you of the difference
-    between the mode of entrenching <i>castra stativa</i> and <i>castra aestiva,</i>
-    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!&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    In this Christian temper of making the best of all occurrences, our
-    travellers alighted at the Hawes.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0002"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER SECOND.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-              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 butter-milk, 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. <i>Sack,</i> says my bush,
-             <i>Be merry and drink Sherry,</i> that's my posie.
-                        Ben Jonson's <i>New Inn.</i>
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ye donnard auld deevil," answered his guest, his Scottish accent
-    predominating when in anger though otherwise not particularly
-    remarkable,&mdash;"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?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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&mdash;"That's very true,&mdash;but
-    I thought ye had some law affair of your ain to look after&mdash;I have ane
-    mysell&mdash;a ganging plea that my father left me, and his father afore left
-    to him. It's about our back-yard&mdash;ye'll maybe hae heard of it in the
-    Parliament-house, Hutchison against Mackitchinson&mdash;it's a weel-kenn'd
-    plea&mdash;its 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.&mdash;O it's a beautiful thing to see how lang and how carefully
-    justice is considered in this country!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ou, there's fish, nae doubt,&mdash;that's sea-trout and caller haddocks,"
-    said Mackitchinson, twisting his napkin; "and ye'll be for a mutton-chop,
-    and there's cranberry tarts, very weel preserved, and&mdash;and there's just
-    ony thing else ye like."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, na," said Mackitchinson, whose long and heedful perusal of volumes
-    of printed session papers had made him acquainted with some law
-		phrases&mdash;"the denner shall be served <i>quam primum</i> and that <i>peremptorie.</i>" And
-    with the flattering laugh of a promising host, he left them in his sanded
-    parlour, hung with prints of the Four Seasons.
-</p>
-<p>
-    As, notwithstanding his pledge to the contrary, the glorious delays of
-    the law were not without their parallel 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 sufficient 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Jonathan Oldenbuck, or Oldinbuck, by popular contraction Oldbuck, of
-    Monkbarns, was the second son of a gentleman possessed of a small
-    property in the neighbourhood of a thriving seaport town on the
-    north-eastern coast of Scotland, which, for various reasons, we shall
-    denominate Fairport. They had been established 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&mdash;&mdash;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, like the burghers of the
-    town near which they were settled, were steady assertors of the
-    Protestant 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 country in consequence of the
-    persecutions directed against the professors of the Reformed religion. He
-    had found 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 Monkbarns, 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 interest, 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 <i>Forty-twa,</i> who had no
-    other fortune but his commission and a Highland pedigree. Poverty
-    disturbed a union which love would otherwise have made happy, and Captain
-    M'Intyre, 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 off, and no news ever 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 uncertainty, and left a son and
-    daughter to the charge of her brother, the existing Laird of Monkbarns.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 persuaded to apply it
-    to lucrative and practical purposes. It was not from any inconsiderate
-    neglect of the advantages attending the possession of money that he thus
-    deceived the hopes of his master. "Were he thoughtless or light-headed, or
-    <i>rei suae prodigus,</i>" 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 wilt 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 routine, that would
-    put twenty shillings in his pocket&mdash;a strange mixture of frugality and
-    industry, and negligent indolence&mdash;I don't know what to make of him."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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
-    consequence of a cold caught in his vocation, while shooting ducks in the
-    swamp called Kittlefittingmoss, notwithstanding 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 expenditure; 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 affected to divide
-    himself from their rank in society, and whose studies and pleasures
-    seemed to them alike incomprehensible. 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 little intercourse with Mr. Oldbuck of
-    Monkbarns. He, had, however, the usual resources, the company of the
-    clergyman, and of the doctor, when he chose to request it, and also his
-    own pursuits and pleasures, being in correspondence with most of the
-    virtuosi of his time, who, like 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 Fairport, 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 <i>jibb</i> 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    During the time of dinner, Mr. Oldbuck, actuated by the same curiosity
-    which his fellow-traveller had entertained on his account, made some
-    advances, which his age and station entitled him to do in a more direct
-    manner, towards ascertaining the name, destination, and quality of his
-    young companion.
-</p>
-<p>
-    His name, the young gentleman said, was Lovel.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What! the cat, the rat, and Lovel our dog? Was he descended from King
-    Richard's favourite?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He had no pretensions," he said, "to call himself a whelp of that
-    litter; his father was a north-of-England gentleman. He was at present
-    travelling to Fairport (the town near to which Monkbarns was situated),
-    and, if he found the place agreeable, might perhaps remain there for some
-    weeks."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Was Mr. Lovel's excursion solely for pleasure?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not entirely."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Perhaps on business with some of the commercial people of Fairport?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It was partly on business, but had no reference to commerce."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 affirming that a little punch was more genuine and better 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
-    appeared bearing in his hand an immense double quart bottle, or magnum,
-    as it is called in Scotland, covered with saw-dust and cobwebs, the
-    warrants of its antiquity.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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'."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What do you mean, you impudent rascal?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, ay, it's nae matter for that&mdash;but do you mind the trick ye served me
-    the last time ye were here!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I trick you!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, just yoursell, Monkbarns. The Laird o' Tamlowrie and Sir Gilbert
-    Grizzlecleuch, and Auld Rossballoh, and the Bailie, were just setting in
-    to make an afternoon o't, and you, wi' some o' 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&mdash;Ah, sir!" turning to Lovel, "he wad wile the
-    bird aff the tree wi' the tales he tells about folk lang syne&mdash;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?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "D'ye hear the impudent scoundrel!" said Monkbarns, but laughing at the
-    same time; for the worthy landlord, as he used to boast, know the measure
-    of a guest's foot as well as e'er a souter on this side Solway; "well,
-    well, you may send us in a bottle of port."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Do you hear how absolute the knave is? Well, my young friend, we must
-    for once prefer the <i>Falernian</i> to the <i>vile Sabinum.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The ready landlord had the cork instantly extracted, decanted the wine
-    into a vessel of suitable capaciousness, and, declaring it <i>parfumed</i> the
-    very room, left his guests to make the most of it.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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
-    dramatists; a ground on which he found his new acquaintance so strong,
-    that at length he began to suspect he had made them his professional
-    study. "A traveller partly for business and partly for pleasure?&mdash;why,
-    the stage partakes of both; it is a labour to the performers, and
-    affords, 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.&mdash;If this should be thee, Lovel!&mdash;Lovel? yes,
-    Lovel or Belville are just the names which youngsters are apt to assume
-    on such occasions&mdash;on my life, I am sorry for the lad."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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
-    liberality, and only acquiesced in deference to his years and
-    respectability.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The mutual satisfaction which they found in each other's society induced
-    Mr. Oldbuck to propose, and Lovel willingly to accept, a scheme for
-    travelling together to the end of their journey. Mr. Oldbuck intimated 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 shilling into the hand of a growling
-    postilion; for Oldbuck, tenacious of ancient customs, never extended his
-    guerdon beyond eighteen-pence a stage. In this manner they travelled,
-    until they arrived at Fairport* about two o'clock on the following day.
-</p>
-<p>
-    * [The "Fairport" of this novel is supposed to refer to the town of *
-    Arbroath, in Forfarshire, and "Musselcrag," <i>post,</i> to the fishing
-    village of * Auchmithie, in the same county.]
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel probably expected that his travelling companion 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 convenient 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.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0003"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER THIRD.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                 He had a routh o' auld nick-nackets,
-                 Rusty airn caps, and jinglin-jackets,
-               Would held the Loudons three in tackets,
-                            A towmond gude;
-               And parritch-pats, and auld sayt-backets,
-                           Afore the flude.
-                                           Burns.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    After he had settled himself in his new apartments at Fairport, Mr. Lovel
-    bethought him of paying the requested 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 Edinburgh,
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 commanded a fine prospect of the bay and
-    shipping. Secluded 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 little 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 steward, 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 <i>topiarian</i> artist,* and presented
-    curious arm-chairs, towers, and the figures of Saint George and the
-    Dragon.
-</p>
-<p>
-    * <i>Ars Topiaria,</i> the art of clipping yew-hedges into fantastic figures.
-    A Latin poem, entitled <i>Ars Topiaria,</i> contains a curious account of the
-    process.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The taste of Mr. Oldbuck did not disturb these monuments 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Mr. Oldbuck immediately rose, and advanced to greet 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I hope, my good sir, I should have fallen under no such imputation."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Quite as bad, let me tell you, if you had stolen yourself away without
-    giving me the pleasure of seeing you again. I had rather you had taken my
-    copper Otho himself.&mdash;But come, let me show you the way into my <i>sanctum
-    sanctorum</i>&mdash;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 established themselves
-    in my premises, I live here as much a Coenobite as my predecessor, John
-    o' the Girnell, whose grave I will show you by and by."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 inscription, 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&mdash;and all to no purpose&mdash;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 we know,
-    <i>aliunde,</i> that it was founded by Abbot Waldimir about the middle of the
-    fourteenth century&mdash;and, I profess, I think that centre ornament might be
-    made out by better eyes than mine."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I think," answered Lovel, willing to humour the old man, "it has
-    something the appearance of a mitre."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I protest you are right! you are right! it never struck me before&mdash;see
-    what it is to have younger eyes&mdash;A mitre&mdash;a mitre&mdash;it corresponds in
-    every respect."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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&mdash;"A mitre,
-    my dear sir, will suit our abbot as well as a bishop&mdash;he was a mitred
-    abbot, and at the very top of the roll&mdash;take care of these three steps&mdash;I
-    know Mac-Cribb denies this, but it is as certain as that he took away my
-    Antigonus, no leave asked&mdash;you'll see the name of the Abbot of Trotcosey,
-    <i>Abbas Trottocosiensis,</i> at the head of the rolls of parliament in the
-    fourteenth and fifteenth centuries&mdash;there is very little light here, and
-    these cursed womankind always leave their tubs in the passage&mdash;now take,
-    care of the corner&mdash;ascend twelve steps, and ye are safe!"
-</p>
-<a name="image-0005"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/pa026.jpg" height="802" width="555"
-alt="The Antiquary and Lovel--the Sanctum
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<p>
-    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 barefooted chambermaid threw down
-    her duster, detected in the heinous fact of arranging the <i>sanctum
-    sanctorum,</i> and fled out of an opposite door from the face of her
-    incensed master. A genteel-looking young woman, who was superintending
-    the operation, stood her ground, but with some timidity.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And how dare you, or Jenny either, presume to meddle with my private
-    matters?" (Mr. Oldbuck hated <i>puttting to rights</i> 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.&mdash;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
-</p>
-<pre>
-                    My copperplate, with almanacks
-                    Engraved upon't and other knacks
-                    My moon-dial, with Napier's bones,
-                    And several constellation Stones;
-                    My flea, my morpeon, and punaise,
-                      I purchased for my proper ease.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    And so forth, as old Butler has it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The young lady, after courtesying to Lovel, had taken the opportunity to
-    make her escape during this enumeration of losses. "You'll be poisoned
-    here with the volumes of dust they have raised," continued the Antiquary;
-    "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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 lighted by high narrow
-    latticed 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 littered the floor and the tables, amid a chaos of
-    maps, engraving, 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 them. 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 understand. The rest of the
-    room was panelled, or wainscotted, with black oak, against which hung two
-    or three portraits 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 profusion of papers, parchments, books, and
-    nondescript trinkets and gewgaws, which seemed to have little 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
-    superstitious eye, might have presented the <i>genius loci,</i> the tutelar
-    demon of the apartment. The floor, as well as the table and chairs, was
-    overflowed by the same <i>mare magnum</i> 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 received damage, and of
-    antique spurs and buckles, which would certainly have occasioned it to
-    any sudden occupant. Of this the Antiquary made Lovel particularly aware,
-    adding, that his friend, the Rev. Doctor Heavysterne from the Low
-    Countries, had sustained much injury by sitting down suddenly and
-    incautiously on three ancient calthrops, or <i>craw-taes,</i> which had been
-    lately dug up in the bog near Bannockburn, and which, dispersed by Robert
-    Bruce to lacerate the feet of the English chargers, came thus in process
-    of time to endamage the sitting part of a learned professor of Utrecht.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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, 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
-    peregrinations from their mountains; but Mr. Oldbuck was strongly tempted
-    to believe, that, as its shape was singular, it might have been one of
-    the clubs with which the monks armed their peasants in lieu of more
-    martial weapons,&mdash;whence, he observed, the villains were called
-    <i>Colve-carles,</i> or <i>Kolb-kerls,</i> that is, <i>Clavigeri,</i> or club-bearers.
-    For the truth of this custom, he quoted the chronicle of Antwerp and that
-    of St. Martin; against which authorities Lovel had nothing to oppose,
-    having never heard of them till that moment.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 lieu 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;&mdash;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&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-               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.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 sufficient 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 imitated 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 middle-men, 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.&mdash;"Davy Wilson," he said, "commonly called Snuffy
-    Davy, from his inveterate addiction to 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 <i>editio princeps</i> under the mask of a school
-    Corderius. Snuffy Davy 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 inimitable
-    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!&mdash;Could a copy now occur, Lord only
-    knows," he ejaculated, with a deep sigh and lifted-up hands&mdash;"Lord only
-    knows what would be its ransom; and yet it was originally secured, by
-    skill and research, for the easy equivalent of two-pence sterling. *
-    Happy, thrice happy, Snuffy Davie!&mdash;and blessed were the times when thy
-    industry could be so rewarded!
-</p>
-<p>
-    * 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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&mdash;a very few things, which I have collected, not by force of money, as any
-    wealthy man might,&mdash;although, as my friend Lucian says, he might chance
-    to throw away his coin only to illustrate his ignorance,&mdash;but gained in a
-    manner that shows I know something of the matter. See this bundle of
-    ballads, not one of them later 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, mutilated 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 memoranda and trophies of many a walk
-    by night and morning through the Cowgate, the Canongate, the Bow, St.
-    Mary's Wynd,&mdash;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!&mdash;how have I trembled, lest some passing
-    stranger should chop in between me and the prize, and regarded each poor
-    student of divinity that stopped to turn over the books at the stall, as
-    a rival amateur, or prowling bookseller in disguise!&mdash;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!&mdash;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, shrouding 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!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel was not a little amused at hearing the old gentleman run on in this
-    manner, and, however incapable of entering into the full merits of what
-    he beheld, he admired, 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
-    improvements, 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&mdash;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 quality of scarcity, or
-    rare occurrence, was attached to it.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Not the least fascinating was the original broadside,&mdash;the Dying Speech,
-    Bloody Murder, or Wonderful Wonder of Wonders,&mdash;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 example, piqued himself especially in
-    possessing an <i>unique</i> 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 Air on the 26th of July 1610,
-    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 Continuations; 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. Colley, living in West Smithfield, and attested by Thomas Brown,
-    Elizabeth Greenaway, and Anne Gutheridge, who were Spectators of the
-    dreadful Apparitions: 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."*
-</p>
-<p>
-    * Of this thrice and four times rare broadside, the author possesses an
-    exemplar.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You laugh at this," said the proprietor of the collection, "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.&mdash;Yet stay,
-    I have one piece of antiquity, which you, perhaps, will prize more
-    highly."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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, into 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 in Teniers' 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. "I will
-    say nothing of the server," he remarked, "though it is said to have been
-    wrought by the old mad Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini. But, Mr. Lovel, our
-    ancestors drank sack&mdash;you, who admire the drama, know where that's to be
-    found.&mdash;Here's success to your exertions at Fairport, sir!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And to you, sir, and an ample increase to your treasure, with no more
-    trouble on your part than is just necessary to make the acquisitions
-    valuable."
-</p>
-<p>
-    After a libation 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
-    curiosity on his return to Fairport.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0004"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER FOURTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                The pawkie 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 puir man?
-                                  The Gaberlunzie Man.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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
-    gardening. 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, "which 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:&mdash;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 pleasure 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 Cringlecut 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.&mdash;Admire the little belfry rising
-    above the ivy-mantled porch&mdash;there was here a <i>hospitium, hospitale,</i> or
-    <i>hospitamentum</i> (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 <i>hospitium</i> was
-    situated either in the lands of Haltweary or upon those of Half-starvet;
-    but he is incorrect, Mr. Lovel&mdash;that is the gate called still the
-    Palmer's Port, and my gardener found many hewn stones, when he was
-    trenching 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It commands a fine view," said his companion, looking around him.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "True: but it is not for the prospect I brought you hither; do you see
-    nothing else remarkable?&mdash;nothing on the surface of the ground?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, yes; I do see something like a ditch, indistinctly marked."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indistinctly!&mdash;pardon me, sir, but the indistinctness must be in your
-    powers of vision. Nothing can be more plainly traced&mdash;a proper <i>agger</i> or
-    <i>vallum,</i> with its corresponding ditch or <i>fossa.</i> 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!&mdash;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!&mdash;why, you must suppose that fools,
-    boors, and idiots, have ploughed up the land, and, like 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!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel endeavoured to apologize, 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel having again acquiesced, and at length lulled to sleep the
-    irritated and suspicious vanity of the Antiquary, 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 Innerpeffry, 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 complacent looks, "what would you think,
-    Mr. Lovel,&mdash;I say, what would you think,&mdash;if the memorable scene of
-    conflict 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 communication 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&mdash;lo! yonder they are,
-    mixing and contending with the sky on the skirts of the horizon! It was
-    <i>in conspectu classis</i>&mdash;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 astonishing how blind we professed antiquaries
-    sometimes are! Sir Robert Sibbald, Saunders Gordon, General Roy, Dr.
-    Stokely,&mdash;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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    * A bonnet-laird signifies a petty proprietor, wearing the dress, along
-    with the habits of a yeoman.
-</p>
-<p>
-    At length&mdash;I am almost ashamed to say it&mdash;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 celebrated an event
-    became my own, I was overpaid.&mdash;Whose patriotism would not grow warmer,
-    as old Johnson says, on the plains of Marathon? I began to trench the
-    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 off with plaster of Paris; it bears a sacrificing vessel,
-    and the letters A. D. L. L. which may stand, without much violence, for
-    <i>Agricola Dicavit Libens Lubens.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Certainly, sir; for the Dutch Antiquaries claim Caligula as the founder
-    of a light-house, on the sole authority of the letters C. C. P. F., which
-    they interpret <i>Caius Caligula Pharum Fecit.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "True, and it has ever been recorded as a sound exposition. 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In time, sir, and by good instruction"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "&mdash;You will become more apt&mdash;I doubt it not. You shall peruse, upon your
-    next visit to Monkbarns, my trivial Essay upon Castrametation, with some
-    particular Remarks upon the Vestiges of Ancient Fortifications 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
-    general 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 line,
-</p>
-<pre>
-               Ille Caledoniis posuit qui castra pruinis.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    For <i>pruinis,</i> though interpreted to mean <i>hoar frosts,</i> to which I own
-    we are somewhat subject in this north-eastern sea-coast, may also signify
-    a locality, namely, <i>Prunes;</i> the <i>Castra Pruinis posita</i> 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 <i>porta sinistra,</i>
-    and on the right, one side of the <i>porta dextra</i> wellnigh entire. Here,
-    then, let us take our stand, on this tumulus, exhibiting the foundation
-    of ruined buildings,&mdash;the central point&mdash;the <i>praetorium,</i> 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,&mdash;the
-    infantry rising rank over rank, as the form of ground displayed their
-    array to its utmost advantage,&mdash;the cavalry and <i>covinarii,</i> by which I
-    understand the charioteers&mdash;another guise of folks from your Bond-street
-    four-in-hand men, I trow&mdash;scouring the more level space below&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                       &mdash;See, then, Lovel&mdash;See&mdash;
-            See that huge battle moving from the mountains!
-        Their gilt coats shine like dragon scales;&mdash;their march
-        Like a rough tumbling storm.&mdash;See them, and view them,
-                       And then see Rome no more!&mdash;
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Yes, my dear friend, from this stance it is probable&mdash;nay, it is nearly
-    certain, that Julius Agricola beheld what our Beaumont has so admirably
-    described!&mdash;From this very Praetorium"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    A voice from behind interrupted his ecstatic description&mdash;"Praetorian
-    here, Praetorian there, I mind the bigging o't."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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:&mdash;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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What is that you say, Edie?" said Oldbuck, hoping, perhaps, that his
-    ears had betrayed their duty&mdash;"what were you speaking about!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "About this bit bourock, your honour," answered the undaunted Edie; "I
-    mind the bigging o't."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The devil you do! Why, you old fool, it was here before you were born,
-    and will be after you are hanged, man!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hanged or drowned, here or awa, dead or alive, I mind the bigging o't."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You&mdash;you&mdash;you&mdash;," said the Antiquary, stammering between confusion and
-    anger, "you strolling old vagabond, what the devil do you know about it?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ou, I ken this about it, Monkbarns&mdash;and what profit have I for telling
-    ye a lie?&mdash;l just ken this about it, that about twenty years syne, I, and
-    a wheen hallenshakers like mysell, and the mason-lads that built the lang
-    dike 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&mdash;the&mdash;Praetorian,
-    and a' just for a bield at auld Aiken Drum's bridal, and a bit blithe
-    gae-down wi' had in't, some sair rainy weather. Mair by token, Monkbarns,
-    if ye howk up the bourock, as ye seem to have began, yell find, if ye hae
-    not fund it already, 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. L. L.&mdash;Aiken Drum's Lang Ladle&mdash;for Aiken was ane o' the
-    kale-suppers o' Fife."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "This," thought Lovel to himself, "is a famous counterpart to the story
-    of <i>Keip on this syde.</i>" He then ventured 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 companion, I can safely aver to you, that Jonathan Oldbuck of
-    Monkbarns looked neither more wise nor less disconcerted.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There is some mistake about this," he said, abruptly turning away from
-    the mendicant.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Deil a bit on my side o' the wa'," answered the sturdy beggar; "I never
-    deal in mistakes, they aye bring mischances.&mdash;Now, Monkbarns, that young
-    gentleman, that's wi' your honour, thinks little of a carle like 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel's soul rushed to his cheeks, with the vivid blush of
-    two-and-twenty.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Never mind the old rogue," said Mr. Oldbuck; "don't suppose I think the
-    worse of you for your profession; they are only prejudiced fools and
-    coxcombs that do so. You remember what old Tully says in his oration,
-    <i>pro Archia poeta,</i> concerning one of your confraternity&mdash;<i>quis nostrum
-    tam anino agresti ac duro fuit&mdash;ut&mdash;ut</i>&mdash;I forget the Latin&mdash;the meaning
-    is, which of us was so rude and barbarous as to remain unmoved at the
-    death of the great Roscius, whose advanced 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 mortality? So the
-    Prince of Orators spoke of the stage and its professor."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 beggar, who still continued to regard him with a
-    countenance 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 intimating his desire of secrecy, and securing
-    the concurrence of the person whom he addressed; and while he bestowed on
-    him an alms, the amount of which rather bore proportion to his fears than
-    to his charity, looked at him with a marked expression, which the
-    mendicant, a physiognomist by profession, seemed perfectly to
-    understand.&mdash;"Never mind me, sir&mdash;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 Oldbuck&mdash;"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?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    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, unlined hat, he said, "Go down, go down to
-    Monkbarns&mdash;let them give you some dinner&mdash;Or stay; if you do go to the
-    manse, or to Knockwinnock, ye need say nothing about that foolish story
-    of yours."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Who, I?" said the mendicant&mdash;"Lord bless your honour, naebody sall 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 haud gude, if you would just bring down
-    your heart to try it at the law, and say that he beguiled ye."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Provoking scoundrel!" muttered the indignant Antiquary between his
-    teeths&mdash;"I'll have the hangman's lash and his back acquainted for this."
-    And then, in a louder tone,&mdash;"Never mind, Edie&mdash;it is all a mistake."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth, I am thinking sae," continued his tormentor, who seemed to have
-    pleasure in rubbing the galled wound, "troth, I aye thought sae; and it's
-    no sae lang since I said to Luckie Gemmers, Never think you, luckie' said
-    I, that 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 lard'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'll hear he's circumvented him
-    with some of his auld-warld stories,'&mdash;for ye ken, laird, yon other time
-    about the bodle that ye thought was an auld coin"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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&mdash;"Away with you down to Monkbarns, and when I come back, I'll send
-    ye a bottle of ale to the kitchen."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Heaven reward your honour!" This was uttered with the true mendicant
-    whine, as, setting his pike-staff before him, he began to move in the
-    direction of Monkbarns.&mdash;"But did your honour," turning round, "ever get
-    back the siller ye gae to the travelling packman for the bodle?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Curse thee, go about thy business!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aweel, aweel, sir, God bless your honour! I hope ye'll 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Who is this familiar old gentleman?" said Lovel, when the mendicant was
-    out of hearing.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O, one of the plagues of the country&mdash;I have been always against
-    poor's-rates and a work-house&mdash;I think I'll 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&mdash;as intimate as one of
-    the beasts familiar to man which signify love, and with which his own
-    trade is especially conversant. Who is he?&mdash;why, he has gone the vole&mdash;
-    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 thing's as regularly as Joe Miller's."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, he uses freedom apparently, which is the soul of wit," answered
-    Lovel.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O ay, freedom enough," said the Antiquary; "he generally invents some
-    damned improbable lie or another to provoke you, like that nonsense he
-    talked just now&mdash;not that I'll publish my tract till I have examined the
-    thing to the bottom."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In England," said Lovel, "such a mendicant would get a speedy check."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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&mdash;one of the last specimens of the old fashioned Scottish
-    mendicant, 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,
-    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&mdash;d nonsensical story over half the country."*
-</p>
-<p>
-    * Note C. Praetorium.
-</p>
-<p>
-    So saying our heroes parted, Mr. Oldbuck to return to his <i>hospitium</i> at
-    Monkbarns, and Lovel to pursue his way to Fairport, where he arrived
-    without farther adventure.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0005"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER FIFTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                     <i>Launcelot Gobbo.</i> Mark me now:
-                      Now will I raise the waters.
-                                         Merchant of Venice.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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-fashioned 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; regular, I say, were Mr. Oldbuck's inquiries at this
-    personage concerning the news of the little 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 womankind along with him. But old Jacob Caxon conveyed no information
-    which warranted his taking so decisive a step as that of securing a box.
-</p>
-<p>
-    He brought information, on the contrary, that there was a young man
-    residing at Fairport, of whom the <i>town</i> (by which he meant all the
-    gossips, who, having no business of their own, fill up their leisure
-    moments by attending to that of other people) could make nothing. He
-    sought no society, but rather avoided that which the apparent gentleness
-    of his manners, and some degree of curiosity, induced many to offer him.
-    Nothing could be more regular, or less resembling an adventurer, than his
-    mode of living, which was simple, but so completely well arranged, that
-    all who had any transactions with him were loud in their approbation.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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 compelled to abandon that which he had formed in the present
-    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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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, connections, 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 <i>soi-disant</i> 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 sympathies with the tea-table.&mdash;In
-    short, since the name was fashionable in novel-writing, and that is a
-    great while agone, there was never a Master Lovel of whom so little
-    positive was known, and who was so universally described by negatives.
-</p>
-<p>
-    One negative, however, was important&mdash;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 solitary walks, and had drawn several views of the
-    harbour, in which the signal tower, and even the four-gun battery, 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 removed 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 public 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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&mdash;I must do something for him&mdash;I must give him a
-    dinner;&mdash;and I will write Sir Arthur to come to Monkbarns to meet him. I
-    must consult my womankind."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Accordingly, such consultation having been previously 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 contents ran thus:
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dear Sir Arthur,
-</p>
-<p>
-    "On Tuesday the 17th curt. <i>stilo novo,</i> I hold a coenobitical 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 awful 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&mdash;reveres his
-    elders, and has a pretty notion of the classics&mdash;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.&mdash;I am, Dear Sir
-    Arthur, etc. etc. etc."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Fly with this letter, Caxon," said the senior, holding out his missive,
-    <i>signatum atque sigillatum,</i> "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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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&mdash;and he had a quean of a servant-lass that dressed it
-    herself, 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 haddies, 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 magistrates and bailies, and deacons, and
-    the provost himsell, wi' heads as bald and as bare as ane o' my blocks!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And as well furnished within, Caxon. But away with you!&mdash;you have an
-    excellent view of public affairs, and, I dare say, have touched the cause
-    of our popular discontent as closely as the provost could have done
-    himself. But away with you, Caxon!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    And off went Caxon upon his walk of three miles&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                  He hobbled&mdash;but his heart was good!
-                  Could he go faster than he could?&mdash;
-</pre>
-<p>
-    While he is engaged in his journey and return, it may not be impertinent
-    to inform the reader to whose mansion he was bearing his embassy.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 fortune. 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 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 consequence. 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. Perhaps the worshipful owner
-    sympathized 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 person 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
-    liberty, and returned to their own mansion of Knockwinnock, to drink
-    healths five fathoms deep, and talk of their sufferings in the royal
-    cause. This became so much a matter of habit with Sir Arthur, that, even
-    after his father's death, the non-juring chaplain used to pray regularly
-    for the restoration of the rightful sovereign, for the downfall 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 candidate in whom he was
-    interested;&mdash;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 alive, yet, in all
-    actual service and practical exertion, he was a most zealous and devoted
-    subject of George III.
-</p>
-<p>
-    In other respects, Sir Arthur Wardour lived like most country gentlemen
-    in Scotland, hunted and fished&mdash;gave and received dinners&mdash;attended races
-    and county meetings&mdash;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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    There were, however, points of difference between these two humourists,
-    which sometimes occasioned discord. The faith of Sir Arthur, as an
-    antiquary, was boundless, and Mr. Oldbuck (notwithstanding the affair of
-    the Praetorium 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 head-roll of one
-    hundred and four kings of Scotland, received by Boethius, and rendered
-    classical by Buchanan, 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 Oldbuck, 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 descendants of Banquo through the cavern of
-    Hecate.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Another tender topic was the good fame of Queen Mary, of which the knight
-    was a most chivalrous assertor, while the esquire impugned it, in spite
-    both of her beauty and misfortunes. When, unhappily, their conversation
-    turned on yet later times, motives of discord occurred in almost every
-    page of history. Oldbuck was, upon principle, a staunch Presbyterian, a
-    ruling elder of the kirk, and a friend to revolution principles and
-    Protestant 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    * The reader will understand that this refers to the reign of our late
-    gracious Sovereign, George the Third.
-</p>
-<p>
-    It therefore often 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 unlicensed freedom of debate,
-    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
-    little better than a fool, he was apt to come more near communicating to
-    him that unfavourable opinion, than the rules of modern politeness
-    warrant. In such cases they often parted in deep dudgeon, and with
-    something like a resolution to forbear each other's company in future:
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 pettishness resembled that of a
-    child, usually showed his superior sense by compassionately making the
-    first advances to reconciliation. But it once or twice happened that the
-    aristocratic pride of the far-descended knight took a flight too
-    offensive to the feelings of the representative of the typographer. In
-    these cases, the breach between these two originals might have been
-    immortal, but for the kind exertion and interposition of the Baronet'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 necessary 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    There existed another connection betwixt these worthies, 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, little <i>miffs</i> 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 stand-still or
-    throttling each other.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 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,&mdash;"A letter from Monkbarns, Sir Arthur."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur took the epistle with a due assumption of consequential
-    dignity.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Take the old man into the kitchen, and let him get some refreshment,"
-    said the young lady, whose compassionate eye had remarked his thin grey
-    hair and wearied gait.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mr. Oldbuck, my love, invites us to dinner on Tuesday the 17th," said
-    the Baronet, pausing;&mdash;"he really seems to forget that he has not of late
-    conducted himself so civilly towards me as might have been expected."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dear sir, you have so many advantages over poor Mr. Oldbuck, that no
-    wonder it should put him a little out of humour; but I know he has much
-    respect for your person and your conversation;&mdash;nothing would give him
-    more pain than to be wanting in any real attention."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "True, true, Isabella; and one must allow for the original
-		descent;&mdash;something of the German boorishness still flows in the blood; something
-    of the whiggish and perverse 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 pettifogging intimacy
-    with dates, names, and trifling matters of fact&mdash;a tiresome and frivolous
-    accuracy of memory, which is entirely owing to his mechanical descent."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He must find it convenient in historical investigation, I should think,
-    sir?" said the young lady.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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 tailor's 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 generations. I question if there's a dealer's clerk in Fairport
-    that can sum an account of interest better than Monkbarns."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But you'll accept his invitation, sir?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, ye&mdash;yes; we have no other engagement on hand, I think. Who can the
-    young man be he talks of?&mdash;he seldom picks up new acquaintance; and he
-    has no relation that I ever heard of."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Probably some relation of his brother-in-law Captain M'Intyre."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Very possibly&mdash;yes, we will accept&mdash;the M'Intyres are of a very ancient
-    Highland family. You may answer his card in the affirmative, Isabella; I
-    believe I have, no leisure to be <i>Dear Sirring</i> myself."
-</p>
-<p>
-    So this important matter being adjusted, Miss Wardour 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
-    <i>placebo</i> she concluded her note, with which old Caxon, now refreshed in
-    limbs and wind, set out on his return to the Antiquary's mansion.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0006"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER SIXTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                   <i>Moth.</i> By Woden, God of Saxons,
-            From whence comes Wensday, that is, Wodnesday,
-                   Truth is a thing that I will ever keep
-                   Unto thylke day in which I creep into
-                             My sepulcre&mdash;
-                             Cartwright's <i>Ordinary.</i>
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Our young friend Lovel, who had received a corresponding invitation,
-    punctual to the hour of appointment, arrived at Monkbarns about five
-    minutes before four o'clock on the 17th of July. The day had been
-    remarkably sultry, and large drops of rain had occasionally fallen,
-    though the threatened showers had as yet passed away.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Mr. Oldbuck received him at the Palmer's-port in his complete brown suit,
-    grey silk stockings, and wig powdered with all the skill of the veteran
-    Caxon, who having smelt out the dinner, had taken care not to finish his
-    job till the hour of eating approached.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You are welcome to my symposion, Mr. Lovel. And now let me introduce you
-    to my Clogdogdo's, as Tom Otter calls them&mdash;my unlucky and
-    good-for-nothing womankind&mdash;<i>malae bestiae,</i> Mr. Lovel."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I shall be disappointed, sir, if I do not find the ladies very
-    undeserving of your satire."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Tilley-valley, Mr. Lovel,&mdash;which, by the way, one commentator derives
-    from <i>tittivillitium,</i> and another from <i>talley-ho</i>&mdash;but tilley-valley,
-    I say&mdash;a truce with your politeness. You will find them but samples of
-    womankind&mdash;But here they be, Mr. Lovel. I present to you in due order, my
-    most discreet sister Griselda, who disdains the simplicity, as well as
-    patience annexed to the poor old name of Grizzel; and my most exquisite
-    niece Maria, whose mother was called Mary, and sometimes Molly."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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&mdash;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 <i>chevaux de frise,</i> and the lappets the banners.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 physiognomy
-    of Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, that Lovel, had they not appeared at once, like
-    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 unparalleled <i>tete,</i> 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 ruffles, and
-    being, folded saltire-ways 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 Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Her niece, the same whom Lovel had seen transiently during his first
-    visit, was a pretty young woman, genteelly dressed according to the
-    fashion of the day, with an air of <i>espieglerie</i> which became her very
-    well, and which was perhaps derived from the caustic humour peculiar to
-    her uncle's family, though softened by transmission.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Mr. Lovel paid his respects to both ladies, and was answered by the elder
-    with the prolonged courtesy of 1760, drawn from the righteous period,
-</p>
-<pre>
-                       When folks conceived a grace
-                       Of half an hour's space,
-                       And rejoiced in a Friday's capon,
-</pre>
-<p>
-    and by the younger with a modern reverence, which, like the festive
-    benediction of a modern divine, was of much shorter duration.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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 mustered 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-like, well seen, deeply read, and thoroughly grounded in all
-    the hidden mysteries of the green-room and stage, from the days of Davie
-    Lindsay down to those of Dibdin&mdash;he blushes again, which is a sign of
-    grace."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My brother," said Miss Griselda, addressing Lovel, "has a humorous way
-    of expressing himself, sir; nobody thinks anything of what Monkbarns
-    says&mdash;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 broiling
-		sun&mdash;would you take anything?&mdash;a glass of balm-wine?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 partake of
-    that deceitful beverage?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O fy, fy, brother!&mdash;Sir Arthur, did you ever hear the like?&mdash;he must
-    have everything his ain way, or he will invent such stories&mdash;But there
-    goes Jenny to ring the old bell to tell us that the dinner is ready."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Rigid in his economy, Mr. Oldbuck kept no male servant. This he disguised
-    under the pretext that the masculine 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&mdash;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 promote him to a glorious halbert, or even to the gallows?
-    And why does this girl, his full sister, Jenny Rintherout, move in the
-    same vocation with safe and noiseless step&mdash;shod, or unshod&mdash;soft as the
-    pace of a cat, and docile as a spaniel&mdash;Why? but because she is in her
-    vocation. Let them minister to us, Sir Arthur,&mdash;let them minister, I
-    say,&mdash;it's the only thing they are fit for. All ancient legislators, 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Miss Wardour protested loudly against this ungallant doctrine; but the
-    bell now rung for dinner.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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 Mahomet) had some hesitation about the mode of
-    summoning 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    With this discourse he led the way to his dining-parlour, which Lovel had
-    not yet seen;&mdash;it was wainscotted, and contained some curious paintings.
-    The dining-table was attended by Jenny; but an old superintendent, a sort
-    of female butler, stood by the sideboard, and underwent the burden of
-    bearing several reproofs from Mr. Oldbuck, and inuendos, not so much
-    marked, but not less cutting, from his sister.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 Oldbuck half threatened to throw the greasy
-    sea-fowl at the head of the negligent housekeeper, who acted as priestess
-    in presenting this odoriferous offering. But, by good-hap, she had been
-    most fortunate in the hotch-potch, which was unanimously pronounced to be
-    inimitable. "I knew we should succeed here," said Oldbuck exultingly,
-    "for Davie Dibble, the gardener (an old bachelor like myself), takes care
-    the rascally women do not dishonour our vegetables. And here is fish and
-    sauce, and crappit-heads&mdash;I acknowledge our womankind excel in that
-		dish&mdash;it procures them the pleasure of scolding, for half an hour at least,
-    twice a-week, with auld Maggy Mucklebackit, our fish-wife. The
-    chicken-pie, Mr. Lovel, is made after a recipe bequeathed to me by my
-    departed grandmother of happy memory&mdash;And if you will venture on a glass
-    of wine, you will find it worthy of one who professes the maxim of King
-    Alphonso of Castile,&mdash;Old wood to burn&mdash;old books to read&mdash;old wine to
-    drink&mdash;and old friends, Sir Arthur&mdash;ay, Mr. Lovel, and young friends too,
-    to converse with."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And what news do you bring us from Edinburgh, Monkbarns?" said Sir
-    Arthur; "how wags the world in Auld Reekie?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mad, Sir Arthur, mad&mdash;irretrievably frantic&mdash;far beyond dipping in the
-    sea, shaving the crown, or drinking hellebore. The worst sort of frenzy,
-    a military frenzy, hath possessed man, woman, and child."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And high time, I think," said Miss Wardour, "when we are threatened with
-    invasion from abroad and insurrection at home."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O, I did not doubt you would join the scarlet host against me&mdash;women,
-    like turkeys, are always subdued by a red rag&mdash;But what says Sir Arthur,
-    whose dreams are of standing armies and German oppression?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, I say, Mr. Oldbuck," replied the knight, "that so far as I am
-    capable of judging, we ought to resist <i>cum toto corpore regni</i>&mdash;as the
-    phrase is, unless I have altogether forgotten my Latin&mdash;an enemy who
-    comes to propose to us a Whiggish sort of government, a republican
-    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 constables 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 Willie Howie's Kilmarnock cowl covered more
-    sense than all the three wigs in the parish&mdash;I think it is easy to make
-    out that inuendo&mdash;But the rogue shall be taught better manners."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O no, my dear sir," exclaimed Miss Wardour, "not old Edie, that we have
-    known so long;&mdash;I assure you no constable shall have my good graces that
-    executes such a warrant."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, there it goes," said the Antiquary; "you, to be a staunch Tory, Sir
-    Arthur, have nourished a fine sprig of Whiggery in your bosom&mdash;Why, Miss
-    Wardour is alone sufficient to control a whole quarter-session&mdash;a
-    quarter-session? ay, a general assembly or convocation to boot&mdash;a
-    Boadicea she&mdash;an Amazon, a Zenobia."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And yet, with all my courage, Mr. Oldbuck, I am glad to hear our people
-    are getting under arms."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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 now-a-days
-    in the whole synod? Dost thou remember the Nurse's dream in that
-    exquisite work, which she recounts in such agony to Hubble Bubble?&mdash;When
-    she would have taken up a piece of broad-cloth 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 dragoon'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 madman; 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, 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 <i>tellings-off</i> at
-    the morning-drill. I was ill, and sent for a surgeon&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-               He came&mdash;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,&mdash;not to heal.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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&mdash;I detest a drum like a
-    quaker;&mdash;and they thunder and rattle out yonder upon the town's common,
-    so that every volley and roll goes to my very heart."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dear brother, dinna speak that gate o' the gentlemen volunteers&mdash;I am
-    sure they have a most becoming uniform&mdash;Weel I wot they have been wet to
-    the very skin twice last week&mdash;I met them marching in terribly doukit, an
-    mony a sair hoast was amang them&mdash;And the trouble they take, I am sure it
-    claims our gratitude."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And I am sure," said Miss M'Intyre, "that my uncle sent twenty guineas
-    to help out their equipments."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It was to buy liquorice and sugar-candy," said the cynic, "to encourage
-    the trade of the place, and to refresh the throats of the officers who
-    had bawled themselves hoarse in the service of their country."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Take care, Monkbarns! we shall set you down among the black-nebs by and
-    by."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No Sir Arthur&mdash;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&mdash;<i>Ni quito Rey, ni pongo Rey</i>&mdash;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 exciseman&mdash;But here comes the ewe-milk cheese
-    in good time; it is a better digestive than politics."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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,&mdash;the shadow of a shade.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I will stand by what Mr. Lovel says; he was born in the north of
-    England, and may know the very spot."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur thought it unlikely that so young a gentleman should have paid
-    much attention to matters of that sort.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am avised of the contrary," said Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "How say you, Mr. Lovel?&mdash;speak up for your own credit, man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel was obliged to confess himself in the ridiculous situation of one
-    alike ignorant of the subject of conversation and controversy which had
-    engaged the company for an hour.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Lord help the lad, his head has been wool-gathering!&mdash;I thought how it
-    would be when the womankind were admitted&mdash;no getting a word of sense out
-    of a young fellow for six hours after.&mdash;Why, man, there was once a people
-    called the Piks"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "More properly <i>Picts,</i>" interrupted the Baronet.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I say the <i>Pikar, Pihar, Piochtar, Piaghter,</i> or <i>Peughtar,</i>"
-    vociferated Oldbuck; "they spoke a Gothic dialect"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Genuine Celtic," again asseverated the knight.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Gothic! Gothic! I'll go to death upon it!" counter-asseverated the
-    squire.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, gentlemen," sad Lovel, "I conceive that is a dispute which may be
-    easily settled by philologists, if there are any remains of the
-    language."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There is but one word," said the Baronet, "but, in spite of Mr.
-    Oldbuck's pertinacity, it is decisive of the question."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes, in my favour," said Oldbuck: "Mr. Lovel, you shall be judge&mdash;I have
-    the learned Pinkerton on my side."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I, on mine, the indefatigable and erudite Chalmers."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Gordon comes into my opinion."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Sir Robert Sibbald holds mine."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Innes is with me!" vociferated Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Riston has no doubt!" shouted the Baronet.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Truly, gentlemen," said Lovel, "before you muster your forces and
-    overwhelm me with authorities, I should like to know the word in
-    dispute."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "<i>Benval</i>" said both the disputants at once.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Which signifies <i>caput valli,</i>" said Sir Arthur.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The head of the wall," echoed Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    There was a deep pause.&mdash;"It is rather a narrow foundation to build a
-    hypothesis upon," observed the arbiter.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not a whit, not a whit," said Oldbuck; "men fight best in a narrow
-		ring&mdash;an inch is as good as a mile for a home-thrust."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is decidedly Celtic," said the Baronet; "every hill in the Highlands
-    begins with <i>Ben.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But what say you to <i>Val,</i> Sir Arthur; is it not decidedly the Saxon
-    <i>wall?</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is the Roman <i>vallum,</i>" said Sir Arthur;&mdash;"the Picts borrowed that
-    part of the word."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No such thing; if they borrowed anything, it must have been your <i>Ben,</i>
-    which they might have from the neighbouring Britons of Strath Cluyd."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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, methinks, 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 poverty of the language which has
-    left such slight vestiges behind it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You are in an error," said Sir Arthur; "it was a copious language, and
-    they were a great and powerful people; built two steeples&mdash;one at
-    Brechin, one at Abernethy. The Pictish maidens of the blood-royal were
-    kept in Edinburgh Castle, thence called <i>Castrum Puellarum.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A childish legend," said Oldbuck, "invented to give consequence to
-    trumpery womankind. It was called the Maiden Castle, <i>quasi lucus a non
-    lucendo,</i> because it resisted every attack, and women never do."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There is a list of the Pictish kings," persisted Sir Arthur, "well
-    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 <i>Mac</i> prefixed&mdash;Mac, <i>id
-    est filius;</i>&mdash;what do you say to that, Mr. Oldbuck? There is Drust
-    Macmorachin, Trynel Maclachlin (first of that ancient clan, as it may be
-    judged), and Gormach Macdonald, Alpin Macmetegus, Drust Mactallargam"
-    (here he was interrupted by a fit of coughing)&mdash;"ugh, ugh, ugh&mdash;Golarge
-    Macchan&mdash;ugh, ugh&mdash;Macchanan&mdash;ugh&mdash;Macchananail, Kenneth&mdash;ugh&mdash;ugh&mdash;
-    Macferedith, Eachan Macfungus&mdash;and twenty more, decidedly Celtic names,
-    which I could repeat, if this damned cough would let me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Take a glass of wine, Sir Arthur, and drink down that bead-roll of
-    unbaptized jargon, that would choke the devil&mdash;why, that last fellow has
-    the only intelligible name you have repeated&mdash;they are all of the tribe
-    of Macfungus&mdash;mushroom monarchs every one of them; sprung up from the
-    fumes of conceit, folly, and falsehood, fermenting in the brains of some
-    mad Highland seannachie."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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 Melguin,
-    from the Chronicles of Loch Leven and St. 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 of God seventeen hundred and five, or six, I am not
-    precisely certain which&mdash;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?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Say?&mdash;why, I laugh at Harry Maule and his history," answered Oldbuck,
-    "and thereby comply with his request, of giving it entertainment
-    according to its merits."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Do not laugh at a better man than yourself," said Sir Arthur, somewhat
-    scornfully.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I do not conceive I do, Sir Arthur, in laughing either at him or his
-    history."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Henry Maule of Melgum was a gentleman, Mr. Oldbuck."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I presume he had no advantage of me in <i>that</i> particular," replied the
-    Antiquary, somewhat tartly.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Permit me, Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;he was a gentleman of high family, and ancient
-    descent, and therefore"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The descendant of a Westphalian printer should speak of him with
-    deference? Such may be your opinion, Sir Arthur&mdash;it is not mine. I
-    conceive that my descent from that painful and industrious typographer,
-    Wolfbrand Oldenbuck, who, in the month of December 1493, under the
-    patronage, as the colophon tells us, of Sebaldus Scheyter and Sebastian
-    Kammermaister, accomplished the printing of the great Chronicle of
-    Nuremberg&mdash;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 brawling, bullet-headed, iron-fisted,
-    old Gothic barons since the days of Crentheminachcryme&mdash;not one of whom,
-    I suppose, could write his own name."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If you mean the observation as a sneer at my ancestry," said the knight,
-    with an assumption of dignified superiority and composure, "I have the
-    pleasure to inform 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Which only serves to show that he was one of the earliest who set the
-    mean example of submitting to Edward I. What have, you to say for the
-    stainless loyalty of your family, Sir Arthur, after such a backsliding as
-    that?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In that you will do as you find most agreeable, Sir Arthur;&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mighty well&mdash;mighty well, Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;I wish you a good evening&mdash;Mr.
-    a&mdash;a&mdash;a&mdash;Shovel&mdash;I wish you a very good evening."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Out of the parlour door flounced the incensed Sir Arthur, as if the
-    spirit of the whole Round Table inflamed his single bosom, and traversed
-    with long strides the labyrinth of passages which conducted to the
-    drawing-room.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Did you ever hear such an old tup-headed ass?" said Oldbuck, briefly
-    apostrophizing Lovel. "But I must not let him go in this mad-like way
-    neither."
-</p>
-<p>
-    So saying, he pushed off after the retreating Baronet, 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'll
-    do yourself a mischief," roared the Antiquary; "<i>Qui ambulat in tenebris,
-    nescit quo vadit</i>&mdash;You'll tumble down the back-stair."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur had now got involved in darkness, of which the sedative effect
-    is well known to nurses and governesses 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
-    <i>locale,</i> got up with him as he had got his grasp upon the handle of the
-    drawing-room door.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Stay a minute, Sir Arthur," said Oldbuck, opposing his abrupt entrance;
-    "don't be quite so hasty, my good old friend. I was a little too rude
-    with you about Sir Gamelyn&mdash;why, he is an old acquaintance of mine, man,
-    and a favourite; he kept company with Bruce and Wallace&mdash;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&mdash;'twas right Scottish craft, my good knight&mdash;hundreds did it. Come,
-    come, forget and forgive&mdash;confess we have given the young fellow here a
-    right to think us two testy old fools."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Speak for yourself, Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck," said Sir Arthur with much
-    majesty.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A-well, a-well&mdash;a wilful man must have his way."
-</p>
-<p>
-    With that the door opened, and into the drawing-room marched the tall
-    gaunt form of Sir Arthur, followed by Lovel and Mr. Oldbuck, the
-    countenances of all the three a little discomposed.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur readily assented to this proposal, which suited the angry mood
-    in which he found himself; and having, agreeable 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 ceremonious leave
-    of the ladies, and a very dry one of Oldbuck&mdash;off he marched.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I think Sir Arthur has got the black dog on his back again," said Miss
-    Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Black dog!&mdash;black devil!&mdash;he's more absurd than womankind&mdash;What say you,
-    Lovel?&mdash;Why, the lad's gone too."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He took his leave, uncle, while Miss Wardour was putting on her things;
-    but I don't think you observed him."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The devil's in the people! This is all one gets by fussing 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!&mdash;O 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,&mdash;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,&mdash;"O Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia! well
-    hast thou spoken&mdash;No man should presume to say, This shall be a day of
-    happiness."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Oldbuck proceeded in his studies for the best part of an hour,
-    uninterrupted by the ladies, who each, in profound silence, pursued some
-    female employment. At length, a light and modest tap was heard at the
-    parlour door. "Is that you, Caxon?&mdash;come in, come in, man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 mysterious tone of voice, "I was wanting to speak to you, sir."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Come in then, you old fool, and say what you have got to say."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I'll maybe frighten the ladies," said the ex-friseur.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Frighten!" answered the Antiquary,&mdash;"what do you mean?&mdash;never mind the
-    ladies. Have you seen another ghaist at the Humlock-knowe?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, sir&mdash;it's no a ghaist this turn," replied Caxton;&mdash;"but I'm no easy
-    in my mind."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Did you ever hear of any body that was?" answered Oldbuck;&mdash;"what reason
-    has an old battered powder-puff like you to be easy in your mind, more
-    than all the rest of the world besides?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's no for mysell, sir; but it threatens an awfu' night; and Sir
-    Arthur, and Miss Wardour, poor thing"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, man, they must have met the carriage at the head of the loaning, or
-    thereabouts; they must be home long ago."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, sir; they didna gang the road by the turnpike to meet the carriage,
-    they gaed by the sands."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The word operated like electricity on Oldbuck. "The sands!" he exclaimed;
-    "impossible!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "An almanac! an almanac!" said Oldbuck, starting up in great alarm&mdash;"not
-    that bauble!" flinging away a little pocket almanac which his niece
-    offered him.&mdash;"Great God! my poor dear Miss Isabella!&mdash;Fetch me instantly
-    the Fairport Almanac."&mdash;It was brought, consulted, and added greatly to
-    his agitation. "I'll go myself&mdash;call the gardener and ploughman&mdash;bid them
-    bring ropes and ladders&mdash;bid them raise more help as they come
-		along&mdash;keep the top of the cliffs, and halloo down to them&mdash;I'll go myself."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What is the matter?" inquired Miss Oldbuck and Miss M'Intyre.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The tide!&mdash;the tide!" answered the alarmed Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Had not Jenny better&mdash;but no, I'll run myself," said the younger lady,
-    partaking in all her uncle's terrors&mdash;"I'll run myself to Saunders
-    Mucklebackit, and make him get out his boat."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Thank you, my dear, that's the wisest word that has been spoken
-		yet&mdash;Run! run!&mdash;To go by the sands!" seizing his hat and cane; "was there
-    ever such madness heard of!"
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0007"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER SEVENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                       &mdash;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.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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, according 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 opportunity to join
-    them. Miss Wardour immediately proposed to her father that they should
-    take another direction; 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.
-</p>
-<a name="image-0006"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/pa082.jpg" height="502" width="783"
-alt="Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur acquiesced willingly. "It would be unpleasant," 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 <i>cut</i> the
-    person you have associated with for a week, the instant you feel or
-    suppose yourself 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 Knockwinnock.
-</p>
-<p>
-    When this was arranged, and the emissary despatched, the knight and his
-    daughter left the high-road, and following 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;&mdash;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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    As Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour paced along, enjoying 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 without 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 accumulation of towering clouds through which he had travelled
-    the livelong day, and which now assembled on all sides, 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 gorgeous 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 tide rippled onward in waves of sparkling silver,
-    that imperceptibly, yet rapidly, gained upon the sand.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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
-    conversation. Following the windings of the beach, they passed one
-    projecting point of headland or 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 ship-masters. The crags which rose between 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 secured
-    by their dizzy height from the rapacity of man. Many of these wild
-    tribes, with the instinct which sends 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
-    twilight 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 lift 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Appalled by this sudden change of weather, Miss Wardour drew close to her
-    father, and held his arm fast. "I 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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, indicated a feeling that some
-    exertion was necessary to accomplish his consolatory prediction.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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;&mdash;and neither durst communicate
-    the apprehension which each began to entertain, that, 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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, Sir Arthur observed a human
-    figure on the beach advancing to meet them. "Thank God," he exclaimed,
-    "we shall get round Halket-head!&mdash;that person must have passed it;" thus
-    giving vent to the feeling of hope, though he had suppressed that of
-    apprehension.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Thank God, indeed!" echoed his daughter, half audibly, half internally,
-    as expressing the gratitude which she strongly felt.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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.&mdash;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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Turn back! turn back!" exclaimed the vagrant; "why did ye not turn when
-    I waved to you?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We thought," replied Sir Arthur, in great agitation, "we thought we
-    could get round Halket-head."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Halket-head!&mdash;the tide will be running on Halket-head by this time like
-    the Fall of Fyers!&mdash;it was a' I could do to get round it twenty minutes
-    since&mdash;it was coming in three feet abreast. We will maybe get back by
-    Bally-burgh Ness Point yet. The Lord help us!&mdash;it's our only chance. We
-    can but try."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My God, my child!"&mdash;"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 projection
-    of which formed the southern extremity of the bay.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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 risening e'en now? See, yonder's the Ratton's
-    Skerry&mdash;he aye held his neb abune the water in my day&mdash;but he's aneath it
-    now."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 like
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mak haste, mak haste, my bonny leddy," continued the old man&mdash;"mak
-    haste, and we may do yet! Take haud o' my arm&mdash;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&mdash;it's sma'
-    eneugh now&mdash;but, while I see as muckle black about it as the crown o' my
-    hat, I winna believe but we'll get round the Ballyburgh Ness, for a'
-    that's come and gane yet."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Isabella, in silence, accepted from the old man the assistance which Sir
-    Arthur was less able to afford 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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&mdash;a raging tide and an insurmountable
-    precipice&mdash;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 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 promontory, 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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&mdash;"My child! my child!&mdash;to die such a death!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My father! my dear father!" his daughter exclaimed, clinging to
-		him&mdash;"and you too, who have lost your own life in endeavouring to save
-    ours!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "That's not worth the counting," said the old man. "I hae lived to be
-    weary o' life; and here or yonder&mdash;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?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Good man," said Sir Arthur, "can you think of nothing?&mdash;of no
-		help?&mdash;I'll make you rich&mdash;I'll give you a farm&mdash;I'll"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Our riches will be soon equal," said the beggar, looking out upon the
-    strife of the waters&mdash;"they are sae already; for I hae nae land, and you
-    would give your fair bounds and barony for a square yard of rock that
-    would be dry for twal hours."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Yet even this fearful pause gave Isabella time to collect the powers of a
-    mind naturally strong and courageous, and which rallied itself at this
-    terrible juncture. "Must we yield life," 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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&mdash;"I was a bauld
-    craigsman," he said, "ance in my life, and mony a kittywake'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&mdash;and if I
-    had ane, my ee-sight, and my footstep, and my hand-grip, hae a' failed
-    mony a day sinsyne&mdash;And then, how could I save <i>you?</i> But there was a
-    path here ance, though maybe, if we could see it, ye would rather bide
-    where we are&mdash;His name be praised!" he ejaculated suddenly, "there's ane
-    coming down the crag e'en now!"&mdash;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:&mdash;"Ye're right!&mdash;ye're right!&mdash;that gate&mdash;that gate!&mdash;fasten the
-    rope weel round Crummies-horn, that's the muckle black stane&mdash;cast twa
-    plies round it&mdash;that's it!&mdash;now, weize yoursell a wee easel-ward&mdash;a wee
-    mair yet to that ither stane&mdash;we ca'd it the Cat's-lug&mdash;there used to be
-    the root o' an aik tree there&mdash;that will do!&mdash;canny now, lad&mdash;canny
-		now&mdash;tak tent and tak time&mdash;Lord bless ye, tak time&mdash;Vera weel!&mdash;Now ye maun
-    get to Bessy's apron, that's the muckle braid flat blue stane&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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&mdash;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
-    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.
-</p>
-<a name="image-0007"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/pa092.jpg" height="535" width="839"
-alt="The Rescue of Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<p>
-    The sense of reprieve from approaching and apparently 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
-    connected 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 succession the foot of
-    the precipice, overflowing the beach on which they so lately stood, flew
-    as high as their place of 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The lassie!&mdash;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!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 danger, and become almost instinctively known to each other,
-    they had established a mutual confidence.&mdash;"I'll climb up the cliff
-    again," said Lovel&mdash;"there's daylight enough left to see my footing; I'll
-    climb up, and call for more assistance."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Do so, do so, for Heaven's sake!" said Sir Arthur eagerly.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Are ye mad?" said the mendicant: "Francie o' Fowlsheugh, and he was the
-    best craigsman that ever speel'd heugh (mair by token, he brake his neck
-    upon the Dunbuy of Slaines), wodna hae ventured upon the Halket-head
-    craigs after sun-down&mdash;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&mdash;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
-    hoar and in this weather, in the youngest and yaldest of my strength&mdash;But
-    to venture up again&mdash;it's a mere and a clear tempting o' Providence."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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&mdash;I am sure I can do it with perfect safety. Stay here, my good friend, by
-    Sir Arthur and the young lady."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dell be in my feet then," answered the bedesman sturdily; "if ye gang,
-    I'll gang too; for between the twa o' us, we'll hae mair than wark eneugh
-    to get to the tap o' the heugh."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, no&mdash;stay you here and attend to Miss Wardour&mdash;you see Sir Arthur is
-    quite exhausted."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Stay yoursell then, and I'll gae," said the old man;&mdash;"let death spare
-    the green corn and take the ripe."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Stay both of you, I charge you," said Isabella, faintly; "I am well, and
-    can spend the night very well here&mdash;I feel quite refreshed." So saying,
-    her voice failed her&mdash;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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is impossible to leave them," said Lovel&mdash;"What is to be done?&mdash;Hark!
-    hark!&mdash;did I not hear a halloo?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The skreigh of a Tammie Norie," answered Ochiltree&mdash;"I ken the skirl
-    weel."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, by Heaven!" replied Lovel, "it was a human voice."
-</p>
-<p>
-    A distant hail was repeated, the sound plainly distinguishable among the
-    various elemental noises, and the clang of the sea-mews by which they
-    were surrounded. 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 conspicuous 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 twilight and increasing storm, they had made the persons who
-    apparently were traversing 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 answered, and their
-    courage confirmed, by the assurance that they were within hearing, if not
-    within reach, of friendly assistance.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0008"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER EIGHTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-              There is a cliff, whose high and bending head
-                 Looks fearfully on the confined deep;
-                 Bring me but to the very brim of it,
-              And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear.
-                                    King Lear.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The shout of human voices from above was soon augmented, and the gleam of
-    torches mingled with those lights of evening which still remained amidst
-    the darkness of the storm. Some attempt was made to hold communication
-    between the assistants above and the sufferers 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Haud a care, haud a care, Monkbarns!" cried Caxon, clinging to the
-    skirts of his patron, and withholding him from danger as far as his
-    strength permitted&mdash;"God's sake, haud a care!&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mind the peak there," cried Mucklebackit, an old fisherman and
-		smuggler&mdash;"mind the peak&mdash;Steenie, Steenie Wilks, bring up the tackle&mdash;I'se
-    warrant we'll sune heave them on board, Monkbarns, wad ye but stand out
-    o' the gate."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I see them," said Oldbuck&mdash;"I see them low down on that flat
-		stone&mdash;Hilli-hilloa, hilli-ho-a!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I see them mysell weel eneugh," said Mucklebackit; "they are sitting
-    down yonder like hoodie-craws in a mist; but d'yo think ye'll help them
-    wi' skirling that gate like an auld skart before a flaw o'
-		weather?&mdash;Steenie, lad, bring up the mast&mdash;Od, I'se hae them up as we used to
-    bouse up the kegs o' gin and brandy lang syne&mdash;Get up the pickaxe, make
-    a step for the mast&mdash;make the chair fast with the rattlin&mdash;haul taught
-    and belay!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The fishers had brought with them the mast of a boat, and as half of the
-    country fellows about had now appeared, 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 preparations
-    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 occupied,
-    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
-    committing a human being to the vacant atmosphere in such a slight means
-    of conveyance, there was the fearful 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 seaman had let down with the chair another
-    line, which, being attached to it, and held by the persons beneath, might
-    serve by way of <i>gy,</i> 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 beetling
-    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 imminent 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Let my father go first," exclaimed Isabella; "for God's sake, my
-    friends, place him first in safety!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It cannot be, Miss Wardour," said Lovel;&mdash;"your life must be first
-    secured&mdash;the rope which bears your weight may"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I will not listen to a reason so selfish!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But ye maun listen to it, my bonnie lassie," said Ochiltree, "for a' our
-    lives depend on it&mdash;besides, when ye get on the tap o' the heugh yonder,
-    ye can gie them a round guess o' what's ganging on in this Patmos o'
-    ours&mdash;and Sir Arthur's far by that, as I'm thinking."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Struck with the truth of this reasoning, she exclaimed, "True, most true;
-    I am ready and willing to undertake the first risk&mdash;What shall I say to
-    our friends above?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Just to look that their tackle does not graze on the face o' the crag,
-    and to let the chair down and draw it up hooly and fairly;&mdash;we will
-    halloo when we are ready."
-</p>
-<p>
-    With the sedulous attention of a parent to a child, Lovel bound Miss
-    Wardour with his handkerchief, neckcloth, 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?&mdash;what are ye doing?&mdash;She shall not be separated
-    from me&mdash;Isabel, stay with me, I command you!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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 unreasonable exclamations of the poor Baronet.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Farewell, my father!" murmured Isabella&mdash;"farewell, my&mdash;my friends!" and
-    shutting her eyes, as Edie's experience 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Canny now, lads, canny now!" exclaimed old Mucklebackit, who acted as
-    commodore; "swerve the yard a bit&mdash;Now&mdash;there! there she sits safe on dry
-    land."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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&mdash;ye'll no get out o'your night-cowl this
-    fortnight&mdash;and that will suit us unco ill.&mdash;Na, na&mdash;there's the chariot
-    down by; let twa o' the folk carry the young leddy there."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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.&mdash;Miss
-    Wardour, let me convey you to the chariot."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not for worlds till I see my father safe."
-</p>
-<p>
-    In a few distinct words, evincing how much her resolution had surmounted
-    even the mortal fear of so agitating a hazard, she explained the nature
-    of the situation beneath, and the wishes of Lovel and Ochiltree.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Right, right, that's right too&mdash;I should like to see the son of Sir
-    Gamelyn de Guardover on dry land myself&mdash;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"&mdash;(for the chair was again lowered, and Sir Arthur
-    made fast in it, without much consciousness on his own part)&mdash;"here a'
-    comes&mdash;Bowse away, my boys! canny wi' him&mdash;a pedigree of a hundred links
-    is hanging on a tenpenny tow&mdash;the whole barony of Knockwinnock depends on
-    three plies of hemp&mdash;<i>respice finem, respice funem</i>&mdash;look to your
-		end&mdash;look to a rope's end.&mdash;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&mdash;a fico for the phrase,&mdash;better <i>sus. per funem,</i> than <i>sus. per
-    coll.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What have we here?" said Oldbuck, as the vehicle once more
-		ascended&mdash;"what patched and weather-beaten matter is this?" Then as the torches
-    illumed the rough face and grey hairs of old Ochiltree,&mdash;"What! is it
-    thou?&mdash;Come, old Mocker, I must needs be friends with thee&mdash;but who the
-    devil makes up your party besides?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ane that's weel worth ony twa o' us, Monkbarns;&mdash;it's the young stranger
-    lad they ca' Lovel&mdash;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!&mdash;mind there's naebody below now to haud the gy&mdash;Hae a care o'
-    the Cat's-lug corner&mdash;bide weel aff Crummie's-horn!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Have a care indeed," echoed Oldbuck. "What! is it my <i>rara avis</i>&mdash;my
-    black swan&mdash;my phoenix of companions in a post-chaise?&mdash;take care of
-    him, Mucklebackit."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "As muckle care as if he were a graybeard o' brandy; and I canna take
-    mair if his hair were like John Harlowe's.&mdash;Yo ho, my hearts! bowse away
-    with him!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 like 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 agitated 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,&mdash;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 than he had that evening been exposed to. The beggar she
-    had already commanded to come to Knockwinnock that night. He made an
-    excuse.&mdash;"Then to-morrow let me see you."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The old man promised to obey. Oldbuck thrust something into his
-		hand&mdash;Ochiltree looked at it by the torchlight, and returned it&mdash;"Na, na! I
-    never tak gowd&mdash;besides, Monkbarns, ye wad maybe be rueing it the morn."
-    Then turning to the group of fishermen and peasants&mdash;"Now, sirs, wha will
-    gie me a supper and some clean pease-strae?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I," "and I," "and I," answered many a ready voice.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aweel, since sae it is, and I can only sleep in ae barn at ance, I'll
-    gae down with Saunders Mucklebackit&mdash;he has aye a soup o' something
-    comfortable about his begging&mdash;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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Oldbuck laid the band of strong possession on Lovel&mdash;"Deil a stride ye's
-    go to Fairport this night, young man&mdash;you must go home with me to
-    Monkbarns. Why, man, you have been a hero&mdash;a perfect Sir William Wallace,
-    by all accounts. Come, my good lad, take hold of my arm;&mdash;I am not a
-    prime support in such a wind&mdash;but Caxon shall help us out&mdash;Here, you old
-    idiot, come on the other side of me.&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have been pretty well accustomed to climbing, and I have long observed
-    fowlers practise that pass down the cliff."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I saw them from the verge of the precipice."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "From the verge!&mdash;umph&mdash;And what possessed you <i>dumosa pendere procul de
-    rupe?</i>&mdash;though <i>dumosa</i> is not the appropriate epithet&mdash;what the deil,
-    man, tempted ye to the verge of the craig?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why&mdash;I like to see the gathering and growling of a coming storm&mdash;or, in
-    your own classical language, Mr. Oldbuck, <i>suave mari magno</i>&mdash;and so
-    forth&mdash;but here we reach the turn to Fairport. I must wish you
-    good-night."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not a step, not a pace, not an inch, not a shathmont, as I may say,&mdash;the
-    meaning of which word has puzzled many that think themselves antiquaries.
-    I am clear we should read <i>salmon-length</i> for <i>shathmont's-length.</i> 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 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 productions of the water
-    were established as gauges of the extent of land.&mdash;Shathmont&mdash;salmont&mdash;you see the close alliance of the sounds; dropping out two <i>h</i>'s, and a
-    <i>t,</i> and assuming an <i>l,</i> makes the whole difference&mdash;I wish to heaven no
-    antiquarian derivation had demanded heavier concessions."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But, my dear sir, I really must go home&mdash;I am wet to the skin."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Shalt have my night-gown, man, and slippers, and catch the antiquarian
-    fever as men do the plague, by wearing infected garments. Nay, I know
-    what you would be at&mdash;you are afraid to put the old bachelor to charges.
-    But is there not the remains of that glorious chicken-pie&mdash;which, <i>meo
-    arbitrio,</i> is better cold than hot&mdash;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?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 companion had that
-    evening undergone agitation of mind which had harassed and wearied him
-    even more than his extraordinary exertions of body.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0009"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER NINTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-           "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.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    They reached the room in which they had dined, and were clamorously
-    welcomed by Miss Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Where's the younger womankind?" said the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed, brother, amang a' the steery, Maria wadna be guided by me she
-    set away to the Halket-craig-head&mdash;I wonder ye didna see her."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Eh!&mdash;what&mdash;what's that you say, sister?&mdash;did the girl go out in a night
-    like this to the Halket-head?&mdash;Good God! the misery of the night is not
-    ended yet!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But ye winna wait, Monkbarns&mdash;ye are so imperative and impatient"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Tittle-tattle, woman," said the impatient and agitated Antiquary, "where
-    is my dear Mary?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Just where ye suld be yoursell, Monkbarns&mdash;up-stairs, and in her warm
-    bed."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I could have sworn it," said Oldbuck laughing, but obviously much
-    relieved&mdash;"I could have sworn it;&mdash;the lazy monkey did not care if we
-    were all drowned together. Why did you say she went out?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But ye wadna wait to hear out my tale, Monkbarns&mdash;she gaed out, and she
-    came in again with the gardener sae sune as she saw that nane o' ye were
-    clodded ower the Craig, and that Miss Wardour was safe in the chariot;
-    she was hame a quarter of an hour syne, for it's now ganging ten&mdash;sair
-    droukit was she, puir thing, sae I e'en put a glass o' sherry in her
-    water-gruel."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Right, Grizel, right&mdash;let womankind alone for coddling each other. But
-    hear me, my venerable sister&mdash;start not at the word venerable; it implies
-    many praiseworthy qualities besides age; though that too is honourable,
-    albeit it is the last quality for which womankind would wish to be
-    honoured&mdash;But perpend my words: let Lovel and me have forthwith the
-    relics of the chicken-pie, and the reversion of the port."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The chicken-pie! the port!&mdash;ou dear! brother&mdash;there was but a wheen
-    banes, and scarce a drap o' the wine."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 disappearance of the viands on which he had reckoned with absolute
-    certainty. But his sister understood these looks of ire. "Ou dear!
-    Monkbarns, what's the use of making a wark?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I make no wark, as ye call it, woman."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But what's the use o' looking sae glum and glunch about a pickle
-		banes?&mdash;an ye will hae the truth, ye maun ken the minister came in, worthy
-		man&mdash;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 likely to gang
-    wi' ye a'&mdash;He said fine things on the duty of resignation to Providence's
-    will, worthy man! that did he."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Oldbuck replied, catching the same tone, "Worthy man!&mdash;he cared not how
-    soon Monkbarns had devolved on an heir-female, I've a notion;&mdash;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?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dear brother, how can you speak of sic frivolities, when you have had
-    sic an escape from the craig?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Better than my supper has had from the minister's <i>craig,</i> Grizzle&mdash;it's
-    all discussed, I suppose?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hout, Monkbarns, ye speak as if there was nae mair meat in the
-		house&mdash;wad ye not have had me offer the honest man some slight refreshment
-    after his walk frae the manse?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Oldbuck half-whistled, half-hummed, the end of the old Scottish ditty,
-</p>
-<pre>
-                 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!
-</pre>
-<p>
-    His sister hastened to silence his murmurs, by proposing some of the
-    relies 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 night-cap and
-    branched morning-gown of his host, Oldbuck, who pretended 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 Fairport early in the morning, to procure him a change of clothes.
-</p>
-<p>
-    This was the first intimation Miss Oldbuck had received 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
-    superincumbent 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Lord haud a care o' us!" exclaimed the astounded maiden.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What's the matter now, Grizel?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Wad ye but just speak a moment, Monkbarns?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Speak!&mdash;what should I speak about? I want to get to my bed&mdash;and this
-    poor young fellow&mdash;let a bed be made ready for him instantly."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A bed?&mdash;The Lord preserve us!" again ejaculated Grizel.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, what's the matter now?&mdash;are there not beds and rooms enough in the
-    house?&mdash;was it not an ancient <i>hospitium,</i> in which, I am warranted to
-    say, beds were nightly made down for a score of pilgrims?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O dear, Monkbarns! wha kens what they might do lang syne?&mdash;but in our
-    time&mdash;beds&mdash;ay, troth, there's beds enow sic as they are&mdash;and rooms enow
-    too&mdash;but ye ken yoursell the beds haena been sleepit in, Lord kens the
-    time, nor the rooms aired.&mdash;If I had kenn'd, Mary and me might hae gaen
-    down to the manse&mdash;Miss Beckie is aye fond to see us&mdash;(and sae is the
-    minister, brother)&mdash;But now, gude save us!"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Is there not the Green Room, Grizel?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth is there, and it is in decent order too, though naebody has
-    sleepit there since Dr. Heavysterne, and"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And what?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And what! I am sure ye ken yoursell what a night he had&mdash;ye wadna expose
-    the young gentleman to the like o' that, wad ye?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel interfered upon hearing this altercation, and protested he would
-    far rather walk home than put them to the least inconvenience&mdash;that the
-    exercise would be of service to him&mdash;that he knew the road perfectly, by
-    night or day, to Fairport&mdash;that the storm was abating, and so
-		forth&mdash;adding all that civility could suggest as an excuse for escaping from
-    a hospitality which seemed more inconvenient to his host than he could
-    possibly have anticipated. But the howling of the wind, and the 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&mdash;"Sit ye down, sit ye down, sit
-    ye down, man," he reiterated;&mdash;"an ye part so, I would I might never draw
-    a cork again, and here comes out one from a prime bottle of&mdash;strong
-		ale&mdash;right <i>anno domini</i>&mdash;none of your Wassia Quassia decoctions, but brewed
-    of Monkbarns barley&mdash;John of the Girnel never drew a better flagon to
-    entertain a wandering minstrel, or palmer, with the freshest news from
-    Palestine.&mdash;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, 'tis an adventure, man, to sleep in the Green Room at
-    Monkbarns.&mdash;Sister, pray see it got ready&mdash;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 half so heavy, should not encounter and break the spell."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What! a haunted apartment, I suppose?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "To be sure, to be sure&mdash;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
-    reality of a ghost in an old manor-house you ran the risk of being made a
-    ghost yourself, as Hamlet says.&mdash;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 court-yard, made you betake yourself to your
-    weapon, and if your trick of fence were not the better, would have
-    sticked you like a paddock, on his own baronial midden-stead. I once
-    narrowly escaped such an affray&mdash;but I humbled myself, and apologised to
-    Redcowl; for, even in my younger days, I was no friend to the
-    <i>monomachia,</i> or duel, and would rather walk with Sir Priest than with
-    Sir Knight&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here Miss Oldbuck re-entered, with a singularly sage expression of
-    countenance.&mdash;"Mr. Lovel's bed's ready, brother&mdash;clean sheets&mdash;weel
-		aired&mdash;a spunk of fire in the chimney&mdash;I am sure, Mr. Lovel," (addressing
-    him), "it's no for the trouble&mdash;and I hope you will have a good night's
-    rest&mdash;But"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You are resolved," said the Antiquary, "to do what you can to prevent
-    it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Me?&mdash;I am sure I have said naething, Monkbarns."
-</p>
-<p>
-"My dear madam," said Lovel, "allow me to ask you the meaning of your
-obliging anxiety on my account."
-</p>
-<p>
- "Ou, Monkbarns does not like to hear of it&mdash;but he kens himsell that the
-room has an ill name. It's weel minded that it was there auld Rab Tull
-the town-clerk was sleeping when he had that marvellous communication
-about the grand law-plea between us and the feuars at the Mussel-craig.
-&mdash;It had cost a hantle siller, Mr. Lovel; for law-pleas were no carried on
-without siller lang syne mair than they are now&mdash;and the Monkbarns of
-that day&mdash;our gudesire, Mr. Lovel, as I said before&mdash;was like to be
-waured afore the Session for want of a paper&mdash;Monkbarns there kens weel
-what paper it was, but I'se warrant he'll no help me out wi' my tale&mdash;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&mdash;in presence, as they ca't&mdash;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&mdash;so there was little time to
-come and gang on. He was but a doited snuffy body, Rab, as I've heard
-&mdash;but then he was the town-clerk of Fairport, and the Monkbarns heritors
-aye employed him on account of their connection wi' the burgh, ye ken."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Sister Grizel, this is abominable," interrupted Oldbuck; "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 detailing the
-    introduction to this single spectre.&mdash;Learn to be succinct in your
-    narrative.&mdash;Imitate the concise style of old Aubrey, an experienced
-    ghost-seer, who entered his memoranda on these subjects in a terse
-    business-like manner; <i>exempli gratia</i>&mdash;At Cirencester, 5th March, 1670,
-    was an apparition.&mdash;Being demanded whether good spirit or bad, made no
-    answer, but instantly disappeared with a curious perfume, and a melodious
-    twang'&mdash;<i>Vide</i> his Miscellanies, p. eighteen, as well as I can remember,
-    and near the middle of the page."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O, Monkbarns, man! do ye think everybody is as book-learned as
-    yoursell?&mdash;But ye like to gar folk look like fools&mdash;ye can do that to Sir
-    Arthur, and the minister his very sell."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nature has been beforehand with me, Grizel, in both these instances, and
-    in another which shall be nameless&mdash;but take a glass of ale, Grizel, and
-    proceed with your story, for it waxes late."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Jenny's just warming your bed, Monkbarns, and ye maun e'en wait till
-    she's done.&mdash;Weel, I was at the search that our gudesire, Monkbarns that
-    then was, made wi' auld Rab Tull's assistance;&mdash;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&mdash;we never were glass-breakers in
-    this house, Mr. Lovel, but the body had got sic a trick of sippling and
-    tippling wi' the bailies and deacons when they met (which was amaist ilka
-    night) concerning the common gude o' the burgh, that he couldna weel
-    sleep without it&mdash;But his punch he gat, and to bed he gaed; and in the
-    middle of the night he got a fearfu' wakening!&mdash;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, and out he lookit, fancying, puir man, it might hae been the
-		cat&mdash;But he saw&mdash;God hae a care o' us! it gars my flesh aye creep, though I
-    hae tauld the story twenty times&mdash;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&mdash;He had a beard
-    too, and whiskers turned upwards on his upper-lip, as lang as
-		baudrons'&mdash;and mony mair particulars there were that Rab Tull tauld o', but they are
-    forgotten now&mdash;it's an auld story. Aweel, Rab was a just-living man for a
-    country writer&mdash;and he was less feared than maybe might just hae been
-    expected; and he asked in the name o' goodness what the apparition
-    wanted&mdash;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
-		Glenlivat&mdash;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 Tull, wha was nae great scholar, was
-    clean overwhelmed. 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, <i>Carter, carter</i>&mdash;"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "<i>Carta,</i> you transformer of languages!" cried Oldbuck;&mdash;"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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Weel, weel, <i>carta</i> be it then, but they ca'd it <i>carter</i> that tell'd me
-    the story. It cried aye <i>carta,</i> if sae be that it was <i>carta,</i> and made
-    a sign to Rab to follow it. Rab Tull keepit a Highland heart, and banged
-    out o' bed, and till some of his readiest claes&mdash;and he did follow the
-    thing up stairs and down stairs to the place we ca' the high dow-cot&mdash;(a
-    sort of a little tower in the corner of the auld house, where there was a
-    Rickle o' useless boxes and trunks)&mdash;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 library table, and then disappeared like a fuff o' tobacco, leaving
-    Rab in a very pitiful condition."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "<i>Tenues secessit in auras,</i>" quoth Oldbuck. "Marry, sir, <i>mansit
-		odor</i>&mdash;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 seemed 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 Glengibber, 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&mdash;thirteen. It's
-    not worth while to repeat the witnesses' names."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I would rather," said Lovel with awakened curiosity, "I would rather
-    hear your opinion of the way in which the deed was discovered."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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.*
-</p>
-<p>
-    *Note D. Mr. Rutherford's dream.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 Oldenbuck, my
-    great-great-great-grandfather&mdash;it's a shame to the English language that,
-    we have not a less clumsy way of expressing a relationship of which we
-    have occasion to think and speak so frequently. He was a foreigner, 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 sufficient to constitute a white witch at least.
-    This superstitious old writer had heard all this, and probably believed
-    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&mdash;Add a <i>quantum sufficit</i> of
-    exaggeration, and you have a key to the whole mystery."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O brother! brother! but Dr. Heavysterne, brother&mdash;whose sleep was so
-    sore broken, that he declared he wadna pass another night in the Green
-    Room to get all Monkbarns, so that Mary and I were forced to yield our"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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
-    received tales of Mesmer, Shropfer, Cagliostro, and other modern
-    pretenders to the mystery of raising spirits, discovering hidden
-    treasure, and so forth, in exchange for your legends of the green
-    bedchamber;&mdash;and considering that the <i>Illustrissimus</i> 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
-    night-mare. But everything is now ready. Permit me to light you to your
-    apartment, Mr. Lovel&mdash;I am sure you have need of rest&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    So saying, the Antiquary took up a bedroom candlestick of massive silver
-    and antique form, which, he observed, 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 subject 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.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0010"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER TENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                 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,&mdash;
-                       Visions of long departed joys.
-                                        W. R. Spenser.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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. "I am seldom in
-    this apartment," he said, "and never without yielding to a melancholy
-    feeling&mdash;not, of course, on account of the childish nonsense that Grizel
-    was telling you, but owing to circumstances of an early and unhappy
-    attachment. It is at such moments as these, Mr. Lovel, that we feel the
-    changes of time. The same objects are before us&mdash;those inanimate things
-    which we have gazed on in wayward infancy and impetuous youth, in anxious
-    and scheming manhood&mdash;they are permanent and the same; but when we look
-    upon them in cold unfeeling old age, can we, changed in our temper, our
-    pursuits, our feelings&mdash;changed in our form, our limbs, and our
-    strength,&mdash;can we be ourselves called the same? or do we not rather look
-    back with a sort of wonder upon our former selves, as being separate and
-    distinct from what we now are? The philosopher who appealed from Philip
-    inflamed with wine to Philip in his hours of sobriety, 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
-    beautifully expressed in a poem which I have heard repeated:*
-</p>
-<p>
-    *Probably Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads had not as yet been published.
-</p>
-<pre>
-                   My eyes are dim with childish tears,
-                       My heart is idly stirred,
-                   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.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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."&mdash;So saying, he shook Lovel cordially by the hand, wished
-    him good-night, and took his leave.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The fire blazed cheerfully. Mrs. Grizel's attention had left some fresh
-    wood, should he choose to continue it, and the apartment had a
-    comfortable, though not a lively appearance. 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 brought with him as a
-    sample of the arts of the Continent. 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 grey-hounds, or stag-hounds, in the leash, or cheering
-    them upon the objects of their game. Others, with boar-spears, swords,
-    and old-fashioned 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 prolific 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 excellent poet, to be embroidered
-    in Gothic letters, on a sort of border which he had added to the
-    tapestry:-
-</p>
-<pre>
-              Lo! here be oakis grete, streight as a line,
-              Under the which the grass, so fresh of line,
-              Be'th newly sprung&mdash;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.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    And in another canton was the following similar legend:&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                  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 squirrels that ysate
-                    High on the trees and nuts ate.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have heard," muttered Lovel, as he took a cursory view of the room and
-    its furniture, "that ghosts often chose the best room in the mansion to
-    which they attached 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 reality of his own hopeless passion at present detached
-    him. For he now only felt emotions like those expressed in the lines,&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                 Ah! cruel maid, how hast thou changed
-                        The temper of my mind!
-                 My heart, by thee from all estranged,
-                        Becomes like thee unkind.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    He endeavoured to conjure up something like the feelings which would, at
-    another time, have been congenial 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 purpose to escape from it, would have alone occupied his
-    imagination exclusively. But with this were united recollections more
-    agitating if less painful,&mdash;her hair-breadth escape&mdash;the fortunate
-    assistance which he had been able to render her&mdash;Yet what was his
-    requital? She left the cliff while his fate was yet doubtful&mdash;while it
-    was uncertain whether her preserver had not lost the life which he had
-    exposed for her so freely. Surely gratitude, at least, called for some
-    little interest in his fate&mdash;But no&mdash;she could not be selfish or
-		unjust&mdash;it was no part of her nature. She only desired to shut the door against
-    hope, and, even in compassion to him, to extinguish a passion which she
-    could never return.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 inconsolable 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&mdash;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 sun-beam, and, long after he had laid
-    himself to rest, continued to prevent the repose which he greatly needed.
-    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 lion's mane," and resuming
-    those studies and that career of life 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, presuming
-    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 affords none fairer, has at least many as fair, and less
-    haughty than Miss Wardour. Tomorrow 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 sank
-    into slumber.
-</p>
-<p>
-    It is seldom that sleep, after such violent agitation, is either sound or
-    refreshing. Lovel's was disturbed by a thousand baseless and confused
-    visions. He was a bird&mdash;he was a fish&mdash;or he flew like the one, and swam
-    like the other,&mdash;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 cormorant. These agreeable imaginations were varied by all
-    the usual vagaries of a feverish dream;&mdash;the air refused to bear the
-    visionary, the water seemed to burn him&mdash;the rocks felt like down pillows
-    as he was dashed against them&mdash;whatever he undertook, failed in some
-    strange and unexpected manner&mdash;and whatever attracted his attention,
-    underwent, as he attempted to investigate it, some wild and wonderful
-    metamorphosis, while his mind continued all the while in some degree
-    conscious of the delusion, from which it in vain struggled to free itself
-    by awaking;&mdash;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 may be, a less
-    distinct outline. Or it is possible that his feverish agitation may have
-    assisted him in forming the vision.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 occasional flame which
-    the unconsumed remnants of the faggots sent forth, as, one by one, they
-    fell down upon the 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 summon
-    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&mdash;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&mdash;the
-    shouts of men, and the clatter of horses' hoofs, seemed at once to
-    surround him&mdash;while every group pursued, with all the fury of the chase,
-    the employment in which the artist had represented 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 head-gear 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 portray the first proprietor of Monkbarns, such as he had
-    been described to Lovel by his descendants in the course of the 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 office, 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 deliberately 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&mdash;Lovel
-    started, and became completely awake. The music, however, was still in
-    his ears, nor ceased till he could distinctly follow the measure of an
-    old Scottish tune.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 distinct
-    light into the apartment. He looked round upon the hangings,&mdash;but the
-    mixed groups of silken and worsted huntsmen were as stationary as
-    tenter-hooks could make them, and only trembled slightly as the early
-    breeze, which found its way through an open crevice of the latticed
-    window, glided along their surface. Lovel leapt out of bed, and, wrapping
-    himself in a morning-gown, that had been considerately laid by his
-    bedside, 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&mdash;it
-    was now nothing more than an air on the harpsichord, tolerably well
-    performed&mdash;such is the caprice of imagination as affecting the fine arts.
-    A female voice sung, with some taste and great simplicity, something
-    between a song and a hymn, in words to the following effect:&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                 "Why sitt'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&mdash;
-                    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.
-
-                "Redeem mine hours&mdash;the space is brief&mdash;
-                While in my glass the sand-grains shiver,
-                   And measureless thy joy or grief,
-                When Time and thou shalt part for ever!"
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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 offices
-    of a valet-de-chambre.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have brushed your coat, sir," said the old man, when he perceived
-    Lovel was awake; "the callant brought it frae 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'll 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel, who was by this time once more on his legs, declined the old man's
-    professional offices, but accompanied the refusal with such a douceur as
-    completely sweetened Caxon's mortification.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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&mdash;that is to say,
-    of his <i>whole</i> time&mdash;"it's a great pity, for he's a comely young
-    gentleman."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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'll be for your breakfast, I'se warrant?&mdash;hae, there's
-    a soup parritch for ye&mdash;it will set ye better tae be slaistering at them
-    and the lapper-milk than meddling wi' Mr. Lovel's head&mdash;ye wad spoil the
-    maist natural and beautifaest head o' hair in a' Fairport, baith burgh
-    and county."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0011"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER ELEVENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-            Sometimes he thinks that Heaven this pageant sent,
-               And ordered all the pageants as they went;
-             Sometimes that only 'twas wild Fancy's play,&mdash;
-               The loose and scattered relics of the day.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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 regaling himself, <i>more majorum,</i> with cold roast-beef, and
-    a glass of a sort of beverage called <i>mum</i>&mdash;a species of fat ale, brewed
-    from wheat and bitter herbs, of which the present generation only know
-    the name by its occurrence 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
-    <i>did</i> refrain, as he saw he should otherwise give great offence to his
-    host, who had the liquor annually prepared with peculiar care, according
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We canna compliment Mr. Lovel on his looks this morning, brother&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I certainly do still feel somewhat fatigued," said Lovel,
-    "notwithstanding the excellent accommodations with which your hospitality
-    so amply supplied me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ah, sir!" said Miss Oldbuck looking at him with a knowing smile, or what
-    was meant to be one, "ye'll not allow of ony inconvenience, out of
-    civility to us."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Really, madam," replied Lovel, "I had no disturbance; for I cannot term
-    such the music with which some kind fairy favoured me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I doubted Mary wad waken you wi' her skreighing; she dinna ken I had
-    left open a chink of your window, for, forbye the ghaist, the Green Room
-    disna vent weel in a high wind&mdash;But I am judging ye heard mair than
-    Mary's lilts yestreen. Weel, men are hardy creatures&mdash;they can gae
-    through wi' a' thing. I am sure, had I been to undergo ony thing of that
-    nature,&mdash;that's to say that's beyond nature&mdash;I would hae skreigh'd out at
-    once, and raised the house, be the consequence what liket&mdash;and, I dare
-    say, the minister wad hae done as mickle, and sae I hae tauld him,&mdash;I ken
-    naebody but my brother, Monkbarns himsell, wad gae through the like o't,
-    if, indeed, it binna you, Mr. Lovel."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A man of Mr. Oldbuck's learning, madam," answered the questioned party,
-    "would not be exposed to the inconvenience sustained by the Highland
-    gentleman you mentioned last night."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, ay&mdash;ye understand now where the difficulty lies. Language? he has
-    ways o' his ain wad banish a' thae sort o' worricows as far as the
-    hindermost parts of Gideon" (meaning possibly Midian), "as Mr.
-    Blattergowl says&mdash;only ane widna be uncivil to ane's forbear, though he
-    be a ghaist. I am sure I will try that receipt of yours, brother, that ye
-    showed me in a book, if onybody is to sleep in that room again, though I
-    think, in Christian charity, ye should rather fit up the
-		matted-room&mdash;it's a wee damp and dark, to be sure, but then we hae sae seldom
-    occasion for a spare bed."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, no, sister;&mdash;dampness and darkness are worse than spectres&mdash;ours are
-    spirits of light, and I would rather have you try the spell."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I will do that blythely, Monkbarns, an I had the ingredients, as my
-    cookery book ca's them&mdash;There was <i>vervain</i> and <i>dill</i>&mdash;I mind
-		that&mdash;Davie Dibble will ken about them, though, maybe, he'll gie them Latin
-    names&mdash;and Peppercorn, we hae walth o' them, for"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hypericon, thou foolish woman!" thundered Oldbuck; "d'ye suppose you're
-    making a haggis&mdash;or do you think that a spirit, though he be formed of
-    air, can be expelled by a receipt against wind?&mdash;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"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Auld woman, Monkbarns!" said Miss Oldbuck, roused something above her
-    usual submissive tone; "ye really are less than civil to me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not less than just, Grizel: however, I include in the same class many a
-    sounding name, from Jamblichus down to Aubrey, who have wasted their time
-    in devising imaginary remedies for non-existing diseases.&mdash;But I hope, my
-    young friend, that, charmed or uncharmed&mdash;secured by the potency of
-    Hypericon,
-</p>
-<pre>
-                      With vervain and with dill,
-                      That hinder witches of their will,
-</pre>
-<p>
-    or left disarmed and defenceless to the inroads of the invisible world,
-    you will give another night to the terrors of the haunted apartment, and
-    another day to your faithful and feal friends."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I heartily wish I could, but"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nay, but me no <i>buts</i>&mdash;I have set my heart upon it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am greatly obliged, my dear sir, but"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Look ye there, now&mdash;<i>but</i> again!&mdash;I hate <i>but;</i> I know no form of
-    expression in which he can appear, that is amiable, excepting as a <i>butt</i>
-    of sack. But is to me a more detestable combination of letters than <i>no</i>
-    itself.<i>No</i> is a surly, honest fellow&mdash;speaks his mind rough and round at
-    once. <i>But</i> is a sneaking, evasive, half-bred, exceptuous sort of a
-    conjunction, which comes to pull away the cup just when it is at your
-    lips&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                             &mdash;it does allay
-                The good precedent&mdash;fie upon <i>but yet!</i>
-                <i>But yet</i> is as a jailor to bring forth
-                         Some monstrous malefactor."
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "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
-		afraid&mdash;and I will, since you are good enough to wish it, take this opportunity
-    of spending another day here."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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&mdash;which will but be
-    barely civil, and then"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I beg pardon, my dear sir; but, perhaps, you had better adjourn your
-    visit till to-morrow&mdash;I am a stranger, you know."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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 antiquities&mdash;I am one of the old school,
-</p>
-<pre>
-  When courtiers galloped o'er four counties
-  The ball's fair partner to behold,
-  And humbly hope she caught no cold."
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "Why, if&mdash;if&mdash;if you thought it would be expected&mdash;but I believe I had
-    better stay."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nay, nay, my good friend, I am not so old-fashioned as to press you to
-    what is disagreeable, neither&mdash;it is sufficient that I see there is some
-    <i>remora,</i> some cause of delay, some mid impediment, which I have no title
-    to inquire into. Or you are still somewhat tired, perhaps;&mdash;I warrant I
-    find means to entertain your intellects without fatiguing your limbs&mdash;I
-    am no friend to violent exertion myself&mdash;a walk in the garden once a-day
-    is exercise, enough for any thinking being&mdash;none but a fool or a
-    fox-hunter would require more. Well, what shall we set about?&mdash;my Essay
-    on Castrametation&mdash;but I have that in <i>petto</i> for our afternoon
-		cordial;&mdash;or I will show you the controversy upon Ossian's Poems between
-    Mac-Cribb and me. I hold with the acute Orcadian&mdash;he with the defenders
-    of the authenticity;&mdash;the controversy began in smooth, oily, lady-like
-    terms, but is now waxing more sour and eager as we get on&mdash;it already
-    partakes somewhat of old Scaliger's style. I fear the rogue will get some
-    scent of that story of Ochiltree's&mdash;but at worst, I have a hard repartee
-    for him on the affair of the abstracted Antigonus&mdash;I will show you his
-    last epistle and the scroll of my answer&mdash;egad, it is a trimmer!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 <i>l'embarras des richesses;</i> in other words, the abundance
-    of his collection often prevented him from finding the article he sought
-    for. "Curse the papers!&mdash;I believe," said Oldbuck, as he shuffled them to
-    and fro&mdash;"I believe they make themselves wings like grasshoppers, and fly
-    away bodily&mdash;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&mdash;"Pr'ythee, undo this button," said he, as he
-    observed Lovel fumbling at the clasp. He did so,&mdash;the lid opened, and
-    discovered a thin quarto, curiously bound in black shagreen&mdash;"There, Mr.
-    Lovel&mdash;there is the work I mentioned to you last night&mdash;the rare quarto
-    of the Augsburg Confession, the foundation at once and the bulwark of the
-    Reformation drawn up by the learned and venerable Melancthon, 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 imprinted by the scarcely less venerable and praiseworthy Aldobrand
-    Oldenbuck, my happy progenitor, during the yet more tyrannical attempts
-    of Philip II. to suppress at once civil and religious liberty. Yes,
-		sir&mdash;for printing this work, that eminent man was expelled from his
-    ungrateful country, and driven to establish his household gods even here
-    at Monkbarns, among the ruins of papal superstition and
-		domination.&mdash;Look upon his venerable effigies, Mr. Lovel, and respect the honourable
-    occupation in which it presents him, as labouring personally at the
-    press for the diffusion of Christian and political knowledge.&mdash;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&mdash;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, fonts, forms, great and
-    small pica, been shivered to pieces around him&mdash;Read, I say, his
-		motto,&mdash;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&mdash;that is, skill, or prudence, in
-    availing ourselves of our natural talents and advantages, will compel
-    favour and patronage, even where it is withheld from prejudice or
-    ignorance."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And that," said Lovel, after a moment's thoughtful silence&mdash;"that, then,
-    is the meaning of these German words?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Unquestionably. You perceive the appropriate application to a
-    consciousness of inward worth, and of eminence in a useful and honourable
-    art.&mdash;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 romantic circumstance."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And what is that said to have been, my good sir?" inquired his young
-    friend.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, it rather encroaches on my respected predecessor's fame for
-    prudence and wisdom&mdash;<i>Sed semel insanivimus omnes</i>&mdash;everybody has played
-    the fool in their turn. It is said, my ancestor, during his
-    apprenticeship with the descendant of old Faust, whom popular tradition
-    hath sent to the devil under the name of Faustus, was attracted by a
-    paltry slip of womankind, his master's daughter, called Bertha&mdash;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 <i>hand-werker;</i>
-    for such was the custom 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 themselves for life. It was a
-    wise custom; for, as such travellers 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 Nuremburg, 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 <i>Yung-fraw</i>
-    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
-    would 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
-    <i>gentle</i> 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 sufficiently possessed of the mystery&mdash;But I tire you."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "By no means; pray, proceed, Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;I listen with uncommon
-    interest."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ah! it is all folly. However&mdash;Aldobrand arrived in the ordinary dress,
-    as we would say, of a journeyman printer&mdash;the same in which he had
-    traversed Germany, and conversed with Luther, Melancthon, Erasmus, 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 womankind, and Bertha refused to acknowledge
-    her former lover, in the torn doublet, skin cap, clouted shoes, and
-    leathern apron, of a travelling handicraftsman or mechanic. He claimed
-    his privilege, however, of being admitted 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
-    without 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&mdash;the blushing maiden
-    acknowledged her error in trusting to the eye more than the
-		intellect&mdash;and the elected bridegroom thenceforward chose for his impress or device
-    the appropriate words, <i>Skill wins favour.</i>'&mdash;But what is the matter with
-    you?&mdash;you are in a brown study! Come, I told you this was but trumpery
-    conversation for thinking people&mdash;and now I have my hand on the Ossianic
-    Controversy."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I beg your pardon," said Lovel; "I am going to appear very silly and
-    changeable in your eyes, Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;but you seemed to think Sir Arthur
-    might in civility expect a call from me?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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 honours good graces?&mdash;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 ever-green bower, my sacred holly-tree yonder, and have it <i>fronde
-    super viridi.</i>
-</p>
-<pre>
-               Sing heigh-ho! heigh-ho! for the green holly,
-         Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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&mdash;I quarrel with no man's hobby, if he does not run it a tilt against
-    mine, and if he does&mdash;let him beware his eyes. What say you?&mdash;in the
-    language of the world and worldlings base, if you can condescend to so
-    mean a sphere, shall we stay or go?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In the language of selfishness, then, which is of course the language of
-    the world&mdash;let us go by all means."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Amen, amen, quo' the Earl Marshall," answered Oldbuck, as he exchanged
-    his slippers for a pair of stout walking shoes, with <i>cutikins,</i> 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
-    bailiff of the abbey who had resided at Monkbarns. 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:&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                    Here 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.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "You see how modest the author of this sepulchral commendation was;&mdash;he
-    tells us that honest John could make five firlots, or quarters, as you
-    would say, out of the boll, instead of four,&mdash;that he gave the fifth to
-    the wives of the parish, and accounted for the other four to the abbot
-    and CHAPTER&mdash;that in his time the wives' hens always laid eggs&mdash;and devil
-    thank them, if they got one-fifth of the abbey rents; and that honest
-    men's hearths were never unblest with offspring&mdash;an addition to the
-    miracle, which they, as well as I, must have considered as perfectly
-    unaccountable. But come on&mdash;leave we Jock o' the Girnel, and let us jog
-    on 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 Scottish 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 increased 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&mdash;a bannock-fluke and a
-    cock-padle."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "How much for the bannock-fluke and cock-padle?" demanded the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Four white shillings and saxpence," answered the Naiad.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Four devils and six of their imps!" retorted the Antiquary; "do you
-    think I am mad, Maggie?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And div ye think," rejoined the virago, setting her arms akimbo, "that
-    my man and my sons are to gae to the sea in weather like yestreen and the
-    day&mdash;sic a sea as it's yet outby&mdash;and get naething for their fish, and be
-    misca'd into the bargain, Monkbarns? It's no fish ye're buying&mdash;it's
-    men's lives."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, Maggie, I'll bid you fair&mdash;I'll bid you a shilling for the fluke
-    and the cock-padle, or sixpence separately&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, well, you old beldam, carry your fish up to Monkbarns, and see
-    what my sister will give you for them."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, na, Monkbarns, deil a fit&mdash;I'll rather deal wi' yoursell; for though
-    you're near enough, yet Miss Grizel has an unco close grip&mdash;I'll gie ye
-    them" (in a softened tone) "for three-and-saxpence."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Eighteen-pence, or nothing!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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)&mdash;"Yell
-    no be for the fish then?"&mdash;(then louder, as she saw him moving
-		off)&mdash;"I'll gie ye them&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;and a half-a-dozen o' partans to make the
-    sauce, for three shillings and a dram."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Half-a-crown then, Maggie, and a dram."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aweel, your honour maun hae't your ain gate, nae doubt; but a dram's
-    worth siller now&mdash;the distilleries is no working."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And I hope they'll never work again in my time," said Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, ay&mdash;it's easy for your honour, and the like o' you gentle-folks to
-    say sae, that hae stouth and routh, and fire and fending and meat and
-    claith, and sit dry and canny by the fireside&mdash;but an ye wanted fire, and
-    meat, and dry claes, 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 eilding and claes, and a supper and heart's ease
-    into the bargain, till the morn's morning?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's even too true an apology, Maggie. Is your goodman off to sea this
-    morning, after his exertions last night?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, he's an industrious fellow. Carry the fish up to Monkbarns."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "That I will&mdash;or I'll send little Jenny, she'll rin faster; but I'll ca'
-    on Miss Grizzy for the dram mysell, and say ye sent me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 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 skin-flint,
-    though they sometimes wrangle with her for an hour together under my
-    study window, like three sea-gulls screaming and sputtering in a gale of
-    wind. But come, wend we on our way to Knockwinnock."
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0012"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER TWELFTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-              Beggar?&mdash;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,
-           Or constitute themselves, yet they are no rebels.
-                                            Brome.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    With our reader's 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Notwithstanding the fatigues and dangers of the preceding evening, Miss
-    Wardour was able to rise at her usual hour, and to apply herself to her
-    usual occupations, 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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, 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 feeling in my own bosom,
-    in spite of my sober reason, almost rejoice that he has attained it?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    While Miss Wardour thus taxed herself with wayward 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 melodrama of
-    the preceding evening.
-</p>
-<p>
-    She rang the bell for her maid-servant. "Bring the old man up stairs."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The servant returned in a minute or two&mdash;"He will come up at no rate,
-    madam;&mdash;he says his clouted shoes never were on a carpet in his life, and
-    that, please God, they never shall.&mdash;Must I take him into the servants'
-    hall?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No; stay, I want to speak with him&mdash;Where is he?" for she had lost sight
-    of him as he approached the house.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Sitting in the sun on the stone-bench in the court, beside the window of
-    the flagged parlour."
-</p>
-<a name="image-0008"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/pa146.jpg" height="785" width="540"
-alt="Eddie Ochiltree Visits Miss Wardour
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<p>
-    "Bid him stay there&mdash;I'll come down to the parlour, and speak with him at
-    the window."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 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 court-yard, 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 court-yard 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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    After Miss Wardour had offered, in the terms she thought would be most
-    acceptable, those thanks which the beggar declined 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 something that would make him easy for life; if he
-    chose to reside at the castle, she would give orders"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    The old man smiled, and shook his head. "I wad be baith a grievance and a
-    disgrace to your fine servants, my leddy, and I have never been a
-    disgrace to onybody yet, that I ken of."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Sir Arthur would give strict orders"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ye're very kind&mdash;I doubtna, I doubtna; but there are some things a
-    master can command, and some he canna&mdash;I daresay he wad gar them keep
-    hands aff me&mdash;(and troth, I think they wad hardly venture on that ony
-    gate)&mdash;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 forbear a' the
-    slights and taunts that hurt ane's spirit mair nor downright
-		misca'ing?&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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?"
-</p>
-<p>
-"And 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&mdash;but ye ken Sir Arthur
-has odd sort o' ways&mdash;and I wad be jesting or scorning at
-them&mdash;and ye wad be angry, and then I wad be just fit to hang
-mysell."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O, you are a licensed man," said Isabella; "we shall give you all
-    reasonable scope: So you had better be ruled, and remember your age."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But I am no that sair failed yet," replied the mendicant. "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 gudewives
-    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 public loss."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, Edie, if your idea of your importance is so strong as not to be
-    shaken by the prospect of independence"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, na, Miss&mdash;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&mdash;if it's refused at ae place, I get it at
-    anither&mdash;sae I canna be said to depend on onybody in particular, but just
-    on the country at large."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, na, my leddy: I downa take muckle siller at ance&mdash;it's against our
-    rule; and&mdash;though it's maybe no civil to be repeating the like o'
-		that&mdash;they say that siller's like to be scarce wi' Sir Arthur himsell, and
-    that he's run himsell out o' thought wi' his honkings and minings for
-    lead and copper yonder."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Isabella had some anxious anticipations to the same effect, but was
-    shocked to hear that her father's embarrassments 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.&mdash;Miss Wardour sighed deeply&mdash;"Well, Edie, we have enough
-    to pay our debts, let folks say what they will, and requiting you is one
-    of the foremost&mdash;let me press this sum upon you."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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?&mdash;I am
-    no"&mdash;(lowering his voice to a whisper, and looking keenly around him)&mdash;"I
-    am no that clean unprovided for neither; and though I should die at the
-    back of a dyke, they'll find as muckle quilted in this auld blue gown as
-    will bury me like a Christian, and gie the lads and lasses a blythe
-    lykewake too; sae there's the gaberlunzie's burial provided 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?&mdash;it wad flee
-    through the country like wildfire, that auld Edie suld hae done siccan a
-    like thing, and then, I'se warrant, I might grane my heart out or onybody
-    wad gie me either a bane or a bodle."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Is there nothing, then, that I can do for you?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ou ay&mdash;I'll aye come for my awmous as usual,&mdash;and whiles I wad be fain
-    o' a pickle sneeshin, and ye maun speak to the constable and
-    ground-officer just to owerlook me; and maybe ye'll gie a gude word for
-    me to Sandie Netherstanes, the miller, that he may chain up his muckle
-    dog&mdash;I wadna hae him to hurt the puir beast, for it just does its office
-    in barking at a gaberlunzie like me. And there's ae thing maybe
-		mair,&mdash;but ye'll think it's very bald o' the like o' me to speak o't."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What is it, Edie?&mdash;if it respects you it shall be done if it is in my
-    power."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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&mdash;but dinna ye sneer awa the lad Lovel, as ye did a while sinsyne on
-    the walk beneath the Briery-bank, 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 anything I could have done for you, that Sir Arthur and
-    you wan ower yestreen."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Miss Wardour remained for a moment or two in the situation in which she
-    had heard the old man's last extraordinary 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 determine 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 confidant, and at the mercy of
-    one who was by profession gossip-general to the whole neighbourhood, gave
-    her acute 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 speaking 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
-    officious assistance of Lovel and Ochiltree had been absent upon the
-    preceding evening.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 various scutcheons
-    of its former owners, seemed in the act of bestowing upon Lovel much
-    curious and erudite information, which, from the absent look of his
-    auditor, Isabella might shrewdly guess was entirely thrown away. The
-    necessity that she should take some resolution became instant and
-    pressing;&mdash;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.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0013"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                     &mdash;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&mdash;
-                But do not look for further recompense.
-                                        As You Like It.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Miss Isabella Wardour's complexion was considerably heightened, when,
-    after the delay necessary to arrange her ideas, she presented herself in
-    the drawing-room.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am glad you are come, my fair foe," said the Antiquary 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 acquainted with the history of Knockwinnock Castle. I think the
-    danger of last night has mazed the poor lad. But you, Miss Isabel,&mdash;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 <i>hospitium</i> yesterday. And Sir Arthur&mdash;how fares my good old
-    friend?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indifferently well, Mr. Oldbuck; but I am afraid, not quite able to
-    receive your congratulations, or to pay&mdash;to pay&mdash;Mr. Lovel his thanks for
-    his unparalleled exertions."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I dare say not&mdash;A good down pillow for his good white head were more
-    meet than a couch so churlish as Bessy's-apron, plague on her!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I had no thought of intruding," said Lovel, looking upon the ground, and
-    speaking with hesitation and suppressed emotion; "I did not&mdash;did not mean
-    to intrude upon Sir Arthur or Miss Wardour the presence of one who&mdash;who
-    must necessarily be unwelcome&mdash;as associated, I mean, with painful
-    reflections."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Do not think my father so unjust and ungrateful," said Miss Wardour. "I
-    dare say," she continued, participating in Lovel's embarrassment&mdash;"I dare
-    say&mdash;I am certain&mdash;that my father would be happy to show his
-		gratitude&mdash;in any way&mdash;that is, which Mr. Lovel could consider it as proper to
-    point out."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why the deuce," interrupted Oldbuck, "what sort of a qualification is
-    that?&mdash;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&mdash;I dare say Sir Arthur will
-    bid us welcome on some future day. And what news from the kingdom of
-    subterranean darkness and airy hope?&mdash;What says the swart spirit of the
-    mine? Has Sir Arthur had any good intelligence of his adventure lately in
-    Glen-Withershins?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Miss Wardour shook her head&mdash;"But indifferent, I fear, Mr. Oldbuck; but
-    there lie some specimens which have lately been sent down."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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&mdash;But let me see them."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And so saying, he sat down at the table in the recess, on which the
-    mineral productions were lying, and proceeded to examine them, grumbling
-    and pshawing at each which he took up and laid aside.
-</p>
-<p>
-    In the meantime, Lovel, forced as it were by this secession of Oldbuck,
-    into a sort of tete-a'-tete with Miss Wardour, 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 intrusion
-    of a person who has reason to think himself&mdash;so unacceptable a visitor."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mr. Lovel," answered Miss Wardour, observing the same tone of caution,
-    "I trust you will not&mdash;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&mdash;could he see
-    me as a friend&mdash;as a sister&mdash;no man will be&mdash;and, from all I have ever
-    heard of Mr. Lovel, ought to be, more welcome but"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    Oldbuck's anathema against the preposition <i>but</i> 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;&mdash;but do not add to the severity of repelling my sentiments the rigour of
-    obliging me to disavow them."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am much embarrassed, Mr. Lovel," replied the young lady, "by your&mdash;I
-    would not willingly use a strong word&mdash;your romantic and hopeless
-    pertinacity. It is for yourself I plead, that you would consider the
-    calls which your country has upon your talents&mdash;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 distinction. Let me entreat that you would form a manly
-    resolution"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is enough, Miss Wardour;&mdash;I see plainly that"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mr. Lovel, you are hurt&mdash;and, believe me, I sympathize 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"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, Miss Wardour," answered Lovel, in a tone of passionate entreaty; "do
-    not go farther&mdash;is it not enough to crush every hope in our present
-    relative situation?&mdash;do not carry your resolutions farther&mdash;why urge what
-    would be your conduct if Sir Arthur's objections could be removed?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, Miss Wardour, your wishes shall be obeyed;&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not so, Mr. Lovel; many years of deserved happiness, founded on a more
-    rational basis than your present wishes, are, I trust, before, you. But
-    it is full time, to finish this conversation. I cannot force you to adopt
-    my advice&mdash;I cannot shut the door of my father's house against the
-    preserver of his life 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&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    A servant at this moment announced that Sir Arthur desired to speak to
-    Mr. Oldbuck in his dressing-room.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Let me show you the way," said Miss Wardour, who apparently dreaded a
-    continuation of her tete-a-tete with Lovel, and she conducted the
-    Antiquary accordingly to her father's apartment.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur, his legs swathed in flannel, was stretched on the couch.
-    "Welcome, Mr. Oldbuck," he said; "I trust you have come better off than
-    I have done from the inclemency of yesterday evening?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Truly, Sir Arthur, I was not so much exposed to it&mdash;I kept <i>terra
-    firma</i>&mdash;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,&mdash;to rise on the wings of the night-wind&mdash;to dive
-    into the bowels of the earth. What news from our subterranean Good
-		Hope!&mdash;the <i>terra incognita</i> of Glen-Withershins?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nothing good as yet," said the Baronet, turning himself hastily, as if
-    stung by a pang of the gout; "but Dousterswivel does not despair."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Does he not?" quoth Oldbuck; "I do though, under his favour. Why, old
-    Dr. H&mdash;n* 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&mdash;and I cannot see that those samples on the table
-    below differ much in quality."
-</p>
-<p>
-    * Probably Dr. Hutton, the celebrated geologist.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The learned doctor is not infallible, I presume?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No; but he is one of our first chemists; and this tramping philosopher
-    of yours&mdash;this Dousterswivel&mdash;is, I have a notion, one, of those learned
-    adventurers described by Kirchner, <i>Artem habent sine arte, partem sine
-    parte, quorum medium est mentiri, vita eorum mendicatum ire;</i> that is to
-    say, Miss Wardour"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is unnecessary to translate," said Miss Wardour&mdash;"I comprehend your
-    general meaning; but I hope Mr. Dousterswivel will turn out a more
-    trustworthy character."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I doubt it not a little," said the Antiquary,&mdash;"and we are a foul way
-    out if we cannot discover this infernal vein that he has prophesied about
-    these two years."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "<i>You</i> have no great interest in the matter, Mr. Oldbuck," said the
-    Baronet.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 likely to be the termination
-    of the adventure. "I understand," he at length said, "that the young
-    gentleman, to whose gallantry and presence of mind we were so much
-    indebted last night, has favoured me with a visit&mdash;I am distressed that I
-    am unable to see him, or indeed any one, but an old friend like you, Mr.
-    Oldbuck."
-</p>
-<p>
-    A declination of the Antiquary's stiff backbone acknowledged the
-    preference.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You made acquaintance with this young gentleman in Edinburgh, I
-    suppose?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Oldbuck told the circumstances of their becoming known to each other.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, then, my daughter is an older acquaintance, of Mr. Lovel than you
-    are," said the Baronet.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed! I was not aware of that," answered Oldbuck somewhat surprised.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I met Mr. Lovel," said Isabella, slightly colouring, "when I resided
-    this last spring with my aunt, Mrs. Wilmot."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In Yorkshire?&mdash;and what character did he bear then, or how was he
-    engaged?" said Oldbuck,&mdash;"and why did not you recognise him when I
-    introduced you?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Isabella answered the least difficult question, and passed over the
-    other&mdash;"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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And pray, such being the case," replied the Antiquary, 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 had
-    less of the paltry pride of womankind about you, Miss Wardour."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There was a reason for it," said Sir Arthur with dignity; "you know the
-    opinions&mdash;prejudices, perhaps you will call them&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "True," said the Baronet, with complacency&mdash;"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 <i>Misbegot.</i> He is denominated, in the
-    Latin pedigree of our family, <i>Milcolumbus Nothus;</i> and his temporary
-    seizure of our property, and most unjust attempt to establish his own
-    illegitimate line 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I know the story," said Oldbuck, "and I was telling it to Lovel this
-    moment, with some of the wise maxims and consequences which it has
-    engrafted on your family 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 an excess of feeling. I
-    hope, Sir Arthur, you will not think the less of your life because it has
-    been preserved by such assistance?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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 lineage."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Come, I am glad of that&mdash;he'll 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&mdash;or, indeed, whether he does or
-    not&mdash;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 compliments, and remained in attendance on her father,
-    and then, taking him by the arm, he led him out of the castle.
-</p>
-<p>
-    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 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,&mdash;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 returning along the sands. The
-    building flung its broad 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 chameleon 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 <i>cito
-    peritura!</i> 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&mdash;and it wrings my heart to say it&mdash;this ancient family is
-    going fast to the ground!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed!" answered Lovel&mdash;"you surprise me greatly."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We harden ourselves in vain," continued the Antiquary, pursuing his own
-    train of thought and feeling&mdash;"we harden ourselves in vain to treat with
-    the indifference they deserve, the changes of this trumpery whirligig
-    world. We strive ineffectually to be the self-sufficing invulnerable
-    being, the <i>teres atque rotundus</i> of the poet;&mdash;the stoical exemption
-    which philosophy affects to give us over the pains and vexations of human
-    life, is as imaginary as the state of mystical quietism and perfection
-    aimed at by some crazy enthusiasts."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And Heaven forbid that it should be otherwise!" said Lovel,
-		warmly&mdash;"Heaven forbid that any process of philosophy were capable so to sear
-    and indurate our feelings, that nothing should agitate them but what
-    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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Antiquary regarded his youthful companion with a look half of pity,
-    half of sympathy, and shrugged up his shoulders as he replied&mdash;"Wait,
-    young man&mdash;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;&mdash;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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, Mr. Oldbuck, it may be so;&mdash;but as yet I resemble 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "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 landlouper, Dousterswivel"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I think I have seen that person, when, by some rare chance, I happened
-    to be in the coffee-room at Fairport;&mdash;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&mdash;was very
-    arbitrary in laying down and asserting his opinions, and mixed the terms
-    of science with a strange jargon of mysticism. A simple youth whispered
-    me that he was an <i>Illumine',</i> and carried on an intercourse with the
-    invisible world."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O, the same&mdash;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 charlatan&mdash;talks of the <i>magisterium</i>&mdash;of sympathies
-    and antipathies&mdash;of the cabala&mdash;of the divining-rod&mdash;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 caliph for a day, as Honest Abon
-    Hassan wished to be, I would scourge me these jugglers out of the
-    commonwealth 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 honourable family!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But how could he impose upon Sir Arthur to any ruinous extent?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, I don't know. Sir Arthur is a good honourable gentleman; but, as
-    you may see from his loose ideas concerning the Pikish language, he is by
-    no means very strong in the understanding. His estate is strictly
-    entailed, 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&mdash;I fear on Sir Arthur's guarantee. Some
-    gentlemen&mdash;I was ass enough to be one&mdash;took small shares in the concern,
-    and Sir Arthur himself made great outlay; we were trained on by specious
-    appearances and more specious lies; and now, like John Bunyan, we awake,
-    and behold it is a dream!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am surprised that you, Mr. Oldbuck, should have encouraged Sir Arthur
-    by your example."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why," said Oldbuck, dropping his large grizzled eyebrow, "I am something
-    surprised and ashamed at it myself; it was not the lucre of gain&mdash;nobody
-    cares less for money (to be a prudent man) than I do&mdash;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 perhaps
-    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&mdash;n
-    him) of appearances of old shafts, and vestiges of mining operations,
-    conducted in a manner quite different from those of modern times; and
-    I&mdash;in short, I was a fool, and there is an end. My loss is not much worth
-    speaking about; 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."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here the conversation paused, until renewed in the next CHAPTER.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0014"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-              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 unaccustomed spirit
-              Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
-                                    Romeo and Juliet.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    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?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He had had the pleasure," Lovel answered, "to see her at Mrs. Wilmot's,
-    in Yorkshire."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed! you never mentioned that to me before, and you did not accost
-    her as an old acquaintance."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I&mdash;I did not know," said Lovel, a good deal embarrassed, "it was the
-    same lady, till we met; and then it was my duty to wait till she should
-    recognise me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am aware of your delicacy: the knight's a punctilious 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?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What if I should answer your question by another," replied Lovel, "and
-    ask you what is your opinion of dreams?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Of dreams, you foolish lad!&mdash;why, what should I think of them but as the
-    deceptions of imagination when reason drops the reins? I know no
-    difference betwixt them and the hallucinations of madness&mdash;the unguided
-    horses run away with the carriage in both cases, only in the one the
-    coachman is drunk, and in the other he slumbers. What says our Marcus
-    Tullius&mdash;<i>Si insanorum visis fides non est habenda, cur credatur
-    somnientium visis, quae multo etiam perturbatiora sunt, non intelligo.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes, sir; but Cicero also tells us, that as he who passes the whole day
-    in darting the javelin must sometimes hit the mark, so, amid the cloud of
-    nightly dreams, some may occur consonant to future events."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay&mdash;that is to say, <i>you</i> have hit the mark in your own sage opinion?
-    Lord! Lord! how this world is given to folly! Well, I will allow for once
-    the Oneirocritical science&mdash;I will give faith to the exposition of
-    dreams, and say a Daniel hath arisen to interpret them, if you can prove
-    to me that that dream of yours has pointed to a prudent line of conduct."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Tell me, then," answered Lovel, "why when I was hesitating whether to
-    abandon an enterprise, which I have perhaps rashly undertaken, I should
-    last night dream I saw your ancestor pointing to a motto which encouraged
-    me to perseverance?&mdash;why should I have thought of those words which I
-    cannot remember to have heard before, which are in a language unknown to
-    me, and which yet conveyed, when translated, a lesson which I could so
-    plainly apply to my own circumstances?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Antiquary burst into a fit of laughing. "Excuse me, my young
-		friend&mdash;but it is thus we silly mortals deceive ourselves, and look out of doors
-    for motives which originate in our own wilful will. I think I can help
-    out the cause of your vision. You were so abstracted in your
-    contemplations yesterday after dinner, as to pay little attention to the
-    discourse between Sir Arthur and me, until we fell upon the controversy
-    concerning the Piks, which terminated so abruptly;&mdash;but I remember
-    producing to Sir Arthur a book printed by my ancestor, and making him
-    observe the motto; your mind was bent elsewhere, but your ear had
-    mechanically received and retained the sounds, and your busy fancy,
-    stirred by Grizel's legend I presume, had introduced this scrap of German
-    into your dream. As for the waking wisdom which seized on so frivolous a
-    circumstance as an apology for persevering in some course which it could
-    find no better reason to justify, it is exactly one of those juggling
-    tricks which the sagest of us play off now and then, to gratify our
-    inclination at the expense of our understanding."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I own it," said Lovel, blushing deeply;&mdash;"I believe you are right, Mr.
-    Oldbuck, and I ought to sink in your esteem for attaching a moment's
-    consequence to such a frivolity;&mdash;but I was tossed by contradictory
-    wishes and resolutions, and you know how slight a line will tow a boat
-    when afloat on the billows, though a cable would hardly move her when
-    pulled up on the beach."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Right, right," exclaimed the Antiquary. "Fall in my opinion!&mdash;not a
-    whit&mdash;I love thee the better, man;&mdash;why, we have story for story against
-    each other, and I can think with less shame on having exposed myself
-    about that cursed Praetorium&mdash;though I am still convinced Agricola's camp
-    must have been somewhere in this neighbourhood. And now, Lovel, my good
-    lad, be sincere with me&mdash;What make you from Wittenberg?&mdash;why have you
-    left your own country and professional pursuits, for an idle residence in
-    such a place as Fairport? A truant disposition, I fear."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Even so," replied Lovel, patiently submitting to an interrogatory which
-    he could not well evade. "Yet I am so detached from all the world, have
-    so few in whom I am interested, or who are interested in me, that my very
-    state of destitution gives me independence. He whose good or evil fortune
-    affects himself alone, has the best right to pursue it according to his
-    own fancy."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Pardon me, young man," said Oldbuck, laying his hand kindly on his
-    shoulder, and making a full halt&mdash;"<i>sufflamina</i>&mdash;a little patience, if
-    you please. I will suppose that you have no friends to share or rejoice
-    in your success in life&mdash;that you cannot look back to those to whom you
-    owe gratitude, or forward to those to whom you ought to afford
-    protection; but it is no less incumbent on you to move steadily in the
-    path of duty&mdash;for your active exertions are due not only to society, but
-    in humble gratitude to the Being who made you a member of it, with powers
-    to serve yourself and others."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But I am unconscious of possessing such powers," said Lovel, somewhat
-    impatiently. "I ask nothing of society but the permission of walking
-    innoxiously through the path of life, without jostling others, or
-    permitting myself to be jostled. I owe no man anything&mdash;I have the means
-    of maintaining, myself with complete independence; and so moderate are my
-    wishes in this respect, that even these means, however limited, rather
-    exceed than fall short of them."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nay, then," said Oldbuck, removing his hand, and turning again to the
-    road, "if you are so true a philosopher as to think you have money
-    enough, there's no more to be said&mdash;I cannot pretend to be entitled to
-    advise you;&mdash;you have attained the <i>acme'</i>&mdash;the summit of perfection. And
-    how came Fairport to be the selected abode of so much self-denying
-    philosophy? It is as if a worshipper of the true religion had set up his
-    staff by choice among the multifarious idolaters of the land of Egypt.
-    There is not a man in Fairport who is not a devoted worshipper of the
-    Golden Calf&mdash;the mammon of unrighteousness. Why, even I, man, am so
-    infected by the bad neighbourhood, that I feel inclined occasionally to
-    become an idolater myself."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My principal amusements being literary," answered Lovel, "and
-    circumstances which I cannot mention having induced me, for a time at
-    least, to relinquish the military service, I have pitched on Fairport as
-    a place where I might follow my pursuits without any of those temptations
-    to society which a more elegant circle might have presented to me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aha!" replied Oldbuck, knowingly,&mdash;"I begin to understand your
-    application of my ancestor's motto. You are a candidate for public
-    favour, though not in the way I first suspected,&mdash;you are ambitious to
-    shine as a literary character, and you hope to merit favour by labour and
-    perseverance?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel, who was rather closely pressed by the inquisitiveness of the old
-    gentleman, concluded it would be best to let him remain in the error
-    which he had gratuitously adopted.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have been at times foolish enough," he replied, "to nourish some
-    thoughts of the kind."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ah, poor fellow! nothing can be more melancholy; unless, as young men
-    sometimes do, you had fancied yourself in love with some trumpery
-    specimen of womankind, which is indeed, as Shakspeare truly says,
-    pressing to death, whipping, and hanging all at once."
-</p>
-<p>
-    He then proceeded with inquiries, which he was sometimes kind enough to
-    answer himself. For this good old gentleman had, from his antiquarian
-    researches, acquired a delight in building theories out of premises which
-    were often far from affording sufficient ground for them; and being, as
-    the reader must have remarked, sufficiently opinionative, he did not
-    readily brook being corrected, either in matter of fact or judgment, even
-    by those who were principally interested in the subjects on which he
-    speculated. He went on, therefore, chalking out Lovel's literary career
-    for him.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And with what do you propose to commence your debut as a man of
-    letters?&mdash;But I guess&mdash;poetry&mdash;poetry&mdash;the soft seducer of youth. Yes!
-    there is an acknowledging modesty of confusion in your eye and manner.
-    And where lies your vein?&mdash;are you inclined to soar to the higher
-    regions of Parnassus, or to flutter around the base of the hill?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have hitherto attempted only a few lyrical pieces," said Lovel.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Just as I supposed&mdash;pruning your wing, and hopping from spray to spray.
-    But I trust you intend a bolder flight. Observe, I would by no means
-    recommend your persevering in this unprofitable pursuit&mdash;but you say you
-    are quite independent of the public caprice?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Entirely so," replied Lovel.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And that you are determined not to adopt a more active course of life?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "For the present, such is my resolution," replied the young man.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, then, it only remains for me to give you my best advice and
-    assistance in the object of your pursuit. I have myself published two
-    essays in the Antiquarian Repository,&mdash;and therefore am an author of
-    experience, There was my Remarks on Hearne's edition of Robert of
-    Gloucester, signed <i>Scrutator;</i> and the other signed <i>Indagator,</i> upon a
-    passage in Tacitus. I might add, what attracted considerable notice at
-    the time, and that is my paper in the Gentleman's Magazine, upon the
-    inscription of OElia Lelia, which I subscribed <i>OEdipus.</i> So you see I am
-    not an apprentice in the mysteries of author-craft, and must necessarily
-    understand the taste and temper of the times. And now, once more, what do
-    you intend to commence with?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have no instant thoughts of publishing."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ah! that will never do; you must have the fear of the public before your
-    eyes in all your undertakings. Let us see now: A collection of fugitive
-    pieces; but no&mdash;your fugitive poetry is apt to become stationary with the
-    bookseller. It should be something at once solid and attractive&mdash;none of
-    your romances or anomalous novelties&mdash;I would have you take high ground
-    at once. Let me see: What think you of a real epic?&mdash;the grand
-    old-fashioned historical poem which moved through twelve or twenty-four
-    books. We'll have it so&mdash;I'll supply you with a subject&mdash;The battle
-    between the Caledonians and Romans&mdash;The Caledoniad; or, Invasion
-    Repelled;&mdash;let that be the title&mdash;it will suit the present taste, and you
-    may throw in a touch of the times."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But the invasion of Agricola was <i>not</i> repelled."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No; but you are a poet&mdash;free of the corporation, and as little bound
-    down to truth or probability as Virgil himself&mdash;You may defeat the Romans
-    in spite of Tacitus."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And pitch Agricola's camp at the Kaim of&mdash;what do you call it," answered
-    Lovel, "in defiance of Edie Ochiltree?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No more of that, an thou lovest me&mdash;And yet, I dare say, ye may
-    unwittingly speak most correct truth in both instances, in despite of the
-    <i>toga</i> of the historian and the blue gown of the mendicant."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Gallantly counselled!&mdash;Well, I will do my best&mdash;your kindness will
-    assist me with local information."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Will I not, man?&mdash;why, I will write the critical and historical notes on
-    each canto, and draw out the plan of the story myself. I pretend to some
-    poetical genius, Mr. Lovel, only I was never able to write verses."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is a pity, sir, that you should have failed in a qualification
-    somewhat essential to the art."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Essential?&mdash;not a whit&mdash;it is the mere mechanical department. A man may
-    be a poet without measuring spondees and dactyls like the ancients, or
-    clashing the ends of lines into rhyme like the moderns, as one may be an
-    architect though unable to labour like a stone-mason&mdash;Dost think Palladio
-    or Vitruvius ever carried a hod?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In that case, there should be two authors to each poem&mdash;one to think and
-    plan, another to execute."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, it would not be amiss; at any rate, we'll make the experiment;&mdash;not
-    that I would wish to give my name to the public&mdash;assistance from a
-    learned friend might be acknowledged in the preface after what flourish
-    your nature will&mdash;I am a total stranger to authorial vanity."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel was much entertained by a declaration not very consistent with the
-    eagerness wherewith his friend seemed to catch at an opportunity of
-    coming before the public, though in a manner which rather resembled
-    stepping up behind a carriage than getting into one. The Antiquary was
-    indeed uncommonly delighted; for, like many other men who spend their
-    lives in obscure literary research, he had a secret ambition to appear in
-    print, which was checked by cold fits of diffidence, fear of criticism,
-    and habits of indolence and procrastination. "But," thought he, "I may,
-    like a second Teucer, discharge my shafts from behind the shield of my
-    ally; and, admit that he should not prove to be a first-rate poet, I am
-    in no shape answerable for his deficiencies, and the good notes may very
-    probably help off an indifferent text. But he is&mdash;he must be a good poet;
-    he has the real Parnassian abstraction&mdash;seldom answers a question till it
-    is twice repeated&mdash;drinks his tea scalding, and eats without knowing what
-    he is putting into his mouth. This is the real <i>aestus,</i> the <i>awen</i> of
-    the Welsh bards, the <i>divinus afflatus</i> that transports the poet beyond
-    the limits of sublunary things. His visions, too, are very symptomatical
-    of poetic fury&mdash;I must recollect to send Caxon to see he puts out his
-    candle to-night&mdash;poets and visionaries are apt to be negligent in that
-    respect." Then, turning to his companion, he expressed himself aloud in
-    continuation&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes, my dear Lovel, you shall have full notes; and, indeed, think we may
-    introduce the whole of the Essay on Castrametation into the appendix&mdash;it
-    will give great value to the work. Then we will revive the good old forms
-    so disgracefully neglected in modern times. You shall invoke the
-		Muse&mdash;and certainly she ought to be propitious to an author who, in an
-    apostatizing age, adheres with the faith of Abdiel to the ancient form of
-    adoration.&mdash;Then we must have a vision&mdash;in which the Genius of Caledonia
-    shall appear to Galgacus, and show him a procession of the real Scottish
-    monarchs:&mdash;and in the notes I will have a hit at Boethius&mdash;No; I must not
-    touch that topic, now that Sir Arthur is likely to have vexation enough
-    besides&mdash;but I'll annihilate Ossian, Macpherson, and Mac-Cribb."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But we must consider the expense of publication," said Lovel, willing to
-    try whether this hint would fall like cold water on the blazing zeal of
-    his self-elected coadjutor.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Expense!" said Mr. Oldbuck, pausing, and mechanically fumbling in his
-    pocket&mdash;"that is true;&mdash;I would wish to do something&mdash;but you would not
-    like to publish by subscription?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "By no means," answered Lovel.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, no!" gladly acquiesced the Antiquary&mdash;"it is not respectable. I'll
-    tell you what: I believe I know a bookseller who has a value for my
-    opinion, and will risk print and paper, and I will get as many copies
-    sold for you as I can."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O, I am no mercenary author," answered Lovel, smiling; "I only wish to
-    be out of risk of loss."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hush! hush! we'll take care of that&mdash;throw it all on the publishers. I
-    do long to see your labours commenced. You will choose blank verse,
-    doubtless?&mdash;it is more grand and magnificent for an historical subject;
-    and, what concerneth you, my friend, it is, I have an idea, more easily
-    written."
-</p>
-<p>
-    This conversation brought them to Monkbarns, where the Antiquary had to
-    undergo a chiding from his sister, who, though no philosopher, was
-    waiting to deliver a lecture to him in the portico. "Guide us, Monkbarns!
-    are things no dear eneugh already, but ye maun be raising the very fish
-    on us, by giving that randy, Luckie Mucklebackit, just what she likes to
-    ask?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, Grizel," said the sage, somewhat abashed at this unexpected attack,
-    "I thought I made a very fair bargain."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A fair bargain! when ye gied the limmer a full half o' what she
-		seekit!&mdash;An ye will be a wife-carle, and buy fish at your ain hands, ye suld
-    never bid muckle mair than a quarter. And the impudent quean had the
-    assurance to come up and seek a dram&mdash;But I trow, Jenny and I sorted
-    her!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Truly," said Oldbuck (with a sly look to his companion), "I think our
-    estate was gracious that kept us out of hearing of that
-		controversy.&mdash;Well, well, Grizel, I was wrong for once in my life <i>ultra
-		crepidam</i>&mdash;I fairly admit. But hang expenses!&mdash;care killed a cat&mdash;we'll eat the
-    fish, cost what it will.&mdash;And then, Lovel, you must know I pressed you
-    to stay here to-day, the rather because our cheer will be better than
-    usual, yesterday having been a gaude' day&mdash;I love the reversion of a
-    feast better than the feast itself. I delight in the <i>analecta,</i> the
-    <i>collectanea,</i> as I may call them, of the preceding day's dinner, which
-    appear on such occasions&mdash;And see, there is Jenny going to ring the
-    dinner-bell."
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0015"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-        Be this letter delivered with haste&mdash;haste&mdash;post-haste!
-        Ride, villain, ride,&mdash;for thy life&mdash;for thy life&mdash;for thy life.
-                  Ancient Indorsation of Letters of Importance.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Leaving Mr. Oldbuck and his friend to enjoy their hard bargain of fish,
-    we beg leave to transport the reader to the back-parlour of the
-    post-master's house at Fairport, where his wife, he himself being absent,
-    was employed in assorting for delivery the letters which had come by the
-    Edinburgh post. This is very often in country towns the period of the day
-    when gossips find it particularly agreeable to call on the man or woman
-    of letters, in order, from the outside of the epistles, and, if they are
-    not belied, occasionally from the inside also, to amuse themselves with
-    gleaning information, or forming conjectures about the correspondence and
-    affairs of their neighbours. Two females of this description were, at the
-    time we mention, assisting, or impeding, Mrs. Mailsetter in her official
-    duty.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Eh, preserve us, sirs!" said the butcher's wife, "there's ten&mdash;
-		eleven&mdash;twall letters to Tennant and Co.&mdash;thae folk do mair business than a'
-    the rest o' the burgh."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay; but see, lass," answered the baker's lady, "there's twa o' them
-    faulded unco square, and sealed at the tae side&mdash;I doubt there will be
-    protested bills in them."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Is there ony letters come yet for Jenny Caxon?" inquired the woman of
-    joints and giblets; "the lieutenant's been awa three weeks."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Just ane on Tuesday was a week," answered the dame of letters.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Wast a ship-letter?" asked the Fornerina.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In troth wast."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It wad be frae the lieutenant then," replied the mistress of the rolls,
-    somewhat disappointed&mdash;"I never thought he wad hae lookit ower his
-    shouther after her."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Od, here's another," quoth Mrs. Mailsetter. "A ship-letter&mdash;post-mark,
-    Sunderland." All rushed to seize it.&mdash;"Na, na, leddies," said Mrs.
-    Mailsetter, interfering; "I hae had eneugh o' that wark&mdash;Ken ye that Mr.
-    Mailsetter got an unco rebuke frae the secretary at Edinburgh, for a
-    complaint that was made about the letter of Aily Bisset's that ye opened,
-    Mrs. Shortcake?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Me opened!" answered the spouse of the chief baker of Fairport; "ye ken
-    yoursell, madam, it just cam open o' free will in my hand&mdash;what could I
-    help it?&mdash;folk suld seal wi' better wax."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Weel I wot that's true, too," said Mrs. Mailsetter, who kept a shop of
-    small wares, "and we have got some that I can honestly recommend, if ye
-    ken onybody wanting it. But the short and the lang o't is, that we'll
-    lose the place gin there's ony mair complaints o' the kind."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hout, lass&mdash;the provost will take care o' that."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, na, I'll neither trust to provost nor bailier" said the
-    postmistress,&mdash;"but I wad aye be obliging and neighbourly, and I'm no
-    again your looking at the outside of a letter neither&mdash;See, the seal has
-    an anchor on't&mdash;he's done't wi' ane o' his buttons, I'm thinking."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Show me! show me!" quoth the wives of the chief butcher and chief baker;
-    and threw themselves on the supposed love-letter, like the weird sisters
-    in Macbeth upon the pilot's thumb, with curiosity as eager and scarcely
-    less malignant. Mrs. Heukbane was a tall woman&mdash;she held the precious
-    epistle up between her eyes and the window. Mrs. Shortcake, a little
-    squat personage, strained and stood on tiptoe to have her share of the
-    investigation.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, it's frae him, sure eneugh," said the butcher's lady;&mdash;"I can read
-    Richard Taffril on the corner, and it's written, like John Thomson's
-    wallet, frae end to end."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Haud it lower down, madam," exclaimed Mrs. Shortcake, in a tone above
-    the prudential whisper which their occupation required&mdash;"haud it lower
-    down&mdash;Div ye think naebody can read hand o' writ but yoursell?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Whist, whist, sirs, for God's sake!" said Mrs. Mailsetter, "there's
-    somebody in the shop,"&mdash;then aloud&mdash;"Look to the customers, Baby!"&mdash;Baby
-    answered from without in a shrill tone&mdash;"It's naebody but Jenny Caxon,
-    ma'am, to see if there's ony letters to her."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Tell her," said the faithful postmistress, winking to her compeers, "to
-    come back the morn at ten o'clock, and I'll let her ken&mdash;we havena had
-    time to sort the mail letters yet&mdash;she's aye in sic a hurry, as if her
-    letters were o' mair consequence than the best merchant's o' the town."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Poor Jenny, a girl of uncommon beauty and modesty, could only draw her
-    cloak about her to hide the sigh of disappointment and return meekly home
-    to endure for another night the sickness of the heart occasioned by hope
-    delayed.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There's something about a needle and a pole," said Mrs. Shortcake, to
-    whom her taller rival in gossiping had at length yielded a peep at the
-    subject of their curiosity.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Now, that's downright shamefu'," said Mrs. Heukbane, "to scorn the poor
-    silly gait of a lassie after he's keepit company wi' her sae lang, and
-    had his will o' her, as I make nae doubt he has."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's but ower muckle to be doubted," echoed Mrs. Shortcake;&mdash;"to cast up
-    to her that her father's a barber and has a pole at his door, and that
-    she's but a manty-maker hersell! Hout fy for shame!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hout tout, leddies," cried Mrs. Mailsetter, "ye're clean wrang&mdash;It's a
-    line out o' ane o' his sailors' sangs that I have heard him sing, about
-    being true like the needle to the pole."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Weel, weel, I wish it may be sae," said the charitable Dame
-		Heukbane,&mdash;"but it disna look weel for a lassie like her to keep up a
-    correspondence wi' ane o' the king's officers."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I'm no denying that," said Mrs. Mailsetter; "but it's a great advantage
-    to the revenue of the post-office thae love-letters. See, here's five or
-    six letters to Sir Arthur Wardour&mdash;maist o' them sealed wi' wafers, and
-    no wi' wax. There will be a downcome, there, believe me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay; they will be business letters, and no frae ony o' his grand friends,
-    that seals wi' their coats of arms, as they ca' them," said Mrs.
-    Heukbane;&mdash;"pride will hae a fa'&mdash;he hasna settled his account wi' my
-    gudeman, the deacon, for this twalmonth&mdash;he's but slink, I doubt."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nor wi' huz for sax months," echoed Mrs. Shortcake&mdash;"He's but a brunt
-    crust."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There's a letter," interrupted the trusty postmistress, "from his son,
-    the captain, I'm thinking&mdash;the seal has the same things wi' the
-    Knockwinnock carriage. He'll be coming hame to see what he can save out
-    o' the fire."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The baronet thus dismissed, they took up the esquire&mdash;"Twa letters for
-    Monkbarns&mdash;they're frae some o' his learned friends now; see sae close as
-    they're written, down to the very seal&mdash;and a' to save sending a double
-    letter&mdash;that's just like Monkbarns himsell. When he gets a frank he fills
-    it up exact to the weight of an unce, that a carvy-seed would sink the
-    scale&mdash;but he's neer a grain abune it. Weel I wot I wad be broken if I
-    were to gie sic weight to the folk that come to buy our pepper and
-    brimstone, and suchlike sweetmeats."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He's a shabby body the laird o' Monkbarns," said Mrs. Heukbane; "he'll
-    make as muckle about buying a forequarter o' lamb in August as about a
-    back sey o' beef. Let's taste another drop of the sinning" (perhaps she
-    meant <i>cinnamon</i>) "waters, Mrs. Mailsetter, my dear. Ah, lasses! an ye
-    had kend his brother as I did&mdash;mony a time he wad slip in to see me wi' a
-    brace o' wild deukes in his pouch, when my first gudeman was awa at the
-    Falkirk tryst&mdash;weel, weel&mdash;we'se no speak o' that e'enow."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I winna say ony ill o'this Monkbarns," said Mrs. Shortcake; "his brother
-    neer brought me ony wild-deukes, and this is a douce honest man; we serve
-    the family wi' bread, and he settles wi' huz ilka week&mdash;only he was in an
-    unco kippage when we sent him a book instead o' the <i>nick-sticks,</i>*
-    whilk, he said, were the true ancient way o' counting between tradesmen
-    and customers; and sae they are, nae doubt."
-</p>
-<p>
-    * Note E. Nick-sticks.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But look here, lasses," interrupted Mrs. Mailsetter, "here's a sight for
-    sair e'en! What wad ye gie to ken what's in the inside o' this letter?
-    This is new corn&mdash;I haena seen the like o' this&mdash;For William Lovel,
-    Esquire, at Mrs. Hadoway's, High Street, Fairport, by Edinburgh, N. B.
-    This is just the second letter he has had since he was here."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Lord's sake, let's see, lass!&mdash;Lord's sake, let's see!&mdash;that's him that
-    the hale town kens naething about&mdash;and a weel-fa'ard lad he is; let's
-    see, let's see!" Thus ejaculated the two worthy representatives of mother
-    Eve.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, na, sirs," exclaimed Mrs. Mailsetter; "haud awa&mdash;bide aff, I tell
-    you; this is nane o' your fourpenny cuts that we might make up the value
-    to the post-office amang ourselves if ony mischance befell it;&mdash;the
-    postage is five-and-twenty shillings&mdash;and here's an order frae the
-    Secretary to forward it to the young gentleman by express, if he's no at
-    hame. Na, na, sirs, bide aff;&mdash;this maunna be roughly guided."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But just let's look at the outside o't, woman."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Nothing could be gathered from the outside, except remarks on the various
-    properties which philosophers ascribe to matter,&mdash;length, breadth, depth,
-    and weight, The packet was composed of strong thick paper, imperviable by
-    the curious eyes of the gossips, though they stared as if they would
-    burst from their sockets. The seal was a deep and well-cut impression of
-    arms, which defied all tampering.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Od, lass," said Mrs. Shortcake, weighing it in her hand, and wishing,
-    doubtless, that the too, too solid wax would melt and dissolve itself, "I
-    wad like to ken what's in the inside o' this, for that Lovel dings a'
-    that ever set foot on the plainstanes o' Fairport&mdash;naebody kens what to
-    make o' him."
-</p>
-<a name="image-0009"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/pa185.jpg" height="459" width="737"
-alt="Mrs. Heukbane and Mrs. Shortcake
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<p>
-    "Weel, weel, leddies," said the postmistress, "we'se sit down and crack
-    about it.&mdash;Baby, bring ben the tea-water&mdash;Muckle obliged to ye for your
-    cookies, Mrs. Shortcake&mdash;and we'll steek the shop, and cry ben Baby, and
-    take a hand at the cartes till the gudeman comes hame&mdash;and then we'll try
-    your braw veal sweetbread that ye were so kind as send me, Mrs.
-    Heukbane."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But winna ye first send awa Mr. Lovel's letter?" said Mrs. Heukbane.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth I kenna wha to send wi't till the gudeman comes hame, for auld
-    Caxon tell'd me that Mr. Lovel stays a' the day at Monkbarns&mdash;he's in a
-    high fever, wi' pu'ing the laird and Sir Arthur out o' the sea."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Silly auld doited carles!" said Mrs. Shortcake; "what gar'd them gang to
-    the douking in a night like yestreen!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I was gi'en to understand it was auld Edie that saved them," said Mrs.
-    Heukbane&mdash;"Edie Ochiltree, the Blue-Gown, ye ken; and that he pu'd the
-    hale three out of the auld fish-pound, for Monkbarns had threepit on them
-    to gang in till't to see the wark o' the monks lang syne."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hout, lass, nonsense!" answered the postmistress; "I'll tell ye, a'
-    about it, as Caxon tell'd it to me. Ye see, Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour,
-    and Mr. Lovel, suld hae dined at Monkbarns"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But, Mrs. Mailsetter," again interrupted Mrs. Heukbane, "will ye no be
-    for sending awa this letter by express?&mdash;there's our powny and our
-    callant hae gane express for the office or now, and the powny hasna gane
-    abune thirty mile the day;&mdash;Jock was sorting him up as I came ower by."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, Mrs. Heukbane," said the woman of letters, pursing up her mouth,
-    "ye ken my gudeman likes to ride the expresses himsell&mdash;we maun gie our
-    ain fish-guts to our ain sea-maws&mdash;it's a red half-guinea to him every
-    time he munts his mear; and I dare say he'll be in sune&mdash;or I dare to
-    say, it's the same thing whether the gentleman gets the express this
-    night or early next morning."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Only that Mr. Lovel will be in town before the express gaes aff," said
-    Mrs. Heukbane; "and where are ye then, lass? But ye ken yere ain ways
-    best."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Weel, weel, Mrs. Heukbane," answered Mrs. Mailsetter, a little out of
-    humour, and even out of countenance, "I am sure I am never against being
-    neighbour-like, and living and letting live, as they say; and since I hae
-    been sic a fule as to show you the post-office order&mdash;ou, nae doubt, it
-    maun be obeyed. But I'll no need your callant, mony thanks to ye&mdash;I'll
-    send little Davie on your powny, and that will be just five-and-threepence
-    to ilka ane o' us, ye ken."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Davie! the Lord help ye, the bairn's no ten year auld; and, to be plain
-    wi' ye, our powny reists a bit, and it's dooms sweer to the road, and
-    naebody can manage him but our Jock."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I'm sorry for that," answered the postmistress, gravely; "it's like we
-    maun wait then till the gudeman comes hame, after a'&mdash;for I wadna like to
-    be responsible in trusting the letter to sic a callant as Jock&mdash;our Davie
-    belangs in a manner to the office."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aweel, aweel, Mrs. Mailsetter, I see what ye wad be at&mdash;but an ye like
-    to risk the bairn, I'll risk the beast."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Orders were accordingly given. The unwilling pony was brought out of his
-    bed of straw, and again equipped for service&mdash;Davie (a leathern post-bag
-    strapped across his shoulders) was perched upon the saddle, with a tear
-    in his eye, and a switch in his hand. Jock good-naturedly led the animal
-    out of town, and, by the crack of his whip, and the whoop and halloo of
-    his too well-known voice, compelled it to take the road towards
-    Monkbarns.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Meanwhile the gossips, like the sibyls after consulting their leaves,
-    arranged and combined the information of the evening, which flew next
-    morning through a hundred channels, and in a hundred varieties, through
-    the world of Fairport. Many, strange, and inconsistent, were the rumours
-    to which their communications and conjectures gave rise. Some said
-    Tennant and Co. were broken, and that all their bills had come back
-    protested&mdash;others that they had got a great contract from Government, and
-    letters from the principal merchants at Glasgow, desiring to have shares
-    upon a premium. One report stated, that Lieutenant Taffril had
-    acknowledged a private marriage with Jenny Caxon&mdash;another, that he had
-    sent her a letter upbraiding her with the lowness of her birth and
-    education, and bidding her an eternal adieu. It was generally rumoured
-    that Sir Arthur Wardour's affairs had fallen into irretrievable
-    confusion, and this report was only doubted by the wise, because it was
-    traced to Mrs. Mailsetter's shop,&mdash;a source more famous for the
-    circulation of news than for their accuracy. But all agreed that a packet
-    from the Secretary of State's office, had arrived, directed for Mr.
-    Lovel, and that it had been forwarded by an orderly dragoon, despatched
-    from the head-quarters at Edinburgh, who had galloped through Fairport
-    without stopping, except just to inquire the way to Monkbarns. The reason
-    of such an extraordinary mission to a very peaceful and retired
-    individual, was variously explained. Some said Lovel was an emigrant
-    noble, summoned to head an insurrection that had broken out in La
-    Vende'e&mdash;others that he was a spy&mdash;others that he was a general officer,
-    who was visiting the coast privately&mdash;others that he was a prince of the
-    blood, who was travelling <i>incognito.</i>
-</p>
-<p>
-    Meanwhile the progress of the packet which occasioned so much
-    speculation, towards its destined owner at Monkbarns, had been perilous
-    and interrupted. The bearer, Davie Mailsetter, as little resembling a
-    bold dragoon as could well be imagined, was carried onwards towards
-    Monkbarns by the pony, so long as the animal had in his recollection the
-    crack of his usual instrument of chastisement, and the shout of the
-    butcher's boy. But feeling how Davie, whose short legs were unequal to
-    maintain his balance, swung to and fro upon his back, the pony began to
-    disdain furthur compliance with the intimations he had received. First,
-    then, he slackened his pace to a walk This was no point of quarrel
-    between him and his rider, who had been considerably discomposed by the
-    rapidity of his former motion, and who now took the opportunity of his
-    abated pace to gnaw a piece of gingerbread, which had been thrust into
-    his hand by his mother in order to reconcile this youthful emissary of
-    the post-office to the discharge of his duty. By and by, the crafty pony
-    availed himself of this surcease of discipline to twitch the rein out of
-    Davies hands, and applied himself to browse on the grass by the side of
-    the lane. Sorely astounded by these symptoms of self-willed rebellion,
-    and afraid alike to sit or to fall, poor Davie lifted up his voice and
-    wept aloud. The pony, hearing this pudder over his head, began apparently
-    to think it would be best both for himself and Davie to return from
-    whence they came, and accordingly commenced a retrograde movement towards
-    Fairport. But, as all retreats are apt to end in utter rout, so the
-    steed, alarmed by the boy's cries, and by the flapping of the reins,
-    which dangled about his forefeet&mdash;finding also his nose turned homeward,
-    began to set off at a rate which, if Davie kept the saddle (a matter
-    extremely dubious), would soon have presented him at Heukbane's
-    stable-door,&mdash;when, at a turn of the road, an intervening auxiliary, in
-    the shape of old Edie Ochiltree, caught hold of the rein, and stopped his
-    farther proceeding. "Wha's aught ye, callant? whaten a gate's that to
-    ride?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I canna help it!" blubbered the express; "they ca' me little Davie."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And where are ye gaun?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I'm gaun to Monkbarns wi' a letter."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Stirra, this is no the road to Monkbarns."
-</p>
-<p>
-    But Davie could oinly answer the expostulation with sighs and tears.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Old Edie was easily moved to compassion where childhood was in the case.--"I
-    wasna gaun that gate," he thought, "but it's the best o' my way o'
-    life that I canna be weel out o' my road. They'll gie me quarters at
-    Monkbarns readily eneugh, and I'll e'en hirple awa there wi' the wean,
-    for it will knock its hams out, puir thing, if there's no somebody to
-    guide the pony.&mdash;Sae ye hae a letter, hinney? will ye let me see't?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I'm no gaun to let naebody see the letter," sobbed the boy, "till I
-    gie't to Mr. Lovel, for I am a faithfu' servant o' the office&mdash;if it
-    werena for the powny."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Very right, my little man," said Ochiltree, turning the reluctant pony's
-    head towards Monkbarns; "but we'll guide him atween us, if he's no a' the
-    sweerer."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Upon the very height of Kinprunes, to which Monkbarns had invited Lovel
-    after their dinner, the Antiquary, again reconciled to the once degraded
-    spot, was expatiating upon the topics the scenery afforded for a
-    description of Agricola's camp at the dawn of morning, when his eye was
-    caught by the appearance of the mendicant and his protegee. "What the
-    devil!&mdash;here comes Old Edie, bag and baggage, I think."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The beggar explained his errand, and Davie, who insisted upon a literal
-    execution of his commission by going on to Monkbarns, was with difficulty
-    prevailed upon to surrender the packet to its proper owner, although he
-    met him a mile nearer than the place he had been directed to. "But my
-    minnie said, I maun be sure to get twenty shillings and five shillings
-    for the postage, and ten shillings and sixpence for the express&mdash;there's
-    the paper."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Let me see&mdash;let me see," said Oldbuck, putting on his spectacles, and
-    examining the crumpled copy of regulations to which Davie
-    appealed. "Express, per man and horse, one day, not to exceed ten
-    shillings and sixpence. One day? why, it's not an hour&mdash;Man and horse?
-    why, 'tis a monkey on a starved cat!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Father wad hae come himsell," said Davie, "on the muckle red mear, an ye
-    wad hae bidden till the morn's night."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Four-and-twenty hours after the regular date of delivery! You little
-    cockatrice egg, do you understand the art of imposition so early?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hout Monkbarns! dinna set your wit against a bairn," said the beggar;
-    "mind the butcher risked his beast, and the wife her wean, and I am sure
-    ten and sixpence isna ower muckle. Ye didna gang sae near wi' Johnnie
-    Howie, when"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel, who, sitting on the supposed <i>Praetorium,</i> had glanced over the
-    contents of the packet, now put an end to the altercation by paying
-    Davies demand; and then turning to Mr. Oldbuck, with a look of much
-    agitation, he excused himself from returning with him to Monkbarns' that
-    evening.&mdash;"I must instantly go to Fairport, and perhaps leave it on a
-    moment's notice;&mdash;your kindness, Mr. Oldbuck, I can never forget."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No bad news, I hope?" said the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Of a very chequered complexion," answered his friend. "Farewell&mdash;in good
-    or bad fortune I will not forget your regard."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nay, nay&mdash;stop a moment. If&mdash;if&mdash;" (making an effort)&mdash;"if there be any
-    pecuniary inconvenience&mdash;I have fifty&mdash;or a hundred guineas at your
-    service&mdash;till&mdash;till Whitsunday&mdash;or indeed as long as you please."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am much obliged, Mr. Oldbuck, but I am amply provided," said his
-    mysterious young friend. "Excuse me&mdash;I really cannot sustain further
-    conversation at present. I will write or see you, before I leave
-    Fairport&mdash;that is, if I find myself obliged to go."
-</p>
-<p>
-    So saying, he shook the Antiquary's hand warmly, turned from him, and
-    walked rapidly towards the town, "staying no longer question."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Very extraordinary indeed!" said Oldbuck;&mdash;"but there's something about
-    this lad I can never fathom; and yet I cannot for my heart think ill of
-    him neither. I must go home and take off the fire in the Green Room, for
-    none of my womankind will venture into it after twilight."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And how am I to win hame?" blubbered the disconsolate express.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's a fine night," said the Blue-Gown, looking up to the skies; "I had
-    as gude gang back to the town, and take care o' the wean."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Do so, do so, Edie;" and rummaging for some time in his huge waistcoat
-    pocket till he found the object of his search, the Antiquary added,
-    "there's sixpence to ye to buy sneeshin."
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0016"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-     "I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal has not
-     given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged; it could
-     not be else. I have drunk medicines."
-                            Second Part of Henry IV.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Regular for a fortnight were the inquiries of the Antiquary at the
-    veteran Caxon, whether he had heard what Mr. Lovel was about; and as
-    regular were Caxon's answers, "that the town could learn naething about
-    him whatever, except that he had received anither muckle letter or twa
-    frae the south, and that he was never seen on the plainstanes at a'."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "How does he live, Caxon?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ou, Mrs. Hadoway just dresses him a beefsteak or a muttonchop, or makes
-    him some Friar's chicken, or just what she likes hersell, and he eats it
-    in the little red parlour off his bedroom. She canna get him to say that
-    he likes ae thing better than anither; and she makes him tea in a
-    morning, and he settles honourably wi' her every week."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But does he never stir abroad?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He has clean gi'en up walking, and he sits a' day in his room reading or
-    writing; a hantle letters he has written, but he wadna put them into our
-    post-house, though Mrs. Hadoway offered to carry them hersell, but sent
-    them a' under ae cover to the sheriff; and it's Mrs. Mailsetter's belief,
-    that the sheriff sent his groom to put them into the post-office at
-    Tannonburgh; it's my puir thought, that he jaloused their looking into
-    his letters at Fairport; and weel had he need, for my puir daughter
-    Jenny"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Tut, don't plague me with your womankind, Caxon. About this poor young
-    lad.&mdash;Does he write nothing but letters?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ou, ay&mdash;hale sheets o' other things, Mrs. Hadoway says. She wishes
-    muckle he could be gotten to take a walk; she thinks he's but looking
-    very puirly, and his appetite's clean gane; but he'll no hear o' ganging
-    ower the door-stane&mdash;him that used to walk sae muckle too."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "That's wrong&mdash;I have a guess what he's busy about; but he must not work
-    too hard neither. I'll go and see him this very day&mdash;he's deep,
-    doubtless, in the Caledoniad."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Having formed this manful resolution, Mr. Oldbuck equipped himself for
-    the expedition with his thick walking-shoes and gold-headed cane,
-    muttering the while the words of Falstaff which we have chosen for the
-    motto of this CHAPTER; for the Antiquary was himself rather surprised at
-    the degree of attachment which he could not but acknowledge be
-    entertained for this stranger. The riddle was notwithstanding easily
-    solved. Lovel had many attractive qualities, but he won our Antiquary's
-    heart by being on most occasions an excellent listener.
-</p>
-<p>
-    A walk to Fairport had become somewhat of an adventure with Mr. Oldbuck,
-    and one which he did not often care to undertake. He hated greetings in
-    the market-place; and there were generally loiterers in the streets to
-    persecute him, either about the news of the day, or about some petty
-    pieces of business. So, on this occasion, he had no sooner entered the
-    streets of Fairport, than it was "Good-morrow, Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;a sight o'
-    you's gude, for sair een: what d'ye think of the news in the Sun the
-    day?&mdash;they say the great attempt will be made in a fortnight."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I wish to the Lord it were made and over, that I might hear no more
-    about it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Monkbarns, your honour," said the nursery and seedsman, "I hope the
-    plants gied satisfaction?&mdash;and if ye wanted ony flower-roots fresh frae
-    Holland, or" (this in a lower key) "an anker or twa o' Cologne gin, ane
-    o' our brigs cam in yestreen."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Thank ye, thank ye,&mdash;no occasion at present, Mr. Crabtree," said the
-    Antiquary, pushing resolutely onward.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mr. Oldbuck," said the town-clerk (a more important person, who came in
-    front and ventured to stop the old gentleman), "the provost,
-    understanding you were in town, begs on no account that you'll quit it
-    without seeing him; he wants to speak to ye about bringing the water frae
-    the Fairwell-spring through a part o' your lands."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What the deuce!&mdash;have they nobody's land but mine to cut and carve
-		on?&mdash;I won't consent, tell them."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And the provost," said the clerk, going on, without noticing the rebuff,
-    "and the council, wad be agreeable that you should hae the auld stones at
-    Donagild's chapel, that ye was wussing to hae."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Eh!&mdash;what?&mdash;Oho! that's another story&mdash;Well, well, I'll call upon the
-    provost, and we'll talk about it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But ye maun speak your mind on't forthwith, Monkbarns, if ye want the
-    stones; for Deacon Harlewalls thinks the carved through-stanes might be
-    put with advantage on the front of the new council-house&mdash;that is, the
-    twa cross-legged figures that the callants used to ca' Robin and Bobbin,
-    ane on ilka door-cheek; and the other stane, that they ca'd Ailie Dailie,
-    abune the door. It will be very tastefu', the Deacon says, and just in
-    the style of modern Gothic."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Lord deliver me from this Gothic generation!" exclaimed the
-		Antiquary,&mdash;"A monument of a knight-templar on each side of a Grecian porch, and a
-    Madonna on the top of it!&mdash;<i>O crimini!</i>&mdash;Well, tell the provost I wish to
-    have the stones, and we'll not differ about the water-course. It's lucky
-    I happened to come this way to-day."
-</p>
-<p>
-    They parted mutually satisfied; but the wily clerk had most reason to
-    exult in the dexterity he had displayed, since the whole proposal of an
-    exchange between the monuments (which the council had determined to
-    remove as a nuisance, because they encroached three feet upon the public
-    road), and the privilege of conveying the water to the burgh through the
-    estate of Monkbarns, was an idea which had originated with himself upon
-    the pressure of the moment.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Through these various entanglements, Monkbarns (to use the phrase by
-    which he was distinguished in the country) made his way at length to Mrs.
-    Hadoway's. This good woman was the widow of a late clergyman at Fairport,
-    who had been reduced by her husband's untimely death, to that state of
-    straitened and embarrassed circumstances in which the widows of the
-    Scotch clergy are too often found. The tenement which she occupied, and
-    the furniture of which she was possessed, gave her the means of letting a
-    part of her house; and as Lovel had been a quiet, regular, and profitable
-    lodger, and had qualified the necessary intercourse which they had
-    together with a great deal of gentleness and courtesy, Mrs. Hadoway, not,
-    perhaps, much used to such kindly treatment, had become greatly attached
-    to her lodger, and was profuse in every sort of personal attention which
-    circumstances permitted her to render him. To cook a dish somewhat better
-    than ordinary for "the poor young gentleman's dinner;" to exert her
-    interest with those who remembered her husband, or loved her for her own
-    sake and his, in order to procure scarce vegetables, or something which
-    her simplicity supposed might tempt her lodger's appetite, was a labour
-    in which she delighted, although she anxiously concealed it from the
-    person who was its object. She did not adopt this secrecy of benevolence
-    to avoid the laugh of those who might suppose that an oval face and dark
-    eyes, with a clear brown complexion, though belonging to a woman of
-    five-and-forty, and enclosed within a widow's close-drawn pinners, might
-    possibly still aim at making conquests; for, to say truth, such a
-    ridiculous suspicion having never entered into her own head, she could
-    not anticipate its having birth in that of any one else. But she
-    concealed her attentions solely out of delicacy to her guest, whose power
-    of repaying them she doubted as much as she believed in his inclination
-    to do so, and in his being likely to feel extreme pain at leaving any of
-    her civilities unrequited. She now opened the door to Mr. Oldbuck, and
-    her surprise at seeing him brought tears into her eyes, which she could
-    hardly restrain.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am glad to see you, sir&mdash;I am very glad to see you. My poor gentleman
-    is, I am afraid, very unwell; and oh, Mr. Oldbuck, he'll see neither
-    doctor, nor minister, nor writer! And think what it would be, if, as my
-    poor Mr. Hadoway used to say, a man was to die without advice of the
-    three learned faculties!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Greatly better than with them," grumbled the cynical Antiquary. "I tell
-    you, Mrs. Hadoway, the clergy live by our sins, the medical faculty by
-    our diseases, and the law gentry by our misfortunes."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O fie, Monkbarns!&mdash;to hear the like o' that frae you!&mdash;But yell walk up
-    and see the poor young lad?&mdash;Hegh sirs? sae young and weel-favoured&mdash;and
-    day by day he has eat less and less, and now he hardly touches onything,
-    only just pits a bit on the plate to make fashion&mdash;and his poor cheek
-    has turned every day thinner and paler, sae that he now really looks as
-    auld as me, that might be his mother&mdash;no that I might be just that
-    neither, but something very near it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why does he not take some exercise?" said Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I think we have persuaded him to do that, for he has bought a horse from
-    Gibbie Golightly, the galloping groom. A gude judge o' horse-flesh Gibbie
-    tauld our lass that he was&mdash;for he offered him a beast he thought wad
-    answer him weel eneugh, as he was a bookish man, but Mr. Lovel wadna look
-    at it, and bought ane might serve the Master o' Morphie&mdash;they keep it at
-    the Graeme's Arms, ower the street;&mdash;and he rode out yesterday morning
-    and this morning before breakfast&mdash;But winna ye walk up to his room?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Presently, presently. But has he no visitors?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O dear, Mr. Oldbuck, not ane; if he wadna receive them when he was weel
-    and sprightly, what chance is there of onybody in Fairport looking in
-    upon him now?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, ay, very true,&mdash;I should have been surprised had it been
-		otherwise&mdash;Come, show me up stairs, Mrs. Hadoway, lest I make a blunder, and go
-    where I should not."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The good landlady showed Mr. Oldbuck up her narrow staircase, warning him
-    of every turn, and lamenting all the while that he was laid under the
-    necessity of mounting up so high. At length she gently tapped at the door
-    of her guest's parlour. "Come in," said Lovel; and Mrs. Hadoway ushered
-    in the Laird of Monkbarns.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The little apartment was neat and clean, and decently
-		furnished&mdash;ornamented, too, by such relics of her youthful arts of
-		sempstress-ship as Mrs. Hadoway had retained; but it was close, overheated, and,
-    as it appeared to Oldbuck, an unwholesome situation for a young person in
-    delicate health,&mdash;an observation which ripened his resolution touching a
-    project that had already occurred to him in Lovel's behalf. With a
-    writing-table before him, on which lay a quantity of books and papers,
-    Lovel was seated on a couch, in his night-gown and slippers. Oldbuck was
-    shocked at the change which had taken place in his personal appearance.
-    His cheek and brow had assumed a ghastly white, except where a round
-    bright spot of hectic red formed a strong and painful contrast, totally
-    different from the general cast of hale and hardy complexion which had
-    formerly overspread and somewhat embrowned his countenance. Oldbuck
-    observed, that the dress he wore belonged to a deep mourning suit, and a
-    coat of the same colour hung on a chair near to him. As the Antiquary
-    entered, Lovel arose and came forward to welcome him.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "This is very kind," he said, shaking him by the hand, and thanking him
-    warmly for his visit&mdash;"this is very kind, and has anticipated a visit
-    with which I intended to trouble you. You must know I have become a
-    horseman lately."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I understand as much from Mrs. Hadoway&mdash;I only hope, my good young
-    friend, you have been fortunate in a quiet horse. I myself inadvertently
-    bought one from the said Gibbie Golightly, which brute ran two miles on
-    end with me after a pack of hounds, with which I had no more to do than
-    the last year's snow; and after affording infinite amusement, I suppose,
-    to the whole hunting field, he was so good as to deposit me in a dry
-    ditch&mdash;I hope yours is a more peaceful beast?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I hope, at least, we shall make our excursions on a better plan of
-    mutual understanding."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "That is to say, you think yourself a good horseman?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I would not willingly," answered Lovel, "confess myself a very bad one."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No&mdash;all you young fellows think that would be equal to calling
-    yourselves tailors at once&mdash;But have you had experience? for, <i>crede
-    experto,</i> a horse in a passion is no joker."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, I should be sorry to boast myself as a great horseman; but when I
-    acted as aide-de-camp to Sir&mdash;&mdash;in the cavalry action at&mdash;, last year, I
-    saw many better cavaliers than myself dismounted."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ah! you have looked in the face of the grisly god of arms then?&mdash;you are
-    acquainted with the frowns of Mars armipotent? That experience fills up
-    the measure of your qualifications for the epopea! The Britons, however,
-    you will remember, fought in chariots&mdash;<i>covinarii</i> is the phrase of
-    Tacitus;&mdash;you recollect the fine description of their dashing among the
-    Roman infantry, although the historian tells us how ill the rugged face
-    of the ground was calculated for equestrian combat; and truly, upon the
-    whole, what sort of chariots could be driven in Scotland anywhere but on
-    turnpike roads, has been to me always matter of amazement. And well
-		now&mdash;has the Muse visited you?&mdash;have you got anything to show me?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My time," said Lovel, with a glance at his black dress, "has been less
-    pleasantly employed."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The death of a friend?" said the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes, Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;of almost the only friend I could ever boast of
-    possessing."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed? Well, young man," replied his visitor, in a tone of seriousness
-    very different from his affected gravity, "be comforted. To have lost a
-    friend by death while your mutual regard was warm and unchilled, while
-    the tear can drop unembittered by any painful recollection of coldness or
-    distrust or treachery, is perhaps an escape from a more heavy
-    dispensation. Look round you&mdash;how few do you see grow old in the
-    affections of those with whom their early friendships were formed! Our
-    sources of common pleasure gradually dry up as we journey on through the
-    vale of Bacha, and we hew out to ourselves other reservoirs, from which
-    the first companions of our pilgrimage are excluded;&mdash;jealousies,
-    rivalries, envy, intervene to separate others from our side, until none
-    remain but those who are connected with us rather by habit than
-    predilection, or who, allied more in blood than in disposition, only keep
-    the old man company in his life, that they may not be forgotten at his
-    death&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                    <i>Haec data poena diu viventibus.</i>
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Ah, Mr. Lovel! if it be your lot to reach the chill, cloudy, and
-    comfortless evening of life, you will remember the sorrows of your youth
-    as the light shadowy clouds that intercepted for a moment the beams of
-    the sun when it was rising. But I cram these words into your ears against
-    the stomach of your sense."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am sensible of your kindness," answered the youth; "but the wound that
-    is of recent infliction must always smart severely, and I should be
-    little comforted under my present calamity&mdash;forgive me for saying so&mdash;by
-    the conviction that life had nothing in reserve for me but a train of
-    successive sorrows. And permit me to add, you, Mr. Oldbuck, have least
-    reason of many men to take so gloomy a view of life. You have a competent
-    and easy fortune&mdash;are generally respected&mdash;may, in your own phrase,
-    <i>vacare musis,</i> indulge yourself in the researches to which your taste
-    addicts you; you may form your own society without doors&mdash;and within you
-    have the affectionate and sedulous attention of the nearest relatives."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, yes&mdash;the womankind, for womankind, are, thanks to my training, very
-    civil and tractable&mdash;do not disturb me in my morning studies&mdash;creep
-    across the floor with the stealthy pace of a cat, when it suits me to
-    take a nap in my easy-chair after dinner or tea. All this is very well;
-    but I want something to exchange ideas with&mdash;something to talk to."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then why do you not invite your nephew, Captain M'Intyre, who is
-    mentioned by every one as a fine spirited young fellow, to become a
-    member of your family?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Who?" exclaimed Monkbarns, "my nephew Hector?&mdash;the Hotspur of the North?
-    Why, Heaven love you, I would as soon invite a firebrand into my
-    stackyard. He's an Almanzor, a Chamont&mdash;has a Highland pedigree as long
-    as his claymore, and a claymore as long as the High Street of Fairport,
-    which he unsheathed upon the surgeon the last time he was at Fairport. I
-    expect him here one of these days; but I will keep him at staff's end, I
-    promise you. He an inmate of my house! to make my very chairs and tables
-    tremble at his brawls. No, no&mdash;I'll none of Hector M'Intyre. But hark ye,
-    Lovel;&mdash;you are a quiet, gentle-tempered lad; had not you better set up
-    your staff at Monkbarns for a month or two, since I conclude you do not
-    immediately intend to leave this country?&mdash;I will have a door opened out
-    to the garden&mdash;it will cost but a trifle&mdash;there is the space for an old
-    one which was condemned long ago&mdash;by which said door you may pass and
-    repass into the Green Chamber at pleasure, so you will not interfere with
-    the old man, nor he with you. As for your fare, Mrs. Hadoway tells me you
-    are, as she terms it, very moderate of your mouth, so you will not
-    quarrel with my humble table. Your washing"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hold, my dear Mr. Oldbuck," interposed Lovel, unable to repress a smile;
-    "and before your hospitality settles all my accommodations, let me thank
-    you most sincerely for so kind an offer&mdash;it is not at present in my power
-    to accept of it; but very likely, before I bid adieu to Scotland, I shall
-    find an opportunity to pay you a visit of some length."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Mr. Oldbuck's countenance fell. "Why, I thought I had hit on the very
-    arrangement that would suit us both,&mdash;and who knows what might happen in
-    the long run, and whether we might ever part? Why, I am master of my
-    acres, man&mdash;there is the advantage of being descended from a man of more
-    sense than pride&mdash;they cannot oblige me to transmit my goods chattels,
-    and heritages, any way but as I please. No string of substitute heirs of
-    entail, as empty and unsubstantial as the morsels of paper strung to the
-    train of a boy's kite, to cumber my flights of inclination, and my
-    humours of predilection. Well,&mdash;I see you won't be tempted at
-		present&mdash;but Caledonia goes on I hope?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O certainly," said Lovel; "I cannot think of relinquishing a plan so
-    hopeful."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is indeed," said the Antiquary, looking gravely upward,&mdash;for, though
-    shrewd and acute enough in estimating the variety of plans formed by
-    others, he had a very natural, though rather disproportioned good opinion
-    of the importance of those which originated with himself&mdash;"it is indeed
-    one of those undertakings which, if achieved with spirit equal to that
-    which dictates its conception, may redeem from the charge of frivolity
-    the literature of the present generation."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here he was interrupted by a knock at the room door, which introduced a
-    letter for Mr. Lovel. The servant waited, Mrs. Hadoway said, for an
-    answer. "You are concerned in this matter, Mr. Oldbuck," said Lovel,
-    after glancing over the billet, and handing it to the Antiquary as he
-    spoke.
-</p>
-<p>
-    It was a letter from Sir Arthur Wardour, couched in extremely civil
-    language, regetting that a fit of the gout had prevented his hitherto
-    showing Mr. Lovel the attentions to which his conduct during a late
-    perilous occasion had so well entitled him&mdash;apologizing for not paying
-    his respects in person, but hoping Mr. Lovel would dispense with that
-    ceremony, and be a member of a small party which proposed to visit the
-    ruins of Saint Ruth's priory on the following day, and afterwards to dine
-    and spend the evening at Knockwinnock Castle. Sir Arthur concluded with
-    saying, that he had sent to request the Monkbarns family to join the
-    party of pleasure which he thus proposed. The place of rendezvous was
-    fixed at a turnpike-gate, which was about an equal distance from all the
-    points from which the company were to assemble.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What shall we do?" said Lovel, looking at the Antiquary, but pretty
-    certain of the part he would take.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Go, man&mdash;we'll go, by all means. Let me see&mdash;it will cost a post-chaise
-    though, which will hold you and me, and Mary M'Intyre, very well&mdash;and the
-    other womankind may go to the manse&mdash;and you can come out in the chaise
-    to Monkbarns, as I will take it for the day."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, I rather think I had better ride."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "True, true, I forgot your Bucephalus. You are a foolish lad, by the by,
-    for purchasing the brute outright; you should stick to eighteenpence a
-    side, if you will trust any creature's legs in preference to your own."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, as the horse's have the advantage of moving considerably faster,
-    and are, besides, two pair to one, I own I incline"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Enough said&mdash;enough said&mdash;do as you please. Well then, I'll bring either
-    Grizel or the minister, for I love to have my full pennyworth out of
-    post-horses&mdash;and we meet at Tirlingen turnpike on Friday, at twelve
-    o'clock precisely. "&mdash;And with this ageement the friends separated.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0017"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-          Of seats they tell, where priests, 'mid tapers dim,
-          Breathed the warm prayer, or tuned the midnight hymn
-               To scenes like these the fainting soul retired;
-               Revenge and Anger in these cells expired:
-             By Pity soothed, Remorse lost half her fears,
-             And softened Pride dropped penitential tears.
-                           Crabbe's Borough.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The morning of Friday was as serene and beautiful as if no pleasure party
-    had been intended; and that is a rare event, whether in novel-writing or
-    real life. Lovel, who felt the genial influence of the weather, and
-    rejoiced at the prospect of once more meeting with Miss Wardour, trotted
-    forward to the place of rendezvous with better spirits than he had for
-    some time enjoyed. His prospects seemed in many respects to open and
-    brighten before him&mdash;and hope, although breaking like the morning sun
-    through clouds and showers, appeared now about to illuminate the path
-    before him. He was, as might have been expected from this state of
-    spirits, first at the place of meeting,&mdash;and, as might also have been
-    anticipated, his looks were so intently directed towards the road from
-    Knockwinnock Castles that he was only apprized of the arrival of the
-    Monkbarns division by the gee-hupping of the postilion, as the
-    post-chaise lumbered up behind him. In this vehicle were pent up, first,
-    the stately figure of Mr. Oldbuck himself; secondly, the scarce less
-    portly person of the Reverend Mr. Blattergowl, minister of Trotcosey, the
-    parish in which Monkbarns and Knockwinnock were both situated. The
-    reverend gentleman was equipped in a buzz wig, upon the top of which was
-    an equilateral cocked hat. This was the paragon of the three yet
-    remaining wigs of the parish, which differed, as Monkbarns used to
-    remark, like the three degrees of comparison&mdash;Sir Arthur's ramilies being
-    the positive, his own bob-wig the comparative, and the overwhelming
-    grizzle of the worthy clergyman figuring as the superlative. The
-    superintendent of these antique garnitures, deeming, or affecting to
-    deem, that he could not well be absent on an occasion which assembled all
-    three together, had seated himself on the board behind the carriage,
-    "just to be in the way in case they wanted a touch before the gentlemen
-    sat down to dinner." Between the two massive figures of Monkbarns and the
-    clergyman was stuck, by way of bodkin, the slim form of Mary M'Intyre,
-    her aunt having preferred a visit to the manse, and a social chat with
-    Miss Beckie Blattergowl, to investigating the ruins of the priory of
-    Saint Ruth.
-</p>
-<p>
-    As greetings passed between the members of the Monkbarns party and Mr.
-    Lovel, the Baronet's carriage, an open barouche, swept onward to the
-    place of appointment, making, with its smoking bays, smart drivers, arms,
-    blazoned panels, and a brace of outriders, a strong contrast with the
-    battered vehicle and broken-winded hacks which had brought thither the
-    Antiquary and his followers. The principal seat of the carriage was
-    occupied by Sir Arthur and his daughter. At the first glance which passed
-    betwixt Miss Wardour and Lovel, her colour rose considerably;&mdash;but she
-    had apparently made up her mind to receive him as a friend, and only as
-    such, and there was equal composure and courtesy in the mode of her reply
-    to his fluttered salutation. Sir Arthur halted the barouche to shake his
-    preserver kindly by the hand, and intimate the pleasure he had on this
-    opportunity of returning him his personal thanks; then mentioned to him,
-    in a tone of slight introduction, "Mr. Dousterswivel, Mr. Lovel."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel took the necessary notice of the German adept, who occupied the
-    front seat of the carriage, which is usually conferred upon dependants or
-    inferiors. The ready grin and supple inclination with which his
-    salutation, though slight, was answered by the foreigner, increased the
-    internal dislike which Lovel had already conceived towards him; and it
-    was plain, from the lower of the Antiquary's shaggy eye-brow, that he too
-    looked with displeasure on this addition to the company. Little more than
-    distant greeting passed among the members of the party, until, having
-    rolled on for about three miles beyond the place at which they met, the
-    carriages at length stopped at the sign of the Four Horse-shoes, a small
-    hedge inn, where Caxon humbly opened the door, and let down the step of
-    the hack-chaise, while the inmates of the barouche were, by their more
-    courtly attendants, assisted to leave their equipage.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here renewed greetings passed: the young ladies shook hands; and Oldbuck,
-    completely in his element, placed himself as guide and cicerone at the
-    head of the party, who were now to advance on foot towards the object of
-    their curiosity. He took care to detain Lovel close beside him as the
-    best listener of the party, and occasionally glanced a word of
-    explanation and instruction to Miss Wardour and Mary M'Intyre, who
-    followed next in order. The Baronet and the clergyman he rather avoided,
-    as he was aware both of them conceived they understood such matters as
-    well, or better than he did; and Dousterswivel, besides that he looked on
-    him as a charlatan, was so nearly connected with his apprehended loss in
-    the stock of the mining company, that he could not abide the sight of
-    him. These two latter satellites, therefore, attended upon the orb of Sir
-    Arthur, to whom, moreover, as the most important person of the society,
-    they were naturally induced to attach themselves.
-</p>
-<p>
-    It frequently happens that the most beautiful points of Scottish scenery
-    lie hidden in some sequestered dell, and that you may travel through the
-    country in every direction without being aware of your vicinity to what
-    is well worth seeing, unless intention or accident carry you to the very
-    spot. This is particularly the case in the country around Fairport, which
-    is, generally speaking, open, unenclosed, and bare. But here and there
-    the progress of rills, or small rivers, has formed dells, glens, or as
-    they are provincially termed, <i>dens,</i> on whose high and rocky banks trees
-    and shrubs of all kinds find a shelter, and grow with a luxuriant
-    profusion, which is the more gratifying, as it forms an unexpected
-    contrast with the general face of the country. This was eminently the
-    case with the approach to the ruins of Saint Ruth, which was for some
-    time merely a sheep-track, along the side of a steep and bare hill. By
-    degrees, however, as this path descended, and winded round the hillside,
-    trees began to appear, at first singly, stunted, and blighted, with locks
-    of wool upon their trunks, and their roots hollowed out into recesses, in
-    which the sheep love to repose themselves&mdash;a sight much more gratifying
-    to the eye of an admirer of the picturesque than to that of a planter or
-    forester. By and by the trees formed groups, fringed on the edges, and
-    filled up in the middle, by thorns and hazel bushes; and at length these
-    groups closed so much together, that although a broad glade opened here
-    and there under their boughs, or a small patch of bog or heath occurred
-    which had refused nourishment to the seed which they sprinkled round, and
-    consequently remained open and waste, the scene might on the whole be
-    termed decidedly woodland. The sides of the valley began to approach each
-    other more closely; the rush of a brook was heard below, and between the
-    intervals afforded by openings in the natural wood, its waters were seen
-    hurling clear and rapid under their silvan canopy.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Oldbuck now took upon himself the full authority of cicerone, and
-    anxiously directed the company not to go a foot-breadth off the track
-    which he pointed out to them, if they wished to enjoy in full perfection
-    what they came to see. "You are happy in me for a guide, Miss Wardour,"
-    exclaimed the veteran, waving his hand and head in cadence as he repeated
-    with emphasis,
-</p>
-<pre>
-               I know each lane, and every alley green,
-               Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood,
-               And every bosky bower from side to side. *
-</pre>
-<p>
-    * (Milton's <i>Comus.</i>)
-</p>
-<p>
-    Ah! deuce take it!&mdash;that spray of a bramble has demolished all Caxon's
-    labours, and nearly canted my wig into the stream&mdash;so much for
-    recitations, <i>hors de propos.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Never mind, my dear sir," said Miss Wardour; "you have your faithful
-    attendant ready to repair such a disaster when it happens, and when you
-    appear with it as restored to its original splendour, I will carry on the
-    quotation:
-</p>
-<pre>
-                So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
-                And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
-               And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
-                       Flames on the forehead"&mdash;*
-</pre>
-<p>
-    * (<i>Lycidas.</i>)
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O! enough, enough!" answered Oldbuck; "I ought to have known what it was
-    to give you advantage over me&mdash;But here is what will stop your career of
-    satire, for you are an admirer of nature, I know." In fact, when they had
-    followed him through a breach in a low, ancient, and ruinous wall, they
-    came suddenly upon a scene equally unexpected and interesting.
-</p>
-<p>
-    They stood pretty high upon the side of the glen, which had suddenly
-    opened into a sort of amphitheatre to give room for a pure and profound
-    lake of a few acres extent, and a space of level ground around it. The
-    banks then arose everywhere steeply, and in some places were varied by
-    rocks&mdash;in others covered with the copse, which run up, feathering their
-    sides lightly and irregularly, and breaking the uniformity of the green
-    pasture-ground.&mdash;Beneath, the lake discharged itself into the huddling
-    and tumultuous brook, which had been their companion since they had
-    entered the glen. At the point at which it issued from "its parent lake,"
-    stood the ruins which they had come to visit. They were not of great
-    extent; but the singular beauty, as well as the wild and sequestered
-    character of the spot on which they were situated, gave them an interest
-    and importance superior to that which attaches itself to architectural
-    remains of greater consequence, but placed near to ordinary houses, and
-    possessing less romantic accompaniments. The eastern window of the church
-    remained entire, with all its ornaments and tracery work; and the sides,
-    upheld by flying buttresses whose airy support, detached from the wall
-    against which they were placed, and ornamented with pinnacles and carved
-    work, gave a variety and lightness to the building. The roof and western
-    end of the church were completely ruinous; but the latter appeared to
-    have made one side of a square, of which the ruins of the conventual
-    buildings formed other two, and the gardens a fourth. The side of these
-    buildings which overhung the brook, was partly founded on a steep and
-    precipitous rock; for the place had been occasionally turned to military
-    purposes, and had been taken with great slaughter during Montrose's wars.
-    The ground formerly occupied by the garden was still marked by a few
-    orchard trees. At a greater distance from the buildings were detached
-    oaks and elms and chestnuts, growing singly, which had attained great
-    size. The rest of the space between the ruins and the hill was a
-    close-cropt sward, which the daily pasture of the sheep kept in much
-    finer order than if it had been subjected to the scythe and broom. The
-    whole scene had a repose, which was still and affecting without being
-    monotonous. The dark, deep basin, in which the clear blue lake reposed,
-    reflecting the water lilies which grew on its surface, and the trees
-    which here and there threw their arms from the banks, was finely
-    contrasted with the haste and tumult of the brook which broke away from
-    the outlet, as if escaping from confinement and hurried down the glen,
-    wheeling around the base of the rock on which the ruins were situated,
-    and brawling in foam and fury with every shelve and stone which
-    obstructed its passage. A similar contrast was seen between the level
-    green meadow, in which the ruins were situated, and the large
-    timber-trees which were scattered over it, compared with the precipitous
-    banks which arose at a short distance around, partly fringed with light
-    and feathery underwood, partly rising in steeps clothed with purple
-    heath, and partly more abruptly elevated into fronts of grey rock,
-    chequered with lichen, and with those hardy plants which find root even
-    in the most arid crevices of the crags.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There was the retreat of learning in the days of darkness, Mr. Lovel!"
-    said Oldbuck,&mdash;around whom the company had now grouped themselves while
-    they admired the unexpected opening of a prospect so romantic;&mdash;"there
-    reposed the sages who were aweary of the world, and devoted either to
-    that which was to come, or to the service of the generations who should
-    follow them in this. I will show you presently the library;&mdash;see that
-    stretch of wall with square-shafted windows&mdash;there it existed, stored, as
-    an old manuscript in my possession assures me, with five thousand
-    volumes. And here I might well take up the lamentation of the learned
-    Leland, who, regretting the downfall of the conventual libraries,
-    exclaims, like Rachel weeping for her children, that if the Papal laws,
-    decrees, decretals, clementines, and other such drugs of the devil&mdash;yea,
-    if Heytesburg's sophisms, Porphyry's universals, Aristotle's logic, and
-    Dunse's divinity, with such other lousy legerdemains (begging your
-    pardon, Miss Wardour) and fruits of the bottomless pit,&mdash;had leaped out
-    of our libraries, for the accommodation of grocers, candlemakers,
-    soapsellers, and other worldly occupiers, we might have been therewith
-    contented. But to put our ancient chronicles, our noble histories, our
-    learned commentaries, and national muniments, to such offices of contempt
-    and subjection, has greatly degraded our nation, and showed ourselves
-    dishonoured in the eyes of posterity to the utmost stretch of time&mdash;O
-    negligence most unfriendly to our land!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And, O John Knox" said the Baronet, "through whose influence, and under
-    whose auspices, the patriotic task was accomplished!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Antiquary, somewhat in the situation of a woodcock caught in his own
-    springe, turned short round and coughed, to excuse a slight blush as he
-    mustered his answer&mdash;"as to the Apostle of the Scottish Reformation"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    But Miss Wardour broke in to interrupt a conversation so dangerous.
-    "Pray, who was the author you quoted, Mr. Oldbuck?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The learned Leland, Miss Wardour, who lost his senses on witnessing the
-    destruction of the conventual libraries in England."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Now, I think," replied the young lady, "his misfortune may have saved
-    the rationality of some modern antiquaries, which would certainly have
-    been drowned if so vast a lake of learning had not been diminished by
-    draining."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, thank Heaven, there is no danger now&mdash;they have hardly left us a
-    spoonful in which to perform the dire feat."
-</p>
-<p>
-    So saying, Mr. Oldbuck led the way down the bank, by a steep but secure
-    path, which soon placed them on the verdant meadow where the ruins stood.
-    "There they lived," continued the Antiquary, "with nought to do but to
-    spend their time in investigating points of remote antiquity,
-    transcribing manuscripts, and composing new works for the information of
-    posterity."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And," added the Baronet, "in exercising the rites of devotion with a
-    pomp and ceremonial worthy of the office of the priesthood."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And if Sir Arthur's excellence will permit," said the German, with a low
-    bow, "the monksh might also make de vary curious experiment in deir
-    laboraties, both in chemistry and <i>magia naturalis.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I think," said the clergyman, "they would have enough to do in
-    collecting the teinds of the parsonage and vicarage of three good
-    parishes."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And all," added Miss Wardour, nodding to the Antiquary, "without
-    interruption from womankind."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "True, my fair foe," said Oldbuck; "this was a paradise where no Eve was
-    admitted, and we may wonder the rather by what chance the good fathers
-    came to lose it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    With such criticisms on the occupations of those by whom the ruins had
-    been formerly possessed, they wandered for some time from one moss-grown
-    shrine to another, under the guidance of Oldbuck, who explained, with
-    much plausibility, the ground-plan of the edifice, and read and expounded
-    to the company the various mouldering inscriptions which yet were to be
-    traced upon the tombs of the dead, or under the vacant niches of the
-    sainted images.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What is the reason," at length Miss Wardour asked the Antiquary, "why
-    tradition has preserved to us such meagre accounts of the inmates of
-    these stately edifices, raised with such expense of labour and taste, and
-    whose owners were in their times personages of such awful power and
-    importance? The meanest tower of a freebooting baron or squire who lived
-    by his lance and broadsword, is consecrated by its appropriate legend,
-    and the shepherd will tell you with accuracy the names and feats of its
-    inhabitants;&mdash;but ask a countryman concerning these beautiful and
-    extensive remains&mdash;these towers, these arches, and buttresses, and
-    shafted windows, reared at such cost,&mdash;three words fill up his
-		answer&mdash;they were made up by the monks lang syne.'"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The question was somewhat puzzling. Sir Arthur looked upward, as if
-    hoping to be inspired with an answer&mdash;Oldbuck shoved back his wig&mdash;the
-    clergyman was of opinion that his parishioners were too deeply impressed
-    with the true presbyterian doctrine to preserve any records concerning
-    the papistical cumberers of the land, offshoots as they were of the great
-    overshadowing tree of iniquity, whose roots are in the bowels of the
-    seven hills of abomination&mdash;Lovel thought the question was best resolved
-    by considering what are the events which leave the deepest impression on
-    the minds of the common people&mdash;"These," he contended, "were not such as
-    resemble the gradual progress of a fertilizing river, but the headlong
-    and precipitous fury of some portentous flood. The eras by which the
-    vulgar compute time, have always reference to some period of fear and
-    tribulation, and they date by a tempest, an earthquake, or burst of civil
-    commotion. When such are the facts most alive, in the memory of the
-    common people, we cannot wonder," he concluded, "that the ferocious
-    warrior is remembered, and the peaceful abbots are abandoned to
-    forgetfulness and oblivion."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If you pleashe, gentlemans and ladies, and ashking pardon of Sir Arthur
-    and Miss Wardour, and this worthy clergymansh, and my goot friend Mr.
-    Oldenbuck, who is my countrymansh, and of goot young Mr. Lofel also, I
-    think it is all owing to de hand of glory."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The hand of what?" exclaimed Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "De hand of glory, my goot Master Oldenbuck, which is a vary great and
-    terrible secrets&mdash;which de monksh used to conceal their treasures when
-    they were triven from their cloisters by what you call de Reform."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, indeed! tell us about that," said Oldbuck, "for these are secrets
-    worth knowing."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, my goot Master Oldenbuck, you will only laugh at me&mdash;But de hand of
-    glory is vary well known in de countries where your worthy progenitors
-    did live&mdash;and it is hand cut off from a dead man, as has been hanged for
-    murther, and dried very nice in de shmoke of juniper wood; and if you put
-    a little of what you call yew wid your juniper, it will not be any
-    better&mdash;that is, it will not be no worse&mdash;then you do take something of
-    de fatsh of de bear, and of de badger, and of de great eber, as you call
-    de grand boar, and of de little sucking child as has not been christened
-    (for dat is very essentials), and you do make a candle, and put it into
-    de hand of glory at de proper hour and minute, with de proper ceremonish,
-    and he who seeksh for treasuresh shall never find none at all."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I dare take my corporal oath of that conclusion," said the Antiquary.
-    "And was it the custom, Mr. Dousterswivel, in Westphalia, to make use of
-    this elegant candelabrum?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Alwaysh, Mr. Oldenbuck, when you did not want nobody to talk of nothing
-    you wash doing about&mdash;And the monksh alwaysh did this when they did hide
-    their church-plates, and their great chalices, and de rings, wid very
-    preshious shtones and jewels."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But, notwithstanding, you knights of the Rosy Cross have means, no
-    doubt, of breaking the spell, and discovering what the poor monks have
-    put themselves to so much trouble to conceal?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ah! goot Mr. Oldenbuck," replied the adept, shaking his head
-    mysteriously, "you was very hard to believe; but if you had seen de great
-    huge pieces of de plate so massive, Sir Arthur,&mdash;so fine fashion, Miss
-    Wardour&mdash;and de silver cross dat we did find (dat was Schroepfer and my
-    ownself) for de Herr Freygraf, as you call de Baron Von Blunderhaus, I do
-    believe you would have believed then."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Seeing <i>is</i> believing indeed. But what was your art&mdash;what was your
-    mystery, Mr. Dousterswivel?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aha, Mr. Oldenbuck! dat is my little secret, mine goot sir&mdash;you sall
-    forgife me that I not tell that. But I will tell you dere are various
-    ways&mdash;yes, indeed, dere is de dream dat you dream tree times&mdash;dat is a
-    vary goot way."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am glad of that," said Oldbuck; "I have a friend" (with a side-glance
-    to Lovel) "who is peculiarly favoured by the visits of Queen Mab."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Den dere is de sympathies, and de antipathies, and de strange properties
-    and virtues natural of divers herb, and of de little divining-rod."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I would gladly rather see some of these wonders than hear of them," said
-    Miss Wardour.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ah, but, my much-honoured young lady, this is not de time or de way to
-    do de great wonder of finding all de church's plate and treasure; but to
-    oblige you, and Sir Arthur my patron, and de reverend clergymans, and
-    goot Mr. Oldenbuck, and young Mr. Lofel, who is a very goot young
-    gentleman also, I will show you dat it is possible, a vary possible, to
-    discover de spring, of water, and de little fountain hidden in de ground,
-    without any mattock, or spade, or dig at all."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Umph!" quoth the Antiquary, "I have heard of that conundrum. That will
-    be no very productive art in our country;&mdash;you should carry that property
-    to Spain or Portugal, and turn it to good account."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ah! my goot Master Oldenbuck, dere is de Inquisition and de
-		Auto-da-fe&mdash;they would burn me, who am but a simple philosopher, for one great
-    conjurer."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "They would cast away their coals then," said Oldbuck; "but," continued
-    he, in a whisper to Lovel, "were they to pillory him for one of the most
-    impudent rascals that ever wagged a tongue, they would square the
-    punishment more accurately with his deserts. But let us see: I think he
-    is about to show us some of his legerdemain."
-</p>
-<p>
-    In truth, the German was now got to a little copse-thicket at some
-    distance from the ruins, where he affected busily to search for such a
-    wand as would suit the purpose of his mystery: and after cutting and
-    examining, and rejecting several, he at length provided himself with a
-    small twig of hazel terminating in a forked end, which he pronounced to
-    possess the virtue proper for the experiment that he was about to
-    exhibit. Holding the forked ends of the wand, each between a finger and
-    thumb, and thus keeping the rod upright, he proceeded to pace the ruined
-    aisles and cloisters, followed by the rest of the company in admiring
-    procession. "I believe dere was no waters here," said the adept, when he
-    had made the round of several of the buildings, without perceiving any of
-    those indications which he pretended to expect&mdash;"I believe those Scotch
-    monksh did find de water too cool for de climate, and alwaysh drank de
-    goot comfortable, Rhinewine. But, aha!&mdash;see there!" Accordingly, the
-    assistants observed the rod to turn in his fingers, although he pretended
-    to hold it very tight.&mdash;"Dere is water here about, sure enough," and,
-    turning this way and that way, as the agitation of the divining-rod
-    seemed to increase or diminish, he at length advanced into the midst of a
-    vacant and roofless enclosure which had been the kitchen of the priory,
-    when the rod twisted itself so as to point almost straight downwards.
-    "Here is de place," said the adept, "and if you do not find de water
-    here, I will give you all leave to call me an impudent knave."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I shall take that license," whispered the Antiquary to Lovel, "whether
-    the water is discovered or no."
-</p>
-<p>
-    A servant, who had come up with a basket of cold refreshments, was now
-    despatched to a neighbouring forester's hut for a mattock and pick-axe.
-    The loose stones and rubbish being removed from the spot indicated by the
-    German, they soon came to the sides of a regularly-built well; and when a
-    few feet of rubbish were cleared out by the assistance of the forester
-    and his sons, the water began to rise rapidly, to the delight of the
-    philosopher, the astonishment of the ladies, Mr. Blattergowl, and Sir
-    Arthur, the surprise of Lovel, and the confusion of the incredulous
-    Antiquary. He did not fail, however, to enter his protest in Lovers ear
-    against the miracle. "This is a mere trick," he said; "the rascal had
-    made himself sure of the existence of this old well, by some means or
-    other, before he played off this mystical piece of jugglery. Mark what he
-    talks of next. I am much mistaken if this is not intended as a prelude to
-    some more serious fraud. See how the rascal assumes consequence, and
-    plumes himself upon the credit of his success, and how poor Sir Arthur
-    takes in the tide of nonsense which he is delivering to him as principles
-    of occult science!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You do see, my goot patron, you do see, my goot ladies, you do see,
-    worthy Dr. Bladderhowl, and even Mr. Lofel and Mr. Oldenbuck may see, if
-    they do will to see, how art has no enemy at all but ignorance. Look at
-    this little slip of hazel nuts&mdash;it is fit for nothing at all but to whip
-    de little child"&mdash;("I would choose a cat and nine tails for your
-    occasions," whispered Oldbuck apart)&mdash;"and you put it in the hands of a
-    philosopher&mdash;paf! it makes de grand discovery. But this is nothing, Sir
-    Arthur,&mdash;nothing at all, worthy Dr. Botherhowl&mdash;nothing at all,
-		ladies&mdash;nothing at all, young Mr. Lofel and goot Mr. Oldenbuck, to what art can
-    do. Ah! if dere was any man that had de spirit and de courage, I would
-    show him better things than de well of water&mdash;I would show him"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And a little money would be necessary also, would it not?" said the
-    Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Bah! one trifle, not worth talking about, maight be necessaries,"
-    answered the adept.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I thought as much," rejoined the Antiquary, drily; "and I, in the
-    meanwhile, without any divining-rod, will show you an excellent venison
-    pasty, and a bottle of London particular Madeira, and I think that will
-    match all that Mr. Dousterswivel's art is like to exhibit."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The feast was spread <i>fronde super viridi,</i> as Oldbuck expressed himself,
-    under a huge old tree called the Prior's Oak, and the company, sitting
-    down around it, did ample honour to the contents of the basket.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0018"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-               As when a Gryphon through the wilderness,
-               With winged course, o'er hill and moory dale,
-                 Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
-                 Had from his wakeful custody purloined
-                  The guarded gold: So eagerly the Fiend&mdash;
-                                   Paradise Lost.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    When their collation was ended, Sir Arthur resumed the account of the
-    mysteries of the divining-rod, as a subject on which he had formerly
-    conversed with Dousterswivel. "My friend Mr. Oldbuck will now be
-    prepared, Mr. Dousterswivel, to listen with more respect to the stories
-    you have told us of the late discoveries in Germany by the brethren of
-    your association."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ah, Sir Arthur, that was not a thing to speak to those gentlemans,
-    because it is want of credulity&mdash;what you call faith&mdash;that spoils the
-    great enterprise."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "At least, however, let my daughter read the narrative she has taken down
-    of the story of Martin Waldeck."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ah! that was vary true story&mdash;but Miss Wardour, she is so sly and so
-    witty, that she has made it just like one romance&mdash;as well as Goethe or
-    Wieland could have done it, by mine honest wort."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "To say the truth, Mr. Dousterswivel," answered Miss Wardour, "the
-    romantic predominated in the legend so much above the probable, that it
-    was impossible for a lover of fairyland like me to avoid lending a few
-    touches to make it perfect in its kind. But here it is, and if you do not
-    incline to leave this shade till the heat of the day has somewhat
-    declined, and will have sympathy with my bad composition, perhaps Sir
-    Arthur or Mr. Oldbuck will read it to us."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not I," said Sir Arthur; "I was never fond of reading aloud."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nor I," said Oldbuck, "for I have forgot my spectacles. But here is
-    Lovel, with sharp eyes and a good voice; for Mr. Blattergowl, I know,
-    never reads anything, lest he should be suspected of reading his
-    sermons."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The task was therefore imposed upon Lovel, who received, with some
-    trepidation, as Miss Wardour delivered, with a little embarrassment, a
-    paper containing the lines traced by that fair hand, the possession of
-    which he coveted as the highest blessing the earth could offer to him.
-    But there was a necessity of suppressing his emotions; and after glancing
-    over the manuscript, as if to become acquainted with the character, he
-    collected himself, and read the company the following tale:&mdash;
-</p>
-
-<h3>The Fortunes of Martin Waldeck.</h3
-
-
-<p> The solitudes of the Harz forest in Germany, but especially the
-    mountains called Blocksberg, or rather Brockenberg, are the chosen scenes
-    for tales of witches, demons, and apparitions.
-
-<p>
-    [The outline of this story is taken from the German, though the Author
-    is at present unable to say in which of the various collections of the
-    popular legends in that language the original is to be found.]
-</p>
-<p>
-    The occupation of the inhabitants, who are either miners or foresters, is
-    of a kind that renders them peculiarly prone to superstition, and the
-    natural phenomena which they witness in pursuit of their solitary or
-    subterraneous profession, are often set down by them to the interference
-    of goblins or the power of magic. Among the various legends current in
-    that wild country, there is a favourite one, which supposes the Harz to
-    be haunted by a sort of tutelar demon, in the shape of a wild man, of
-    huge stature, his head wreathed with oak leaves, and his middle cinctured
-    with the same, bearing in his hand a pine torn up by the roots. It is
-    certain that many persons profess to have seen such a form traversing,
-    with huge strides, in a line parallel to their own course, the opposite
-    ridge of a mountain, when divided from it by a narrow glen; and indeed
-    the fact of the apparition is so generally admitted, that modern
-    scepticism has only found refuge by ascribing it to optical deception. *
-</p>
-<p>
-    *The shadow of the person who sees the phantom, being reflected upon a
-    cloud of mist, like the image of the magic lantern upon a white sheet, is
-    supposed to have formed the apparition.
-</p>
-<p>
-    In elder times, the intercourse of the demon with the inhabitants was
-    more familiar, and, according to the traditions of the Harz, he was wont,
-    with the caprice usually ascribed to these earth-born powers, to
-    interfere with the affairs of mortals, sometimes for their weal,
-    sometimes for their wo. But it was observed that even his gifts often
-    turned out, in the long run, fatal to those on whom they were bestowed,
-    and it was no uncommon thing for the pastors, in their care of their
-    flocks, to compose long sermons, the burden whereof was a warning against
-    having any intercourse, direct or indirect, with the Harz demon. The
-    fortunes of Martin Waldeck have been often quoted by the aged to their
-    giddy children, when they were heard to scoff at a danger which appeared
-    visionary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    A travelling capuchin had possessed himself of the pulpit of the thatched
-    church at a little hamlet called <i>Morgenbrodt,</i> lying in the Harz
-    district, from which he declaimed against the wickedness of the
-    inhabitants, their communication with fiends, witches, and fairies, and,
-    in particular, with the woodland goblin of the Harz. The doctrines of
-    Luther had already begun to spread among the peasantry (for the incident
-    is placed under the reign of Charles V. ), and they laughed to scorn the
-    zeal with which the venerable man insisted upon his topic. At length, as
-    his vehemence increased with opposition, so their opposition rose in
-    proportion to his vehemence. The inhabitants did not like to hear an
-    accustomed quiet demon, who had inhabited the Brockenberg for so many
-    ages, summarily confounded with Baal-peor, Ashtaroth, and Beelzebub
-    himself, and condemned without reprieve to the bottomless Tophet. The
-    apprehensions that the spirit might avenge himself on them for listening
-    to such an illiberal sentence, added to their national interest in his
-    behalf. A travelling friar, they said, that is here to-day and away
-    to-morrow, may say what he pleases: but it is we, the ancient and
-    constant inhabitants of the country, that are left at the mercy of the
-    insulted demon, and must, of course, pay for all. Under the irritation
-    occasioned by these reflections, the peasants from injurious language
-    betook themselves to stones, and having pebbled the priest pretty
-    handsomely, they drove him out of the parish to preach against demons
-    elsewhere.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Three young men, who had been present and assisting on this occasion were
-    upon their return to the hut where they carried on the laborious and mean
-    occupation of preparing charcoal for the smelting furnaces. On the way,
-    their conversation naturally turned upon the demon of the Harz and the
-    doctrine of the capuchin. Max and George Waldeck, the two elder brothers,
-    although they allowed the language of the capuchin to have been
-    indiscreet and worthy of censure, as presuming to determine upon the
-    precise character and abode of the spirit, yet contended it was
-    dangerous, in the highest degree, to accept of his gifts, or hold any
-    communication with him, He was powerful, they allowed, but wayward and
-    capricious, and those who had intercourse with him seldom came to a good
-    end. Did he not give the brave knight, Ecbert of Rabenwald, that famous
-    black steed, by means of which he vanquished all the champions at the
-    great tournament at Bremen? and did not the same steed afterwards
-    precipitate itself with its rider into an abyss so steep and fearful,
-    that neither horse nor man were ever seen more? Had he not given to Dame
-    Gertrude Trodden a curious spell for making butter come? and was she not
-    burnt for a witch by the grand criminal judge of the Electorate, because
-    she availed herself of his gift? But these, and many other instances
-    which they quoted, of mischance and ill-luck ultimately attending on the
-    apparent benefits conferred by the Harz spirit, failed to make any
-    impression upon Martin Waldeck, the youngest of the brothers.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Martin was youthful, rash, and impetuous; excelling in all the exercises
-    which distinguish a mountaineer, and brave and undaunted from his
-    familiar intercourse with the dangers that attend them. He laughed at the
-    timidity of his brothers. "Tell me not of such folly," he said; "the
-    demon is a good demon&mdash;he lives among us as if he were a peasant like
-    ourselves&mdash;haunts the lonely crags and recesses of the mountains like a
-    huntsman or goatherd&mdash;and he who loves the Harz forest and its wild
-    scenes cannot be indifferent to the fate of the hardy children of the
-    soil. But, if the demon were as malicious as you would make him, how
-    should he derive power over mortals, who barely avail themselves of his
-    gifts, without binding themselves to submit to his pleasure? When you
-    carry your charcoal to the furnace, is not the money as good that is paid
-    you by blaspheming Blaize, the old reprobate overseer, as if you got it
-    from the pastor himself? It is not the goblins gifts which can endanger
-    you, then, but it is the use you shall make of them that you must account
-    for. And were the demon to appear to me at this moment, and indicate to
-    me a gold or silver mine, I would begin to dig away even before his back
-    were turned,&mdash;and I would consider myself as under protection of a much
-    Greater than he, while I made a good use of the wealth he pointed out to
-    me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    To this the elder brother replied, that wealth ill won was seldom well
-    spent; while Martin presumptuously declared, that the possession of all
-    the treasures of the Harz would not make the slightest alteration on his
-    habits, morals, or character.
-</p>
-<p>
-    His brother entreated Martin to talk less wildly upon the subject, and
-    with some difficulty contrived to withdraw his attention, by calling it
-    to the consideration of the approaching boar-chase. This talk brought
-    them to their hut, a wretched wigwam, situated upon one side of a wild,
-    narrow, and romantic dell, in the recesses of the Brockenberg. They
-    released their sister from attending upon the operation of charring the
-    wood, which requires constant attention, and divided among themselves the
-    duty of watching it by night, according to their custom, one always
-    waking, while his brothers slept.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Max Waldeck, the eldest, watched during the first two hours of the night,
-    and was considerably alarmed by observing, upon the opposite bank of the
-    glen, or valley, a huge fire surrounded by some figures that appeared to
-    wheel around it with antic gestures. Max at first bethought him of
-    calling up his brothers; but recollecting the daring character of the
-    youngest, and finding it impossible to wake the elder without also
-    disturbing Martin&mdash;conceiving also what he saw to be an illusion of the
-    demon, sent perhaps in consequence of the venturous expressions used by
-    Martin on the preceding evening, he thought it best to betake himself to
-    the safeguard of such prayers as he could murmur over, and to watch in
-    great terror and annoyance this strange and alarming apparition. After
-    blazing for some time, the fire faded gradually away into darkness, and
-    the rest of Max's watch was only disturbed by the remembrance of its
-    terrors.
-</p>
-<p>
-    George now occupied the place of Max, who had retired to rest. The
-    phenomenon of a huge blazing fire, upon the opposite bank of the glen,
-    again presented itself to the eye of the watchman. It was surrounded as
-    before by figures, which, distinguished by their opaque forms, being
-    between the spectator and the red glaring light, moved and fluctuated
-    around it as if engaged in some mystical ceremony. George, though equally
-    cautious, was of a bolder character than his elder brother. He resolved
-    to examine more nearly the object of his wonder; and, accordingly after
-    crossing the rivulet which divided the glen, he climbed up the opposite
-    bank, and approached within an arrow's flight of the fire, which blazed
-    apparently with the same fury as when he first witnessed it.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The appearance, of the assistants who surrounded it resembled those
-    phantoms which are seen in a troubled dream, and at once confirmed the
-    idea he had entertained from the first, that they did not belong to the
-    human world. Amongst these strange unearthly forms, George Waldeck
-    distinguished that of a giant overgrown with hair, holding an uprooted
-    fir in his hand, with which, from time to time, he seemed to stir the
-    blazing fire, and having no other clothing than a wreath of oak leaves
-    around his forehead and loins. George's heart sunk within him at
-    recognising the well-known apparition of the Harz demon, as he had been
-    often described to him by the ancient shepherds and huntsmen who had seen
-    his form traversing the mountains. He turned, and was about to fly; but
-    upon second thoughts, blaming his own cowardice, he recited mentally the
-    verse of the Psalmist, "All good angels, praise the Lord!" which is in
-    that country supposed powerful as an exorcism, and turned himself once
-    more towards the place where he had seen the fire. But it was no longer
-    visible.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The pale moon alone enlightened the side of the valley; and when George,
-    with trembling steps, a moist brow, and hair bristling upright under his
-    collier's cap, came to the spot on which the fire had been so lately
-    visible, marked as it was by a scathed oak-tree, there appeared not on
-    the heath the slightest vestiges of what he had seen. The moss and wild
-    flowers were unscorched, and the branches of the oak-tree, which had so
-    lately appeared enveloped in wreaths of flame and smoke, were moist with
-    the dews of midnight.
-</p>
-<p>
-    George returned to his hut with trembling steps, and, arguing like his
-    elder brother, resolved to say nothing of what he had seen, lest he
-    should awake in Martin that daring curiosity which he almost deemed to be
-    allied with impiety.
-</p>
-<p>
-    It was now Martin's turn to watch. The household cock had given his first
-    summons, and the night was well-nigh spent. Upon examining the state of
-    the furnace in which the wood was deposited in order to its being <i>coked</i>
-    or <i>charred,</i> he was surprised to find that the fire had not been
-    sufficiently maintained; for in his excursion and its consequences,
-    George had forgot the principal object of his watch. Martin's first
-    thought was to call up the slumberers; but observing that both his
-    brothers slept unwontedly deep and heavily, he respected their repose,
-    and set himself to supply the furnace with fuel without requiring their
-    aid. What he heaped upon it was apparently damp and unfit for the
-    purpose, for the fire seemed rather to decay than revive. Martin next
-    went to collect some boughs from a stack which had been carefully cut and
-    dried for this purpose; but, when he returned, he found the fire totally
-    extinguished. This was a serious evil, and threatened them with loss of
-    their trade for more than one day. The vexed and mortified watchman set
-    about to strike a light in order to rekindle the fire but the tinder was
-    moist, and his labour proved in this respect also ineffectual. He was now
-    about to call up his brothers, for circumstances seemed to be pressing,
-    when flashes of light glimmered not only through the window, but through
-    every crevice of the rudely built hut, and summoned him to behold the
-    same apparition which had before alarmed the successive watches of his
-    brethren. His first idea was, that the Muhllerhaussers, their rivals in
-    trade, and with whom they had had many quarrels, might have encroached
-    upon their bounds for the purpose of pirating their wood; and he resolved
-    to awake his brothers, and be revenged on them for their audacity. But a
-    short reflection and observation on the gestures and manner of those who
-    seemed to "work in the fire," induced him to dismiss this belief, and
-    although rather sceptical in such matters, to conclude that what he saw
-    was a supernatural phenomenon. "But be they men or fiends," said the
-    undaunted forester, "that busy themselves yonder with such fantastical
-    rites and gestures, I will go and demand a light to rekindle our
-    furnace." He, relinquished at the same time the idea of awaking his
-    brethren. There was a belief that such adventures as he was about to
-    undertake were accessible only to one person at a time; he feared also
-    that his brothers, in their scrupulous timidity, might interfere to
-    prevent his pursuing the investigation he had resolved to commence; and,
-    therefore, snatching his boar-spear from the wall, the undaunted Martin
-    Waldeck set forth on the adventure alone.
-</p>
-<p>
-    With the same success as his brother George, but with courage far
-    superior, Martin crossed the brook, ascended the hill, and approached so
-    near the ghostly assembly, that he could recognise, in the presiding
-    figure, the attributes of the Harz demon. A cold shuddering assailed him
-    for the first time in his life; but the recollection that he had at a
-    distance dared and even courted the intercourse which was now about to
-    take place, confirmed his staggering courage; and pride supplying what he
-    wanted in resolution, he advanced with tolerable firmness towards the
-    fire, the figures which surrounded it appearing still more wild,
-    fantastical, and supernatural, the more near he approached to the
-    assembly. He was received with a loud shout of discordant and unnatural
-    laughter, which, to his stunned ears, seemed more alarming than a
-    combination of the most dismal and melancholy sounds that could be
-    imagined. "Who art thou?" said the giant, compressing his savage and
-    exaggerated features into a sort of forced gravity, while they were
-    occasionally agitated by the convulsion of the laughter which he seemed
-    to suppress.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Martin Waldeck, the forester," answered the hardy youth;&mdash;"and who are
-    you?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The King of the Waste and of the Mine," answered the spectre;&mdash;"and why
-    hast thou dared to encroach on my mysteries?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I came in search of light to rekindle my fire," answered Martin,
-    hardily, and then resolutely asked in his turn, "What mysteries are those
-    that you celebrate here?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We celebrate," answered the complaisant demon, "the wedding of Hermes
-    with the Black Dragon&mdash;But take thy fire that thou camest to seek, and
-    begone! no mortal may look upon us and live."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The peasant struck his spear-point into a large piece of blazing wood,
-    which he heaved up with some difficulty, and then turned round to regain
-    his hut, the shouts of laughter being renewed behind him with treble
-    violence, and ringing far down the narrow valley. When Martin returned to
-    the hut, his first care, however much astonished with what he had seen,
-    was to dispose the kindled coal among the fuel so as might best light the
-    fire of his furnace; but after many efforts, and all exertions of bellows
-    and fire-prong, the coal he had brought from the demon's fire became
-    totally extinct without kindling any of the others. He turned about, and
-    observed the fire still blazing on the hill, although those who had been
-    busied around it had disappeared. As he conceived the spectre had been
-    jesting with him, he gave way to the natural hardihood of his temper,
-    and, determining to see the adventure to an end, resumed the road to the
-    fire, from which, unopposed by the demon, he brought off in the same
-    manner a blazing piece of charcoal, but still without being able to
-    succeed in lighting his fire. Impunity having increased his rashness, he
-    resolved upon a third experiment, and was as successful as before in
-    reaching the fire; but when he had again appropriated a piece of burning
-    coal, and had turned to depart, he heard the harsh and supernatural voice
-    which had before accosted him, pronounce these words, "Dare not return
-    hither a fourth time!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The attempt to kindle the fire with this last coal having proved as
-    ineffectual as on the former occasions, Martin relinquished the hopeless
-    attempt, and flung himself on his bed of leaves, resolving to delay till
-    the next morning the communication of his supernatural adventure to his
-    brothers. He was awakened from a heavy sleep into which he had sunk, from
-    fatigue of body and agitation of mind, by loud exclamations of surprise
-    and joy. His brothers, astonished at finding the fire extinguished when
-    they awoke, had proceeded to arrange the fuel in order to renew it, when
-    they found in the ashes three huge metallic masses, which their skill
-    (for most of the peasants in the Harz are practical mineralogists)
-    immediately ascertained to be pure gold.
-</p>
-<p>
-    It was some damp upon their joyful congratulations when they learned from
-    Martin the mode in which he had obtained this treasure, to which their
-    own experience of the nocturnal vision induced them to give full credit.
-    But they were unable to resist the temptation of sharing in their
-    brother's wealth. Taking now upon him as head of the house, Martin
-    Waldeck bought lands and forests, built a castle, obtained a patent of
-    nobility, and, greatly to the indignation of the ancient aristocracy of
-    the neighbourhood, was invested with all the privileges of a man of
-    family. His courage in public war, as well as in private feuds, together
-    with the number of retainers whom he kept in pay, sustained him for some
-    time against the odium which was excited by his sudden elevation, and the
-    arrogance of his pretensions.
-</p>
-<p>
-    And now it was seen in the instance of Martin Waldeck, as it has been in
-    that of many others, how little mortals can foresee the effect of sudden
-    prosperity on their own disposition. The evil propensities in his nature,
-    which poverty had checked and repressed, ripened and bore their
-    unhallowed fruit under the influence of temptation and the means of
-    indulgence. As Deep calls unto Deep, one bad passion awakened another the
-    fiend of avarice invoked that of pride, and pride was to be supported by
-    cruelty and oppression. Waldeck's character, always bold and daring but
-    rendered harsh and assuming by prosperity, soon made him odious, not to
-    the nobles only, but likewise to the lower ranks, who saw, with double
-    dislike, the oppressive rights of the feudal nobility of the empire so
-    remorselessly exercised by one who had risen from the very dregs of the
-    people. His adventure, although carefully concealed, began likewise to be
-    whispered abroad, and the clergy already stigmatized as a wizard and
-    accomplice of fiends, the wretch, who, having acquired so huge a treasure
-    in so strange a manner, had not sought to sanctify it by dedicating a
-    considerable portion to the use of the church. Surrounded by enemies,
-    public and private, tormented by a thousand feuds, and threatened by the
-    church with excommunication, Martin Waldeck, or, as we must now call him,
-    the Baron von Waldeck, often regretted bitterly the labours and sports of
-    his unenvied poverty. But his courage failed him not under all these
-    difficulties, and seemed rather to augment in proportion to the danger
-    which darkened around him, until an accident precipitated his fall.
-</p>
-<p>
-    A proclamation by the reigning Duke of Brunswick had invited to a solemn
-    tournament all German nobles of free and honourable descent; and Martin
-    Waldeck, splendidly armed, accompanied by his two brothers, and a
-    gallantly-equipped retinue, had the arrogance to appear among the
-    chivalry of the province, and demand permission to enter the lists. This
-    was considered as filling up the measure of his presumption. A thousand
-    voices exclaimed, "We will have no cinder-sifter mingle in our games of
-    chivalry." Irritated to frenzy, Martin drew his sword and hewed down the
-    herald, who, in compliance with the general outcry, opposed his entry
-    into the lists. An hundred swords were unsheathed to avenge what was in
-    those days regarded as a crime only inferior to sacrilege or regicide.
-    Waldeck, after defending himself like a lion, was seized, tried on the
-    spot by the judges of the lists, and condemned, as the appropriate
-    punishment for breaking the peace of his sovereign, and violating the
-    sacred person of a herald-at-arms, to have his right hand struck from his
-    body, to be ignominiously deprived of the honour of nobility, of which he
-    was unworthy, and to be expelled from the city. When he had been stripped
-    of his arms, and sustained the mutilation imposed by this severe
-    sentence, the unhappy victim of ambition was abandoned to the rabble, who
-    followed him with threats and outcries levelled alternately against the
-    necromancer and oppressor, which at length ended in violence. His
-    brothers (for his retinue were fled and dispersed) at length succeeded in
-    rescuing him from the hands of the populace, when, satiated with cruelty,
-    they had left him half dead through loss of blood, and through the
-    outrages he had sustained. They were not permitted, such was the
-    ingenious cruelty of their enemies, to make use of any other means of
-    removing him, excepting such a collier's cart as they had themselves
-    formerly used, in which they deposited their brother on a truss of straw,
-    scarcely expecting to reach any place of shelter ere death should release
-    him from his misery.
-</p>
-<p>
-    When the Waldecks, journeying in this miserable manner, had approached
-    the verge of their native country, in a hollow way, between two
-    mountains, they perceived a figure advancing towards them, which at first
-    sight seemed to be an aged man. But as he approached, his limbs and
-    stature increased, the cloak fell from his shoulders, his pilgrim's staff
-    was changed into an uprooted pine-tree, and the gigantic figure of the
-    Harz demon passed before them in his terrors. When he came opposite to
-    the cart which contained the miserable Waldeck, his huge features dilated
-    into a grin of unutterable contempt and malignity, as he asked the
-    sufferer, "How like you the fire my coals have kindled?" The power of
-    motion, which terror suspended in his two brothers, seemed to be restored
-    to Martin by the energy of his courage. He raised himself on the cart,
-    bent his brows, and, clenching his fist, shook it at the spectre with a
-    ghastly look of hate and defiance. The goblin vanished with his usual
-    tremendous and explosive laugh, and left Waldeck exhausted with this
-    effort of expiring nature.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The terrified brethren turned their vehicle toward the towers of a
-    convent, which arose in a wood of pine-trees beside the road. They were
-    charitably received by a bare-footed and long-bearded capuchin, and
-    Martin survived only to complete the first confession he had made since
-    the day of his sudden prosperity, and to receive absolution from the very
-    priest whom, precisely on that day three years, he had assisted to pelt
-    out of the hamlet of Morgenbrodt. The three years of precarious
-    prosperity were supposed to have a mysterious correspondence with the
-    number of his visits to the spectral fire upon the bill.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The body of Martin Waldeck was interred in the convent where he expired,
-    in which his brothers, having assumed the habit of the order, lived and
-    died in the performance of acts of charity and devotion. His lands, to
-    which no one asserted any claim, lay waste until they were reassumed by
-    the emperor as a lapsed fief, and the ruins of the castle, which Waldeck
-    had called by his own name, are still shunned by the miner and forester
-    as haunted by evil spirits. Thus were the miseries attendant upon wealth,
-    hastily attained and ill employed, exemplified in the fortunes of Martin
-    Waldeck.
-</p>
-
-
-<a name="2HCH0019"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER NINETEENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                 Here has been such a stormy encounter
-                 Betwixt my cousin Captain, and this soldier,
-                 About I know not what!&mdash;nothing, indeed;
-                 Competitions, degrees, and comparatives
-                          Of soldiership!&mdash;
-                                    A Faire Qurrell.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The attentive audience gave the fair transcriber of the foregoing legend
-    the thanks which politeness required. Oldbuck alone curled up his nose,
-    and observed, that Miss Wardour's skill was something like that of the
-    alchemists, for she had contrived to extract a sound and valuable moral
-    out of a very trumpery and ridiculous legend. "It is the fashion, as I am
-    given to understand, to admire those extravagant fictions&mdash;for me,
-</p>
-<pre>
-                            &mdash;I bear an English heart,
-             Unused at ghosts and rattling bones to start."
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "Under your favour, my goot Mr. Oldenbuck," said the German, "Miss
-    Wardour has turned de story, as she does every thing as she touches, very
-    pretty indeed; but all the history of de Harz goblin, and how he walks
-    among de desolate mountains wid a great fir-tree for his walking cane,
-    and wid de great green bush around his head and his waist&mdash;that is as
-    true as I am an honest man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There is no disputing any proposition so well guaranteed," answered the
-    Antiquary, drily. But at this moment the approach of a stranger cut short
-    the conversation.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The new comer was a handsome young man, about five-and-twenty, in a
-    military undress, and bearing, in his look and manner, a good deal of
-    the martial profession&mdash;nay, perhaps a little more than is quite
-    consistent with the ease of a man of perfect good-breeding, in whom no
-    professional habit ought to predominate. He was at once greeted by the
-    greater part of the company. "My dear Hector!" said Miss M'Intyre, as she
-    rose to take his hand&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hector, son of Priam, whence comest thou?" said the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "From Fife, my liege," answered the young soldier, and continued, when he
-    had politely saluted the rest of the company, and particularly Sir Arthur
-    and his daughter&mdash;"I learned from one of the servants, as I rode towards
-    Monkbarns to pay my respects to you, that I should find the present
-    company in this place, and I willingly embrace the opportunity to pay my
-    respects to so many of my friends at once."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And to a new one also, my trusty Trojan," said Oldbuck. "Mr. Lovel, this
-    is my nephew, Captain M'Intyre&mdash;Hector, I recommend Mr. Lovel to your
-    acquaintance."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The young soldier fixed his keen eye upon Lovel, and paid his compliment
-    with more reserve than cordiality and as our acquaintance thought his
-    coldness almost supercilious, he was equally frigid and haughty in making
-    the necessary return to it; and thus a prejudice seemed to arise between
-    them at the very commencement of their acquaintance.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The observations which Lovel made during the remainder of this pleasure
-    party did not tend to reconcile him with this addition to their society.
-    Captain M'Intyre, with the gallantry to be expected from his age and
-    profession, attached himself to the service of Miss Wardour, and offered
-    her, on every possible opportunity, those marks of attention which Lovel
-    would have given the world to have rendered, and was only deterred from
-    offering by the fear of her displeasure. With forlorn dejection at one
-    moment, and with irritated susceptibility at another, he saw this
-    handsome young soldier assume and exercise all the privileges of a
-    <i>cavaliere servente.</i> He handed Miss Wardour's gloves, he assisted her in
-    putting on her shawl, he attached himself to her in the walks, had a hand
-    ready to remove every impediment in her path, and an arm to support her
-    where it was rugged or difficult; his conversation was addressed chiefly
-    to her, and, where circumstances permitted, it was exclusively so. All
-    this, Lovel well knew, might be only that sort of egotistical gallantry
-    which induces some young men of the present day to give themselves the
-    air of engrossing the attention of the prettiest women in company, as if
-    the others were unworthy of their notice. But he thought he observed in
-    the conduct of Captain M'Intyre something of marked and peculiar
-    tenderness, which was calculated to alarm the jealousy of a lover. Miss
-    Wardour also received his attentions; and although his candour allowed
-    they were of a kind which could not be repelled without some strain of
-    affectation, yet it galled him to the heart to witness that she did so.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The heart-burning which these reflections occasioned proved very
-    indifferent seasoning to the dry antiquarian discussions with which
-    Oldbuck, who continued to demand his particular attention, was
-    unremittingly persecuting him; and he underwent, with fits of impatience
-    that amounted almost to loathing, a course of lectures upon monastic
-    architecture, in all its styles, from the massive Saxon to the florid
-    Gothic, and from that to the mixed and composite architecture of James
-    the First's time, when, according to Oldbuck, all orders were confounded,
-    and columns of various descriptions arose side by side, or were piled
-    above each other, as if symmetry had been forgotten, and the elemental
-    principles of art resolved into their primitive confusion. "What can be
-    more cutting to the heart than the sight of evils," said Oldbuck, in
-    rapturous enthusiasm, "which we are compelled to behold, while we do not
-    possess the power of remedying them?" Lovel answered by an involulatary
-    groan. "I see, my dear young friend, and most congenial spirit, that you
-    feel these enormities almost as much as I do. Have you ever approached
-    them, or met them, without longing to tear, to deface, what is so
-    dishonourable?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dishonourable!" echoed Lovel&mdash;"in what respect dishonourable?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I mean, disgraceful to the arts."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Where? how?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Upon the portico, for example, of the schools of Oxford, where, at
-    immense expense, the barbarous, fantastic, and ignorant architect has
-    chosen to represent the whole five orders of architecture on the front of
-    one building."
-</p>
-<p>
-    By such attacks as these, Oldbuck, unconscious of the torture he was
-    giving, compelled Lovel to give him a share of his attention,&mdash;as a
-    skilful angler, by means of his line, maintains an influence over the
-    most frantic movements of his agonized prey.
-</p>
-<p>
-    They were now on their return to the spot where they had left the
-    carriages; and it is inconceivable how often, in the course of that short
-    walk, Lovel, exhausted by the unceasing prosing of his worthy companion,
-    mentally bestowed on the devil, or any one else that would have rid him
-    of hearing more of them, all the orders and disorders of architecture
-    which had been invented or combined from the building of Solomon's temple
-    downwards. A slight incident occurred, however, which sprinkled a little
-    patience on the heat of his distemperature.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Miss Wardour, and her self-elected knight companion, rather preceded the
-    others in the narrow path, when the young lady apparently became desirous
-    to unite herself with the rest of the party, and, to break off her
-    <i>tete-a-tete</i> with the young officer, fairly made a pause until Mr.
-    Oldbuck came up. "I wished to ask you a question, Mr. Oldbuck, concerning
-    the date of these interesting ruins."
-</p>
-<p>
-    It would be doing injustice to Miss Wardour's <i>savoir faire,</i> to suppose
-    she was not aware that such a question would lead to an answer of no
-    limited length. The Antiquary, starting like a war-horse at the trumpet
-    sound, plunged at once into the various arguments for and against the
-    date of 1273, which had been assigned to the priory of St. Ruth by a late
-    publication on Scottish architectural antiquities. He raked up the names
-    of all the priors who had ruled the institution, of the nobles who had
-    bestowed lands upon it, and of the monarchs who had slept their last
-    sleep among its roofless courts. As a train which takes fire is sure to
-    light another, if there be such in the vicinity, the Baronet, catching at
-    the name of one of his ancestors which occurred in Oldbuck's
-    disquisition, entered upon an account of his wars, his conquests, and his
-    trophies; and worthy Dr. Blattergowl was induced, from the mention of a
-    grant of lands, <i>cum decimis inclusis tam vicariis quam garbalibus, et
-    nunquan antea separatis,</i> to enter into a long explanation concerning the
-    interpretation given by the Teind Court in the consideration of such a
-    clause, which had occurred in a process for localling his last
-    augmentation of stipend. The orators, like three racers, each pressed
-    forward to the goal, without much regarding how each crossed and jostled
-    his competitors. Mr. Oldbuck harangued, the Baronet declaimed, Mr.
-    Blattergowl prosed and laid down the law, while the Latin forms of feudal
-    grants were mingled with the jargon of blazonry, and the yet more
-    barbarous phraseology of the Teind Court of Scotland. "He was," exclaimed
-    Oldbuck, speaking of the Prior Adhemar, "indeed an exemplary prelate;
-    and, from his strictness of morals, rigid execution of penance, joined to
-    the charitable disposition of his mind, and the infirmities endured by
-    his great age and ascetic habits"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here he chanced to cough, and Sir Arthur burst in, or rather
-		continued&mdash;"was called popularly Hell-in-Harness; he carried a shield, gules with
-    a sable fess, which we have since disused, and was slain at the battle of
-    Vernoil, in France, after killing six of the English with his own"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Decreet of certification," proceeded the clergyman, in that prolonged,
-    steady, prosing tone, which, however overpowered at first by the
-    vehemence of competition, promised, in the long run, to obtain the
-    ascendancy in this strife of narrators;&mdash;"Decreet of certification having
-    gone out, and parties being held as confessed, the proof seemed to be
-    held as concluded, when their lawyer moved to have it opened up, on the
-    allegation that they had witnesses to bring forward, that they had been
-    in the habit of carrying the ewes to lamb on the teind-free land; which
-    was a mere evasion, for"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    But here the Baronet and Mr. Oldbuck having recovered their wind, and
-    continued their respective harangues, the three <i>strands</i> of the
-    conversation, to speak the language of a rope-work, were again twined
-    together into one undistinguishable string of confusion.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Yet, howsoever uninteresting this piebald jargon might seem, it was
-    obviously Miss Wardour's purpose to give it her attention, in preference
-    to yielding Captain M'Intyre an opportunity of renewing their private
-    conversation. So that, after waiting for a little time with displeasure,
-    ill concealed by his haughty features, he left her to enjoy her bad
-    taste, and taking his sister by the arm, detained her a little behind the
-    rest of the party.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "So I find, Mary, that your neighbour has neither become more lively nor
-    less learned during my absence."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We lacked your patience and wisdom to instruct us, Hector."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Thank you, my dear sister. But you have got a wiser, if not so lively an
-    addition to your society, than your unworthy brother&mdash;Pray, who is this
-    Mr. Lovel, whom our old uncle has at once placed so high in his good
-    graces?&mdash;he does not use to be so accessible to strangers."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mr. Lovel, Hector, is a very gentleman-like young man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay,&mdash;that is to say, he bows when he comes into a room, and wears a coat
-    that is whole at the elbows."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, brother; it says a great deal more. It says that his manners and
-    discourse express the feelings and education of the higher class."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But I desire to know what is his birth and his rank in society, and what
-    is his title to be in the circle in which I find him domesticated?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If you mean, how he comes to visit at Monkbarns, you must ask my uncle,
-    who will probably reply, that he invites to his own house such company as
-    he pleases; and if you mean to ask Sir Arthur, you must know that Mr.
-    Lovel rendered Miss Wardour and him a service of the most important
-    kind."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What! that romantic story is true, then?&mdash;And pray, does the valorous
-    knight aspire, as is befitting on such occasions, to the hand of the
-    young lady whom he redeemed from peril? It is quite in the rule of
-    romance, I am aware; and I did think that she was uncommonly dry to me as
-    we walked together, and seemed from time to time as if she watched
-    whether she was not giving offence to her gallant cavalier."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dear Hector," said his sister, "if you really continue to nourish any
-    affection for Miss Wardour"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If, Mary?&mdash;what an <i>if</i> was there!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "&mdash;I own I consider your perseverance as hopeless."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And why hopeless, my sage sister?" asked Captain M'Intyre: "Miss
-    Wardour, in the state of her father's affairs, cannot pretend to much
-    fortune;&mdash;and, as to family, I trust that of Mlntyre is not inferior."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But, Hector," continued his sister, "Sir Arthur always considers us as
-    members of the Monkbarns family."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Sir Arthur may consider what he pleases," answered the Highlander
-    scornfully; "but any one with common sense will consider that the wife
-    takes rank from the husband, and that my father's pedigree of fifteen
-    unblemished descents must have ennobled my mother, if her veins had been
-    filled with printer's ink."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "For God's sake, Hector," replied his anxious sister, "take care of
-    yourself! a single expression of that kind, repeated to my uncle by an
-    indiscreet or interested eavesdropper, would lose you his favour for
-    ever, and destroy all chance of your succeeding to his estate."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Be it so," answered the heedless young man; "I am one of a profession
-    which the world has never been able to do without, and will far less
-    endure to want for half a century to come; and my good old uncle may tack
-    his good estate and his plebeian name to your apron-string if he pleases,
-    Mary, and you may wed this new favourite of his if you please, and you
-    may both of you live quiet, peaceable, well-regulated lives, if it
-    pleases Heaven. My part is taken&mdash;I'll fawn on no man for an inheritance
-    which should be mine by birth."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Miss M'Intyre laid her hand on her brother's arm, and entreated him to
-    suppress his vehemence. "Who," she said, "injures or seeks to injure you,
-    but your own hasty temper?&mdash;what dangers are you defying, but those you
-    have yourself conjured up?&mdash;Our uncle has hitherto been all that is kind
-    and paternal in his conduct to us, and why should you suppose he will in
-    future be otherwise than what he has ever been, since we were left as
-    orphans to his care?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He is an excellent old gentleman, I must own," replied M'Intyre, "and I
-    am enraged at myself when I chance to offend him; but then his eternal
-    harangues upon topics not worth the spark of a flint&mdash;his investigations
-    about invalided pots and pans and tobacco-stoppers past service&mdash;all
-    these things put me out of patience. I have something of Hotspur in me,
-    sister, I must confess."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Too much, too much, my dear brother! Into how many risks, and, forgive
-    me for saying, some of them little creditable, has this absolute and
-    violent temper led you! Do not let such clouds darken the time you are
-    now to pass in our neighbourhood, but let our old benefactor see his
-    kinsman as he is&mdash;generous, kind, and lively, without being rude,
-    headstrong, and impetuous."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well," answered Captain M'Intyre, "I am schooled&mdash;good-manners be my
-    speed! I'll do the civil thing by your new friend&mdash;I'll have some talk
-    with this Mr. Lovel."
-</p>
-<p>
-    With this determination, in which he was for the time perfectly sincere,
-    he joined the party who were walking before them. The treble disquisition
-    was by this time ended; and Sir Arthur was speaking on the subject of
-    foreign news, and the political and military situation of the country,
-    themes upon which every man thinks himself qualified to give an opinion.
-    An action of the preceding year having come upon the <i>tapis,</i> Lovel,
-    accidentally mingling in the conversation, made some assertion concerning
-    it, of the accuracy of which Captain M'Intyre seemed not to be convinced,
-    although his doubts were politely expressed.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You must confess yourself in the wrong here, Hector," said his uncle,
-    "although I know no man less willing to give up an argument; but you were
-    in England at the time, and Mr. Lovel was probably concerned in the
-    affair."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am speaking to a military man, then?" said M'Intyre; "may I inquire to
-    what regiment Mr. Lovel belongs?"&mdash;Mr. Lovel gave him the number of the
-    regiment. "It happens strangely that we should never have met before, Mr.
-    Lovel. I know your regiment very well, and have served along with them at
-    different times."
-</p>
-<p>
-    A blush crossed Lovel's countenance. "I have not lately been with my
-    regiment," he replied; "I served the last campaign upon the staff of
-    General Sir&mdash;&mdash;."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed! that is more wonderful than the other circumstance!&mdash;for
-    although I did not serve with General Sir&mdash;&mdash;, yet I had an opportunity
-    of knowing the names of the officers who held situations in his family,
-    and I cannot recollect that of Lovel."
-</p>
-<p>
-    At this observation Lovel again blushed so deeply as to attract the
-    attention of the whole company, while, a scornful laugh seemed to
-    indicate Captain M'Intyre's triumph. "There is something strange in
-    this," said Oldbuck to himself; "but I will not readily give up my
-    phoenix of post-chaise companions&mdash;all his actions, language, and
-    bearing, are those of a gentleman."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel in the meanwhile had taken out his pocket-book, and selecting a
-    letter, from which he took off the envelope, he handed it to Mlntyre.
-    "You know the General's hand, in all probability&mdash;I own I ought not to
-    show these exaggerated expressions of his regard and esteem for me." The
-    letter contained a very handsome compliment from the officer in question
-    for some military service lately performed. Captain M'Intyre, as he
-    glanced his eye over it, could not deny that it was written in the
-    General's hand, but drily observed, as he returned it, that the address
-    was wanting. "The address, Captain M'Intyre," answered Lovel, in the same
-    tone, "shall be at your service whenever you choose to inquire after it!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I certainly shall not fail to do so," rejoined the soldier.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Come, come," exclaimed Oldbuck, "what is the meaning of all this? Have
-    we got Hiren here?&mdash;We'll have no swaggering youngsters. Are you come
-    from the wars abroad, to stir up domestic strife in our peaceful land?
-    Are you like bull-dog puppies, forsooth, that when the bull, poor fellow,
-    is removed from the ring, fall to brawl among themselves, worry each
-    other, and bite honest folk's shins that are standing by?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur trusted, he said, the young gentlemen would not so far forget
-    themselves as to grow warm upon such a trifling subject as the back of a
-    letter.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Both the disputants disclaimed any such intention, and, with high colour
-    and flashing eyes, protested they were never so cool in their lives. But
-    an obvious damp was cast over the party;&mdash;they talked in future too much
-    by the rule to be sociable, and Lovel, conceiving himself the object of
-    cold and suspicious looks from the rest of the company, and sensible that
-    his indirect replies had given them permission to entertain strange
-    opinions respecting him, made a gallant determination to sacrifice the
-    pleasure he had proposed in spending the day at Knockwinnock.
-</p>
-<p>
-    He affected, therefore, to complain of a violent headache, occasioned by
-    the heat of the day, to which he had not been exposed since his illness,
-    and made a formal apology to Sir Arthur, who, listening more to recent
-    suspicion than to the gratitude due for former services, did not press
-    him to keep his engagement more than good-breeding exactly demanded.
-</p>
-<p>
-    When Lovel took leave of the ladies, Miss Wardour's manner seemed more
-    anxious than he had hitherto remarked it. She indicated by a glance of
-    her eye towards Captain M'Intyre, perceptible only by Lovel, the subject
-    of her alarm, and hoped, in a voice greatly under her usual tone, it was
-    not a less pleasant engagement which deprived them of the pleasure of Mr.
-    Lovel's company. "No engagement had intervened," he assured her; "it was
-    only the return of a complaint by which he had been for some time
-    occasionally attacked."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The best remedy in such a case is prudence, and I&mdash;every friend of Mr.
-    Lovel's will expect him to employ it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel bowed low and coloured deeply, and Miss Wardour, as if she felt
-    that she had said too much, turned and got into the carriage. Lovel had
-    next to part with Oldbuck, who, during this interval, had, with Caxon's
-    assistance, been arranging his disordered periwig, and brushing his coat,
-    which exhibited some marks of the rude path they had traversed. "What,
-    man!" said Oldbuck, "you are not going to leave us on account of that
-    foolish Hector's indiscreet curiosity and vehemence? Why, he is a
-    thoughtless boy&mdash;a spoiled child from the time he was in the nurse's
-    arms&mdash;he threw his coral and bells at my head for refusing him a bit of
-    sugar; and you have too much sense to mind such a shrewish boy: <i>aequam
-    servare mentem</i> is the motto of our friend Horace. I'll school Hector by
-    and by, and put it all to rights." But Lovel persisted in his design of
-    returning to Fairport.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Antiquary then assumed a graver tone.&mdash;"Take heed, young man, to your
-    present feelings. Your life has been given you for useful and valuable
-    purposes, and should be reserved to illustrate the literature of your
-    country, when you are not called upon to expose it in her defence, or in
-    the rescue of the innocent. Private war, a practice unknown to the
-    civilised ancients, is, of all the absurdities introduced by the Gothic
-    tribes, the most gross, impious, and cruel. Let me hear no more of these
-    absurd quarrels, and I will show you the treatise upon the duello, which
-    I composed when the town-clerk and provost Mucklewhame chose to assume
-    the privileges of gentlemen, and challenged each other. I thought of
-    printing my Essay, which is signed <i>Pacificator;</i> but there was no need,
-    as the matter was taken up by the town-council of the borough."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But I assure you, my dear sir, there is nothing between Captain M'Intyre
-    and me that can render such respectable interference necessary."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "See it be so; for otherwise, I will stand second to both parties."
-</p>
-<p>
-    So saying, the old gentleman got into the chaise, close to which Miss
-    M'Intyre had detained her brother, upon the same principle that the owner
-    of a quarrelsome dog keeps him by his side to prevent his fastening upon
-    another. But Hector contrived to give her precaution the slip, for, as he
-    was on horseback, he lingered behind the carriages until they had fairly
-    turned the corner in the road to Knockwinnock, and then, wheeling his
-    horse's head round, gave him the spur in the opposite direction.
-</p>
-<p>
-    A very few minutes brought him up with Lovel, who, perhaps anticipating
-    his intention, had not put his horse beyond a slow walk, when the clatter
-    of hoofs behind him announced Captain Mlntyre. The young soldier, his
-    natural heat of temper exasperated by the rapidity of motion, reined his
-    horse up suddenly and violently by Lovel's side, and touching his hat
-    slightly, inquired, in a very haughty tone of voice, "What am I to
-    understand, sir, by your telling me that your address was at my service?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Simply, sir," replied Lovel, "that my name is Lovel, and that my
-    residence is, for the present, Fairport, as you will see by this card."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And is this all the information you are disposed to give me?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I see no right you have to require more."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I find you, sir, in company with my sister," said the young soldier,
-    "and I have a right to know who is admitted into Miss M'Intyre's
-    society."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I shall take the liberty of disputing that right," replied Lovel, with a
-    manner as haughty as that of the young soldier;&mdash;"you find me in society
-    who are satisfied with the degree of information on my affairs which I
-    have thought proper to communicate, and you, a mere stranger, have no
-    right to inquire further."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mr. Lovel, if you served as you say you have"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If!" interrupted Lovel,&mdash;"<i>if</i> I have served as <i>I say</i> I have?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes, sir, such is my expression&mdash;<i>if</i> you have so served, you must know
-    that you owe me satisfaction either in one way or other."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If that be your opinion, I shall be proud to give it to you, Captain
-    M'Intyre, in the way in which the word is generally used among
-    gentlemen."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Very well, sir," rejoined Hector, and, turning his horse round, galloped
-    off to overtake his party.
-</p>
-<p>
-    His absence had already alarmed them, and his sister, having stopped the
-    carriage, had her neck stretched out of the window to see where he was.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What is the matter with you now?" said the Antiquary, "riding to and fro
-    as your neck were upon the wager&mdash;why do you not keep up with the
-    carriage?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I forgot my glove, sir," said Hector.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Forgot your glove!&mdash;I presume you meant to say you went to throw it
-    down&mdash;But I will take order with you, my young gentleman&mdash;you shall
-    return with me this night to Monkbarns." So saying, he bid the postilion
-    go on.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0020"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER TWENTIETH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                         &mdash;If you fail Honour here,
-                 Never presume to serve her any more;
-                 Bid farewell to the integrity of armes;
-                    And the honourable name of soldier
-            Fall from you, like a shivered wreath of laurel
-            By thunder struck from a desertlesse forehead.
-                                    A Faire Quarrell.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Early the next morning, a gentleman came to wait upon Mr. Lovel, who was
-    up and ready to receive him. He was a military gentleman, a friend of
-    Captain M'Intyre's, at present in Fairport on the recruiting service.
-    Lovel and he were slightly known to each other. "I presume, sir," said
-    Mr. Lesley (such was the name of the visitor), "that you guess the
-    occasion of my troubling you so early?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A message from Captain M'Intyre, I presume?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The same. He holds himself injured by the manner in which you declined
-    yesterday to answer certain inquiries which he conceived himself entitled
-    to make respecting a gentleman whom he found in intimate society with his
-    family."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "May I ask, if you, Mr. Lesley, would have inclined to satisfy
-    interrogatories so haughtily and unceremoniously put to you?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Perhaps not;&mdash;and therefore, as I know the warmth of my friend M'Intyre
-    on such occasions, I feel very desirous of acting as peacemaker. From Mr.
-    Lovel's very gentleman-like manners, every one must strongly wish to see
-    him repel all that sort of dubious calumny which will attach itself to
-    one whose situation is not fully explained. If he will permit me, in
-    friendly conciliation, to inform Captain M'Intyre of his real name, for
-    we are led to conclude that of Lovel is assumed"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I beg your pardon, sir, but I cannot admit that inference."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "&mdash;Or at least," said Lesley, proceeding, "that it is not the name by
-    which Mr. Lovel has been at all times distinguished&mdash;if Mr. Lovel will
-    have the goodness to explain this circumstance, which, in my opinion, he
-    should do in justice to his own character, I will answer for the amicable
-    arrangement of this unpleasant business."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Which is to say, Mr. Lesley, that if I condescend to answer questions
-    which no man has a right to ask, and which are now put to me under
-    penalty of Captain M'Intyre's resentment, Captain MIntyre will condescend
-    to rest satisfied? Mr. Lesley, I have just one word to say on this
-    subject&mdash;I have no doubt my secret, if I had one, might be safely
-    entrusted to your honour, but I do not feel called upon to satisfy the
-    curiosity of any one. Captain M'Intyre met me in society which of itself
-    was a warrant to all the world, and particularly ought to be such to him,
-    that I was a gentleman. He has, in my opinion, no right to go any
-    further, or to inquire the pedigree, rank, or circumstances, of a
-    stranger, who, without seeking any intimate connection with him, or his,
-    chances to dine with his uncle, or walk in company with his sister."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In that case, Captain M'Intyre requests you to be informed, that your
-    farther visits at Monkbarns, and all connection with Miss M'Intyre, must
-    be dropt, as disagreeable to him."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I shall certainly," said Lovel, "visit Mr. Oldbuck when it suits me,
-    without paying the least respect to his nephew's threats or irritable
-    feelings. I respect the young lady's name too much (though nothing can be
-    slighter than our acquaintance) to introduce it into such a discussion."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Since that is your resolution, sir," answered Lesley, "Captain M'Intyre
-    requests that Mr. Lovel, unless he wishes to be announced as a very
-    dubious character, will favour him with a meeting this evening, at seven,
-    at the thorn-tree in the little valley close by the ruins of St. Ruth."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Most unquestionably, I will wait upon him. There is only one
-		difficulty&mdash;I must find a friend to accompany me, and where to seek one on this
-    short notice, as I have no acquaintance in Fairport&mdash;I will be on the
-    spot, however&mdash;Captain M'Intyre may be assured of that."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lesley had taken his hat, and was as far as the door of the apartment,
-    when, as if moved by the peculiarity of Lovel's situation, he returned,
-    and thus addressed him: "Mr. Lovel, there is something so singular in all
-    this, that I cannot help again resuming the argument. You must be
-    yourself aware at this moment of the inconvenience of your preserving an
-    incognito, for which, I am convinced, there can be no dishonourable
-    reason. Still, this mystery renders it difficult for you to procure the
-    assistance of a friend in a crisis so delicate&mdash;nay, let me add, that
-    many persons will even consider it as a piece of Quixotry in M'Intyre to
-    give you a meeting, while your character and circumstances are involved
-    in such obscurity."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I understand your innuendo, Mr. Lesley," rejoined Lovel; and though I
-    might be offended at its severity, I am not so, because it is meant
-    kindly. But, in my opinion, he is entitled to all the privileges of a
-    gentleman, to whose charge, during the time he has been known in the
-    society where he happens to move, nothing can be laid that is unhandsome
-    or unbecoming. For a friend, I dare say I shall find some one or other
-    who will do me that good turn; and if his experience be less than I could
-    wish, I am certain not to suffer through that circumstance when you are
-    in the field for my antagonist."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I trust you will not," said Lesley; "but as I must, for my own sake, be
-    anxious to divide so heavy a responsibility with a capable assistant,
-    allow me to say, that Lieutenant Taffril's gun-brig is come into the
-    roadstead, and he himself is now at old Caxon's, where he lodges. I think
-    you have the same degree of acquaintance with him as with me, and, as I
-    am sure I should willingly have rendered you such a service were I not
-    engaged on the other side, I am convinced he will do so at your first
-    request."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "At the thorn-tree, then, Mr. Lesley, at seven this evening&mdash;the arms, I
-    presume, are pistols?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Exactly. M'Intyre has chosen the hour at which he can best escape from
-    Monkbarns&mdash;he was with me this morning by five, in order to return and
-    present himself before his uncle was up. Good-morning to you, Mr. Lovel."
-    And Lesley left the apartment.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel was as brave as most men; but none can internally regard such a
-    crisis as now approached, without deep feelings of awe and uncertainty.
-    In a few hours he might be in another world to answer for an action which
-    his calmer thought told him was unjustifiable in a religious point of
-    view, or he might be wandering about in the present like Cain, with the
-    blood of his brother on his head. And all this might be saved by speaking
-    a single word. Yet pride whispered, that to speak that word now, would be
-    ascribed to a motive which would degrade him more low than even the most
-    injurious reasons that could be assigned for his silence. Every one, Miss
-    Wardour included, must then, he thought, account him a mean dishonoured
-    poltroon, who gave to the fear of meeting Captain M'Intyre the
-    explanation he had refused to the calm and handsome expostulations of Mr.
-    Lesley. M'Intyre's insolent behaviour to himself personally, the air of
-    pretension which he assumed towards Miss Wardour, and the extreme
-    injustice, arrogance, and incivility of his demands upon a perfect
-    stranger, seemed to justify him in repelling his rude investigation. In
-    short, he formed the resolution which might have been expected from so
-    young a man,&mdash;to shut the eyes, namely, of his calmer reason, and follow
-    the dictates of his offended pride. With this purpose he sought
-    Lieutenant Taffril.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The lieutenant received him with the good breeding of a gentleman and the
-    frankness of a sailor, and listened with no small surprise to the detail
-    which preceded his request that he might be favoured with his company at
-    his meeting with Captain M'Intyre. When he had finished, Taffril rose up
-    and walked through his apartment once or twice. "This is a most singular
-    circumstance," he said, "and really"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am conscious, Mr. Taffril, how little I am entitled to make my present
-    request, but the urgency of circumstances hardly leaves me an
-    alternative."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Permit me to ask you one question," asked the sailor;&mdash;"is there
-    anything of which you are ashamed in the circumstances which you have
-    declined to communicate."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Upon my honour, no; there is nothing but what, in a very short time, I
-    trust I may publish to the whole world."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I hope the mystery arises from no false shame at the lowness of your
-    friends perhaps, or connections?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, on my word," replied Lovel.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have little sympathy for that folly," said Taffril&mdash;"indeed I cannot
-    be supposed to have any; for, speaking of my relations, I may be said to
-    have come myself from before the mast, and I believe I shall very soon
-    form a connection, which the world will think low enough, with a very
-    amiable girl, to whom I have been attached since we were next-door
-    neighbours, at a time when I little thought of the good fortune which has
-    brought me forward in the service."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I assure you, Mr. Taffril," replied Lovel, "whatever were the rank of my
-    parents, I should never think of concealing it from a spirit of petty
-    pride. But I am so situated at present, that I cannot enter on the
-    subject of my family with any propriety."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is quite enough," said the honest sailor&mdash;"give me your hand; I'll
-    see you as well through this business as I can, though it is but an
-    unpleasant one after all&mdash;But what of that? our own honour has the next
-    call on us after our country;&mdash;you are a lad of spirit, and I own I think
-    Mr. Hector M'Intyre, with his long pedigree and his airs of family, very
-    much of a jackanapes. His father was a soldier of fortune as I am a
-    sailor&mdash;he himself, I suppose, is little better, unless just as his uncle
-    pleases; and whether one pursues fortune by land, or sea, makes no great
-    difference, I should fancy."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "None in the universe, certainly," answered Lovel.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well," said his new ally, "we will dine together and arrange matters for
-    this rencounter. I hope you understand the use of the weapon?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not particularly," Lovel replied.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am sorry for that&mdash;M'Intyre is said to be a marksman."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am sorry for it also," said Lovel, "both for his sake and my own: I
-    must then, in self-defence, take my aim as well as I can."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well," added Taffril, "I will have our surgeon's mate on the field&mdash;a
-    good clever young fellow at caulking a shot-hole. I will let Lesley, who
-    is an honest fellow for a landsman, know that he attends for the benefit
-    of either party. Is there anything I can do for you in case of an
-    accident?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have but little occasion to trouble you," said Lovel. "This small
-    billet contains the key of my escritoir, and my very brief secret. There
-    is one letter in the escritoir" (digesting a temporary swelling of the
-    heart as he spoke), "which I beg the favour of you to deliver with your
-    own hand."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I understand," said the sailor. "Nay, my friend, never be ashamed for
-    the matter&mdash;an affectionate heart may overflow for an instant at the
-    eyes, if the ship were clearing for action; and, depend on it, whatever
-    your injunctions are, Dan Taffril will regard them like the bequest of a
-    dying brother. But this is all stuff;&mdash;we must get our things in fighting
-    order, and you will dine with me and my little surgeon's mate, at the
-    Graeme's-Arms over the way, at four o'clock."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Agreed," said Lovel.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Agreed," said Taffril; and the whole affair was arranged.
-</p>
-<p>
-    It was a beautiful summer evening, and the shadow of the solitary
-    thorn-tree was lengthening upon the short greensward of the narrow
-    valley, which was skirted by the woods that closed around the ruins of
-    St. Ruth. *
-</p>
-<p>
-    * [Supposed to have been suggested by the old Abbey of Arbroath in *
-    Forfarshire.]
-</p>
-<a name="image-0010"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/pa261.jpg" height="521" width="833"
-alt="St. Ruth (arbroath Abbey)
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-
-<p>
- Lovel and Lieutenant Taffril, with the surgeon, came upon the ground
-with a purpose of a nature very uncongenial to the soft, mild, and
-pacific character of the hour and scene. The sheep, which during the
-ardent heat of the day had sheltered in the breaches and hollows of the
-gravelly bank, or under the roots of the aged and stunted trees, had now
-spread themselves upon the face of the hill to enjoy their evening's
-pasture, and bleated, to each other with that melancholy sound which at
-once gives life to a landscape, and marks its solitude.&mdash;Taffril and
-Lovel came on in deep conference, having, for fear of discovery, sent
-their horses back to the town by the Lieutenant's servant. The opposite
-party had not yet appeared on the field. But when they came upon the
-ground, there sat upon the roots of the old thorn a figure as vigorous in
-his decay as the moss-grown but strong and contorted boughs which served
-him for a canopy. It was old Ochiltree. "This is embarrassing enough,"
-said Lovel:&mdash;"How shall we get rid of this old fellow?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Here, father Adam," cried Taffril, who knew the mendicant of
-		yore&mdash;"here's half-a-crown for you. You must go to the Four Horse-shoes
-		yonder&mdash;the little inn, you know, and inquire for a servant with blue and
-    yellow livery. If he is not come, you'll wait for him, and tell him we
-    shall be with his master in about an hour's time. At any rate, wait there
-    till we come back,&mdash;and&mdash;Get off with you&mdash;Come, come, weigh anchor."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I thank ye for your awmous," said Ochiltree, pocketing the piece of
-    money; "but I beg your pardon, Mr. Taffril&mdash;I canna gang your errand e'en
-    now."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why not, man? what can hinder you?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I wad speak a word wi' young Mr. Lovel."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "With me?" answered Lovel: "what would you say with me? Come, say on, and
-    be brief."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The mendicant led him a few paces aside. "Are ye indebted onything to the
-    Laird o' Monkbarns?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indebted!&mdash;no, not I&mdash;what of that?&mdash;what makes you think so?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ye maun ken I was at the shirra's the day; for, God help me, I gang
-    about a' gates like the troubled spirit; and wha suld come whirling there
-    in a post-chaise, but Monkbarns in an unco carfuffle&mdash;now, it's no a
-    little thing that will make his honour take a chaise and post-horse twa
-    days rinnin'."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, well; but what is all this to me?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ou, ye'se hear, ye'se hear. Weel, Monkbarns is closeted wi' the shirra
-    whatever puir folk may be left thereout&mdash;ye needna doubt that&mdash;the
-    gentlemen are aye unco civil amang themsells."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "For heaven's sake, my old friend"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Canna ye bid me gang to the deevil at ance, Mr. Lovel? it wad be mair
-    purpose fa'ard than to speak o' heaven in that impatient gate."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But I have private business with Lieutenant Taffril here."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Weel, weel, a' in gude time," said the beggar&mdash;"I can use a little wee
-    bit freedom wi' Mr. Daniel Taffril;&mdash;mony's the peery and the tap I
-    worked for him langsyne, for I was a worker in wood as weel as a
-    tinkler."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You are either mad, Adam, or have a mind to drive me mad."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nane o' the twa," said Edie, suddenly changing his manner from the
-    protracted drawl of the mendicant to a brief and decided tone. "The
-    shirra sent for his clerk, and as the lad is rather light o' the tongue,
-    I fand it was for drawing a warrant to apprehend you&mdash;I thought it had
-    been on a <i>fugie</i> warrant for debt; for a' body kens the laird likes
-    naebody to pit his hand in his pouch&mdash;But now I may haud my tongue, for I
-    see the M'Intyre lad and Mr. Lesley coming up, and I guess that
-    Monkbarns's purpose was very kind, and that yours is muckle waur than it
-    should be."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The antagonist now approached, and saluted with the stern civility which
-    befitted the occasion. "What has this old fellow to do here?" said
-    M'Intyre.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am an auld fallow," said Edie, "but I am also an auld soldier o' your
-    father's, for I served wi' him in the 42d."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Serve where you please, you have no title to intrude on us," said
-    M'Intyre, "or"&mdash;and he lifted his cane <i>in terrorem,</i> though without the
-    idea of touching the old man.
-</p>
-<p>
-    But Ochiltree's courage was roused by the insult. "Haud down your switch,
-    Captain M'Intyre! I am an auld soldier, as I said before, and I'll take
-    muckle frae your father's son; but no a touch o' the wand while my
-    pike-staff will haud thegither."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, well, I was wrong&mdash;I was wrong," said M'Intyre; "here's a crown
-    for you&mdash;go your ways&mdash;what's the matter now?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The old man drew himself up to the full advantage of his uncommon height,
-    and in despite of his dress, which indeed had more of the pilgrim than
-    the ordinary beggar, looked from height, manner, and emphasis of voice
-    and gesture, rather like a grey palmer or eremite preacher, the ghostly
-    counsellor of the young men who were around him, than the object of their
-    charity. His speech, indeed, was as homely as his habit, but as bold and
-    unceremonious as his erect and dignified demeanour. "What are ye come
-    here for, young men?" he said, addressing himself to the surprised
-    audience; "are ye come amongst the most lovely works of God to break his
-    laws? Have ye left the works of man, the houses and the cities that are
-    but clay and dust, like those that built them&mdash;and are ye come here among
-    the peaceful hills, and by the quiet waters, that will last whiles aught
-    earthly shall endure, to destroy each other's lives, that will have but
-    an unco short time, by the course of nature, to make up a lang account at
-    the close o't? O sirs! hae ye brothers, sisters, fathers, that hae tended
-    ye, and mothers that hae travailed for ye, friends that hae ca'd ye like
-    a piece o' their ain heart? and is this the way ye tak to make them
-    childless and brotherless and friendless? Ohon! it's an ill feight whar
-    he that wins has the warst o't. Think on't, bairns. I'm a puir man&mdash;but
-    I'm an auld man too&mdash;and what my poverty takes awa frae the weight o' my
-    counsel, grey hairs and a truthfu' heart should add it twenty times. Gang
-    hame, gang hame, like gude lads&mdash;the French will be ower to harry us ane
-    o' thae days, and ye'll hae feighting eneugh, and maybe auld Edie will
-    hirple out himsell if he can get a feal-dyke to lay his gun ower, and may
-    live to tell you whilk o' ye does the best where there's a good cause
-    afore ye."
-</p>
-<p>
-    There was something in the undaunted and independent manner, hardy
-    sentiment, and manly rude elocution of the old man, that had its effect
-    upon the party, and particularly on the seconds, whose pride was
-    uninterested in bringing the dispute to a bloody arbitrament, and who, on
-    the contrary, eagerly watched for an opportunity to recommend
-    reconciliation.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Upon my word, Mr. Lesley," said Taffril, "old Adam speaks like an
-    oracle. Our friends here were very angry yesterday, and of course very
-    foolish;&mdash;today they should be cool, or at least we must be so in their
-    behalf. I think the word should be forget and forgive on both
-		sides,&mdash;that we should all shake hands, fire these foolish crackers in the air,
-    and go home to sup in a body at the Graeme's-Arms."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I would heartily recommend it," said Lesley; "for, amidst a great deal
-    of heat and irritation on both sides, I confess myself unable to discover
-    any rational ground of quarrel."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Gentlemen," said M'Intyre, very coldly, "all this should have been
-    thought of before. In my opinion, persons that have carried this matter
-    so far as we have done, and who should part without carrying it any
-    farther, might go to supper at the Graeme's-Arms very joyously, but would
-    rise the next morning with reputations as ragged as our friend here, who
-    has obliged us with a rather unnecessary display of his oratory. I speak
-    for myself, that I find myself bound to call upon you to proceed without
-    more delay."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And I," said Lovel, "as I never desired any, have also to request these
-    gentlemen to arrange preliminaries as fast as possible."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Bairns! bairns!" cried old Ochiltree; but perceiving he was no longer
-    attended to&mdash;"Madmen, I should say&mdash;but your blood be on your heads!" And
-    the old man drew off from the ground, which was now measured out by the
-    seconds, and continued muttering and talking to himself in sullen
-    indignation, mixed with anxiety, and with a strong feeling of painful
-    curiosity. Without paying farther attention to his presence or
-    remonstrances, Mr. Lesley and the Lieutenant made the necessary
-    arrangements for the duel, and it was agreed that both parties should
-    fire when Mr. Lesley dropped his handkerchief.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The fatal sign was given, and both fired almost in the same moment.
-    Captain M'Intyre's ball grazed the side of his opponent, but did not draw
-    blood. That of Lovel was more true to the aim; M'Intyre reeled and fell.
-    Raising himself on his arm, his first exclamation was, "It is nothing&mdash;it
-    is nothing&mdash;give us the other pistols." But in an instant he said, in a
-    lower tone, "I believe I have enough&mdash;and what's worse, I fear I deserve
-    it. Mr. Lovel, or whatever your name is, fly and save yourself&mdash;Bear all
-    witness, I provoked this matter." Then raising himself again on his arm,
-    he added, "Shake hands, Lovel&mdash;I believe you to be a gentleman&mdash;forgive
-    my rudeness, and I forgive you my death&mdash;My poor sister!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The surgeon came up to perform his part of the tragedy, and Lovel stood
-    gazing on the evil of which he had been the active, though unwilling
-    cause, with a dizzy and bewildered eye. He was roused from his trance by
-    the grasp of the mendicant. "Why stand you gazing on your deed?&mdash;What's
-    doomed is doomed&mdash;what's done is past recalling. But awa, awa, if ye wad
-    save your young blood from a shamefu' death&mdash;I see the men out by yonder
-    that are come ower late to part ye&mdash;but, out and alack! sune eneugh, and
-    ower sune, to drag ye to prison."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He is right&mdash;he is right," exclaimed Taffril; "you must not attempt to
-    get on the high-road&mdash;get into the wood till night. My brig will be under
-    sail by that time, and at three in the morning, when the tide will serve,
-    I shall have the boat waiting for you at the Mussel-crag. Away-away, for
-    Heaven's sake!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O yes! fly, fly!" repeated the wounded man, his words faltering with
-    convulsive sobs.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Come with me," said the mendicant, almost dragging him off; "the
-    Captain's plan is the best&mdash;I'll carry ye to a place where ye might be
-    concealed in the meantime, were they to seek ye 'wi' sleuth-hounds."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Go, go," again urged Lieutenant Taffril&mdash;"to stay here is mere madness."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It was worse madness to have come hither," said Lovel, pressing his
-    hand&mdash;"But farewell!" And he followed Ochiltree into the recesses of the
-    wood.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0021"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                      &mdash;The Lord Abbot had a soul
-               Subtile and quick, and searching as the fire;
-               By magic stairs he went as deep as hell,
-               And if in devils' possession gold be kept,
-         He brought some sure from thence&mdash;'tis hid in caves,
-                        Known, save to me, to none.&mdash;
-                                   The Wonder of a Kingdome.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Lovel almost mechanically followed the beggar, who led the way with a
-    hasty and steady pace, through bush and bramble, avoiding the beaten
-    path, and often turning to listen whether there were any sounds of
-    pursuit behind them. They sometimes descended into the very bed of the
-    torrent, sometimes kept a narrow and precarious path, that the sheep
-    (which, with the sluttish negligence towards property of that sort
-    universal in Scotland, were allowed to stray in the copse) had made along
-    the very verge of its overhanging banks. From time to time Lovel had a
-    glance of the path which he had traversed the day before in company with
-    Sir Arthur, the Antiquary, and the young ladies. Dejected, embarrassed,
-    and occupied by a thousand inquietudes, as he then was, what would he now
-    have given to regain the sense of innocence which alone can
-    counter-balance a thousand evils! "Yet, then," such was his hasty and
-    involuntary reflection, "even then, guiltless and valued by all around
-    me, I thought myself unhappy. What am I now, with this young man's blood
-    upon my hands?&mdash;the feeling of pride which urged me to the deed has now
-    deserted me, as the actual fiend himself is said to do those whom he has
-    tempted to guilt." Even his affection for Miss Wardour sunk for the time
-    before the first pangs of remorse, and he thought he could have
-    encountered every agony of slighted love to have had the conscious
-    freedom from blood-guiltiness which he possessed in the morning.
-</p>
-<p>
-    These painful reflections were not interrupted by any conversation on the
-    part of his guide, who threaded the thicket before him, now holding back
-    the sprays to make his path easy, now exhorting him to make haste, now
-    muttering to himself, after the custom of solitary and neglected old age,
-    words which might have escaped Lovel's ear even had he listened to them,
-    or which, apprehended and retained, were too isolated to convey any
-    connected meaning,&mdash;a habit which may be often observed among people of
-    the old man's age and calling.
-</p>
-<p>
-    At length, as Lovel, exhausted by his late indisposition, the harrowing
-    feelings by which he was agitated, and the exertion necessary to keep up
-    with his guide in a path so rugged, began to flag and fall behind, two or
-    three very precarious steps placed him on the front of a precipice
-    overhung with brushwood and copse. Here a cave, as narrow in its entrance
-    as a fox-earth, was indicated by a small fissure in the rock, screened by
-    the boughs of an aged oak, which, anchored by its thick and twisted roots
-    in the upper part of the cleft, flung its branches almost straight
-    outward from the cliff, concealing it effectually from all observation.
-    It might indeed have escaped the attention even of those who had stood at
-    its very opening, so uninviting was the portal at which the beggar
-    entered. But within, the cavern was higher and more roomy, cut into two
-    separate branches, which, intersecting each other at right angles, formed
-    an emblem of the cross, and indicated the abode of an anchoret of former
-    times. There are many caves of the same kind in different parts of
-    Scotland. I need only instance those of Gorton, near Rosslyn, in a scene
-    well known to the admirers of romantic nature.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The light within the eave was a dusky twilight at the entrance, which
-    failed altogether in the inner recesses. "Few folks ken o' this place,"
-    said the old man; "to the best o'my knowledge, there's just twa living by
-    mysell, and that's Jingling Jock and the Lang Linker. I have had mony a
-    thought, that when I fand mysell auld and forfairn, and no able to enjoy
-    God's blessed air ony langer, I wad drag mysell here wi' a pickle
-    ait-meal; and see, there's a bit bonny dropping well that popples that
-    self-same gate simmer and winter;&mdash;and I wad e'en streek mysell out here,
-    and abide my removal, like an auld dog that trails its useless ugsome
-    carcass into some bush or bracken no to gie living things a scunner wi'
-    the sight o't when it's dead&mdash;Ay, and then, when the dogs barked at the
-    lone farm-stead, the gudewife wad cry, Whisht, stirra, that'll be auld
-    Edie,' and the bits o' weans wad up, puir things, and toddle to the door
-    to pu' in the auld Blue-Gown that mends a' their bonny-dies&mdash;But there
-    wad be nae mair word o' Edie, I trow."
-</p>
-<p>
-    He then led Lovel, who followed him unresistingly, into one of the
-    interior branches of the cave. "Here," he said, "is a bit turnpike-stair
-    that gaes up to the auld kirk abune. Some folks say this place was howkit
-    out by the monks lang syne to hide their treasure in, and some said that
-    they used to bring things into the abbey this gate by night, that they
-    durstna sae weel hae brought in by the main port and in open day&mdash;And
-    some said that ane o' them turned a saint (or aiblins wad hae had folk
-    think sae), and settled him down in this Saint Ruth's cell, as the auld
-    folks aye ca'd it, and garr'd big the stair, that he might gang up to the
-    kirk when they were at the divine service. The Laird o' Monkbarns wad hae
-    a hantle to say about it, as he has about maist things, if he ken'd only
-    about the place. But whether it was made for man's devices or God's
-    service, I have seen ower muckle sin done in it in my day, and far ower
-    muckle have I been partaker of&mdash;ay, even here in this dark cove. Mony a
-    gudewife's been wondering what for the red cock didna craw her up in the
-    morning, when he's been roasting, puir fallow, in this dark hole&mdash;And,
-    ohon! I wish that and the like o' that had been the warst o't! Whiles
-    they wad hae heard the din we were making in the very bowels o' the
-    earth, when Sanders Aikwood, that was forester in thae days, the father
-    o' Ringan that now is, was gaun daundering about the wood at e'en, to see
-    after the Laird's game and whiles he wad hae seen a glance o' the light
-    frae the door o' the cave, flaughtering against the hazels on the other
-    bank;&mdash;and then siccan stories as Sanders had about the worricows and
-    gyre-carlins that haunted about the auld wa's at e'en, and the lights
-    that he had seen, and the cries that he had heard, when there was nae
-    mortal e'e open but his ain; and eh! as he wad thrum them ower and ower
-    to the like o' me ayont the ingle at e'en, and as I wad gie the auld
-    silly carle grane for grane, and tale for tale, though I ken'd muckle
-    better about it than ever he did. Ay, ay&mdash;they were daft days thae;&mdash;but
-    they were a' vanity, and waur,&mdash;and it's fitting that they wha hae led a
-    light and evil life, and abused charity when they were young, suld
-    aiblins come to lack it when they are auld."
-</p>
-<p>
-    While Ochiltree was thus recounting the exploits and tricks of his
-    earlier life, with a tone in which glee and compunction alternately
-    predominated, his unfortunate auditor had sat down upon the hermit's
-    seat, hewn out of the solid rock, and abandoned himself to that
-    lassitude, both of mind and body, which generally follows a course of
-    events that have agitated both, The effect of his late indisposition,
-    which had much weakened his system, contributed to this lethargic
-    despondency. "The puir bairn!" said auld Edie, "an he sleeps in this damp
-    hole, he'll maybe wauken nae mair, or catch some sair disease. It's no
-    the same to him as to the like o' us, that can sleep ony gate an anes our
-    wames are fu'. Sit up, Maister Lovel, lad! After a's come and gane, I
-    dare say the captain-lad will do weel eneugh&mdash;and, after a', ye are no
-    the first that has had this misfortune. I hae seen mony a man killed, and
-    helped to kill them mysell, though there was nae quarrel between us&mdash;and
-    if it isna wrang to kill folk we have nae quarrel wi', just because they
-    wear another sort of a cockade, and speak a foreign language, I canna see
-    but a man may have excuse for killing his ain mortal foe, that comes
-    armed to the fair field to kill him. I dinna say it's right&mdash;God
-		forbid&mdash;or that it isna sinfu' to take away what ye canna restore, and that's
-    the breath of man, whilk is in his nostrils; but I say it is a sin to be
-    forgiven if it's repented of. Sinfu' men are we a'; but if ye wad believe
-    an auld grey sinner that has seen the evil o' his ways, there is as much
-    promise atween the twa boards o' the Testament as wad save the warst o'
-    us, could we but think sae."
-</p>
-<p>
-    With such scraps of comfort and of divinity as he possessed, the
-    mendicant thus continued to solicit and compel the attention of Lovel,
-    until the twilight began to fade into night. "Now," said Ochiltree, "I
-    will carry ye to a mair convenient place, where I hae sat mony a time to
-    hear the howlit crying out of the ivy tod, and to see the moonlight come
-    through the auld windows o' the ruins. There can be naebody come here
-    after this time o' night; and if they hae made ony search, thae
-    blackguard shirra'-officers and constables, it will hae been ower lang
-    syne. Od, they are as great cowards as ither folk, wi' a' their warrants
-    and king's keys*&mdash;I hae gien some o' them a gliff in my day, when they
-    were coming rather ower near me&mdash;But, lauded be grace for it! they canna
-    stir me now for ony waur than an auld man and a beggar, and my badge is a
-    gude protection; and then Miss Isabella Wardour is a tower o' strength,
-    ye ken"&mdash;(Lovel sighed)&mdash;"Aweel, dinna be cast down&mdash;bowls may a' row
-    right yet&mdash;gie the lassie time to ken her mind. She's the wale o' the
-    country for beauty, and a gude friend o' mine&mdash;I gang by the bridewell as
-    safe as by the kirk on a Sabbath&mdash;deil ony o' them daur hurt a hair o'
-    auld Edie's head now; I keep the crown o' the causey when I gae to the
-    borough, and rub shouthers wi' a bailie wi' as little concern as an he
-    were a brock."
-</p>
-<p>
-    * The king's keys are, in law phrase, the crow-bars and hammers used to
-    force doors and locks, in execution of the king's warrant.
-</p>
-<p>
-    While the mendicant spoke thus, he was busied in removing a few loose
-    stones in one angle of the eave, which obscured the entrance of the
-    staircase of which he had spoken, and led the way into it, followed by
-    Lovel in passive silence.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The air's free eneugh," said the old man; "the monks took care o' that,
-    for they werena a lang-breathed generation, I reckon; they hae contrived
-    queer tirlie-wirlie holes, that gang out to the open air, and keep the
-    stair as caller as a kail-blade."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel accordingly found the staircase well aired, and, though narrow, it
-    was neither ruinous nor long, but speedily admitted them into a narrow
-    gallery contrived to run within the side wall of the chancel, from which
-    it received air and light through apertures ingeniously hidden amid the
-    florid ornaments of the Gothic architecture.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "This secret passage ance gaed round great part o' the biggin," said the
-    beggar, "and through the wa' o' the place I've heard Monkbarns ca' the
-    Refractory" [meaning probably <i>Refectory</i>], "and so awa to the Prior's
-    ain house. It's like he could use it to listen what the monks were saying
-    at meal-time,&mdash;and then he might come ben here and see that they were
-    busy skreighing awa wi' the psalms doun below there; and then, when he
-    saw a' was right and tight, he might step awa and fetch in a bonnie lass
-    at the cove yonder&mdash;for they were queer hands the monks, unless mony lees
-    is made on them. But our folk were at great pains lang syne to big up the
-    passage in some parts, and pu' it down in others, for fear o' some
-    uncanny body getting into it, and finding their way down to the cove: it
-    wad hae been a fashious job that&mdash;by my certie, some o' our necks wad hae
-    been ewking."
-</p>
-<p>
-    They now came to a place where the gallery was enlarged into a small
-    circle, sufficient to contain a stone seat. A niche, constructed exactly
-    before it, projected forward into the chancel, and as its sides were
-    latticed, as it were, with perforated stone-work, it commanded a full
-    view of the chancel in every direction, and was probably constructed, as
-    Edie intimated, to be a convenient watch-tower, from which the superior
-    priest, himself unseen, might watch the behaviour of his monks, and
-    ascertain, by personal inspection, their punctual attendance upon those
-    rites of devotion which his rank exempted him from sharing with them. As
-    this niche made one of a regular series which stretched along the wall of
-    the chancel, and in no respect differed from the rest when seen from
-    below, the secret station, screened as it was by the stone figure of St.
-    Michael and the dragon, and the open tracery around the niche, was
-    completely hid from observation. The private passage, confined to its
-    pristine breadth, had originally continued beyond this seat; but the
-    jealous precautions of the vagabonds who frequented the cave of St. Ruth
-    had caused them to build it carefully up with hewn stones from the ruin.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We shall be better here," said Edie, seating himself on the stone bench,
-    and stretching the lappet of his blue gown upon the spot, when he
-    motioned Lovel to sit down beside him&mdash;"we shall be better here than doun
-    below; the air's free and mild, and the savour of the wallflowers, and
-    siccan shrubs as grow on thae ruined wa's, is far mair refreshing than
-    the damp smell doun below yonder. They smell sweetest by night-time thae
-    flowers, and they're maist aye seen about rained buildings. Now, Maister
-    Lovel, can ony o' you scholars gie a gude reason for that?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel replied in the negative.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am thinking," resumed the beggar, "that they'll be, like mony folk's
-    gude gifts, that often seem maist gracious in adversity&mdash;or maybe it's a
-    parable, to teach us no to slight them that are in the darkness of sin
-    and the decay of tribulation, since God sends odours to refresh the
-    mirkest hour, and flowers and pleasant bushes to clothe the ruined
-    buildings. And now I wad like a wise man to tell me whether Heaven is
-    maist pleased wi' the sight we are looking upon&mdash;thae pleasant and quiet
-    lang streaks o' moonlight that are lying sae still on the floor o' this
-    auld kirk, and glancing through the great pillars and stanchions o' the
-    carved windows, and just dancing like on the leaves o' the dark ivy as
-    the breath o' wind shakes it&mdash;I wonder whether this is mair pleasing to
-    Heaven than when it was lighted up wi' lamps, and candles nae doubt, and
-    roughies,* and wi' the mirth and the frankincent that they speak of in
-    the Holy Scripture, and wi' organs assuredly, and men and women singers,
-    and sackbuts, and dulcimers, and a' instruments o' music&mdash;I wonder if
-    that was acceptable, or whether it is of these grand parafle o'
-    ceremonies that holy writ says, It is an abomination to me.
-</p>
-<p>
-    * Links, or torches.
-</p>
-<p>
-    I am thinking, Maister Lovel, if twa puir contrite spirits like yours and
-    mine fand grace to make our petition"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here Lovel laid his hand eagerly on the mendicant's arm, saying,&mdash;"Hush!
-    I heard some one speak."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am dull o' hearing," answered Edie, in a whisper, "but we're surely
-    safe here&mdash;where was the sound?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lovel pointed to the door of the chancel, which, highly ornamented,
-    occupied the west end of the building, surmounted by the carved window,
-    which let in a flood of moonlight over it.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "They can be nane o' our folk," said Edie in the same low and cautious
-    tone; "there's but twa o' them kens o' the place, and they're mony a mile
-    off, if they are still bound on their weary pilgrimage. I'll never think
-    it's the officers here at this time o' night. I am nae believer in auld
-    wives' stories about ghaists, though this is gey like a place for
-		them&mdash;But mortal, or of the other world, here they come!&mdash;twa men and a
-    light."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And in very truth, while the mendicant spoke, two human figures darkened
-    with their shadows the entrance of the chancel&mdash;which had before opened
-    to the moon-lit meadow beyond, and the small lantern which one of them
-    displayed, glimmered pale in the clear and strong beams of the moon, as
-    the evening star does among the lights of the departing day. The first
-    and most obvious idea was, that, despite the asseverations of Edie
-    Ochiltree, the persons who approached the ruins at an hour so uncommon
-    must be the officers of justice in quest of Lovel. But no part of their
-    conduct confirmed the suspicion. A touch and a whisper from the old man
-    warned Lovel that his best course was to remain quiet, and watch their
-    motions from their present place of concealment. Should anything appear
-    to render retreat necessary, they had behind them the private stair-case
-    and cavern, by means of which they could escape into the wood long before
-    any danger of close pursuit. They kept themselves, therefore, as still as
-    possible, and observed with eager and anxious curiosity every accent and
-    motion of these nocturnal wanderers.
-</p>
-<p>
-    After conversing together some time in whispers, the two figures advanced
-    into the middle of the chancel; and a voice, which Lovel at once
-    recognised, from its tone and dialect, to be that of Dousterswivel,
-    pronounced in a louder but still a smothered tone, "Indeed, mine goot
-    sir, dere cannot be one finer hour nor season for dis great purpose. You
-    shall see, mine goot sir, dat it is all one bibble-babble dat Mr.
-    Oldenbuck says, and dat he knows no more of what he speaks than one
-    little child. Mine soul! he expects to get as rich as one Jew for his
-    poor dirty one hundred pounds, which I care no more about, by mine honest
-    wort, than I care for an hundred stivers. But to you, my most munificent
-    and reverend patron, I will show all de secrets dat art can show&mdash;ay, de
-    secret of de great Pymander."
-</p>
-<a name="image-0011"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/pa278.jpg" height="501" width="764"
-alt="The Ruins of St. Ruth
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<p>
-    "That other ane," whispered Edie, "maun be, according to a' likelihood,
-    Sir Arthur Wardour&mdash;I ken naebody but himsell wad come here at this time
-    at e'en wi' that German blackguard;&mdash;ane wad think he's bewitched him&mdash;he
-    gars him e'en trow that chalk is cheese. Let's see what they can be
-    doing."
-</p>
-<p>
-    This interruption, and the low tone in which Sir Arthur spoke, made Lovel
-    lose all Sir Arthur's answer to the adept, excepting the last three
-    emphatic words, "Very great expense;" to which Dousterswivel at once
-    replied&mdash;"Expenses!&mdash;to be sure&mdash;dere must be de great expenses. You do
-    not expect to reap before you do sow de seed: de expense is de seed&mdash;de
-    riches and de mine of goot metal, and now de great big chests of plate,
-    they are de crop&mdash;vary goot crop too, on mine wort. Now, Sir Arthur, you
-    have sowed this night one little seed of ten guineas like one pinch of
-    snuff, or so big; and if you do not reap de great harvest&mdash;dat is, de
-    great harvest for de little pinch of seed, for it must be proportions,
-    you must know&mdash;then never call one honest man, Herman Dousterswivel. Now
-    you see, mine patron&mdash;for I will not conceal mine secret from you at
-		all&mdash;you see this little plate of silver; you know de moon measureth de
-    whole zodiack in de space of twenty-eight day&mdash;every shild knows dat.
-    Well, I take a silver plate when she is in her fifteenth mansion, which
-    mansion is in de head of <i>Libra,</i> and I engrave upon one side de worts,
-    [Shedbarschemoth Schartachan]&mdash;dat is, de Emblems of de Intelligence of
-    de moon&mdash;and I make this picture like a flying serpent with a turkey-cock's
-    head&mdash;vary well. Then upon this side I make de table of de moon,
-    which is a square of nine, multiplied into itself, with eighty-one
-    numbers on every side, and diameter nine&mdash;dere it is done very proper.
-    Now I will make dis avail me at de change of every quarter-moon dat I
-    shall find by de same proportions of expenses I lay out in de
-    suffumigations, as nine, to de product of nine multiplied into
-		itself&mdash;But I shall find no more to-night as maybe two or dree times nine,
-    because dere is a thwarting power in de house of ascendency."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But, Dousterswivel," said the simple Baronet, "does not this look like
-    magic?&mdash;I am a true though unworthy son of the Episcopal church, and I
-    will have nothing to do with the foul fiend."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Bah! bah!&mdash;not a bit magic in it at all&mdash;not a bit&mdash;It is all founded on
-    de planetary influence, and de sympathy and force of numbers. I will show
-    you much finer dan dis. I do not say dere is not de spirit in it, because
-    of de suffumigation; but, if you are not afraid, he shall not be
-    invisible."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have no curiosity to see him at all," said the Baronet, whose courage
-    seemed, from a certain quaver in his accent, to have taken a fit of the
-    ague.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dat is great pity," said Dousterswivel; "I should have liked to show you
-    de spirit dat guard dis treasure like one fierce watchdog&mdash;but I know how
-    to manage him;&mdash;you would not care to see him?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not at all," answered the Baronet, in a tone of feigned indifference; "I
-    think we have but little time."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You shall pardon me, my patron; it is not yet twelve, and twelve precise
-    is just our planetary hours; and I could show you de spirit vary well, in
-    de meanwhile, just for pleasure. You see I would draw a pentagon within a
-    circle, which is no trouble at all, and make my suffumigation within it,
-    and dere we would be like in one strong castle, and you would hold de
-    sword while I did say de needful worts. Den you should see de solid wall
-    open like de gate of ane city, and den&mdash;let me see&mdash;ay, you should see
-    first one stag pursued by three black greyhounds, and they should pull
-    him down as they do at de elector's great hunting-match; and den one
-    ugly, little, nasty black negro should appear and take de stag from
-		them&mdash;and paf&mdash;all should be gone; den you should hear horns winded dat all
-    de ruins should ring&mdash;mine wort, they should play fine hunting piece, as
-    goot as him you call'd Fischer with his oboi; vary well&mdash;den comes one
-    herald, as we call Ernhold, winding his horn&mdash;and den come de great
-    Peolphan, called de mighty Hunter of de North, mounted on hims black
-    steed. But you would not care to see all this?"*
-</p>
-<p>
-    * Note F. Witchcraft.
-</p>
-<pre>
- "Why, I am not afraid," answered the poor Baronet,&mdash;"if&mdash;that is&mdash;does
-anything&mdash;any great mischiefs, happen on such occasions?"
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "Bah! mischiefs? no!&mdash;sometimes if de circle be no quite just, or de
-    beholder be de frightened coward, and not hold de sword firm and straight
-    towards him, de Great Hunter will take his advantage, and drag him
-    exorcist out of de circle and throttle him. Dat does happens."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well then, Dousterswivel, with every confidence in my courage and your
-    skill, we will dispense with this apparition, and go on to the business
-    of the night."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "With all mine heart&mdash;it is just one thing to me&mdash;and now it is de
-		time&mdash;hold you de sword till I kindle de little what you call chip."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Dousterswivel accordingly set fire to a little pile of chips, touched and
-    prepared with some bituminous substance to make them burn fiercely; and
-    when the flame was at the highest, and lightened, with its shortlived
-    glare, all the ruins around, the German flung in a handful of perfumes
-    which produced a strong and pungent odour. The exorcist and his pupil
-    both were so much affected as to cough and sneeze heartily; and, as the
-    vapour floated around the pillars of the building, and penetrated every
-    crevice, it produced the same effect on the beggar and Lovel.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Was that an echo?" said the Baronet, astonished at the sternutation
-    which resounded from above; "or"&mdash;drawing close to the adept, "can it be
-    the spirit you talked of, ridiculing our attempt upon his hidden
-    treasures?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "N&mdash;n&mdash;no," muttered the German, who began to partake of his pupil's
-    terrors, "I hope not."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here a violent of sneezing, which the mendicant was unable to suppress,
-    and which could not be considered by any means as the dying fall of an
-    echo, accompanied by a grunting half-smothered cough, confounded the two
-    treasure-seekers. "Lord have mercy on us!" said the Baronet.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "<i>Alle guten Geistern loben den Herrn!</i>" ejaculated the terrified adept.
-    "I was begun to think," he continued, after a moment's silence, "that
-    this would be de bestermost done in de day-light&mdash;we was bestermost to go
-    away just now."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You juggling villain!" said the Baronet, in whom these expressions
-    awakened a suspicion that overcame his terrors, connected as it was with
-    the sense of desperation arising from the apprehension of impending
-		ruin&mdash;"you juggling mountebank! this is some legerdemain trick of yours to
-    get off from the performance of your promise, as you have so often done
-    before. But, before Heaven! I will this night know what I have trusted to
-    when I suffered you to fool me on to my ruin! Go on, then&mdash;come fairy,
-    come fiend, you shall show me that treasure, or confess yourself a knave
-    and an impostor, or, by the faith of a desperate and ruined man, I'll
-    send you where you shall see spirits enough."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The treasure-finder, trembling between his terror for the supernatural
-    beings by whom he supposed himself to be surrounded, and for his life,
-    which seemed to be at the mercy of a desperate man, could only bring out,
-    "Mine patron, this is not the allerbestmost usage. Consider, mine
-    honoured sir, that de spirits"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here Edie, who began to enter into the humour of the scene, uttered an
-    extraordinary howl, being an exaltation and a prolongation of the most
-    deplorable whine in which he was accustomed to solicit charity.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Dousterswivel flung himself on his knees&mdash;"Dear Sir Arthurs, let us go,
-    or let me go!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, you cheating scoundrel!" said the knight, unsheathing the sword
-    which he had brought for the purposes of the exorcism, "that shift shall
-    not serve you&mdash;Monkbarns warned me long since of your juggling pranks&mdash;I
-    will see this treasure before you leave this place, or I will have you
-    confess yourself an impostor, or, by Heaven, I'll run this sword through
-    you, though all the spirits of the dead should rise around us!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "For de lofe of Heaven be patient, mine honoured patron, and you shall
-    hafe all de treasure as I knows of&mdash;yes, you shall indeed&mdash;But do not
-    speak about de spirits&mdash;it makes dem angry."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Edie Ochiltree here prepared himself to throw in another groan, but was
-    restrained by Lovel, who began to take a more serious interest, as he
-    observed the earnest and almost desperate demeanour of Sir Arthur.
-    Dousterswivel, having at once before his eyes the fear of the foul fiend,
-    and the violence of Sir Arthur, played his part of a conjuror extremely
-    ill, hesitating to assume the degree of confidence necessary to deceive
-    the latter, lest it should give offence to the invisible cause of his
-    alarm. However, after rolling his eyes, muttering and sputtering German
-    exorcisms, with contortions of his face and person, rather flowing from
-    the impulse of terror than of meditated fraud, he at length proceeded to
-    a corner of the building where a flat stone lay upon the ground, bearing
-    upon its surface the effigy of an armed warrior in a recumbent posture
-    carved in bas-relief. He muttered to Sir Arthur, "Mine patrons, it is
-    here&mdash;Got save us all!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur, who, after the first moment of his superstitious fear was
-    over, seemed to have bent up all his faculties to the pitch of resolution
-    necessary to carry on the adventure, lent the adept his assistance to
-    turn over the stone, which, by means of a lever that the adept had
-    provided, their joint force with difficulty effected. No supernatural
-    light burst forth from below to indicate the subterranean treasury, nor
-    was there any apparition of spirits, earthly or infernal. But when
-    Dousterswivel had, with great trepidation, struck a few strokes with a
-    mattock, and as hastily thrown out a shovelful or two of earth (for they
-    came provided with the tools necessary for digging), something was heard
-    to ring like the sound of a falling piece of metal, and Dousterswivel,
-    hastily catching up the substance which produced it, and which his shovel
-    had thrown out along with the earth, exclaimed, "On mine dear wort, mine
-    patrons, dis is all&mdash;it is indeed; I mean all we can do to-night;"&mdash;and
-    he gazed round him with a cowering and fearful glance, as if to see from
-    what corner the avenger of his imposture was to start forth.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Let me see it," said Sir Arthur; and then repeated, still more sternly,
-    "I will be satisfied&mdash;I will judge by mine own eyes." He accordingly held
-    the object to the light of the lantern. It was a small case, or
-		casket,&mdash;for Lovel could not at the distance exactly discern its shape, which,
-    from the Baronet's exclamation as he opened it, he concluded was filled
-    with coin. "Ay," said the Baronet, "this is being indeed in good luck!
-    and if it omens proportional success upon a larger venture, the venture
-    shall be made. That six hundred of Goldieword's, added to the other
-    incumbent claims, must have been ruin indeed. If you think we can parry
-    it by repeating this experiment&mdash;suppose when the moon next changes,&mdash;I
-    will hazard the necessary advance, come by it how I may."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Oh, mine good patrons, do not speak about all dat," said Dousterswivel,
-    "as just now, but help me to put de shtone to de rights, and let us
-    begone our own ways." And accordingly, so soon as the stone was replaced,
-    he hurried Sir Arthur, who was now resigned once more to his guidance,
-    away from a spot, where the German's guilty conscience and superstitious
-    fears represented goblins as lurking behind each pillar with the purpose
-    of punishing his treachery.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Saw onybody e'er the like o' that!" said Edie, when they had disappeared
-    like shadows through the gate by which they had entered&mdash;"saw ony
-    creature living e'er the like o' that!&mdash;But what can we do for that puir
-    doited deevil of a knight-baronet? Od, he showed muckle mair spunk, too,
-    than I thought had been in him&mdash;I thought he wad hae sent cauld iron
-    through the vagabond&mdash;Sir Arthur wasna half sae bauld at Bessie's-apron
-    yon night&mdash;but then, his blood was up even now, and that makes an unco
-    difference. I hae seen mony a man wad hae felled another an anger him,
-    that wadna muckle hae liked a clink against Crummies-horn yon time. But
-    what's to be done?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I suppose," said Lovel, "his faith in this fellow is entirely restored
-    by this deception, which, unquestionably, he had arranged beforehand."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What! the siller?&mdash;Ay, ay&mdash;trust him for that&mdash;they that hide ken best
-    where to find. He wants to wile him out o' his last guinea, and then
-    escape to his ain country, the land-louper. I wad likeit weel just to hae
-    come in at the clipping-time, and gien him a lounder wi' my pike-staff;
-    he wad hae taen it for a bennison frae some o' the auld dead abbots. But
-    it's best no to be rash; sticking disna gang by strength, but by the
-    guiding o' the gally. I'se be upsides wi' him ae day."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What if you should inform Mr. Oldbuck?" said Lovel.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ou, I dinna ken&mdash;Monkbarns and Sir Arthur are like, and yet they're no
-    like neither. Monkbarns has whiles influence wi' him, and whiles Sir
-    Arthur cares as little about him as about the like o' me. Monkbarns is no
-    that ower wise himsell, in some things;&mdash;he wad believe a bodle to be an
-    auld Roman coin, as he ca's it, or a ditch to be a camp, upon ony leasing
-    that idle folk made about it. I hae garr'd him trow mony a queer tale
-    mysell, gude forgie me. But wi' a' that, he has unco little sympathy wi'
-    ither folks; and he's snell and dure eneugh in casting up their nonsense
-    to them, as if he had nane o' his ain. He'll listen the hale day, an yell
-    tell him about tales o' Wallace, and Blind Harry, and Davie Lindsay; but
-    ye maunna speak to him about ghaists or fairies, or spirits walking the
-    earth, or the like o' that;&mdash;he had amaist flung auld Caxon out o' the
-    window (and he might just as weel hae flung awa his best wig after him),
-    for threeping he had seen a ghaist at the humlock-knowe. Now, if he was
-    taking it up in this way, he wad set up the tother's birse, and maybe do
-    mair ill nor gude&mdash;he's done that twice or thrice about thae mine-warks;
-    ye wad thought Sir Arthur had a pleasure in gaun on wi' them the deeper,
-    the mair he was warned against it by Monkbarns."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What say you then," said Lovel, "to letting Miss Wardour know the
-    circumstance?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ou, puir thing, how could she stop her father doing his pleasure?&mdash;and,
-    besides, what wad it help? There's a sough in the country about that six
-    hundred pounds, and there's a writer chield in Edinburgh has been driving
-    the spur-rowels o' the law up to the head into Sir Arthur's sides to gar
-    him pay it, and if he canna, he maun gang to jail or flee the country.
-    He's like a desperate man, and just catches at this chance as a' he has
-    left, to escape utter perdition; so what signifies plaguing the puir
-    lassie about what canna be helped? And besides, to say the truth, I wadna
-    like to tell the secret o' this place. It's unco convenient, ye see
-    yoursell, to hae a hiding-hole o' ane's ain; and though I be out o' the
-    line o' needing ane e'en now, and trust in the power o' grace that I'll
-    neer do onything to need ane again, yet naebody kens what temptation ane
-    may be gien ower to&mdash;and, to be brief, I downa bide the thought of
-    anybody kennin about the place;&mdash;they say, keep a thing seven year, an'
-    yell aye find a use for't&mdash;and maybe I may need the cove, either for
-    mysell, or for some ither body."
-</p>
-<p>
-    This argument, in which Edie Ochiltree, notwithstanding his scraps of
-    morality and of divinity, seemed to take, perhaps from old habit, a
-    personal interest, could not be handsomely controverted by Lovel, who was
-    at that moment reaping the benefit of the secret of which the old man
-    appeared to be so jealous.
-</p>
-<p>
-    This incident, however, was of great service to Lovel, as diverting his
-    mind from the unhappy occurrence of the evening, and considerably rousing
-    the energies which had been stupefied by the first view of his calamity.
-    He reflected that it by no means necessarily followed that a dangerous
-    wound must be a fatal one&mdash;that he had been hurried from the spot even
-    before the surgeon had expressed any opinion of Captain M'Intyre's
-    situation&mdash;and that he had duties on earth to perform, even should the
-    very worst be true, which, if they could not restore his peace of mind or
-    sense of innocence, would furnish a motive for enduring existence, and at
-    the same time render it a course of active benevolence.&mdash;Such were
-    Lovel's feelings, when the hour arrived when, according to Edie's
-    calculation&mdash;who, by some train or process of his own in observing the
-    heavenly bodies, stood independent of the assistance of a watch or
-    time-keeper&mdash;it was fitting they should leave their hiding-place, and
-    betake themselves to the seashore, in order to meet Lieutenant Taffril's
-    boat according to appointment.
-</p>
-<p>
-    They retreated by the same passage which had admitted them to the prior's
-    secret seat of observation, and when they issued from the grotto into the
-    wood, the birds which began to chirp, and even to sing, announced that
-    the dawn was advanced. This was confirmed by the light and amber clouds
-    that appeared over the sea, as soon as their exit from the copse
-    permitted them to view the horizon.&mdash;Morning, said to be friendly to the
-    muses, has probably obtained this character from its effect upon the
-    fancy and feelings of mankind. Even to those who, like Lovel, have spent
-    a sleepless and anxious night, the breeze of the dawn brings strength and
-    quickening both of mind and body. It was, therefore, with renewed health
-    and vigour that Lovel, guided by the trusty mendicant, brushed away the
-    dew as he traversed the downs which divided the Den of St. Ruth, as the
-    woods surrounding the ruins were popularly called, from the sea-shore.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The first level beam of the sun, as his brilliant disk began to emerge
-    from the ocean, shot full upon the little gun-brig which was lying-to in
-    the offing&mdash;close to the shore the boat was already waiting, Taffril
-    himself, with his naval cloak wrapped about him, seated in the stern. He
-    jumped ashore when he saw the mendicant and Lovel approach, and, shaking
-    the latter heartily by the hand, begged him not to be cast down.
-    "M'Intyre's wound," he said, "was doubtful, but far from desperate."
-    His attention had got Lovel's baggage privately sent on board the brig;
-    "and," he said, "he trusted that, if Lovel chose to stay with the vessel,
-    the penalty of a short cruise would be the only disagreeable consequence
-    of his rencontre. As for himself, his time and motions were a good deal
-    at his own disposal, he said, excepting the necessary obligation of
-    remaining on his station."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We will talk of our farther motions," said Lovel, "as we go on board."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Then turning to Edie, he endeavoured to put money into his hand. "I
-    think," said Edie, as he tendered it back again, "the hale folk here have
-    either gane daft, or they hae made a vow to rain my trade, as they say
-    ower muckle water drowns the miller. I hae had mair gowd offered me
-    within this twa or three weeks than I ever saw in my life afore. Keep the
-    siller, lad&mdash;yell hae need o't, I'se warrant ye, and I hae nane my claes
-    is nae great things, and I get a blue gown every year, and as mony siller
-    groats as the king, God bless him, is years auld&mdash;you and I serve the
-    same master, ye ken, Captain Taffril; there's rigging provided for&mdash;and
-    my meat and drink I get for the asking in my rounds, or, at an orra time,
-    I can gang a day without it, for I make it a rule never to pay for
-		nane;&mdash;so that a' the siller I need is just to buy tobacco and sneeshin, and
-    maybe a dram at a time in a cauld day, though I am nae dram-drinker to be
-    a gaberlunzie;&mdash;sae take back your gowd, and just gie me a lily-white
-    shilling."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Upon these whims, which he imagined intimately connected with the honour
-    of his vagabond profession, Edie was flint and adamant, not to be moved
-    by rhetoric or entreaty; and therefore Lovel was under the necessity of
-    again pocketing his intended bounty, and taking a friendly leave of the
-    mendicant by shaking him by the hand, and assuring him of his cordial
-    gratitude for the very important services which he had rendered him,
-    recommending, at the same time, secrecy as to what they had that night
-    witnessed.&mdash;"Ye needna doubt that," said Ochiltree; "I never tell'd tales
-    out o' yon cove in my life, though mony a queer thing I hae seen in't."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The boat now put off. The old man remained looking after it as it made
-    rapidly towards the brig under the impulse of six stout rowers, and Lovel
-    beheld him again wave his blue bonnet as a token of farewell ere he
-    turned from his fixed posture, and began to move slowly along the sands
-    as if resuming his customary perambulations.
-</p>
-
-
-<div style="height: 6em;"><br><br><br><br><br><br></div>
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-</html>
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-<html lang="en">
-<head>
-<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
-    content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
-
-<title>
-    The Antiquary, Vol. 2
-    by Sir Walter Scott
-</title>
-
-<style type="text/css">
-    <!--
-		body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify}
-    P { text-indent:   1em;
-        margin-top:    .75em;
-        margin-bottom: .75em; }
-    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; }
-    HR  { width: 33%; text-align: center; }
-		blockquote {font-size: 97%; }
-		.figleft   {float: left;}
-    .figright  {float: right;}
-    .toc       { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;}
-    CENTER { padding: 10px;}
-		PRE    { font-family: Times; font-size: 97%; margin-left: 15%;}
-    // -->
-</style>
-
-</head>
-<body>
-
-<h1>
-    THE ANTIQUARY, Vol. 2
-</h1>
-<h2>
-    By Sir Walter Scott
-</h2>
-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Antiquary, Volume 2, by Sir Walter Scott
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
-
-
-Title: The Antiquary, Volume 2
-
-Author: Sir Walter Scott
-
-Release Date: August 17, 2004 [EBook #7004]
-[Last Updated: September 4, 2010]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANTIQUARY, VOLUME 2 ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-<a name="image-0001"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/bookcover.jpg" height="1073" width="754"
-alt="Bookcover
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<a name="image-0002"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/spines.jpg" height="1079" width="398"
-alt="Spines
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<br><br>
-<h1>
-    THE ANTIQUARY
-</h1>
-<br>
-<h2>
-    By Sir Walter Scott
-</h2>
-<br><br>
-<h3>
-    VOLUME TWO.
-</h3>
-<br><br>
-<a name="image-0003"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/titlepage2.jpg" height="966" width="628"
-alt="Titlepage, Second Volume
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<a name="image-0004"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/frontispiece2.jpg" height="785" width="539"
-alt="Frontispiece, Second Volume
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-
-
-
-<br><br>
-<hr>
-<br><br>
-
-<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
-
-<center>
-<table summary="">
-<tr><td>
-
-
-
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0001">
-CHAPTER FIRST.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0002">
-CHAPTER SECOND.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0003">
-CHAPTER THIRD.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0004">
-CHAPTER FOURTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0005">
-CHAPTER FIFTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0006">
-CHAPTER SIXTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0007">
-CHAPTER SEVENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0008">
-CHAPTER EIGHTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0009">
-CHAPTER NINTH
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0010">
-CHAPTER TENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0011">
-CHAPTER ELEVENTH
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0012">
-CHAPTER TWELFTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0013">
-CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0014">
-CHAPTER FOURTEENTH
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0015">
-CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0016">
-CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0017">
-CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0018">
-CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0019">
-CHAPTER NINETEENTH
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0020">
-CHAPTER TWENTIETH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0021">
-CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0022">
-CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0023">
-CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0024">
-CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH.
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_NOTE">
-NOTES TO THE ANTIQUARY.
-</a></p>
-
-</td></tr>
-</table>
-</center>
-
-<br><br>
-<hr>
-<br><br>
-
-<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
-
-<center>
-<table summary="">
-<tr><td>
-
-
-
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0001">
-Bookcover
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0002">
-Spines
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0003">
-Titlepage
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0004">
-Frontispiece-2
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0005">
-The Funeral of the Countess
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0006">
-Lord Glenallen and Elspeth
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0007">
-The Antiquary Visits Edie in Prison
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0008">
-My Good Friends, 'favete Linguis'
-</a></p>
-<p class="toc"><a href="#image-0009">
-The Antiquary Arming
-</a></p>
-
-</td></tr>
-</table>
-</center>
-
-<br><br>
-<hr>
-<br>
-<br>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ILLUSTRATORS</h2>
-
-<br>
-
-<center>
-<table summary="">
-<tr><td>
-
-
-
-<h2>Subject or Title
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-</h2>
-</td>
-<td>
-<h2>Original Drawing
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-</h2>
-</td>
-<td>
-<h2>Etching
-</h2>
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-Breakfast at Monkbarns
-</td>
-<td>
-A. H. Tourrier
-</td>
-<td>
-P. Tesysonnieres
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-The Funeral of the Countess
-</td>
-<td>
-A. H. Tourrier
-</td>
-<td>
-V. Focillon
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-Lord Glenallen and Elspeth
-</td>
-<td>
-A. H. Tourrier
-</td>
-<td>
-Charles Courtry
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-The Antiquary Visits Edie in Prison
-</td>
-<td>
-A. H. Tourrier
-</td>
-<td>
-W. Nooth
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-"My good friends, 'favete linguis'"
-</td>
-<td>
-Original Etching by:
-</td>
-<td>
-George Cruikshank
-</td>
-</tr>
-
-
-<tr>
-<td>
-The Antiquary Arming
-</td>
-<td>
-A. H. Tourrier
-</td>
-<td>
-H. C. Manesse
-
-</td></tr>
-</table>
-</center>
-
-
-
-<br><br>
-<br><br>
-<hr>
-<br>
-<br>
-
-
-
-<a name="2HCH0001"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER FIRST.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                 Wiser Raymondus, in his closet pent,
-                 Laughs at such danger and adventurement
-              When half his lands are spent in golden smoke,
-              And now his second hopeful glasse is broke,
-                 But yet, if haply his third furnace hold,
-                Devoteth all his pots and pans to gold.*
-</pre>
-<p>
-    * The author cannot remember where these lines are to be found: perhaps
-    in Bishop Hall's Satires. [They occur in Book iv. Satire iii.]
-</p>
-<p>
-    About a week after the adventures commemorated in our last
-    CHAPTER, Mr.
-    Oldbuck, descending to his breakfast-parlour, found that his womankind
-    were not upon duty, his toast not made, and the silver jug, which was
-    wont to receive his libations of mum, not duly aired for its reception.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "This confounded hot-brained boy!" he said to himself; "now that he
-    begins to get out of danger, I can tolerate this life no longer. All goes
-    to sixes and sevens&mdash;an universal saturnalia seems to be proclaimed in my
-    peaceful and orderly family. I ask for my sister&mdash;no answer. I call, I
-    shout&mdash;I invoke my inmates by more names than the Romans gave to their
-    deities&mdash;at length Jenny, whose shrill voice I have heard this half-hour
-    lilting in the Tartarean regions of the kitchen, condescends to hear me
-    and reply, but without coming up stairs, so the conversation must be
-    continued at the top of my lungs. "&mdash;Here he again began to hollow
-		aloud&mdash;"Jenny, where's Miss Oldbuck?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Miss Grizzy's in the captain's room."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Umph!&mdash;I thought so&mdash;and where's my niece?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Miss Mary's making the captain's tea."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Umph! I supposed as much again&mdash;and where's Caxon?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Awa to the town about the captain's fowling-gun, and his setting-dog."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And who the devil's to dress my periwig, you silly jade?&mdash;when you knew
-    that Miss Wardour and Sir Arthur were coming here early after breakfast,
-    how could you let Caxon go on such a Tomfool's errand?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Me! what could I hinder him?&mdash;your honour wadna hae us contradict the
-    captain e'en now, and him maybe deeing?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dying!" said the alarmed Antiquary,&mdash;"eh! what? has he been worse?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, he's no nae waur that I ken of."*
-</p>
-<p>
-    * It is, I believe, a piece of free-masonry, or a point of conscience,
-    among the Scottish lower orders, never to admit that a patient is doing
-    better. The closest approach to recovery which they can be brought to
-    allow, is, that the pairty inquired after is "Nae waur."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then he must be better&mdash;and what good is a dog and a gun to do here, but
-    the one to destroy all my furniture, steal from my larder, and perhaps
-    worry the cat, and the other to shoot somebody through the head. He has
-    had gunning and pistolling enough to serve him one while, I should
-    think."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here Miss Oldbuck entered the parlour, at the door of which Oldbuck was
-    carrying on this conversation, he bellowing downward to Jenny, and she
-    again screaming upward in reply.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dear brother," said the old lady, "ye'll cry yoursell as hoarse as a
-    corbie&mdash;is that the way to skreigh when there's a sick person in the
-    house?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Upon my word, the sick person's like to have all the house to himself,&mdash;
-    I have gone without my breakfast, and am like to go without my wig; and I
-    must not, I suppose, presume to say I feel either hunger or cold, for
-    fear of disturbing the sick gentleman who lies six rooms off, and who
-    feels himself well enough to send for his dog and gun, though he knows I
-    detest such implements ever since our elder brother, poor Williewald,
-    marched out of the world on a pair of damp feet, caught in the
-    Kittlefitting-moss. But that signifies nothing; I suppose I shall be
-    expected by and by to lend a hand to carry Squire Hector out upon his
-    litter, while he indulges his sportsmanlike propensities by shooting my
-    pigeons, or my turkeys&mdash;I think any of the <i>ferae naturae</i> are safe from
-    him for one while."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Miss M'Intyre now entered, and began to her usual morning's task of
-    arranging her uncle's breakfast, with the alertness of one who is too
-    late in setting about a task, and is anxious to make up for lost time.
-    But this did not avail her. "Take care, you silly womankind&mdash;that mum's
-    too near the fire&mdash;the bottle will burst; and I suppose you intend to
-    reduce the toast to a cinder as a burnt-offering for Juno, or what do you
-    call her&mdash;the female dog there, with some such Pantheon kind of a name,
-    that your wise brother has, in his first moments of mature reflection,
-    ordered up as a fitting inmate of my house (I thank him), and meet
-    company to aid the rest of the womankind of my household in their daily
-    conversation and intercourse with him."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dear uncle, don't be angry about the poor spaniel; she's been tied up at
-    my brother's lodgings at Fairport, and she's broke her chain twice, and
-    came running down here to him; and you would not have us beat the
-    faithful beast away from the door?&mdash;it moans as if it had some sense of
-    poor Hector's misfortune, and will hardly stir from the door of his
-    room."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why," said his uncle, "they said Caxon had gone to Fairport after his
-    dog and gun."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O dear sir, no," answered Miss M'Intyre, "it was to fetch some dressings
-    that were wanted, and Hector only wished him to bring out his gun, as he
-    was going to Fairport at any rate."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, then, it is not altogether so foolish a business, considering what
-    a mess of womankind have been about it&mdash;Dressings, quotha?&mdash;and who is to
-    dress my wig?&mdash;But I suppose Jenny will undertake"&mdash;continued the old
-    bachelor, looking at himself in the glass&mdash;"to make it somewhat decent.
-    And now let us set to breakfast&mdash;with what appetite we may. Well may I
-    say to Hector, as Sir Isaac Newton did to his dog Diamond, when the
-    animal (I detest dogs) flung down the taper among calculations which had
-    occupied the philosopher for twenty years, and consumed the whole mass of
-    materials&mdash;Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the mischief thou hast
-    done!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I assure you, sir," replied his niece, "my brother is quite sensible of
-    the rashness of his own behaviour, and allows that Mr. Lovel behaved very
-    handsomely."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And much good that will do, when he has frightened the lad out of the
-    country! I tell thee, Mary, Hector's understanding, and far more that of
-    feminity, is inadequate to comprehend the extent of the loss which he has
-    occasioned to the present age and to posterity&mdash;<i>aureum quidem opus</i>&mdash;a
-    poem on such a subject, with notes illustrative of all that is clear, and
-    all that is dark, and all that is neither dark nor clear, but hovers in
-    dusky twilight in the region of Caledonian antiquities. I would have made
-    the Celtic panegyrists look about them. Fingal, as they conceitedly term
-    Fin-Mac-Coul, should have disappeared before my search, rolling himself
-    in his cloud like the spirit of Loda. Such an opportunity can hardly
-    again occur to an ancient and grey-haired man; and to see it lost by the
-    madcap spleen of a hot-headed boy! But I submit&mdash;Heaven's will be done!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Thus continued the Antiquary to <i>maunder,</i> as his sister expressed it,
-    during the whole time of breakfast, while, despite of sugar and honey,
-    and all the comforts of a Scottish morning tea-table, his reflections
-    rendered the meal bitter to all who heard them. But they knew the nature
-    of the man. "Monkbarns's bark," said Miss Griselda Oldbuck, in
-    confidential intercourse with Miss Rebecca Blattergowl, "is muckle waur
-    than his bite."
-</p>
-<p>
-    In fact, Mr. Oldbuck had suffered in mind extremely while his nephew was
-    in actual danger, and now felt himself at liberty, upon his returning
-    health, to indulge in complaints respecting the trouble he had been put
-    to, and the interruption of his antiquarian labours. Listened to,
-    therefore, in respectful silence, by his niece and sister, he unloaded
-    his discontent in such grumblings as we have rehearsed, venting many a
-    sarcasm against womankind, soldiers, dogs, and guns, all which implements
-    of noise, discord, and tumult, as he called them, he professed to hold in
-    utter abomination.
-</p>
-<p>
-    This expectoration of spleen was suddenly interrupted by the noise of a
-    carriage without, when, shaking off all sullenness at the sound, Oldbuck
-    ran nimbly up stairs and down stairs, for both operations were necessary
-    ere he could receive Miss Wardour and her father at the door of his
-    mansion.
-</p>
-<p>
-    A cordial greeting passed on both sides. And Sir Arthur, referring to his
-    previous inquiries by letter and message, requested to be particularly
-    informed of Captain M'Intyre's health.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Better than he deserves," was the answer&mdash;"better than he deserves, for
-    disturbing us with his vixen brawls, and breaking God's peace and the
-    King's."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The young gentleman," Sir Arthur said, "had been imprudent; but he
-    understood they were indebted to him for the detection of a suspicious
-    character in the young man Lovel."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No more suspicious than his own," answered the Antiquary, eager in his
-    favourites defence;&mdash;"the young gentleman was a little foolish and
-    headstrong, and refused to answer Hector's impertinent interrogatories&mdash;
-    that is all. Lovel, Sir Arthur, knows how to choose his confidants
-    better&mdash;Ay, Miss Wardour, you may look at me&mdash;but it is very true;&mdash;it
-    was in my bosom that he deposited the secret cause of his residence at
-    Fairport; and no stone should have been left unturned on my part to
-    assist him in the pursuit to which he had dedicated himself."
-</p>
-<p>
-    On hearing this magnanimous declaration on the part of the old Antiquary,
-    Miss Wardour changed colour more than once, and could hardly trust her
-    own ears. For of all confidants to be selected as the depositary of love
-    affairs,&mdash;and such she naturally supposed must have been the subject of
-    communication,&mdash;next to Edie Ochiltree, Oldbuck seemed the most uncouth
-    and extraordinary; nor could she sufficiently admire or fret at the
-    extraordinary combination of circumstances which thus threw a secret of
-    such a delicate nature into the possession of persons so unfitted to be
-    entrusted with it. She had next to fear the mode of Oldbuck's entering
-    upon the affair with her father, for such, she doubted not, was his
-    intention. She well knew that the honest gentleman, however vehement in
-    his prejudices, had no great sympathy with those of others, and she had
-    to fear a most unpleasant explosion upon an <i>e'claircissement</i> taking
-    place between them. It was therefore with great anxiety that she heard
-    her father request a private interview, and observed Oldbuck readily
-    arise and show the way to his library. She remained behind, attempting to
-    converse with the ladies of Monkbarns, but with the distracted feelings
-    of Macbeth, when compelled to disguise his evil conscience by listening
-    and replying to the observations of the attendant thanes upon the storm
-    of the preceding night, while his whole soul is upon the stretch to
-    listen for the alarm of murder, which he knows must be instantly raised
-    by those who have entered the sleeping apartment of Duncan. But the
-    conversation of the two virtuosi turned on a subject very different from
-    that which Miss Wardour apprehended.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mr. Oldbuck," said Sir Arthur, when they had, after a due exchange of
-    ceremonies, fairly seated themselves in the <i>sanctum sanctorum</i> of the
-    Antiquary,&mdash;"you, who know so much of my family matters, may probably be
-    surprised at the question I am about to put to you."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, Sir Arthur, if it relates to money, I am very sorry, but"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It does relate to money matters, Mr. Oldbuck."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Really, then, Sir Arthur," continued the Antiquary, "in the present
-    state of the money-market&mdash;and stocks being so low"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You mistake my meaning, Mr. Oldbuck," said the Baronet; "I wished to ask
-    your advice about laying out a large sum of money to advantage."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The devil!" exclaimed the Antiquary; and, sensible that his involuntary
-    ejaculation of wonder was not over and above civil, he proceeded to
-    qualify it by expressing his joy that Sir Arthur should have a sum of
-    money to lay out when the commodity was so scarce. "And as for the mode
-    of employing it," said he, pausing, "the funds are low at present, as I
-    said before, and there are good bargains of land to be had. But had you
-    not better begin by clearing off encumbrances, Sir Arthur?&mdash;There is the
-    sum in the personal bond&mdash;and the three notes of hand," continued he,
-    taking out of the right-hand drawer of his cabinet a certain red
-    memorandum-book, of which Sir Arthur, from the experience of former
-    frequent appeals to it, abhorred the very sight&mdash;"with the interest
-    thereon, amounting altogether to&mdash;let me see"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "To about a thousand pounds," said Sir Arthur, hastily; "you told me the
-    amount the other day."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But there's another term's interest due since that, Sir Arthur, and it
-    amounts (errors excepted) to eleven hundred and thirteen pounds, seven
-    shillings, five pennies, and three-fourths of a penny sterling&mdash;But look
-    over the summation yourself."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I daresay you are quite right, my dear sir," said the Baronet, putting
-    away the book with his hand, as one rejects the old-fashioned civility
-    that presses food upon you after you have eaten till you nauseate&mdash;
-    "perfectly right, I dare say; and in the course of three days or less you
-    shall have the full value&mdash;that is, if you choose to accept it in
-    bullion."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Bullion! I suppose you mean lead. What the deuce! have we hit on the
-    vein then at last? But what could I do with a thousand pounds' worth, and
-    upwards, of lead? The former abbots of Trotcosey might have roofed their
-    church and monastery with it indeed&mdash;but for me"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "By bullion," said the Baronet, "I mean the precious metals,&mdash;gold and
-    silver."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay! indeed?&mdash;and from what Eldorado is this treasure to be imported?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not far from hence," said Sir Arthur, significantly. "And naow I think
-    of it, you shall see the whole process, on one small condition."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And what is that?" craved the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, it will be necessary for you to give me your friendly assistance,
-    by advancing one hundred pounds or thereabouts."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Mr. Oldbuck, who had already been grasping in idea the sum, principal and
-    interest, of a debt which he had long regarded as wellnigh desperate, was
-    so much astounded at the tables being so unexpectedly turned upon him,
-    that he could only re-echo, in an accent of wo and surprise, the words,
-    "Advance one hundred pounds!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes, my good sir," continued Sir Arthur; "but upon the best possible
-    security of being repaid in the course of two or three days."
-</p>
-<p>
-    There was a pause&mdash;either Oldbuck's nether jaw had not recovered its
-    position, so as to enable him to utter a negative, or his curiosity kept
-    him silent.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I would not propose to you," continued Sir Arthur, "to oblige me thus
-    far, if I did not possess actual proofs of the reality of those
-    expectations which I now hold out to you. And I assure you, Mr. Oldbuck,
-    that in entering fully upon this topic, it is my purpose to show my
-    confidence in you, and my sense of your kindness on many former
-    occasions."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Mr. Oldbuck professed his sense of obligation, but carefully avoided
-    committing himself by any promise of farther assistance.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mr. Dousterswivel," said Sir Arthur, "having discovered"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here Oldbuck broke in, his eyes sparkling with indignation. "Sir Arthur,
-    I have so often warned you of the knavery of that rascally quack, that I
-    really wonder you should quote him to me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But listen&mdash;listen," interrupted Sir Arthur in his turn, "it will do you
-    no harm. In short, Dousterswivel persuaded me to witness an experiment
-    which he had made in the ruins of St. Ruth&mdash;and what do you think we
-    found?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Another spring of water, I suppose, of which the rogue had beforehand
-    taken care to ascertain the situation and source."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, indeed&mdash;a casket of gold and silver coins&mdash;here they are."
-</p>
-<p>
-    With that, Sir Arthur drew from his pocket a large ram's horn, with a
-    copper cover, containing a considerable quantity of coins, chiefly
-    silver, but with a few gold pieces intermixed. The Antiquary's eyes
-    glistened as he eagerly spread them out on the table.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Upon my word&mdash;Scotch, English, and foreign coins, of the fifteenth and
-    sixteenth centuries, and some of them <i>rari&mdash;et rariores&mdash;etiam
-    rarissimi!</i> Here is the bonnet-piece of James V., the unicorn of James
-    II.,&mdash;ay, and the gold festoon of Queen Mary, with her head and the
-    Dauphin's. And these were really found in the ruins of St. Ruth?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Most assuredly&mdash;my own eyes witnessed it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well," replied Oldbuck; "but you must tell me the when&mdash;the where-the
-    how."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The when," answered Sir Arthur, "was at midnight the last full moon&mdash;the
-    where, as I have told you, in the ruins of St. Ruth's priory&mdash;the how,
-    was by a nocturnal experiment of Dousterswivel, accompanied only by
-    myself."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed!" said Oldbuck; "and what means of discovery did you employ?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Only a simple suffumigation," said the Baronet, "accompanied by availing
-    ourselves of the suitable planetary hour."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Simple suffumigation? simple nonsensification&mdash;planetary hour? planetary
-    fiddlestick! <i>Sapiens dominabitur astris.</i> My dear Sir Arthur, that
-    fellow has made a gull of you above ground and under ground, and he would
-    have made a gull of you in the air too, if he had been by when you was
-    craned up the devil's turnpike yonder at Halket-head&mdash;to be sure the
-    transformation would have been then peculiarly <i>apropos.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, Mr. Oldbuck, I am obliged to you for your indifferent opinion of
-    my discernment; but I think you will give me credit for having seen what
-    I <i>say</i> I saw."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Certainly, Sir Arthur," said the Antiquary,&mdash;"to this extent at least,
-    that I know Sir Arthur Wardour will not say he saw anything but what he
-    <i>thought</i> he saw."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, then," replied the Baronet, "as there is a heaven above us, Mr.
-    Oldbuck, I saw, with my own eyes, these coins dug out of the chancel of
-    St. Ruth at midnight. And as to Dousterswivel, although the discovery be
-    owing to his science, yet, to tell the truth, I do not think he would
-    have had firmness of mind to have gone through with it if I had not been
-    beside him."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay! indeed?" said Oldbuck, in the tone used when one wishes to hear the
-    end of a story before making any comment.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes truly," continued Sir Arthur&mdash;"I assure you I was upon my guard&mdash;we
-    did hear some very uncommon sounds, that is certain, proceeding from
-    among the ruins."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Oh, you did?" said Oldbuck; "an accomplice hid among them, I suppose?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not a jot," said the Baronet;&mdash;"the sounds, though of a hideous and
-    preternatural character, rather resembled those of a man who sneezes
-    violently than any other&mdash;one deep groan I certainly heard besides; and
-    Dousterswivel assures me that he beheld the spirit Peolphan, the Great
-    Hunter of the North&mdash;(look for him in your Nicolaus Remigius, or Petrus
-    Thyracus, Mr. Oldbuck)&mdash;who mimicked the motion of snuff-taking and its
-    effects."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "These indications, however singular as proceeding from such a personage,
-    seem to have been <i>apropos</i> to the matter," said the Antiquary; "for you
-    see the case, which includes these coins, has all the appearance of being
-    an old-fashioned Scottish snuff-mill. But you persevered, in spite of the
-    terrors of this sneezing goblin?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, I think it probable that a man of inferior sense or consequence
-    might have given way; but I was jealous of an imposture, conscious of the
-    duty I owed to my family in maintaining my courage under every
-    contingency, and therefore I compelled Dousterswivel, by actual and
-    violent threats, to proceed with what he was about to do;&mdash;and, sir, the
-    proof of his skill and honesty is this parcel of gold and silver pieces,
-    out of which I beg you to select such coins or medals as will best suit
-    your collection."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, Sir Arthur, since you are so good, and on condition you will permit
-    me to mark the value according to Pinkerton's catalogue and appreciation,
-    against your account in my red book, I will with pleasure select"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nay," said Sir Arthur Wardour, "I do not mean you should consider them
-    as anything but a gift of friendship and least of all would I stand by
-    the valuation of your friend Pinkerton, who has impugned the ancient and
-    trustworthy authorities upon which, as upon venerable and moss-grown
-    pillars, the credit of Scottish antiquities reposed."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, ay," rejoined Oldbuck, "you mean, I suppose, Mair and Boece, the
-    Jachin and Boaz, not of history but of falsification and forgery. And
-    notwithstanding all you have told me, I look on your friend Dousterswivel
-    to be as apocryphal as any of them."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why then, Mr. Oldbuck," said Sir Arthur, "not to awaken old disputes, I
-    suppose you think, that because I believe in the ancient history of my
-    country, I have neither eyes nor ears to ascertain what modern events
-    pass before me?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Pardon me, Sir Arthur," rejoined the Antiquary; "but I consider all the
-    affectation of terror which this worthy gentleman, your coadjutor, chose
-    to play off, as being merely one part of his trick or mystery. And with
-    respect to the gold or silver coins, they are so mixed and mingled in
-    country and date, that I cannot suppose they could be any genuine hoard,
-    and rather suppose them to be, like the purses upon the table of
-    Hudibras's lawyer&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                       &mdash;Money placed for show,
-                   Like nest-eggs, to make clients lay,
-                   And for his false opinions pay.&mdash;
-</pre>
-<p>
-    It is the trick of all professions, my dear Sir Arthur. Pray, may I ask
-    you how much this discovery cost you?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "About ten guineas."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And you have gained what is equivalent to twenty in actual bullion, and
-    what may be perhaps worth as much more to such fools as ourselves, who
-    are willing to pay for curiosity. This was allowing you a tempting profit
-    on the first hazard, I must needs admit. And what is the next venture he
-    proposes?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "An hundred and fifty pounds;&mdash;I have given him one-third part of the
-    money, and I thought it likely you might assist me with the balance."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I should think that this cannot be meant as a parting blow&mdash;is not of
-    weight and importance sufficient; he will probably let us win this hand
-    also, as sharpers manage a raw gamester.&mdash;Sir Arthur, I hope you believe
-    I would serve you?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Certainly, Mr. Oldbuck; I think my confidence in you on these occasions
-    leaves no room to doubt that."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, then, allow me to speak to Dousterswivel. If the money can be
-    advanced usefully and advantageously for you, why, for old
-    neighbourhood's sake, you shall not want it but if, as I think, I can
-    recover the treasure for you without making such an advance, you will,
-    I presume, have no objection!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Unquestionably, I can have none whatsoever."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then where is Dousterswivel?" continued the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "To tell you the truth, he is in my carriage below; but knowing your
-    prejudice against him"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I thank Heaven, I am not prejudiced against any man, Sir Arthur: it is
-    systems, not individuals, that incur my reprobation." He rang the bell.
-    "Jenny, Sir Arthur and I offer our compliments to Mr. Dousterswivel, the
-    gentleman in Sir Arthur's carriage, and beg to have the pleasure of
-    speaking with him here."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Jenny departed and delivered her message. It had been by no means a part
-    of the project of Dousterswivel to let Mr. Oldbuck into his supposed
-    mystery. He had relied upon Sir Arthur's obtaining the necessary
-    accommodation without any discussion as to the nature of the application,
-    and only waited below for the purpose of possessing himself of the
-    deposit as soon as possible, for he foresaw that his career was drawing
-    to a close. But when summoned to the presence of Sir Arthur and Mr.
-    Oldbuck, he resolved gallantly to put confidence in his powers of
-    impudence, of which, the reader may have observed, his natural share was
-    very liberal.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0002"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER SECOND.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                          &mdash;And this Doctor,
-             Your sooty smoky-bearded compeer, he
-             Will close you so much gold in a bolt's head,
-             And, on a turn, convey in the stead another
-             With sublimed mercury, that shall burst i' the heat,
-                      And all fly out <i>in fumo.</i>&mdash;
-                                        The Alchemist.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "How do you do, goot Mr. Oldenbuck? and I do hope your young gentleman,
-    Captain M'Intyre, is getting better again? Ach! it is a bat business when
-    young gentlemens will put lead balls into each other's body."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Lead adventures of all kinds are very precarious, Mr. Dousterswivel; but
-    I am happy to learn," continued the Antiquary, "from my friend Sir
-    Arthur, that you have taken up a better trade, and become a discoverer of
-    gold."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ach, Mr. Oldenbuck, mine goot and honoured patron should not have told a
-    word about dat little matter; for, though I have all reliance&mdash;yes,
-    indeed, on goot Mr. Oldenbuck's prudence and discretion, and his great
-    friendship for Sir Arthur Wardour&mdash;yet, my heavens! it is an great
-    ponderous secret."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "More ponderous than any of the metal we shall make by it, I fear,"
-    answered Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dat is just as you shall have de faith and de patience for de grand
-    experiment&mdash;If you join wid Sir Arthur, as he is put one hundred and
-    fifty&mdash;see, here is one fifty in your dirty Fairport bank-note&mdash;you put
-    one other hundred and fifty in de dirty notes, and you shall have de pure
-    gold and silver, I cannot tell how much."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nor any one for you, I believe," said the Antiquary. "But, hark you, Mr.
-    Dousterswivel: Suppose, without troubling this same sneezing spirit with
-    any farther fumigations, we should go in a body, and having fair
-    day-light and our good consciences to befriend us, using no other
-    conjuring implements than good substantial pick-axes and shovels, fairly
-    trench the area of the chancel in the ruins of St. Ruth, from one end to
-    the other, and so ascertain the existence of this supposed treasure,
-    without putting ourselves to any farther expense&mdash;the ruins belong to Sir
-    Arthur himself, so there can be no objection&mdash;do you think we shall
-    succeed in this way of managing the matter?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Bah!&mdash;you will not find one copper thimble&mdash;But Sir Arthur will do his
-    pleasure. I have showed him how it is possible&mdash;very possible&mdash;to have de
-    great sum of money for his occasions&mdash;I have showed him de real
-    experiment. If he likes not to believe, goot Mr. Oldenbuck, it is nothing
-    to Herman Dousterswivel&mdash;he only loses de money and de gold and de
-    silvers&mdash;dat is all."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur Wardour cast an intimidated glance at Oldbuck who, especially
-    when present, held, notwithstanding their frequent difference of opinion,
-    no ordinary influence over his sentiments. In truth, the Baronet felt,
-    what he would not willingly have acknowledged, that his genius stood
-    rebuked before that of the Antiquary. He respected him as a shrewd,
-    penetrating, sarcastic character&mdash;feared his satire, and had some
-    confidence in the general soundness of his opinions. He therefore looked
-    at him as if desiring his leave before indulging his credulity.
-    Dousterswivel saw he was in danger of losing his dupe, unless he could
-    make some favourable impression on the adviser.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I know, my goot Mr. Oldenbuck, it is one vanity to speak to you about de
-    spirit and de goblin. But look at this curious horn;&mdash;I know, you know de
-    curiosity of all de countries, and how de great Oldenburgh horn, as they
-    keep still in the Museum at Copenhagen, was given to de Duke of
-    Oldenburgh by one female spirit of de wood. Now I could not put one trick
-    on you if I were willing&mdash;you who know all de curiosity so well&mdash;and dere
-    it is de horn full of coins;&mdash;if it had been a box or case, I would have
-    said nothing."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Being a horn," said Oldbuck, "does indeed strengthen your argument. It
-    was an implement of nature's fashioning, and therefore much used among
-    rude nations, although, it may be, the metaphorical horn is more frequent
-    in proportion to the progress of civilisation. And this present horn," he
-    continued, rubbing it upon his sleeve, "is a curious and venerable relic,
-    and no doubt was intended to prove a <i>cornucopia,</i> or horn of plenty, to
-    some one or other; but whether to the adept or his patron, may be justly
-    doubted."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, Mr. Oldenbuck, I find you still hard of belief&mdash;but let me assure
-    you, de monksh understood de <i>magisterium.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Let us leave talking of the <i>magisterium,</i> Mr. Dousterswivel, and think
-    a little about the magistrate. Are you aware that this occupation of
-    yours is against the law of Scotland, and that both Sir Arthur and myself
-    are in the commission of the peace?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mine heaven! and what is dat to de purpose when I am doing you all de
-    goot I can?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, you must know that when the legislature abolished the cruel laws
-    against witchcraft, they had no hope of destroying the superstitious
-    feelings of humanity on which such chimeras had been founded; and to
-    prevent those feelings from being tampered with by artful and designing
-    persons, it is enacted by the ninth of George the Second, chap. 5, that
-    whosoever shall pretend, by his alleged skill in any occult or crafty
-    science, to discover such goods as are lost, stolen or concealed, he
-    shall suffer punishment by pillory and imprisonment, as a common cheat
-    and impostor."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And is dat de laws?" asked Dousterswivel, with some agitation.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Thyself shall see the act," replied the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Den, gentlemens, I shall take my leave of you, dat is all; I do not like
-    to stand on your what you call pillory&mdash;it is very bad way to take de
-    air, I think; and I do not like your prisons no more, where one cannot
-    take de air at all."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If such be your taste, Mr. Dousterswivel," said the Antiquary, "I advise
-    you to stay where you are, for I cannot let you go, unless it be in the
-    society of a constable; and, moreover, I expect you will attend us just
-    now to the ruins of St. Ruth, and point out the place where you propose
-    to find this treasure."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mine heaven, Mr. Oldenbuck! what usage is this to your old friend, when
-    I tell you so plain as I can speak, dat if you go now, you will not get
-    so much treasure as one poor shabby sixpence?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I will try the experiment, however, and you shall be dealt with
-    according to its success,&mdash;always with Sir Arthur's permission."
-</p>
-<pre>
-Sir Arthur, during this investigation, had looked extremely embarrassed,
-and, to use a vulgar but expressive phrase, chop-fallen. Oldbuck's
-obstinate disbelief led him strongly to suspect the imposture of
-Dousterswivel, and the adept's mode of keeping his ground was less
-resolute than he had expected. Yet he did not entirely give him up.
-
- "Mr. Oldbuck," said the Baronet, "you do Mr. Dousterswivel less than
-justice. He has undertaken to make this discovery by the use of his art,
-and by applying characters descriptive of the Intelligences presiding
-over the planetary hour in which the experiment is to be made; and you
-require him to proceed, under pain of punishment, without allowing him
-the use of any of the preliminaries which he considers as the means of
-procuring success."
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "I did not say that exactly&mdash;I only required him to be present when we
-    make the search, and not to leave us during the interval. I fear he may
-    have some intelligence with the Intelligences you talk of, and that
-    whatever may be now hidden at Saint Ruth may disappear before we get
-    there."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, gentlemens," said Dousterswivel, sullenly, "I will make no
-    objections to go along with you but I tell you beforehand, you shall not
-    find so much of anything as shall be worth your going twenty yard from
-    your own gate."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We will put that to a fair trial," said the Antiquary; and the Baronet's
-    equipage being ordered, Miss Wardour received an intimation from her
-    father, that she was to remain at Monkbarns until his return from an
-    airing. The young lady was somewhat at a loss to reconcile this direction
-    with the communication which she supposed must have passed between Sir
-    Arthur and the Antiquary; but she was compelled, for the present, to
-    remain in a most unpleasant state of suspense.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The journey of the treasure-seekers was melancholy enough. Dousterswivel
-    maintained a sulky silence, brooding at once over disappointed
-    expectation and the risk of punishment; Sir Arthur, whose golden dreams
-    had been gradually fading away, surveyed, in gloomy prospect, the
-    impending difficulties of his situation; and Oldbuck, who perceived that
-    his having so far interfered in his neighbours affairs gave the Baronet a
-    right to expect some actual and efficient assistance, sadly pondered to
-    what extent it would be necessary to draw open the strings of his purse.
-    Thus each being wrapped in his own unpleasant ruminations, there was
-    hardly a word said on either side, until they reached the Four
-    Horse-shoes, by which sign the little inn was distinguished. They
-    procured at this place the necessary assistance and implements for
-    digging, and, while they were busy about these preparations, were
-    suddenly joined by the old beggar, Edie Ochiltree.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The Lord bless your honour," began the Blue-Gown, with the genuine
-    mendicant whine, "and long life to you!&mdash;weel pleased am I to hear that
-    young Captain M'Intyre is like to be on his legs again sune&mdash;Think on
-    your poor bedesman the day."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aha, old true-penny!" replied the Antiquary. "Why, thou hast never come
-    to Monkbarns since thy perils by rock and flood&mdash;here's something for
-    thee to buy snuff,"&mdash;and, fumbling for his purse, he pulled out at the
-    same time the horn which enclosed the coins.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, and there's something to pit it in," said the mendicant, eyeing the
-    ram's horn&mdash;"that loom's an auld acquaintance o' mine. I could take my
-    aith to that sneeshing-mull amang a thousand&mdash;I carried it for mony a
-    year, till I niffered it for this tin ane wi' auld George Glen, the
-    dammer and sinker, when he took a fancy till't doun at Glen-Withershins
-    yonder."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay! indeed?" said Oldbuck;&mdash;"so you exchanged it with a miner? but I
-    presume you never saw it so well filled before"&mdash;and opening it, he
-    showed the coins.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth, ye may swear that, Monkbarns: when it was mine it neer had abune
-    the like o' saxpenny worth o' black rappee in't at ance. But I reckon
-    ye'll be gaun to mak an antic o't, as ye hae dune wi' mony an orra thing
-    besides. Od, I wish anybody wad mak an antic o' me; but mony ane will
-    find worth in rousted bits o' capper and horn and airn, that care unco
-    little about an auld carle o' their ain country and kind."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You may now guess," said Oldbuck, turning to Sir Arthur, "to whose good
-    offices you were indebted the other night. To trace this cornucopia of
-    yours to a miner, is bringing it pretty near a friend of ours&mdash;I hope we
-    shall be as successful this morning, without paying for it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And whare is your honours gaun the day," said the mendicant, "wi' a'
-    your picks and shules?&mdash;Od, this will be some o' your tricks, Monkbarns:
-    ye'll be for whirling some o' the auld monks down by yonder out o' their
-    graves afore they hear the last call&mdash;but, wi' your leave, I'se follow ye
-    at ony rate, and see what ye mak o't."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The party soon arrived at the ruins of the priory, and, having gained the
-    chancel, stood still to consider what course they were to pursue next.
-    The Antiquary, meantime, addressed the adept.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Pray, Mr. Dousterswivel, what is your advice in this matter? Shall we
-    have most likelihood of success if we dig from east to west, or from west
-    to east?&mdash;or will you assist us with your triangular vial of May-dew, or
-    with your divining-rod of witches-hazel?&mdash;or will you have the goodness
-    to supply us with a few thumping blustering terms of art, which, if they
-    fail in our present service, may at least be useful to those who have not
-    the happiness to be bachelors, to still their brawling children withal?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mr. Oldenbuck," said Dousterswivel, doggedly, "I have told you already
-    that you will make no good work at all, and I will find some way of mine
-    own to thank you for your civilities to me&mdash;yes, indeed."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If your honours are thinking of tirling the floor," said old Edie, "and
-    wad but take a puir body's advice, I would begin below that muckle stane
-    that has the man there streekit out upon his back in the midst o't."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have some reason for thinking favourably of that plan myself," said
-    the Baronet.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And I have nothing to say against it," said Oldbuck: "it was not unusual
-    to hide treasure in the tombs of the deceased&mdash;many instances might be
-    quoted of that from Bartholinus and others."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The tombstone, the same beneath which the coins had been found by Sir
-    Arthur and the German, was once more forced aside, and the earth gave
-    easy way to the spade.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's travell'd earth that," said Edie, "it howks gae eithly&mdash;I ken it
-    weel, for ance I wrought a simmer wi' auld Will Winnet, the bedral, and
-    howkit mair graves than ane in my day; but I left him in winter, for it
-    was unco cald wark; and then it cam a green Yule, and the folk died thick
-    and fast&mdash;for ye ken a green Yule makes a fat kirkyard; and I never dowed
-    to bide a hard turn o' wark in my life&mdash;sae aff I gaed, and left Will to
-    delve his last dwellings by himsell for Edie."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The diggers were now so far advanced in their labours as to discover that
-    the sides of the grave which they were clearing out had been originally
-    secured by four walls of freestone, forming a parallelogram, for the
-    reception, probably, of the coffin.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is worth while proceeding in our labours," said the Antiquary to Sir
-    Arthur, "were it but for curiosity's sake. I wonder on whose sepulchre
-    they have bestowed such uncommon pains."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The arms on the shield," said Sir Arthur, and sighed as he spoke it,
-    "are the same with those on Misticot's tower, supposed to have been built
-    by Malcolm the usurper. No man knew where he was buried, and there is an
-    old prophecy in our family, that bodes us no good when his grave shall be
-    discovered."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I wot," said the beggar, "I have often heard that when I was a bairn&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-              If Malcolm the Misticot's grave were fun',
-              The lands of Knockwinnock were lost and won."
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Oldbuck, with his spectacles on his nose, had already knelt down on the
-    monument, and was tracing, partly with his eye, partly with his finger,
-    the mouldered devices upon the effigy of the deceased warrior. "It is the
-    Knockwinnock arms, sure enough," he exclaimed, "quarterly with the coat
-    of Wardour."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Richard, called the red-handed Wardour, married Sybil Knockwinnock, the
-    heiress of the Saxon family, and by that alliance," said Sir Arthur,
-    "brought the castle and estate into the name of Wardour, in the year of
-    God 1150."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Very true, Sir Arthur; and here is the baton-sinister, the mark of
-    illegitimacy, extended diagonally through both coats upon the shield.
-    Where can our eyes have been, that they did not see this curious monument
-    before?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, whare was the through-stane, that it didna come before our een till
-    e'enow?" said Ochiltree; "for I hae ken'd this auld kirk, man and bairn,
-    for saxty lang years, and I neer noticed it afore; and it's nae sic mote
-    neither, but what ane might see it in their parritch."
-</p>
-<p>
-    All were now induced to tax their memory as to the former state of the
-    ruins in that corner of the chancel, and all agreed in recollecting a
-    considerable pile of rubbish which must have been removed and spread
-    abroad in order to make the tomb visible. Sir Arthur might, indeed, have
-    remembered seeing the monument on the former occasion, but his mind was
-    too much agitated to attend to the circumstance as a novelty.
-</p>
-<p>
-    While the assistants were engaged in these recollections and discussions,
-    the workmen proceeded with their labour. They had already dug to the
-    depth of nearly five feet, and as the flinging out the soil became more
-    and more difficult, they began at length to tire of the job.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We're down to the till now," said one of them, "and the neer a coffin or
-    onything else is here&mdash;some cunninger chiel's been afore us, I reckon;"&mdash;and
-    the labourer scrambled out of the grave.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hout, lad," said Edie, getting down in his room&mdash;"let me try my hand for
-    an auld bedral;&mdash;ye're gude seekers, but ill finders."
-</p>
-<p>
-    So soon as he got into the grave, he struck his pike-staff forcibly down;
-    it encountered resistance in its descent, and the beggar exclaimed, like
-    a Scotch schoolboy when he finds anything, "Nae halvers and quarters&mdash;hale
-    o' mine ain and 'nane o' my neighbour's."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Everybody, from the dejected Baronet to the sullen adept, now caught the
-    spirit of curiosity, crowded round the grave, and would have jumped into
-    it, could its space have contained them. The labourers, who had begun to
-    flag in their monotonous and apparently hopeless task, now resumed their
-    tools, and plied them with all the ardour of expectation. Their shovels
-    soon grated upon a hard wooden surface, which, as the earth was cleared
-    away, assumed the distinct form of a chest, but greatly smaller than that
-    of a coffin. Now all hands were at work to heave it out of the grave, and
-    all voices, as it was raised, proclaimed its weight and augured its
-    value. They were not mistaken.
-</p>
-<p>
-    When the chest or box was placed on the surface, and the lid forced up by
-    a pickaxe, there was displayed first a coarse canvas cover, then a
-    quantity of oakum, and beneath that a number of ingots of silver. A
-    general exclamation hailed a discovery so surprising and unexpected. The
-    Baronet threw his hands and eyes up to heaven, with the silent rapture of
-    one who is delivered from inexpressible distress of mind. Oldbuck, almost
-    unable to credit his eyes, lifted one piece of silver after another.
-    There was neither inscription nor stamp upon them, excepting one, which
-    seemed to be Spanish. He could have no doubt of the purity and great
-    value of the treasure before him. Still, however, removing piece by
-    piece, he examined row by row, expecting to discover that the lower
-    layers were of inferior value; but he could perceive no difference in
-    this respect, and found himself compelled to admit, that Sir Arthur had
-    possessed himself of bullion to the value, perhaps of a thousand pounds
-    sterling. Sir Arthur now promised the assistants a handsome recompense
-    for their trouble, and began to busy himself about the mode of conveying
-    this rich windfall to the Castle of Knockwinnock, when the adept,
-    recovering from his surprise, which had equalled that exhibited by any
-    other individual of the party, twitched his sleeve, and having offered
-    his humble congratulations, turned next to Oldbuck with an air of
-    triumph.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I did tell you, my goot friend, Mr. Oldenbuck, dat I was to seek
-    opportunity to thank you for your civility; now do you not think I have
-    found out vary goot way to return thank?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, Mr. Dousterswivel, do you pretend to have had any hand in our good
-    success?&mdash;you forget you refused us all aid of your science, man; and you
-    are here without your weapons that should have fought the battle which
-    you pretend to have gained in our behalf: you have used neither charm,
-    lamen, sigil, talisman, spell, crystal, pentacle, magic mirror, nor
-    geomantic figure. Where be your periapts, and your abracadabras man? your
-    Mayfern, your vervain,
-</p>
-<pre>
-           Your toad, your crow, your dragon, and your panther,
-           Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop,
-                Your Lato, Azoch, Zernich, Chibrit, Heautarit,
-           With all your broths, your menstrues, your materials,
-                      Would burst a man to name?&mdash;
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Ah! rare Ben Jonson! long peace to thy ashes for a scourge of the quacks
-    of thy day!&mdash;who expected to see them revive in our own?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The answer of the adept to the Antiquary's tirade we must defer to our
-    next CHAPTER.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0003"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER THIRD.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-   <i>Clause.</i>&mdash;You now shall know the king o' the beggars' treasure:&mdash;
-            Yes&mdash;ere to-morrow you shall find your harbour
-            Here,&mdash;fail me not, for if I live I'll fit you.
-                                       The Beggar's Bush.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The German, determined, it would seem, to assert the vantage-ground on
-    which the discovery had placed him, replied with great pomp and
-    stateliness to the attack of the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Maister Oldenbuck, all dis may be very witty and comedy, but I have
-    nothing to say&mdash;nothing at all&mdash;to people dat will not believe deir own
-    eye-sights. It is vary true dat I ave not any of de things of de art, and
-    it makes de more wonder what I has done dis day. But I would ask of you,
-    mine honoured and goot and generous patron, to put your hand into your
-    right-hand waistcoat pocket, and show me what you shall find dere."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur obeyed his direction, and pulled out the small plate of silver
-    which he had used under the adept's auspices upon the former occasion.
-    "It is very true," said Sir Arthur, looking gravely at the Antiquary;
-    "this is the graduated and calculated sigil by which Mr. Dousterswivel
-    and I regulated our first discovery."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Pshaw! pshaw! my dear friend," said Oldbuck, "you are too wise to
-    believe in the influence of a trumpery crown-piece, beat out thin, and a
-    parcel of scratches upon it. I tell thee, Sir Arthur, that if
-    Dousterswivel had known where to get this treasure himself, you would not
-    have been lord of the least share of it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In troth, please your honour," said Edie, who put in his word on all
-    occasions, "I think, since Mr. Dunkerswivel has had sae muckle merit in
-    discovering a' the gear, the least ye can do is to gie him that o't
-    that's left behind for his labour; for doubtless he that kend where to
-    find sae muckle will hae nae difficulty to find mair."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Dousterswivel's brow grew very dark at this proposal of leaving him to
-    his "ain purchase," as Ochiltree expressed it; but the beggar, drawing
-    him aside, whispered a word or two in his ear, to which he seemed to give
-    serious attention,
-</p>
-<p>
-    Meanwhile Sir Arthur, his heart warm with his good fortune, said aloud,
-    "Never mind our friend Monkbarns, Mr. Dousterswivel, but come to the
-    Castle to-morrow, and I'll convince you that I am not ungrateful for the
-    hints you have given me about this matter&mdash;and the fifty Fairport dirty
-    notes, as you call them, are heartily at your service. Come, my lads, get
-    the cover of this precious chest fastened up again."
-</p>
-<p>
-    But the cover had in the confusion fallen aside among the rubbish, or the
-    loose earth which had been removed from the grave&mdash;in short, it was not
-    to be seen.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Never mind, my good lads, tie the tarpaulin over it, and get it away to
-    the carriage.&mdash;Monkbarns, will you walk? I must go back your way to take
-    up Miss Wardour."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And, I hope, to take up your dinner also, Sir Arthur, and drink a glass
-    of wine for joy of our happy adventure. Besides, you should write about
-    the business to the Exchequer, in case of any interference on the part of
-    the Crown. As you are lord of the manor, it will be easy to get a deed of
-    gift, should they make any claim. We must talk about it, though."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And I particularly recommend silence to all who are present," said Sir
-    Arthur, looking round. All bowed and professed themselves dumb.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, as to that," said Monkbarns, "recommending secrecy where a dozen of
-    people are acquainted with the circumstance to be concealed, is only
-    putting the truth in masquerade, for the story will be circulated under
-    twenty different shapes. But never mind&mdash;we will state the true one to
-    the Barons, and that is all that is necessary."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I incline to send off an express to-night," said the Baronet.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I can recommend your honour to a sure hand," said Ochiltree; "little
-    Davie Mailsetter, and the butcher's reisting powny."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We will talk over the matter as we go to Monkbarns," said Sir Arthur.
-    "My lads" (to the work-people), "come with me to the Four Horse-shoes,
-    that I may take down all your names.&mdash;Dousterswivel, I won't ask you to
-    go down to Monkbarns, as the laird and you differ so widely in opinion;
-    but do not fail to come to see me to-morrow."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Dousterswivel growled out an answer, in which the words, "duty,"&mdash;"mine
-    honoured patron,"&mdash;and "wait upon Sir Arthurs,"&mdash;were alone
-    distinguishable; and after the Baronet and his friend had left the ruins,
-    followed by the servants and workmen, who, in hope of reward and whisky,
-    joyfully attended their leader, the adept remained in a brown study by
-    the side of the open grave.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Who was it as could have thought this?" he ejaculated unconsciously.
-    "Mine heiligkeit! I have heard of such things, and often spoken of such
-    things&mdash;but, sapperment! I never, thought to see them! And if I had gone
-    but two or dree feet deeper down in the earth&mdash;mein himmel! it had been
-    all mine own&mdash;so much more as I have been muddling about to get from this
-    fool's man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here the German ceased his soliloquy, for, raising his eyes, he
-    encountered those of Edie Ochiltree, who had not followed the rest of the
-    company, but, resting as usual on his pike-staff, had planted himself on
-    the other side of the grave. The features of the old man, naturally
-    shrewd and expressive almost to an appearance of knavery, seemed in this
-    instance so keenly knowing, that even the assurance of Dousterswivel,
-    though a professed adventurer, sunk beneath their glances. But he saw the
-    necessity of an e'claircissement, and, rallying his spirits, instantly
-    began to sound the mendicant on the occurrences of the day. "Goot Maister
-    Edies Ochiltrees"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Edie Ochiltree, nae maister&mdash;your puir bedesman and the king's,"
-    answered the Blue-Gown.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Awell den, goot Edie, what do you think of all dis?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I was just thinking it was very kind (for I darena say very simple) o'
-    your honour to gie thae twa rich gentles, wha hae lands and lairdships,
-    and siller without end, this grand pose o' silver and treasure (three
-    times tried in the fire, as the Scripture expresses it), that might hae
-    made yoursell and ony twa or three honest bodies beside, as happy and
-    content as the day was lang."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed, Edie, mine honest friends, dat is very true; only I did not
-    know, dat is, I was not sure, where to find the gelt myself."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What! was it not by your honours advice and counsel that Monkbarns and
-    the Knight of Knockwinnock came here then?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aha&mdash;yes; but it was by another circumstance. I did not know dat dey
-    would have found de treasure, mine friend; though I did guess, by such a
-    tintamarre, and cough, and sneeze, and groan, among de spirit one other
-    night here, dat there might be treasure and bullion hereabout. Ach, mein
-    himmel! the spirit will hone and groan over his gelt, as if he were a
-    Dutch Burgomaster counting his dollars after a great dinner at the
-    Stadthaus."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And do you really believe the like o' that, Mr. Dusterdeevil!&mdash;a
-    skeelfu' man like you&mdash;hout fie!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mein friend," answered the adept, foreed by circumstances to speak
-    something nearer the truth than he generally used to do, "I believed it
-    no more than you and no man at all, till I did hear them hone and moan
-    and groan myself on de oder night, and till I did this day see de cause,
-    which was an great chest all full of de pure silver from Mexico&mdash;and what
-    would you ave nae think den?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And what wad ye gie to ony ane," said Edie, "that wad help ye to sic
-    another kistfu' o' silver!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Give?&mdash;mein himmel!&mdash;one great big quarter of it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Now if the secret were mine," said the mendicant, "I wad stand out for a
-    half; for you see, though I am but a puir ragged body, and couldna carry
-    silver or gowd to sell for fear o' being taen up, yet I could find mony
-    folk would pass it awa for me at unco muckle easier profit than ye're
-    thinking on."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ach, himmel!&mdash;Mein goot friend, what was it I said?&mdash;I did mean to say
-    you should have de tree quarter for your half, and de one quarter to be
-    my fair half."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, no, Mr. Dusterdeevil, we will divide equally what we find, like
-    brother and brother. Now, look at this board that I just flung into the
-    dark aisle out o' the way, while Monkbarns was glowering ower a' the
-    silver yonder. He's a sharp chiel Monkbarns&mdash;I was glad to keep the like
-    o' this out o' his sight. Ye'll maybe can read the character better than
-    me&mdash;I am nae that book learned, at least I'm no that muckle in practice."
-</p>
-<p>
-    With this modest declaration of ignorance, Ochiltree brought forth from
-    behind a pillar the cover of the box or chest of treasure, which, when
-    forced from its hinges, had been carelessly flung aside during the ardour
-    of curiosity to ascertain the contents which it concealed, and had been
-    afterwards, as it seems, secreted by the mendicant. There was a word and
-    a number upon the plank, and the beggar made them more distinct by
-    spitting upon his ragged blue handkerchief, and rubbing off the clay by
-    which the inscription was obscured. It was in the ordinary black letter.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Can ye mak ought o't?" said Edie to the adept.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "S," said the philosopher, like a child getting his lesson in the
-		primer&mdash;"S, T, A, R, C, H,&mdash;<i>Starch!</i>&mdash;dat is what de woman-washers put into de
-    neckerchers, and de shirt collar."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Search!" echoed Ochiltree; "na, na, Mr. Dusterdeevil, ye are mair of a
-    conjuror than a clerk&mdash;it's <i>search,</i> man, <i>search</i>&mdash;See, there's the
-    <i>Ye</i> clear and distinct."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aha! I see it now&mdash;it is <i>search&mdash;number one.</i> Mein himmel! then there
-    must be a <i>number two,</i> mein goot friend: for <i>search</i> is what you call
-    to seek and dig, and this is but <i>number one!</i> Mine wort, there is one
-    great big prize in de wheel for us, goot Maister Ochiltree."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aweel, it may be sae; but we canna howk fort enow&mdash;we hae nae shules,
-    for they hae taen them a' awa&mdash;and it's like some o' them will be sent
-    back to fling the earth into the hole, and mak a' things trig again. But
-    an ye'll sit down wi' me a while in the wood, I'se satisfy your honour
-    that ye hae just lighted on the only man in the country that could hae
-    tauld about Malcolm Misticot and his hidden treasure&mdash;But first we'll rub
-    out the letters on this board, for fear it tell tales."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And, by the assistance of his knife, the beggar erased and defaced the
-    characters so as to make them quite unintelligible, and then daubed the
-    board with clay so as to obliterate all traces of the erasure.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Dousterswivel stared at him in ambiguous silence. There was an
-    intelligence and alacrity about all the old man's movements, which
-    indicated a person that could not be easily overreached, and yet (for
-    even rogues acknowledge in some degree the spirit of precedence) our
-    adept felt the disgrace of playing a secondary part, and dividing
-    winnings with so mean an associate. His appetite for gain, however, was
-    sufficiently sharp to overpower his offended pride, and though far more
-    an impostor than a dupe, he was not without a certain degree of personal
-    faith even in the gross superstitions by means of which he imposed upon
-    others. Still, being accustomed to act as a leader on such occasions, he
-    felt humiliated at feeling himself in the situation of a vulture
-    marshalled to his prey by a carrion-crow.&mdash;"Let me, however, hear this
-    story to an end," thought Dousterswivel, "and it will be hard if I do not
-    make mine account in it better as Maister Edie Ochiltrees makes
-    proposes."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The adept, thus transformed into a pupil from a teacher of the mystic
-    art, followed Ochiltree in passive acquiescence to the Prior's Oak&mdash;a
-    spot, as the reader may remember, at a short distance from the ruins,
-    where the German sat down, and silence waited the old man's
-    communication.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Maister Dustandsnivel," said the narrator, "it's an unco while since I
-    heard this business treated anent;&mdash;for the lairds of Knockwinnock,
-    neither Sir Arthur, nor his father, nor his grandfather&mdash;and I mind a wee
-    bit about them a'&mdash;liked to hear it spoken about; nor they dinna like it
-    yet&mdash;But nae matter; ye may be sure it was clattered about in the
-    kitchen, like onything else in a great house, though it were forbidden in
-    the ha'&mdash;and sae I hae heard the circumstance rehearsed by auld servants
-    in the family; and in thir present days, when things o' that auld-warld
-    sort arena keepit in mind round winter fire-sides as they used to be, I
-    question if there's onybody in the country can tell the tale but mysell&mdash;aye
-    out-taken the laird though, for there's a parchment book about it, as
-    I have heard, in the charter-room at Knockwinnock Castle."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, all dat is vary well&mdash;but get you on with your stories, mine goot
-    friend," said Dousterswivel.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aweel, ye see," continued the mendicant, "this was a job in the auld
-    times o' rugging and riving through the hale country, when it was ilka
-    ane for himsell, and God for us a'&mdash;when nae man wanted property if he
-    had strength to take it, or had it langer than he had power to keep it.
-    It was just he ower her, and she ower him, whichever could win upmost, a'
-    through the east country here, and nae doubt through the rest o' Scotland
-    in the self and same manner.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Sae in these days Sir Richard Wardour came into the land, and that was
-    the first o' the name ever was in this country. There's been mony o' them
-    sin' syne; and the maist, like him they ca'd Hell-in-Harness, and the
-    rest o' them, are sleeping down in yon ruins. They were a proud dour set
-    o' men, but unco brave, and aye stood up for the weel o' the country, God
-    sain them a'&mdash;there's no muckle popery in that wish. They ca'd them the
-    Norman Wardours, though they cam frae the south to this country. So this
-    Sir Richard, that they ca'd Red-hand, drew up wi' the auld Knockwinnock
-    o' that day&mdash;for then they were Knockwinnocks of that Ilk&mdash;and wad fain
-    marry his only daughter, that was to have the castle and the land. Laith,
-    laith was the lass&mdash;(Sybil Knockwinnock they ca'd her that tauld me the
-    tale)&mdash;laith, laith was she to gie into the match, for she had fa'en a
-    wee ower thick wi' a cousin o' her ain that her father had some ill-will
-    to; and sae it was, that after she had been married to Sir Richard jimp
-    four months&mdash;for marry him she maun, it's like&mdash;ye'll no hinder her
-    gieing them a present o' a bonny knave bairn. Then there was siccan a
-    ca'-thro', as the like was never seen; and she's be burnt, and he's be
-    slain, was the best words o' their mouths. But it was a' sowdered up
-    again some gait, and the bairn was sent awa, and bred up near the
-    Highlands, and grew up to be a fine wanle fallow, like mony ane that
-    comes o' the wrang side o' the blanket; and Sir Richard wi' the Red-hand,
-    he had a fair offspring o'his ain, and a was lound and quiet till his
-    head was laid in the ground. But then down came Malcolm Misticot&mdash;(Sir
-    Arthur says it should be <i>Misbegot,</i> but they aye ca'd him Misticot that
-    spoke o't lang syne)&mdash;down cam this Malcolm, the love-begot, frae
-    Glen-isla, wi' a string o' lang-legged Highlanders at his heels, that's
-    aye ready for onybody's mischief, and he threeps the castle and lands are
-    his ain as his mother's eldest son, and turns a' the Wardours out to the
-    hill. There was a sort of fighting and blude-spilling about it, for the
-    gentles took different sides; but Malcolm had the uppermost for a lang
-    time, and keepit the Castle of Knockwinnock, and strengthened it, and
-    built that muckle tower that they ca' Misticot's tower to this day."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mine goot friend, old Mr. Edie Ochiltree." interrupted the German, "this
-    is all as one like de long histories of a baron of sixteen quarters in
-    mine countries; but I would as rather hear of de silver and gold."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, ye see," continued the mendicant, "this Malcolm was weel helped by
-    an uncle, a brother o' his father's, that was Prior o' St. Ruth here; and
-    muckle treasure they gathered between them, to secure the succession of
-    their house in the lands of Knockwinnock. Folk said that the monks in
-    thae days had the art of multiplying metals&mdash;at ony rate, they were very
-    rich. At last it came to this, that the young Wardour, that was
-    Red-hand's son, challenged Misticot to fight with him in the lists as
-    they ca'd them&mdash;that's no lists or tailor's runds and selvedges o'
-    claith, but a palin'-thing they set up for them to fight in like
-    game-cocks. Aweel, Misticot was beaten, and at his brother's mercy&mdash;but
-    he wadna touch his life, for the blood of Knockwinnock that was in baith
-    their veins: so Malcolm was compelled to turn a monk, and he died soon
-    after in the priory, of pure despite and vexation. Naebody ever kenn'd
-    whare his uncle the prior earded him, or what he did wi' his gowd and
-    silver, for he stood on the right o' halie kirk, and wad gie nae account
-    to onybody. But the prophecy gat abroad in the country, that whenever
-    Misticot's grave was fund out, the estate of Knockwinnock should be lost
-    and won."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ach! mine goot old friend, Maister Edie, and dat is not so very
-    unlikely, if Sir Arthurs will quarrel wit his goot friends to please Mr.
-    Oldenbuck.&mdash;And so you do tink dat dis golds and silvers belonged to goot
-    Mr. Malcolm Mishdigoat?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth do I, Mr. Dousterdeevil."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And you do believe dat dere is more of dat sorts behind?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "By my certie do I&mdash;How can it be otherwise?&mdash;<i>Search&mdash;No. I</i>&mdash;that is as
-    muckle as to say, search and ye'll find number twa. Besides, yon kist is
-    only silver, and I aye heard that' Misticot's pose had muckle yellow gowd
-    in't."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Den, mine goot friends," said the adept, jumping up hastily, "why do we
-    not set about our little job directly?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "For twa gude reasons," answered the beggar, who quietly kept his sitting
-    posture;&mdash;"first, because, as I said before, we have naething to dig wi',
-    for they hae taen awa the picks and shules; and, secondly, because there
-    will be a wheen idle gowks coming to glower at the hole as lang as it is
-    daylight, and maybe the laird may send somebody to fill it up&mdash;and ony
-    way we wad be catched. But if you will meet me on this place at twal
-    o'clock wi' a dark lantern, I'll hae tools ready, and we'll gang quietly
-    about our job our twa sells, and naebody the wiser for't."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Be&mdash;be&mdash;but, mine goot friend," said Dousterswivel, from whose
-    recollection his former nocturnal adventure was not to be altogether
-    erased, even by the splendid hopes which Edie's narrative held forth, "it
-    is not so goot or so safe, to be about goot Maister Mishdigoat's grabe at
-    dat time of night&mdash;you have forgot how I told you de spirits did hone and
-    mone dere. I do assure you, dere is disturbance dere."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If ye're afraid of ghaists," answered the mendicant, coolly, "I'll do
-    the job mysell, and bring your share o' the siller to ony place you like
-    to appoint."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No&mdash;no&mdash;mine excellent old Mr. Edie,&mdash;too much trouble for you&mdash;I will
-    not have dat&mdash;I will come myself&mdash;and it will be bettermost; for, mine
-    old friend, it was I, Herman Dousterswivel, discovered Maister
-    Mishdigoat's grave when I was looking for a place as to put away some
-    little trumpery coins, just to play one little trick on my dear friend
-    Sir Arthur, for a little sport and pleasures. Yes, I did take some what
-    you call rubbish, and did discover Maister Mishdigoat's own monumentsh&mdash;
-    It's like dat he meant I should be his heirs&mdash;so it would not be civility
-    in me not to come mineself for mine inheritance."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "At twal o'clock, then," said the mendicant, "we meet under this tree.
-    I'll watch for a while, and see that naebody meddles wi' the grave&mdash;it's
-    only saying the laird's forbade it&mdash;then get my bit supper frae Ringan
-    the poinder up by, and leave to sleep in his barn; and I'll slip out at
-    night, and neer be mist."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Do so, mine goot Maister Edie, and I will meet you here on this very
-    place, though all de spirits should moan and sneeze deir very brains
-    out."
-</p>
-<p>
-    So saying he shook hands with the old man, and with this mutual pledge of
-    fidelity to their appointment, they separated for the present.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0004"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER FOURTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                          &mdash;See thou shake the bags
-                 Of hoarding abbots; angels imprisoned
-                         Set thou at liberty&mdash;
-                Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back,
-                        If gold and silver beckon to come on.
-                                              King John.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The night set in stormy, with wind and occasional showers of rain. "Eh,
-    sirs," said the old mendicant, as he took his place on the sheltered side
-    of the large oak-tree to wait for his associate&mdash;"Eh, sirs, but human
-    nature's a wilful and wilyard thing!&mdash;Is it not an unco lucre o' gain wad
-    bring this Dousterdivel out in a blast o' wind like this, at twal o'clock
-    at night, to thir wild gousty wa's?&mdash;and amna I a bigger fule than
-    himsell to bide here waiting for him?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Having made these sage reflections, he wrapped himself close in his
-    cloak, and fixed his eye on the moon as she waded amid the stormy and
-    dusky clouds, which the wind from time to time drove across her surface.
-    The melancholy and uncertain gleams that she shot from between the
-    passing shadows fell full upon the rifted arches and shafted windows of
-    the old building, which were thus for an instant made distinctly visible
-    in their ruinous state, and anon became again a dark, undistinguished,
-    and shadowy mass. The little lake had its share of these transient beams
-    of light, and showed its waters broken, whitened, and agitated under the
-    passing storm, which, when the clouds swept over the moon, were only
-    distinguished by their sullen and murmuring plash against the beach. The
-    wooded glen repeated, to every successive gust that hurried through its
-    narrow trough, the deep and various groan with which the trees replied to
-    the whirlwind, and the sound sunk again, as the blast passed away, into a
-    faint and passing murmur, resembling the sighs of an exhausted criminal
-    after the first pangs of his torture are over. In these sounds,
-    superstition might have found ample gratification for that State of
-    excited terror which she fears and yet loves. But such feeling is made no
-    part of Ochiltree's composition. His mind wandered back to the scenes of
-    his youth.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have kept guard on the outposts baith in Germany and America," he said
-    to himself, "in mony a waur night than this, and when I ken'd there was
-    maybe a dozen o' their riflemen in the thicket before me. But I was aye
-    gleg at my duty&mdash;naebody ever catched Edie sleeping."
-</p>
-<p>
-    As he muttered thus to himself, he instinctively shouldered his trusty
-    pike-staff, assumed the port of a sentinel on duty, and, as a step
-    advanced towards the tree, called, with a tone assorting better with his
-    military reminiscences than his present state&mdash;"Stand! who goes there?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "De devil, goot Edie," answered Dousterswivel, "why does you speak so
-    loud as a baarenhauter, or what you call a factionary&mdash;I mean a
-    sentinel?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Just because I thought I was a sentinel at that moment," answered the
-    mendicant. "Here's an awsome night! Hae ye brought the lantern and a pock
-    for the siller?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay-ay, mine goot friend," said the German, "here it is&mdash;my pair of what
-    you call saddlebag; one side will be for you, one side for me;&mdash;I will
-    put dem on my horse to save you de trouble, as you are old man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Have you a horse here, then?" asked Edie Ochiltree.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O yes, mine friend&mdash;tied yonder by de stile," responded the adept.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Weel, I hae just ae word to the bargain&mdash;there sall nane o' my gear gang
-    on your beast's back."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What was it as you would be afraid of?" said the foreigner.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Only of losing sight of horse, man, and money," again replied the
-    gaberlunzie.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Does you know dat you make one gentlemans out to be one great rogue?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mony gentlemen," replied Ochiltree, "can make that out for themselves&mdash;
-    But what's the sense of quarrelling?&mdash;If ye want to gang on, gang on&mdash;if
-    no&mdash;I'll gae back to the gude ait-straw in Ringan Aikwood's barn that I
-    left wi' right ill-will e'now, and I'll pit back the pick and shule whar
-    I got them."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Dousterswivel deliberated a moment, whether, by suffering Edie to depart,
-    he might not secure the whole of the expected wealth for his own
-    exclusive use. But the want of digging implements, the uncertainty
-    whether, if he had them, he could clear out the grave to a sufficient
-    depth without assistance, and, above all, the reluctance which he felt,
-    owing to the experience of the former night, to venture alone on the
-    terrors of Misticot's grave, satisfied him the attempt would be
-    hazardous. Endeavouring, therefore, to assume his usual cajoling tone,
-    though internally incensed, he begged "his goot friend Maister Edie
-    Ochiltrees would lead the way, and assured him of his acquiescence in all
-    such an excellent friend could propose."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aweel, aweel, then," said Edie, "tak gude care o' your feet amang the
-    lang grass and the loose stones. I wish we may get the light keepit in
-    neist, wi' this fearsome wind&mdash;but there's a blink o' moonlight at
-    times."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Thus saying, old Edie, closely accompanied by the adept, led the way
-    towards the ruins, but presently made a full halt in front of them.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ye're a learned man, Mr. Dousterdeevil, and ken muckle o' the marvellous
-    works o' nature&mdash;Now, will ye tell me ae thing?&mdash;D'ye believe in ghaists
-    and spirits that walk the earth?&mdash;d'ye believe in them, ay or no?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Now, goot Mr. Edie," whispered Dousterswivel, in an expostulatory tone
-    of voice, "is this a times or a places for such a questions?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed is it, baith the tane and the t'other, Mr. Dustanshovel; for I
-    maun fairly tell ye, there's reports that auld Misticot walks. Now this
-    wad be an uncanny night to meet him in, and wha kens if he wad be ower
-    weel pleased wi' our purpose of visiting his pose?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "<i>Alle guten Geister</i>"&mdash;muttered the adept, the rest of the conjuration
-    being lost in a tremulous warble of his voice,&mdash;"I do desires you not to
-    speak so, Mr. Edie; for, from all I heard dat one other night, I do much
-    believes"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Now I," said Ochiltree, entering the chancel, and flinging abroad his
-    arm with an air of defiance, "I wadna gie the crack o' my thumb for him
-    were he to appear at this moment: he's but a disembodied spirit, as we
-    are embodied anes."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "For the lofe of heavens," said Dousterswivel, "say nothing at all
-    neither about somebodies or nobodies!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aweel," said the beggar (expanding the shade of the lantern), "here's
-    the stane, and, spirit or no spirit, I'se be a wee bit deeper in the
-    grave;" and he jumped into the place from which the precious chest had
-    that morning been removed. After striking a few strokes, he tired, or
-    affected to tire, and said to his companion, "I'm auld and failed now,
-    and canna keep at it&mdash;time about's fair play, neighbour; ye maun get in
-    and tak the shule a bit, and shule out the loose earth, and then I'll tak
-    turn about wi' you."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Dousterswivel accordingly took the place which the beggar had evacuated,
-    and toiled with all the zeal that awakened avarice, mingled with the
-    anxious wish to finish the undertaking and leave the place as soon as
-    possible, could inspire in a mind at once greedy, suspicious, and
-    timorous.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Edie, standing much at his ease by the side of the hole, contented
-    himself with exhorting his associate to labour hard. "My certie! few ever
-    wrought for siccan a day's wage; an it be but&mdash;say the tenth part o' the
-    size o' the kist, No. I., it will double its value, being filled wi' gowd
-    instead of silver. Od, ye work as if ye had been bred to pick and shule&mdash;ye
-    could win your round half-crown ilka day. Tak care o' your taes wi'
-    that stane!" giving a kick to a large one which the adept had heaved out
-    with difficulty, and which Edie pushed back again to the great annoyance
-    of his associate's shins.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Thus exhorted by the mendicant, Dousterswivel struggled and laboured
-    among the stones and stiff clay, toiling like a horse, and internally
-    blaspheming in German. When such an unhallowed syllable escaped his lips,
-    Edie changed his battery upon him.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O dinna swear! dinna swear! Wha kens whals listening!&mdash;Eh! gude guide
-    us, what's yon!&mdash;Hout, it's just a branch of ivy flightering awa frae the
-    wa'; when the moon was in, it lookit unco like a dead man's arm wi' a
-    taper in't&mdash;I thought it was Misticot himsell. But never mind, work you
-    away&mdash;fling the earth weel up by out o' the gate&mdash;Od, if ye're no as
-    clean a worker at a grave as Win Winnet himsell! What gars ye stop now?&mdash;ye're
-    just at the very bit for a chance."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Stop!" said the German, in a tone of anger and disappointment, "why, I
-    am down at de rocks dat de cursed ruins (God forgife me!) is founded
-    upon."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Weel," said the beggar, "that's the likeliest bit of ony. It will be but
-    a muckle through-stane laid doun to kiver the gowd&mdash;tak the pick till't,
-    and pit mair strength, man&mdash;ae gude down-right devvel will split it, I'se
-    warrant ye&mdash;Ay, that will do Od, he comes on wi' Wallace's straiks!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    In fact, the adept, moved by Edie's exhortations, fetched two or three
-    desperate blows, and succeeded in breaking, not indeed that against which
-    he struck, which, as he had already conjectured, was the solid rock, but
-    the implement which he wielded, jarring at the same time his arms up to
-    the shoulder-blades.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hurra, boys!&mdash;there goes Ringan's pick-axe!" cried Edie "it's a shame o'
-    the Fairport folk to sell siccan frail gear. Try the shule&mdash;at it again,
-    Mr. Dusterdeevil."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The adept, without reply, scrambled out of the pit, which was now about
-    six feet deep, and addressed his associate in a voice that trembled with
-    anger. "Does you know, Mr. Edies Ochiltrees, who it is you put off your
-    gibes and your jests upon?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Brawly, Mr. Dusterdeevil&mdash;brawly do I ken ye, and has done mony a day;
-    but there's nae jesting in the case, for I am wearying to see ae our
-    treasures; we should hae had baith ends o' the pockmanky filled by this
-    time&mdash;I hope it's bowk eneugh to haud a' the gear?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Look you, you base old person," said the incensed philosopher, "if you
-    do put another jest upon me, I will cleave your skull-piece with this
-    shovels!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And whare wad my hands and my pike-staff be a' the time?" replied Edie,
-    in a tone that indicated no apprehension. "Hout, tout, Maister
-    Dusterdeevil, I haena lived sae lang in the warld neither, to be shuled
-    out o't that gate. What ails ye to be cankered, man, wi' your friends?
-    I'll wager I'll find out the treasure in a minute;" and he jumped into
-    the pit, and took up the spade.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I do swear to you," said the adept, whose suspicions were now fully
-    awake, "that if you have played me one big trick, I will give you one big
-    beating, Mr. Edies."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hear till him now!" said Ochiltree, "he kens how to gar folk find out
-    the gear&mdash;Od, I'm thinking he's been drilled that way himsell some day."
-</p>
-<p>
-    At this insinuation, which alluded obviously to the former scene betwixt
-    himself and Sir Arthur, the philosopher lost the slender remnant of
-    patience he had left, and being of violent passions, heaved up the
-    truncheon of the broken mattock to discharge it upon the old man's head.
-    The blow would in all probability have been fatal, had not he at whom it
-    was aimed exclaimed in a stern and firm voice, "Shame to ye, man!&mdash;do ye
-    think Heaven or earth will suffer ye to murder an auld man that might be
-    your father?&mdash;Look behind ye, man!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Dousterswivel turned instinctively, and beheld, to his utter
-    astonishment, a tall dark figure standing close behind him. The
-    apparition gave him no time to proceed by exorcism or otherwise, but
-    having instantly recourse to the <i>voie de fait,</i> took measure of the
-    adept's shoulders three or four times with blows so substantial, that he
-    fell under the weight of them, and remained senseless for some minutes
-    between fear and stupefaction. When he came to himself, he was alone in
-    the ruined chancel, lying upon the soft and damp earth which had been
-    thrown out of Misticot's grave. He raised himself with a confused
-    sensation of anger, pain, and terror, and it was not until he had sat
-    upright for some minutes, that he could arrange his ideas sufficiently to
-    recollect how he came there, or with what purpose. As his recollection
-    returned, he could have little doubt that the bait held out to him by
-    Ochiltree, to bring him to that solitary spot, the sarcasms by which he
-    had provoked him into a quarrel, and the ready assistance which he had at
-    hand for terminating it in the manner in which it had ended, were all
-    parts of a concerted plan to bring disgrace and damage on Herman
-    Dousterswivel. He could hardly suppose that he was indebted for the
-    fatigue, anxiety, and beating which he had undergone, purely to the
-    malice of Edie Ochiltree singly, but concluded that the mendicant had
-    acted a part assigned to him by some person of greater importance. His
-    suspicions hesitated between Oldbuck and Sir Arthur Wardour. The former
-    had been at no pains to conceal a marked dislike of him&mdash;but the latter
-    he had deeply injured; and although he judged that Sir Arthur did not
-    know the extent of his wrongs towards him, yet it was easy to suppose he
-    had gathered enough of the truth to make him desirous of revenge.
-    Ochiltree had alluded to at least one circumstance which the adept had
-    every reason to suppose was private between Sir Arthur and himself, and
-    therefore must have been learned from the former. The language of Oldbuck
-    also intimated a conviction of his knavery, which Sir Arthur heard
-    without making any animated defence. Lastly, the way in which
-    Dousterswivel supposed the Baronet to have exercised his revenge, was not
-    inconsistent with the practice of other countries with which the adept
-    was better acquainted than with those of North Britain. With him, as with
-    many bad men, to suspect an injury, and to nourish the purpose of
-    revenge, was one and the same movement. And before Dousterswivel had
-    fairly recovered his legs, he had mentally sworn the ruin of his
-    benefactor, which, unfortunately, he possessed too much the power of
-    accelerating.
-</p>
-<p>
-    But although a purpose of revenge floated through his brain, it was no
-    time to indulge such speculations. The hour, the place, his own
-    situation, and perhaps the presence or near neighbourhood of his
-    assailants, made self-preservation the adept's first object. The lantern
-    had been thrown down and extinguished in the scuffle. The wind, which
-    formerly howled so loudly through the aisles of the ruin, had now greatly
-    fallen, lulled by the rain, which was descending very fast. The moon,
-    from the same cause, was totally obscured, and though Dousterswivel had
-    some experience of the ruins, and knew that he must endeavour to regain
-    the eastern door of the chancel, yet the confusion of his ideas was such,
-    that he hesitated for some time ere he could ascertain in what direction
-    he was to seek it. In this perplexity, the suggestions of superstition,
-    taking the advantage of darkness and his evil conscience, began again to
-    present themselves to his disturbed imagination. "But bah!" quoth he
-    valiantly to himself, "it is all nonsense all one part of de damn big
-    trick and imposture. Devil! that one thick-skulled Scotch Baronet, as I
-    have led by the nose for five year, should cheat Herman Dousterswivel!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    As he had come to this conclusion, an incident occurred which tended
-    greatly to shake the grounds on which he had adopted it. Amid the
-    melancholy <i>sough</i> of the dying wind, and the plash of the rain-drops on
-    leaves and stones, arose, and apparently at no great distance from the
-    listener, a strain of vocal music so sad and solemn, as if the departed
-    spirits of the churchmen who had once inhabited these deserted ruins were
-    mourning the solitude and desolation to which their hallowed precincts
-    had been abandoned. Dousterswivel, who had now got upon his feet, and was
-    groping around the wall of the chancel, stood rooted to the ground on the
-    occurrence of this new phenomenon. Each faculty of his soul seemed for
-    the moment concentred in the sense of hearing, and all rushed back with
-    the unanimous information, that the deep, wild, and prolonged chant which
-    he now heard, was the appropriate music of one of the most solemn dirges
-    of the Church of Rome. Why performed in such a solitude, and by what
-    class of choristers, were questions which the terrified imagination of
-    the adept, stirred with all the German superstitions of nixies,
-    oak-kings, wer-wolves, hobgoblins, black spirits and white, blue spirits
-    and grey, durst not even attempt to solve.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Another of his senses was soon engaged in the investigation. At the
-    extremity of one of the transepts of the church, at the bottom of a few
-    descending steps, was a small iron-grated door, opening, as far as he
-    recollected, to a sort of low vault or sacristy. As he cast his eye in
-    the direction of the sound, he observed a strong reflection of red light
-    glimmering through these bars, and against the steps which descended to
-    them. Dousterswivel stood a moment uncertain what to do; then, suddenly
-    forming a desperate resolution, he moved down the aisle to the place from
-    which the light proceeded.
-</p>
-<a name="image-0005"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/pb052.jpg" height="808" width="547"
-alt="The Funeral of the Countess
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<p>
-    Fortified with the sign of the cross, and as many exorcisms as his memory
-    could recover, he advanced to the grate, from which, unseen, he could see
-    what passed in the interior of the vault. As he approached with timid and
-    uncertain steps, the chant, after one or two wild and prolonged cadences,
-    died away into profound silence. The grate, when he reached it, presented
-    a singular spectacle in the interior of the sacristy. An open grave, with
-    four tall flambeaus, each about six feet high, placed at the four
-    corners&mdash;a bier, having a corpse in its shroud, the arms folded upon the
-    breast, rested upon tressels at one side of the grave, as if ready to be
-    interred&mdash;a priest, dressed in his cope and stole, held open the service
-    book&mdash;another churchman in his vestments bore a holy-water sprinkler, and
-    two boys in white surplices held censers with incense&mdash;a man, of a figure
-    once tall and commanding, but now bent with age or infirmity, stood alone
-    and nearest to the coffin, attired in deep mourning&mdash;such were the most
-    prominent figures of the group. At a little distance were two or three
-    persons of both sexes, attired in long mourning hoods and cloaks; and
-    five or six others in the same lugubrious dress, still farther removed
-    from the body, around the walls of the vault, stood ranged in motionless
-    order, each bearing in his hand a huge torch of black wax. The smoky
-    light from so many flambeaus, by the red and indistinct atmosphere which
-    it spread around, gave a hazy, dubious, and as it were phantom-like
-    appearance to the outlines of this singular apparition, The voice of the
-    priest&mdash;loud, clear, and sonorous&mdash;now recited, from the breviary which
-    he held in his hand, those solemn words which the ritual of the Catholic
-    church has consecrated to the rendering of dust to dust. Meanwhile,
-    Dousterswivel, the place, the hour, and the surprise considered, still
-    remained uncertain whether what he saw was substantial, or an unearthly
-    representation of the rites to which in former times these walls were
-    familiar, but which are now rarely practised in Protestant countries, and
-    almost never in Scotland. He was uncertain whether to abide the
-    conclusion of the ceremony, or to endeavour to regain the chancel, when a
-    change in his position made him visible through the grate to one of the
-    attendant mourners. The person who first espied him indicated his
-    discovery to the individual who stood apart and nearest the coffin, by a
-    sign, and upon his making a sign in reply, two of the group detached
-    themselves, and, gliding along with noiseless steps, as if fearing to
-    disturb the service, unlocked and opened the grate which separated them
-    from the adept. Each took him by an arm, and exerting a degree of force,
-    which he would have been incapable of resisting had his fear permitted
-    him to attempt opposition, they placed him on the ground in the chancel,
-    and sat down, one on each side of him, as if to detain him. Satisfied he
-    was in the power of mortals like himself, the adept would have put some
-    questions to them; but while one pointed to the vault, from which the
-    sound of the priest's voice was distinctly heard, the other placed his
-    finger upon his lips in token of silence, a hint which the German thought
-    it most prudent to obey. And thus they detained him until a loud
-    Alleluia, pealing through the deserted arches of St. Ruth, closed the
-    singular ceremony which it had been his fortune to witness.
-</p>
-<p>
-    When the hymn had died away with all its echoes, the voice of one of the
-    sable personages under whose guard the adept had remained, said, in a
-    familiar tone and dialect, "Dear sirs, Mr. Dousterswivel, is this you?
-    could not ye have let us ken an ye had wussed till hae been present at
-    the ceremony?&mdash;My lord couldna tak it weel your coming blinking and
-    jinking in, in that fashion."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In de name of all dat is gootness, tell me what you are?" interrupted
-    the German in his turn.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What I am? why, wha should I be but Ringan Aikwood, the Knockwinnock
-    poinder?&mdash;and what are ye doing here at this time o' night, unless ye
-    were come to attend the leddy's burial?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I do declare to you, mine goot Poinder Aikwood," said the German,
-    raising himself up, "that I have been this vary nights murdered, robbed,
-    and put in fears of my life."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Robbed! wha wad do sic a deed here?&mdash;Murdered! od ye speak pretty blithe
-    for a murdered man&mdash;Put in fear! what put you in fear, Mr.
-    Dousterswivel?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I will tell you, Maister Poinder Aikwood Ringan, just dat old miscreant
-    dog villain blue-gown, as you call Edie Ochiltrees."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I'll neer believe that," answered Ringan;&mdash;"Edie was ken'd to me, and my
-    father before me, for a true, loyal, and sooth-fast man; and, mair by
-    token, he's sleeping up yonder in our barn, and has been since ten at
-    e'en&mdash;Sae touch ye wha liket, Mr. Dousterswivel, and whether onybody
-    touched ye or no, I'm sure Edie's sackless."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Maister Ringan Aikwood Poinders, I do not know what you call sackless,&mdash;
-    but let alone all de oils and de soot dat you say he has, and I will tell
-    you I was dis night robbed of fifty pounds by your oil and sooty friend,
-    Edies Ochiltree; and he is no more in your barn even now dan I ever shall
-    be in de kingdom of heafen."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Weel, sir, if ye will gae up wi' me, as the burial company has
-    dispersed, we'se mak ye down a bed at the lodge, and we'se see if Edie's
-    at the barn. There was twa wild-looking chaps left the auld kirk when we
-    were coming up wi' the corpse, that's certain; and the priest, wha likes
-    ill that ony heretics should look on at our church ceremonies, sent twa
-    o' the riding saulies after them; sae we'll hear a' about it frae them."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Thus speaking, the kindly apparition, with the assistance of the mute
-    personage, who was his son, disencumbered himself of his cloak, and
-    prepared to escort Dousterswivel to the place of that rest which the
-    adept so much needed.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I will apply to the magistrates to-morrow," said the adept; "oder, I
-    will have de law put in force against all the peoples."
-</p>
-<p>
-    While he thus muttered vengeance against the cause of his injury, he
-    tottered from among the ruins, supporting himself on Ringan and his son,
-    whose assistance his state of weakness rendered very necessary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    When they were clear of the priory, and had gained the little meadow in
-    which it stands, Dousterswivel could perceive the torches which had
-    caused him so much alarm issuing in irregular procession from the ruins,
-    and glancing their light, like that of the <i>ignis fatuus,</i> on the banks
-    of the lake. After moving along the path for some short space with a
-    fluctuating and irregular motion, the lights were at once extinguished.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We aye put out the torches at the Halie-cross Well on sic occasions,"
-    said the forester to his guest. And accordingly no farther visible sign
-    of the procession offered itself to Dousterswivel, although his ear could
-    catch the distant and decreasing echo of horses' hoofs in the direction
-    towards which the mourners had bent their course.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0005"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER FIFTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                       O weel may the boatie row
-                       And better may she speed,
-                      And weel may the boatie row
-                    That earns the bairnies' bread!
-                   The boatie rows, the boatie rows,
-                       The boatie rows fu' weel,
-                 And lightsome be their life that bear
-                       The merlin and the creel!
-                                        Old Ballad.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    We must now introduce our reader to the interior of the fisher's cottage
-    mentioned in CHAPTER eleventh of this edifying history. I wish I could
-    say that its inside was well arranged, decently furnished, or tolerably
-    clean. On the contrary, I am compelled to admit, there was confusion,&mdash;
-    there was dilapidation,&mdash;there was dirt good store. Yet, with all this,
-    there was about the inmates, Luckie Mucklebackit and her family, an
-    appearance of ease, plenty, and comfort, that seemed to warrant their old
-    sluttish proverb, "The clartier the cosier." A huge fire, though the
-    season was summer, occupied the hearth, and served at once for affording
-    light, heat, and the means of preparing food. The fishing had been
-    successful, and the family, with customary improvidence, had, since
-    unlading the cargo, continued an unremitting operation of broiling and
-    frying that part of the produce reserved for home consumption, and the
-    bones and fragments lay on the wooden trenchers, mingled with morsels of
-    broken bannocks and shattered mugs of half-drunk beer. The stout and
-    athletic form of Maggie herself, bustling here and there among a pack of
-    half-grown girls and younger children, of whom she chucked one now here
-    and another now there, with an exclamation of "Get out o' the gate, ye
-    little sorrow!" was strongly contrasted with the passive and
-    half-stupified look and manner of her husband's mother, a woman advanced
-    to the last stage of human life, who was seated in her wonted chair close
-    by the fire, the warmth of which she coveted, yet hardly seemed to be
-    sensible of&mdash;now muttering to herself, now smiling vacantly to the
-    children as they pulled the strings of her <i>toy</i> or close cap, or
-    twitched her blue checked apron. With her distaff in her bosom, and her
-    spindle in her hand, she plied lazily and mechanically the old-fashioned
-    Scottish thrift, according to the old-fashioned Scottish manner. The
-    younger children, crawling among the feet of the elder, watched the
-    progress of grannies spindle as it twisted, and now and then ventured to
-    interrupt its progress as it danced upon the floor in those vagaries
-    which the more regulated spinning-wheel has now so universally
-    superseded, that even the fated Princess in the fairy tale might roam
-    through all Scotland without the risk of piercing her hand with a
-    spindle, and dying of the wound. Late as the hour was (and it was long
-    past midnight), the whole family were still on foot, and far from
-    proposing to go to bed; the dame was still busy broiling car-cakes on the
-    girdle, and the elder girl, the half-naked mermaid elsewhere
-    commemorated, was preparing a pile of Findhorn haddocks (that is,
-    haddocks smoked with green wood), to be eaten along with these relishing
-    provisions.
-</p>
-<p>
-    While they were thus employed, a slight tap at the door, accompanied with
-    the question, "Are ye up yet, sirs?" announced a visitor. The answer,
-    "Ay, ay,&mdash;come your ways ben, hinny," occasioned the lifting of the
-    latch, and Jenny Rintherout, the female domestic of our Antiquary, made
-    her appearance.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, ay," exclaimed the mistress of the family&mdash;"Hegh, sirs! can this be
-    you, Jenny?&mdash;a sight o' you's gude for sair een, lass."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O woman, we've been sae ta'en up wi' Captain Hector's wound up by, that
-    I havena had my fit out ower the door this fortnight; but he's better
-    now, and auld Caxon sleeps in his room in case he wanted onything. Sae,
-    as soon as our auld folk gaed to bed, I e'en snodded my head up a bit,
-    and left the house-door on the latch, in case onybody should be wanting
-    in or out while I was awa, and just cam down the gate to see an there was
-    ony cracks amang ye."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, ay," answered Luckie Mucklebackit, "I see you hae gotten a' your
-    braws on; ye're looking about for Steenie now&mdash;but he's no at hame the
-    night; and ye'll no do for Steenie, lass&mdash;a feckless thing like you's no
-    fit to mainteen a man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Steenie will no do for me," retorted Jenny, with a toss of her head that
-    might have become a higher-born damsel; "I maun hae a man that can
-    mainteen his wife."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ou ay, hinny&mdash;thae's your landward and burrows-town notions.
-		My certie!&mdash;fisherwives ken better&mdash;they keep the man, and keep the house, and keep
-    the siller too, lass."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A wheen poor drudges ye are," answered the nymph of the land to the
-    nymph of the sea. "As sune as the keel o' the coble touches the sand,
-    deil a bit mair will the lazy fisher loons work, but the wives maun kilt
-    their coats, and wade into the surf to tak the fish ashore. And then the
-    man casts aff the wat and puts on the dry, and sits down wi' his pipe and
-    his gill-stoup ahint the ingle, like ony auld houdie, and neer a turn
-    will he do till the coble's afloat again! And the wife she maun get the
-    scull on her back, and awa wi' the fish to the next burrows-town, and
-    scauld and ban wi'ilka wife that will scauld and ban wi'her till it's
-    sauld&mdash;and that's the gait fisher-wives live, puir slaving bodies."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Slaves?&mdash;gae wa', lass!&mdash;ca' the head o' the house slaves? little ye ken
-    about it, lass. Show me a word my Saunders daur speak, or a turn he daur
-    do about the house, without it be just to tak his meat, and his drink,
-    and his diversion, like ony o' the weans. He has mair sense than to ca'
-    anything about the bigging his ain, frae the rooftree down to a crackit
-    trencher on the bink. He kens weel eneugh wha feeds him, and cleeds him,
-    and keeps a' tight, thack and rape, when his coble is jowing awa in the
-    Firth, puir fallow. Na, na, lass!&mdash;them that sell the goods guide the
-    purse&mdash;them that guide the purse rule the house. Show me ane o' yer bits
-    o' farmer-bodies that wad let their wife drive the stock to the market,
-    and ca' in the debts. Na, na."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aweel, aweel, Maggie, ilka land has its ain lauch&mdash;But where's Steenie
-    the night, when a's come and gane? And where's the gudeman?"*
-</p>
-<p>
-    * Note G. Gynecocracy.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I hae putten the gudeman to his bed, for he was e'en sair forfain; and
-    Steenie's awa out about some barns-breaking wi' the auld gaberlunzie,
-    Edie Ochiltree: they'll be in sune, and ye can sit doun."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth, gudewife" (taking a seat), "I haena that muckle time to stop&mdash;but
-    I maun tell ye about the news. Yell hae heard o' the muckle kist o' gowd
-    that Sir Arthur has fund down by at St. Ruth?&mdash;He'll be grander than ever
-    now&mdash;he'll no can haud down his head to sneeze, for fear o' seeing his
-    shoon."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ou ay&mdash;a' the country's heard o' that; but auld Edie says that they ca'
-    it ten times mair than ever was o't, and he saw them howk it up. Od, it
-    would be lang or a puir body that needed it got sic a windfa'."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, that's sure eneugh.&mdash;And yell hae heard o' the Countess o' Glenallan
-    being dead and lying in state, and how she's to be buried at St. Ruth's
-    as this night fa's, wi' torch-light; and a' the popist servants, and
-    Ringan Aikwood, that's a papist too, are to be there, and it will be the
-    grandest show ever was seen."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth, hinny," answered the Nereid, "if they let naebody but papists
-    come there, it'll no be muckle o' a show in this country, for the auld
-    harlot, as honest Mr. Blattergowl ca's her, has few that drink o' her cup
-    o' enchantments in this corner o' our chosen lands.&mdash;But what can ail
-    them to bury the auld carlin (a rudas wife she was) in the night-time?&mdash;I
-    dare say our gudemither will ken."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here she exalted her voice, and exclaimed twice or thrice, "Gudemither!
-    gudemither!" but, lost in the apathy of age and deafness, the aged sibyl
-    she addressed continued plying her spindle without understanding the
-    appeal made to her.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Speak to your grandmither, Jenny&mdash;Od, I wad rather hail the coble half a
-    mile aff, and the nor-wast wind whistling again in my teeth."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Grannie," said the little mermaid, in a voice to which the old woman was
-    better accustomed, "minnie wants to ken what for the Glenallan folk aye
-    bury by candle-light in the ruing of St. Ruth!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The old woman paused in the act of twirling the spindle, turned round to
-    the rest of the party, lifted her withered, trembling, and clay-coloured
-    hand, raised up her ashen-hued and wrinkled face, which the quick motion
-    of two light-blue eyes chiefly distinguished from the visage of a corpse,
-    and, as if catching at any touch of association with the living world,
-    answered, "What gars the Glenallan family inter their dead by torchlight,
-    said the lassie?&mdash;Is there a Glenallan dead e'en now?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We might be a' dead and buried too," said Maggie, "for onything ye wad
-    ken about it;"&mdash;and then, raising her voice to the stretch of her
-    mother-in-law's comprehension, she added,
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's the auld Countess, gudemither."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And is she ca'd hame then at last?" said the old woman, in a voice that
-    seemed to be agitated with much more feeling than belonged to her extreme
-    old age, and the general indifference and apathy of her manner&mdash;"is she
-    then called to her last account after her lang race o' pride and power?&mdash;O
-    God, forgie her!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But minnie was asking ye," resumed the lesser querist, "what for the
-    Glenallan family aye bury their dead by torch-light?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "They hae aye dune sae," said the grandmother, "since the time the Great
-    Earl fell in the sair battle o' the Harlaw, when they say the coronach
-    was cried in ae day from the mouth of the Tay to the Buck of the Cabrach,
-    that ye wad hae heard nae other sound but that of lamentation for the
-    great folks that had fa'en fighting against Donald of the Isles. But the
-    Great Earl's mither was living&mdash;they were a doughty and a dour race, the
-    women o' the house o' Glenallan&mdash;and she wad hae nae coronach cried for
-    her son, but had him laid in the silence o' midnight in his place o'
-    rest, without either drinking the dirge, or crying the lament. She said
-    he had killed enow that day he died, for the widows and daughters o' the
-    Highlanders he had slain to cry the coronach for them they had lost, and
-    for her son too; and sae she laid him in his gave wi' dry eyes, and
-    without a groan or a wail. And it was thought a proud word o' the family,
-    and they aye stickit by it&mdash;and the mair in the latter times, because in
-    the night-time they had mair freedom to perform their popish ceremonies
-    by darkness and in secrecy than in the daylight&mdash;at least that was the
-    case in my time; they wad hae been disturbed in the day-time baith by the
-    law and the commons of Fairport&mdash;they may be owerlooked now, as I have
-    heard: the warlds changed&mdash;I whiles hardly ken whether I am standing or
-    sitting, or dead or living."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And looking round the fire, as if in a state of unconscious uncertainty
-    of which she complained, old Elspeth relapsed into her habitual and
-    mechanical occupation of twirling the spindle.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Eh, sirs!" said Jenny Rintherout, under her breath to her gossip, "it's
-    awsome to hear your gudemither break out in that gait&mdash;it's like the dead
-    speaking to the living."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ye're no that far wrang, lass; she minds naething o' what passes the
-    day&mdash;but set her on auld tales, and she can speak like a prent buke. She
-    kens mair about the Glenallan family than maist folk&mdash;the gudeman's
-    father was their fisher mony a day. Ye maun ken the papists make a great
-    point o' eating fish&mdash;it's nae bad part o' their religion that, whatever
-    the rest is&mdash;I could aye sell the best o' fish at the best o' prices for
-    the Countess's ain table, grace be wi' her! especially on a Friday&mdash;But
-    see as our gudemither's hands and lips are ganging&mdash;now it's working in
-    her head like barm&mdash;she'll speak eneugh the night. Whiles she'll no speak
-    a word in a week, unless it be to the bits o' bairns."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hegh, Mrs. Mucklebackit, she's an awsome wife!" said Jenny in reply.
-    "D'ye think she's a'thegither right? Folk say she downa gang to the kirk,
-    or speak to the minister, and that she was ance a papist but since her
-    gudeman's been dead, naebody kens what she is. D'ye think yoursell that
-    she's no uncanny?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Canny, ye silly tawpie! think ye ae auld wife's less canny than anither?
-    unless it be Alison Breck&mdash;I really couldna in conscience swear for her;
-    I have kent the boxes she set fill'd wi' partans, when"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Whisht, whisht, Maggie," whispered Jenny&mdash;"your gudemither's gaun to
-    speak again."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Wasna there some ane o' ye said," asked the old sibyl, "or did I dream,
-    or was it revealed to me, that Joscelind, Lady Glenallan, is dead, an'
-    buried this night?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes, gudemither," screamed the daughter-in-law, "it's e'en sae."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And e'en sae let it be," said old Elspeth; "she's made mony a sair heart
-    in her day&mdash;ay, e'en her ain son's&mdash;is he living yet?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, he's living yet; but how lang he'll live&mdash;however, dinna ye mind his
-    coming and asking after you in the spring, and leaving siller?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It may be sae, Magge&mdash;I dinna mind it&mdash;but a handsome gentleman he was,
-    and his father before him. Eh! if his father had lived, they might hae
-    been happy folk! But he was gane, and the lady carried it in&mdash;ower and
-    out-ower wi' her son, and garr'd him trow the thing he never suld hae
-    trowed, and do the thing he has repented a' his life, and will repent
-    still, were his life as lang as this lang and wearisome ane o' mine."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O what was it, grannie?"&mdash;and "What was it, gudemither?"&mdash;and "What was
-    it, Luckie Elspeth?" asked the children, the mother, and the visitor, in
-    one breath.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Never ask what it was," answered the old sibyl, "but pray to God that ye
-    arena left to the pride and wilfu'ness o' your ain hearts: they may be as
-    powerful in a cabin as in a castle&mdash;I can bear a sad witness to that. O
-    that weary and fearfu' night! will it never gang out o' my auld head!&mdash;Eh!
-    to see her lying on the floor wi' her lang hair dreeping wi' the salt
-    water!&mdash;Heaven will avenge on a' that had to do wi't. Sirs! is my son out
-    wi' the coble this windy e'en?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, na, mither&mdash;nae coble can keep the sea this wind; he's sleeping in
-    his bed out-ower yonder ahint the hallan."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Is Steenie out at sea then?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, grannie&mdash;Steenie's awa out wi' auld Edie Ochiltree, the gaberlunzie;
-    maybe they'll be gaun to see the burial."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "That canna be," said the mother of the family; "we kent naething o't
-    till Jock Rand cam in, and tauld us the Aikwoods had warning to attend&mdash;
-    they keep thae things unco private&mdash;and they were to bring the corpse a'
-    the way frae the Castle, ten miles off, under cloud o' night. She has
-    lain in state this ten days at Glenallan House, in a grand chamber a'
-    hung wi' black, and lighted wi' wax cannle."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "God assoilzie her!" ejaculated old Elspeth, her head apparently still
-    occupied by the event of the Countess's death; "she was a hard-hearted
-    woman, but she's gaen to account for it a', and His mercy is infinite&mdash;
-    God grant she may find it sae!" And she relapsed into silence, which she
-    did not break again during the rest of the evening.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I wonder what that auld daft beggar carle and our son Steenie can be
-    doing out in sic a nicht as this," said Maggie Mucklebackit; and her
-    expression of surprise was echoed by her visitor. "Gang awa, ane o' ye,
-    hinnies, up to the heugh head, and gie them a cry in case they're within
-    hearing; the car-cakes will be burnt to a cinder."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The little emissary departed, but in a few minutes came running back with
-    the loud exclamation, "Eh, Minnie! eh, grannie! there's a white bogle
-    chasing twa black anes down the heugh."
-</p>
-<p>
-    A noise of footsteps followed this singular annunciation, and young
-    Steenie Mucklebackit, closely followed by Edie Ochiltree, bounced into
-    the hut. They were panting and out of breath. The first thing Steenie did
-    was to look for the bar of the door, which his mother reminded him had
-    been broken up for fire-wood in the hard winter three years ago; "for
-    what use," she said, "had the like o' them for bars?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There's naebody chasing us," said the beggar, after he had taken his
-    breath: "we're e'en like the wicked, that flee when no one pursueth."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth, but we were chased," said Steenie, "by a spirit or something
-    little better."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It was a man in white on horseback," said Edie, "for the soft grund that
-    wadna bear the beast, flung him about, I wot that weel; but I didna think
-    my auld legs could have brought me aff as fast; I ran amaist as fast as
-    if I had been at Prestonpans."*
-</p>
-<p>
-    * [This refers to the flight of the government forces at the battle of
-    Prestonpans, 1745.]
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hout, ye daft gowks!" said Luckie Mucklebackit, "it will hae been some
-    o' the riders at the Countess's burial."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What!" said Edie, "is the auld Countess buried the night at St. Ruth's?
-    Ou, that wad be the lights and the noise that scarr'd us awa; I wish I
-    had ken'd&mdash;I wad hae stude them, and no left the man yonder&mdash;but they'll
-    take care o' him. Ye strike ower hard, Steenie I doubt ye foundered the
-    chield."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Neer a bit," said Steenie, laughing; "he has braw broad shouthers, and I
-    just took measure o' them wi' the stang. Od, if I hadna been something
-    short wi' him, he wad hae knockit your auld hams out, lad."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Weel, an I win clear o' this scrape," said Edie, "I'se tempt Providence
-    nae mair. But I canna think it an unlawfu' thing to pit a bit trick on
-    sic a landlouping scoundrel, that just lives by tricking honester folk."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But what are we to do with this?" said Steenie, producing a pocket-book.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Od guide us, man," said Edie in great alarm, "what garr'd ye touch the
-    gear? a very leaf o' that pocket-book wad be eneugh to hang us baith."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I dinna ken," said Steenie; "the book had fa'en out o' his pocket, I
-    fancy, for I fand it amang my feet when I was graping about to set him on
-    his logs again, and I just pat it in my pouch to keep it safe; and then
-    came the tramp of horse, and you cried, Rin, rin,' and I had nae mair
-    thought o' the book."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We maun get it back to the loon some gait or other; ye had better take
-    it yoursell, I think, wi' peep o' light, up to Ringan Aikwood's. I wadna
-    for a hundred pounds it was fund in our hands."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Steenie undertook to do as he was directed.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A bonny night ye hae made o't, Mr. Steenie," said Jenny Rintherout, who,
-    impatient of remaining so long unnoticed, now presented herself to the
-    young fisherman&mdash;"A bonny night ye hae made o't, tramping about wi'
-    gaberlunzies, and getting yoursell hunted wi' worricows, when ye suld be
-    sleeping in your bed, like your father, honest man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    This attack called forth a suitable response of rustic raillery from the
-    young fisherman. An attack was now commenced upon the car-cakes and
-    smoked fish, and sustained with great perseverance by assistance of a
-    bicker or two of twopenny ale and a bottle of gin. The mendicant then
-    retired to the straw of an out-house adjoining,&mdash;the children had one by
-    one crept into their nests,&mdash;the old grandmother was deposited in her
-    flock-bed,&mdash;Steenie, notwithstanding his preceding fatigue, had the
-    gallantry to accompany Miss Rintherout to her own mansion, and at what
-    hour he returned the story saith not,&mdash;and the matron of the family,
-    having laid the gathering-coal upon the fire, and put things in some sort
-    of order, retired to rest the last of the family.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0006"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER SIXTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                           &mdash;Many great ones
-          Would part with half their states, to have the plan
-                 And credit to beg in the first style.
-                                            Beggar's Bush.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Old Edie was stirring with the lark, and his first inquiry was after
-    Steenie and the pocket-book. The young fisherman had been under the
-    necessity of attending his father before daybreak, to avail themselves of
-    the tide, but he had promised that, immediately on his return, the
-    pocket-book, with all its contents, carefully wrapped up in a piece of
-    sail-cloth, should be delivered by him to Ringan Aikwood, for
-    Dousterswivel, the owner.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The matron had prepared the morning meal for the family, and, shouldering
-    her basket of fish, tramped sturdily away towards Fairport. The children
-    were idling round the door, for the day was fair and sun-shiney. The
-    ancient grandame, again seated on her wicker-chair by the fire, had
-    resumed her eternal spindle, wholly unmoved by the yelling and screaming
-    of the children, and the scolding of the mother, which had preceded the
-    dispersion of the family. Edie had arranged his various bags, and was
-    bound for the renewal of his wandering life, but first advanced with due
-    courtesy to take his leave of the ancient crone.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Gude day to ye, cummer, and mony ane o' them. I will be back about the
-    fore-end o'har'st, and I trust to find ye baith haill and fere."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Pray that ye may find me in my quiet grave," said the old woman, in a
-    hollow and sepulchral voice, but without the agitation of a single
-    feature.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ye're auld, cummer, and sae am I mysell; but we maun abide His will&mdash;
-    we'll no be forgotten in His good time."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nor our deeds neither," said the crone: "what's dune in the body maun be
-    answered in the spirit."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I wot that's true; and I may weel tak the tale hame to mysell, that hae
-    led a misruled and roving life. But ye were aye a canny wife. We're a'
-    frail&mdash;but ye canna hae sae muckle to bow ye down."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Less than I might have had&mdash;but mair, O far mair, than wad sink the
-    stoutest brig e'er sailed out o' Fairport harbour!&mdash;Didna somebody say
-    yestreen&mdash;at least sae it is borne in on my mind, but auld folk hae weak
-    fancies&mdash;did not somebody say that Joscelind, Countess of Glenallan, was
-    departed frae life?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "They said the truth whaever said it," answered old Edie; "she was buried
-    yestreen by torch-light at St. Ruth's, and I, like a fule, gat a gliff
-    wi' seeing the lights and the riders."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It was their fashion since the days of the Great Earl that was killed at
-    Harlaw;&mdash;they did it to show scorn that they should die and be buried
-    like other mortals; the wives o' the house of Glenallan wailed nae wail
-    for the husband, nor the sister for the brother.&mdash;But is she e'en ca'd to
-    the lang account?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "As sure," answered Edie, "as we maun a' abide it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then I'll unlade my mind, come o't what will."
-</p>
-<p>
-    This she spoke with more alacrity than usually attended her expressions,
-    and accompanied her words with an attitude of the hand, as if throwing
-    something from her. She then raised up her form, once tall, and still
-    retaining the appearance of having been so, though bent with age and
-    rheumatism, and stood before the beggar like a mummy animated by some
-    wandering spirit into a temporary resurrection. Her light-blue eyes
-    wandered to and fro, as if she occasionally forgot and again remembered
-    the purpose for which her long and withered hand was searching among the
-    miscellaneous contents of an ample old-fashioned pocket. At length she
-    pulled out a small chip-box, and opening it, took out a handsome ring, in
-    which was set a braid of hair, composed of two different colours, black
-    and light brown, twined together, encircled with brilliants of
-    considerable value.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Gudeman," she said to Ochiltree, "as ye wad e'er deserve mercy, ye maun
-    gang my errand to the house of Glenallan, and ask for the Earl."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The Earl of Glenallan, cummer! ou, he winna see ony o' the gentles o'
-    the country, and what likelihood is there that he wad see the like o' an
-    auld gaberlunzie?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Gang your ways and try;&mdash;and tell him that Elspeth o' the
-		Craigburnfoot&mdash;he'll mind me best by that name&mdash;maun see him or she be relieved frae
-    her lang pilgrimage, and that she sends him that ring in token of the
-    business she wad speak o'."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Ochiltree looked on the ring with some admiration of its apparent value,
-    and then carefully replacing it in the box, and wrapping it in an old
-    ragged handkerchief, he deposited the token in his bosom.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Weel, gudewife," he said, "I'se do your bidding, or it's no be my fault.
-    But surely there was never sic a braw propine as this sent to a yerl by
-    an auld fishwife, and through the hands of a gaberlunzie beggar."
-</p>
-<p>
-    With this reflection, Edie took up his pike-staff, put on his
-    broad-brimmed bonnet, and set forth upon his pilgrimage. The old woman
-    remained for some time standing in a fixed posture, her eyes directed to
-    the door through which her ambassador had departed. The appearance of
-    excitation, which the conversation had occasioned, gradually left her
-    features; she sank down upon her accustomed seat, and resumed her
-    mechanical labour of the distaff and spindle, with her wonted air of
-    apathy.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Edie Ochiltree meanwhile advanced on his journey. The distance to
-    Glenallan was ten miles, a march which the old soldier accomplished in
-    about four hours. With the curiosity belonging to his idle trade and
-    animated character, he tortured himself the whole way to consider what
-    could be the meaning of this mysterious errand with which he was
-    entrusted, or what connection the proud, wealthy, and powerful Earl of
-    Glenallan could have with the crimes or penitence of an old doting woman,
-    whose rank in life did not greatly exceed that of her messenger. He
-    endeavoured to call to memory all that he had ever known or heard of the
-    Glenallan family, yet, having done so, remained altogether unable to form
-    a conjecture on the subject. He knew that the whole extensive estate of
-    this ancient and powerful family had descended to the Countess, lately
-    deceased, who inherited, in a most remarkable degree, the stern, fierce,
-    and unbending character which had distinguished the house of Glenallan
-    since they first figured in Scottish annals. Like the rest of her
-    ancestors, she adhered zealously to the Roman Catholic faith, and was
-    married to an English gentleman of the same communion, and of large
-    fortune, who did not survive their union two years. The Countess was,
-    therefore, left an early widow, with the uncontrolled management of the
-    large estates of her two sons. The elder, Lord Geraldin, who was to
-    succeed to the title and fortune of Glenallan, was totally dependent on
-    his mother during her life. The second, when he came of age, assumed the
-    name and arms of his father, and took possession of his estate, according
-    to the provisions of the Countess's marriage-settlement. After this
-    period, he chiefly resided in England, and paid very few and brief visits
-    to his mother and brother; and these at length were altogether dispensed
-    with, in consequence of his becoming a convert to the reformed religion.
-</p>
-<p>
-    But even before this mortal offence was given to its mistress, his
-    residence at Glenallan offered few inducements to a gay young man like
-    Edward Geraldin Neville, though its gloom and seclusion seemed to suit
-    the retired and melancholy habits of his elder brother. Lord Geraldin, in
-    the outset of life, had been a young man of accomplishment and hopes.
-    Those who knew him upon his travels entertained the highest expectations
-    of his future career. But such fair dawns are often strangely overcast.
-    The young nobleman returned to Scotland, and after living about a year in
-    his mother's society at Glenallan House, he seemed to have adopted all
-    the stern gloom and melancholy of her character. Excluded from politics
-    by the incapacities attached to those of his religion, and from all
-    lighter avocationas by choice, Lord Geraldin led a life of the strictest
-    retirement. His ordinary society was composed of the clergyman of his
-    communion, who occasionally visited his mansion; and very rarely, upon
-    stated occasions of high festival, one or two families who still
-    professed the Catholic religion were formally entertained at Glenallan
-    House. But this was all; their heretic neighbours knew nothing of the
-    family whatever; and even the Catholics saw little more than the
-    sumptuous entertainment and solemn parade which was exhibited on those
-    formal occasions, from which all returned without knowing whether most to
-    wonder at the stern and stately demeanour of the Countess, or the deep
-    and gloomy dejection which never ceased for a moment to cloud the
-    features of her son. The late event had put him in possession of his
-    fortune and title, and the neighbourhood had already begun to conjecture
-    whether gaiety would revive with independence, when those who had some
-    occasional acquaintance with the interior of the family spread abroad a
-    report, that the Earl's constitution was undermined by religious
-    austerities, and that in all probability he would soon follow his mother
-    to the grave. This event was the more probable, as his brother had died
-    of a lingering complaint, which, in the latter years of his life, had
-    affected at once his frame and his spirits; so that heralds and
-    genealogists were already looking back into their records to discover the
-    heir of this ill-fated family, and lawyers were talking with gleesome
-    anticipation, of the probability of a "great Glenallan cause."
-</p>
-<p>
-    As Edie Ochiltree approached the front of Glenallan House,* an ancient
-    building of great extent, the most modern part of which had been designed
-    by the celebrated Inigo Jones, he began to consider in what way he should
-    be most likely to gain access for delivery of his message; and, after
-    much consideration, resolved to send the token to the Earl by one of the
-    domestics.
-</p>
-<p>
-    * [Supposed to represent Glammis Castle, in Forfarshire, with which the
-    Author was well acquainted.]
-</p>
-<p>
-    With this purpose he stopped at a cottage, where he obtained the means of
-    making up the ring in a sealed packet like a petition, addressed, <i>Forr
-    his hounor the Yerl of Glenllan&mdash;These.</i> But being aware that missives
-    delivered at the doors of great houses by such persons as himself, do not
-    always make their way according to address, Edie determined, like an old
-    soldier, to reconnoitre the ground before he made his final attack. As he
-    approached the porter's lodge, he discovered, by the number of poor
-    ranked before it, some of them being indigent persons in the vicinity,
-    and others itinerants of his own begging profession,&mdash;that there was
-    about to be a general dole or distribution of charity.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A good turn," said Edie to himself, "never goes unrewarded&mdash;I'll maybe
-    get a good awmous that I wad hae missed but for trotting on this auld
-    wife's errand."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Accordingly, he ranked up with the rest of this ragged regiment, assuming
-    a station as near the front as possible,&mdash;a distinction due, as he
-    conceived, to his blue gown and badge, no less than to his years and
-    experience; but he soon found there was another principle of precedence
-    in this assembly, to which he had not adverted.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Are ye a triple man, friend, that ye press forward sae bauldly?&mdash;I'm
-    thinking no, for there's nae Catholics wear that badge."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, na, I am no a Roman," said Edie.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then shank yoursell awa to the double folk, or single folk, that's the
-    Episcopals or Presbyterians yonder: it's a shame to see a heretic hae sic
-    a lang white beard, that would do credit to a hermit."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Ochiltree, thus rejected from the society of the Catholic mendicants, or
-    those who called themselves such, went to station himself with the
-    paupers of the communion of the church of England, to whom the noble
-    donor allotted a double portion of his charity. But never was a poor
-    occasional conformist more roughly rejected by a High-church
-    congregation, even when that matter was furiously agitated in the days of
-    good Queen Anne.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "See to him wi' his badge!" they said;&mdash;"he hears ane o' the king's
-    Presbyterian chaplains sough out a sermon on the morning of every
-    birth-day, and now he would pass himsell for ane o' the Episcopal church!
-    Na, na!&mdash;we'll take care o' that."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Edie, thus rejected by Rome and Prelacy, was fain to shelter himself from
-    the laughter of his brethren among the thin group of Presbyterians, who
-    had either disdained to disguise their religious opinions for the sake of
-    an augmented dole, or perhaps knew they could not attempt the imposition
-    without a certainty of detection.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The same degree of precedence was observed in the mode of distributing
-    the charity, which consisted in bread, beef, and a piece of money, to
-    each individual of all the three classes. The almoner, an ecclesiastic of
-    grave appearance and demeanour, superintended in person the accommodation
-    of the Catholic mendicants, asking a question or two of each as he
-    delivered the charity, and recommending to their prayers the soul of
-    Joscelind, late Countess of Glenallan, mother of their benefactor. The
-    porter, distinguished by his long staff headed with silver, and by the
-    black gown tufted with lace of the same colour, which he had assumed upon
-    the general mourning in the family, overlooked the distribution of the
-    dole among the prelatists. The less-favoured kirk-folk were committed to
-    the charge of an aged domestic.
-</p>
-<p>
-    As this last discussed some disputed point with the porter, his name, as
-    it chanced to be occasionally mentioned, and then his features, struck
-    Ochiltree, and awakened recollections of former times. The rest of the
-    assembly were now retiring, when the domestic, again approaching the
-    place where Edie still lingered, said, in a strong Aberdeenshire accent,
-    "Fat is the auld feel-body deeing, that he canna gang avay, now that he's
-    gotten baith meat and siller?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Francis Macraw," answered Edie Ochiltree, "d'ye no mind Fontenoy, and
-    keep thegither front and rear?'"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ohon! ohon!" cried Francie, with a true north-country yell of
-    recognition, "naebody could hae said that word but my auld front-rank
-    man, Edie Ochiltree! But I'm sorry to see ye in sic a peer state, man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No sae ill aff as ye may think, Francis. But I'm laith to leave this
-    place without a crack wi' you, and I kenna when I may see you again, for
-    your folk dinna mak Protestants welcome, and that's ae reason that I hae
-    never been here before."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Fusht, fusht," said Francie, "let that flee stick i' the wa'&mdash;when the
-    dirt's dry it will rub out;&mdash;and come you awa wi' me, and I'll gie ye
-    something better thau that beef bane, man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Having then spoke a confidential word with the porter (probably to
-    request his connivance), and having waited until the almoner had returned
-    into the house with slow and solemn steps, Francie Macraw introduced his
-    old comrade into the court of Glenallan House, the gloomy gateway of
-    which was surmounted by a huge scutcheon, in which the herald and
-    undertaker had mingled, as usual, the emblems of human pride and of human
-    nothingness,&mdash;the Countess's hereditary coat-of-arms, with all its
-    numerous quarterings, disposed in a lozenge, and surrounded by the
-    separate shields of her paternal and maternal ancestry, intermingled with
-    scythes, hour glasses, skulls, and other symbols of that mortality which
-    levels all distinctions. Conducting his friend as speedily as possible
-    along the large paved court, Macraw led the way through a side-door to a
-    small apartment near the servants' hall, which, in virtue of his personal
-    attendance upon the Earl of Glenallan, he was entitled to call his own.
-    To produce cold meat of various kinds, strong beer, and even a glass of
-    spirits, was no difficulty to a person of Francis's importance, who had
-    not lost, in his sense of conscious dignity, the keen northern prudence
-    which recommended a good understanding with the butler. Our mendicant
-    envoy drank ale, and talked over old stories with his comrade, until, no
-    other topic of conversation occurring, he resolved to take up the theme
-    of his embassy, which had for some time escaped his memory.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He had a petition to present to the Earl," he said;&mdash;for he judged it
-    prudent to say nothing of the ring, not knowing, as he afterwards
-    observed, how far the manners of a single soldier* might have been
-    corrupted by service in a great house.
-</p>
-<p>
-    * A single soldier means, in Scotch, a private soldier.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hout, tout, man," said Francie, "the Earl will look at nae petitions&mdash;
-    but I can gie't to the almoner."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But it relates to some secret, that maybe my lord wad like best to see't
-    himsell."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I'm jeedging that's the very reason that the almoner will be for seeing
-    it the first and foremost."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But I hae come a' this way on purpose to deliver it, Francis, and ye
-    really maun help me at a pinch."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Neer speed then if I dinna," answered the Aberdeenshire man: "let them
-    be as cankered as they like, they can but turn me awa, and I was just
-    thinking to ask my discharge, and gang down to end my days at Inverurie."
-</p>
-<p>
-    With this doughty resolution of serving his friend at all ventures, since
-    none was to be encountered which could much inconvenience himself,
-    Francie Macraw left the apartment. It was long before he returned, and
-    when he did, his manner indicated wonder and agitation.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am nae seer gin ye be Edie Ochiltree o' Carrick's company in the
-    Forty-twa, or gin ye be the deil in his likeness!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And what makes ye speak in that gait?" demanded the astonished
-    mendicant.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Because my lord has been in sic a distress and surpreese as I neer saw a
-    man in my life. But he'll see you&mdash;I got that job cookit. He was like a
-    man awa frae himsell for mony minutes, and I thought he wad hae swarv't
-    a'thegither,&mdash;and fan he cam to himsell, he asked fae brought the
-		packet&mdash;and fat trow ye I said?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "An auld soger," says Edie&mdash;"that does likeliest at a gentle's door; at a
-    farmer's it's best to say ye're an auld tinkler, if ye need ony quarters,
-    for maybe the gudewife will hae something to souther."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But I said neer ane o' the twa," answered Francis; "my lord cares as
-    little about the tane as the tother&mdash;for he's best to them that can
-    souther up our sins. Sae I e'en said the bit paper was brought by an auld
-    man wi' a long fite beard&mdash;he might be a capeechin freer for fat I ken'd,
-    for he was dressed like an auld palmer. Sae ye'll be sent up for fanever
-    he can find mettle to face ye."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I wish I was weel through this business," thought Edie to himself; "mony
-    folk surmise that the Earl's no very right in the judgment, and wha can
-    say how far he may be offended wi' me for taking upon me sae muckle?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    But there was now no room for retreat&mdash;a bell sounded from a distant part
-    of the mansion, and Macraw said, with a smothered accent, as if already
-    in his master's presence, "That's my lord's bell!&mdash;follow me, and step
-    lightly and cannily, Edie."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Edie followed his guide, who seemed to tread as if afraid of being
-    overheard, through a long passage, and up a back stair, which admitted
-    them into the family apartments. They were ample and extensive, furnished
-    at such cost as showed the ancient importance and splendour of the
-    family. But all the ornaments were in the taste of a former and distant
-    period, and one would have almost supposed himself traversing the halls
-    of a Scottish nobleman before the union of the crowns. The late Countess,
-    partly from a haughty contempt of the times in which she lived, partly
-    from her sense of family pride, had not permitted the furniture to be
-    altered or modernized during her residence at Glenallan House. The most
-    magnificent part of the decorations was a valuable collection of pictures
-    by the best masters, whose massive frames were somewhat tarnished by
-    time. In this particular also the gloomy taste of the family seemed to
-    predominate. There were some fine family portraits by Vandyke and other
-    masters of eminence; but the collection was richest in the Saints and
-    Martyrdoms of Domenichino, Velasquez, and Murillo, and other subjects of
-    the same kind, which had been selected in preference to landscapes or
-    historical pieces. The manner in which these awful, and sometimes
-    disgusting, subjects were represented, harmonized with the gloomy state
-    of the apartments,&mdash;a circumstance which was not altogether lost on the
-    old man, as he traversed them under the guidance of his quondam
-    fellow-soldier. He was about to express some sentiment of this kind, but
-    Francie imposed silence on him by signs, and opening a door at the end of
-    the long picture-gallery, ushered him into a small antechamber hung with
-    black. Here they found the almoner, with his ear turned to a door
-    opposite that by which they entered, in the attitude of one who listens
-    with attention, but is at the same time afraid of being detected in the
-    act.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The old domestic and churchman started when they perceived each other.
-    But the almoner first recovered his recollection, and advancing towards
-    Macraw, said, under his breath, but with an authoritative tone, "How dare
-    you approach the Earl's apartment without knocking? and who is this
-    stranger, or what has he to do here?&mdash;Retire to the gallery, and wait for
-    me there."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's impossible just now to attend your reverence," answered Macraw,
-    raising his voice so as to be heard in the next room, being conscious
-    that the priest would not maintain the altercation within hearing of his
-    patron,&mdash;"the Earl's bell has rung."
-</p>
-<p>
-    He had scarce uttered the words, when it was rung again with greater
-    violence than before; and the ecclesiastic, perceiving further
-    expostulation impossible, lifted his finger at Macraw, with a menacing
-    attitude, as he left the apartment.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I tell'd ye sae," said the Aberdeen man in a whisper to Edie, and then
-    proceeded to open the door near which they had observed the chaplain
-    stationed.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0007"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER SEVENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                             &mdash;This ring.&mdash;
-               This little ring, with necromantic force,
-               Has raised the ghost of pleasure to my fears,
-               Conjured the sense of honour and of love
-               Into such shapes, they fright me from myself.
-                                     The Fatal Marriage.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The ancient forms of mourning were observed in Glenallan House,
-    notwithstanding the obduracy with which the members of the family were
-    popularly supposed to refuse to the dead the usual tribute of
-    lamentation. It was remarked, that when she received the fatal letter
-    announcing the death of her second, and, as was once believed, her
-    favourite son, the hand of the Countess did not shake, nor her eyelid
-    twinkle, any more than upon perusal of a letter of ordinary business.
-    Heaven only knows whether the suppression of maternal sorrow, which her
-    pride commanded, might not have some effect in hastening her own death.
-    It was at least generally supposed that the apoplectic stroke, which so
-    soon afterwards terminated her existence, was, as it were, the vengeance
-    of outraged Nature for the restraint to which her feelings had been
-    subjected. But although Lady Glenallan forebore the usual external signs
-    of grief, she had caused many of the apartments, amongst others her own
-    and that of the Earl, to be hung with the exterior trappings of woe.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Earl of Glenallan was therefore seated in an apartment hung with
-    black cloth, which waved in dusky folds along its lofty walls. A screen,
-    also covered with black baize, placed towards the high and narrow window,
-    intercepted much of the broken light which found its way through the
-    stained glass, that represented, with such skill as the fourteenth
-    century possessed, the life and sorrows of the prophet Jeremiah. The
-    table at which the Earl was seated was lighted with two lamps wrought in
-    silver, shedding that unpleasant and doubtful light which arises from the
-    mingling of artificial lustre with that of general daylight. The same
-    table displayed a silver crucifix, and one or two clasped parchment
-    books. A large picture, exquisitely painted by Spagnoletto, represented
-    the martyrdom of St. Stephen, and was the only ornament of the apartment.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The inhabitant and lord of this disconsolate chamber was a man not past
-    the prime of life, yet so broken down with disease and mental misery, so
-    gaunt and ghastly, that he appeared but a wreck of manhood; and when he
-    hastily arose and advanced towards his visitor, the exertion seemed
-    almost to overpower his emaciated frame. As they met in the midst of the
-    apartment, the contrast they exhibited was very striking. The hale cheek,
-    firm step, erect stature, and undaunted presence and bearing of the old
-    mendicant, indicated patience and content in the extremity of age, and in
-    the lowest condition to which humanity can sink; while the sunken eye,
-    pallid cheek, and tottering form of the nobleman with whom he was
-    confronted, showed how little wealth, power, and even the advantages of
-    youth, have to do with that which gives repose to the mind, and firmness
-    to the frame.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Earl met the old man in the middle of the room, and having commanded
-    his attendant to withdraw into the gallery, and suffer no one to enter
-    the antechamber till he rung the bell, awaited, with hurried yet fearful
-    impatience, until he heard first the door of his apartment, and then that
-    of the antechamber, shut and fastened by the spring-bolt. When he was
-    satisfied with this security against being overheard, Lord Glenallan came
-    close up to the mendicant, whom he probably mistook for some person of a
-    religious order in disguise, and said, in a hasty yet faltering tone, "In
-    the name of all our religion holds most holy, tell me, reverend father,
-    what am I to expect from a communication opened by a token connected with
-    such horrible recollections?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The old man, appalled by a manner so different from what he had expected
-    from the proud and powerful nobleman, was at a loss how to answer, and in
-    what manner to undeceive him. "Tell me," continued the Earl, in a tone of
-    increasing trepidation and agony&mdash;"tell me, do you come to say that all
-    that has been done to expiate guilt so horrible, has been too little and
-    too trivial for the offence, and to point out new and more efficacious
-    modes of severe penance?&mdash;I will not blench from it, father&mdash;let me
-    suffer the pains of my crime here in the body, rather than hereafter in
-    the spirit!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Edie had now recollection enough to perceive, that if he did not
-    interrupt the frankness of Lord Glenallan's admissions, he was likely to
-    become the confidant of more than might be safe for him to know. He
-    therefore uttered with a hasty and trembling voice&mdash;"Your lordship's
-    honour is mistaken&mdash;I am not of your persuasion, nor a clergyman, but,
-    with all reverence, only puir Edie Ochiltree, the king's bedesman and
-    your honour's."
-</p>
-<p>
-    This explanation he accompanied by a profound bow after his manner, and
-    then, drawing himself up erect, rested his arm on his staff, threw back
-    his long white hair, and fixed his eyes upon the Earl, as he waited for
-    an answer.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And you are not then," said Lord Glenallan, after a pause of surprise&mdash;
-    "You are not then a Catholic priest?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "God forbid!" said Edie, forgetting in his confusion to whom he was
-    speaking; "I am only the king's bedesman and your honour's, as I said
-    before."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Earl turned hastily away, and paced the room twice or thrice, as if
-    to recover the effects of his mistake, and then, coming close up to the
-    mendicant, he demanded, in a stern and commanding tone, what he meant by
-    intruding himself on his privacy, and from whence he had got the ring
-    which he had thought proper to send him. Edie, a man of much spirit, was
-    less daunted at this mode of interrogation than he had been confused by
-    the tone of confidence in which the Earl had opened their conversation.
-    To the reiterated question from whom he had obtained the ring, he
-    answered composedly, "From one who was better known to the Earl than to
-    him."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Better known to me, fellow?" said Lord Glenallan: "what is your
-    meaning?&mdash;explain yourself instantly, or you shall experience the
-    consequence of breaking in upon the hours of family distress."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It was auld Elspeth Mucklebackit that sent me here," said the beggar,
-    "in order to say"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You dote, old man!" said the Earl; "I never heard the name&mdash;but this
-    dreadful token reminds me"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I mind now, my lord," said Ochiltree, "she tauld me your lordship would
-    be mair familiar wi' her, if I ca'd her Elspeth o' the Craigburnfoot&mdash;she
-    had that name when she lived on your honour's land, that is, your
-    honour's worshipful mother's that was then&mdash;Grace be wi' her!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay," said the appalled nobleman, as his countenance sunk, and his cheek
-    assumed a hue yet more cadaverous; "that name is indeed written in the
-    most tragic page of a deplorable history. But what can she desire of me?
-    Is she dead or living?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Living, my lord; and entreats to see your lordship before she dies, for
-    she has something to communicate that hangs upon her very soul, and she
-    says she canna flit in peace until she sees you."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not until she sees me!&mdash;what can that mean? But she is doting with age
-    and infirmity. I tell thee, friend, I called at her cottage myself, not a
-    twelvemonth since, from a report that she was in distress, and she did
-    not even know my face or voice."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If your honour wad permit me," said Edie, to whom the length of the
-    conference restored a part of his professional audacity and native
-    talkativeness&mdash;"if your honour wad but permit me, I wad say, under
-    correction of your lordship's better judgment, that auld Elspeth's like
-    some of the ancient ruined strengths and castles that ane sees amang the
-    hills. There are mony parts of her mind that appear, as I may say, laid
-    waste and decayed, but then there's parts that look the steever, and the
-    stronger, and the grander, because they are rising just like to fragments
-    amaong the ruins o' the rest. She's an awful woman."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "She always was so," said the Earl, almost unconsciously echoing the
-    observation of the mendicant; "she always was different from other
-		women&mdash;likest perhaps to her who is now no more, in her temper and turn of
-    mind.&mdash;She wishes to see me, then?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Before she dies," said Edie, "she earnestly entreats that pleasure."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It will be a pleasure to neither of us," said the Earl, sternly, "yet
-    she shall be gratified. She lives, I think, on the sea-shore to the
-    southward of Fairport?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Just between Monkbarns and Knockwinnock Castle, but nearer to Monkbarns.
-    Your lordship's honour will ken the laird and Sir Arthur, doubtless?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    A stare, as if he did not comprehend the question, was Lord Glenallan's
-    answer. Edie saw his mind was elsewhere, and did not venture to repeat a
-    query which was so little germain to the matter.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Are you a Catholic, old man?" demanded the Earl.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, my lord," said Ochiltree stoutly; for the remembrance of the unequal
-    division of the dole rose in his mind at the moment; "I thank Heaven I am
-    a good Protestant."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He who can conscientiously call himself <i>good,</i> has indeed reason to
-    thank Heaven, be his form of Christianity what it will&mdash;But who is he
-    that shall dare to do so!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not I," said Edie; "I trust to beware of the sin of presumption."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What was your trade in your youth?" continued the Earl.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A soldier, my lord; and mony a sair day's kemping I've seen. I was to
-    have been made a sergeant, but"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A soldier! then you have slain and burnt, and sacked and spoiled?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I winna say," replied Edie, "that I have been better than my
-    neighbours;&mdash;it's a rough trade&mdash;war's sweet to them that never tried
-    it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And you are now old and miserable, asking from precarious charity the
-    food which in your youth you tore from the hand of the poor peasant?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am a beggar, it is true, my lord; but I am nae just sae miserable
-    neither. For my sins, I hae had grace to repent of them, if I might say
-    sae, and to lay them where they may be better borne than by me; and for
-    my food, naebody grudges an auld man a bit and a drink&mdash;Sae I live as I
-    can, and am contented to die when I am ca'd upon."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And thus, then, with little to look back upon that is pleasant or
-    praiseworthy in your past life&mdash;with less to look forward to on this side
-    of eternity, you are contented to drag out the rest of your existence?
-    Go, begone! and in your age and poverty and weariness, never envy the
-    lord of such a mansion as this, either in his sleeping or waking
-		moments&mdash;Here is something for thee."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Earl put into the old man's hand five or six guineas. Edie would
-    perhaps have stated his scruples, as upon other occasions, to the amount
-    of the benefaction, but the tone of Lord Glenallan was too absolute to
-    admit of either answer or dispute. The Earl then called his servant&mdash;"See
-    this old man safe from the castle&mdash;let no one ask him any questions&mdash;and
-    you, friend, begone, and forget the road that leads to my house."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "That would be difficult for me," said Edie, looking at the gold which he
-    still held in his hand, "that would be e'en difficult, since your honour
-    has gien me such gade cause to remember it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lord Glenallan stared, as hardly comprehending the old man's boldness in
-    daring to bandy words with him, and, with his hand, made him another
-    signal of departure, which the mendicant instantly obeyed.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0008"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER EIGHTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                For he was one in all their idle sport,
-               And like a monarch, ruled their little court
-               The pliant bow he formed, the flying ball,
-               The bat, the wicket, were his labours all.
-                                         Crabbe's Village.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Francis Macraw, agreeably to the commands of his master, attended the
-    mendicant, in order to see him fairly out of the estate, without
-    permitting him to have conversation, or intercourse, with any of the
-    Earl's dependents or domestics. But, judiciously considering that the
-    restriction did not extend to himself, who was the person entrusted with
-    the convoy, he used every measure in his power to extort from Edie the
-    nature of his confidential and secret interview with Lord Glenallan. But
-    Edie had been in his time accustomed to cross-examination, and easily
-    evaded those of his quondam comrade. "The secrets of grit folk," said
-    Ochiltree within himself, "are just like the wild beasts that are shut up
-    in cages. Keep them hard and fast sneaked up, and it's a' very weel or
-    better&mdash;but ance let them out, they will turn and rend you. I mind how
-    ill Dugald Gunn cam aff for letting loose his tongue about the Major's
-    leddy and Captain Bandilier."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Francis was therefore foiled in his assaults upon the fidelity of the
-    mendicant, and, like an indifferent chess-player, became, at every
-    unsuccessful movement, more liable to the counter-checks of his opponent.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Sae ye uphauld ye had nae particulars to say to my lord but about yer
-    ain matters?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, and about the wee bits o' things I had brought frae abroad," said
-    Edie. "I ken'd you popist folk are unco set on the relics that are
-    fetched frae far-kirks and sae forth."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth, my Lord maun be turned feel outright," said the domestic, "an he
-    puts himsell into sic a carfuffle, for onything ye could bring him,
-    Edie."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I doubtna ye may say true in the main, neighbour," replied the beggar;
-    "but maybe he's had some hard play in his younger days, Francis, and that
-    whiles unsettles folk sair."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth, Edie, and ye may say that&mdash;and since it's like yell neer come
-    back to the estate, or, if ye dee, that ye'll no find me there, I'se e'en
-    tell you he had a heart in his young time sae wrecked and rent, that it's
-    a wonder it hasna broken outright lang afore this day."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, say ye sae?" said Ochiltree; "that maun hae been about a woman, I
-    reckon?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth, and ye hae guessed it," said Francie&mdash;"jeest a cusin o' his
-		nain&mdash;Miss Eveline Neville, as they suld hae ca'd her;&mdash;there was a sough in
-    the country about it, but it was hushed up, as the grandees were
-    concerned;&mdash;it's mair than twenty years syne&mdash;ay, it will be
-    three-and-twenty."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, I was in America then," said the mendicant, "and no in the way to
-    hear the country clashes."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There was little clash about it, man," replied Macraw; "he liked this
-    young leddy, ana suld hae married her, but his mother fand it out, and
-    then the deil gaed o'er Jock Webster. At last, the peer lass clodded
-    hersell o'er the scaur at the Craigburnfoot into the sea, and there was
-    an end o't."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "An end o't wi' the puir leddy," said the mendicant, "but, as I reckon,
-    nae end o't wi' the yerl."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nae end o't till his life makes an end," answered the Aberdonian.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But what for did the auld Countess forbid the marriage?" continued the
-    persevering querist.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Fat for!&mdash;she maybe didna weel ken for fat hersell, for she gar'd a' bow
-    to her bidding, right or wrang&mdash;But it was ken'd the young leddy was
-    inclined to some o' the heresies of the country&mdash;mair by token, she was
-    sib to him nearer than our Church's rule admits of. Sae the leddy was
-    driven to the desperate act, and the yerl has never since held his head
-    up like a man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Weel away!" replied Ochiltree:&mdash;"it's e'en queer I neer heard this tale
-    afore."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's e'en queer that ye heard it now, for deil ane o' the servants durst
-    hae spoken o't had the auld Countess been living. Eh, man, Edie! but she
-    was a trimmer&mdash;it wad hae taen a skeely man to hae squared wi' her!&mdash;But
-    she's in her grave, and we may loose our tongues a bit fan we meet a
-    friend.&mdash;But fare ye weel, Edie&mdash;I maun be back to the evening-service.
-    An' ye come to Inverurie maybe sax months awa, dinna forget to ask after
-    Francie Macraw."
-</p>
-<p>
-    What one kindly pressed, the other as firmly promised; and the friends
-    having thus parted, with every testimony of mutual regard, the domestic
-    of Lord Glenallan took his road back to the seat of his master, leaving
-    Ochiltree to trace onward his habitual pilgrimage.
-</p>
-<p>
-    It was a fine summer evening, and the world&mdash;that is, the little circle
-    which was all in all to the individual by whom it was trodden, lay before
-    Edie Ochiltree, for the choosing of his night's quarters. When he had
-    passed the less hospitable domains of Glenallan, he had in his option so
-    many places of refuge for the evening, that he was nice, and even
-    fastidious in the choice. Ailie Sim's public was on the road-side about a
-    mile before him, but there would be a parcel of young fellows there on
-    the Saturday night, and that was a bar to civil conversation. Other
-    "gudemen and gudewives," as the farmers and their dames are termed in
-    Scotland, successively presented themselves to his imagination. But one
-    was deaf, and could not hear him; another toothless, and could not make
-    him hear; a third had a cross temper; and a fourth an ill-natured
-    house-dog. At Monkbarns or Knockwinnock he was sure of a favourable and
-    hospitable reception; but they lay too distant to be conveniently reached
-    that night.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I dinna ken how it is," said the old man, "but I am nicer about my
-    quarters this night than ever I mind having been in my life. I think,
-    having seen a' the braws yonder, and finding out ane may be happier
-    without them, has made me proud o' my ain lot&mdash;But I wuss it bode me
-    gude, for pride goeth before destruction. At ony rate, the warst barn
-    e'er man lay in wad be a pleasanter abode than Glenallan House, wi' a'
-    the pictures and black velvet, and silver bonny-wawlies belonging to it&mdash;
-    Sae I'll e'en settle at ance, and put in for Ailie Sims."
-</p>
-<p>
-    As the old man descended the hill above the little hamlet to which he was
-    bending his course, the setting sun had relieved its inmates from their
-    labour, and the young men, availing themselves of the fine evening, were
-    engaged in the sport of long-bowls on a patch of common, while the women
-    and elders looked on. The shout, the laugh, the exclamations of winners
-    and losers, came in blended chorus up the path which Ochiltree was
-    descending, and awakened in his recollection the days when he himself had
-    been a keen competitor, and frequently victor, in games of strength and
-    agility. These remembrances seldom fail to excite a sigh, even when the
-    evening of life is cheered by brighter prospects than those of our poor
-    mendicant. "At that time of day," was his natural reflection, "I would
-    have thought as little about ony auld palmering body that was coming down
-    the edge of Kinblythemont, as ony o' thae stalwart young chiels does
-    e'enow about auld Edie Ochiltree."
-</p>
-<p>
-    He was, however, presently cheered, by finding that more importance was
-    attached to his arrival than his modesty had anticipated. A disputed cast
-    had occurred between the bands of players, and as the gauger favoured the
-    one party, and the schoolmaster the other, the matter might be said to be
-    taken up by the higher powers. The miller and smith, also, had espoused
-    different sides, and, considering the vivacity of two such disputants,
-    there was reason to doubt whether the strife might be amicably
-    terminated. But the first person who caught a sight of the mendicant
-    exclaimed, "Ah! here comes auld Edie, that kens the rules of a' country
-    games better than ony man that ever drave a bowl, or threw an axle-tree,
-    or putted a stane either;&mdash;let's hae nae quarrelling, callants&mdash;we'll
-    stand by auld Edie's judgment."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Edie was accordingly welcomed, and installed as umpire, with a general
-    shout of gratulation. With all the modesty of a Bishop to whom the mitre
-    is proffered, or of a new Speaker called to the chair, the old man
-    declined the high trust and responsibility with which it was proposed to
-    invest him, and, in requital for his self-denial and humility, had the
-    pleasure of receiving the reiterated assurances of young, old, and
-    middle-aged, that he was simply the best qualified person for the office
-    of arbiter "in the haill country-side." Thus encouraged, he proceeded
-    gravely to the execution of his duty, and, strictly forbidding all
-    aggravating expressions on either side, he heard the smith and gauger on
-    one side, the miller and schoolmaster on the other, as junior and senior
-    counsel. Edie's mind, however, was fully made up on the subject before
-    the pleading began; like that of many a judge, who must nevertheless go
-    through all the forms, and endure in its full extent the eloquence and
-    argumentation of the Bar. For when all had been said on both sides, and
-    much of it said over oftener than once, our senior, being well and ripely
-    advised, pronounced the moderate and healing judgment, that the disputed
-    cast was a drawn one, and should therefore count to neither party. This
-    judicious decision restored concord to the field of players; they began
-    anew to arrange their match and their bets, with the clamorous mirth
-    usual on such occasions of village sport, and the more eager were already
-    stripping their jackets, and committing them, with their coloured
-    handkerchiefs, to the care of wives, sisters, and mistresses. But their
-    mirth was singularly interrupted.
-</p>
-<p>
-    On the outside of the group of players began to arise sounds of a
-    description very different from those of sport&mdash;that sort of suppressed
-    sigh and exclamation, with which the first news of calamity is received
-    by the hearers, began to be heard indistinctly. A buzz went about among
-    the women of "Eh, sirs! sae young and sae suddenly summoned!"&mdash;It then
-    extended itself among the men, and silenced the sounds of sportive mirth.
-</p>
-<p>
-    All understood at once that some disaster had happened in the country,
-    and each inquired the cause at his neighbour, who knew as little as the
-    querist. At length the rumour reached, in a distinct shape, the ears of
-    Edie Ochiltree, who was in the very centre of the assembly. The boat of
-    Mucklebackit, the fisherman whom we have so often mentioned, had been
-    swamped at sea, and four men had perished, it was affirmed, including
-    Mucklebackit and his son. Rumour had in this, however, as in other cases,
-    gone beyond the truth. The boat had indeed been overset; but Stephen, or,
-    as he was called, Steenie Mucklebackit, was the only man who had been
-    drowned. Although the place of his residence and his mode of life removed
-    the young man from the society of the country folks, yet they failed not
-    to pause in their rustic mirth to pay that tribute to sudden calamity
-    which it seldom fails to receive in cases of infrequent occurrence. To
-    Ochiltree, in particular, the news came like a knell, the rather that he
-    had so lately engaged this young man's assistance in an affair of
-    sportive mischief; and though neither loss nor injury was designed to the
-    German adept, yet the work was not precisely one in which the latter
-    hours of life ought to be occupied.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Misfortunes never come alone. While Ochiltree, pensively leaning upon his
-    staff, added his regrets to those of the hamlet which bewailed the young
-    man's sudden death, and internally blamed himself for the transaction in
-    which he had so lately engaged him, the old man's collar was seized by a
-    peace-officer, who displayed his baton in his right hand, and exclaimed,
-    "In the king's name."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The gauger and schoolmaster united their rhetoric, to prove to the
-    constable and his assistant that he had no right to arrest the king's
-    bedesman as a vagrant; and the mute eloquence of the miller and smith,
-    which was vested in their clenched fists, was prepared to give Highland
-    bail for their arbiter; his blue gown, they said, was his warrant for
-    travelling the country.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But his blue gown," answered the officer, "is nae protection for
-    assault, robbery, and murder; and my warrant is against him for these
-    crimes."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Murder!" said Edie, "murder! wha did I e'er murder?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mr. German Doustercivil, the agent at Glen-Withershins mining-works."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Murder Doustersnivel?&mdash;hout, he's living, and life-like, man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nae thanks to you if he be; he had a sair struggle for his life, if a'
-    be true he tells, and ye maun answer for't at the bidding of the law."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The defenders of the mendicant shrunk back at hearing the atrocity of the
-    charges against him, but more than one kind hand thrust meat and bread
-    and pence upon Edie, to maintain him in the prison, to which the officers
-    were about to conduct him.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Thanks to ye! God bless ye a', bairns!&mdash;I've gotten out o' mony a snare
-    when I was waur deserving o' deliverance&mdash;I shall escape like a bird from
-    the fowler. Play out your play, and never mind me&mdash;I am mair grieved for
-    the puir lad that's gane, than for aught they can do to me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Accordingly, the unresisting prisoner was led off, while he mechanically
-    accepted and stored in his wallets the alms which poured in on every
-    hand, and ere he left the hamlet, was as deep-laden as a government
-    victualler. The labour of bearing this accumulating burden was, however,
-    abridged, by the officer procuring a cart and horse to convey the old man
-    to a magistrate, in order to his examination and committal.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The disaster of Steenie, and the arrest of Edie, put a stop to the sports
-    of the village, the pensive inhabitants of which began to speculate upon
-    the vicissitudes of human affairs, which had so suddenly consigned one of
-    their comrades to the grave, and placed their master of the revels in
-    some danger of being hanged. The character of Dousterswivel being pretty
-    generally known, which was in his case equivalent to being pretty
-    generally detested, there were many speculations upon the probability of
-    the accusation being malicious. But all agreed, that if Edie Ochiltree
-    behoved in all events to suffer upon this occasion, it was a great pity
-    he had not better merited his fate by killing Dousterswivel outright.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0009"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER NINTH
-</h2>
-<pre>
-               Who is he?&mdash;One that for the lack of land
-              Shall fight upon the water&mdash;he hath challenged
-              Formerly the grand whale; and by his titles
-                 Of Leviathan, Behemoth, and so forth.
-                 He tilted with a sword-fish&mdash;Marry, sir,
-                 Th' aquatic had the best&mdash;the argument
-                      Still galls our champion's breech.
-                                               Old Play.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "And the poor young fellow, Steenie Mucklebackit, is to be buried this
-    morning," said our old friend the Antiquary, as he exchanged his quilted
-    night-gown for an old-fashioned black coat in lieu of the snuff-coloured
-    vestment which he ordinarily wore, "and, I presume, it is expected that I
-    should attend the funeral?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ou, ay," answered the faithful Caxon, officiously brushing the white
-    threads and specks from his patron's habit. "The body, God help us! was
-    sae broken against the rocks that they're fain to hurry the burial. The
-    sea's a kittle cast, as I tell my daughter, puir thing, when I want her
-    to get up her spirits; the sea, says I, Jenny, is as uncertain a
-    calling"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "As the calling of an old periwig-maker, that's robbed of his business by
-    crops and the powder-tax. Caxon, thy topics of consolation are as ill
-    chosen as they are foreign to the present purpose. <i>Quid mihi cum
-    faemina</i>? What have I to do with thy womankind, who have enough and to
-    spare of mine own?&mdash;I pray of you again, am I expected by these poor
-    people to attend the funeral of their son?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ou, doubtless, your honour is expected," answered Caxon; "weel I wot ye
-    are expected. Ye ken, in this country ilka gentleman is wussed to be sae
-    civil as to see the corpse aff his grounds; ye needna gang higher than
-    the loan-head&mdash;it's no expected your honour suld leave the land; it's
-    just a Kelso convoy, a step and a half ower the doorstane."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A Kelso convoy!" echoed the inquisitive Antiquary; "and why a Kelso
-    convoy more than any other?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dear sir," answered Caxon, "how should I ken? it's just a by-word."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Caxon," answered Oldbuck, "thou art a mere periwig-maker&mdash;Had I asked
-    Ochiltree the question, he would have had a legend ready made to my
-    hand."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My business," replied Caxon, with more animation than he commonly
-    displayed, "is with the outside of your honour's head, as ye are
-    accustomed to say."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "True, Caxon, true; and it is no reproach to a thatcher that he is not an
-    upholsterer."
-</p>
-<p>
-    He then took out his memorandum-book and wrote down "Kelso convoy&mdash;said
-    to be a step and a half over the threshold. Authority&mdash;Caxon.&mdash;<i>Quaere</i>&mdash;
-    Whence derived? <i>Mem.</i> To write to Dr. Graysteel upon the subject."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Having made this entry, he resumed&mdash;"And truly, as to this custom of the
-    landlord attending the body of the peasant, I approve it, Caxon. It comes
-    from ancient times, and was founded deep in the notions of mutual aid and
-    dependence between the lord and cultivator of the soil. And herein I must
-    say, the feudal system&mdash;(as also in its courtesy towards womankind, in
-    which it exceeded)&mdash;herein, I say, the feudal usages mitigated and
-    softened the sternness of classical times. No man, Caxon, ever heard of a
-    Spartan attending the funeral of a Helot&mdash;yet I dare be sworn that John
-    of the Girnel&mdash;ye have heard of him, Caxon?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, ay, sir," answered Caxon; "naebody can hae been lang in your
-    honour's company without hearing of that gentleman."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well," continued the Antiquary, "I would bet a trifle there was not a
-    <i>kolb kerl,</i> or bondsman, or peasant, <i>ascriptus glebae,</i> died upon the
-    monks' territories down here, but John of the Girnel saw them fairly and
-    decently interred."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, but if it like your honour, they say he had mair to do wi' the
-    births than the burials. Ha! ha! ha!" with a gleeful chuckle.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Good, Caxon, very good!&mdash;why, you shine this morning."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And besides," added Caxon, slyly, encouraged by his patron's
-    approbation, "they say, too, that the Catholic priests in thae times gat
-    something for ganging about to burials."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Right, Caxon! right as my glove! By the by, I fancy that phrase comes
-    from the custom of pledging a glove as the signal of irrefragable faith&mdash;
-    right, I say, as my glove, Caxon&mdash;but we of the Protestant ascendency
-    have the more merit in doing that duty for nothing, which cost money in
-    the reign of that empress of superstition, whom Spenser, Caxon, terms in
-    his allegorical phrase,
-</p>
-<pre>
-                  &mdash;The daughter of that woman blind,
-                    Abessa, daughter of Corecca slow&mdash;
-</pre>
-<p>
-    But why talk I of these things to thee?&mdash;my poor Lovel has spoiled me,
-    and taught me to speak aloud when it is much the same as speaking to
-    myself. Where's my nephew, Hector M'Intyre?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He's in the parlour, sir, wi' the leddies."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Very well," said the Antiquary, "I will betake me thither."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Now, Monkbarns," said his sister, on his entering the parlour, "ye
-    maunna be angry."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My dear uncle!" began Miss M'Intyre.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What's the meaning of all this?" said Oldbuck, in alarm of some
-    impending bad news, and arguing upon the supplicating tone of the ladies,
-    as a fortress apprehends an attack from the very first flourish of the
-    trumpet which announces the summons&mdash;"what's all this?&mdash;what do you
-    bespeak my patience for?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No particular matter, I should hope, sir," said Hector, who, with his
-    arm in a sling, was seated at the breakfast table;&mdash;"however, whatever it
-    may amount to I am answerable for it, as I am for much more trouble that
-    I have occasioned, and for which I have little more than thanks to
-    offer."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, no! heartily welcome, heartily welcome&mdash;only let it be a warning to
-    you," said the Antiquary, "against your fits of anger, which is a short
-    madness&mdash;<i>Ira furor brevis</i>&mdash;but what is this new disaster?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My dog, sir, has unfortunately thrown down"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If it please Heaven, not the lachrymatory from Clochnaben!" interjected
-    Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed, uncle," said the young lady, "I am afraid&mdash;it was that which
-    stood upon the sideboard&mdash;the poor thing only meant to eat the pat of
-    fresh butter."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In which she has fully succeeded, I presume, for I see that on the table
-    is salted. But that is nothing&mdash;my lachrymatory, the main pillar of my
-    theory on which I rested to show, in despite of the ignorant obstinacy of
-    Mac-Cribb, that the Romans had passed the defiles of these mountains, and
-    left behind them traces of their arts and arms, is gone&mdash;annihilated&mdash;reduced
-    to such fragments as might be the shreds of a broken-flowerpot!
-</p>
-<pre>
-                            &mdash;Hector, I love thee,
-                  But never more be officer of mine."
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "Why, really, sir, I am afraid I should make a bad figure in a regiment
-    of your raising."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "At least, Hector, I would have you despatch your camp train, and travel
-    <i>expeditus,</i> or <i>relictis impedimentis.</i> You cannot conceive how I am
-    annoyed by this beast&mdash;she commits burglary, I believe, for I heard her
-    charged with breaking into the kitchen after all the doors were locked,
-    and eating up a shoulder of mutton. "&mdash;(Our readers, if they chance to
-    remember Jenny Rintherout's precaution of leaving the door open when she
-    went down to the fisher's cottage, will probably acquit poor Juno of that
-    aggravation of guilt which the lawyers call a <i>claustrum fregit,</i> and
-    which makes the distinction between burglary and privately stealing. )
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am truly sorry, sir," said Hector, "that Juno has committed so much
-    disorder; but Jack Muirhead, the breaker, was never able to bring her
-    under command. She has more travel than any bitch I ever knew, but"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then, Hector, I wish the bitch would travel herself out of my grounds."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We will both of us retreat to-morrow, or to-day, but I would not
-    willingly part from my mother's brother in unkindness about a paltry
-    pipkin."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O brother! brother!" ejaculated Miss M'Intyre, in utter despair at this
-    vituperative epithet.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, what would you have me call it?" continued Hector; "it was just
-    such a thing as they use in Egypt to cool wine, or sherbet, or water;&mdash;I
-    brought home a pair of them&mdash;I might have brought home twenty."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What!" said Oldbuck, "shaped such as that your dog threw down?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes, sir, much such a sort of earthen jar as that which was on the
-    sideboard. They are in my lodgings at Fairport; we brought a parcel of
-    them to cool our wine on the passage&mdash;they answer wonderfully well. If I
-    could think they would in any degree repay your loss, or rather that they
-    could afford you pleasure, I am sure I should be much honoured by your
-    accepting them."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed, my dear boy, I should be highly gratified by possessing them. To
-    trace the connection of nations by their usages, and the similarity of
-    the implements which they employ, has been long my favourite study.
-    Everything that can illustrate such connections is most valuable to me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, sir, I shall be much gratified by your acceptance of them, and a
-    few trifles of the same kind. And now, am I to hope you have forgiven
-    me?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O, my dear boy, you are only thoughtless and foolish."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But Juno&mdash;she is only thoughtless too, I assure you&mdash;the breaker tells
-    me she has no vice or stubbornness."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, I grant Juno also a free pardon&mdash;conditioned, that you will
-    imitate her in avoiding vice and stubbornness, and that henceforward she
-    banish herself forth of Monkbarns parlour."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then, uncle," said the soldier, "I should have been very sorry and
-    ashamed to propose to you anything in the way of expiation of my own
-    sins, or those of my follower, that I thought <i>worth</i> your acceptance;
-    but now, as all is forgiven, will you permit the orphan-nephew, to whom
-    you have been a father, to offer you a trifle, which I have been assured
-    is really curious, and which only the cross accident of my wound has
-    prevented my delivering to you before? I got it from a French savant, to
-    whom I rendered some service after the Alexandria affair."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The captain put a small ring-case into the Antiquary's hands, which, when
-    opened, was found to contain an antique ring of massive gold, with a
-    cameo, most beautifully executed, bearing a head of Cleopatra. The
-    Antiquary broke forth into unrepressed ecstasy, shook his nephew
-    cordially by the hand, thanked him an hundred times, and showed the ring
-    to his sister and niece, the latter of whom had the tact to give it
-    sufficient admiration; but Miss Griselda (though she had the same
-    affection for her nephew) had not address enough to follow the lead.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's a bonny thing," she said, "Monkbarns, and, I dare say, a valuable;
-    but it's out o'my way&mdash;ye ken I am nae judge o' sic matters."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There spoke all Fairport in one voice!" exclaimed Oldbuck "it is the
-    very spirit of the borough has infected us all; I think I have smelled
-    the smoke these two days, that the wind has stuck, like a <i>remora,</i> in
-    the north-east&mdash;and its prejudices fly farther than its vapours. Believe
-    me, my dear Hector, were I to walk up the High Street of Fairport,
-    displaying this inestimable gem in the eyes of each one I met, no human
-    creature, from the provost to the town-crier, would stop to ask me its
-    history. But if I carried a bale of linen cloth under my arm, I could not
-    penetrate to the Horsemarket ere I should be overwhelmed with queries
-    about its precise texture and price. Oh, one might parody their brutal
-    ignorance in the words of Gray:
-</p>
-<pre>
-                   Weave the warp and weave the woof,
-                   The winding-sheet of wit and sense,
-                   Dull garment of defensive proof,
-                  'Gainst all that doth not gather pence."
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The most remarkable proof of this peace-offering being quite acceptable
-    was, that while the Antiquary was in full declamation, Juno, who held him
-    in awe, according to the remarkable instinct by which dogs instantly
-    discover those who like or dislike them, had peeped several times into
-    the room, and encountering nothing very forbidding in his aspect, had at
-    length presumed to introduce her full person; and finally, becoming bold
-    by impunity, she actually ate up Mr. Oldbuck's toast, as, looking first
-    at one then at another of his audience, he repeated, with
-    self-complacency,
-</p>
-<pre>
-                  "Weave the warp and weave the woof,&mdash;
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "You remember the passage in the Fatal Sisters, which, by the way, is not
-    so fine as in the original&mdash;But, hey-day! my toast has vanished!&mdash;I see
-    which way&mdash;Ah, thou type of womankind! no wonder they take offence at thy
-    generic appellation!"&mdash;(So saying, he shook his fist at Juno, who scoured
-    out of the parlour.)&mdash;"However, as Jupiter, according to Homer, could not
-    rule Juno in heaven, and as Jack Muirhead, according to Hector M'Intyre,
-    has been equally unsuccessful on earth, I suppose she must have her own
-    way." And this mild censure the brother and sister justly accounted a
-    full pardon for Juno's offences, and sate down well pleased to the
-    morning meal.
-</p>
-<p>
-    When breakfast was over, the Antiquary proposed to his nephew to go down
-    with him to attend the funeral. The soldier pleaded the want of a
-    mourning habit.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O, that does not signify&mdash;your presence is all that is requisite. I
-    assure you, you will see something that will entertain&mdash;no, that's an
-    improper phrase&mdash;but that will interest you, from the resemblances which
-    I will point out betwixt popular customs on such occasions and those of
-    the ancients."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Heaven forgive me!" thought M'Intyre;&mdash;"I shall certainly misbehave, and
-    lose all the credit I have so lately and accidentally gained."
-</p>
-<p>
-    When they set out, schooled as he was by the warning and entreating looks
-    of his sister, the soldier made his resolution strong to give no offence
-    by evincing inattention or impatience. But our best resolutions are
-    frail, when opposed to our predominant inclinations. Our Antiquary,&mdash;to
-    leave nothing unexplained, had commenced with the funeral rites of the
-    ancient Scandinavians, when his nephew interrupted him, in a discussion
-    upon the "age of hills," to remark that a large sea-gull, which flitted
-    around them, had come twice within shot. This error being acknowledged
-    and pardoned, Oldbuck resumed his disquisition.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "These are circumstances you ought to attend to and be familiar with, my
-    dear Hector; for, in the strange contingencies of the present war which
-    agitates every corner of Europe, there is no knowing where you may be
-    called upon to serve. If in Norway, for example, or Denmark, or any part
-    of the ancient Scania, or Scandinavia, as we term it, what could be more
-    convenient than to have at your fingers' ends the history and antiquities
-    of that ancient country, the <i>officina gentium,</i> the mother of modern
-    Europe, the nursery of those heroes,
-</p>
-<pre>
-               Stern to inflict, and stubborn to endure,
-                         Who smiled in death?&mdash;
-</pre>
-<p>
-    How animating, for example, at the conclusion of a weary march, to find
-    yourself in the vicinity of a Runic monument, and discover that you have
-    pitched your tent beside the tomb of a hero!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am afraid, sir, our mess would be better supplied if it chanced to be
-    in the neighbourhood of a good poultry-yard."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Alas, that you should say so! No wonder the days of Cressy and Agincourt
-    are no more, when respect for ancient valour has died away in the breasts
-    of the British soldiery."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "By no means, sir&mdash;by no manner of means. I dare say that Edward and
-    Henry, and the rest of these heroes, thought of their dinner, however,
-    before they thought of examining an old tombstone. But I assure you, we
-    are by no means insensible to the memoir of our fathers' fame; I used
-    often of an evening to get old Rory MAlpin to sing us songs out of Ossian
-    about the battles of Fingal and Lamon Mor, and Magnus and the Spirit of
-    Muirartach."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And did you believe," asked the aroused Antiquary, "did you absolutely
-    believe that stuff of Macpherson's to be really ancient, you simple boy?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Believe it, sir?&mdash;how could I but believe it, when I have heard the
-    songs sung from my infancy?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But not the same as Macpherson's English Ossian&mdash;you're not absurd
-    enough to say that, I hope?" said the Antiquary, his brow darkening with
-    wrath.
-</p>
-<p>
-    But Hector stoutly abode the storm; like many a sturdy Celt, he imagined
-    the honour of his country and native language connected with the
-    authenticity of these popular poems, and would have fought knee-deep, or
-    forfeited life and land, rather than have given up a line of them. He
-    therefore undauntedly maintained, that Rory MAlpin could repeat the whole
-    book from one end to another;&mdash;and it was only upon cross-examination
-    that he explained an assertion so general, by adding "At least, if he was
-    allowed whisky enough, he could repeat as long as anybody would hearken
-    to him."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, ay," said the Antiquary; "and that, I suppose, was not very long."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, we had our duty, sir, to attend to, and could not sit listening all
-    night to a piper."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But do you recollect, now," said Oldbuck, setting his teeth firmly
-    together, and speaking without opening them, which was his custom when
-    contradicted&mdash;"Do you recollect, now, any of these verses you thought so
-    beautiful and interesting&mdash;being a capital judge, no doubt, of such
-    things?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I don't pretend to much skill, uncle; but it's not very reasonable to be
-    angry with me for admiring the antiquities of my own country more than
-    those of the Harolds, Harfagers, and Hacos you are so fond of."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, these, sir&mdash;these mighty and unconquered Goths&mdash;<i>were</i> your
-    ancestors! The bare-breeched Celts whom theysubdued, and suffered only to
-    exist, like a fearful people, in the crevices of the rocks, were but
-    their Mancipia and Serfs!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Hector's brow now grew red in his turn. "Sir," he said, "I don't
-    understand the meaning of Mancipia and Serfs, but I conceive that such
-    names are very improperly applied to Scotch Highlanders: no man but my
-    mother's brother dared to have used such language in my presence; and I
-    pray you will observe, that I consider it as neither hospitable,
-    handsome, kind, nor generous usage towards your guest and your kinsman.
-    My ancestors, Mr. Oldbuck"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Were great and gallant chiefs, I dare say, Hector; and really I did not
-    mean to give you such immense offence in treating a point of remote
-    antiquity, a subject on which I always am myself cool, deliberate, and
-    unimpassioned. But you are as hot and hasty, as if you were Hector and
-    Achilles, and Agamemnon to boot."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am sorry I expressed myself so hastily, uncle, especially to you, who
-    have been so generous and good. But my ancestors"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No more about it, lad; I meant them no affront&mdash;none."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I'm glad of it, sir; for the house of M'Intyre"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Peace be with them all, every man of them," said the Antiquary. "But to
-    return to our subject&mdash;Do you recollect, I say, any of those poems which
-    afforded you such amusement?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Very hard this," thought M'Intyre, "that he will speak with such glee of
-    everything which is ancient, excepting my family. "&mdash;Then, after some
-    efforts at recollection, he added aloud, "Yes, sir,&mdash;I think I do
-    remember some lines; but you do not understand the Gaelic language."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And will readily excuse hearing it. But you can give me some idea of the
-    sense in our own vernacular idiom?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I shall prove a wretched interpreter," said M'Intyre, running over the
-    original, well garnished with <i>aghes, aughs,</i> and <i>oughs,</i> and similar
-    gutterals, and then coughing and hawking as if the translation stuck in
-    his throat. At length, having premised that the poem was a dialogue
-    between the poet Oisin, or Ossian, and Patrick, the tutelar Saint of
-    Ireland, and that it was difficult, if not impossible, to render the
-    exquisite felicity of the first two or three lines, he said the sense was
-    to this purpose:
-</p>
-<pre>
-                      "Patrick the psalm-singer,
-            Since you will not listen to one of my stories,
-                      Though you never heard it before,
-                             I am sorry to tell you
-                  You are little better than an ass"&mdash;
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "Good! good!" exclaimed the Antiquary; "but go on. Why, this is, after
-    all, the most admirable fooling&mdash;I dare say the poet was very right. What
-    says the Saint?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He replies in character," said M'Intyre; "but you should hear MAlpin
-    sing the original. The speeches of Ossian come in upon a strong deep
-    bass&mdash;those of Patrick are upon a tenor key."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Like MAlpin's drone and small pipes, I suppose," said Oldbuck. "Well?
-    Pray go on."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well then, Patrick replies to Ossian:
-</p>
-<pre>
-                     Upon my word, son of Fingal,
-                     While I am warbling the psalms,
-                     The clamour of your old women's tales
-                     Disturbs my devotional exercises."
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "Excellent!&mdash;why, this is better and better. I hope Saint Patrick sung
-    better than Blattergowl's precentor, or it would be hang&mdash;choice between
-    the poet and psalmist. But what I admire is the courtesy of these two
-    eminent persons towards each other. It is a pity there should not be a
-    word of this in Macpherson's translation."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If you are sure of that," said M'Intyre, gravely, "he must have taken
-    very unwarrantable liberties with his original."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It will go near to be thought so shortly&mdash;but pray proceed."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then," said M'Intyre, "this is the answer of Ossian:
-</p>
-<pre>
-                     Dare you compare your psalms,
-                            You son of a&mdash;"
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "Son of a what?" exclaimed Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It means, I think," said the young soldier, with some reluctance, "son
-    of a female dog:
-</p>
-<pre>
-                           Do you compare your psalms,
-                To the tales of the bare-arm'd Fenians"
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "Are you sure you are translating that last epithet correctly, Hector?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Quite sure, sir," answered Hector, doggedly.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Because I should have thought the nudity might have been quoted as
-    existing in a different part of the body."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Disdaining to reply to this insinuation, Hector proceeded in his
-    recitation:
-</p>
-<pre>
-                        "I shall think it no great harm
-             To wring your bald head from your shoulders&mdash;
-</pre>
-<p>
-    But what is that yonder?" exclaimed Hector, interrupting himself.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "One of the herd of Proteus," said the Antiquary&mdash;"a <i>phoca,</i> or seal,
-    lying asleep on the beach."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Upon which M'Intyre, with the eagerness of a young sportsman, totally
-    forgot both Ossian, Patrick, his uncle, and his wound, and exclaiming&mdash;"I
-    shall have her! I shall have her!" snatched the walking-stick out of the
-    hand of the astonished Antiquary, at some risk of throwing him down, and
-    set off at full speed to get between the animal and the sea, to which
-    element, having caught the alarm, she was rapidly retreating.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Not Sancho, when his master interrupted his account of the combatants of
-    Pentapolin with the naked arm, to advance in person to the charge of the
-    flock of sheep, stood more confounded than Oldbuck at this sudden
-    escapade of his nephew.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Is the devil in him," was his first exclamation, "to go to disturb the
-    brute that was never thinking of him!"&mdash;Then elevating his voice,
-    "Hector&mdash;nephew&mdash;fool&mdash;let alone the <i>Phoca</i>&mdash;let alone the <i>Phoca</i>!&mdash;
-    they bite, I tell you, like furies. He minds me no more than a post.
-    There&mdash;there they are at it&mdash;Gad, the <i>Phoca</i> has the best of it! I am
-    glad to see it," said he, in the bitterness of his heart, though really
-    alarmed for his nephew's safety&mdash;"I am glad to see it, with all my heart
-    and spirit."
-</p>
-<p>
-    In truth, the seal, finding her retreat intercepted by the light-footed
-    soldier, confronted him manfully, and having sustained a heavy blow
-    without injury, she knitted her brows, as is the fashion of the animal
-    when incensed, and making use at once of her fore-paws and her unwieldy
-    strength, wrenched the weapon out of the assailant's hand, overturned him
-    on the sands, and scuttled away into the sea, without doing him any
-    farther injury. Captain M'Intyre, a good deal out of countenance at the
-    issue of his exploit, just rose in time to receive the ironical
-    congratulations of his uncle, upon a single combat worthy to be
-    commemorated by Ossian himself, "since," said the Antiquary, "your
-    magnanimous opponent has fled, though not upon eagle's wings, from the
-    foe that was low&mdash;Egad, she walloped away with all the grace of triumph,
-    and has carried my stick off also, by way of <i>spolia opima.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    M'Intyre had little to answer for himself, except that a Highlander could
-    never pass a deer, a seal, or a salmon, where there was a possibility of
-    having a trial of skill with them, and that he had forgot one of his arms
-    was in a sling. He also made his fall an apology for returning back to
-    Monkbarns, and thus escape the farther raillery of his uncle, as well as
-    his lamentations for his walking-stick.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I cut it," he said, "in the classic woods of Hawthornden, when I did not
-    expect always to have been a bachelor&mdash;I would not have given it for an
-    ocean of seals&mdash;O Hector! Hector!&mdash;thy namesake was born to be the prop
-    of Troy, and thou to be the plague of Monkbarns!"
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0010"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER TENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-             Tell me not of it, friend&mdash;when the young weep,
-         Their tears are luke-warm brine;&mdash;from your old eyes
-             Sorrow falls down like hail-drops of the North,
-             Chilling the furrows of our withered cheeks,
-              Cold as our hopes, and hardened as our feeling&mdash;
-          Theirs, as they fall, sink sightless&mdash;ours recoil,
-             Heap the fair plain, and bleaken all before us.
-                               Old Play.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The Antiquary, being now alone, hastened his pace, which had been
-    retarded by these various discussions, and the rencontre which had closed
-    them, and soon arrived before the half-dozen cottages at Mussel-crag.
-    They had now, in addition to their usual squalid and uncomfortable
-    appearance, the melancholy attributes of the house of mourning. The boats
-    were all drawn up on the beach; and, though the day was fine, and the
-    season favourable, the chant, which is used by the fishers when at sea,
-    was silent, as well as the prattle of the children, and the shrill song
-    of the mother, as she sits mending her nets by the door. A few of the
-    neighbours, some in their antique and well-saved suits of black, others
-    in their ordinary clothes, but all bearing an expression of mournful
-    sympathy with distress so sudden and unexpected, stood gathered around
-    the door of Mucklebackit's cottage, waiting till "the body was lifted."
-    As the Laird of Monkbarns approached, they made way for him to enter,
-    doffing their hats and bonnets as he passed, with an air of melancholy
-    courtesy, and he returned their salutes in the same manner.
-</p>
-<p>
-    In the inside of the cottage was a scene which our Wilkie alone could
-    have painted, with that exquisite feeling of nature that characterises
-    his enchanting productions.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The body was laid in its coffin within the wooden bedstead which the
-    young fisher had occupied while alive. At a little distance stood the
-    father, whose rugged weather-beaten countenance, shaded by his grizzled
-    hair, had faced many a stormy night and night-like day. He was apparently
-    revolving his loss in his mind, with that strong feeling of painful grief
-    peculiar to harsh and rough characters, which almost breaks forth into
-    hatred against the world, and all that remain in it, after the beloved
-    object is withdrawn. The old man had made the most desperate efforts to
-    save his son, and had only been withheld by main force from renewing them
-    at a moment when, without the possibility of assisting the sufferer, he
-    must himself have perished. All this apparently was boiling in his
-    recollection. His glance was directed sidelong towards the coffin, as to
-    an object on which he could not stedfastly look, and yet from which he
-    could not withdraw his eyes. His answers to the necessary questions which
-    were occasionally put to him, were brief, harsh, and almost fierce. His
-    family had not yet dared to address to him a word, either of sympathy or
-    consolation. His masculine wife, virago as she was, and absolute mistress
-    of the family, as she justly boasted herself, on all ordinary occasions,
-    was, by this great loss, terrified into silence and submission, and
-    compelled to hide from her husband's observation the bursts of her female
-    sorrow. As he had rejected food ever since the disaster had happened, not
-    daring herself to approach him, she had that morning, with affectionate
-    artifice, employed the youngest and favourite child to present her
-    husband with some nourishment. His first action was to put it from him
-    with an angry violence that frightened the child; his next, to snatch up
-    the boy and devour him with kisses. "Yell be a bra' fallow, an ye be
-    spared, Patie,&mdash;but ye'll never&mdash;never can be&mdash;what he was to me!&mdash;He has
-    sailed the coble wi' me since he was ten years auld, and there wasna the
-    like o' him drew a net betwixt this and Buchan-ness.&mdash;They say folks maun
-    submit&mdash;I will try."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And he had been silent from that moment until compelled to answer the
-    necessary questions we have already noticed. Such was the disconsolate
-    state of the father.
-</p>
-<p>
-    In another corner of the cottage, her face covered by her apron, which
-    was flung over it, sat the mother&mdash;the nature of her grief sufficiently
-    indicated by the wringing of her hands, and the convulsive agitation of
-    the bosom, which the covering could not conceal. Two of her gossips,
-    officiously whispering into her ear the commonplace topic of resignation
-    under irremediable misfortune, seemed as if they were endeavouring to
-    stun the grief which they could not console.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The sorrow of the children was mingled with wonder at the preparations
-    they beheld around them, and at the unusual display of wheaten bread and
-    wine, which the poorest peasant, or fisher, offers to the guests on these
-    mournful occasions; and thus their grief for their brother's death was
-    almost already lost in admiration of the splendour of his funeral.
-</p>
-<p>
-    But the figure of the old grandmother was the most remarkable of the
-    sorrowing group. Seated on her accustomed chair, with her usual air of
-    apathy, and want of interest in what surrounded her, she seemed every now
-    and then mechanically to resume the motion of twirling her spindle; then
-    to look towards her bosom for the distaff, although both had been laid
-    aside. She would then cast her eyes about, as if surprised at missing the
-    usual implements of her industry, and appear struck by the black colour
-    of the gown in which they had dressed her, and embarrassed by the number
-    of persons by whom she was surrounded. Then, finally, she would raise her
-    head with a ghastly look, and fix her eyes upon the bed which contained
-    the coffin of her grandson, as if she had at once, and for the first
-    time, acquired sense to comprehend her inexpressible calamity. These
-    alternate feelings of embarrassment, wonder, and grief, seemed to succeed
-    each other more than once upon her torpid features. But she spoke not a
-    word&mdash;neither had she shed a tear&mdash;nor did one of the family understand,
-    either from look or expression, to what extent she comprehended the
-    uncommon bustle around her. Thus she sat among the funeral assembly like
-    a connecting link between the surviving mourners and the dead corpse
-    which they bewailed&mdash;a being in whom the light of existence was already
-    obscured by the encroaching shadows of death.
-</p>
-<p>
-    When Oldbuck entered this house of mourning, he was received by a general
-    and silent inclination of the head, and, according to the fashion of
-    Scotland on such occasions, wine and spirits and bread were offered round
-    to the guests. Elspeth, as these refreshments were presented, surprised
-    and startled the whole company by motioning to the person who bore them
-    to stop; then, taking a glass in her hand, she rose up, and, as the smile
-    of dotage played upon her shrivelled features, she pronounced, with a
-    hollow and tremulous voice, "Wishing a' your healths, sirs, and often may
-    we hae such merry meetings!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    All shrunk from the ominous pledge, and set down the untasted liquor with
-    a degree of shuddering horror, which will not surprise those who know how
-    many superstitions are still common on such occasions among the Scottish
-    vulgar. But as the old woman tasted the liquor, she suddenly exclaimed
-    with a sort of shriek, "What's this?&mdash;this is wine&mdash;how should there be
-    wine in my son's house?&mdash;Ay," she continued with a suppressed groan, "I
-    mind the sorrowful cause now," and, dropping the glass from her hand, she
-    stood a moment gazing fixedly on the bed in which the coffin of her
-    grandson was deposited, and then sinking gradually into her seat, she
-    covered her eyes and forehead with her withered and pallid hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-    At this moment the clergyman entered the cottage. Mr. Blattergowl, though
-    a dreadful proser, particularly on the subject of augmentations,
-    localities, teinds, and overtures in that session of the General
-    Assembly, to which, unfortunately for his auditors, he chanced one year
-    to act as moderator, was nevertheless a good man, in the old Scottish
-    presbyterian phrase, God-ward and man-ward. No divine was more attentive
-    in visiting the sick and afflicted, in catechising the youth, in
-    instructing the ignorant, and in reproving the erring. And hence,
-    notwithstanding impatience of his prolixity and prejudices, personal or
-    professional, and notwithstanding, moreover, a certain habitual contempt
-    for his understanding, especially on affairs of genius and taste, on
-    which Blattergowl was apt to be diffuse, from his hope of one day
-    fighting his way to a chair of rhetoric or belles lettres,&mdash;
-    notwithstanding, I say, all the prejudices excited against him by these
-    circumstances, our friend the Antiquary looked with great regard and
-    respect on the said Blattergowl, though I own he could seldom, even by
-    his sense of decency and the remonstrances of his womankind, be <i>hounded
-    out,</i> as he called it, to hear him preach. But he regularly took shame to
-    himself for his absence when Blattergowl came to Monkbarns to dinner, to
-    which he was always invited of a Sunday, a mode of testifying his respect
-    which the proprietor probably thought fully as agreeable to the
-    clergyman, and rather more congenial to his own habits.
-</p>
-<p>
-    To return from a digression which can only serve to introduce the honest
-    clergyman more particularly to our readers, Mr. Blattergowl had no sooner
-    entered the hut, and received the mute and melancholy salutations of the
-    company whom it contained, than he edged himself towards the unfortunate
-    father, and seemed to endeavour to slide in a few words of condolence or
-    of consolation. But the old man was incapable as yet of receiving either;
-    he nodded, however, gruffly, and shook the clergyman's hand in
-    acknowledgment of his good intentions, but was either unable or unwilling
-    to make any verbal reply.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The minister next passed to the mother, moving along the floor as slowly,
-    silently, and gradually, as if he had been afraid that the ground would,
-    like unsafe ice, break beneath his feet, or that the first echo of a
-    footstep was to dissolve some magic spell, and plunge the hut, with all
-    its inmates, into a subterranean abyss. The tenor of what he had said to
-    the poor woman could only be judged by her answers, as, half-stifled by
-    sobs ill-repressed, and by the covering which she still kept over her
-    countenance, she faintly answered at each pause in his speech&mdash;"Yes, sir,
-    yes!&mdash;Ye're very gude&mdash;ye're very gude!&mdash;Nae doubt, nae doubt!&mdash;It's our
-    duty to submit!&mdash;But, oh dear! my poor Steenie! the pride o' my very
-    heart, that was sae handsome and comely, and a help to his family, and a
-    comfort to us a', and a pleasure to a' that lookit on him!&mdash;Oh, my bairn!
-    my bairn! my bairn! what for is thou lying there!&mdash;and eh! what for am I
-    left to greet for ye!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    There was no contending with this burst of sorrow and natural affection.
-    Oldbuck had repeated recourse to his snuff-box to conceal the tears
-    which, despite his shrewd and caustic temper, were apt to start on such
-    occasions. The female assistants whimpered, the men held their bonnets to
-    their faces, and spoke apart with each other. The clergyman, meantime,
-    addressed his ghostly consolation to the aged grandmother. At first she
-    listened, or seemed to listen, to what he said, with the apathy of her
-    usual unconsciousness. But as, in pressing this theme, he approached so
-    near to her ear that the sense of his words became distinctly
-    intelligible to her, though unheard by those who stood more distant, her
-    countenance at once assumed that stern and expressive cast which
-    characterized her intervals of intelligence. She drew up her head and
-    body, shook her head in a manner that showed at least impatience, if not
-    scorn of his counsel, and waved her hand slightly, but with a gesture so
-    expressive, as to indicate to all who witnessed it a marked and
-    disdainful rejection of the ghostly consolation proffered to her. The
-    minister stepped back as if repulsed, and, by lifting gently and dropping
-    his hand, seemed to show at once wonder, sorrow, and compassion for her
-    dreadful state of mind. The rest of the company sympathized, and a
-    stifled whisper went through them, indicating how much her desperate and
-    determined manner impressed them with awe, and even horror.
-</p>
-<p>
-    In the meantime, the funeral company was completed, by the arrival of one
-    or two persons who had been expected from Fairport. The wine and spirits
-    again circulated, and the dumb show of greeting was anew interchanged.
-    The grandame a second time took a glass in her hand, drank its contents,
-    and exclaimed, with a sort of laugh,&mdash;"Ha! ha! I hae tasted wine twice in
-    ae day&mdash;Whan did I that before, think ye, cummers?&mdash;Never since"&mdash;and the
-    transient glow vanishing from her countenance, she set the glass down,
-    and sunk upon the settle from whence she had risen to snatch at it.
-</p>
-<p>
-    As the general amazement subsided, Mr. Oldbuck, whose heart bled to
-    witness what he considered as the errings of the enfeebled intellect
-    struggling with the torpid chill of age and of sorrow, observed to the
-    clergyman that it was time to proceed with the ceremony. The father was
-    incapable of giving directions, but the nearest relation of the family
-    made a sign to the carpenter, who in such cases goes through the duty of
-    the undertaker, to proceed in his office. The creak of the screw-nails
-    presently announced that the lid of the last mansion of mortality was in
-    the act of being secured above its tenant. The last act which separates
-    us for ever, even from the mortal relies of the person we assemble to
-    mourn, has usually its effect upon the most indifferent, selfish, and
-    hard-hearted. With a spirit of contradiction, which we may be pardoned
-    for esteeming narrow-minded, the fathers of the Scottish kirk rejected,
-    even on this most solemn occasion, the form of an address to the
-    Divinity, lest they should be thought to give countenance to the rituals
-    of Rome or of England. With much better and more liberal judgment, it is
-    the present practice of most of the Scottish clergymen to seize this
-    opportunity of offering a prayer, and exhortation, suitable to make an
-    impression upon the living, while they are yet in the very presence of
-    the relics of him whom they have but lately seen such as they themselves,
-    and who now is such as they must in their time become. But this decent
-    and praiseworthy practice was not adopted at the time of which I am
-    treating, or at least, Mr. Blattergowl did not act upon it, and the
-    ceremony proceeded without any devotional exercise.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The coffin, covered with a pall, and supported upon hand-spikes by the
-    nearest relatives, now only waited the father to support the head, as is
-    customary. Two or three of these privileged persons spoke to him, but he
-    only answered by shaking his hand and his head in token of refusal. With
-    better intention than judgment, the friends, who considered this as an
-    act of duty on the part of the living, and of decency towards the
-    deceased, would have proceeded to enforce their request, had not Oldbuck
-    interfered between the distressed father and his well-meaning tormentors,
-    and informed them, that he himself, as landlord and master to the
-    deceased, "would carry his head to the grave." In spite of the sorrowful
-    occasion, the hearts of the relatives swelled within them at so marked a
-    distinction on the part of the laird; and old Alison Breck, who was
-    present among other fish-women, swore almost aloud, "His honour Monkbarns
-    should never want sax warp of oysters in the season" (of which fish he
-    was understood to be fond), "if she should gang to sea and dredge for
-    them hersell, in the foulest wind that ever blew." And such is the temper
-    of the Scottish common people, that, by this instance of compliance with
-    their customs, and respect for their persons, Mr. Oldbuck gained more
-    popularity than by all the sums which he had yearly distributed in the
-    parish for purposes of private or general charity.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The sad procession now moved slowly forward, preceded by the beadles, or
-    saulies, with their batons,&mdash;miserable-looking old men, tottering as if
-    on the edge of that grave to which they were marshalling another, and
-    clad, according to Scottish guise, with threadbare black coats, and
-    hunting-caps decorated with rusty crape. Monkbarns would probably have
-    remonstrated against this superfluous expense, had he been consulted;
-    but, in doing so, he would have given more offence than he gained
-    popularity by condescending to perform the office of chief-mourner. Of
-    this he was quite aware, and wisely withheld rebuke, where rebuke and
-    advice would have been equally unavailing. In truth, the Scottish
-    peasantry are still infected with that rage for funeral ceremonial, which
-    once distinguished the grandees of the kingdom so much, that a sumptuary
-    law was made by the Parliament of Scotland for the purpose of restraining
-    it; and I have known many in the lowest stations, who have denied
-    themselves not merely the comforts, but almost the necessaries of life,
-    in order to save such a sum of money as might enable their surviving
-    friends to bury them like Christians, as they termed it; nor could their
-    faithful executors be prevailed upon, though equally necessitous, to turn
-    to the use and maintenance of the living the money vainly wasted upon the
-    interment of the dead.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The procession to the churchyard, at about half-a-mile's distance, was
-    made with the mournful solemnity usual on these occasions,&mdash;the body was
-    consigned to its parent earth,&mdash;and when the labour of the gravediggers
-    had filled up the trench, and covered it with fresh sod, Mr. Oldbuck,
-    taking his hat off, saluted the assistants, who had stood by in
-    melancholy silence, and with that adieu dispersed the mourners.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The clergyman offered our Antiquary his company to walk homeward; but Mr.
-    Oldbuck had been so much struck with the deportment of the fisherman and
-    his mother, that, moved by compassion, and perhaps also, in some degree,
-    by that curiosity which induces us to seek out even what gives us pain to
-    witness, he preferred a solitary walk by the coast, for the purpose of
-    again visiting the cottage as he passed.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0011"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER ELEVENTH
-</h2>
-<pre>
-              What is this secret sin, this untold tale,
-              That art cannot extract, nor penance cleanse?
-                    &mdash;Her muscles hold their place;
-              Nor discomposed, nor formed to steadiness,
-               No sudden flushing, and no faltering lip.&mdash;
-                                     Mysterious Mother.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The coffin had been borne from the place where it rested. The mourners,
-    in regular gradation, according to their rank or their relationship to
-    the deceased, had filed from the cottage, while the younger male children
-    were led along to totter after the bier of their brother, and to view
-    with wonder a ceremonial which they could hardly comprehend. The female
-    gossips next rose to depart, and, with consideration for the situation of
-    the parents, carried along with them the girls of the family, to give the
-    unhappy pair time and opportunity to open their hearts to each other and
-    soften their grief by communicating it. But their kind intention was
-    without effect. The last of them had darkened the entrance of the
-    cottage, as she went out, and drawn the door softly behind her, when the
-    father, first ascertaining by a hasty glance that no stranger remained,
-    started up, clasped his hands wildly above his head, uttered a cry of the
-    despair which he had hitherto repressed, and, in all the impotent
-    impatience of grief, half rushed half staggered forward to the bed on
-    which the coffin had been deposited, threw himself down upon it, and
-    smothering, as it were, his head among the bed-clothes, gave vent to the
-    full passion of his sorrow. It was in vain that the wretched mother,
-    terrified by the vehemence of her husband's affliction&mdash;affliction still
-    more fearful as agitating a man of hardened manners and a robust frame&mdash;suppressed
-    her own sobs and tears, and, pulling him by the skirts of his
-    coat, implored him to rise and remember, that, though one was removed, he
-    had still a wife and children to comfort and support. The appeal came at
-    too early a period of his anguish, and was totally unattended to; he
-    continued to remain prostrate, indicating, by sobs so bitter and violent,
-    that they shook the bed and partition against which it rested, by
-    clenched hands which grasped the bed-clothes, and by the vehement and
-    convulsive motion of his legs, how deep and how terrible was the agony of
-    a father's sorrow.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O, what a day is this! what a day is this!" said the poor mother, her
-    womanish affliction already exhausted by sobs and tears, and now almost
-    lost in terror for the state in which she beheld her husband&mdash;"O, what an
-    hour is this! and naebody to help a poor lone woman&mdash;O, gudemither, could
-    ye but speak a word to him!&mdash;wad ye but bid him be comforted!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    To her astonishment, and even to the increase of her fear, her husband's
-    mother heard and answered the appeal. She rose and walked across the
-    floor without support, and without much apparent feebleness, and standing
-    by the bed on which her son had extended himself, she said, "Rise up, my
-    son, and sorrow not for him that is beyond sin and sorrow and temptation.
-    Sorrow is for those that remain in this vale of sorrow and darkness&mdash;I,
-    wha dinna sorrow, and wha canna sorrow for ony ane, hae maist need that
-    ye should a' sorrow for me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The voice of his mother, not heard for years as taking part in the active
-    duties of life, or offering advice or consolation, produced its effect
-    upon her son. He assumed a sitting posture on the side of the bed, and
-    his appearance, attitude, and gestures, changed from those of angry
-    despair to deep grief and dejection. The grandmother retired to her nook,
-    the mother mechanically took in her hand her tattered Bible, and seemed
-    to read, though her eyes were drowned with tears.
-</p>
-<p>
-    They were thus occupied, when a loud knock was heard at the door.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hegh, sirs!" said the poor mother, "wha is that can be coming in that
-    gate e'enow?&mdash;They canna hae heard o' our misfortune, I'm sure."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The knock being repeated, she rose and opened the door, saying
-    querulously, "Whatna gait's that to disturb a sorrowfu' house?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    A tall man in black stood before her, whom she instantly recognised to be
-    Lord Glenallan. "Is there not," he said, "an old woman lodging in this or
-    one of the neighbouring cottages, called Elspeth, who was long resident
-    at Craigburnfoot of Glenallan?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's my gudemither, my lord," said Margaret; "but she canna see onybody
-    e'enow&mdash;Ohon! we're dreeing a sair weird&mdash;we hae had a heavy
-    dispensation!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "God forbid," said Lord Glenallan, "that I should on light occasion
-    disturb your sorrow;&mdash;but my days are numbered&mdash;your mother-in-law is in
-    the extremity of age, and, if I see her not to-day, we may never meet on
-    this side of time."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And what," answered the desolate mother, "wad ye see at an auld woman,
-    broken down wi' age and sorrow and heartbreak? Gentle or semple shall not
-    darken my door the day my bairn's been carried out a corpse."
-</p>
-<p>
-    While she spoke thus, indulging the natural irritability of disposition
-    and profession, which began to mingle itself with her grief when its
-    first uncontrolled bursts were gone by, she held the door about one-third
-    part open, and placed herself in the gap, as if to render the visitor's
-    entrance impossible. But the voice of her husband was heard from within&mdash;"Wha's
-    that, Maggie? what for are ye steaking them out?&mdash;let them come
-    in; it doesna signify an auld rope's end wha comes in or wha gaes out o'
-    this house frae this time forward."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The woman stood aside at her husband's command, and permitted Lord
-    Glenallan to enter the hut. The dejection exhibited in his broken frame
-    and emaciated countenance, formed a strong contrast with the effects of
-    grief, as they were displayed in the rude and weatherbeaten visage of the
-    fisherman, and the masculine features of his wife. He approached the old
-    woman as she was seated on her usual settle, and asked her, in a tone as
-    audible as his voice could make it, "Are you Elspeth of the Craigburnfoot
-    of Glenallan?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Wha is it that asks about the unhallowed residence of that evil woman?"
-    was the answer returned to his query.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The unhappy Earl of Glenallan."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Earl!&mdash;Earl of Glenallan!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He who was called William Lord Geraldin," said the Earl; "and whom his
-    mother's death has made Earl of Glenallan."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Open the bole," said the old woman firmly and hastily to her
-    daughter-in-law, "open the bole wi' speed, that I may see if this be the
-    right Lord Geraldin&mdash;the son of my mistress&mdash;him that I received in my
-    arms within the hour after he was born&mdash;him that has reason to curse me
-    that I didna smother him before the hour was past!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The window, which had been shut in order that a gloomy twilight might add
-    to the solemnity of the funeral meeting, was opened as she commanded, and
-    threw a sudden and strong light through the smoky and misty atmosphere of
-    the stifling cabin. Falling in a stream upon the chimney, the rays
-    illuminated, in the way that Rembrandt would have chosen, the features of
-    the unfortunate nobleman, and those of the old sibyl, who now, standing
-    upon her feet, and holding him by one hand, peered anxiously in his
-    features with her light-blue eyes, and holding her long and withered
-    fore-finger within a small distance of his face, moved it slowly as if to
-    trace the outlines and reconcile what she recollected with that she now
-    beheld. As she finished her scrutiny, she said, with a deep sigh, "It's a
-    sair&mdash;sair change; and wha's fault is it?&mdash;but that's written down where
-    it will be remembered&mdash;it's written on tablets of brass with a pen of
-    steel, where all is recorded that is done in the flesh.&mdash;And what," she
-    said after a pause, "what is Lord Geraldin seeking from a poor auld
-    creature like me, that's dead already, and only belongs sae far to the
-    living that she isna yet laid in the moulds?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nay," answered Lord Glenallan, "in the name of Heaven, why was it that
-    you requested so urgently to see me?&mdash;and why did you back your request
-    by sending a token which you knew well I dared not refuse?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    As he spoke thus, he took from his purse the ring which Edie Ochiltree
-    had delivered to him at Glenallan House. The sight of this token produced
-    a strange and instantaneous effect upon the old woman. The palsy of fear
-    was immediately added to that of age, and she began instantly to search
-    her pockets with the tremulous and hasty agitation of one who becomes
-    first apprehensive of having lost something of great importance;&mdash;then,
-    as if convinced of the reality of her fears, she turned to the Earl, and
-    demanded, "And how came ye by it then?&mdash;how came ye by it? I thought I
-    had kept it sae securely&mdash;what will the Countess say?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You know," said the Earl, "at least you must have heard, that my mother
-    is dead."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dead! are ye no imposing upon me? has she left a' at last, lands and
-    lordship and lineages?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "All, all," said the Earl, "as mortals must leave all human vanities."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I mind now," answered Elspeth&mdash;"I heard of it before but there has been
-    sic distress in our house since, and my memory is sae muckle impaired&mdash;
-    But ye are sure your mother, the Lady Countess, is gane hame?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Earl again assured her that her former mistress was no more.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then," said Elspeth, "it shall burden my mind nae langer!&mdash;When she
-    lived, wha dared to speak what it would hae displeased her to hae had
-    noised abroad? But she's gane&mdash;and I will confess all."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Then turning to her son and daughter-in-law, she commanded them
-    imperatively to quit the house, and leave Lord Geraldin (for so she still
-    called him) alone with her. But Maggie Mucklebackit, her first burst of
-    grief being over, was by no means disposed in her own house to pay
-    passive obedience to the commands of her mother-in-law, an authority
-    which is peculiarly obnoxious to persons in her rank of life, and which
-    she was the more astonished at hearing revived, when it seemed to have
-    been so long relinquished and forgotten.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It was an unco thing," she said, in a grumbling tone of voice,&mdash;for the
-    rank of Lord Glenallan was somewhat imposing&mdash;"it was an unco thing to
-    bid a mother leave her ain house wi' the tear in her ee, the moment her
-    eldest son had been carried a corpse out at the door o't."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The fisherman, in a stubborn and sullen tone, added to the same purpose.
-    "This is nae day for your auld-warld stories, mother. My lord, if he be a
-    lord, may ca' some other day&mdash;or he may speak out what he has gotten to
-    say if he likes it; there's nane here will think it worth their while to
-    listen to him or you either. But neither for laird or loon, gentle or
-    semple, will I leave my ain house to pleasure onybody on the very day my
-    poor"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here his voice choked, and he could proceed no farther; but as he had
-    risen when Lord Glenallan came in, and had since remained standing, he
-    now threw himself doggedly upon a seat, and remained in the sullen
-    posture of one who was determined to keep his word.
-</p>
-<p>
-    But the old woman, whom this crisis seemed to repossess in all those
-    powers of mental superiority with which she had once been eminently
-    gifted, arose, and advancing towards him, said, with a solemn voice, "My
-    son, as ye wad shun hearing of your mother's shame&mdash;as ye wad not
-    willingly be a witness of her guilt&mdash;as ye wad deserve her blessing and
-    avoid her curse, I charge ye, by the body that bore and that nursed ye,
-    to leave me at freedom to speak with Lord Geraldin, what nae mortal ears
-    but his ain maun listen to. Obey my words, that when ye lay the moulds on
-    my head&mdash;and, oh that the day were come!&mdash;ye may remember this hour
-    without the reproach of having disobeyed the last earthly command that
-    ever your mother wared on you."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The terms of this solemn charge revived in the fisherman's heart the
-    habit of instinctive obedience in which his mother had trained him up,
-    and to which he had submitted implicitly while her powers of exacting it
-    remained entire. The recollection mingled also with the prevailing
-    passion of the moment; for, glancing his eye at the bed on which the dead
-    body had been laid, he muttered to himself, "<i>He</i> never disobeyed <i>me,</i>
-    in reason or out o' reason, and what for should I vex <i>her</i>?" Then,
-    taking his reluctant spouse by the arm, he led her gently out of the
-    cottage, and latched the door behind them as he left it.
-</p>
-<p>
-    As the unhappy parents withdrew, Lord Glenallan, to prevent the old woman
-    from relapsing into her lethargy, again pressed her on the subject of the
-    communication which she proposed to make to him.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ye will have it sune eneugh," she replied;&mdash;"my mind's clear eneugh now,
-    and there is not&mdash;I think there is not&mdash;a chance of my forgetting what I
-    have to say. My dwelling at Craigburnfoot is before my een, as it were
-    present in reality:&mdash;the green bank, with its selvidge, just where the
-    burn met wi' the sea&mdash;the twa little barks, wi' their sails furled, lying
-    in the natural cove which it formed&mdash;the high cliff that joined it with
-    the pleasure-grounds of the house of Glenallan, and hung right ower the
-    stream&mdash;Ah! yes&mdash;I may forget that I had a husband and have lost him&mdash;
-    that I hae but ane alive of our four fair sons&mdash;that misfortune upon
-    misfortune has devoured our ill-gotten wealth&mdash;that they carried the
-    corpse of my son's eldest-born frae the house this morning&mdash;But I never
-    can forget the days I spent at bonny Craigburnfoot!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You were a favourite of my mother," said Lord Glenallan, desirous to
-    bring her back to the point, from which she was wandering.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I was, I was,&mdash;ye needna mind me o' that. She brought me up abune my
-    station, and wi' knowledge mair than my fellows&mdash;but, like the tempter of
-    auld, wi' the knowledge of gude she taught me the knowledge of evil."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "For God's sake, Elspeth," said the astonished Earl, "proceed, if you
-    can, to explain the dreadful hints you have thrown out! I well know you
-    are confidant to one dreadful secret, which should split this roof even
-    to hear it named&mdash;but speak on farther."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I will," she said&mdash;"I will!&mdash;just bear wi' me for a little;"&mdash;and again
-    she seemed lost in recollection, but it was no longer tinged with
-    imbecility or apathy. She was now entering upon the topic which had long
-    loaded her mind, and which doubtless often occupied her whole soul at
-    times when she seemed dead to all around her. And I may add, as a
-    remarkable fact, that such was the intense operation of mental energy
-    upon her physical powers and nervous system, that, notwithstanding her
-    infirmity of deafness, each word that Lord Glenallan spoke during this
-    remarkable conference, although in the lowest tone of horror or agony,
-    fell as full and distinct upon Elspeth's ear as it could have done at any
-    period of her life. She spoke also herself clearly, distinctly, and
-    slowly, as if anxious that the intelligence she communicated should be
-    fully understood; concisely at the same time, and with none of the
-    verbiage or circumlocutory additions natural to those of her sex and
-    condition. In short, her language bespoke a better education, as well as
-    an uncommonly firm and resolved mind, and a character of that sort from
-    which great virtues or great crimes may be naturally expected. The tenor
-    of her communication is disclosed in the following CHAPTER.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0012"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER TWELFTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                    Remorse&mdash;she neer forsakes us&mdash;
-            A bloodhound staunch&mdash;she tracks our rapid step
-            Through the wild labyrinth of youthful frenzy,
-            Unheard, perchance, until old age hath tamed us
-         Then in our lair, when Time hath chilled our joints,
-             And maimed our hope of combat, or of flight,
-             We hear her deep-mouthed bay, announcing all
-             Of wrath, and wo, and punishment that bides us.
-                                            Old Play.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "I need not tell you," said the old woman, addressing the Earl of
-    Glenallan, "that I was the favourite and confidential attendant of
-    Joscelind, Countess of Glenallan, whom God assoilzie!"&mdash;(here she crossed
-    herself)&mdash;"and I think farther, ye may not have forgotten that I shared
-    her regard for mony years. I returned it by the maist sincere attachment,
-    but I fell into disgrace frae a trifling act of disobedience, reported to
-    your mother by ane that thought, and she wasna wrang, that I was a spy
-    upon her actions and yours."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I charge thee, woman," said the Earl, in a voice trembling with passion,
-    "name not her name in my hearing!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I must," returned the penitent firmly and calmly, "or how can you
-    understand me?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Earl leaned upon one of the wooden chairs of the hut, drew his hat
-    over his face, clenched his hands together, set his teeth like one who
-    summons up courage to undergo a painful operation, and made a signal to
-    her to proceed.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I say, then," she resumed, "that my disgrace with my mistress was
-    chiefly owing to Miss Eveline Neville, then bred up in Glenallan House as
-    the daughter of a cousin-german and intimate friend of your father that
-    was gane. There was muckle mystery in her history,&mdash;but wha dared to
-    inquire farther than the Countess liked to tell?&mdash;All in Glenallan House
-    loved Miss Neville&mdash;all but twa, your mother and mysell&mdash;we baith hated
-    her."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "God! for what reason, since a creature so mild, so gentle, so formed to
-    inspire affection, never walked on this wretched world?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It may hae been sae," rejoined Elspeth, "but your mother hated a' that
-    cam of your father's family&mdash;a' but himsell. Her reasons related to
-    strife which fell between them soon after her marriage; the particulars
-    are naething to this purpose. But oh! doubly did she hate Eveline Neville
-    when she perceived that there was a growing kindness atween you and that
-    unfortunate young leddy! Ye may mind that the Countess's dislike didna
-    gang farther at first than just showing o' the cauld shouther&mdash;at least
-    it wasna seen farther; but at the lang run it brak out into such
-    downright violence that Miss Neville was even fain to seek refuge at
-    Knockwinnock Castle with Sir Arthur's leddy, wha (God sain her!) was then
-    wi' the living."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You rend my heart by recalling these particulars&mdash;But go on,&mdash;and may my
-    present agony be accepted as additional penance for the involuntary
-    crime!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "She had been absent some months," continued Elspeth, "when I was ae
-    night watching in my hut the return of my husband from fishing, and
-    shedding in private those bitter tears that my proud spirit wrung frae me
-    whenever I thought on my disgrace. The sneck was drawn, and the Countess
-    your mother entered my dwelling. I thought I had seen a spectre, for even
-    in the height of my favour, this was an honour she had never done me, and
-    she looked as pale and ghastly as if she had risen from the grave. She
-    sat down, and wrung the draps from her hair and cloak,&mdash;for the night was
-    drizzling, and her walk had been through the plantations, that were a'
-    loaded with dew. I only mention these things that you may understand how
-    weel that night lives in my memory,&mdash;and weel it may. I was surprised to
-    see her, but I durstna speak first, mair than if I had seen a phantom&mdash;
-    Na, I durst not, my lord, I that hae seen mony sights of terror, and
-    never shook at them. Sae, after a silence, she said, Elspeth Cheyne (for
-    she always gave me my maiden name), are not ye the daughter of that
-    Reginald Cheyne who died to save his master, Lord Glenallan, on the field
-    of Sheriffmuir?' And I answered her as proudly as hersell nearly&mdash;As sure
-    as you are the daughter of that Earl of Glenallan whom my father saved
-    that day by his own death.'"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here she made a deep pause.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And what followed?&mdash;what followed?&mdash;For Heaven's sake, good woman&mdash;But
-    why should I use that word?&mdash;Yet, good or bad, I command you to tell me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And little I should value earthly command," answered Elspeth, "were
-    there not a voice that has spoken to me sleeping and waking, that drives
-    me forward to tell this sad tale. Aweel, my Lord&mdash;the Countess said to
-    me, My son loves Eveline Neville&mdash;they are agreed&mdash;they are plighted:
-    should they have a son, my right over Glenallan merges&mdash;I sink from that
-    moment from a Countess into a miserable stipendiary dowager, I who
-    brought lands and vassals, and high blood and ancient fame, to my
-    husband, I must cease to be mistress when my son has an heir-male. But I
-    care not for that&mdash;had he married any but one of the hated Nevilles, I
-    had been patient. But for them&mdash;that they and their descendants should
-    enjoy the right and honours of my ancestors, goes through my heart like a
-    two-edged dirk. And this girl&mdash;I detest her!'&mdash;And I answered, for my
-    heart kindled at her words, that her hate was equalled by mine."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Wretch!" exclaimed the Earl, in spite of his determination to preserve
-    silence&mdash;"wretched woman! what cause of hate could have arisen from a
-    being so innocent and gentle?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I hated what my mistress hated, as was the use with the liege vassals of
-    the house of Glenallan; for though, my Lord, I married under my degree,
-    yet an ancestor of yours never went to the field of battle, but an
-    ancestor of the frail, demented, auld, useless wretch wha now speaks with
-    you, carried his shield before him. But that was not a'," continued the
-    beldam, her earthly and evil passions rekindling as she became heated in
-    her narration&mdash;"that was not a'; I hated Miss Eveline Neville for her ain
-    sake, I brought her frae England, and, during our whole journey, she
-    gecked and scorned at my northern speech and habit, as her southland
-    leddies and kimmers had done at the boarding-school, as they cald it"&mdash;(and, strange as it may seem, she spoke of an affront offered by a
-    heedless school-girl without intention, with a degree of inveteracy
-    which, at such a distance of time, a mortal offence would neither have
-    authorized or excited in any well-constituted mind)&mdash;"Yes, she scorned
-    and jested at me&mdash;but let them that scorn the tartan fear the dirk!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    She paused, and then went on&mdash;"But I deny not that I hated her mair than
-    she deserved. My mistress, the Countess, persevered and said, Elspeth
-    Cheyne, this unruly boy will marry with the false English blood. Were
-    days as they have been, I could throw her into the Massymore* of
-    Glenallan, and fetter him in the Keep of Strathbonnel.
-</p>
-<p>
-    * <i>Massa-mora,</i> an ancient name for a dungeon, derived from the Moorish
-    language, perhaps as far back as the time of the Crusades.
-</p>
-<p>
-    But these times are past, and the authority which the nobles of the land
-    should exercise is delegated to quibbling lawyers and their baser
-    dependants. Hear me, Elspeth Cheyne! if you are your father's daughter as
-    I am mine, I will find means that they shall not marry. She walks often
-    to that cliff that overhangs your dwelling to look for her lover's boat&mdash;(ye may remember the pleasure ye then took on the sea, my Lord)&mdash;let him
-    find her forty fathom lower than he expects!'&mdash;Yes! ye may stare and
-    frown and clench your hand; but, as sure as I am to face the only Being I
-    ever feared&mdash;and, oh that I had feared him mair!&mdash;these were your
-    mother's words. What avails it to me to lie to you?&mdash;But I wadna consent
-    to stain my hand with blood.&mdash;Then she said, By the religion of our holy
-    Church they are ower <i>sibb</i> thegither. But I expect nothing but that both
-    will become heretics as well as disobedient reprobates;'&mdash;that was her
-    addition to that argument. And then, as the fiend is ever ower busy wi'
-    brains like mine, that are subtle beyond their use and station, I was
-    unhappily permitted to add&mdash;But they might be brought to think themselves
-    sae <i>sibb</i> as no Christian law will permit their wedlock.'"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here the Earl of Glenallan echoed her words, with a shriek so piercing as
-    almost to rend the roof of the cottage.&mdash;"Ah! then Eveline Neville was
-    not the&mdash;the"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The daughter, ye would say, of your father?" continued Elspeth. "No&mdash;be
-    it a torment or be it a comfort to you&mdash;ken the truth, she was nae mair a
-    daughter of your father's house than I am."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Woman, deceive me not!&mdash;make me not curse the memory of the parent I
-    have so lately laid in the grave, for sharing in a plot the most cruel,
-    the most infernal"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Bethink ye, my Lord Geraldin, ere ye curse the memory of a parent that's
-    gane, is there none of the blood of Glenallan living, whose faults have
-    led to this dreadfu' catastrophe?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mean you my brother?&mdash;he, too, is gone," said the Earl.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No," replied the sibyl, "I mean yoursell, Lord Geraldin. Had you not
-    transgressed the obedience of a son by wedding Eveline Neville in secret
-    while a guest at Knockwinnock, our plot might have separated you for a
-    time, but would have left at least your sorrows without remorse to canker
-    them. But your ain conduct had put poison in the weapon that we threw,
-    and it pierced you with the mair force because ye cam rushing to meet it.
-    Had your marriage been a proclaimed and acknowledged action, our
-    stratagem to throw an obstacle into your way that couldna be got ower,
-    neither wad nor could hae been practised against ye."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Great Heaven!" said the unfortunate nobleman&mdash;"it is as if a film fell
-    from my obscured eyes! Yes, I now well understand the doubtful hints of
-    consolation thrown out by my wretched mother, tending indirectly to
-    impeach the evidence of the horrors of which her arts had led me to
-    believe myself guilty."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "She could not speak mair plainly," answered Elspeth, "without confessing
-    her ain fraud,&mdash;and she would have submitted to be torn by wild horses,
-    rather than unfold what she had done; and if she had still lived, so
-    would I for her sake. They were stout hearts the race of Glenallan, male
-    and female, and sae were a' that in auld times cried their gathering-word
-    of <i>Clochnaben</i>&mdash;they stood shouther to shouther&mdash;nae man parted frae his
-    chief for love of gold or of gain, or of right or of wrang. The times are
-    changed, I hear, now."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The unfortunate nobleman was too much wrapped up in his own confused and
-    distracted reflections, to notice the rude expressions of savage
-    fidelity, in which, even in the latest ebb of life, the unhappy author of
-    his misfortunes seemed to find a stern and stubborn source of
-    consolation.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Great Heaven!" he exclaimed, "I am then free from a guilt the most
-    horrible with which man can be stained, and the sense of which, however
-    involuntary, has wrecked my peace, destroyed my health, and bowed me down
-    to an untimely grave. Accept," he fervently uttered, lifting his eyes
-    upwards, "accept my humble thanks! If I live miserable, at least I shall
-    not die stained with that unnatural guilt!&mdash;And thou&mdash;proceed if thou
-    hast more to tell&mdash;proceed, while thou hast voice to speak it, and I have
-    powers to listen."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes," answered the beldam, "the hour when you shall hear, and I shall
-    speak, is indeed passing rapidly away. Death has crossed your brow with
-    his finger, and I find his grasp turning every day coulder at my heart.
-    Interrupt me nae mair with exclamations and groans and accusations, but
-    hear my tale to an end! And then&mdash;if ye be indeed sic a Lord of Glenallan
-    as I hae heard of in <i>my</i> day&mdash;make your merrymen gather the thorn, and
-    the brier, and the green hollin, till they heap them as high as the
-    house-riggin', and burn! burn! burn! the auld witch Elspeth, and a' that
-    can put ye in mind that sic a creature ever crawled upon the land!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Go on," said the Earl, "go on&mdash;I will not again interrupt you."
-</p>
-<p>
-    He spoke in a half-suffocated yet determined voice, resolved that no
-    irritability on his part should deprive him of this opportunity of
-    acquiring proofs of the wonderful tale he then heard. But Elspeth had
-    become exhausted by a continuous narration of such unusual length; the
-    subsequent part of her story was more broken, and though still distinctly
-    intelligible in most parts, had no longer the lucid conciseness which the
-    first part of her narrative had displayed to such an astonishing degree.
-    Lord Glenallan found it necessary, when she had made some attempts to
-    continue her narrative without success, to prompt her memory by
-    demanding&mdash;"What proofs she could propose to bring of the truth of a
-    narrative so different from that which she had originally told?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The evidence," she replied, "of Eveline Neville's real birth was in the
-    Countess's possession, with reasons for its being for some time kept
-    private;&mdash;they may yet be found, if she has not destroyed them, in the
-    left hand drawer of the ebony cabinet that stood in the dressing-room.
-    These she meant to suppress for the time, until you went abroad again,
-    when she trusted, before your return, to send Miss Neville back to her
-    ain country, or to get her settled in marriage."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But did you not show me letters of my father's, which seemed to me,
-    unless my senses altogether failed me in that horrible moment, to avow
-    his relationship to&mdash;to the unhappy"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We did; and, with my testimony, how could you doubt the fact, or her
-    either? But we suppressed the true explanation of these letters, and that
-    was, that your father thought it right the young leddy should pass for
-    his daughter for a while, on account o'some family reasons that were
-    amang them."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But wherefore, when you learned our union, was this dreadful artifice
-    persisted in?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It wasna," she replied, "till Lady Glenallan had communicated this fause
-    tale, that she suspected ye had actually made a marriage&mdash;nor even then
-    did you avow it sae as to satisfy her whether the ceremony had in verity
-    passed atween ye or no&mdash;But ye remember, O ye canna but remember weel,
-    what passed in that awfu' meeting!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Woman! you swore upon the gospels to the fact which you now disavow."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I did,&mdash;and I wad hae taen a yet mair holy pledge on it, if there had
-    been ane&mdash;I wad not hae spared the blood of my body, or the guilt of my
-    soul, to serve the house of Glenallan."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Wretch! do you call that horrid perjury, attended with consequences yet
-    more dreadful&mdash;do you esteem that a service to the house of your
-    benefactors?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I served her, wha was then the head of Glenallan, as she required me to
-    serve her. The cause was between God and her conscience&mdash;the manner
-    between God and mine&mdash;She is gane to her account, and I maun follow. Have
-    I taulds you a'?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No," answered Lord Glenallan&mdash;"you have yet more to tell&mdash;you have to
-    tell me of the death of the angel whom your perjury drove to despair,
-    stained, as she thought herself, with a crime so horrible. Speak truth&mdash;was that dreadful&mdash;was that horrible incident"&mdash;he could scarcely
-    articulate the words&mdash;"was it as reported? or was it an act of yet
-    further, though not more atrocious cruelty, inflicted by others?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I understand you," said Elspeth. "But report spoke truth;&mdash;our false
-    witness was indeed the cause, but the deed was her ain distracted act. On
-    that fearfu' disclosure, when ye rushed frae the Countess's presence and
-    saddled your horse, and left the castle like a fire-flaught, the Countess
-    hadna yet discovered your private marriage; she hadna fund out that the
-    union, which she had framed this awfu' tale to prevent, had e'en taen
-    place. Ye fled from the house as if the fire o' Heaven was about to fa'
-    upon it, and Miss Neville, atween reason and the want o't, was put under
-    sure ward. But the ward sleep't, and the prisoner waked&mdash;the window was
-    open&mdash;the way was before her&mdash;there was the cliff, and there was the
-    sea!&mdash;O, when will I forget that!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And thus died," said the Earl, "even so as was reported?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, my lord. I had gane out to the cove&mdash;the tide was in, and it flowed,
-    as ye'll remember, to the foot o' that cliff&mdash;it was a great convenience
-    that for my husband's trade&mdash;Where am I wandering?&mdash;I saw a white object
-    dart frae the tap o' the cliff like a sea-maw through the mist, and then
-    a heavy flash and sparkle of the waters showed me it was a human creature
-    that had fa'en into the waves. I was bold and strong, and familiar with
-    the tide. I rushed in and grasped her gown, and drew her out and carried
-    her on my shouthers&mdash;I could hae carried twa sic then&mdash;carried her to my
-    hut, and laid her on my bed. Neighbours cam and brought help; but the
-    words she uttered in her ravings, when she got back the use of speech,
-    were such, that I was fain to send them awa, and get up word to Glenallan
-    House. The Countess sent down her Spanish servant Teresa&mdash;if ever there
-    was a fiend on earth in human form, that woman was ane. She and I were to
-    watch the unhappy leddy, and let no other person approach.&mdash;God knows
-    what Teresa's part was to hae been&mdash;she tauld it not to me&mdash;but Heaven
-    took the conclusion in its ain hand. The poor leddy! she took the pangs
-    of travail before her time, bore a male child, and died in the arms of
-    me&mdash;of her mortal enemy! Ay, <i>ye</i> may weep&mdash;she was a sightly creature to
-    see to&mdash;but think ye, if I didna mourn her then, that I can mourn her
-    now? Na, na, I left Teresa wi' the dead corpse and new-born babe, till I
-    gaed up to take the Countess's commands what was to be done. Late as it
-    was, I ca'd her up, and she gar'd me ca' up your brother"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My brother?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes, Lord Geraldin, e'en your brother, that some said she aye wished to
-    be her heir. At ony rate, he was the person maist concerned in the
-    succession and heritance of the house of Glenallan."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And is it possible to believe, then, that my brother, out of avarice to
-    grasp at my inheritance, would lend himself to such a base and dreadful
-    stratagem?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Your mother believed it," said the old beldam with a fiendish laugh&mdash;"it
-    was nae plot of my making; but what they did or said I will not say,
-    because I did not hear. Lang and sair they consulted in the black
-    wainscot dressing-room; and when your brother passed through the room
-    where I was waiting, it seemed to me (and I have often thought sae since
-    syne) that the fire of hell was in his cheek and een. But he had left
-    some of it with his mother, at ony rate. She entered the room like a
-    woman demented, and the first words she spoke were, Elspeth Cheyne, did
-    you ever pull a new-budded flower?' I answered, as ye may believe, that I
-    often had. Then,' said she, ye will ken the better how to blight the
-    spurious and heretical blossom that has sprung forth this night to
-    disgrace my father's noble house&mdash;See here;'&mdash;(and she gave me a golden
-    bodkin)&mdash;nothing but gold must shed the blood of Glenallan. This child is
-    already as one of the dead, and since thou and Teresa alone ken that it
-    lives, let it be dealt upon as ye will answer to me!' and she turned away
-    in her fury, and left me with the bodkin in my hand.&mdash;Here it is; that
-    and the ring of Miss Neville, are a' I hae preserved of my ill-gotten
-    gear&mdash;for muckle was the gear I got. And weel hae I keepit the secret,
-    but no for the gowd or gear either."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Her long and bony hand held out to Lord Glenallan a gold bodkin, down
-    which in fancy he saw the blood of his infant trickling.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Wretch! had you the heart?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I kenna if I could hae had it or no. I returned to my cottage without
-    feeling the ground that I trode on; but Teresa and the child were gane&mdash;
-    a' that was alive was gane&mdash;naething left but the lifeless corpse."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And did you never learn my infant's fate?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I could but guess. I have tauld ye your mother's purpose, and I ken
-    Teresa was a fiend. She was never mair seen in Scotland, and I have heard
-    that she returned to her ain land. A dark curtain has fa'en ower the
-    past, and the few that witnessed ony part of it could only surmise
-    something of seduction and suicide. You yourself"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I know&mdash;I know it all," answered the Earl.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You indeed know all that I can say&mdash;And now, heir of Glenallan, can you
-    forgive me?"
-</p>
-<a name="image-0006"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/pb150.jpg" height="797" width="536"
-alt="Lord Glenallen and Elspeth
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<p>
-    "Ask forgiveness of God, and not of man," said the Earl, turning away.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And how shall I ask of the pure and unstained what is denied to me by a
-    sinner like mysell? If I hae sinned, hae I not suffered?&mdash;Hae I had a
-    day's peace or an hour's rest since these lang wet locks of hair first
-    lay upon my pillow at Craigburnfoot?&mdash;Has not my house been burned, wi'
-    my bairn in the cradle?&mdash;Have not my boats been wrecked, when a' others
-    weather'd the gale?&mdash;Have not a' that were near and dear to me dree'd
-    penance for my sin?&mdash;Has not the fire had its share o' them&mdash;the winds
-    had their part&mdash;the sea had her part?&mdash;And oh!" she added, with a
-    lengthened groan, looking first upwards towards Heaven, and then bending
-    her eyes on the floor&mdash;"O that the earth would take her part, that's been
-    lang lang wearying to be joined to it!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lord Glenallan had reached the door of the cottage, but the generosity of
-    his nature did not permit him to leave the unhappy woman in this state of
-    desperate reprobation. "May God forgive thee, wretched woman," he said,
-    "as sincerely as I do!&mdash;Turn for mercy to Him who can alone grant mercy,
-    and may your prayers be heard as if they were mine own!&mdash;I will send a
-    religious man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, na&mdash;nae priest! nae priest!" she ejaculated; and the door of the
-    cottage opening as she spoke, prevented her from proceeding.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0013"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-          Still in his dead hand clenched remain the strings
-              That thrill his father's heart&mdash;e'en as the limb,
-          Lopped off and laid in grave, retains, they tell us,
-              Strange commerce with the mutilated stump,
-          Whose nerves are twinging still in maimed existence.
-                                           Old Play.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The Antiquary, as we informed the reader in the end of the thirty-first
-    CHAPTER, [tenth] had shaken off the company of worthy Mr. Blattergowl,
-    although he offered to entertain him with an abstract of the ablest
-    speech he had ever known in the teind court, delivered by the procurator
-    for the church in the remarkable case of the parish of Gatherem.
-    Resisting this temptation, our senior preferred a solitary path, which
-    again conducted him to the cottage of Mucklebackit. When he came in front
-    of the fisherman's hut, he observed a man working intently, as if to
-    repair a shattered boat which lay upon the beach, and going up to him was
-    surprised to find it was Mucklebackit himself. "I am glad," he said in a
-    tone of sympathy&mdash;"I am glad, Saunders, that you feel yourself able to
-    make this exertion."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And what would ye have me to do," answered the fisher gruffly, "unless I
-    wanted to see four children starve, because ane is drowned? It's weel wi'
-    you gentles, that can sit in the house wi' handkerchers at your een when
-    ye lose a friend; but the like o' us maun to our wark again, if our
-    hearts were beating as hard as my hammer."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Without taking more notice of Oldbuck, he proceeded in his labour; and
-    the Antiquary, to whom the display of human nature under the influence of
-    agitating passions was never indifferent, stood beside him, in silent
-    attention, as if watching the progress of the work. He observed more than
-    once the man's hard features, as if by the force of association, prepare
-    to accompany the sound of the saw and hammer with his usual symphony of a
-    rude tune, hummed or whistled,&mdash;and as often a slight twitch of
-    convulsive expression showed, that ere the sound was uttered, a cause for
-    suppressing it rushed upon his mind. At length, when he had patched a
-    considerable rent, and was beginning to mend another, his feelings
-    appeared altogether to derange the power of attention necessary for his
-    work. The piece of wood which he was about to nail on was at first too
-    long; then he sawed it off too short, then chose another equally ill
-    adapted for the purpose. At length, throwing it down in anger, after
-    wiping his dim eye with his quivering hand, he exclaimed, "There is a
-    curse either on me or on this auld black bitch of a boat, that I have
-    hauled up high and dry, and patched and clouted sae mony years, that she
-    might drown my poor Steenie at the end of them, an' be d&mdash;d to her!" and
-    he flung his hammer against the boat, as if she had been the intentional
-    cause of his misfortune. Then recollecting himself, he added, "Yet what
-    needs ane be angry at her, that has neither soul nor sense?&mdash;though I am
-    no that muckle better mysell. She's but a rickle o' auld rotten deals
-    nailed thegither, and warped wi' the wind and the sea&mdash;and I am a dour
-    carle, battered by foul weather at sea and land till I am maist as
-    senseless as hersell. She maun be mended though again the morning tide&mdash;that's
-    a thing o' necessity."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Thus speaking, he went to gather together his instruments, and attempt to
-    resume his labour,&mdash;but Oldbuck took him kindly by the arm. "Come, come,"
-    he said, "Saunders, there is no work for you this day&mdash;I'll send down
-    Shavings the carpenter to mend the boat, and he may put the day's work
-    into my account&mdash;and you had better not come out to-morrow, but stay to
-    comfort your family under this dispensation, and the gardener will bring
-    you some vegetables and meal from Monkbarns."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I thank ye, Monkbarns," answered the poor fisher; "I am a plain-spoken
-    man, and hae little to say for mysell; I might hae learned fairer
-    fashions frae my mither lang syne, but I never saw muckle gude they did
-    her; however, I thank ye. Ye were aye kind and neighbourly, whatever folk
-    says o' your being near and close; and I hae often said, in thae times
-    when they were ganging to raise up the puir folk against the gentles&mdash;I
-    hae often said, neer a man should steer a hair touching to Monkbarns
-    while Steenie and I could wag a finger&mdash;and so said Steenie too. And,
-    Monkbarns, when ye laid his head in the grave (and mony thanks for the
-    respect), ye, saw the mouls laid on an honest lad that likit you weel,
-    though he made little phrase about it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Oldbuck, beaten from the pride of his affected cynicism, would not
-    willingly have had any one by on that occasion to quote to him his
-    favourite maxims of the Stoic philosophy. The large drops fell fast from
-    his own eyes, as he begged the father, who was now melted at recollecting
-    the bravery and generous sentiments of his son, to forbear useless
-    sorrow, and led him by the arm towards his own home, where another scene
-    awaited our Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    As he entered, the first person whom he beheld was Lord Glenallan. Mutual
-    surprise was in their countenances as they saluted each other&mdash;with
-    haughty reserve on the part of Mr. Oldbuck, and embarrassment on that of
-    the Earl.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My Lord Glenallan, I think?" said Mr. Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes&mdash;much changed from what he was when he knew Mr. Oldbuck."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I do not mean," said the Antiquary, "to intrude upon your lordship&mdash;I
-    only came to see this distressed family."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And you have found one, sir, who has still greater claims on your
-    compassion."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My compassion? Lord Glenallan cannot need my compassion. If Lord
-    Glenallan could need it, I think he would hardly ask it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Our former acquaintance," said the Earl&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Is of such ancient date, my lord&mdash;was of such short duration, and was
-    connected with circumstances so exquisitely painful, that I think we may
-    dispense with renewing it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    So saying, the Antiquary turned away, and left the hut; but Lord
-    Glenallan followed him into the open air, and, in spite of a hasty "Good
-    morning, my lord," requested a few minutes' conversation, and the favour
-    of his advice in an important matter.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Your lordship will find many more capable to advise you, my lord, and by
-    whom your intercourse will be deemed an honour. For me, I am a man
-    retired from business and the world, and not very fond of raking up the
-    past events of my useless life;&mdash;and forgive me if I say, I have
-    particular pain in reverting to that period of it when I acted like a
-    fool, and your lordship like"&mdash;He stopped short.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Like a villain, you would say," said Lord Glenallan&mdash;"for such I must
-    have appeared to you."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My lord&mdash;my lord, I have no desire to hear your shrift," said the
-    Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But, sir, if I can show you that I am more sinned against than sinning&mdash;
-    that I have been a man miserable beyond the power of description, and who
-    looks forward at this moment to an untimely grave as to a haven of rest,
-    you will not refuse the confidence which, accepting your appearance at
-    this critical moment as a hint from Heaven, I venture thus to press on
-    you."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Assuredly, my lord, I shall shun no longer the continuation of this
-    extraordinary interview."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I must then recall to you our occasional meetings upwards of twenty
-    years since at Knockwinnock Castle,&mdash;and I need not remind you of a lady
-    who was then a member of that family."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The unfortunate Miss Eveline Neville, my lord; I remember it well."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Towards whom you entertained sentiments"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Very different from those with which I before and since have regarded
-    her sex. Her gentleness, her docility, her pleasure in the studies which
-    I pointed out to her, attached my affections more than became my age
-    though that was not then much advanced&mdash;or the solidity of my character.
-    But I need not remind your lordship of the various modes in which you
-    indulged your gaiety at the expense of an awkward and retired student,
-    embarrassed by the expression of feelings so new to him, and I have no
-    doubt that the young lady joined you in the well-deserved ridicule&mdash;it is
-    the way of womankind. I have spoken at once to the painful circumstances
-    of my addresses and their rejection, that your lordship may be satisfied
-    everything is full in my memory, and may, so far as I am concerned, tell
-    your story without scruple or needless delicacy."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I will," said Lord Glenallan. "But first let me say, you do injustice to
-    the memory of the gentlest and kindest, as well as to the most unhappy of
-    women, to suppose she could make a jest of the honest affection of a man
-    like you. Frequently did she blame me, Mr. Oldbuck, for indulging my
-    levity at your expense&mdash;may I now presume you will excuse the gay
-    freedoms which then offended you?&mdash;my state of mind has never since laid
-    me under the necessity of apologizing for the inadvertencies of a light
-    and happy temper."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My lord, you are fully pardoned," said Mr. Oldbuck. "You should be
-    aware, that, like all others, I was ignorant at the time that I placed
-    myself in competition with your lordship, and understood that Miss
-    Neville was in a state of dependence which might make her prefer a
-    competent independence and the hand of an honest man&mdash;But I am wasting
-    time&mdash;I would I could believe that the views entertained towards her by
-    others were as fair and honest as mine!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mr. Oldbuck, you judge harshly."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not without cause, my lord. When I only, of all the magistrates of this
-    county&mdash;having neither, like some of them, the honour to be connected
-    with your powerful family&mdash;nor, like others, the meanness to fear it,&mdash;
-    when I made some inquiry into the manner of Miss Neville's death&mdash;I shake
-    you, my lord, but I must be plain&mdash;I do own I had every reason to believe
-    that she had met most unfair dealing, and had either been imposed upon by
-    a counterfeit marriage, or that very strong measures had been adopted to
-    stifle and destroy the evidence of a real union. And I cannot doubt in my
-    own mind, that this cruelty on your lordship's part, whether coming of
-    your own free will, or proceeding from the influence of the late
-    Countess, hurried the unfortunate young lady to the desperate act by
-    which her life was terminated."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You are deceived, Mr. Oldbuck, into conclusions which are not just,
-    however naturally they flow from the circumstances. Believe me, I
-    respected you even when I was most embarrassed by your active attempts to
-    investigate our family misfortunes. You showed yourself more worthy of
-    Miss Neville than I, by the spirit with which you persisted in
-    vindicating her reputation even after her death. But the firm belief that
-    your well-meant efforts could only serve to bring to light a story too
-    horrible to be detailed, induced me to join my unhappy mother in schemes
-    to remove or destroy all evidence of the legal union which had taken
-    place between Eveline and myself. And now let us sit down on this bank,&mdash;for
-    I feel unable to remain longer standing,&mdash;and have the goodness to
-    listen to the extraordinary discovery which I have this day made."
-</p>
-<p>
-    They sate down accordingly; and Lord Glenallan briefly narrated his
-    unhappy family history&mdash;his concealed marriage&mdash;the horrible invention by
-    which his mother had designed to render impossible that union which had
-    already taken place. He detailed the arts by which the Countess, having
-    all the documents relative to Miss Neville's birth in her hands, had
-    produced those only relating to a period during which, for family
-    reasons, his father had consented to own that young lady as his natural
-    daughter, and showed how impossible it was that he could either suspect
-    or detect the fraud put upon him by his mother, and vouched by the oaths
-    of her attendants, Teresa and Elspeth. "I left my paternal mansion," he
-    concluded, "as if the furies of hell had driven me forth, and travelled
-    with frantic velocity I knew not whither. Nor have I the slightest
-    recollection of what I did or whither I went, until I was discovered by
-    my brother. I will not trouble you with an account of my sick-bed and
-    recovery, or how, long afterwards, I ventured to inquire after the sharer
-    of my misfortunes, and heard that her despair had found a dreadful remedy
-    for all the ills of life. The first thing that roused me to thought was
-    hearing of your inquiries into this cruel business; and you will hardly
-    wonder, that, believing what I did believe, I should join in those
-    expedients to stop your investigation, which my brother and mother had
-    actively commenced. The information which I gave them concerning the
-    circumstances and witnesses of our private marriage enabled them to
-    baffle your zeal. The clergyman, therefore, and witnesses, as persons who
-    had acted in the matter only to please the powerful heir of Glenallan,
-    were accessible to his promises and threats, and were so provided for,
-    that they had no objections to leave this country for another. For
-    myself, Mr. Oldbuck," pursued this unhappy man, "from that moment I
-    considered myself as blotted out of the book of the living, and as having
-    nothing left to do with this world. My mother tried to reconcile me to
-    life by every art&mdash;even by intimations which I can now interpret as
-    calculated to produce a doubt of the horrible tale she herself had
-    fabricated. But I construed all she said as the fictions of maternal
-    affection. I will forbear all reproach. She is no more&mdash;and, as her
-    wretched associate said, she knew not how the dart was poisoned, or how
-    deep it must sink, when she threw it from her hand. But, Mr. Oldbuck, if
-    ever, during these twenty years, there crawled upon earth a living being
-    deserving of your pity, I have been that man. My food has not nourished
-    me&mdash;my sleep has not refreshed me&mdash;my devotions have not comforted me&mdash;all
-    that is cheering and necessary to man has been to me converted into
-    poison. The rare and limited intercourse which I have held with others
-    has been most odious to me. I felt as if I were bringing the
-    contamination of unnatural and inexpressible guilt among the gay and the
-    innocent. There have been moments when I had thoughts of another
-    description&mdash;to plunge into the adventures of war, or to brave the
-    dangers of the traveller in foreign and barbarous climates&mdash;to mingle in
-    political intrigue, or to retire to the stern seclusion of the anchorites
-    of our religion;&mdash;all these are thoughts which have alternately passed
-    through my mind, but each required an energy, which was mine no longer,
-    after the withering stroke I had received. I vegetated on as I could in
-    the same spot&mdash;fancy, feeling, judgment, and health, gradually decaying,
-    like a tree whose bark has been destroyed,&mdash;when first the blossoms fade,
-    then the boughs, until its state resembles the decayed and dying trunk
-    that is now before you. Do you now pity and forgive me?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My lord," answered the Antiquary, much affected, "my pity&mdash;my
-    forgiveness, you have not to ask, for your dismal story is of itself not
-    only an ample excuse for whatever appeared mysterious in your conduct,
-    but a narrative that might move your worst enemies (and I, my lord, was
-    never of the number) to tears and to sympathy. But permit me to ask what
-    you now mean to do, and why you have honoured me, whose opinion can be of
-    little consequence, with your confidence on this occasion?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mr. Oldbuck," answered the Earl, "as I could never have foreseen the
-    nature of that confession which I have heard this day, I need not say
-    that I had no formed plan of consulting you, or any one, upon affairs the
-    tendency of which I could not even have suspected. But I am without
-    friends, unused to business, and, by long retirement, unacquainted alike
-    with the laws of the land and the habits of the living generation; and
-    when, most unexpectedly, I find myself immersed in the matters of which I
-    know least, I catch, like a drowning man, at the first support that
-    offers. You are that support, Mr. Oldbuck. I have always heard you
-    mentioned as a man of wisdom and intelligence&mdash;I have known you myself as
-    a man of a resolute and independent spirit;&mdash;and there is one
-    circumstance," said he, "which ought to combine us in some degree&mdash;our
-    having paid tribute to the same excellence of character in poor Eveline.
-    You offered yourself to me in my need, and you were already acquainted
-    with the beginning of my misfortunes. To you, therefore, I have recourse
-    for advice, for sympathy, for support."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You shall seek none of them in vain, my lord," said Oldbuck, "so far as
-    my slender ability extends;&mdash;and I am honoured by the preference, whether
-    it arises from choice, or is prompted by chance. But this is a matter to
-    be ripely considered. May I ask what are your principal views at
-    present?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "To ascertain the fate of my child," said the Earl, "be the consequences
-    what they may, and to do justice to the honour of Eveline, which I have
-    only permitted to be suspected to avoid discovery of the yet more
-    horrible taint to which I was made to believe it liable."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And the memory of your mother?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Must bear its own burden," answered the Earl with a sigh: "better that
-    she were justly convicted of deceit, should that be found necessary, than
-    that others should be unjustly accused of crimes so much more dreadful."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then, my lord," said Oldbuck, "our first business must be to put the
-    information of the old woman, Elspeth, into a regular and authenticated
-    form."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "That," said Lord Glenallan, "will be at present, I fear, impossible. She
-    is exhausted herself, and surrounded by her distressed family. To-morrow,
-    perhaps, when she is alone&mdash;and yet I doubt, from her imperfect sense of
-    right and wrong, whether she would speak out in any one's presence but my
-    own. I am too sorely fatigued."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then, my lord," said the Antiquary, whom the interest of the moment
-    elevated above points of expense and convenience, which had generally
-    more than enough of weight with him, "I would propose to your lordship,
-    instead of returning, fatigued as you are, so far as to Glenallan House,
-    or taking the more uncomfortable alternative of going to a bad inn at
-    Fairport, to alarm all the busybodies of the town&mdash;I would propose, I
-    say, that you should be my guest at Monkbarns for this night. By
-    to-morrow these poor people will have renewed their out-of-doors
-    vocation&mdash;for sorrow with them affords no respite from labour,&mdash;and we
-    will visit the old woman Elspeth alone, and take down her examination."
-</p>
-<p>
-    After a formal apology for the encroachment, Lord Glenallan agreed to go
-    with him, and underwent with patience in their return home the whole
-    history of John of the Girnel, a legend which Mr. Oldbuck was never known
-    to spare any one who crossed his threshold.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The arrival of a stranger of such note, with two saddle-horses and a
-    servant in black, which servant had holsters on his saddle-bow, and a
-    coronet upon the holsters, created a general commotion in the house of
-    Monkbarns. Jenny Rintherout, scarce recovered from the hysterics which
-    she had taken on hearing of poor Steenie's misfortune, chased about the
-    turkeys and poultry, cackled and screamed louder than they did, and ended
-    by killing one-half too many. Miss Griselda made many wise reflections on
-    the hot-headed wilfulness of her brother, who had occasioned such
-    devastation, by suddenly bringing in upon them a papist nobleman. And she
-    ventured to transmit to Mr. Blattergowl some hint of the unusual
-    slaughter which had taken place in the <i>basse-cour,</i> which brought the
-    honest clergyman to inquire how his friend Monkbarns had got home, and
-    whether he was not the worse of being at the funeral, at a period so near
-    the ringing of the bell for dinner, that the Antiquary had no choice left
-    but to invite him to stay and bless the meat. Miss M'Intyre had on her
-    part some curiosity to see this mighty peer, of whom all had heard, as an
-    eastern caliph or sultan is heard of by his subjects, and felt some
-    degree of timidity at the idea of encountering a person, of whose
-    unsocial habits and stern manners so many stories were told, that her
-    fear kept at least pace with her curiosity. The aged housekeeper was no
-    less flustered and hurried in obeying the numerous and contradictory
-    commands of her mistress, concerning preserves, pastry and fruit, the
-    mode of marshalling and dishing the dinner, the necessity of not
-    permitting the melted butter to run to oil, and the danger of allowing
-    Juno&mdash;who, though formally banished from the parlour, failed not to
-    maraud about the out-settlements of the family&mdash;to enter the kitchen.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The only inmate of Monkbarns who remained entirely indifferent on this
-    momentous occasion was Hector M'Intyre, who cared no more for an Earl
-    than he did for a commoner, and who was only interested in the unexpected
-    visit, as it might afford some protection against his uncle's
-    displeasure, if he harboured any, for his not attending the funeral, and
-    still more against his satire upon the subject of his gallant but
-    unsuccessful single combat with the <i>phoca,</i> or seal.
-</p>
-<p>
-    To these, the inmates of his household, Oldbuck presented the Earl of
-    Glenallan, who underwent, with meek and subdued civility, the prosing
-    speeches of the honest divine, and the lengthened apologies of Miss
-    Griselda Oldbuck, which her brother in vain endeavoured to abridge.
-    Before the dinner hour, Lord Glenallan requested permission to retire a
-    while to his chamber. Mr. Oldbuck accompanied his guest to the Green
-    Room, which had been hastily prepared for his reception. He looked around
-    with an air of painful recollection.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I think," at length he observed, "I think, Mr. Oldbuck, that I have been
-    in this apartment before."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes, my lord," answered Oldbuck, "upon occasion of an excursion hither
-    from Knockwinnock&mdash;and since we are upon a subject so melancholy, you may
-    perhaps remember whose taste supplied these lines from Chaucer, which now
-    form the motto of the tapestry."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I guess", said the Earl, "though I cannot recollect. She excelled me,
-    indeed, in literary taste and information, as in everything else; and it
-    is one of the mysterious dispensations of Providence, Mr. Oldbuck, that a
-    creature so excellent in mind and body should have been cut off in so
-    miserable a manner, merely from her having formed a fatal attachment to
-    such a wretch as I am."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Mr. Oldbuck did not attempt an answer to this burst of the grief which
-    lay ever nearest to the heart of his guest, but, pressing Lord
-    Glenallan's hand with one of his own, and drawing the other across his
-    shaggy eyelashes, as if to brush away a mist that intercepted his sight,
-    he left the Earl at liberty to arrange himself previous to dinner.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0014"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER FOURTEENTH
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                           &mdash;Life, with you,
-            Glows in the brain and dances in the arteries;
-           'Tis like the wine some joyous guest hath quaffed,
-                 That glads the heart and elevates the fancy:
-                 Mine is the poor residuum of the cup,
-             Vapid, and dull, and tasteless, only soiling,
-             With its base dregs, the vessel that contains it.
-                                            Old Play.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "Now, only think what a man my brother is, Mr. Blattergowl, for a wise
-    man and a learned man, to bring this Yerl into our house without speaking
-    a word to a body! And there's the distress of thae Mucklebackits&mdash;we
-    canna get a fin o' fish&mdash;and we hae nae time to send ower to Fairport for
-    beef, and the mutton's but new killed&mdash;and that silly fliskmahoy, Jenny
-    Rintherout, has taen the exies, and done naething but laugh and greet,
-    the skirl at the tail o' the guffaw, for twa days successfully&mdash;and now
-    we maun ask that strange man, that's as grand and as grave as the Yerl
-    himsell, to stand at the sideboard! and I canna gang into the kitchen to
-    direct onything, for he's hovering there, making some pousowdie* for my
-    Lord, for he doesna eat like ither folk neither&mdash;And how to sort the
-    strange servant man at dinner time&mdash;I am sure, Mr. Blattergowl,
-    a'thegither, it passes my judgment."
-</p>
-<p>
-    * <i>Pousowdie,</i>&mdash;Miscellaneous mess.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Truly, Miss Griselda," replied the divine, "Monkbarns was inconsiderate.
-    He should have taen a day to see the invitation, as they do wi' the
-    titular's condescendence in the process of valuation and sale. But the
-    great man could not have come on a sudden to ony house in this parish
-    where he could have been better served with <i>vivers</i>&mdash;that I must say&mdash;and
-    also that the steam from the kitchen is very gratifying to my
-    nostrils;&mdash;and if ye have ony household affairs to attend to, Mrs.
-    Griselda, never make a stranger of me&mdash;I can amuse mysell very weel with
-    the larger copy of Erskine's Institutes."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And taking down from the window-seat that amusing folio, (the Scottish
-    Coke upon Littleton), he opened it, as if instinctively, at the tenth
-    title of Book Second, "of Teinds or Tythes," and was presently deeply
-    wrapped up in an abstruse discussion concerning the temporality of
-    benefices.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The entertainment, about which Miss Oldbuck expressed so much anxiety,
-    was at length placed upon the table; and the Earl of Glenallan, for the
-    first time since the date of his calamity, sat at a stranger's board,
-    surrounded by strangers. He seemed to himself like a man in a dream, or
-    one whose brain was not fully recovered from the effects of an
-    intoxicating potion. Relieved, as he had that morning been, from the
-    image of guilt which had so long haunted his imagination, he felt his
-    sorrows as a lighter and more tolerable load, but was still unable to
-    take any share in the conversation that passed around him. It was,
-    indeed, of a cast very different from that which he had been accustomed
-    to. The bluntness of Oldbuck, the tiresome apologetic harangues of his
-    sister, the pedantry of the divine, and the vivacity of the young
-    soldier, which savoured much more of the camp than of the court, were all
-    new to a nobleman who had lived in a retired and melancholy state for so
-    many years, that the manners of the world seemed to him equally strange
-    and unpleasing. Miss M'Intyre alone, from the natural politeness and
-    unpretending simplicity of her manners, appeared to belong to that class
-    of society to which he had been accustomed in his earlier and better
-    days.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Nor did Lord Glenallan's deportment less surprise the company. Though a
-    plain but excellent family-dinner was provided (for, as Mr. Blattergowl
-    had justly said, it was impossible to surprise Miss Griselda when her
-    larder was empty), and though the Antiquary boasted his best port, and
-    assimilated it to the Falernian of Horace, Lord Glenallan was proof to
-    the allurements of both. His servant placed before him a small mess of
-    vegetables, that very dish, the cooking of which had alarmed Miss
-    Griselda, arranged with the most minute and scrupulous neatness. He ate
-    sparingly of these provisions; and a glass of pure water, sparkling from
-    the fountain-head, completed his repast. Such, his servant said, had been
-    his lordship's diet for very many years, unless upon the high festivals
-    of the Church, or when company of the first rank were entertained at
-    Glenallan House, when he relaxed a little in the austerity of his diet,
-    and permitted himself a glass or two of wine. But at Monkbarns, no
-    anchoret could have made a more simple and scanty meal.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Antiquary was a gentleman, as we have seen, in feeling, but blunt and
-    careless in expression, from the habit of living with those before whom
-    he had nothing to suppress. He attacked his noble guest without scruple
-    on the severity of his regimen.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A few half-cold greens and potatoes&mdash;a glass of ice-cold water to wash
-    them down&mdash;antiquity gives no warrant for it, my lord. This house used to
-    be accounted a <i>hospitium,</i> a place of retreat for Christians; but your
-    lordship's diet is that of a heathen Pythagorean, or Indian Bramin&mdash;nay,
-    more severe than either, if you refuse these fine apples."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am a Catholic, you are aware," said Lord Glenallan, wishing to escape
-    from the discussion, "and you know that our church"&mdash;&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Lays down many rules of mortification," proceeded the dauntless
-    Antiquary; "but I never heard that they were quite so rigorously
-    practised&mdash;Bear witness my predecessor, John of the Girnel, or the jolly
-    Abbot, who gave his name to this apple, my lord."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And as he pared the fruit, in spite of his sister's "O fie, Monkbarns!"
-    and the prolonged cough of the minister, accompanied by a shake of his
-    huge wig, the Antiquary proceeded to detail the intrigue which had given
-    rise to the fame of the abbot's apple with more slyness and
-    circumstantiality than was at all necessary. His jest (as may readily be
-    conceived) missed fire, for this anecdote of conventual gallantry failed
-    to produce the slightest smile on the visage of the Earl. Oldbuck then
-    took up the subject of Ossian, Macpherson, and Mac-Cribb; but Lord
-    Glenallan had never so much as heard of any of the three, so little
-    conversant had he been with modern literature. The conversation was now
-    in some danger of flagging, or of falling into the hands of Mr.
-    Blattergowl, who had just pronounced the formidable word, "teind-free,"
-    when the subject of the French Revolution was started&mdash;a political event
-    on which Lord Glenallan looked with all the prejudiced horror of a
-    bigoted Catholic and zealous aristocrat. Oldbuck was far from carrying
-    his detestation of its principles to such a length.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There were many men in the first Constituent Assembly," he said, "who
-    held sound Whiggish doctrines, and were for settling the Constitution
-    with a proper provision for the liberties of the people. And if a set of
-    furious madmen were now in possession of the government, it was," he
-    continued, "what often happened in great revolutions, where extreme
-    measures are adopted in the fury of the moment, and the State resembles
-    an agitated pendulum which swings from side to side for some time ere it
-    can acquire its due and perpendicular station. Or it might be likened to
-    a storm or hurricane, which, passing over a region, does great damage in
-    its passage, yet sweeps away stagnant and unwholesome vapours, and
-    repays, in future health and fertility, its immediate desolation and
-    ravage."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Earl shook his head; but having neither spirit nor inclination for
-    debate, he suffered the argument to pass uncontested.
-</p>
-<p>
-    This discussion served to introduce the young soldier's experiences; and
-    he spoke of the actions in which he, had been engaged, with modesty, and
-    at the same time with an air of spirit and zeal which delighted the Earl,
-    who had been bred up, like others of his house, in the opinion that the
-    trade of arms was the first duty of man, and believed that to employ them
-    against the French was a sort of holy warfare.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What would I give," said he apart to Oldbuck, as they rose to join the
-    ladies in the drawing-room, "what would I give to have a son of such
-    spirit as that young gentleman!&mdash;He wants something of address and
-    manner, something of polish, which mixing in good society would soon give
-    him; but with what zeal and animation he expresses himself&mdash;how fond of
-    his profession&mdash;how loud in the praise of others&mdash;how modest when
-    speaking of himself!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hector is much obliged to you, my lord," replied his uncle, gratified,
-    yet not so much so as to suppress his consciousness of his own mental
-    superiority over the young soldier; "I believe in my heart nobody ever
-    spoke half so much good of him before, except perhaps the sergeant of his
-    company, when was wheedling a Highland recruit to enlist with him. He is
-    a good lad notwithstanding, although he be not quite the hero your
-    lordship supposes him, and although my commendations rather attest the
-    kindness than the vivacity of his character. In fact, his high spirit is
-    a sort of constitutional vehemence, which attends him in everything he
-    sets about, and is often very inconvenient to his friends. I saw him
-    to-day engage in an animated contest with a <i>phoca,</i> or seal (<i>sealgh,</i>
-    our people more properly call them, retaining the Gothic guttural <i>gh</i>),
-    with as much vehemence as if he had fought against Dumourier&mdash;Marry, my
-    lord, the <i>phoca</i> had the better, as the said Dumourier had of some other
-    folks. And he'll talk with equal if not superior rapture of the good
-    behaviour of a pointer bitch, as of the plan of a campaign."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He shall have full permission to sport over my grounds," said the Earl,
-    "if he is so fond of that exercise."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You will bind him to you, my lord," said Monkbarns, "body and soul: give
-    him leave to crack off his birding-piece at a poor covey of partridges or
-    moor-fowl, and he's yours for ever&mdash;I will enchant him by the
-    intelligence. But O, my lord, that you could have seen my phoenix
-		Lovel!&mdash;the very prince and chieftain of the youth of this age; and not
-    destitute of spirit neither&mdash;I promise you he gave my termagant kinsman a
-    <i>quid pro quo</i>&mdash;a Rowland for his Oliver, as the vulgar say, alluding to
-    the two celebrated Paladins of Charlemagne."
-</p>
-<p>
-    After coffee, Lord Glenallan requested a private interview with the
-    Antiquary, and was ushered to his library.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I must withdraw you from your own amiable family," he said, "to involve
-    you in the perplexities of an unhappy man. You are acquainted with the
-    world, from which I have long been banished; for Glenallan House has been
-    to me rather a prison than a dwelling, although a prison which I had
-    neither fortitude nor spirit to break from."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Let me first ask your lordship," said the Antiquary, "what are your own
-    wishes and designs in this matter?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I wish most especially," answered Lord Glenallan, "to declare my
-    luckless marriage, and to vindicate the reputation of the unhappy
-    Eveline&mdash;that is, if you see a possibility of doing so without making
-    public the conduct of my mother."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "<i>Suum cuique tribuito,</i>" said the Antiquary; "do right to everyone. The
-    memory of that unhappy young lady has too long suffered, and I think it
-    might be cleared without further impeaching that of your mother, than by
-    letting it be understood in general that she greatly disapproved and
-    bitterly opposed the match. All&mdash;forgive me, my lord&mdash;all who ever heard
-    of the late Countess of Glenallan, will learn that without much
-    surprise."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But you forget one horrible circumstance, Mr. Oldbuck," said the Earl,
-    in an agitated voice.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am not aware of it," replied the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The fate of the infant&mdash;its disappearance with the confidential
-    attendant of my mother, and the dreadful surmises which may be drawn from
-    my conversation with Elspeth."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If you would have my free opinion, my lord," answered Mr. Oldbuck, "and
-    will not catch too rapidly at it as matter of hope, I would say that it
-    is very possible the child yet lives. For thus much I ascertained, by my
-    former inquiries concerning the event of that deplorable evening, that a
-    child and woman were carried that night from the cottage at the
-    Craigburnfoot in a carriage and four by your brother Edward Geraldin
-    Neville, whose journey towards England with these companions I traced for
-    several stages. I believed then it was a part of the family compact to
-    carry a child whom you meant to stigmatize with illegitimacy, out of that
-    country where chance might have raised protectors and proofs of its
-    rights. But I now think that your brother, having reason, like yourself,
-    to believe the child stained with shame yet more indelible, had
-    nevertheless withdrawn it, partly from regard to the honour of his house,
-    partly from the risk to which it might have been exposed in the
-    neighbourhood of the Lady Glenallan."
-</p>
-<p>
-    As he spoke, the Earl of Glenallan grew extremely pale, and had nearly
-    fallen from his chair.&mdash;The alarmed Antiquary ran hither and thither
-    looking for remedies; but his museum, though sufficiently well filled
-    with a vast variety of useless matters, contained nothing that could be
-    serviceable on the present or any other occasion. As he posted out of the
-    room to borrow his sister's salts, he could not help giving a
-    constitutional growl of chagrin and wonder at the various incidents which
-    had converted his mansion, first into an hospital for a wounded duellist,
-    and now into the sick chamber of a dying nobleman. "And yet," said he, "I
-    have always kept aloof from the soldiery and the peerage. My
-    <i>coenobitium</i> has only next to be made a lying-in hospital, and then, I
-    trow, the transformation will be complete."
-</p>
-<p>
-    When he returned with the remedy, Lord Glenallan was much better. The new
-    and unexpected light which Mr. Oldbuck had thrown upon the melancholy
-    history of his family had almost overpowered him. "You think, then, Mr.
-    Oldbuck&mdash;for you are capable of thinking, which I am not&mdash;you think,
-    then, that it is possible&mdash;that is, not impossible&mdash;my child may yet
-    live?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I think," said the Antiquary, "it is impossible that it could come to
-    any violent harm through your brother's means. He was known to be a gay
-    and dissipated man, but not cruel nor dishonourable; nor is it possible,
-    that, if he had intended any foul play, he would have placed himself so
-    forward in the charge of the infant, as I will prove to your lordship he
-    did."
-</p>
-<p>
-    So saying, Mr. Oldbuck opened a drawer of the cabinet of his ancestor
-    Aldobrand, and produced a bundle of papers tied with a black ribband, and
-    labelled,&mdash;Examinations, etc., taken by Jonathan Oldbuck, J. P., upon the
-    18th of February, 17&mdash;; a little under was written, in a small hand,
-    <i>Eheu Evelina</i>! The tears dropped fast from the Earl's eyes, as he
-    endeavoured, in vain, to unfasten the knot which secured these documents.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Your lordship," said Mr. Oldbuck, "had better not read these at present.
-    Agitated as you are, and having much business before you, you must not
-    exhaust your strength. Your brother's succession is now, I presume, your
-    own, and it will be easy for you to make inquiry among his servants and
-    retainers, so as to hear where the child is, if, fortunately, it shall be
-    still alive."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I dare hardly hope it," said the Earl, with a deep sigh. "Why should my
-    brother have been silent to me?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nay, my lord, why should he have communicated to your lordship the
-    existence of a being whom you must have supposed the offspring of"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Most true&mdash;there is an obvious and a kind reason for his being silent.
-    If anything, indeed, could have added to the horror of the ghastly dream
-    that has poisoned my whole existence, it must have been the knowledge
-    that such a child of misery existed."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then," continued the Antiquary, "although it would be rash to conclude,
-    at the distance of more than twenty years, that your son must needs be
-    still alive because he was not destroyed in infancy, I own I think you
-    should instantly set on foot inquiries."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It shall be done," replied Lord Glenallan, catching eagerly at the hope
-    held out to him, the first he had nourished for many years;&mdash;"I will
-    write to a faithful steward of my father, who acted in the same capacity
-    under my brother Neville&mdash;But, Mr. Oldbuck, I am not my brother's heir."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed!&mdash;I am sorry for that, my lord&mdash;it is a noble estate, and the
-    ruins of the old castle of Neville's-Burgh alone, which are the most
-    superb relics of Anglo-Norman architecture in that part of the country,
-    are a possession much to be coveted. I thought your father had no other
-    son or near relative."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He had not, Mr. Oldbuck," replied Lord Glenallan; "but my brother
-    adopted views in politics, and a form of religion, alien from those which
-    had been always held by our house. Our tempers had long differed, nor did
-    my unhappy mother always think him sufficiently observant to her. In
-    short, there was a family quarrel, and my brother, whose property was at
-    his own free disposal, availed himself of the power vested in him to
-    choose a stranger for his heir. It is a matter which never struck me as
-    being of the least consequence&mdash;for if worldly possessions could
-    alleviate misery, I have enough and to spare. But now I shall regret it,
-    if it throws any difficulty in the way of our inquiries&mdash;and I bethink me
-    that it may; for in case of my having a lawful son of my body, and my
-    brother dying without issue, my father's possessions stood entailed upon
-    my son. It is not therefore likely that this heir, be he who he may, will
-    afford us assistance in making a discovery which may turn out so much to
-    his own prejudice."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And in all probability the steward your lordship mentions is also in his
-    service," said the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is most likely; and the man being a Protestant&mdash;how far it is safe to
-    entrust him"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I should hope, my lord," said Oldbuck gravely, "that a Protestant may be
-    as trustworthy as a Catholic. I am doubly interested in the Protestant
-    faith, my lord. My ancestor, Aldobrand Oldenbuck, printed the celebrated
-    Confession of Augsburg, as I can show by the original edition now in this
-    house."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have not the least doubt of what you say, Mr. Oldbuck," replied the
-    Earl, "nor do I speak out of bigotry or intolerance; but probably the
-    Protestant steward will favour the Protestant heir rather than the
-    Catholic&mdash;if, indeed, my son has been bred in his father's faith&mdash;or,
-    alas! if indeed he yet lives."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We must look close into this," said Oldbuck, "before committing
-    ourselves. I have a literary friend at York, with whom I have long
-    corresponded on the subject of the Saxon horn that is preserved in the
-    Minster there; we interchanged letters for six years, and have only as
-    yet been able to settle the first line of the inscription. I will write
-    forthwith to this gentleman, Dr. Dryasdust, and be particular in my
-    inquiries concerning the character, etc., of your brother's heir, of the
-    gentleman employed in his affairs, and what else may be likely to further
-    your lordship's inquiries. In the meantime your lordship will collect the
-    evidence of the marriage, which I hope can still be recovered?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Unquestionably," replied the Earl: "the witnesses, who were formerly
-    withdrawn from your research, are still living. My tutor, who solemnized
-    the marriage, was provided for by a living in France, and has lately
-    returned to this country as an emigrant, a victim of his zeal for
-    loyalty, legitimacy, and religion."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "That's one lucky consequence of the French, revolution, my lord&mdash;you
-    must allow that, at least," said Oldbuck: "but no offence; I will act as
-    warmly in your affairs as if I were of your own faith in politics and
-    religion. And take my advice&mdash;If you want an affair of consequence
-    properly managed, put it into the hands of an antiquary; for as they are
-    eternally exercising their genius and research upon trifles, it is
-    impossible they can be baffled in affairs of importance;&mdash;use makes
-    perfect&mdash;and the corps that is most frequently drilled upon the parade,
-    will be most prompt in its exercise upon the day of battle. And, talking
-    upon that subject, I would willingly read to your lordship, in order to
-    pass away the time betwixt and supper"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I beg I may not interfere with family arrangements," said Lord
-    Glenallan, "but I never taste anything after sunset."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nor I either, my lord," answered his host, "notwithstanding it is said
-    to have been the custom of the ancients. But then I dine differently from
-    your lordship, and therefore am better enabled to dispense with those
-    elaborate entertainments which my womankind (that is, my sister and
-    niece, my lord) are apt to place on the table, for the display rather of
-    their own house-wifery than the accommodation of our wants. However, a
-    broiled bone, or a smoked haddock, or an oyster, or a slice of bacon of
-    our own curing, with a toast and a tankard&mdash;or something or other of that
-    sort, to close the orifice of the stomach before going to bed, does not
-    fall under my restriction, nor, I hope, under your lordship's."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My no-supper is literal, Mr. Oldbuck; but I will attend you at your meal
-    with pleasure."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, my lord," replied the Antiquary, "I will endeavour to entertain
-    your ears at least, since I cannot banquet your palate. What I am about
-    to read to your lordship relates to the upland glens."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lord Glenallan, though he would rather have recurred to the subject of
-    his own uncertainties, was compelled to make a sign of rueful civility
-    and acquiescence.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Antiquary, therefore, took out his portfolio of loose sheets, and
-    after premising that the topographical details here laid down were
-    designed to illustrate a slight essay upon castrametation, which had been
-    read with indulgence at several societies of Antiquaries, he commenced as
-    follows: "The subject, my lord, is the hill-fort of Quickens-bog, with
-    the site of which your lordship is doubtless familiar&mdash;it is upon your
-    store-farm of Mantanner, in the barony of Clochnaben."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I think I have heard the names of these places," said the Earl, in
-    answer to the Antiquary's appeal.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Heard the name? and the farm brings him six hundred a-year&mdash;O Lord!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Such was the scarce-subdued ejaculation of the Antiquary. But his
-    hospitality got the better of his surprise, and he proceeded to read his
-    essay with an audible voice, in great glee at having secured a patient,
-    and, as he fondly hoped, an interested hearer.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Quickens-bog may at first seem to derive its name from the plant
-    <i>Quicken,</i> by which, <i>Scottice,</i> we understand couch-grass, dog-grass, or
-    the <i>Triticum repens</i> of Linnaeus, and the common English monosyllable
-    <i>Bog,</i> by which we mean, in popular language, a marsh or morass&mdash;in
-    Latin, <i>Palus.</i> But it may confound the rash adopters of the more obvious
-    etymological derivations, to learn that the couch-grass or dog-grass, or,
-    to speak scientifically, the <i>Triticum repens</i> of Linnaeus, does not grow
-    within a quarter of a mile of this castrum or hill-fort, whose ramparts
-    are uniformly clothed with short verdant turf; and that we must seek a
-    bog or <i>palus</i> at a still greater distance, the nearest being that of
-    Gird-the-mear, a full half-mile distant. The last syllable, <i>bog,</i> is
-    obviously, therefore, a mere corruption of the Saxon <i>Burgh,</i> which we
-    find in the various transmutations of <i>Burgh, Burrow, Brough, Bruff,
-    Buff,</i> and <i>Boff,</i> which last approaches very near the sound in
-		question&mdash;since, supposing the word to have been originally <i>borgh,</i> which is the
-    genuine Saxon spelling, a slight change, such as modern organs too often
-    make upon ancient sounds, will produce first <i>Bogh,</i> and then, <i>elisa H,</i>
-    or compromising and sinking the guttural, agreeable to the common
-    vernacular practice, you have either <i>Boff</i> or <i>Bog</i> as it happens. The
-    word <i>Quickens</i> requires in like manner to be altered,&mdash;decomposed, as it
-    were,&mdash;and reduced to its original and genuine sound, ere we can discern
-    its real meaning. By the ordinary exchange of the <i>Qu</i> into <i>Wh,</i>
-    familiar to the rudest tyro who has opened a book of old Scottish poetry,
-    we gain either Whilkens, or Whichensborgh&mdash;put we may suppose, by way of
-    question, as if those who imposed the name, struck with the extreme
-    antiquity of the place, had expressed in it an interrogation, To whom did
-    this fortress belong?'&mdash;Or, it might be <i>Whackens-burgh,</i> from the Saxon
-    <i>Whacken,</i> to strike with the hand, as doubtless the skirmishes near a
-    place of such apparent consequence must have legitimated such a
-    derivation," etc. etc. etc.
-</p>
-<p>
-    I will be more merciful to my readers than Oldbuck was to his guest; for,
-    considering his opportunities of gaining patient attention from a person
-    of such consequence as Lord Glenallan were not many, he used, or rather
-    abused, the present to the uttermost.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0015"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                         Crabbed age and youth
-                         Cannot live together:&mdash;
-                         Youth is full of pleasance,
-                              Age is full of care;
-                         Youth like summer morn,
-                         Age like winter weather;
-                         Youth like summer brave,
-                         Age like winter bare.
-                                      Shakspeare.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    In the morning of the following day, the Antiquary, who was something of
-    a sluggard, was summoned from his bed a full hour earlier than his custom
-    by Caxon. "What's the matter now?" he exclaimed, yawning and stretching
-    forth his hand to the huge gold repeater, which, bedded upon his India
-    silk handkerchief, was laid safe by his pillow&mdash;"what's the matter now,
-    Caxon?&mdash;it can't be eight o'clock yet."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, sir,&mdash;but my lord's man sought me out, for he fancies me your
-    honour's valley-de-sham,&mdash;and sae I am, there's nae doubt o't, baith your
-    honour's and the minister's&mdash;at least ye hae nae other that I ken o'&mdash;and
-    I gie a help to Sir Arthur too, but that's mair in the way o' my
-    profession."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, well&mdash;never mind that," said the Antiquary&mdash;"happy is he that is
-    his own valley-de-sham, as you call it&mdash;But why disturb my morning's
-    rest?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ou, sir, the great man's been up since peep o' day, and he's steered the
-    town to get awa an express to fetch his carriage, and it will be here
-    briefly, and he wad like to see your honour afore he gaes awa."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Gadso!" ejaculated Oldbuck, "these great men use one's house and time as
-    if they were their own property. Well, it's once and away. Has Jenny come
-    to her senses yet, Caxon?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth, sir, but just middling," replied the barber; "she's been in a
-    swither about the jocolate this morning, and was like to hae toomed it a'
-    out into the slap-bason, and drank it hersell in her ecstacies&mdash;but she's
-    won ower wi't, wi' the help o' Miss M'Intyre."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then all my womankind are on foot and scrambling, and I must enjoy my
-    quiet bed no longer, if I would have a well-regulated house&mdash;Lend me my
-    gown. And what are the news at Fairport?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ou, sir, what can they be about but this grand news o' my lord,"
-    answered the old man, "that hasna been ower the door-stane, they threep
-    to me, for this twenty years&mdash;this grand news of his coming to visit your
-    honour?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aha!" said Monkbarns; "and what do they say of that, Caxon?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "'Deed, sir, they hae various opinions. Thae fallows, that are the
-    democraws, as they ca' them, that are again' the king and the law, and
-    hairpowder and dressing o' gentlemen's wigs&mdash;a wheen blackguards&mdash;they
-    say he's come doun to speak wi' your honour about bringing doun his hill
-    lads and Highland tenantry to break up the meetings of the Friends o' the
-    People;&mdash;and when I said your honour never meddled wi' the like o' sic
-    things where there was like to be straiks and bloodshed, they said, if ye
-    didna, your nevoy did, and that he was weel ken'd to be a kingsman that
-    wad fight knee-deep, and that ye were the head and he was the hand, and
-    that the Yerl was to bring out the men and the siller."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Come," said the Antiquary, laughing&mdash;"I am glad the war is to cost me
-    nothing but counsel."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, na," said Caxon&mdash;"naebody thinks your honour wad either fight
-    yoursell, or gie ony feck o' siller to ony side o' the question."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Umph! well, that's the opinion of the democraws, as you call them&mdash;What
-    say the rest o' Fairport?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In troth," said the candid reporter, "I canna say it's muckle better.
-    Captain Coquet, of the volunteers&mdash;that's him that's to be the new
-    collector,&mdash;and some of the other gentlemen of the Blue and a' Blue Club,
-    are just saying it's no right to let popists, that hae sae mony French
-    friends as the Yerl of Glenallan, gang through the country, and&mdash;but your
-    honour will maybe be angry?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not I, Caxon," said Oldbuck; "fire away as if you were Captain Coquet's
-    whole platoon&mdash;I can stand it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Weel then, they say, sir, that as ye didna encourage the petition about
-    the peace, and wadna petition in favour of the new tax, and as you were
-    again' bringing in the yeomanry at the meal mob, but just for settling
-    the folk wi' the constables&mdash;they say ye're no a gude friend to
-    government; and that thae sort o' meetings between sic a powerfu' man as
-    the Yerl, and sic a wise man as you,&mdash;Od they think they suld be lookit
-    after; and some say ye should baith be shankit aff till Edinburgh
-    Castle."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "On my word," said the Antiquary, "I am infinitely obliged to my
-    neighbours for their good opinion of me! And so I, that have never
-    interfered with their bickerings, but to recommend quiet and moderate
-    measures, am given up on both sides as a man very likely to commit high
-    treason, either against King or People?&mdash;Give me my coat, Caxon&mdash;give me
-    my coat;&mdash;it's lucky I live not in their report. Have you heard anything
-    of Taffril and his vessel?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Caxon's countenance fell.&mdash;"Na, sir, and the winds hae been high, and
-    this is a fearfu' coast to cruise on in thae eastern gales,&mdash;the
-    headlands rin sae far out, that a veshel's embayed afore I could sharp a
-    razor; and then there's nae harbour or city of refuge on our coast&mdash;a'
-    craigs and breakers;&mdash;a veshel that rins ashore wi' us flees asunder like
-    the powther when I shake the pluff&mdash;and it's as ill to gather ony o't
-    again. I aye tell my daughter thae things when she grows wearied for a
-    letter frae Lieutenant Taffril&mdash;It's aye an apology for him. Ye sudna
-    blame him, says I, hinny, for ye little ken what may hae happened."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, ay, Caxon, thou art as good a comforter as a valet-de-chambre.&mdash;Give
-    me a white stock, man,&mdash;dye think I can go down with a handkerchief about
-    my neck when I have company?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dear sir, the Captain says a three-nookit hankercher is the maist
-    fashionable overlay, and that stocks belang to your honour and me that
-    are auld warld folk. I beg pardon for mentioning us twa thegither, but it
-    was what he said."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The Captain's a puppy, and you are a goose, Caxon."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's very like it may be sae," replied the acquiescent barber: "I am
-    sure your honour kens best."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Before breakfast, Lord Glenallan, who appeared in better spirits than he
-    had evinced in the former evening, went particularly through the various
-    circumstances of evidence which the exertions of Oldbuck had formerly
-    collected; and pointing out the means which he possessed of completing
-    the proof of his marriage, expressed his resolution instantly to go
-    through the painful task of collecting and restoring the evidence
-    concerning the birth of Eveline Neville, which Elspeth had stated to be
-    in his mother's possession.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And yet, Mr. Oldbuck," he said, "I feel like a man who receives
-    important tidings ere he is yet fully awake, and doubt whether they refer
-    to actual life, or are not rather a continuation of his dream. This
-    woman&mdash;this Elspeth,&mdash;she is in the extremity of age, and approaching in
-    many respects to dotage. Have I not&mdash;it is a hideous question&mdash;have I not
-    been hasty in the admission of her present evidence, against that which
-    she formerly gave me to a very&mdash;very different purpose?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Mr. Oldbuck paused a moment, and then answered with firmness&mdash;"No, my
-    lord; I cannot think you have any reason to suspect the truth of what she
-    has told you last, from no apparent impulse but the urgency of
-    conscience. Her confession was voluntary, disinterested, distinct,
-    consistent with itself, and with all the other known circumstances of the
-    case. I would lose no time, however, in examining and arranging the other
-    documents to which she has referred; and I also think her own statement
-    should be taken down, if possible in a formal manner. We thought of
-    setting about this together. But it will be a relief to your lordship,
-    and moreover have a more impartial appearance, were I to attempt the
-    investigation alone in the capacity of a magistrate. I will do this&mdash;at
-    least I will attempt it, so soon as I shall see her in a favourable state
-    of mind to undergo an examination."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lord Glenallan wrung the Antiquary's hand in token of grateful
-    acquiescence. "I cannot express to you," he said, "Mr. Oldbuck, how much
-    your countenance and cooperation in this dark and most melancholy
-    business gives me relief and confidence. I cannot enough applaud myself
-    for yielding to the sudden impulse which impelled me, as it were, to drag
-    you into my confidence, and which arose from the experience I had
-    formerly of your firmness in discharge of your duty as a magistrate, and
-    as a friend to the memory of the unfortunate. Whatever the issue of these
-    matters may prove,&mdash;and I would fain hope there is a dawn breaking on the
-    fortunes of my house, though I shall not live to enjoy its light,&mdash;but
-    whatsoever be the issue, you have laid my family and me under the most
-    lasting obligation."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My lord," answered the Antiquary, "I must necessarily have the greatest
-    respect for your lordship's family, which I am well aware is one of the
-    most ancient in Scotland, being certainly derived from Aymer de Geraldin,
-    who sat in parliament at Perth, in the reign of Alexander II., and who by
-    the less vouched, yet plausible tradition of the country, is said to have
-    been descended from the Marmor of Clochnaben. Yet, with all my veneration
-    for your ancient descent, I must acknowledge that I find myself still
-    more bound to give your lordship what assistance is in my limited power,
-    from sincere sympathy with your sorrows, and detestation at the frauds
-    which have so long been practised upon you.&mdash;But, my lord, the matin meal
-    is, I see, now prepared&mdash;Permit me to show your lordship the way through
-    the intricacies of my <i>cenobitium,</i> which is rather a combination of
-    cells, jostled oddly together, and piled one upon the top of the other,
-    than a regular house. I trust you will make yourself some amends for the
-    spare diet of yesterday."
-</p>
-<p>
-    But this was no part of Lord Glenallan's system. Having saluted the
-    company with the grave and melancholy politeness which distinguished his
-    manners, his servant placed before him a slice of toasted bread, with a
-    glass of fair water, being the fare on which he usually broke his fast.
-    While the morning's meal of the young soldier and the old Antiquary was
-    despatched in much more substantial manner, the noise of wheels was
-    heard.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Your lordship's carriage, I believe," said Oldbuck, stepping to the
-    window. "On my word, a handsome <i>quadriga,</i>&mdash;for such, according to the
-    best <i>scholium,</i> was the <i>vox signata</i> of the Romans for a chariot which,
-    like that of your lordship, was drawn by four horses."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And I will venture to say," cried Hector, eagerly gazing from the
-    window, "that four handsomer or better-matched bays never were put in
-    harness&mdash;What fine forehands!&mdash;what capital chargers they would make!&mdash;
-    Might I ask if they are of your lordship's own breeding?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I&mdash;I&mdash;rather believe so," said Lord Glenallan; "but I have been so
-    negligent of my domestic matters, that I am ashamed to say I must apply
-    to Calvert" (looking at the domestic).
-</p>
-<p>
-    "They are of your lordship's own breeding," said Calvert, "got by Mad Tom
-    out of Jemina and Yarico, your lordship's brood mares."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Are there more of the set?" said Lord Glenallan.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Two, my lord,&mdash;one rising four, the other five off this grass, both very
-    handsome."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then let Dawkins bring them down to Monkbarns to-morrow," said the
-		Earl&mdash;"I hope Captain M'Intyre will accept them, if they are at all fit for
-    service."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Captain M'Intyre's eyes sparkled, and he was profuse in grateful
-    acknowledgments; while Oldbuck, on the other hand, seizing the Earl's
-    sleeve, endeavoured to intercept a present which boded no good to his
-    corn-chest and hay-loft.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My lord&mdash;my lord&mdash;much obliged&mdash;much obliged&mdash;But Hector is a
-    pedestrian, and never mounts on horseback in battle&mdash;he is a Highland
-    soldier, moreover, and his dress ill adapted for cavalry service. Even
-    Macpherson never mounted his ancestors on horseback, though he has the
-    impudence to talk of their being car-borne&mdash;and that, my lord, is what is
-    running in Hector's head&mdash;it is the vehicular, not the equestrian
-    exercise, which he envies&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum
-                           Collegisse juvat.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    His noddle is running on a curricle, which he has neither money to buy,
-    nor skill to drive if he had it; and I assure your lordship, that the
-    possession of two such quadrupeds would prove a greater scrape than any
-    of his duels, whether with human foe or with my friend the <i>phoca.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You must command us all at present, Mr. Oldbuck," said the Earl
-    politely; "but I trust you will not ultimately prevent my gratifying my
-    young friend in some way that may afford him pleasure."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Anything useful, my lord," said Oldbuck, "but no <i>curriculum</i>&mdash;I protest
-    he might as rationally propose to keep a <i>quadriga</i> at once&mdash;And now I
-    think of it, what is that old post-chaise from Fairport come jingling
-    here for?&mdash;I did not send for it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "<i>I</i> did, sir," said Hector, rather sulkily, for he was not much
-    gratified by his uncle's interference to prevent the Earl's intended
-    generosity, nor particularly inclined to relish either the disparagement
-    which he cast upon his skill as a charioteer, or the mortifying allusion
-    to his bad success in the adventures of the duel and the seal.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You did, sir?" echoed the Antiquary, in answer to his concise
-    information. "And pray, what may be your business with a post-chaise? Is
-    this splendid equipage&mdash;this <i>biga,</i> as I may call it&mdash;to serve for an
-    introduction to a <i>quadriga</i> or a <i>curriculum</i>?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Really, sir," replied the young soldier, "if it be necessary to give you
-    such a specific explanation, I am going to Fairport on a little
-    business."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Will you permit me to inquire into the nature of that business, Hector?"
-    answered his uncle, who loved the exercise of a little brief authority
-    over his relative. "I should suppose any regimental affairs might be
-    transacted by your worthy deputy the sergeant&mdash;an honest gentleman, who
-    is so good as to make Monkbarns his home since his arrival among us&mdash;I
-    should, I say, suppose that he may transact any business of yours,
-    without your spending a day's pay on two dog-horses, and such a
-    combination of rotten wood, cracked glass, and leather&mdash;such a skeleton
-    of a post-chaise, as that before the door."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is not regimental business, sir, that calls me; and, since you insist
-    upon knowing, I must inform you Caxon has brought word this morning that
-    old Ochiltree, the beggar, is to be brought up for examination to-day,
-    previous to his being committed for trial; and I'm going to see that the
-    poor old fellow gets fair play&mdash;that's all."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay?&mdash;I heard something of this, but could not think it serious. And
-    pray, Captain Hector, who are so ready to be every man's second on all
-    occasions of strife, civil or military, by land, by water, or on the
-    sea-beach, what is your especial concern with old Edie Ochiltree?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He was a soldier in my father's company, sir," replied Hector; "and
-    besides, when I was about to do a very foolish thing one day, he
-    interfered to prevent me, and gave me almost as much good advice, sir, as
-    you could have done yourself."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And with the same good effect, I dare be sworn for it&mdash;eh, Hector?&mdash;
-    Come, confess it was thrown away."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed it was, sir; but I see no reason that my folly should make me
-    less grateful for his intended kindness."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Bravo, Hector! that's the most sensible thing I ever heard you say. But
-    always tell me your plans without reserve,&mdash;why, I will go with you
-    myself, man. I am sure the old fellow is not guilty, and I will assist
-    him in such a scrape much more effectually than you can do. Besides, it
-    will save thee half-a-guinea, my lad&mdash;a consideration which I heartily
-    pray you to have more frequently before your eyes."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Lord Glenallan's politeness had induced him to turn away and talk with
-    the ladies, when the dispute between the uncle and nephew appeared to
-    grow rather too animated to be fit for the ear of a stranger, but the
-    Earl mingled again in the conversation when the placable tone of the
-    Antiquary expressed amity. Having received a brief account of the
-    mendicant, and of the accusation brought against him, which Oldbuck did
-    not hesitate to ascribe to the malice of Dousterswivel, Lord Glenallan
-    asked, whether the individual in question had not been a soldier
-    formerly?&mdash;He was answered in the affirmative.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Had he not," continued his Lordship, "a coarse blue coat, or gown, with
-    a badge?&mdash;was he not a tall, striking-looking old man, with grey beard
-    and hair, who kept his body remarkably erect, and talked with an air of
-    ease and independence, which formed a strong contrast to his profession?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "All this is an exact picture of the man," refumed Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, then," continued Lord Glenallan, "although I fear I can be of no
-    use to him in his present condition, yet I owe him a debt of gratitude
-    for being the first person who brought me some tidings of the utmost
-    importance. I would willingly offer him a place of comfortable
-    retirement, when he is extricated from his present situation."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I fear, my lord," said Oldbuck, "he would have difficulty in reconciling
-    his vagrant habits to the acceptance of your bounty, at least I know the
-    experiment has been tried without effect. To beg from the public at large
-    he considers as independence, in comparison to drawing his whole support
-    from the bounty of an individual. He is so far a true philosopher, as to
-    be a contemner of all ordinary rules of hours and times. When he is
-    hungry he eats; when thirsty he drinks; when weary he sleeps; and with
-    such indifference with respect to the means and appliances about which we
-    make a fuss, that I suppose he was never ill dined or ill lodged in his
-    life. Then he is, to a certain extent, the oracle of the district through
-    which he travels&mdash;their genealogist, their newsman, their master of the
-    revels, their doctor at a pinch, or their divine;&mdash;I promise you he has
-    too many duties, and is too zealous in performing them, to be easily
-    bribed to abandon his calling. But I should be truly sorry if they sent
-    the poor light-hearted old man to lie for weeks in a jail. I am convinced
-    the confinement would break his heart."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Thus finished the conference. Lord Glenallan, having taken leave of the
-    ladies, renewed his offer to Captain M'Intyre of the freedom of his
-    manors for sporting, which was joyously accepted.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I can only add," he said, "that if your spirits are not liable to be
-    damped by dull company, Glenallan House is at all times open to you. On
-    two days of the week, Friday and Saturday, I keep my apartment, which
-    will be rather a relief to you, as you will be left to enjoy the society
-    of my almoner, Mr. Gladsmoor, who is a scholar and a man of the world."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Hector, his heart exulting at the thoughts of ranging through the
-    preserves of Glenallan House, and over the well-protected moors of
-    Clochnaben&mdash;nay, joy of joys! the deer-forest of Strath-Bonnel&mdash;made many
-    acknowledgements of the honour and gratitude he felt. Mr. Oldbuck was
-    sensible of the Earl's attention to his nephew; Miss M'Intyre was pleased
-    because her brother was gratified; and Miss Griselda Oldbuck looked
-    forward with glee to the potting of whole bags of moorfowl and
-    black-game, of which Mr. Blattergowl was a professed admirer. Thus,&mdash;
-    which is always the case when a man of rank leaves a private family where
-    he has studied to appear obliging,&mdash;all were ready to open in praise of
-    the Earl as soon as he had taken his leave, and was wheeled off in his
-    chariot by the four admired bays. But the panegyric was cut short, for
-    Oldbuck and his nephew deposited themselves in the Fairport hack, which,
-    with one horse trotting, and the other urged to a canter, creaked,
-    jingled, and hobbled towards that celebrated seaport, in a manner that
-    formed a strong contrast to the rapidity and smoothness with which Lord
-    Glenallan's equipage had seemed to vanish from their eyes.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0016"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-              Yes! I love justice well&mdash;as well as you do&mdash;
-             But since the good dame's blind, she shall excuse me
-              If, time and reason fitting, I prove dumb;&mdash;
-                  The breath I utter now shall be no means
-                  To take away from me my breath in future.
-                                          Old Play.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    By dint of charity from the town's-people in aid of the load of
-    provisions he had brought with him into durance, Edie Ochiltree had
-    passed a day or two's confinement without much impatience, regretting his
-    want of freedom the less, as the weather proved broken and rainy.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The prison," he said, "wasna sae dooms bad a place as it was ca'd. Ye
-    had aye a good roof ower your head to fend aff the weather, and, if the
-    windows werena glazed, it was the mair airy and pleasant for the summer
-    season. And there were folk enow to crack wi', and he had bread eneugh to
-    eat, and what need he fash himsell about the rest o't?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The courage of our philosophical mendicant began, however, to abate, when
-    the sunbeams shone fair on the rusty bars of his grated dungeon, and a
-    miserable linnet, whose cage some poor debtor had obtained permission to
-    attach to the window, began to greet them with his whistle.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ye're in better spirits than I am," said Edie, addressing the bird, "for
-    I can neither whistle nor sing for thinking o' the bonny burnsides and
-    green shaws that I should hae been dandering beside in weather like this.
-    But hae&mdash;there's some crumbs t'ye, an ye are sae merry; and troth ye hae
-    some reason to sing an ye kent it, for your cage comes by nae faut o'
-    your ain, and I may thank mysell that I am closed up in this weary
-    place."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Ochiltree's soliloquy was disturbed by a peace-officer, who came to
-    summon him to attend the magistrate. So he set forth in awful procession
-    between two poor creatures, neither of them so stout as he was himself,
-    to be conducted into the presence of inquisitorial justice. The people,
-    as the aged prisoner was led along by his decrepit guards, exclaimed to
-    each other, "Eh! see sic a grey-haired man as that is, to have committed
-    a highway robbery, wi' ae fit in the grave!"&mdash;And the children
-    congratulated the officers, objects of their alternate dread and sport,
-    Puggie Orrock and Jock Ormston, on having a prisoner as old as
-    themselves.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Thus marshalled forward, Edie was presented (by no means for the first
-    time) before the worshipful Bailie Littlejohn, who, contrary to what his
-    name expressed, was a tall portly magistrate, on whom corporation crusts
-    had not been conferred in vain. He was a zealous loyalist of that zealous
-    time, somewhat rigorous and peremptory in the execution of his duty, and
-    a good deal inflated with the sense of his own power and importance;&mdash;otherwise
-    an honest, well-meaning, and useful citizen.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Bring him in! bring him in!" he exclaimed. "Upon my word these are awful
-    and unnatural times! the very bedesmen and retainers of his Majesty are
-    the first to break his laws. Here has been an old Blue-Gown committing
-    robbery&mdash;I suppose the next will reward the royal charity which supplies
-    him with his garb, pension, and begging license, by engaging in
-    high-treason, or sedition at least&mdash;But bring him in."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Edie made his obeisance, and then stood, as usual, firm and erect, with
-    the side of his face turned a little upward, as if to catch every word
-    which the magistrate might address to him. To the first general
-    questions, which respected only his name and calling, the mendicant
-    answered with readiness and accuracy; but when the magistrate, having
-    caused his clerk to take down these particulars, began to inquire
-    whereabout the mendicant was on the night when Dousterswivel met with his
-    misfortune, Edie demurred to the motion. "Can ye tell me now, Bailie, you
-    that understands the law, what gude will it do me to answer ony o' your
-    questions?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Good?&mdash;no good certainly, my friend, except that giving a true account
-    of yourself, if you are innocent, may entitle me to set you at liberty."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But it seems mair reasonable to me now, that you, Bailie, or anybody
-    that has anything to say against me, should prove my guilt, and no to be
-    bidding me prove my innocence."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I don't sit here," answered the magistrate, "to dispute points of law
-    with you. I ask you, if you choose to answer my question, whether you
-    were at Ringan Aikwood, the forester's, upon the day I have specified?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Really, sir, I dinna feel myself called on to remember," replied the
-    cautious bedesman.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Or whether, in the course of that day or night," continued the
-    magistrate, "you saw Steven, or Steenie, Mucklebackit?&mdash;you knew him, I
-    suppose?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O, brawlie did I ken Steenie, puir fallow," replied the prisoner;&mdash;"but
-    I canna condeshend on ony particular time I have seen him lately."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Were you at the ruins of St. Ruth any time in the course of that
-    evening?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Bailie Littlejohn," said the mendicant, "if it be your honour's
-    pleasure, we'll cut a lang tale short, and I'll just tell ye, I am no
-    minded to answer ony o' thae questions&mdash;I'm ower auld a traveller to let
-    my tongue bring me into trouble."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Write down," said the magistrate, "that he declines to answer all
-    interrogatories, in respect that by telling the truth he might be brought
-    to trouble."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, na," said Ochiltree, "I'll no hae that set down as ony part o' my
-    answer&mdash;but I just meant to say, that in a' my memory and practice, I
-    never saw ony gude come o' answering idle questions."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Write down," said the Bailie, "that, being acquainted with judicial
-    interrogatories by long practice, and having sustained injury by
-    answering questions put to him on such occasions, the declarant refuses."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Na, na, Bailie," reiterated Edie, "ye are no to come in on me that gait
-    neither."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dictate the answer yourself then, friend," said the magistrate, "and the
-    clerk will take it down from your own mouth."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, ay," said Edie&mdash;"that's what I ca' fair play; I'se do that without
-    loss o' time. Sae, neighbour, ye may just write down, that Edie
-    Ochiltree, the declarant, stands up for the liberty&mdash;na, I maunna say
-    that neither&mdash;I am nae liberty-boy&mdash;I hae fought again' them in the riots
-    in Dublin&mdash;besides, I have ate the King's bread mony a day. Stay, let me
-    see. Ay&mdash;write that Edie Ochiltree, the Blue-Gown, stands up for the
-    prerogative&mdash;(see that ye spell that word right&mdash;it's a lang ane)&mdash;for
-    the prerogative of the subjects of the land, and winna answer a single
-    word that sall be asked at him this day, unless he sees a reason fort.
-    Put down that, young man."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then, Edie," said the magistrate, "since you will give no information on
-    the subject, I must send you back to prison till you shall be delivered
-    in due course of law."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aweel, sir, if it's Heaven's will and man's will, nae doubt I maun
-    submit," replied the mendicant. "I hae nae great objection to the prison,
-    only that a body canna win out o't; and if it wad please you as weel,
-    Bailie, I wad gie you my word to appear afore the Lords at the Circuit,
-    or in ony other coart ye like, on ony day ye are pleased to appoint."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I rather think, my good friend," answered Bailie Littlejohn, "your word
-    might be a slender security where your neck may be in some danger. I am
-    apt to think you would suffer the pledge to be forfeited. If you could
-    give me sufficient security, indeed"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    At this moment the Antiquary and Captain M'Intyre entered the
-		apartment.&mdash;"Good morning to you, gentlemen," said the magistrate; "you find me
-    toiling in my usual vocation&mdash;looking after the iniquities of the
-		people&mdash;labouring for the <i>respublica,</i> Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;serving the King our
-    master, Captain M'Intyre,&mdash;for I suppose you know I have taken up the
-    sword?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is one of the emblems of justice, doubtless," answered the
-    Antiquary;&mdash;"but I should have thought the scales would have suited you
-    better, Bailie, especially as you have them ready in the warehouse."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Very good, Monkbarns&mdash;excellent! But I do not take the sword up as
-    justice, but as a soldier&mdash;indeed I should rather say the musket and
-    bayonet&mdash;there they stand at the elbow of my gouty chair, for I am scarce
-    fit for drill yet&mdash;a slight touch of our old acquaintance <i>podagra;</i> I
-    can keep my feet, however, while our sergeant puts me through the manual.
-    I should like to know, Captain M'Intyre, if he follows the regulations
-    correctly&mdash;he brings us but awkwardly to the <i>present.</i>" And he hobbled
-    towards his weapon to illustrate his doubts and display his proficiency.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I rejoice we have such zealous defenders, Bailie," replied Mr. Oldbuck;
-    "and I dare say Hector will gratify you by communicating his opinion on
-    your progress in this new calling. Why, you rival the Hecate' of the
-    ancients, my good sir&mdash;a merchant on the Mart, a magistrate in the
-    Townhouse, a soldier on the Links&mdash;<i>quid non pro patria?</i> But my business
-    is with the justice; so let commerce and war go slumber."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, my good sir," said the Bailie, "and what commands have you for
-    me?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, here's an old acquaintance of mine, called Edie Ochiltree, whom
-    some of your myrmidons have mewed up in jail on account of an alleged
-    assault on that fellow Dousterswivel, of whose accusation I do not
-    believe one word."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The magistrate here assumed a very grave countenance. "You ought to have
-    been informed that he is accused of robbery, as well as assault&mdash;a very
-    serious matter indeed; it is not often such criminals come under my
-    cognizance."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And," replied Oldbuck, "you are tenacious of the opportunity of making
-    the very most of such as occur. But is this poor old man's case really so
-    very bad?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is rather out of rule," said the Bailie&mdash;"but as you are in the
-    commission, Monkbarns, I have no hesitation to show you Dousterswivel's
-    declaration, and the rest of the precognition." And he put the papers
-    into the Antiquary's hands, who assumed his spectacles, and sat down in a
-    corner to peruse them.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The officers, in the meantime, had directions to remove their prisoner
-    into another apartment; but before they could do so, M'Intyre took an
-    opportunity to greet old Edie, and to slip a guinea into his hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Lord bless your honour!" said the old man; "it's a young soldier's gift,
-    and it should surely thrive wi' an auld ane. I'se no refuse it, though
-    it's beyond my rules; for if they steek me up here, my friends are like
-    eneugh to forget me&mdash;out o'sight out o'mind, is a true proverb; and it
-    wadna be creditable for me, that am the king's bedesman, and entitled to
-    beg by word of mouth, to be fishing for bawbees out at the jail window
-    wi' the fit o' a stocking, and a string." As he made this observation he
-    was conducted out of the apartment.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Mr. Dousterswivel's declaration contained an exaggerated account of the
-    violence he had sustained, and also of his loss.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But what I should have liked to have asked him," said Monkbarns, "would
-    have been his purpose in frequenting the ruins of St. Ruth, so lonely a
-    place, at such an hour, and with such a companion as Edie Ochiltree.
-    There is no road lies that way, and I do not conceive a mere passion for
-    the picturesque would carry the German thither in such a night of storm
-    and wind. Depend upon it, he has been about some roguery, and in all
-    probability hath been caught in a trap of his own setting&mdash;<i>Nec lex
-    justitior ulla.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The magistrate allowed there was something mysterious in that
-    circumstance, and apologized for not pressing Dousterswivel, as his
-    declaration was voluntarily emitted. But for the support of the main
-    charge, he showed the declaration of the Aikwoods concerning the state in
-    which Dousterswivel was found, and establishing the important fact that
-    the mendicant had left the barn in which he was quartered, and did not
-    return to it again. Two people belonging to the Fairport undertaker, who
-    had that night been employed in attending the funeral of Lady Glenallan,
-    had also given declarations, that, being sent to pursue two suspicious
-    persons who left the ruins of St. Ruth as the funeral approached, and
-    who, it was supposed, might have been pillaging some of the ornaments
-    prepared for the ceremony, they had lost and regained sight of them more
-    than once, owing to the nature of the ground, which was unfavourable for
-    riding, but had at length fairly lodged them both in Mucklebackit's
-    cottage. And one of the men added, that "he, the declarant, having
-    dismounted from his horse, and gone close up to the window of the hut, he
-    saw the old Blue-Gown and young Steenie Mucklebackit, with others, eating
-    and drinking in the inside, and also observed the said Steenie
-    Mucklebackit show a pocket-book to the others;&mdash;and declarant has no
-    doubt that Ochiltree and Steenie Mucklebackit were the persons whom he
-    and his comrade had pursued, as above mentioned." And being interrogated
-    why he did not enter the said cottage, declares, "he had no warrant so to
-    do; and that as Mucklebackit and his family were understood to be
-    rough-handed folk, he, the declarant, had no desire to meddle or make
-    with their affairs, <i>Causa scientiae patet.</i> All which he declares to be
-    truth," etc.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What do you say to that body of evidence against your friend?" said the
-    magistrate, when he had observed the Antiquary had turned the last leaf.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, were it in the case of any other person, I own I should say it
-    looked, <i>prima facie,</i> a little ugly; but I cannot allow anybody to be in
-    the wrong for beating Dousterswivel&mdash;Had I been an hour younger, or had
-    but one single flash of your warlike genius, Bailie, I should have done
-    it myself long ago. He is <i>nebulo nebulonum,</i> an impudent, fraudulent,
-    mendacious quack, that has cost me a hundred pounds by his roguery, and
-    my neighbour Sir Arthur, God knows how much. And besides, Bailie, I do
-    not hold him to be a sound friend to Government."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed?" said Bailie Littlejohn; "if I thought that, it would alter the
-    question considerably."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Right&mdash;for, in beating him," observed Oldbuck, "the bedesman must have
-    shown his gratitude to the king by thumping his enemy; and in robbing
-    him, he would only have plundered an Egyptian, whose wealth it is lawful
-    to spoil. Now, suppose this interview in the ruins of St. Ruth had
-    relation to politics,&mdash;and this story of hidden treasure, and so forth,
-    was a bribe from the other side of the water for some great man, or the
-    funds destined to maintain a seditious club?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My dear sir," said the magistrate, catching at the idea, "you hit my
-    very thoughts! How fortunate should I be if I could become the humble
-    means of sifting such a matter to the bottom!&mdash;Don't you think we had
-    better call out the volunteers, and put them on duty?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not just yet, while <i>podagra</i> deprives them of an essential member of
-    their body. But will you let me examine Ochiltree?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Certainly; but you'll make nothing of him. He gave me distinctly to
-    understand he knew the danger of a judicial declaration on the part of an
-    accused person, which, to say the truth, has hanged many an honester man
-    than he is."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, but, Bailie," continued Oldbuck, "you have no objection to let me
-    try him?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "None in the world, Monkbarns. I hear the sergeant below&mdash;I'll rehearse
-    the manual in the meanwhile. Baby, carry my gun and bayonet down to the
-    room below&mdash;it makes less noise there when we ground arms." And so exit
-    the martial magistrate, with his maid behind him bearing his weapons.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A good squire that wench for a gouty champion," observed Oldbuck.&mdash;
-    "Hector, my lad, hook on, hook on&mdash;Go with him, boy&mdash;keep him employed,
-    man, for half-an-hour or so&mdash;butter him with some warlike terms&mdash;praise
-    his dress and address."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Captain M'Intyre, who, like many of his profession, looked down with
-    infinite scorn on those citizen soldiers who had assumed arms without any
-    professional title to bear them, rose with great reluctance, observing
-    that he should not know what to say to Mr. Littlejohn; and that to see an
-    old gouty shop-keeper attempting the exercise and duties of a private
-    soldier, was really too ridiculous.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It may be so, Hector," said the Antiquary, who seldom agreed with any
-    person in the immediate proposition which was laid down&mdash;"it may possibly
-    be so in this and some other instances; but at present the country
-    resembles the suitors in a small-debt court, where parties plead in
-    person, for lack of cash to retain the professed heroes of the bar. I am
-    sure in the one case we never regret the want of the acuteness and
-    eloquence of the lawyers; and so, I hope, in the other, we may manage to
-    make shift with our hearts and muskets, though we shall lack some of the
-    discipline of you martinets."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have no objection, I am sure, sir, that the whole world should fight
-    if they please, if they will but allow me to be quiet," said Hector,
-    rising with dogged reluctance.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes, you are a very quiet personage indeed," said his uncle, "whose
-    ardour for quarrelling cannot pass so much as a poor <i>phoca</i> sleeping
-    upon the beach!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    But Hector, who saw which way the conversation was tending, and hated all
-    allusions to the foil he had sustained from the fish, made his escape
-    before the Antiquary concluded the sentence.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0017"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-            Well, well, at worst, 'tis neither theft nor coinage,
-             Granting I knew all that you charge me with.
-            What though the tomb hath borne a second birth,
-             And given the wealth to one that knew not on't,
-                     Yet fair exchange was never robbery,
-                         Far less pure bounty&mdash;
-                                          Old Play.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The Antiquary, in order to avail himself of the permission given him to
-    question the accused party, chose rather to go to the apartment in which
-    Ochiltree was detained, than to make the examination appear formal by
-    bringing him again into the magistrate's office. He found the old man
-    seated by a window which looked out on the sea; and as he gazed on that
-    prospect, large tears found their way, as if unconsciously, to his eye,
-    and from thence trickled down his cheeks and white beard. His features
-    were, nevertheless, calm and composed, and his whole posture and mien
-    indicated patience and resignation. Oldbuck had approached him without
-    being observed, and roused him out of his musing by saying kindly, "I am
-    sorry, Edie, to see you so much cast down about this matter."
-</p>
-<a name="image-0007"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/pb206.jpg" height="782" width="527"
-alt="The Antiquary Visits Edie in Prison
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<p>
-    The mendicant started, dried his eyes very hastily with the sleeve of his
-    gown, and endeavouring to recover his usual tone of indifference and
-    jocularity, answered, but with a voice more tremulous than usual, "I
-    might weel hae judged, Monkbarns, it was you, or the like o' you, was
-    coming in to disturb me&mdash;for it's ae great advantage o' prisons and
-    courts o' justice, that ye may greet your een out an ye like, and nane o'
-    the folk that's concerned about them will ever ask you what it's for."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, Edie," replied Oldbuck, "I hope your present cause of distress is
-    not so bad but it may be removed."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And I had hoped, Monkbarns," answered the mendicant, in a tone of
-    reproach, "that ye had ken'd me better than to think that this bit
-    trifling trouble o' my ain wad bring tears into my auld een, that hae
-    seen far different kind o' distress.&mdash;Na, na!&mdash;But here's been the puir
-    lass, Caxon's daughter, seeking comfort, and has gotten unco little&mdash;
-    there's been nae speerings o' Taffril's gunbrig since the last gale; and
-    folk report on the key that a king's ship had struck on the Reef of
-    Rattray, and a' hands lost&mdash;God forbid! for as sure as you live,
-    Monkbarns, the puir lad Lovel, that ye liked sae weel, must have
-    perished."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "God forbid indeed!" echoed the Antiquary, turning pale&mdash;"I would rather
-    Monkbarns House were on fire. My poor dear friend and coadjutor! I will
-    down to the quay instantly."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I'm sure yell learn naething mair than I hae tauld ye, sir," said
-    Ochiltree, "for the officer-folk here were very civil (that is, for the
-    like o' them), and lookit up ae their letters and authorities, and could
-    throw nae light on't either ae way or another."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It can't be true! it shall not be true!" said the Antiquary, "And I
-    won't believe it if it were!&mdash;Taffril's an excellent sea man, and Lovel
-    (my poor Lovel!) has all the qualities of a safe and pleasant companion
-    by land or by sea&mdash;one, Edie, whom, from the ingenuousness of his
-    disposition, I would choose, did I ever go a sea-voyage (which I never
-    do, unless across the ferry), <i>fragilem mecum solvere phaselum,</i> to be
-    the companion of my risk, as one against whom the elements could nourish
-    no vengeance. No, Edie, it is not, and cannot be true&mdash;it is a fiction of
-    the idle jade Rumour, whom I wish hanged with her trumpet about her neck,
-    that serves only with its screech-owl tones to fright honest folks out of
-    their senses.&mdash;Let me know how you got into this scrape of your own."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Are ye axing me as a magistrate, Monkbarns, or is it just for your ain
-    satisfaction!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "For my own satisfaction solely," replied the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Put up your pocket-book and your keelyvine pen then, for I downa speak
-    out an ye hae writing materials in your hands&mdash;they're a scaur to
-    unlearned folk like me&mdash;Od, ane o' the clerks in the neist room will
-    clink down, in black and white, as muckle as wad hang a man, before ane
-    kens what he's saying."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Monkbarns complied with the old man's humour, and put up his
-    memorandum-book.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Edie then went with great frankness through the part of the story already
-    known to the reader, informing the Antiquary of the scene which he had
-    witnessed between Dousterswivel and his patron in the ruins of St. Ruth,
-    and frankly confessing that he could not resist the opportunity of
-    decoying the adept once more to visit the tomb of Misticot, with the
-    purpose of taking a comic revenge upon him for his quackery. He had
-    easily persuaded Steenie, who was a bold thoughtless young fellow, to
-    engage in the frolic along with him, and the jest had been inadvertently
-    carried a great deal farther than was designed. Concerning the
-    pocket-book, he explained that he had expressed his surprise and sorrow
-    as soon as he found it had been inadvertently brought off: and that
-    publicly, before all the inmates of the cottage, Steenie had undertaken
-    to return it the next day, and had only been prevented by his untimely
-    fate.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Antiquary pondered a moment, and then said, "Your account seems very
-    probable, Edie, and I believe it from what I know of the parties. But I
-    think it likely that you know a great deal more than you have thought it
-    proper to tell me, about this matter of the treasure trove&mdash;I suspect you
-    have acted the part of the Lar Familiaris in Plautus&mdash;a sort of Brownie,
-    Edie, to speak to your comprehension, who watched over hidden
-    treasures.&mdash;I do bethink me you were the first person
-    we met when Sir Arthur made his successful attack upon
-    Misticot's grave, and also that when the labourers began to flag, you,
-    Edie, were again the first to leap into the trench, and to make the
-    discovery of the treasure. Now you must explain all this to me, unless you
-    would have me use you as ill as Euclio does Staphyla in the <i>Aulularia.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Lordsake, sir," replied the mendicant, "what do I ken about your
-    Howlowlaria?&mdash;it's mair like a dog's language than a man's."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You knew, however, of the box of treasure being there?" continued
-    Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dear sir," answered Edie, assuming a countenance of great simplicity,
-    "what likelihood is there o'that? d'ye think sae puir an auld creature as
-    me wad hae kend o' sic a like thing without getting some gude out o't?&mdash;and
-    ye wot weel I sought nane and gat nane, like Michael Scott's man.
-    What concern could I hae wi't?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "That's just what I want you to explain to me," said Oldbuck; "for I am
-    positive you knew it was there."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Your honour's a positive man, Monkbarns&mdash;and, for a positive man, I must
-    needs allow ye're often in the right."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You allow, then, Edie, that my belief is well founded?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Edie nodded acquiescence.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then please to explain to me the whole affair from beginning to end,"
-    said the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If it were a secret o' mine, Monkbarns," replied the beggar, "ye suldna
-    ask twice; for I hae aye said ahint your back, that for a' the nonsense
-    maggots that ye whiles take into your head, ye are the maist wise and
-    discreet o' a' our country gentles. But I'se een be open-hearted wi' you,
-    and tell you that this is a friend's secret, and that they suld draw me
-    wi' wild horses, or saw me asunder, as they did the children of Ammon,
-    sooner than I would speak a word mair about the matter, excepting this,
-    that there was nae ill intended, but muckle gude, and that the purpose
-    was to serve them that are worth twenty hundred o' me. But there's nae
-    law, I trow, that makes it a sin to ken where ither folles siller is, if
-    we didna pit hand til't oursell?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Oldbuck walked once or twice up and down the room in profound thought,
-    endeavouring to find some plausible reason for transactions of a nature
-    so mysterious&mdash;but his ingenuity was totally at fault. He then placed
-    himself before the prisoner.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "This story of yours, friend Edie, is an absolute enigma, and would
-    require a second OEdipus to solve it&mdash;who OEdipus was, I will tell you
-    some other time if you remind me&mdash;However, whether it be owing to the
-    wisdom or to the maggots with which you compliment me, I am strongly
-    disposed to believe that you have spoken the truth, the rather that you
-    have not made any of those obtestations of the superior powers, which I
-    observe you and your comrades always make use of when you mean to deceive
-    folks." (Here Edie could not suppress a smile.) "If, therefore, you will
-    answer me one question, I will endeavour to procure your liberation."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If ye'll let me hear the question," said Edie, with the caution of a
-    canny Scotchman, "I'll tell you whether I'll answer it or no."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is simply," said the Antiquary, "Did Dousterswivel know anything
-    about the concealment of the chest of bullion?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He, the ill-fa'ard loon!" answered Edie, with much frankness of manner&mdash;
-    "there wad hae been little speerings o't had Dustansnivel ken'd it was
-    there&mdash;it wad hae been butter in the black dog's hause."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I thought as much," said Oldbuck. "Well, Edie, if I procure your
-    freedom, you must keep your day, and appear to clear me of the bail-bond,
-    for these are not times for prudent men to incur forfeitures, unless you
-    can point out another <i>Aulam auri plenam quadrilibrem</i>&mdash;another <i>Search,
-    No. I.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ah!" said the beggar, shaking his head, "I doubt the bird's flown that
-    laid thae golden eggs&mdash;for I winna ca' her goose, though that's the gait
-    it stands in the story-buick&mdash;But I'll keep my day, Monkbarns; ye'se no
-    loss a penny by me&mdash;And troth I wad fain be out again, now the weather's
-    fine&mdash;and then I hae the best chance o' hearing the first news o' my
-    friends."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, Edie, as the bouncing and thumping beneath has somewhat ceased, I
-    presume Bailie Littlejohn has dismissed his military preceptor, and has
-    retired from the labours of Mars to those of Themis&mdash;I will have some
-    conversation with him&mdash;But I cannot and will not believe any of those
-    wretched news you were telling me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "God send your honour may be right!" said the mendicant, as Oldbuck left
-    the room.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Antiquary found the magistrate, exhausted with the fatigues of the
-    drill, reposing in his gouty chair, humming the air, "How merrily we live
-    that soldiers be!" and between each bar comforting himself with a
-    spoonful of mock-turtle soup. He ordered a similar refreshment for
-    Oldbuck, who declined it, observing, that, not being a military man, he
-    did not feel inclined to break his habit of keeping regular hours for
-    meals&mdash;"Soldiers like you, Bailie, must snatch their food as they find
-    means and time. But I am sorry to hear ill news of young Taffril's brig."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ah, poor fellow!" said the bailie, "he was a credit to the town&mdash;much
-    distinguished on the first of June."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But," said Oldbuck, "I am shocked to hear you talk of him in the
-    preterite tense."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth, I fear there may be too much reason for it, Monkbarns;&mdash;and yet
-    let us hope the best. The accident is said to have happened in the
-    Rattray reef of rocks, about twenty miles to the northward, near
-    Dirtenalan Bay&mdash;I have sent to inquire about it&mdash;and your nephew run out
-    himself as if he had been flying to get the Gazette of a victory."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here Hector entered, exclaiming as he came in, "I believe it's all a
-    damned lie&mdash;I can't find the least authority for it, but general rumour."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And pray, Mr. Hector," said his uncle, "if it had been true, whose fault
-    would it have been that Lovel was on board?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not mine, I am sure," answered Hector; "it would have been only my
-    misfortune."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed!" said his uncle, "I should not have thought of that."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, sir, with all your inclination to find me in the wrong," replied
-    the young soldier, "I suppose you will own my intention was not to blame
-    in this case. I did my best to hit Lovel, and if I had been successful,
-    'tis clear my scrape would have been his, and his scrape would have been
-    mine."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And whom or what do you intend to hit now, that you are lugging with you
-    that leathern magazine there, marked Gunpowder?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I must be prepared for Lord Glenallan's moors on the twelfth, sir," said
-    M'Intyre.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ah, Hector! thy great <i>chasse,</i> as the French call it, would take place
-    best&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                   Omne cum Proteus pecus agitaret altos
-                            Visere montes&mdash;
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Could you meet but with a martial <i>phoca,</i> instead of an unwarlike
-    heath-bird."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The devil take the seal, sir, or <i>phoca,</i> if you choose to call it so!
-    It's rather hard one can never hear the end of a little piece of folly
-    like that."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, well," said Oldbuck, "I am glad you have the grace to be ashamed
-    of it&mdash;as I detest the whole race of Nimrods, I wish them all as well
-    matched. Nay, never start off at a jest, man&mdash;I have done with the
-    <i>phoca</i>&mdash;though, I dare say, the Bailie could tell us the value of
-    seal-skins just now."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "They are up," said the magistrate, "they are well up&mdash;the fishing has
-    been unsuccessful lately."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We can bear witness to that," said the tormenting Antiquary, who was
-    delighted with the hank this incident had given him over the young
-    sportsman: One word more, Hector, and
-</p>
-<pre>
-              We'll hang a seal-skin on thy recreant limbs.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Aha, my boy! Come, never mind it; I must go to business.&mdash;Bailie, a word
-    with you: you must take bail&mdash;moderate bail, you understand&mdash;for old
-    Ochiltree's appearance."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You don't consider what you ask," said the Bailie; "the offence is
-    assault and robbery."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hush! not a word about it," said the Antiquary. "I gave you a hint
-    before&mdash;I will possess you more fully hereafter&mdash;I promise you, there is
-    a secret."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But, Mr. Oldbuck, if the state is concerned, I, who do the whole
-    drudgery business here, really have a title to be consulted, and until I
-    am"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hush! hush!" said the Antiquary, winking and putting his finger to his
-    nose,&mdash;"you shall have the full credit, the entire management, whenever
-    matters are ripe. But this is an obstinate old fellow, who will not hear
-    of two people being as yet let into his mystery, and he has not fully
-    acquainted me with the clew to Dousterswivel's devices."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aha! so we must tip that fellow the alien act, I suppose?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "To say truth, I wish you would."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Say no more," said the magistrate; "it shall forthwith be done&mdash;he shall
-    be removed <i>tanquam suspect</i>&mdash;I think that's one of your own phrases,
-    Monkbarns?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is classical, Bailie&mdash;you improve."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, public business has of late pressed upon me so much, that I have
-    been obliged to take my foreman into partnership. I have had two several
-    correspondences with the Under Secretary of State&mdash;one on the proposed
-    tax on Riga hemp-seed, and the other on putting down political societies.
-    So you might as well communicate to me as much as you know of this old
-    fellow's discovery of a plot against the state."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I will, instantly, when I am master of it," replied Oldbuck&mdash;-"I hate
-    the trouble of managing such matters myself. Remember, however, I did not
-    say decidedly a plot against the state I only say I hope to discover, by
-    this man's means, a foul plot."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If it be a plot at all, there must be treason in it, or sedition at
-    least," said the Bailie&mdash;"Will you bail him for four hundred merks?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Four hundred merks for an old Blue-Gown! Think on the act 1701
-    regulating bail-bonds!&mdash;Strike off a cipher from the sum&mdash;I am content to
-    bail him for forty merks."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, Mr. Oldbuck, everybody in Fairport is always willing to oblige
-    you&mdash;and besides, I know that you are a prudent man, and one that would
-    be as unwilling to lose forty, as four hundred merks. So I will accept
-    your bail, <i>meo periculo</i>&mdash;what say you to that law phrase again? I had
-    it from a learned counsel. I will vouch it, my lord, he said, <i>meo
-    periculo.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And I will vouch for Edie Ochiltree, <i>meo periculo,</i> in like manner,"
-    said Oldbuck. "So let your clerk draw out the bail-bond, and I will sign
-    it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    When this ceremony had been performed, the Antiquary communicated to Edie
-    the joyful tidings that he was once more at liberty, and directed him to
-    make the best of his way to Monkbarns House, to which he himself returned
-    with his nephew, after having perfected their good work.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0018"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                Full of wise saws and modern instances.
-                                       As You Like It.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "I wish to Heaven, Hector," said the Antiquary, next morning after
-    breakfast, "you would spare our nerves, and not be keeping snapping that
-    arquebuss of yours."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, sir, I'm sure I'm sorry to disturb you," said his nephew, still
-    handling his fowling-piece;&mdash;"but it's a capital gun&mdash;it's a Joe Manton,
-    that cost forty guineas."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A fool and his money are soon parted, nephew&mdash;there is a Joe Miller for
-    your Joe Manton," answered the Antiquary; "I am glad you have so many
-    guineas to throw away."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Every one has their fancy, uncle,&mdash;you are fond of books."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, Hector," said the uncle, "and if my collection were yours, you would
-    make it fly to the gunsmith, the horse-market, the dog-breaker,&mdash;
-    <i>Coemptos undique nobiles libros&mdash;mutare loricis Iberis.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I could not use your books, my dear uncle," said the young soldier,
-    "that's true; and you will do well to provide for their being in better
-    hands. But don't let the faults of my head fall on my heart&mdash;I would not
-    part with a Cordery that belonged to an old friend, to get a set of
-    horses like Lord Glenallan's."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I don't think you would, lad&mdash;I don't think you would," said his
-    softening relative. "I love to tease you a little sometimes; it keeps up
-    the spirit of discipline and habit of subordination&mdash;You will pass your
-    time happily here having me to command you, instead of Captain, or
-    Colonel, or Knight in Arms,' as Milton has it; and instead of the
-    French," he continued, relapsing into his ironical humour, "you have the
-    <i>Gens humida ponti</i>&mdash;for, as Virgil says,
-</p>
-<pre>
-              Sternunt se somno diversae in littore phocae;
-</pre>
-<p>
-    which might be rendered,
-</p>
-<pre>
-                   Here phocae slumber on the beach,
-                  Within our Highland Hector's reach.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Nay, if you grow angry, I have done. Besides, I see old Edie in the
-    court-yard, with whom I have business. Good-bye, Hector&mdash;Do you remember
-    how she splashed into the sea like her master Proteus, <i>et se jactu dedit
-    aequor in altum</i>?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    M'Intyre,&mdash;waiting, however, till the door was shut,&mdash;then gave way to
-    the natural impatience of his temper.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "My uncle is the best man in the world, and in his way the kindest; but
-    rather than hear any more about that cursed <i>phoca,</i> as he is pleased to
-    call it, I would exchange for the West Indies, and never see his face
-    again."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Miss M'Intyre, gratefully attached to her uncle, and passionately fond of
-    her brother, was, on such occasions, the usual envoy of reconciliation.
-    She hastened to meet her uncle on his return, before he entered the
-    parlour.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, now, Miss Womankind, what is the meaning of that imploring
-    countenance?&mdash;has Juno done any more mischief?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, uncle; but Juno's master is in such fear of your joking him about
-    the seal&mdash;I assure you, he feels it much more than you would wish;&mdash;it's
-    very silly of him, to be sure; but then you can turn everybody so sharply
-    into ridicule"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, my dear," answered Oldbuck, propitiated by the compliment, "I will
-    rein in my satire, and, if possible, speak no more of the <i>phoca</i>&mdash;I will
-    not even speak of sealing a letter, but say <i>umph,</i> and give a nod to you
-    when I want the wax-light&mdash;I am not <i>monitoribus asper,</i> but, Heaven
-    knows, the most mild, quiet, and easy of human beings, whom sister,
-    niece, and nephew, guide just as best pleases them."
-</p>
-<p>
-    With this little panegyric on his own docility, Mr. Oldbuck entered the
-    parlour, and proposed to his nephew a walk to the Mussel-crag. "I have
-    some questions to ask of a woman at Mucklebackit's cottage," he observed,
-    "and I would willingly have a sensible witness with me&mdash;so, for fault of
-    a better, Hector, I must be contented with you."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There is old Edie, sir, or Caxon&mdash;could not they do better than me?"
-    answered M'Intyre, feeling somewhat alarmed at the prospect of a long
-    <i>tete-a-tete</i> with his uncle.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Upon my word, young man, you turn me over to pretty companions, and I am
-    quite sensible of your politeness," replied Mr. Oldbuck. "No, sir, I
-    intend the old Blue-Gown shall go with me&mdash;not as a competent witness,
-    for he is, at present, as our friend Bailie Littlejohn says (blessings on
-    his learning!) <i>tanquam suspectus,</i> and you are <i>suspicione major,</i> as
-    our law has it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I wish I were a major, sir," said Hector, catching only the last, and,
-    to a soldier's ear, the most impressive word in the sentence,&mdash;"but,
-    without money or interest, there is little chance of getting the step."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, well, most doughty son of Priam," said the Antiquary, "be ruled by
-    your friends, and there's no saying what may happen&mdash;Come away with me,
-    and you shall see what may be useful to you should you ever sit upon a
-    court-martial, sir."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have been on many a regimental court-martial, sir," answered Captain
-    M'Intyre. "But here's a new cane for you."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Much obliged, much obliged."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I bought it from our drum-major," added M'Intyre, "who came into our
-    regiment from the Bengal army when it came down the Red Sea. It was cut
-    on the banks of the Indus, I assure you."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Upon my word, 'tis a fine ratan, and well replaces that which the <i>ph</i>&mdash;
-    Bah! what was I going to say?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The party, consisting of the Antiquary, his nephew, and the old beggar,
-    now took the sands towards Mussel-crag&mdash;the former in the very highest
-    mood of communicating information, and the others, under a sense of
-    former obligation, and some hope for future favours, decently attentive
-    to receive it. The uncle and nephew walked together, the mendicant about
-    a step and a half behind, just near enough for his patron to speak to him
-    by a slight inclination of his neck, and without the trouble of turning
-    round. (Petrie, in his Essay on Good-breeding, dedicated to the
-    magistrates of Edinburgh, recommends, upon his own experience, as tutor
-    in a family of distinction, this attitude to all led captains, tutors,
-    dependants, and bottle-holders of every description. ) Thus escorted, the
-    Antiquary moved along full of his learning, like a lordly man of war, and
-    every now and then yawing to starboard and larboard to discharge a
-    broadside upon his followers.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And so it is your opinion," said he to the mendicant, "that this
-    windfall&mdash;this <i>arca auri,</i> as Plautus has it, will not greatly avail Sir
-    Arthur in his necessities?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Unless he could find ten times as much," said the beggar, "and that I am
-    sair doubtful of;&mdash;I heard Puggie Orrock, and the tother thief of a
-    sheriff-officer, or messenger, speaking about it&mdash;and things are ill aff
-    when the like o' them can speak crousely about ony gentleman's affairs. I
-    doubt Sir Arthur will be in stane wa's for debt, unless there's swift
-    help and certain."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You speak like a fool," said the Antiquary.&mdash;"Nephew, it is a remarkable
-    thing, that in this happy country no man can be legally imprisoned for
-    debt."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed, sir?" said M'Intyre; "I never knew that before&mdash;that part of our
-    law would suit some of our mess well."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And if they arena confined for debt," said Ochiltree, "what is't that
-    tempts sae mony puir creatures to bide in the tolbooth o' Fairport
-    yonder?&mdash;they a' say they were put there by their creditors&mdash;Od! they
-    maun like it better than I do, if they're there o' free will."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A very natural observation, Edie, and many of your betters would make
-    the same; but it is founded entirely upon ignorance of the feudal system.
-    Hector, be so good as to attend, unless you are looking out for another&mdash;
-    Ahem!" (Hector compelled himself to give attention at this hint. ) "And
-    you, Edie, it may be useful to you <i>reram cognoscere causas.</i> The nature
-    and origin of warrant for caption is a thing <i>haud alienum a Scaevolae
-    studiis.</i>&mdash;You must know then, once more, that nobody can be arrested in
-    Scotland for debt."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I haena muckle concern wi' that, Monkbarns," said the old man, "for
-    naebody wad trust a bodle to a gaberlunzie."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I pr'ythee, peace, man&mdash;As a compulsitor, therefore, of payment, that
-    being a thing to which no debtor is naturally inclined, as I have too
-    much reason to warrant from the experience I have had with my own,&mdash;we
-    had first the letters of four forms, a sort of gentle invitation, by
-    which our sovereign lord the king, interesting himself, as a monarch
-    should, in the regulation of his subjects' private affairs, at first by
-    mild exhortation, and afterwards by letters of more strict enjoinment and
-    more hard compulsion&mdash;What do you see extraordinary about that bird,
-    Hector?&mdash;it's but a seamaw."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's a pictarnie, sir," said Edie.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, what an if it were&mdash;what does that signify at present?&mdash;But I see
-    you're impatient; so I will waive the letters of four forms, and come to
-    the modern process of diligence.&mdash;You suppose, now, a man's committed to
-    prison because he cannot pay his debt? Quite otherwise: the truth is, the
-    king is so good as to interfere at the request of the creditor, and to
-    send the debtor his royal command to do him justice within a certain
-    time&mdash;fifteen days, or six, as the case may be. Well, the man resists and
-    disobeys: what follows? Why, that he be lawfully and rightfully declared
-    a rebel to our gracious sovereign, whose command he has disobeyed, and
-    that by three blasts of a horn at the market-place of Edinburgh, the
-    metropolis of Scotland. And he is then legally imprisoned, not on account
-    of any civil debt, but because of his ungrateful contempt of the royal
-    mandate. What say you to that, Hector?&mdash;there's something you never knew
-    before."*
-</p>
-<p>
-    * The doctrine of Monkbarns on the origin of imprisonment for civil debt
-    in Scotland, may appear somewhat whimsical, but was referred to, and
-    admitted to be correct, by the Bench of the Supreme Scottish Court, on
-    5th December 1828, in the case of Thom <i>v.</i> Black. In fact, the Scottish
-    law is in this particular more jealous of the personal liberty of the
-    subject than any other code in Europe.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, uncle; but, I own, if I wanted money to pay my debts, I would rather
-    thank the king to send me some, than to declare me a rebel for not doing
-    what I could not do."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Your education has not led you to consider these things," replied his
-    uncle; "you are incapable of estimating the elegance of the legal
-    fiction, and the manner in which it reconciles that duress, which, for
-    the protection of commerce, it has been found necessary to extend towards
-    refractory debtors, with the most scrupulous attention to the liberty of
-    the subject."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I don't know, sir," answered the unenlightened Hector; "but if a man
-    must pay his debt or go to jail, it signifies but little whether he goes
-    as a debtor or a rebel, I should think. But you say this command of the
-    king's gives a license of so many days&mdash;Now, egad, were I in the scrape,
-    I would beat a march and leave the king and the creditor to settle it
-    among themselves before they came to extremities."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "So wad I," said Edie; "I wad gie them leg-bail to a certainty."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "True," replied Monkbarns; "but those whom the law suspects of being
-    unwilling to abide her formal visit, she proceeds with by means of a
-    shorter and more unceremonious call, as dealing with persons on whom
-    patience and favour would be utterly thrown away."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay," said Ochiltree, "that will be what they ca' the fugie-warrants&mdash;I
-    hae some skeel in them. There's Border-warrants too in the south country,
-    unco rash uncanny things;&mdash;I was taen up on ane at Saint James's Fair,
-    and keepit in the auld kirk at Kelso the haill day and night; and a cauld
-    goustie place it was, I'se assure ye.&mdash;But whatna wife's this, wi' her
-    creel on her back? It's puir Maggie hersell, I'm thinking."
-</p>
-<p>
-    It was so. The poor woman's sense of her loss, if not diminished, was
-    become at least mitigated by the inevitable necessity of attending to the
-    means of supporting her family; and her salutation to Oldbuck was made in
-    an odd mixture between the usual language of solicitation with which she
-    plied her customers, and the tone of lamentation for her recent calamity.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "How's a' wi' ye the day, Monkbarns? I havena had the grace yet to come
-    down to thank your honour for the credit ye did puir Steenie, wi' laying
-    his head in a rath grave, puir fallow. "&mdash;Here she whimpered and wiped
-    her eyes with the corner of her blue apron&mdash;"But the fishing comes on no
-    that ill, though the gudeman hasna had the heart to gang to sea himsell&mdash;
-    Atweel I would fain tell him it wad do him gude to put hand to wark&mdash;but
-    I'm maist fear'd to speak to him&mdash;and it's an unco thing to hear ane o'
-    us speak that gate o' a man&mdash;However, I hae some dainty caller haddies,
-    and they sall be but three shillings the dozen, for I hae nae pith to
-    drive a bargain ennow, and maun just tak what ony Christian body will
-    gie, wi' few words and nae flyting."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What shall we do, Hector?" said Oldbuck, pausing: "I got into disgrace
-    with my womankind for making a bad bargain with her before. These
-    maritime animals, Hector, are unlucky to our family."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Pooh, sir, what would you do?&mdash;give poor Maggie what she asks, or allow
-    me to send a dish of fish up to Monkbarns."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And he held out the money to her; but Maggie drew back her hand. "Na, na,
-    Captain; ye're ower young and ower free o' your siller&mdash;ye should never
-    tak a fish-wife's first bode; and troth I think maybe a flyte wi' the
-    auld housekeeper at Monkbarns, or Miss Grizel, would do me some gude&mdash;And
-    I want to see what that hellicate quean Jenny Ritherout's doing&mdash;folk
-    said she wasna weel&mdash;She'll be vexing hersell about Steenie, the silly
-    tawpie, as if he wad ever hae lookit ower his shouther at the like
-    o'her!&mdash;Weel, Monkbarns, they're braw caller haddies, and they'll bid me
-    unco little indeed at the house if ye want crappit-heads the day."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And so on she paced with her burden,&mdash;grief, gratitude for the sympathy
-    of her betters, and the habitual love of traffic and of gain, chasing
-    each other through her thoughts.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And now that we are before the door of their hut," said Ochiltree, "I
-    wad fain ken, Monkbarns, what has gar'd ye plague yoursell wi' me a' this
-    length? I tell ye sincerely I hae nae pleasure in ganging in there. I
-    downa bide to think how the young hae fa'en on a' sides o' me, and left
-    me an useless auld stump wi' hardly a green leaf on't."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "This old woman," said Oldbuck, "sent you on a message to the Earl of
-    Glenallan, did she not?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay!" said the surprised mendicant; "how ken ye that sae weel?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Lord Glenallan told me himself," answered the Antiquary; "so there is no
-    delation&mdash;no breach of trust on your part; and as he wishes me to take
-    her evidence down on some important family matters, I chose to bring you
-    with me, because in her situation, hovering between dotage and
-    consciousness, it is possible that your voice and appearance may awaken
-    trains of recollection which I should otherwise have no means of
-    exciting. The human mind&mdash;what are you about, Hector?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I was only whistling for the dog, sir," replied the Captain "she always
-    roves too wide&mdash;I knew I should be troublesome to you."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not at all, not at all," said Oldbuck, resuming the subject of his
-    disquisition&mdash;"the human mind is to be treated like a skein of ravelled
-    silk, where you must cautiously secure one free end before you can make
-    any progress in disentangling it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I ken naething about that," said the gaberlunzie; "but an my auld
-    acquaintance be hersell, or anything like hersell, she may come to wind
-    us a pirn. It's fearsome baith to see and hear her when she wampishes
-    about her arms, and gets to her English, and speaks as if she were a
-    prent book, let a-be an auld fisher's wife. But, indeed, she had a grand
-    education, and was muckle taen out afore she married an unco bit beneath
-    hersell. She's aulder than me by half a score years&mdash;but I mind weel
-    eneugh they made as muckle wark about her making a half-merk marriage wi'
-    Simon Mucklebackit, this Saunders's father, as if she had been ane o' the
-    gentry. But she got into favour again, and then she lost it again, as I
-    hae heard her son say, when he was a muckle chield; and then they got
-    muckle siller, and left the Countess's land, and settled here. But things
-    never throve wi' them. Howsomever, she's a weel-educate woman, and an she
-    win to her English, as I hae heard her do at an orra time, she may come
-    to fickle us a'."
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0019"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER NINETEENTH
-</h2>
-<pre>
-           Life ebbs from such old age, unmarked and silent,
-           As the slow neap-tide leaves yon stranded galley.&mdash;
-              Late she rocked merrily at the least impulse
-              That wind or wave could give; but now her keel
-              Is settling on the sand, her mast has ta'en
-           An angle with the sky, from which it shifts not.
-              Each wave receding shakes her less and less,
-              Till, bedded on the strand, she shall remain
-                               Useless as motionless.
-                                                 Old Play.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    As the Antiquary lifted the latch of the hut, he was surprised to hear
-    the shrill tremulous voice of Elspeth chanting forth an old ballad in a
-    wild and doleful recitative.
-</p>
-<pre>
-                "The herring loves the merry moonlight,
-                     The mackerel loves the wind,
-                But the oyster loves the dredging sang,
-                     For they come of a gentle kind."
-</pre>
-<p>
-    A diligent collector of these legendary scraps of ancient poetry, his
-    foot refused to cross the threshold when his ear was thus arrested, and
-    his hand instinctively took pencil and memorandum-book. From time to time
-    the old woman spoke as if to the children&mdash;"Oh ay, hinnies, whisht!
-    whisht! and I'll begin a bonnier ane than that&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                 "Now haud your tongue, baith wife and carle,
-                      And listen, great and sma',
-                  And I will sing of Glenallan's Earl
-                     That fought on the red Harlaw.
-
-                 "The cronach's cried on Bennachie,
-                       And doun the Don and a',
-                  And hieland and lawland may mournfu' be
-                       For the sair field of Harlaw.&mdash;
-</pre>
-<p>
-    I dinna mind the neist verse weel&mdash;my memory's failed, and theres unco
-    thoughts come ower me&mdash;God keep us frae temptation!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here her voice sunk in indistinct muttering.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's a historical ballad," said Oldbuck, eagerly, "a genuine and
-    undoubted fragment of minstrelsy! Percy would admire its simplicity&mdash;
-    Ritson could not impugn its authenticity."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, but it's a sad thing," said Ochiltree, "to see human nature sae far
-    owertaen as to be skirling at auld sangs on the back of a loss like
-    hers."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hush! hush!" said the Antiquary&mdash;"she has gotten the thread of the story
-    again. "&mdash;And as he spoke, she sung&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-              "They saddled a hundred milk-white steeds,
-                   They hae bridled a hundred black,
-               With a chafron of steel on each horse's head,
-                  And a good knight upon his back. "&mdash;
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "Chafron!" exclaimed the Antiquary,&mdash;"equivalent, perhaps, to
-    <i>cheveron;</i>&mdash;the word's worth a dollar,"&mdash;and down it went in his red
-    book.
-</p>
-<pre>
-                  "They hadna ridden a mile, a mile,
-                        A mile, but barely ten,
-                   When Donald came branking down the brae
-                       Wi' twenty thousand men.
-
-                 "Their tartans they were waving wide,
-                       Their glaives were glancing clear,
-                  Their pibrochs rung frae side to side,
-                       Would deafen ye to hear.
-
-                 "The great Earl in his stirrups stood
-                      That Highland host to see:
-                  Now here a knight that's stout and good
-                         May prove a jeopardie:
-
-                 "What wouldst thou do, my squire so gay,
-                       That rides beside my reyne,
-                   Were ye Glenallan's Earl the day,
-                       And I were Roland Cheyne?
-
-                 "To turn the rein were sin and shame,
-                       To fight were wondrous peril,
-                 What would ye do now, Roland Cheyne,
-                       Were ye Glenallan's Earl?'
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Ye maun ken, hinnies, that this Roland Cheyne, for as poor and auld as I
-    sit in the chimney-neuk, was my forbear, and an awfu' man he was that
-    dayin the fight, but specially after the Earl had fa'en, for he blamed
-    himsell for the counsel he gave, to fight before Mar came up wi' Mearns,
-    and Aberdeen, and Angus."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Her voice rose and became more animated as she recited the warlike
-    counsel of her ancestor&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                  "Were I Glenallan's Earl this tide,
-                      And ye were Roland Cheyne,
-                  The spur should be in my horse's side,
-                     And the bridle upon his mane.
-
-                 "If they hae twenty thousand blades,
-                       And we twice ten times ten,
-                  Yet they hae but their tartan plaids,
-                       And we are mail-clad men.
-
-                 "My horse shall ride through ranks sae rude,
-                      As through the moorland fern,
-                 Then neer let the gentle Norman blude
-                      Grow cauld for Highland kerne.'"
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "Do you hear that, nephew?" said Oldbuck;&mdash;"you observe your Gaelic
-    ancestors were not held in high repute formerly by the Lowland warriors."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I hear," said Hector, "a silly old woman sing a silly old song. I am
-    surprised, sir, that you, who will not listen to Ossian's songs of Selma,
-    can be pleased with such trash. I vow, I have not seen or heard a worse
-    halfpenny ballad; I don't believe you could match it in any pedlar's pack
-    in the country. I should be ashamed to think that the honour of the
-    Highlands could be affected by such doggrel. "&mdash;And, tossing up his head,
-    he snuffed the air indignantly.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Apparently the old woman heard the sound of their voices; for, ceasing
-    her song, she called out, "Come in, sirs, come in&mdash;good-will never halted
-    at the door-stane."
-</p>
-<p>
-    They entered, and found to their surprise Elspeth alone, sitting "ghastly
-    on the hearth," like the personification of Old Age in the Hunter's song
-    of the Owl,* "wrinkled, tattered, vile, dim-eyed, discoloured, torpid."
-</p>
-<p>
-    * See Mrs. Grant on the Highland Superstitions, vol. ii. p. 260, for this
-    fine translation from the Gaelic.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "They're a' out," she said, as they entered; "but an ye will sit a blink,
-    somebody will be in. If ye hae business wi' my gude-daughter, or my son,
-    they'll be in belyve,&mdash;I never speak on business mysell. Bairns, gie them
-    seats&mdash;the bairns are a' gane out, I trow,"&mdash;looking around her;&mdash;"I was
-    crooning to keep them quiet a wee while since; but they hae cruppen out
-    some gate. Sit down, sirs, they'll be in belyve;" and she dismissed her
-    spindle from her hand to twirl upon the floor, and soon seemed
-    exclusively occupied in regulating its motion, as unconscious of the
-    presence of the strangers as she appeared indifferent to their rank or
-    business there.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I wish," said Oldbuck, "she would resume that canticle, or legendary
-    fragment. I always suspected there was a skirmish of cavalry before the
-    main battle of the Harlaw."*
-</p>
-<p>
-    * Note H. Battle of Harlaw.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If your honour pleases," said Edie, "had ye not better proceed to the
-    business that brought us a' here? I'se engage to get ye the sang ony
-    time."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I believe you are right, Edie&mdash;<i>Do manus</i>&mdash;I submit. But how shall we
-    manage? She sits there the very image of dotage. Speak to her, Edie&mdash;try
-    if you can make her recollect having sent you to Glenallan House."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Edie rose accordingly, and, crossing the floor, placed himself in the
-    same position which he had occupied during his former conversation with
-    her. "I'm fain to see ye looking sae weel, cummer; the mair, that the
-    black ox has tramped on ye since I was aneath your roof-tree."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay," said Elspeth; but rather from a general idea of misfortune, than
-    any exact recollection of what had happened,&mdash;"there has been distress
-    amang us of late&mdash;I wonder how younger folk bide it&mdash;I bide it ill. I
-    canna hear the wind whistle, and the sea roar, but I think I see the
-    coble whombled keel up, and some o' them struggling in the waves!&mdash;Eh,
-    sirs; sic weary dreams as folk hae between sleeping and waking, before
-    they win to the lang sleep and the sound! I could amaist think whiles my
-    son, or else Steenie, my oe, was dead, and that I had seen the burial.
-    Isna that a queer dream for a daft auld carline? What for should ony o'
-    them dee before me?&mdash;it's out o' the course o' nature, ye ken."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I think you'll make very little of this stupid old woman," said
-		Hector,&mdash;who still nourished, perhaps, some feelings of the dislike excited by
-    the disparaging mention of his countrymen in her lay&mdash;"I think you'll
-    make but little of her, sir; and it's wasting our time to sit here and
-    listen to her dotage."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hector," said the Antiquary, indignantly, "if you do not respect her
-    misfortunes, respect at least her old age and grey hairs: this is the
-    last stage of existence, so finely treated by the Latin poet&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                                &mdash;Omni
-               Membrorum damno major dementia, quae nec
-               Nomina, servorum, nec vultus agnoscit amici,
-               Cum queis preterita coenavit nocte, nec illos
-                            Quos genuit, quos eduxit."
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "That's Latin!" said Elspeth, rousing herself as if she attended to the
-    lines, which the Antiquary recited with great pomp of diction&mdash;"that's
-    Latin!" and she cast a wild glance around her&mdash;"Has there a priest fund
-    me out at last?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You see, nephew, her comprehension is almost equal to your own of that
-    fine passage."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I hope you think, sir, that I knew it to be Latin as well as she did?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, as to that&mdash;But stay, she is about to speak."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I will have no priest&mdash;none," said the beldam, with impotent vehemence;
-    "as I have lived I will die&mdash;none shall say that I betrayed my mistress,
-    though it were to save my soul!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "That bespoke a foul conscience," said the mendicant;&mdash;"I wuss she wad
-    mak a clean breast, an it were but for her sake;" and he again assailed
-    her.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Weel, gudewife, I did your errand to the Yerl."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "To what Earl? I ken nae Earl;&mdash;I ken'd a Countess ance&mdash;I wish to Heaven
-    I had never ken'd her! for by that acquaintance, neighbour, their cam,"&mdash;
-    and she counted her withered fingers as she spoke "first Pride, then
-    Malice, then Revenge, then False Witness; and Murder tirl'd at the
-    door-pin, if he camna ben. And werena thae pleasant guests, think ye, to
-    take up their quarters in ae woman's heart? I trow there was routh o'
-    company."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But, cummer," continued the beggar, "it wasna the Countess of Glenallan
-    I meant, but her son, him that was Lord Geraldin."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I mind it now," she said; "I saw him no that langsyne, and we had a
-    heavy speech thegither. Eh, sirs! the comely young lord is turned as auld
-    and frail as I am: it's muckle that sorrow and heartbreak, and crossing
-    of true love, will do wi' young blood. But suldna his mither hae lookit
-    to that hersell?&mdash;we were but to do her bidding, ye ken. I am sure
-    there's naebody can blame me&mdash;he wasna my son, and she was my mistress.
-    Ye ken how the rhyme says&mdash;I hae maist forgotten how to sing, or else the
-    tune's left my auld head&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                  "He turn'd him right and round again,
-                       Said, Scorn na at my mither;
-                   Light loves I may get mony a ane,
-                       But minnie neer anither.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Then he was but of the half blude, ye ken, and her's was the right
-    Glenallan after a'. Na, na, I maun never maen doing and suffering for the
-    Countess Joscelin&mdash;never will I maen for that."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Then drawing her flax from the distaff, with the dogged air of one who is
-    resolved to confess nothing, she resumed her interrupted occupation.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I hae heard," said the mendicant, taking his cue from what Oldbuck had
-    told him of the family history&mdash;"I hae heard, cummer, that some ill
-    tongue suld hae come between the Earl, that's Lord Geraldin, and his
-    young bride."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ill tongue?" she said in hasty alarm; "and what had she to fear frae an
-    ill tongue?&mdash;she was gude and fair eneugh&mdash;at least a' body said sae. But
-    had she keepit her ain tongue aff ither folk, she might hae been living
-    like a leddy for a' that's come and gane yet."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But I hae heard say, gudewife," continued Ochiltree, "there was a
-    clatter in the country, that her husband and her were ower sibb when they
-    married."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Wha durst speak o' that?" said the old woman hastily; "wha durst say
-    they were married?&mdash;wha ken'd o' that?&mdash;Not the Countess&mdash;not I. If they
-    wedded in secret, they were severed in secret&mdash;They drank of the
-    fountains of their ain deceit."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, wretched beldam!" exclaimed Oldbuck, who could keep silence no
-    longer, "they drank the poison that you and your wicked mistress prepared
-    for them."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ha, ha!" she replied, "I aye thought it would come to this. It's but
-    sitting silent when they examine me&mdash;there's nae torture in our days; and
-    if there is, let them rend me!&mdash;It's ill o' the vassal's mouth that
-    betrays the bread it eats."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Speak to her, Edie," said the Antiquary; "she knows your voice, and
-    answers to it most readily."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We shall mak naething mair out o' her," said Ochiltree. "When she has
-    clinkit hersell down that way, and faulded her arms, she winna speak a
-    word, they say, for weeks thegither. And besides, to my thinking, her
-    face is sair changed since we cam in. However, I'se try her ance mair to
-    satisfy your honour.&mdash;So ye canna keep in mind, cummer, that your auld
-    mistress, the Countess Joscelin, has been removed?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Removed!" she exclaimed; for that name never failed to produce its usual
-    effect upon her; "then we maun a' follow&mdash;a' maun ride when she is in the
-    saddle. Tell them to let Lord Geraldin ken we're on before them. Bring my
-    hood and scarf&mdash;ye wadna hae me gang in the carriage wi' my leddy, and my
-    hair in this fashion?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    She raised her shrivelled arms, and seemed busied like a woman who puts
-    on her cloak to go abroad, then dropped them slowly and stiffly; and the
-    same idea of a journey still floating apparently through her head, she
-    proceeded, in a hurried and interrupted manner,&mdash;"Call Miss Neville&mdash;What
-    do you mean by Lady Geraldin? I said Eveline Neville, not Lady Geraldin&mdash;
-    there's no Lady Geraldin; tell her that, and bid her change her wet gown,
-    and no' look sae pale. Bairn! what should she do wi' a bairn?&mdash;maidens
-    hae nane, I trow.&mdash;Teresa&mdash;Teresa&mdash;my lady calls us!&mdash;Bring a candle;&mdash;the
-    grand staircase is as mirk as a Yule midnight&mdash;We are coming, my
-    lady!"&mdash;With these words she sunk back on the settle, and from thence
-    sidelong to the floor. *
-</p>
-<p>
-    * Note I. Elspeth's death.
-</p>
-<pre>
- Edie ran to support her, but hardly got her in his arms, before he said,
-"It's a' ower&mdash;she has passed away even with that last word."
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "Impossible," said Oldbuck, hastily advancing, as did his nephew. But
-    nothing was more certain. She had expired with the last hurried word that
-    left her lips; and all that remained before them were the mortal relics
-    of the creature who had so long struggled with an internal sense of
-    concealed guilt, joined to all the distresses of age and poverty.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "God grant that she be gane to a better place!" said Edie, as he looked
-    on the lifeless body; "but oh! there was something lying hard and heavy
-    at her heart. I have seen mony a ane dee, baith in the field o' battle,
-    and a fair-strae death at hame; but I wad rather see them a' ower again,
-    as sic a fearfu' flitting as hers!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We must call in the neighbours," said Oldbuck, when he had somewhat
-    recovered his horror and astonishment, "and give warning of this
-    additional calamity. I wish she could have been brought to a confession.
-    And, though of far less consequence, I could have wished to transcribe
-    that metrical fragment. But Heaven's will must be done!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    They left the hut accordingly, and gave the alarm in the hamlet, whose
-    matrons instantly assembled to compose the limbs and arrange the body of
-    her who might be considered as the mother of their settlement. Oldbuck
-    promised his assistance for the funeral.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Your honour," said Alison Breck, who was next in age to the deceased,
-    "suld send doun something to us for keeping up our hearts at the
-    lykewake, for a' Saunders's gin, puir man, was drucken out at the burial
-    o' Steenie, and we'll no get mony to sit dry-lipped aside the corpse.
-    Elspeth was unco clever in her young days, as I can mind right weel, but
-    there was aye a word o' her no being that chancy. Ane suldna speak ill o'
-    the dead&mdash;mair by token, o' ane's cummer and neighbour&mdash;but there was
-    queer things said about a leddy and a bairn or she left the
-    Craigburnfoot. And sae, in gude troth, it will be a puir lykewake, unless
-    your honour sends us something to keep us cracking."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You shall have some whisky," answered Oldbuck, "the rather that you have
-    preserved the proper word for that ancient custom of watching the dead.
-    You observe, Hector, this is genuine Teutonic, from the Gothic
-    <i>Leichnam,</i> a corpse. It is quite erroneously called <i>Late-wake,</i> though
-    Brand favours that modern corruption and derivation."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I believe," said Hector to himself, "my uncle would give away Monkbarns
-    to any one who would come to ask it in genuine Teutonic! Not a drop of
-    whisky would the old creatures have got, had their president asked it for
-    the use of the <i>Late-wake.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    While Oldbuck was giving some farther directions, and promising
-    assistance, a servant of Sir Arthur's came riding very hard along the
-    sands, and stopped his horse when he saw the Antiquary. "There had
-    something," he said, "very particular happened at the Castle"&mdash;(he could
-    not, or would not, explain what)&mdash;"and Miss Wardour had sent him off
-    express to Monkbarns, to beg that Mr. Oldbuck would come to them without
-    a moment's delay."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am afraid," said the Antiquary, "his course also is drawing to a
-    close. What can I do?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Do, sir?" exclaimed Hector, with his characteristic impatience,&mdash;"get on
-    the horse, and turn his head homeward&mdash;you will be at Knockwinnock Castle
-    in ten minutes."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He is quite a free goer," said the servant, dismounting to adjust the
-    girths and stirrups,&mdash;"he only pulls a little if he feels a dead weight
-    on him."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I should soon be a dead weight <i>off</i> him, my friend," said the
-    Antiquary.&mdash;"What the devil, nephew, are you weary of me? or do you
-    suppose me weary of my life, that I should get on the back of such a
-    Bucephalus as that? No, no, my friend, if I am to be at Knockwinnock
-    to-day, it must be by walking quietly forward on my own feet, which I
-    will do with as little delay as possible. Captain M'Intyre may ride that
-    animal himself, if he pleases."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have little hope I could be of any use, uncle, but I cannot think of
-    their distress without wishing to show sympathy at least&mdash;so I will ride
-    on before, and announce to them that you are coming.&mdash;I'll trouble you
-    for your spurs, my friend."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You will scarce need them, sir," said the man, taking them off at the
-    same time, and buckling them upon Captain Mlntyre's heels, "he's very
-    frank to the road."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Oldbuck stood astonished at this last act of temerity, "are you mad,
-    Hector?" he cried, "or have you forgotten what is said by Quintus
-    Curtius, with whom, as a soldier, you must needs be familiar,&mdash;<i>Nobilis
-    equus umbra quidem virgae regitur; ignavus ne calcari quidem excitari
-    potest;</i> which plainly shows that spurs are useless in every case, and, I
-    may add, dangerous in most."
-</p>
-<p>
-    But Hector, who cared little for the opinion of either Quintus Curtius or
-    of the Antiquary, upon such a topic, only answered with a heedless "Never
-    fear&mdash;never fear, sir."
-</p>
-<pre>
-              With that he gave his able horse the head,
-              And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
-              Against the panting sides of his poor jade,
-                Up to the rowel-head; and starting so,
-                He seemed in running to devour the way,
-                      Staying no longer question.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "There they go, well matched," said Oldbuck, looking after them as they
-    started&mdash;"a mad horse and a wild boy, the two most unruly creatures in
-    Christendom! and all to get half an hour sooner to a place where nobody
-    wants him; for I doubt Sir Arthur's griefs are beyond the cure of our
-    light horseman. It must be the villany of Dousterswivel, for whom Sir
-    Arthur has done so much; for I cannot help observing, that, with some
-    natures, Tacitus's maxim holdeth good: <i>Beneficia eo usque laeta sunt dum
-    videntur exsolvi posse; ubi multum antevenere, pro gratia odium
-    redditur,</i>&mdash;from which a wise man might take a caution, not to oblige any
-    man beyond the degree in which he may expect to be requited, lest he
-    should make his debtor a bankrupt in gratitude."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Murmuring to himself such scraps of cynical philosophy, our Antiquary
-    paced the sands towards Knockwinnock; but it is necessary we should
-    outstrip him, for the purpose of explaining the reasons of his being so
-    anxiously summoned thither.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0020"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER TWENTIETH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-             So, while the Goose, of whom the fable told,
-                Incumbent, brooded o'er her eggs of gold,
-             With hand outstretched, impatient to destroy,
-                Stole on her secret nest the cruel Boy,
-             Whose gripe rapacious changed her splendid dream,
-            &mdash;For wings vain fluttering, and for dying scream.
-                                   The Loves of the Sea-weeds.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    From the time that Sir Arthur Wardour had become possessor of the
-    treasure found in Misticot's grave, he had been in a state of mind more
-    resembling ecstasy than sober sense. Indeed, at one time his daughter had
-    become seriously apprehensive for his intellect; for, as he had no doubt
-    that he had the secret of possessing himself of wealth to an unbounded
-    extent, his language and carriage were those of a man who had acquired
-    the philosopher's stone. He talked of buying contiguous estates, that
-    would have led him from one side of the island to the other, as if he
-    were determined to brook no neighbour save the sea. He corresponded with
-    an architect of eminence, upon a plan of renovating the castle of his
-    forefathers on a style of extended magnificence that might have rivalled
-    that of Windsor, and laying out the grounds on a suitable scale. Troops
-    of liveried menials were already, in fancy, marshalled in his halls,
-		and&mdash;for what may not unbounded wealth authorize its possessor to aspire
-    to?&mdash;the coronet of a marquis, perhaps of a duke, was glittering before
-    his imagination. His daughter&mdash;to what matches might she not look
-    forward? Even an alliance with the blood-royal was not beyond the sphere
-    of his hopes. His son was already a general&mdash;and he himself whatever
-    ambition could dream of in its wildest visions.
-</p>
-<p>
-    In this mood, if any one endeavoured to bring Sir Arthur down to the
-    regions of common life, his replies were in the vein of Ancient Pistol&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                   A fico for the world, and worldlings base
-                   I speak of Africa and golden joys!
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The reader may conceive the amazement of Miss Wardour, when, instead of
-    undergoing an investigation concerning the addresses of Lovel, as she had
-    expected from the long conference of her father with Mr. Oldbuck, upon
-    the morning of the fated day when the treasure was discovered, the
-    conversation of Sir Arthur announced an imagination heated with the hopes
-    of possessing the most unbounded wealth. But she was seriously alarmed
-    when Dousterswivel was sent for to the Castle, and was closeted with her
-    father&mdash;his mishap condoled with&mdash;his part taken, and his loss
-    compensated. All the suspicions which she had long entertained respecting
-    this man became strengthened, by observing his pains to keep up the
-    golden dreams of her father, and to secure for himself, under various
-    pretexts, as much as possible out of the windfall which had so strangely
-    fallen to Sir Arthur's share.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Other evil symptoms began to appear, following close on each other.
-    Letters arrived every post, which Sir Arthur, as soon as he had looked at
-    the directions, flung into the fire without taking the trouble to open
-    them. Miss Wardour could not help suspecting that these epistles, the
-    contents of which seemed to be known to her father by a sort of
-    intuition, came from pressing creditors. In the meanwhile, the temporary
-    aid which he had received from the treasure dwindled fast away. By far
-    the greater part had been swallowed up by the necessity of paying the
-    bill of six hundred pounds, which had threatened Sir Arthur with instant
-    distress. Of the rest, some part was given to the adept, some wasted upon
-    extravagances which seemed to the poor knight fully authorized by his
-    full-blown hopes,&mdash;and some went to stop for a time the mouths of such
-    claimants as, being weary of fair promises, had become of opinion with
-    Harpagon, that it was necessary to touch something substantial. At length
-    circumstances announced but too plainly, that it was all expended within
-    two or three days after its discovery; and there appeared no prospect of
-    a supply. Sir Arthur, naturally impatient, now taxed Dousterswivel anew
-    with breach of those promises through which he had hoped to convert all
-    his lead into gold. But that worthy gentleman's turn was now served; and
-    as he had grace enough to wish to avoid witnessing the fall of the house
-    which he had undermined, he was at the trouble of bestowing a few learned
-    terms of art upon Sir Arthur, that at least he might not be tormented
-    before his time. He took leave of him, with assurances that he would
-    return to Knockwinnock the next morning, with such information as would
-    not fail to relieve Sir Arthur from all his distresses.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "For, since I have consulted in such matters, I ave never," said Mr.
-    Herman Dousterswivel, "approached so near de <i>arcanum,</i> what you call de
-    great mystery,&mdash;de Panchresta&mdash;de Polychresta&mdash;I do know as much of it as
-    Pelaso de Taranta, or Basilius&mdash;and either I will bring you in two and
-    tree days de No. III. of Mr. Mishdigoat, or you shall call me one knave
-    myself, and never look me in de face again no more at all."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The adept departed with this assurance, in the firm resolution of making
-    good the latter part of the proposition, and never again appearing before
-    his injured patron. Sir Arthur remained in a doubtful and anxious state
-    of mind. The positive assurances of the philosopher, with the hard words
-    Panchresta, Basilius, and so forth, produced some effect on his mind. But
-    he had been too often deluded by such jargon, to be absolutely relieved
-    of his doubt, and he retired for the evening into his library, in the
-    fearful state of one who, hanging over a precipice, and without the means
-    of retreat, perceives the stone on which he rests gradually parting from
-    the rest of the crag, and about to give way with him.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The visions of hope decayed, and there increased in proportion that
-    feverish agony of anticipation with which a man, educated in a sense of
-    consequence, and possessed of opulence,&mdash;the supporter of an ancient
-    name, and the father of two promising children,&mdash;foresaw the hour
-    approaching which should deprive him of all the splendour which time had
-    made familiarly necessary to him, and send him forth into the world to
-    struggle with poverty, with rapacity, and with scorn. Under these dire
-    forebodings, his temper, exhausted by the sickness of delayed hope,
-    became peevish and fretful, and his words and actions sometimes expressed
-    a reckless desperation, which alarmed Miss Wardour extremely. We have
-    seen, on a former occasion, that Sir Arthur was a man of passions lively
-    and quick, in proportion to the weakness of his character in other
-    respects; he was unused to contradiction, and if he had been hitherto, in
-    general, good-humoured and cheerful, it was probably because the course
-    of his life had afforded no such frequent provocation as to render his
-    irritability habitual.
-</p>
-<p>
-    On the third morning after Dousterswivel's departure, the servant, as
-    usual, laid on the breakfast table the newspaper and letters of the day.
-    Miss Wardour took up the former to avoid the continued ill-humour of her
-    father, who had wrought himself into a violent passion, because the toast
-    was over-browned.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I perceive how it is," was his concluding speech on this interesting
-    subject,&mdash;"my servants, who have had their share of my fortune, begin to
-    think there is little to be made of me in future. But while I <i>am</i> the
-    scoundrel's master I will be so, and permit no neglect&mdash;no, nor endure a
-    hair's-breadth diminution of the respect I am entitled to exact from
-    them."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am ready to leave your honour's service this instant," said the
-    domestic upon whom the fault had been charged, "as soon as you order
-    payment of my wages."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur, as if stung by a serpent, thrust his hand into his pocket,
-    and instantly drew out the money which it contained, but which was short
-    of the man's claim. "What money have you got, Miss Wardour?" he said, in
-    a tone of affected calmness, but which concealed violent agitation.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Miss Wardour gave him her purse; he attempted to count the bank notes
-    which it contained, but could not reckon them. After twice miscounting
-    the sum, he threw the whole to his daughter, and saying, in a stern
-    voice, "Pay the rascal, and let him leave the house instantly!" he strode
-    out of the room.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The mistress and servant stood alike astonished at the agitation and
-    vehemence of his manner.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am sure, ma'am, if I had thought I was particularly wrang, I wadna hae
-    made ony answer when Sir Arthur challenged me. I hae been lang in his
-    service, and he has been a kind master, and you a kind mistress, and I
-    wad like ill ye should think I wad start for a hasty word. I am sure it
-    was very wrang o' me to speak about wages to his honour, when maybe he
-    has something to vex him. I had nae thoughts o' leaving the family in
-    this way."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Go down stair, Robert," said his mistress&mdash;"something has happened to
-    fret my father&mdash;go down stairs, and let Alick answer the bell."
-</p>
-<p>
-    When the man left the room, Sir Arthur re-entered, as if he had been
-    watching his departure. "What's the meaning of this?" he said hastily, as
-    he observed the notes lying still on the table&mdash;"Is he not gone? Am I
-    neither to be obeyed as a master or a father?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He is gone to give up his charge to the housekeeper, sir,&mdash;I thought
-    there was not such instant haste."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There <i>is</i> haste, Miss Wardour," answered her father, interrupting
-		her;&mdash;"What I do henceforth in the house of my forefathers, must be done
-    speedily, or never."
-</p>
-<p>
-    He then sate down, and took up with a trembling hand the basin of tea
-    prepared for him, protracting the swallowing of it, as if to delay the
-    necessity of opening the post-letters which lay on the table, and which
-    he eyed from time to time, as if they had been a nest of adders ready to
-    start into life and spring upon him.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You will be happy to hear," said Miss Wardour, willing to withdraw her
-    father's mind from the gloomy reflections in which he appeared to be
-    plunged, "you will be happy to hear, sir, that Lieutenant Taffril's
-    gun-brig has got safe into Leith Roads&mdash;I observe there had been
-    apprehensions for his safety&mdash;I am glad we did not hear them till they
-    were contradicted."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And what is Taffril and his gun-brig to me?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Sir!" said Miss Wardour in astonishment; for Sir Arthur, in his ordinary
-    state of mind, took a fidgety sort of interest in all the gossip of the
-    day and country.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I say," he repeated in a higher and still more impatient key, "what do I
-    care who is saved or lost? It's nothing to me, I suppose?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I did not know you were busy, Sir Arthur; and thought, as Mr. Taffril is
-    a brave man, and from our own country, you would be happy to hear"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Oh, I am happy&mdash;as happy as possible&mdash;and, to make you happy too, you
-    shall have some of my good news in return." And he caught up a letter.
-    "It does not signify which I open first&mdash;they are all to the same tune."
-</p>
-<p>
-    He broke the seal hastily, ran the letter over, and then threw it to his
-    daughter. "Ay&mdash;I could not have lighted more happily!&mdash;this places the
-    copestone."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Miss Wardour, in silent terror, took up the letter. "Read it&mdash;read it
-    aloud!" said her father; "it cannot be read too often; it will serve to
-    break you in for other good news of the same kind."
-</p>
-<p>
-    She began to read with a faltering voice, "Dear Sir."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He <i>dears</i> me too, you see, this impudent drudge of a writer's office,
-    who, a twelvemonth since, was not fit company for my second table&mdash;I
-    suppose I shall be dear Knight' with him by and by."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dear Sir," resumed Miss Wardour; but, interrupting herself, "I see the
-    contents are unpleasant, sir&mdash;it will only vex you my reading them
-    aloud."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If you will allow me to know my own pleasure, Miss Wardour, I entreat
-    you to go on&mdash;I presume, if it were unnecessary, I should not ask you to
-    take the trouble."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Having been of late taken into copartnery," continued Miss Wardour,
-    reading the letter, "by Mr. Gilbert Greenhorn, son of your late
-    correspondent and man of business, Girnigo Greenhorn, Esq., writer to the
-    signet, whose business I conducted as parliament-house clerk for many
-    years, which business will in future be carried on under the firm of
-    Greenhorn and Grinderson (which I memorandum for the sake of accuracy in
-    addressing your future letters), and having had of late favours of yours,
-    directed to my aforesaid partner, Gilbert Greenhorn, in consequence of
-    his absence at the Lamberton races, have the honour to reply to your said
-    favours."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You see my friend is methodical, and commences by explaining the causes
-    which have procured me so modest and elegant a correspondent. Go on&mdash;I
-    can bear it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And he laughed that bitter laugh which is perhaps the most fearful
-    expression of mental misery. Trembling to proceed, and yet afraid to
-    disobey, Miss Wardour continued to read&mdash;"I am for myself and partner,
-    sorry we cannot oblige you by looking out for the sums you mention, or
-    applying for a suspension in the case of Goldiebirds' bond, which would
-    be more inconsistent, as we have been employed to act as the said
-    Goldiebirds' procurators and attorneys, in which capacity we have taken
-    out a charge of horning against you, as you must be aware by the schedule
-    left by the messenger, for the sum of four thousand seven hundred and
-    fifty-six pounds five shillings and sixpence one-fourth of a penny
-    sterling, which, with annual-rent and expenses effeiring, we presume will
-    be settled during the currency of the charge, to prevent further trouble.
-    Same time, I am under the necessity to observe our own account, amounting
-    to seven hundred and sixty-nine pounds ten shillings and sixpence, is
-    also due, and settlement would be agreeable; but as we hold your rights,
-    title-deeds, and documents in hypothec, shall have no objection to give
-    reasonable time&mdash;say till the next money term. I am, for myself and
-    partner, concerned to add, that Messrs. Goldiebirds' instructions to us
-    are to proceed <i>peremptorie</i> and <i>sine mora,</i> of which I have the
-    pleasure to advise you, to prevent future mistakes, reserving to
-    ourselves otherwise to age' as accords. I am, for self and partner, dear
-    sir, your obliged humble servant, Gabriel Grinderson, for Greenhorn and
-    Grinderson."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ungrateful villain!" said Miss Wardour.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, no&mdash;it's in the usual rule, I suppose; the blow could not have been
-    perfect if dealt by another hand&mdash;it's all just as it should be,"
-    answered the poor Baronet, his affected composure sorely belied by his
-    quivering lip and rolling eye&mdash;"But here's a postscript I did not
-		notice&mdash;come, finish the epistle."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have to add (not for self but partner) that Mr. Greenhorn will
-    accommodate you by taking your service of plate, or the bay horses, if
-    sound in wind and limb, at a fair appreciation, in part payment of your
-    accompt."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "G&mdash;d confound him!" said Sir Arthur, losing all command of himself at
-    this condescending proposal: "his grandfather shod my father's horses,
-    and this descendant of a scoundrelly blacksmith proposes to swindle me
-    out of mine! But I will write him a proper answer."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And he sate down and began to write with great vehemence, then stopped
-    and read aloud:&mdash;"Mr. Gilbert Greenhorn,&mdash;in answer to two letters of a
-    late date, I received a letter from a person calling himself Grinderson,
-    and designing himself as your partner. When I address any one, I do not
-    usually expect to be answered by deputy&mdash;I think I have been useful to
-    your father, and friendly and civil to yourself, and therefore am now
-    surprised&mdash;And yet," said he, stopping short, "why should I be surprised
-    at that or anything else? or why should I take up my time in writing to
-    such a scoundrel?&mdash;I shan't be always kept in prison, I suppose; and to
-    break that puppy's bones when I get out, shall be my first employment."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In prison, sir?" said Miss Wardour, faintly.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, in prison to be sure. Do you make any question about that? Why, Mr.
-    what's his name's fine letter for self and partner seems to be thrown
-    away on you, or else you have got four thousand so many hundred pounds,
-    with the due proportion of shillings, pence, and half-pence, to pay that
-    aforesaid demand, as he calls it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I, sir? O if I had the means!&mdash;But where's my brother?&mdash;why does he not
-    come, and so long in Scotland? He might do something to assist us."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Who, Reginald?&mdash;I suppose he's gone with Mr. Gilbert Greenhorn, or some
-    such respectable person, to the Lamberton races&mdash;I have expected him this
-    week past; but I cannot wonder that my children should neglect me as well
-    as every other person. But I should beg your pardon, my love, who never
-    either neglected or offended me in your life."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And kissing her cheek as she threw her arms round his neck, he
-    experienced that consolation which a parent feels, even in the most
-    distressed state, in the assurance that he possesses the affection of a
-    child.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Miss Wardour took the advantage of this revulsion of feeling, to
-    endeavour to soothe her father's mind to composure. She reminded him that
-    he had many friends.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I had many once," said Sir Arthur; "but of some I have exhausted their
-    kindness with my frantic projects; others are unable to assist me&mdash;others
-    are unwilling. It is all over with me. I only hope Reginald will take
-    example by my folly."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Should I not send to Monkbarns, sir?" said his daughter.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "To what purpose? He cannot lend me such a sum, and would not if he
-    could, for he knows I am otherwise drowned in debt; and he would only
-    give me scraps of misanthropy and quaint ends of Latin."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But he is shrewd and sensible, and was bred to business, and, I am sure,
-    always loved this family."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes, I believe he did. It is a fine pass we are come to, when the
-    affection of an Oldbuck is of consequence to a Wardour! But when matters
-    come to extremity, as I suppose they presently will&mdash;it may be as well to
-    send for him. And now go take your walk, my dear&mdash;my mind is more
-    composed than when I had this cursed disclosure to make. You know the
-    worst, and may daily or hourly expect it. Go take your walk&mdash;I would
-    willingly be alone for a little while."
-</p>
-<p>
-    When Miss Wardour left the apartment, her first occupation was to avail
-    herself of the half permission granted by her father, by despatching to
-    Monkbarns the messenger, who, as we have already seen, met the Antiquary
-    and his nephew on the sea-beach.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Little recking, and indeed scarce knowing, where she was wandering,
-    chance directed her into the walk beneath the Briery Bank, as it was
-    called. A brook, which in former days had supplied the castle-moat with
-    water, here descended through a narrow dell, up which Miss Wardour's
-    taste had directed a natural path, which was rendered neat and easy of
-    ascent, without the air of being formally made and preserved. It suited
-    well the character of the little glen, which was overhung with thickets
-    and underwood, chiefly of larch and hazel, intermixed with the usual
-    varieties of the thorn and brier. In this walk had passed that scene of
-    explanation between Miss Wardour and Lovel which was overheard by old
-    Edie Ochiltree. With a heart softened by the distress which approached
-    her family, Miss Wardour now recalled every word and argument which Lovel
-    had urged in support of his suit, and could not help confessing to
-    herself, it was no small subject of pride to have inspired a young man of
-    his talents with a passion so strong and disinterested. That he should
-    have left the pursuit of a profession in which he was said to be rapidly
-    rising, to bury himself in a disagreeable place like Fairport, and brood
-    over an unrequited passion, might be ridiculed by others as romantic, but
-    was naturally forgiven as an excess of affection by the person who was
-    the object of his attachment. Had he possessed an independence, however
-    moderate, or ascertained a clear and undisputed claim to the rank in
-    society he was well qualified to adorn, she might now have had it in her
-    power to offer her father, during his misfortunes, an asylum in an
-    establishment of her own. These thoughts, so favourable to the absent
-    lover, crowded in, one after the other, with such a minute recapitulation
-    of his words, looks, and actions, as plainly intimated that his former
-    repulse had been dictated rather by duty than inclination. Isabella was
-    musing alternately upon this subject, and upon that of her father's
-    misfortunes, when, as the path winded round a little hillock covered with
-    brushwood, the old Blue-Gown suddenly met her.
-</p>
-<p>
-    With an air as if he had something important and mysterious to
-    communicate, he doffed his bonnet, and assumed the cautious step and
-    voice of one who would not willingly be overheard. "I hae been wishing
-    muckle to meet wi' your leddyship&mdash;for ye ken I darena come to the house
-    for Dousterswivel."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I heard indeed," said Miss Wardour, dropping an alms into the bonnet&mdash;"I
-    heard that you had done a very foolish, if not a very bad thing, Edie&mdash;
-    and I was sorry to hear it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hout, my bonny leddy&mdash;fulish? A' the world's fules&mdash;and how should auld
-    Edie Ochiltree be aye wise?&mdash;And for the evil&mdash;let them wha deal wi'
-    Dousterswivel tell whether he gat a grain mair than his deserts."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "That may be true, Edie, and yet," said Miss Wardour, "you may have been
-    very wrong."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Weel, weel, we'se no dispute that e'ennow&mdash;it's about yoursell I'm gaun
-    to speak. Div ye ken what's hanging ower the house of Knockwinnock?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Great distress, I fear, Edie," answered Miss Wardour; "but I am
-    surprised it is already so public."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Public!&mdash;Sweepclean, the messenger, will be there the day wi' a' his
-    tackle. I ken it frae ane o' his concurrents, as they ca' them, that's
-    warned to meet him; and they'll be about their wark belyve; whare they
-    clip, there needs nae kame&mdash;they shear close eneugh."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Are you sure this bad hour, Edie, is so very near?&mdash;come, I know, it
-    will."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's e'en as I tell you, leddy. But dinna be cast down&mdash;there's a heaven
-    ower your head here, as weel as in that fearful night atween the
-    Ballyburghness and the Halket-head. D'ye think He, wha rebuked the
-    waters, canna protect you against the wrath of men, though they be armed
-    with human authority?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is indeed all we have to trust to."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ye dinna ken&mdash;ye dinna ken: when the night's darkest, the dawn's
-    nearest. If I had a gude horse, or could ride him when I had him, I
-    reckon there wad be help yet. I trusted to hae gotten a cast wi' the
-    Royal Charlotte, but she's coupit yonder, it's like, at Kittlebrig. There
-    was a young gentleman on the box, and he behuved to drive; and Tam Sang,
-    that suld hae mair sense, he behuved to let him, and the daft callant
-    couldna tak the turn at the corner o' the brig; and od! he took the
-    curbstane, and he's whomled her as I wad whomle a toom bicker&mdash;it was a
-    luck I hadna gotten on the tap o' her. Sae I came down atween hope and
-    despair, to see if ye wad send me on."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And, Edie&mdash;where would ye go?" said the young lady.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "To Tannonburgh, my leddy" (which was the first stage from Fairport, but
-    a good deal nearer to Knockwinnock), "and that without delay&mdash;it's a' on
-    your ain business."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Our business, Edie? Alas! I give you all credit for your good meaning;
-    but"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There's nae <i>buts</i> about it, my leddy, for gang I maun," said the
-    persevering Blue-Gown.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But what is it that you would do at Tannonburgh?&mdash;or how can your going
-    there benefit my father's affairs?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed, my sweet leddy," said the gaberlunzie, "ye maun just trust that
-    bit secret to auld Edie's grey pow, and ask nae questions about it.
-    Certainly if I wad hae wared my life for you yon night, I can hae nae
-    reason to play an ill pliskie t'ye in the day o' your distress."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, Edie, follow me then," said Miss Wardour, "and I will try to get
-    you sent to Tannonburgh."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mak haste then, my bonny leddy&mdash;mak haste, for the love o' goodness!"&mdash;
-    and he continued to exhort her to expedition until they reached the
-    Castle.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0021"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-               Let those go see who will&mdash;I like it not&mdash;
-               For, say he was a slave to rank and pomp,
-               And all the nothings he is now divorced from
-                 By the hard doom of stern necessity:
-                 Yet it is sad to mark his altered brow,
-                 Where Vanity adjusts her flimsy veil
-               O'er the deep wrinkles of repentant anguish.
-                                         Old Play.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    When Miss Wardour arrived in the court of the Castle, she was apprized by
-    the first glance that the visit of the officers of the law had already
-    taken place. There was confusion, and gloom and sorrow, and curiosity
-    among the domestics, while the retainers of the law went from place to
-    place, making an inventory of the goods and chattels falling under their
-    warrant of distress, or poinding, as it is called in the law of Scotland.
-    Captain M'Intyre flew to her, as, struck dumb with the melancholy
-    conviction of her father's ruin, she paused upon the threshold of the
-    gateway.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dear Miss Wardour," he said, "do not make yourself uneasy; my uncle is
-    coming immediately, and I am sure he will find some way to clear the
-    house of these rascals."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Alas! Captain M'Intyre, I fear it will be too late."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No," answered Edie, impatiently&mdash;"could I but get to Tannonburgh. In the
-    name of Heaven, Captain, contrive some way to get me on, and ye'll do
-    this poor ruined family the best day's doing that has been done them
-    since Redhand's days&mdash;for as sure as e'er an auld saw came true,
-    Knockwinnock house and land will be lost and won this day."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, what good can you do, old man?" said Hector.
-</p>
-<p>
-    But Robert, the domestic with whom Sir Arthur had been so much displeased
-    in the morning, as if he had been watching for an opportunity to display
-    his zeal, stepped hastily forward and said to his mistress, "If you
-    please, ma'am, this auld man, Ochiltree, is very skeely and auld-farrant
-    about mony things, as the diseases of cows and horse, and sic like, and I
-    am sure be disna want to be at Tannonburgh the day for naething, since he
-    insists on't this gate; and, if your leddyship pleases, I'll drive him
-    there in the taxed-cart in an hour's time. I wad fain be of some use&mdash;I
-    could bite my very tongue out when I think on this morning."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I am obliged to you, Robert," said Miss Wardour; "and if you really
-    think it has the least chance of being useful"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In the name of God," said the old man, "yoke the cart, Robie, and if I
-    am no o' some use, less or mair, I'll gie ye leave to fling me ower
-    Kittlebrig as ye come back again. But, O man, haste ye, for time's
-    precious this day."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Robert looked at his mistress as she retired into the house, and seeing
-    he was not prohibited, flew to the stable-yard, which was adjacent to the
-    court, in order to yoke the carriage; for, though an old beggar was the
-    personage least likely to render effectual assistance in a case of
-    pecuniary distress, yet there was among the common people of Edie's
-    circle, a general idea of his prudence and sagacity, which authorized
-    Robert's conclusion that he would not so earnestly have urged the
-    necessity of this expedition had he not been convinced of its utility.
-    But so soon as the servant took hold of a horse to harness him for the
-    taxed-cart, an officer touched him on the shoulder&mdash;"My friend, you must
-    let that beast alone&mdash;he's down in the schedule."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What!" said Robert, "am I not to take my master's horse to go my young
-    leddy's errand?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You must remove nothing here," said the man of office, "or you will be
-    liable for all consequences."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What the devil, sir," said Hector, who having followed to examine
-    Ochiltree more closely on the nature of his hopes and expectations,
-    already began to bristle like one of the terriers of his own native
-    mountains, and sought but a decent pretext for venting his displeasure,
-    "have you the impudence to prevent the young lady's servant from obeying
-    her orders?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    There was something in the air and tone of the young soldier, which
-    seemed to argue that his interference was not likely to be confined to
-    mere expostulation; and which, if it promised finally the advantages of a
-    process of battery and deforcement, would certainly commence with the
-    unpleasant circumstances necessary for founding such a complaint. The
-    legal officer, confronted with him of the military, grasped with one
-    doubtful hand the greasy bludgeon which was to enforce his authority, and
-    with the other produced his short official baton, tipped with silver, and
-    having a movable ring upon it&mdash;"Captain M'Intyre,&mdash;Sir, I have no quarrel
-    with you,&mdash;but if you interrupt me in my duty, I will break the wand of
-    peace, and declare myself deforced."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And who the devil cares," said Hector, totally ignorant of the words of
-    judicial action, "whether you declare yourself divorced or married? And
-    as to breaking your wand, or breaking the peace, or whatever you call it,
-    all I know is, that I will break your bones if you prevent the lad from
-    harnessing the horses to obey his mistress's orders."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I take all who stand here to witness," said the messenger, "that I
-    showed him my blazon, and explained my character. He that will to Cupar
-    maun to Cupar,"&mdash;and he slid his enigmatical ring from one end of the
-    baton to the other, being the appropriate symbol of his having been
-    forcibly interrupted in the discharge of his duty.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Honest Hector, better accustomed to the artillery of the field than to
-    that of the law, saw this mystical ceremony with great indifference; and
-    with like unconcern beheld the messenger sit down to write out an
-    execution of deforcement. But at this moment, to prevent the well-meaning
-    hot-headed Highlander from running the risk of a severe penalty, the
-    Antiquary arrived puffing and blowing, with his handkerchief crammed
-    under his hat, and his wig upon the end of his stick.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What the deuce is the matter here?" he exclaimed, hastily adjusting his
-    head-gear; "I have been following you in fear of finding your idle
-    loggerhead knocked against one rock or other, and here I find you parted
-    with your Bucephalus, and quarrelling with Sweepclean. A messenger,
-    Hector, is a worse foe than a <i>phoca,</i> whether it be the <i>phoca barbata,</i>
-    or the <i>phoca vitulina</i> of your late conflict."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "D&mdash;n the <i>phoca,</i> sir," said Hector, "whether it be the one or the
-    other&mdash;I say d&mdash;n them both particularly! I think you would not have me
-    stand quietly by and see a scoundrel like this, because he calls himself
-    a king's messenger, forsooth&mdash;(I hope the king has many better for his
-    meanest errands)&mdash;insult a young lady of family and fashion like Miss
-    Wardour?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Rightly argued, Hector," said the Antiquary; "but the king, like other
-    people, has now and then shabby errands, and, in your ear, must have
-    shabby fellows to do them. But even supposing you unacquainted with the
-    statutes of William the Lion, in which <i>capite quarto versu quinto,</i> this
-    crime of deforcement is termed <i>despectus Domini Regis</i>&mdash;a contempt, to
-    wit, of the king himself, in whose name all legal diligence issues,&mdash;
-    could you not have inferred, from the information I took so much pains to
-    give you to-day, that those who interrupt officers who come to execute
-    letters of caption, are <i>tanquam participes criminis rebellionis?</i> seeing
-    that he who aids a rebel, is himself, <i>quodammodo,</i> an accessory to
-    rebellion&mdash;But I'll bring you out of this scrape."
-</p>
-<p>
-    He then spoke to the messenger, who, upon his arrival, had laid aside all
-    thoughts of making a good by-job out of the deforcement, and accepted Mr.
-    Oldbuck's assurances that the horse and taxed-cart should be safely
-    returned in the course of two or three hours.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Very well, sir," said the Antiquary, "since you are disposed to be so
-    civil, you shall have another job in your own best way&mdash;a little cast of
-    state politics&mdash;a crime punishable <i>per Legem Juliam,</i> Mr. Sweepclean&mdash;
-    Hark thee hither."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And after a whisper of five minutes, he gave him a slip of paper, on
-    receiving which, the messenger mounted his horse, and, with one of his
-    assistants, rode away pretty sharply. The fellow who remained seemed to
-    delay his operations purposely, proceeded in the rest of his duty very
-    slowly, and with the caution and precision of one who feels himself
-    overlooked by a skilful and severe inspector.
-</p>
-<p>
-    In the meantime, Oldbuck, taking his nephew by the arm, led him into the
-    house, and they were ushered into the presence of Sir Arthur Wardour,
-    who, in a flutter between wounded pride, agonized apprehension, and vain
-    attempts to disguise both under a show of indifference, exhibited a
-    spectacle of painful interest.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Happy to see you, Mr. Oldbuck&mdash;always happy to see my friends in fair
-    weather or foul," said the poor Baronet, struggling not for composure,
-    but for gaiety&mdash;an affectation which was strongly contrasted by the
-    nervous and protracted grasp of his hand, and the agitation of his whole
-    demeanour&mdash;"I am happy to see you. You are riding, I see&mdash;I hope in this
-    confusion your horses are taken good care of&mdash;I always like to have my
-    friend's horses looked after&mdash;Egad! they will have all my care now, for
-    you see they are like to leave me none of my own&mdash;he! he! he! eh, Mr.
-    Oldbuck?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    This attempt at a jest was attended by a hysterical giggle, which poor
-    Sir Arthur intended should sound as an indifferent laugh.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You know I never ride, Sir Arthur," said the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I beg your pardon; but sure I saw your nephew arrive on horseback a
-    short time since. We must look after officers' horses, and his was as
-    handsome a grey charger as I have seen."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur was about to ring the bell, when Mr. Oldbuck said, "My nephew
-    came on your own grey horse, Sir Arthur."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Mine!" said the poor Baronet; "mine was it? then the sun had been in my
-    eyes. Well, I'm not worthy having a horse any longer, since I don't know
-    my own when I see him."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Good Heaven!" thought Oldbuck, "how is this man altered from the formal
-    stolidity of his usual manner!&mdash;he grows wanton under adversity&mdash;<i>Sed
-    pereunti mille figurae.</i>"&mdash;He then proceeded aloud&mdash;"Sir Arthur, we must
-    necessarily speak a little on business."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "To be sure," said Sir Arthur; "but it was so good that I should not know
-    the horse I have ridden these five years&mdash;ha! ha! ha!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Sir Arthur," said the Antiquary, "don't let us waste time which is
-    precious; we shall have, I hope, many better seasons for jesting&mdash;
-    <i>desipere in loco</i> is the maxim of Horace. I more than suspect this has
-    been brought on by the villany of Dousterswivel."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Don't mention his name, sir!" said Sir Arthur; and his manner entirely
-    changed from a fluttered affectation of gaiety to all the agitation of
-    fury; his eyes sparkled, his mouth foamed, his hands were clenched&mdash;
-    "don't mention his name, sir," he vociferated, "unless you would see me
-    go mad in your presence! That I should have been such a miserable dolt&mdash;
-    such an infatuated idiot&mdash;such a beast endowed with thrice a beast's
-    stupidity, to be led and driven and spur-galled by such a rascal, and
-    under such ridiculous pretences!&mdash;Mr. Oldbuck, I could tear myself when I
-    think of it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I only meant to say," answered the Antiquary, "that this fellow is like
-    to meet his reward; and I cannot but think we shall frighten something
-    out of him that may be of service to you. He has certainly had some
-    unlawful correspondence on the other side of the water."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Has he?&mdash;has he?&mdash;has he indeed?&mdash;then d&mdash;n the house-hold goods,
-    horses, and so forth&mdash;I will go to prison a happy man, Mr. Oldbuck. I
-    hope in heaven there's a reasonable chance of his being hanged?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Why, pretty fair," said Oldbuck, willing to encourage this diversion, in
-    hopes it might mitigate the feelings which seemed like to overset the
-    poor man's understanding; "honester men have stretched a rope, or the law
-    has been sadly cheated&mdash;But this unhappy business of yours&mdash;can nothing
-    be done? Let me see the charge."
-</p>
-<p>
-    He took the papers; and, as he read them, his countenance grew hopelessly
-    dark and disconsolate. Miss Wardour had by this time entered the
-    apartment, and fixing her eyes on Mr. Oldbuck, as if she meant to read
-    her fate in his looks, easily perceived, from the change in his eye, and
-    the dropping of his nether-jaw, how little was to be hoped.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We are then irremediably ruined, Mr. Oldbuck?" said the young lady.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Irremediably?&mdash;I hope not&mdash;but the instant demand is very large, and
-    others will, doubtless, pour in."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, never doubt that, Monkbarns," said Sir Arthur; "where the slaughter
-    is, the eagles will be gathered together. I am like a sheep which I have
-    seen fall down a precipice, or drop down from sickness&mdash;if you had not
-    seen a single raven or hooded crow for a fortnight before, he will not
-    lie on the heather ten minutes before half-a-dozen will be picking out
-    his eyes (and he drew his hand over his own), and tearing at his
-    heartstrings before the poor devil has time to die. But that d&mdash;d
-    long-scented vulture that dogged me so long&mdash;you have got him fast, I
-    hope?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Fast enough," said the Antiquary; "the gentleman wished to take the
-    wings of the morning, and bolt in the what d'ye call it,&mdash;the coach and
-    four there. But he would have found twigs limed for him at Edinburgh. As
-    it is, he never got so far, for the coach being overturned&mdash;as how could
-    it go safe with such a Jonah?&mdash;he has had an infernal tumble, is carried
-    into a cottage near Kittlebrig, and to prevent all possibility of escape,
-    I have sent your friend Sweepclean to bring him back to Fairport <i>in
-    nomine regis,</i> or to act as his sick-nurse at Kittlebrig, as is most
-    fitting. And now, Sir Arthur, permit me to have some conversation with
-    you on the present unpleasant state of your affairs, that we may see what
-    can be done for their extrication;" and the Antiquary led the way into
-    the library, followed by the unfortunate gentleman.
-</p>
-<p>
-    They had been shut up together for about two hours, when Miss Wardour
-    interrupted them with her cloak on as if prepared for a journey. Her
-    countenance was very pale, yet expressive of the composure which
-    characterized her disposition.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The messenger is returned, Mr. Oldbuck."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Returned?&mdash;What the devil! he has not let the fellow go?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No&mdash;I understand he has carried him to confinement; and now he is
-    returned to attend my father, and says he can wait no longer."
-</p>
-<p>
-    A loud wrangling was now heard on the staircase, in which the voice of
-    Hector predominated. "You an officer, sir, and these ragamuffins a party!
-    a parcel of beggarly tailor fellows&mdash;tell yourselves off by nine, and we
-    shall know your effective strength."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The grumbling voice of the man of law was then heard indistinctly
-    muttering a reply, to which Hector retorted&mdash;"Come, come, sir, this won't
-    do;&mdash;march your party, as you call them, out of this house directly, or
-    I'll send you and them to the right about presently."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The devil take Hector," said the Antiquary, hastening to the scene of
-    action; "his Highland blood is up again, and we shall have him fighting a
-    duel with the bailiff. Come, Mr. Sweepclean, you must give us a little
-    time&mdash;I know you would not wish to hurry Sir Arthur."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "By no means, sir," said the messenger, putting his hat off, which he had
-    thrown on to testify defiance of Captain M'Intyre's threats; "but your
-    nephew, sir, holds very uncivil language, and I have borne too much of it
-    already; and I am not justified in leaving my prisoner any longer after
-    the instructions I received, unless I am to get payment of the sums
-    contained in my diligence." And he held out the caption, pointing with
-    the awful truncheon, which he held in his right hand, to the formidable
-    line of figures jotted upon the back thereof.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Hector, on the other hand, though silent from respect to his uncle,
-    answered this gesture by shaking his clenched fist at the messenger with
-    a frown of Highland wrath.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Foolish boy, be quiet," said Oldbuck, "and come with me into the room&mdash;
-    the man is doing his miserable duty, and you will only make matters worse
-    by opposing him.&mdash;I fear, Sir Arthur, you must accompany this man to
-    Fairport; there is no help for it in the first instance&mdash;I will accompany
-    you, to consult what further can be done&mdash;My nephew will escort Miss
-    Wardour to Monkbarns, which I hope she will make her residence until
-    these unpleasant matters are settled."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I go with my father, Mr. Oldbuck," said Miss Wardour firmly&mdash;"I have
-    prepared his clothes and my own&mdash;I suppose we shall have the use of the
-    carriage?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Anything in reason, madam," said the messenger; "I have ordered it out,
-    and it's at the door&mdash;I will go on the box with the coachman&mdash;I have no
-    desire to intrude&mdash;but two of the concurrents must attend on horseback."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I will attend too," said Hector, and he ran down to secure a horse for
-    himself.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "We must go then," said the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "To jail," said the Baronet, sighing involuntarily. "And what of that?"
-    he resumed, in a tone affectedly cheerful&mdash;"it is only a house we can't
-    get out of, after all&mdash;Suppose a fit of the gout, and Knockwinnock would
-    be the same&mdash;Ay, ay, Monkbarns&mdash;we'll call it a fit of the gout without
-    the d&mdash;d pain."
-</p>
-<p>
-    But his eyes swelled with tears as he spoke, and his faltering accent
-    marked how much this assumed gaiety cost him. The Antiquary wrung his
-    hand, and, like the Indian Banians, who drive the real terms of an
-    important bargain by signs, while they are apparently talking of
-    indifferent matters, the hand of Sir Arthur, by its convulsive return of
-    the grasp, expressed his sense of gratitude to his friend, and the real
-    state of his internal agony.&mdash;They stepped slowly down the magnificent
-    staircase&mdash;every well-known object seeming to the unfortunate father and
-    daughter to assume a more prominent and distinct appearance than usual,
-    as if to press themselves on their notice for the last time.
-</p>
-<p>
-    At the first landing-place, Sir Arthur made an agonized pause; and as he
-    observed the Antiquary look at him anxiously, he said with assumed
-    dignity&mdash;"Yes, Mr. Oldbuck, the descendant of an ancient line&mdash;the
-    representative of Richard Redhand and Gamelyn de Guardover, may be
-    pardoned a sigh when he leaves the castle of his fathers thus poorly
-    escorted. When I was sent to the Tower with my late father, in the year
-    1745, it was upon a charge becoming our birth&mdash;upon an accusation of high
-    treason, Mr. Oldbuck;&mdash;we were escorted from Highgate by a troop of
-    life-guards, and committed upon a secretary of state's warrant; and now,
-    here I am, in my old age, dragged from my household by a miserable
-    creature like that" (pointing to the messenger), "and for a paltry
-    concern of pounds, shillings, and pence."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "At least," said Oldbuck, "you have now the company of a dutiful
-    daughter, and a sincere friend, if you will permit me to say so, and that
-    may be some consolation, even without the certainty that there can be no
-    hanging, drawing, or quartering, on the present occasion. But I hear that
-    choleric boy as loud as ever. I hope to God he has got into no new
-    broil!&mdash;it was an accursed chance that brought him here at all."
-</p>
-<p>
-    In fact, a sudden clamour, in which the loud voice and somewhat northern
-    accent of Hector was again preeminently distinguished, broke off this
-    conversation. The cause we must refer to the next CHAPTER.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0022"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-           Fortune, you say, flies from us&mdash;She but circles,
-           Like the fleet sea-bird round the fowler's skiff,&mdash;
-               Lost in the mist one moment, and the next
-               Brushing the white sail with her whiter wing,
-               As if to court the aim.&mdash;Experience watches,
-                                And has her on the wheel&mdash;
-                                               Old Play.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The shout of triumph in Hector's warlike tones was not easily
-    distinguished from that of battle. But as he rushed up stairs with a
-    packet in his hand, exclaiming, "Long life to an old soldier! here comes
-    Edie with a whole budget of good news!" it became obvious that his
-    present cause of clamour was of an agreeable nature. He delivered the
-    letter to Oldbuck, shook Sir Arthur heartily by the hand, and wished Miss
-    Wardour joy, with all the frankness of Highland congratulation. The
-    messenger, who had a kind of instinctive terror for Captain M'Intyre,
-    drew towards his prisoner, keeping an eye of caution on the soldier's
-    motions.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Don't suppose I shall trouble myself about you, you dirty fellow," said
-    the soldier; "there's a guinea for the fright I have given you; and here
-    comes an old <i>forty-two</i> man, who is a fitter match for you than I am."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The messenger (one of those dogs who are not too scornful to eat dirty
-    puddings) caught in his hand the guinea which Hector chucked at his face;
-    and abode warily and carefully the turn which matters were now to take.
-    All voices meanwhile were loud in inquiries, which no one was in a hurry
-    to answer.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What is the matter, Captain M'Intyre?" said Sir Arthur.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ask old Edie," said Hector;&mdash;"I only know all's safe and well."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What is all this, Edie?" said Miss Wardour to the mendicant.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Your leddyship maun ask Monkbarns, for he has gotten the yepistolary
-    correspondensh."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "God save the king!" exclaimed the Antiquary at the first glance at the
-    contents of his packet, and, surprised at once out of decorum,
-    philosophy, and phlegm, he skimmed his cocked hat in the air, from which
-    it descended not again, being caught in its fall by a branch of the
-    chandelier. He next, looking joyously round, laid a grasp on his wig,
-    which he perhaps would have sent after the beaver, had not Edie stopped
-    his hand, exclaiming "Lordsake! he's gaun gyte!&mdash;mind Caxon's no here to
-    repair the damage."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Every person now assailed the Antiquary, clamouring to know the cause of
-    so sudden a transport, when, somewhat ashamed of his rapture, he fairly
-    turned tail, like a fox at the cry of a pack of hounds, and ascending the
-    stair by two steps at a time, gained the upper landing-place, where,
-    turning round, he addressed the astonished audience as follows:&mdash;
-</p>
-<a name="image-0008"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/pb271.jpg" height="469" width="735"
-alt="My Good Friends, 'favete Linguis'
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<p>
-    "My good friends, <i>favete linguis</i>&mdash;To give you information, I must
-    first, according to logicians, be possessed of it myself; and, therefore,
-    with your leaves, I will retire into the library to examine these
-		papers&mdash;Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour will have the goodness to step into the
-    parlour&mdash;Mr. Sweepclean, <i>secede paulisper,</i> or, in your own language,
-    grant us a supersedere of diligence for five minutes&mdash;Hector, draw off
-    your forces, and make your bear-garden flourish elsewhere&mdash;and, finally,
-    be all of good cheer till my return, which will be <i>instanter.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    The contents of the packet were indeed so little expected, that the
-    Antiquary might be pardoned, first his ecstasy, and next his desire of
-    delaying to communicate the intelligence they conveyed, until it was
-    arranged and digested in his own mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Within the envelope was a letter addressed to Jonathan Oldbuck, Esq. of
-    Monkbarns, of the following purport:&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dear Sir,&mdash;To you, as my father's proved and valued friend, I venture to
-    address myself, being detained here by military duty of a very pressing
-    nature. You must by this time be acquainted with the entangled state of
-    our affairs; and I know it will give you great pleasure to learn, that I
-    am as fortunately as unexpectedly placed in a situation to give effectual
-    assistance for extricating them. I understand Sir Arthur is threatened
-    with severe measures by persons who acted formerly as his agents; and, by
-    advice of a creditable man of business here, I have procured the enclosed
-    writing, which I understand will stop their proceedings until their claim
-    shall be legally discussed, and brought down to its proper amount. I also
-    enclose bills to the amount of one thousand pounds to pay any other
-    pressing demands, and request of your friendship to apply them according
-    to your discretion. You will be surprised I give you this trouble, when
-    it would seem more natural to address my father directly in his own
-    affairs. But I have yet had no assurance that his eyes are opened to the
-    character of a person against whom you have often, I know, warned him,
-    and whose baneful influence has been the occasion of these distresses.
-    And as I owe the means of relieving Sir Arthur to the generosity of a
-    matchless friend, it is my duty to take the most certain measures for the
-    supplies being devoted to the purpose for which they were destined,&mdash;and
-    I know your wisdom and kindness will see that it is done. My friend, as
-    he claims an interest in your regard, will explain some views of his own
-    in the enclosed letter. The state of the post-office at Fairport being
-    rather notorious, I must send this letter to Tannonburgh; but the old man
-    Ochiltree, whom particular circumstances have recommended as trustworthy,
-    has information when the packet is likely to reach that place, and will
-    take care to forward it. I expect to have soon an opportunity to
-    apologize in person for the trouble I now give, and have the honour to be
-    your very faithful servant,
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Reginald Gamelyn Wardour."
-    "Edinburgh, 6th August, 179-."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Antiquary hastily broke the seal of the enclosure, the contents of
-    which gave him equal surprise and pleasure. When he had in some measure
-    composed himself after such unexpected tidings, he inspected the other
-    papers carefully, which all related to business&mdash;put the bills into his
-    pocket-book, and wrote a short acknowledgment to be despatched by that
-    day's post, for he was extremely methodical in money matters&mdash;and lastly,
-    fraught with all the importance of disclosure, he descended to the
-    parlour.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Sweepclean," said he, as he entered, to the officer who stood
-    respectfully at the door, "you must sweep yourself clean out of
-    Knockwinnock Castle, with all your followers, tag-rag and bob-tail. Seest
-    thou this paper, man?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "A sist on a bill o' suspension," said the messenger, with a disappointed
-    look;&mdash;"I thought it would be a queer thing if ultimate diligence was to
-    be done against sic a gentleman as Sir Arthur&mdash;Weel, sir, I'se go my ways
-    with my party&mdash;And who's to pay my charges?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "They who employed thee," replied Oldbuck, "as thou full well dost
-		know.&mdash;But here comes another express: this is a day of news, I think."
-</p>
-<p>
-    This was Mr. Mailsetter on his mare from Fairport, with a letter for Sir
-    Arthur, another to the messenger, both of which, he said, he was directed
-    to forward instantly. The messenger opened his, observing that Greenhorn
-    and Grinderson were good enough men for his expenses, and here was a
-    letter from them desiring him to stop the diligence. Accordingly, he
-    immediately left the apartment, and staying no longer than to gather his
-    posse together, he did then, in the phrase of Hector, who watched his
-    departure as a jealous mastiff eyes the retreat of a repulsed beggar,
-    evacuate Flanders.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur's letter was from Mr. Greenhorn, and a curiosity in its way.
-    We give it, with the worthy Baronet's comments.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Sir&mdash;[Oh! I am <i>dear</i> sir no longer; folks are only dear to Messrs.
-    Greenhorn and Grinderson when they are in adversity]&mdash;Sir, I am much
-    concerned to learn, on my return from the country, where I was called on
-    particular business [a bet on the sweepstakes, I suppose], that my
-    partner had the impropriety, in my absence, to undertake the concerns of
-    Messrs. Goldiebirds in preference to yours, and had written to you in an
-    unbecoming manner. I beg to make my most humble apology, as well as Mr.
-    Grindersons&mdash;[come, I see he can write for himself and partner too]&mdash;and
-    trust it is impossible you can think me forgetful of, or ungrateful for,
-    the constant patronage which my family [<i>his</i> family! curse him for a
-    puppy!] have uniformly experienced from that of Knockwinnock. I am sorry
-    to find, from an interview I had this day with Mr. Wardour, that he is
-    much irritated, and, I must own, with apparent reason. But in order to
-    remedy as much as in me lies the mistake of which he complains [pretty
-    mistake, indeed! to clap his patron into jail], I have sent this express
-    to discharge all proceedings against your person or property; and at the
-    same time to transmit my respectful apology. I have only to add, that Mr.
-    Grinderson is of opinion, that if restored to your confidence, he could
-    point out circumstances connected with Messrs. Goldiebirds' present claim
-    which would greatly reduce its amount [so, so, willing to play the rogue
-    on either side]; and that there is not the slightest hurry in settling
-    the balance of your accompt with us; and that I am, for Mr. G. as well as
-    myself, Dear Sir [O ay, he has written himself into an approach to
-    familiarity], your much obliged and most humble servant,
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Gilbert Greenhorn."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well said, Mr. Gilbert Greenhorn," said Monkbarns; "I see now there is
-    some use in having two attorneys in one firm. Their movements resemble
-    those of the man and woman in a Dutch baby-house. When it is fair weather
-    with the client, out comes the gentleman partner to fawn like a spaniel;
-    when it is foul, forth bolts the operative brother to pin like a
-    bull-dog. Well, I thank God that my man of business still wears an
-    equilateral cocked hat, has a house in the Old Town, is as much afraid of
-    a horse as I am myself, plays at golf of a Saturday, goes to the kirk of
-    a Sunday, and, in respect he has no partner, hath only his own folly to
-    apologize for."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There are some writers very honest fellows," said Hector; "I should like
-    to hear any one say that my cousin, Donald M'Intyre, Strathtudlem's
-    seventh son (the other six are in the army), is not as honest a fellow"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No doubt, no doubt, Hector, all the M'Intyres are so; they have it by
-    patent, man&mdash;But I was going to say, that in a profession where unbounded
-    trust is necessarily reposed, there is nothing surprising that fools
-    should neglect it in their idleness, and tricksters abuse it in their
-    knavery. But it is the more to the honour of those (and I will vouch for
-    many) who unite integrity with skill and attention, and walk honourably
-    upright where there are so many pitfalls and stumbling-blocks for those
-    of a different character. To such men their fellow citizens may safely
-    entrust the care of protecting their patrimonial rights, and their
-    country the more sacred charge of her laws and privileges."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "They are best aff, however, that hae least to do with them," said
-    Ochiltree, who had stretched his neck into the parlour door; for the
-    general confusion of the family not having yet subsided, the domestics,
-    like waves after the fall of a hurricane, had not yet exactly regained
-    their due limits, but were roaming wildly through the house.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aha, old Truepenny, art thou there?" said the Antiquary. "Sir Arthur,
-    let me bring in the messenger of good luck, though he is but a lame one.
-    You talked of the raven that scented out the slaughter from afar; but
-    here's a blue pigeon (somewhat of the oldest and toughest, I grant) who
-    smelled the good news six or seven miles off, flew thither in the
-    taxed-cart, and returned with the olive branch."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ye owe it o' to puir Robie that drave me;&mdash;puir fallow," said the
-    beggar, "he doubts he's in disgrace wi' my leddy and Sir Arthur."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Robert's repentant and bashful face was seen over the mendicant's
-    shoulder.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "In disgrace with me?" said Sir Arthur&mdash;"how so?"&mdash;for the irritation
-    into which he had worked himself on occasion of the toast had been long
-    forgotten. "O, I recollect&mdash;Robert, I was angry, and you were wrong;&mdash;go
-    about your work, and never answer a master that speaks to you in a
-    passion."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nor any one else," said the Antiquary; "for a soft answer turneth away
-    wrath."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And tell your mother, who is so ill with the rheumatism, to come down to
-    the housekeeper to-morrow," said Miss Wardour, "and we will see what can
-    be of service to her."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "God bless your leddyship," said poor Robert, "and his honour Sir Arthur,
-    and the young laird, and the house of Knockwinnock in a' its branches,
-    far and near!&mdash;it's been a kind and gude house to the puir this mony
-    hundred years."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There"&mdash;said the Antiquary to Sir Arthur&mdash;"we won't dispute&mdash;but there
-    you see the gratitude of the poor people naturally turns to the civil
-    virtues of your family. You don't hear them talk of Redhand, or
-    Hell-in-Harness. For me, I must say, <i>Odi accipitrem qui semper vivit in
-    armis</i>&mdash;so let us eat and drink in peace, and be joyful, Sir Knight."
-</p>
-<p>
-    A table was quickly covered in the parlour, where the party sat joyously
-    down to some refreshment. At the request of Oldbuck, Edie Ochiltree was
-    permitted to sit by the sideboard in a great leathern chair, which was
-    placed in some measure behind a screen.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I accede to this the more readily," said Sir Arthur, "because I remember
-    in my fathers days that chair was occupied by Ailshie Gourlay, who, for
-    aught I know, was the last privileged fool, or jester, maintained by any
-    family of distinction in Scotland."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Aweel, Sir Arthur," replied the beggar, who never hesitated an instant
-    between his friend and his jest, "mony a wise man sits in a fule's seat,
-    and mony a fule in a wise man's, especially in families o' distinction."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Miss Wardour, fearing the effect of this speech (however worthy of
-    Ailsbie Gourlay, or any other privileged jester) upon the nerves of her
-    father, hastened to inquire whether ale and beef should not be
-    distributed to the servants and people whom the news had assembled round
-    the Castle.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Surely, my love," said her father; "when was it ever otherwise in our
-    families when a siege had been raised?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, a siege laid by Saunders Sweepclean the bailiff, and raised by Edie
-    Ochiltree the gaberlunzie, <i>par nobile fratrum,</i>" said Oldbuck, "and well
-    pitted against each other in respectability. But never mind, Sir Arthur&mdash;
-    these are such sieges and such reliefs as our time of day admits of&mdash;and
-    our escape is not less worth commemorating in a glass of this excellent
-    wine&mdash;Upon my credit, it is Burgundy, I think."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Were there anything better in the cellar," said Miss Wardour, "it would
-    be all too little to regale you after your friendly exertions."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Say you so?" said the Antiquary: "why, then, a cup of thanks to you, my
-    fair enemy, and soon may you be besieged as ladies love best to be, and
-    sign terms of capitulation in the chapel of Saint Winnox!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    Miss Wardour blushed&mdash;Hector coloured, and then grew pale.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur answered, "My daughter is much obliged to you, Monkbarns; but
-    unless you'll accept of her yourself, I really do not know where a poor
-    knight's daughter is to seek for an alliance in these mercenary times."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Me, mean ye, Sir Arthur? No, not I! I will claim privilege of the
-    duello, and, as being unable to encounter my fair enemy myself, I will
-    appear by my champion&mdash;But of this matter hereafter. What do you find in
-    the papers there, Hector, that you hold your head down over them as if
-    your nose were bleeding?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Nothing particular, sir; but only that, as my arm is now almost quite
-    well, I think I shall relieve you of my company in a day or two, and go
-    to Edinburgh. I see Major Neville is arrived there. I should like to see
-    him."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Major whom?" said his uncle.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Major Neville, sir," answered the young soldier.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And who the devil is Major Neville?" demanded the Antiquary.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O, Mr. Oldbuck," said Sir Arthur, "you must remember his name frequently
-    in the newspapers&mdash;a very distinguished young officer indeed. But I am
-    happy to say that Mr. M'Intyre need not leave Monkbarns to see him, for
-    my son writes that the Major is to come with him to Knockwinnock, and I
-    need not say how happy I shall be to make the young gentlemen
-    acquainted,&mdash;unless, indeed, they are known to each other already."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "No, not personally," answered Hector, "but I have had occasion to hear a
-    good deal of him, and we have several mutual friends&mdash;your son being one
-    of them. But I must go to Edinburgh; for I see my uncle is beginning to
-    grow tired of me, and I am afraid"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "That you will grow tired of him?" interrupted Oldbuck,&mdash;"I fear that's
-    past praying for. But you have forgotten that the ecstatic twelfth of
-    August approaches, and that you are engaged to meet one of Lord
-    Glenallan's gamekeepers, God knows where, to persecute the peaceful
-    feathered creation."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "True, true, uncle&mdash;I had forgot that," exclaimed the volatile Hector;
-    "but you said something just now that put everything out of my head."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "An it like your honours," said old Edie, thrusting his white head from
-    behind the screen, where he had been plentifully regaling himself with
-    ale and cold meat&mdash;"an it like your honours, I can tell ye something that
-    will keep the Captain wi' us amaist as weel as the pouting&mdash;Hear ye na
-    the French are coming?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The French, you blockhead?" answered Oldbuck&mdash;"Bah!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have not had time," said Sir Arthur Wardour, "to look over my
-    lieutenancy correspondence for the week&mdash;indeed, I generally make a rule
-    to read it only on Wednesdays, except in pressing cases,&mdash;for I do
-    everything by method; but from the glance I took of my letters, I
-    observed some alarm was entertained."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Alarm?" said Edie, "troth there's alarm, for the provost's gar'd the
-    beacon light on the Halket-head be sorted up (that suld hae been sorted
-    half a year syne) in an unco hurry, and the council hae named nae less a
-    man than auld Caxon himsell to watch the light. Some say it was out o'
-    compliment to Lieutenant Taffril,&mdash;for it's neist to certain that he'll
-    marry Jenny Caxon,&mdash;some say it's to please your honour and Monkbarns
-    that wear wigs&mdash;and some say there's some auld story about a periwig that
-    ane o' the bailies got and neer paid for&mdash;Onyway, there he is, sitting
-    cockit up like a skart upon the tap o' the craig, to skirl when foul
-    weather comes."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "On mine honour, a pretty warder," said Monkbarns; "and what's my wig to
-    do all the while?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I asked Caxon that very question," answered Ochiltree, "and he said he
-    could look in ilka morning, and gie't a touch afore he gaed to his bed,
-    for there's another man to watch in the day-time, and Caxon says he'll
-    friz your honour's wig as weel sleeping as wauking."
-</p>
-<p>
-    This news gave a different turn to the conversation, which ran upon
-    national defence, and the duty of fighting for the land we live in, until
-    it was time to part. The Antiquary and his nephew resumed their walk
-    homeward, after parting from Knockwinnock with the warmest expressions of
-    mutual regard, and an agreement to meet again as soon as possible.
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0023"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-              Nay, if she love me not, I care not for her:
-              Shall I look pale because the maiden blooms
-              Or sigh because she smiles, and smiles on others
-              Not I, by Heaven!&mdash;I hold my peace too dear,
-                    To let it, like the plume upon her cap,
-             Shake at each nod that her caprice shall dictate.
-                                          Old Play.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    "Hector," said his uncle to Captain M'Intyre, in the course of their walk
-    homeward, "I am sometimes inclined to suspect that, in one respect, you
-    are a fool."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "If you only think me so in <i>one</i> respect, sir, I am sure you do me more
-    grace than I expected or deserve."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I mean in one particular <i>par excellence,</i>" answered the Antiquary. "I
-    have sometimes thought that you have cast your eyes upon Miss Wardour."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, sir," said M'Intyre, with much composure.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, sir," echoed his uncle&mdash;"Deuce take the fellow! he answers me as
-    if it were the most reasonable thing in the world, that he, a captain in
-    the army, and nothing at all besides, should marry the daughter of a
-    baronet."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I presume to think, sir," said the young Highlander, "there would be no
-    degradation on Miss Wardour's part in point of family."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "O, Heaven forbid we should come on that topic!&mdash;No, no, equal both&mdash;both
-    on the table-land of gentility, and qualified to look down on every
-    <i>roturier</i> in Scotland."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And in point of fortune we are pretty even, since neither of us have got
-    any," continued Hector. "There may be an error, but I cannot plead guilty
-    to presumption."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But here lies the error, then, if you call it so," replied his uncle:
-    "she won't have you, Hector."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed, sir?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It is very sure, Hector; and to make it double sure, I must inform you
-    that she likes another man. She misunderstood some words I once said to
-    her, and I have since been able to guess at the interpretation she put on
-    them. At the time I was unable to account for her hesitation and
-    blushing; but, my poor Hector, I now understand them as a death-signal to
-    your hopes and pretensions. So I advise you to beat your retreat and draw
-    off your forces as well as you can, for the fort is too well garrisoned
-    for you to storm it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have no occasion to beat any retreat, uncle," said Hector, holding
-    himself very upright, and marching with a sort of dogged and offended
-    solemnity; "no man needs to retreat that has never advanced. There are
-    women in Scotland besides Miss Wardour, of as good family"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And better taste," said his uncle; "doubtless there are, Hector; and
-    though I cannot say but that she is one of the most accomplished as well
-    as sensible girls I have seen, yet I doubt, much of her merit would be
-    cast away on you. A showy figure, now, with two cross feathers above her
-    noddle&mdash;one green, one blue; who would wear a riding-habit of the
-    regimental complexion, drive a gig one day, and the next review the
-    regiment on the grey trotting pony which dragged that vehicle, <i>hoc erat
-    in votis;</i>&mdash;these are the qualities that would subdue you, especially if
-    she had a taste for natural history, and loved a specimen of a <i>phoca.</i>"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It's a little hard, sir," said Hector, "I must have that cursed seal
-    thrown into my face on all occasions&mdash;but I care little about it&mdash;and I
-    shall not break my heart for Miss Wardour. She is free to choose for
-    herself, and I wish her all happiness."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Magnanimously resolved, thou prop of Troy! Why, Hector, I was afraid of
-    a scene. Your sister told me you were desperately in love with Miss
-    Wardour."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Sir," answered the young man, "you would not have me desperately in love
-    with a woman that does not care about me?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, nephew," said the Antiquary, more seriously, "there is doubtless
-    much sense in what you say; yet I would have given a great deal, some
-    twenty or twenty-five years since, to have been able to think as you do."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Anybody, I suppose, may think as they please on such subjects," said
-    Hector.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not according to the old school," said Oldbuck; "but, as I said before,
-    the practice of the modern seems in this case the most prudential,
-    though, I think, scarcely the most interesting. But tell me your ideas
-    now on this prevailing subject of an invasion. The cry is still, They
-    come."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Hector, swallowing his mortification, which he was peculiarly anxious to
-    conceal from his uncle's satirical observation, readily entered into a
-    conversation which was to turn the Antiquary's thoughts from Miss Wardour
-    and the seal. When they reached Monkbarns, the communicating to the
-    ladies the events which had taken place at the castle, with the
-    counter-information of how long dinner had waited before the womankind
-    had ventured to eat it in the Antiquary's absence, averted these delicate
-    topics of discussion.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The next morning the Antiquary arose early, and, as Caxon had not yet
-    made his appearance, he began mentally to feel the absence of the petty
-    news and small talk of which the ex-peruquier was a faithful reporter,
-    and which habit had made as necessary to the Antiquary as his occasional
-    pinch of snuff, although he held, or affected to hold, both to be of the
-    same intrinsic value. The feeling of vacuity peculiar to such a
-    deprivation, was alleviated by the appearance of old Ochiltree,
-    sauntering beside the clipped yew and holly hedges, with the air of a
-    person quite at home. Indeed, so familiar had he been of late, that even
-    Juno did not bark at him, but contented herself with watching him with a
-    close and vigilant eye. Our Antiquary stepped out in his night-gown, and
-    instantly received and returned his greeting.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "They are coming now, in good earnest, Monkbarns. I just cam frae
-    Fairport to bring ye the news, and then I'll step away back again. The
-    Search has just come into the bay, and they say she's been chased by a
-    French fleet.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The Search?" said Oldbuck, reflecting a moment. "Oho!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Ay, ay, Captain Taffril's gun-brig, the Search."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What? any relation to <i>Search, No. II.?</i>" said Oldbuck, catching at the
-    light which the name of the vessel seemed to throw on the mysterious
-    chest of treasure.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The mendicant, like a man detected in a frolic, put his bonnet before his
-    face, yet could not help laughing heartily.&mdash;"The deil's in you,
-    Monkbarns, for garring odds and evens meet. Wha thought ye wad hae laid
-    that and that thegither? Od, I am clean catch'd now."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I see it all," said Oldbuck, "as plain as the legend on a medal of high
-    preservation&mdash;the box in which the' bullion was found belonged to the
-    gun-brig, and the treasure to my phoenix?"&mdash;(Edie nodded assent),&mdash;"and
-    was buried there that Sir Arthur might receive relief in his
-    difficulties?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "By me," said Edie, "and twa o' the brig's men&mdash;but they didna ken its
-    contents, and thought it some bit smuggling concern o' the Captain's. I
-    watched day and night till I saw it in the right hand; and then, when
-    that German deevil was glowering at the lid o' the kist (they liked
-    mutton weel that licked where the yowe lay), I think some Scottish deevil
-    put it into my head to play him yon ither cantrip. Now, ye see, if I had
-    said mair or less to Bailie Littlejohn, I behoved till hae come out wi'
-    a' this story; and vexed would Mr. Lovel hae been to have it brought to
-    light&mdash;sae I thought I would stand to onything rather than that."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I must say he has chosen his confidant well," said Oldbuck, "though
-    somewhat strangely."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I'll say this for mysell, Monkbarns," answered the mendicant, "that I am
-    the fittest man in the haill country to trust wi' siller, for I neither
-    want it, nor wish for it, nor could use it if I had it. But the lad hadna
-    muckle choice in the matter, for he thought he was leaving the country
-    for ever (I trust he's mistaen in that though); and the night was set in
-    when we learned, by a strange chance, Sir Arthur's sair distress, and
-    Lovel was obliged to be on board as the day dawned. But five nights
-    afterwards the brig stood into the bay, and I met the boat by
-    appointment, and we buried the treasure where ye fand it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "This was a very romantic, foolish exploit," said Oldbuck: "why not trust
-    me, or any other friend?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The blood o' your sister's son," replied Edie, "was on his hands, and
-    him maybe dead outright&mdash;what time had he to take counsel?&mdash;or how could
-    he ask it of you, by onybody?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You are right. But what if Dousterswivel had come before you?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "There was little fear o' his coming there without Sir Arthur: he had
-    gotten a sair gliff the night afore, and never intended to look near the
-    place again, unless he had been brought there sting and ling. He ken'd
-    weel the first pose was o' his ain hiding, and how could he expect a
-    second? He just havered on about it to make the mair o' Sir Arthur."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Then how," said Oldbuck, "should Sir Arthur have come there unless the
-    German had brought him?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Umph!" answered Edie drily. "I had a story about Misticot wad hae
-    brought him forty miles, or you either. Besides, it was to be thought he
-    would be for visiting the place he fand the first siller in&mdash;he ken'd na
-    the secret o' that job. In short, the siller being in this shape, Sir
-    Arthur in utter difficulties, and Lovel determined he should never ken
-    the hand that helped him,&mdash;for that was what he insisted maist upon,&mdash;we
-    couldna think o' a better way to fling the gear in his gate, though we
-    simmered it and wintered it e'er sae lang. And if by ony queer mischance
-    Doustercivil had got his claws on't, I was instantly to hae informed you
-    or the Sheriff o' the haill story."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, notwithstanding all these wise precautions, I think your
-    contrivance succeeded better than such a clumsy one deserved, Edie. But
-    how the deuce came Lovel by such a mass of silver ingots?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "That's just what I canna tell ye&mdash;But they were put on board wi' his
-    things at Fairport, it's like, and we stowed them into ane o' the
-    ammunition-boxes o' the brig, baith for concealment and convenience of
-    carriage."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Lord!" said Oldbuck, his recollection recurring to the earlier part of
-    his acquaintance with Lovel; "and this young fellow, who was putting
-    hundreds on so strange a hazard, I must be recommending a subscription to
-    him, and paying his bill at the Ferry! I never will pay any person's bill
-    again, that's certain.&mdash;And you kept up a constant correspondence with
-    Lovel, I suppose?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I just gat ae bit scrape o' a pen frae him, to say there wad, as
-    yesterday fell, be a packet at Tannonburgh, wi' letters o' great
-    consequence to the Knockwinnock folk; for they jaloused the opening of
-    our letters at Fairport&mdash;And that's a's true; I hear Mrs. Mailsetter is
-    to lose her office for looking after other folk's business and neglecting
-    her ain."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And what do you expect now, Edie, for being the adviser, and messenger,
-    and guard, and confidential person in all these matters?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Deil haet do I expect&mdash;excepting that a' the gentles will come to the
-    gaberlunzie's burial; and maybe ye'll carry the head yoursell, as ye did
-    puir Steenie Mucklebackit's.&mdash;What trouble was't to me? I was ganging
-    about at ony rate&mdash;Oh, but I was blythe when I got out of Prison, though;
-    for I thought, what if that weary letter should come when I am closed up
-    here like an oyster, and a' should gang wrang for want o't? and whiles I
-    thought I maun mak a clean breast and tell you a' about it; but then I
-    couldna weel do that without contravening Mr. Lovel's positive orders;
-    and I reckon he had to see somebody at Edinburgh afore he could do what
-    he wussed to do for Sir Arthur and his family."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, and to your public news, Edie&mdash;So they are still coming are they?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth they say sae, sir; and there's come down strict orders for the
-    forces and volunteers to be alert; and there's a clever young officer to
-    come here forthwith, to look at our means o' defence&mdash;I saw the Bailies
-    lass cleaning his belts and white breeks&mdash;I gae her a hand, for ye maun
-    think she wasna ower clever at it, and sae I gat a' the news for my
-    pains."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And what think you, as an old soldier?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth I kenna&mdash;an they come so mony as they speak o', they'll be odds
-    against us. But there's mony yauld chields amang thae volunteers; and I
-    mauna say muckle about them that's no weel and no very able, because I am
-    something that gate mysell&mdash;But we'se do our best."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What! so your martial spirit is rising again, Edie?
-</p>
-<pre>
-                Even in our ashes glow their wonted fires!
-</pre>
-<p>
-    I would not have thought you, Edie, had so much to fight for?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "<i>Me</i> no muckle to fight for, sir?&mdash;isna there the country to fight for,
-    and the burnsides that I gang daundering beside, and the hearths o'the
-    gudewives that gie me my bit bread, and the bits o' weans that come
-    toddling to play wi' me when I come about a landward town?&mdash;Deil!" he
-    continued, grasping his pike-staff with great emphasis, "an I had as gude
-    pith as I hae gude-will, and a gude cause, I should gie some o' them a
-    day's kemping."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Bravo, bravo, Edie! The country's in little ultimate danger, when the
-    beggar's as ready to fight for his dish as the laird for his land."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Their further conversation reverted to the particulars of the night
-    passed by the mendicant and Lovel in the ruins of St. Ruth; by the
-    details of which the Antiquary was highly amused.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I would have given a guinea," he said, "to have seen the scoundrelly
-    German under the agonies of those terrors, which it is part of his own
-    quackery to inspire into others; and trembling alternately for the fury
-    of his patron, and the apparition of some hobgoblin."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Troth," said the beggar, "there was time for him to be cowed; for ye wad
-    hae thought the very spirit of Hell-in-Harness had taken possession o'
-    the body o' Sir Arthur. But what will come o' the land-louper?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have had a letter this morning, from which I understand he has
-    acquitted you of the charge he brought against you, and offers to make
-    such discoveries as will render the settlement of Sir Arthur's affairs a
-    more easy task than we apprehended&mdash;So writes the Sheriff; and adds, that
-    he has given some private information of importance to Government, in
-    consideration of which, I understand he will be sent back to play the
-    knave in his own country."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And a' the bonny engines, and wheels, and the coves, and sheughs, doun
-    at Glenwithershins yonder, what's to come o' them?" said Edie.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I hope the men, before they are dispersed, will make a bonfire of their
-    gimcracks, as an army destroy their artillery when forced to raise a
-    siege. And as for the holes, Edie, I abandon them as rat-traps, for the
-    benefit of the next wise men who may choose to drop the substance to
-    snatch at a shadow."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hech, sirs! guide us a'! to burn the engines? that's a great waste&mdash;Had
-    ye na better try to get back part o' your hundred pounds wi' the sale o'
-    the materials?" he continued, with a tone of affected condolence.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Not a farthing," said the Antiquary, peevishly, taking a turn from him,
-    and making a step or two away. Then returning, half-smiling at his own
-    pettishness, he said, "Get thee into the house, Edie, and remember my
-    counsel, never speak to me about a mine, nor to my nephew Hector about a
-    <i>phoca,</i> that is a sealgh, as you call it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I maun be ganging my ways back to Fairport," said the wanderer; "I want
-    to see what they're saying there about the invasion;&mdash;but I'll mind what
-    your honour says, no to speak to you about a sealgh, or to the Captain
-    about the hundred pounds that you gied to Douster"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Confound thee!&mdash;I desired thee not to mention that to me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Dear me!" said Edie, with affected surprise; "weel, I thought there was
-    naething but what your honour could hae studden in the way o' agreeable
-    conversation, unless it was about the Praetorian yonder, or the bodle
-    that the packman sauld to ye for an auld coin."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Pshaw! pshaw!" said the Antiquary, turning from him hastily, and
-    retreating into the house.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The mendicant looked after him a moment, and with a chuckling laugh, such
-    as that with which a magpie or parrot applauds a successful exploit of
-    mischief, he resumed once more the road to Fairport. His habits had given
-    him a sort of restlessness, much increased by the pleasure he took in
-    gathering news; and in a short time he had regained the town which he
-    left in the morning, for no reason that he knew himself, unless just to
-    "hae a bit crack wi' Monkbarns."
-</p>
-<a name="2HCH0024"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH.
-</h2>
-<pre>
-                    Red glared the beacon on Pownell
-                        On Skiddaw there were three;
-                    The bugle horn on moor and fell
-                        Was heard continually.
-                                     James Hogg.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The watch who kept his watch on the hill, and looked towards Birnam,
-    probably conceived himself dreaming when he first beheld the fated grove
-    put itself into motion for its march to Dunsinane. Even so old Caxon, as
-    perched in his hut, he qualified his thoughts upon the approaching
-    marriage of his daughter, and the dignity of being father-in-law to
-    Lieutenant Taffril, with an occasional peep towards the signal-post with
-    which his own corresponded, was not a little surprised by observing a
-    light in that direction. He rubbed his eyes, looked again, adjusting his
-    observation by a cross-staff which had been placed so as to bear upon the
-    point. And behold, the light increased, like a comet to the eye of the
-    astronomer, "with fear of change perplexing nations."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The Lord preserve us!" said Caxon, "what's to be done now? But there
-    will be wiser heads than mine to look to that, sae I'se e'en fire the
-    beacon."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And he lighted the beacon accordingly, which threw up to the sky a long
-    wavering train of light, startling the sea-fowl from their nests, and
-    reflected far beneath by the reddening billows of the sea. The brother
-    warders of Caxon being equally diligent, caught, and repeated his signal.
-    The lights glanced on headlands and capes and inland hills, and the whole
-    district was alarmed by the signal of invasion. *
-</p>
-<p>
-    * Note J. Alarms of Invasion.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Our Antiquary, his head wrapped warm in two double night-caps, was
-    quietly enjoying his repose, when it was suddenly broken by the screams
-    of his sister, his niece, and two maid-servants.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "What the devil is the matter?" said he, starting up in his bed&mdash;
-    "womankind in my room at this hour of night!&mdash;are ye all mad?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The beacon, uncle!" said Miss M'Intyre.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The French coming to murder us!" screamed Miss Griselda.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The beacon! the beacon!&mdash;the French! the French!&mdash;murder! murder! and
-    waur than murder!"&mdash;cried the two handmaidens, like the chorus of an
-    opera.
-</p>
-<a name="image-0009"><!--IMG--></a>
-<center>
-<img src="images/pb294.jpg" height="807" width="545"
-alt="The Antiquary Arming
-">
-</center>
-<!--IMAGE END-->
-<p>
-    "The French?" said Oldbuck, starting up&mdash;"get out of the room, womankind
-    that you are, till I get my things on&mdash;And hark ye, bring me my sword."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Whilk o' them, Monkbarns?" cried his sister, offering a Roman falchion
-    of brass with the one hand, and with the other an Andrea Ferrara without
-    a handle.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The langest, the langest," cried Jenny Rintherout, dragging in a
-    two-handed sword of the twelfth century.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Womankind," said Oldbuck in great agitation, "be composed, and do not
-    give way to vain terror&mdash;Are you sure they are come?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Sure, sure!" exclaimed Jenny&mdash;"ower sure!&mdash;a' the sea fencibles, and the
-    land fencibles, and the volunteers and yeomanry, are on fit, and driving
-    to Fairport as hard as horse and man can gang&mdash;and auld Mucklebackit's
-    gane wi' the lave&mdash;muckle gude he'll do!&mdash;Hech, sirs!&mdash;<i>he'll</i> be missed
-    the morn wha wad hae served king and country weel!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Give me," said Oldbuck, "the sword which my father wore in the year
-    forty-five&mdash;it hath no belt or baldrick&mdash;but we'll make shift."
-</p>
-<p>
-    So saying he thrust the weapon through the cover of his breeches pocket.
-    At this moment Hector entered, who had been to a neighbouring height to
-    ascertain whether the alarm was actual.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Where are your arms, nephew?" exclaimed Oldbuck&mdash;"where is your
-    double-barrelled gun, that was never out of your hand when there was no
-    occasion for such vanities?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Pooh! pooh! sir," said Hector, "who ever took a fowling-piece on action?
-    I have got my uniform on, you see&mdash;I hope I shall be of more use if they
-    will give me a command than I could be with ten double-barrels. And you,
-    sir, must get to Fairport, to give directions for quartering and
-    maintaining the men and horses, and preventing confusion."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You are right, Hector,&mdash;l believe I shall do as much with my head as my
-    hand too. But here comes Sir Arthur Wardour, who, between ourselves, is
-    not fit to accomplish much either one way or the other."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Sir Arthur was probably of a different opinion; for, dressed in his
-    lieutenancy uniform, he was also on the road to Fairport, and called in
-    his way to take Mr. Oldbuck with him, having had his original opinion of
-    his sagacity much confirmed by late events. And in spite of all the
-    entreaties of the womankind that the Antiquary would stay to garrison
-    Monkbarns, Mr. Oldbuck, with his nephew, instantly accepted Sir Arthur's
-    offer.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Those who have witnessed such a scene can alone conceive the state of
-    bustle in Fairport. The windows were glancing with a hundred lights,
-    which, appearing and disappearing rapidly, indicated the confusion within
-    doors. The women of lower rank assembled and clamoured in the
-    market-place. The yeomanry, pouring from their different glens, galloped
-    through the streets, some individually, some in parties of five or six,
-    as they had met on the road. The drums and fifes of the volunteers
-    beating to arms, were blended with the voice of the officers, the sound
-    of the bugles, and the tolling of the bells from the steeple. The ships
-    in the harbour were lit up, and boats from the armed vessels added to the
-    bustle, by landing men and guns destined to assist in the defence of the
-    place. This part of the preparations was superintended by Taffril with
-    much activity. Two or three light vessels had already slipped their
-    cables and stood out to sea, in order to discover the supposed enemy.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Such was the scene of general confusion, when Sir Arthur Wardour,
-    Oldbuck, and Hector, made their way with difficulty into the principal
-    square, where the town-house is situated. It was lighted up, and the
-    magistracy, with many of the neighbouring gentlemen, were assembled. And
-    here, as upon other occasions of the like kind in Scotland, it was
-    remarkable how the good sense and firmness of the people supplied almost
-    all the deficiencies of inexperience.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The magistrates were beset by the quarter-masters of the different corps
-    for billets for men and horses. "Let us," said Bailie Littlejohn, "take
-    the horses into our warehouses, and the men into our parlours&mdash;share our
-    supper with the one, and our forage with the other. We have made
-    ourselves wealthy under a free and paternal government, and now is the
-    time to show we know its value."
-</p>
-<p>
-    A loud and cheerful acquiescence was given by all present, and the
-    substance of the wealthy, with the persons of those of all ranks, were
-    unanimously devoted to the defence of the country.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Captain M'Intyre acted on this occasion as military adviser and
-    aide-de-camp to the principal magistrate, and displayed a degree of
-    presence of mind, and knowledge of his profession, totally unexpected by
-    his uncle, who, recollecting his usual <i>insouciance</i> and impetuosity,
-    gazed at him with astonishment from time to time, as he remarked the calm
-    and steady manner in which he explained the various measures of
-    precaution that his experience suggested, and gave directions for
-    executing them. He found the different corps in good order, considering
-    the irregular materials of which they were composed, in great force of
-    numbers and high confidence and spirits. And so much did military
-    experience at that moment overbalance all other claims to consequence,
-    that even old Edie, instead of being left, like Diogenes at Sinope, to
-    roll his tub when all around were preparing for defence, had the duty
-    assigned him of superintending the serving out of the ammunition, which
-    he executed with much discretion.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Two things were still anxiously expected&mdash;the presence of the Glenallan
-    volunteers, who, in consideration of the importance of that family, had
-    been formed into a separate corps, and the arrival of the officer before
-    announced, to whom the measures of defence on that coast had been
-    committed by the commander-in-chief, and whose commission would entitle
-    him to take upon himself the full disposal of the military force.
-</p>
-<p>
-    At length the bugles of the Glenallan yeomanry were heard, and the Earl
-    himself, to the surprise of all who knew his habits and state of health,
-    appeared at their head in uniform. They formed a very handsome and
-    well-mounted squadron, formed entirely out of the Earl's Lowland tenants,
-    and were followed by a regiment of five hundred men, completely equipped
-    in the Highland dress, whom he had brought down from the upland glens,
-    with their pipes playing in the van. The clean and serviceable appearance
-    of this band of feudal dependants called forth the admiration of Captain
-    M'Intyre; but his uncle was still more struck by the manner in which,
-    upon this crisis, the ancient military spirit of his house seemed to
-    animate and invigorate the decayed frame of the Earl, their leader. He
-    claimed, and obtained for himself and his followers, the post most likely
-    to be that of danger, displayed great alacrity in making the necessary
-    dispositions, and showed equal acuteness in discussing their propriety.
-    Morning broke in upon the military councils of Fairport, while all
-    concerned were still eagerly engaged in taking precautions for their
-    defence.
-</p>
-<p>
-    At length a cry among the people announced, "There's the brave Major
-    Neville come at last, with another officer;" and their post-chaise and
-    four drove into the square, amidst the huzzas of the volunteers and
-    inhabitants. The magistrates, with their assessors of the lieutenancy,
-    hastened to the door of their town-house to receive him; but what was the
-    surprise of all present, but most especially that of the Antiquary, when
-    they became aware, that the handsome uniform and military cap disclosed
-    the person and features of the pacific Lovel! A warm embrace, and a
-    hearty shake of the hand, were necessary to assure him that his eyes were
-    doing him justice. Sir Arthur was no less surprised to recognise his son,
-    Captain Wardour, in Lovel's, or rather Major Neville's company. The first
-    words of the young officers were a positive assurance to all present,
-    that the courage and zeal which they had displayed were entirely thrown
-    away, unless in so far as they afforded an acceptable proof of their
-    spirit and promptitude.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "The watchman at Halket-head," said Major Neville, "as we discovered by
-    an investigation which we made in our route hither, was most naturally
-    misled by a bonfire which some idle people had made on the hill above
-    Glenwithershins, just in the line of the beacon with which his
-    corresponded."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Oldbuck gave a conscious look to Sir Arthur, who returned it with one
-    equally sheepish, and a shrug of the shoulders.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It must have been the machinery which we condemned to the flames in our
-    wrath," said the Antiquary, plucking up heart, though not a little
-    ashamed of having been the cause of so much disturbance&mdash;"The devil take
-    Dousterswivel with all my heart!&mdash;I think he has bequeathed us a legacy
-    of blunders and mischief, as if he had lighted some train of fireworks at
-    his departure. I wonder what cracker will go off next among our shins.
-    But yonder comes the prudent Caxon.&mdash;Hold up your head, you ass&mdash;your
-    betters must bear the blame for you&mdash;And here, take this what-d'ye-call
-    it"&mdash;(giving him his sword)&mdash;"I wonder what I would have said yesterday
-    to any man that would have told me I was to stick such an appendage to my
-    tail."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Here he found his arm gently pressed by Lord Glenallan, who dragged him
-    into a separate apartment. "For God's sake, who is that young gentleman
-    who is so strikingly like"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Like the unfortunate Eveline," interrupted Oldbuck. "I felt my heart
-    warm to him from the first, and your lordship has suggested the very
-    cause."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "But who&mdash;who is he?" continued Lord Glenallan, holding the Antiquary
-    with a convulsive grasp.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Formerly I would have called him Lovel, but now he turns out to be Major
-    Neville."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Whom my brother brought up as his natural son&mdash;whom he made his heir&mdash;
-    Gracious Heaven! the child of my Eveline!"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Hold, my lord&mdash;hold!" said Oldbuck, "do not give too hasty way to such a
-    presumption;&mdash;what probability is there?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Probability? none! There is certainty! absolute certainty! The agent I
-    mentioned to you wrote me the whole story&mdash;I received it yesterday, not
-    sooner. Bring him, for God's sake, that a father's eyes may bless him
-    before he departs."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I will; but for your own sake and his, give him a few moments for
-    preparation."
-</p>
-<p>
-    And, determined to make still farther investigation before yielding his
-    entire conviction to so strange a tale, he sought out Major Neville, and
-    found him expediting the necessary measures for dispersing the force
-    which had been assembled.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Pray, Major Neville, leave this business for a moment to Captain Wardour
-    and to Hector, with whom, I hope, you are thoroughly reconciled" (Neville
-    laughed, and shook hands with Hector across the table), "and grant me a
-    moment's audience."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You have a claim on me, Mr. Oldbuck, were my business more urgent," said
-    Neville, "for having passed myself upon you under a false name, and
-    rewarding your hospitality by injuring your nephew."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You served him as he deserved," said Oldbuck&mdash;"though, by the way, he
-    showed as much good sense as spirit to-day&mdash;Egad! if he would rub up his
-    learning, and read Caesar and Polybus, and the <i>Stratagemata Polyaeni,</i> I
-    think he would rise in the army&mdash;and I will certainly lend him a lift."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "He is heartily deserving of it," said Neville; "and I am glad you excuse
-    me, which you may do the more frankly, when you know that I am so
-    unfortunate as to have no better right to the name of Neville, by which I
-    have been generally distinguished, than to that of Lovel, under which you
-    knew me."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Indeed! then, I trust, we shall find out one for you to which you shall
-    have a firm and legal title."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Sir!&mdash;I trust you do not think the misfortune of my birth a fit
-    subject"&mdash;
-</p>
-<p>
-    "By no means, young man," answered the Antiquary, interrupting him;&mdash;"I
-    believe I know more of your birth than you do yourself&mdash;and, to convince
-    you of it, you were educated and known as a natural son of Geraldin
-    Neville of Neville's-Burgh, in Yorkshire, and I presume, as his destined
-    heir?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Pardon me&mdash;no such views were held out to me. I was liberally educated,
-    and pushed forward in the army by money and interest; but I believe my
-    supposed father long entertained some ideas of marriage, though he never
-    carried them into effect."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "You say your <i>supposed</i> father?&mdash;What leads you to suppose Mr. Geraldin
-    Neville was not your real father?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I know, Mr. Oldbuck, that you would not ask these questions on a point
-    of such delicacy for the gratification of idle curiosity. I will
-    therefore tell you candidly, that last year, while we occupied a small
-    town in French Flanders, I found in a convent, near which I was
-    quartered, a woman who spoke remarkably good English&mdash;She was a
-		Spaniard&mdash;her name Teresa D'Acunha. In the process of our acquaintance, she
-    discovered who I was, and made herself known to me as the person who had
-    charge of my infancy. She dropped more than one hint of rank to which I
-    was entitled, and of injustice done to me, promising a more full
-    disclosure in case of the death of a lady in Scotland, during whose
-    lifetime she was determined to keep the secret. She also intimated that
-    Mr. Geraldin Neville was not my father. We were attacked by the enemy,
-    and driven from the town, which was pillaged with savage ferocity by the
-    republicans. The religious orders were the particular objects of their
-    hate and cruelty. The convent was burned, and several nuns perished&mdash;
-    among others Teresa; and with her all chance of knowing the story of my
-    birth: tragic by all accounts it must have been."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "<i>Raro antecedentem scelestum,</i> or, as I may here say, <i>scelestam,</i>" said
-    Oldbuck, "<i>deseruit poena</i>&mdash;even Epicureans admitted that. And what did
-    you do upon this?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I remonstrated with Mr. Neville by letter, and to no purpose. I then
-    obtained leave of absence, and threw myself at his feet, conjuring him to
-    complete the disclosure which Teresa had begun. He refused, and, on my
-    importunity, indignantly upbraided me with the favours he had already
-    conferred. I thought he abused the power of a benefactor, as he was
-    compelled to admit he had no title to that of a father, and we parted in
-    mutual displeasure. I renounced the name of Neville, and assumed that
-    under which you knew me. It was at this time, when residing with a friend
-    in the north of England who favoured my disguise, that I became
-    acquainted with Miss Wardour, and was romantic enough to follow her to
-    Scotland. My mind wavered on various plans of life, when I resolved to
-    apply once more to Mr. Neville for an explanation of the mystery of my
-    birth. It was long ere I received an answer; you were present when it was
-    put into my hands. He informed me of his bad state of health, and
-    conjured me, for my own sake, to inquire no farther into the nature of
-    his connection with me, but to rest satisfied with his declaring it to be
-    such and so intimate, that he designed to constitute me his heir. When I
-    was preparing to leave Fairport to join him, a second express brought me
-    word that he was no more. The possession of great wealth was unable to
-    suppress the remorseful feelings with which I now regarded my conduct to
-    my benefactor, and some hints in his letter appearing to intimate there
-    was on my birth a deeper stain than that of ordinary illegitimacy, I
-    remembered certain prejudices of Sir Arthur."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And you brooded over these melancholy ideas until you were ill, instead
-    of coming to me for advice, and telling me the whole story?" said
-    Oldbuck.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Exactly; then came my quarrel with Captain M'Intyre, and my compelled
-    departure from Fairport and its vicinity."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "From love and from poetry&mdash;Miss Wardour and the Caledoniad?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Most true."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And since that time you have been occupied, I suppose, with plans for
-    Sir Arthur's relief?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Yes, sir; with the assistance of Captain Wardour at Edinburgh."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "And Edie Ochiltree here&mdash;you see I know the whole story. But how came
-    you by the treasure?"
-</p>
-<p>
-    "It was a quantity of plate which had belonged to my uncle, and was left
-    in the custody of a person at Fairport. Some time before his death he had
-    sent orders that it should be melted down. He perhaps did not wish me to
-    see the Glenallan arms upon it."
-</p>
-<p>
-    "Well, Major Neville&mdash;or let me say, Lovel, being the name in which I
-    rather delight&mdash;you must, I believe, exchange both of your <i>alias's</i> for
-    the style and title of the Honourable William Geraldin, commonly called
-    Lord Geraldin."
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Antiquary then went through the strange and melancholy circumstances
-    concerning his mother's death.
-</p>
-<p>
-    "I have no doubt," he said, "that your uncle wished the report to be
-    believed, that the child of this unhappy marriage was no more&mdash;perhaps he
-    might himself have an eye to the inheritance of his brother&mdash;he was then
-    a gay wild young man&mdash;But of all intentions against your person, however
-    much the evil conscience of Elspeth might lead her to inspect him from
-    the agitation in which he appeared, Teresa's story and your own fully
-    acquit him. And now, my dear sir, let me have the pleasure of introducing
-    a son to a father."
-</p>
-<p>
-    We will not attempt to describe such a meeting. The proofs on all sides
-    were found to be complete, for Mr. Neville had left a distinct account of
-    the whole transaction with his confidential steward in a sealed packet,
-    which was not to be opened until the death of the old Countess; his
-    motive for preserving secrecy so long appearing to have been an
-    apprehension of the effect which the discovery, fraught with so much
-    disgrace, must necessarily produce upon her haughty and violent temper.
-</p>
-<p>
-    In the evening of that day, the yeomanry and volunteers of Glenallan
-    drank prosperity to their young master. In a month afterwards Lord
-    Geraldin was married to Miss Wardour, the Antiquary making the lady a
-    present of the wedding ring&mdash;a massy circle of antique chasing, bearing
-    the motto of Aldobrand Oldenbuck, <i>Kunst macht gunst.</i>
-</p>
-<p>
-    Old Edie, the most important man that ever wore a blue gown, bowls away
-    easily from one friend's house to another, and boasts that he never
-    travels unless on a sunny day. Latterly, indeed, he has given some
-    symptoms of becoming stationary, being frequently found in the corner of
-    a snug cottage between Monkbarns and Knockwinnock, to which Caxon
-    retreated upon his daughter's marriage, in order to be in the
-    neighbourhood of the three parochial wigs, which he continues to keep in
-    repair, though only for amusement. Edie has been heard to say, "This is a
-    gey bein place, and it's a comfort to hae sic a corner to sit in in a bad
-    day." It is thought, as he grows stiffer in the joints, he will finally
-    settle there.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The bounty of such wealthy patrons as Lord and Lady Geraldin flowed
-    copiously upon Mrs. Hadoway and upon the Mucklebackits. By the former it
-    was well employed, by the latter wasted. They continue, however, to
-    receive it, but under the administration of Edie Ochiltree; and they do
-    not accept it without grumbling at the channel through which it is
-    conveyed.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Hector is rising rapidly in the army, and has been more than once
-    mentioned in the Gazette, and rises proportionally high in his uncle's
-    favour; and what scarcely pleases the young soldier less, he has also
-    shot two seals, and thus put an end to the Antiquary's perpetual harping
-    upon the story of the <i>phoca.</i>People talk of a marriage between Miss
-    M'Intyre and Captain Wardour; but this wants confirmation.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The Antiquary is a frequent visitor at Knockwinnock and Glenallan House,
-    ostensibly for the sake of completing two essays, one on the mail-shirt
-    of the Great Earl, and the other on the left-hand gauntlet of
-    Hell-in-Harness. He regularly inquires whether Lord Geraldin has
-    commenced the Caledoniad, and shakes his head at the answers he
-    receives. <i>En attendant,</i> however, he has completed his notes, which, we
-    believe, will be at the service of any one who chooses to make them
-    public without risk or expense to THE ANTIQUARY.
-</p>
-<a name="2H_NOTE"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
-
-<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-<h2>
-    NOTES TO THE ANTIQUARY.
-</h2>
-<p>
-    Note A, p. #.&mdash;Mottoes.
-</p>
-<p>
-    ["It was in correcting the proof-sheets of this novel that Scott first
-    took to equipping his chapters with mottoes of his own fabrication. On
-    one occasion he happened to ask John Ballantyne, who was sitting by him,
-    to hunt for a particular passage in Beaumont and Fletcher. John did as he
-    was bid, but did not succeed in discovering the lines. 'Hang it,
-    Johnnie,' cried Scott, 'I believe I can make a motto sooner than you will
-    find one.' He did so accordingly; and from that hour, whenever memory
-    failed to suggest an appropriate epigraph, he had recourse to the
-    inexhaustible mines of "old play" or "old ballad," to which we owe some
-    of the most exquisite verses that ever flowed from his pen."&mdash;<i>J. G.
-    Lockhart.</i>
-</p>
-<p>
-    See also the Introduction to "Chronicles of the Canongate," vol. xix.]
-</p>
-<p>
-    Note B, p. #.&mdash;Sandy Gordon's Itinerarium.
-</p>
-<p>
-    [This well-known work, the "Itinerarium Septentrionale, or a Journey
-    thro' most of the Counties of Scotland, and those in the North of
-    England," was published at London in 1727, folio. The author states, that
-    in prosecuting his work he "made a pretty laborious progress through
-    almost every part of Scotland for three years successively." Gordon was
-    a native of Aberdeenshire, and had previously spent some years in
-    travelling abroad, probably as a tutor. He became Secretary to the London
-    Society of Antiquaries in 1736. This office he resigned in 1741, and soon
-    after went out to South Carolina with Governor Glen, where he obtained a
-    considerable grant of land. On his death, about the year 1753, he is said
-    to have left "a handsome estate to his family."&mdash;See <i>Literary Anecdotes
-    of Bowyer,</i> by John Nichols, vol. v., p. 329, etc.]
-</p>
-<p>
-    Note C, p. #.&mdash;Praetorium.
-</p>
-<p>
-    It may be worth while to mention that the incident of the supposed
-    Praetorium actually happened to an antiquary of great learning and
-    acuteness, Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, one of the Barons of the Scottish
-    Court of Exchequer, and a parliamentary commissioner for arrangement of
-    the Union between England and Scotland. As many of his writings show, Sir
-    John was much attached to the study of Scottish antiquities. He had a
-    small property in Dumfriesshire, near the Roman station on the hill
-    called Burrenswark. Here he received the distinguished English
-    antiquarian Roger Gale, and of course conducted him to see this
-    remarkable spot, where the lords of the world have left such decisive
-    marks of their martial labours.
-</p>
-<p>
-    An aged shepherd whom they had used as a guide, or who had approached
-    them from curiosity, listened with mouth agape to the dissertations on
-    foss and vellum, ports <i>dextra, sinistra,</i> and <i>decumana,</i> which Sir John
-    Clerk delivered <i>ex cathedra,</i> and his learned visitor listened with the
-    deference to the dignity of a connoisseur on his own ground. But when the
-    cicerone proceeded to point out a small hillock near the centre of the
-    enclosure as the Praetorium, Corydon's patience could hold no longer,
-    and, like Edie Ochiltree, he forgot all reverence, and broke in with
-    nearly the same words&mdash;"Praetorium here, Praetorium there, I made the
-    bourock mysell with a flaughter-spade." The effect of this undeniable
-    evidence on the two lettered sages may be left to the reader's
-    imagination.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The late excellent and venerable John Clerk of Eldin, the celebrated
-    author of <i>Naval Tactics,</i> used to tell this story with glee, and being a
-    younger son of Sir John's was perhaps present on the occasion.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Note D, p. #.&mdash;Mr. Rutherfurd's Dream
-</p>
-<p>
-    The legend of Mrs. Grizel Oldbuck was partly taken from an extraordinary
-    story which happened about seventy years since, in the South of Scotland,
-    so peculiar in its circumstances that it merits being mentioned in this
-    place. Mr. Rutherfurd of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the
-    vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated
-    arrears of teind (or tithe) for which he was said to be indebted to a
-    noble family, the titulars (lay impropriators of the tithes). Mr.
-    Rutherfurd was strongly impressed with the belief that his father had, by
-    a form of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased these lands
-    from the titular, and therefore that the present prosecution was
-    groundless. But, after an industrious search among his father's papers,
-    an investigation of the public records, and a careful inquiry among all
-    persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence could
-    be recovered to support his defence. The period was now near at hand when
-    he conceived the loss of his lawsuit to be inevitable, and he had formed
-    his determination to ride to Edinburgh next day, and make the best
-    bargain he could in the way of compromise. He went to bed with this
-    resolution and, with all the circumstances of the case floating upon his
-    mind, had a dream to the following purpose:&mdash;His father, who had been
-    many years dead, appeared to him, he thought, and asked him why he was
-    disturbed in his mind. In dreams men are not surprised at such
-    apparitions. Mr. Rutherfurd thought that he informed his father of the
-    cause of his distress, adding that the payment of a considerable sum of
-    money was the more unpleasant to him, because he had a strong
-    consciousness that it was not due, though he was unable to recover any
-    evidence in support of his belief, "You are right, my son," replied the
-    paternal shade; "I did acquire right to these teinds, for payment of
-    which you are now prosecuted. The papers relating to the transaction are
-    in the hands of Mr.&mdash;, a writer (or attorney), who is now retired from
-    professional business, and resides at Inveresk, near Edinburgh. He was a
-    person whom I employed on that occasion for a particular reason, but who
-    never on any other occasion transacted business on my account. It is very
-    possible," pursued the vision, "that Mr.&mdash;may have forgotten a matter
-    which is now of a very old date; but you may call it to his recollection
-    by this token, that when I came to pay his account, there was difficulty
-    in getting change for a Portugal piece of gold, and that we were forced
-    to drink out the balance at a tavern."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Mr. Rutherfurd awakened in the morning with all the words of the vision
-    imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to ride across the
-    country to Inveresk, instead of going straight to Edinburgh. When he came
-    there he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream, a very old man;
-    without saying anything of the vision, he inquired whether he remembered
-    having conducted such a matter for his deceased father. The old gentleman
-    could not at first bring the circumstance to his recollection, but on
-    mention of the Portugal piece of gold, the whole returned upon his
-    memory; he made an immediate search for the papers, and recovered them,&mdash;so
-    that Mr. Rutherfurd carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to
-    gain the cause which he was on the verge of losing.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The author has often heard this story told by persons who had the best
-    access to know the facts, who were not likely themselves to be deceived,
-    and were certainly incapable of deception. He cannot therefore refuse to
-    give it credit, however extraordinary the circumstances may appear. The
-    circumstantial character of the information given in the dream, takes it
-    out of the general class of impressions of the kind which are occasioned
-    by the fortuitous coincidence of actual events with our sleeping
-    thoughts. On the other hand, few will suppose that the laws of nature
-    were suspended, and a special communication from the dead to the living
-    permitted, for the purpose of saving Mr. Rutherfurd a certain number of
-    hundred pounds. The author's theory is, that the dream was only the
-    recapitulation of information which Mr. Rutherfurd had really received
-    from his father while in life, but which at first he merely recalled as a
-    general impression that the claim was settled. It is not uncommon for
-    persons to recover, during sleep, the thread of ideas which they have
-    lost during their waking hours.
-</p>
-<p>
-    It may be added, that this remarkable circumstance was attended with bad
-    consequences to Mr. Rutherfurd; whose health and spirits were afterwards
-    impaired by the attention which he thought himself obliged to pay to the
-    visions of the night.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Note E, p. #.&mdash;Nick-sticks.
-</p>
-<p>
-    A sort of tally generally used by bakers of the olden time in settling
-    with their customers. Each family had its own nick-stick, and for each
-    loaf as delivered a notch was made on the stick. Accounts in Exchequer,
-    kept by the same kind of check, may have occasioned the Antiquary's
-    partiality. In Prior's time the English bakers had the same sort of
-    reckoning.
-</p>
-<pre>
-                   Have you not seen a baker's maid,
-                   Between two equal panniers sway'd?
-                   Her tallies useless lie and idle,
-                     If placed exactly in the middle.
-</pre>
-<p>
-    Note F, p. #.&mdash;Witchcraft.
-</p>
-<p>
-    A great deal of stuff to the same purpose with that placed in the mouth
-    of the German adept, may be found in Reginald Scott's <i>Discovery of
-    Witchcraft,</i> Third Edition, folio, London, 1665. The Appendix is
-    entitled, "An Excellent Discourse of the Nature and Substances of Devils
-    and Spirits, in two Books; the first by the aforesaid author (Reginald
-    Scott), the Second now added in this Third Edition as succedaneous to the
-    former, and conducing to the completing of the whole work." This Second
-    Book, though stated as succedaneous to the first, is, in fact, entirely
-    at variance with it; for the work of Reginald Scott is a compilation of
-    the absurd and superstitious ideas concerning witches so generally
-    entertained at the time, and the pretended conclusion is a serious
-    treatise on the various means of conjuring astral spirits.
-</p>
-<p>
-    [Scott's <i>Discovery of Witchcraft</i> was first published in the reign of
-    Queen Elizabeth, London, 1584.]
-</p>
-<p>
-    Note G, p. #.&mdash;Gynecocracy.
-</p>
-<p>
-    In the fishing villages on the Firths of Forth and Tay, as well as
-    elsewhere in Scotland, the government is gynecocracy, as described in the
-    text. In the course of the late war, and during the alarm of invasion, a
-    fleet of transports entered the Firth of Forth under the convoy of some
-    ships of war, which would reply to no signals. A general alarm was
-    excited, in consequence of which, all the fishers, who were enrolled as
-    sea-fencibles, got on board the gun-boats which they were to man as
-    occasion should require, and sailed to oppose the supposed enemy. The
-    foreigners proved to be Russians, with whom we were then at peace. The
-    county gentlemen of Mid-Lothian, pleased with the zeal displayed by the
-    sea-fencibles at a critical moment, passed a vote for presenting the
-    community of fishers with a silver punch-bowl, to be used on occasions of
-    festivity. But the fisher-women, on hearing what was intended, put in
-    their claim to have some separate share in the intended honorary reward.
-    The men, they said, were their husbands; it was they who would have been
-    sufferers if their husbands had been killed, and it was by their
-    permission and injunctions that they embarked on board the gun-boats for
-    the public service. They therefore claimed to share the reward in some
-    manner which should distinguish the female patriotism which they had
-    shown on the occasion. The gentlemen of the county willingly admitted the
-    claim; and without diminishing the value of their compliment to the men,
-    they made the females a present of a valuable broach, to fasten the plaid
-    of the queen of the fisher-women for the time.
-</p>
-<p>
-    It may be further remarked, that these Nereids are punctilious among
-    themselves, and observe different ranks according to the commodities they
-    deal in. One experienced dame was heard to characterise a younger damsel
-    as "a puir silly thing, who had no ambition, and would never," she
-    prophesied, "rise above the <i>mussel-line</i> of business."
-</p>
-<p>
-    Note H, p. #.&mdash;Battle of Harlaw.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The great battle of Harlaw, here and formerly referred to, might be said
-    to determine whether the Gaelic or the Saxon race should be predominant
-    in Scotland. Donald, Lord of the Isles, who had at that period the power
-    of an independent sovereign, laid claim to the Earldom of Ross during the
-    Regency of Robert, Duke of Albany. To enforce his supposed right, he
-    ravaged the north with a large army of Highlanders and Islesmen. He was
-    encountered at Harlaw, in the Garioch, by Alexander, Earl of Mar, at the
-    head of the northern nobility and gentry of Saxon and Norman descent. The
-    battle was bloody and indecisive; but the invader was obliged to retire
-    in consequence of the loss he sustained, and afterwards was compelled to
-    make submission to the Regent, and renounce his pretensions to Ross; so
-    that all the advantages of the field were gained by the Saxons. The
-    battle of Harlaw was fought 24th July 1411.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Note I, p. #.&mdash;Elspeth's death.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The concluding circumstance of Elspeth's death is taken from an incident
-    said to have happened at the funeral of John, Duke of Roxburghe. All who
-    were acquainted with that accomplished nobleman must remember that he was
-    not more remarkable for creating and possessing a most curious and
-    splendid library, than for his acquaintance with the literary treasures
-    it contained. In arranging his books, fetching and replacing the volumes
-    which he wanted, and carrying on all the necessary intercourse which a
-    man of letters holds with his library, it was the Duke's custom to
-    employ, not a secretary or librarian, but a livery servant, called
-    Archie, whom habit had made so perfectly acquainted with the library,
-    that he knew every book, as a shepherd does the individuals of his flock,
-    by what is called head-mark, and could bring his master whatever volume
-    he wanted, and afford all the mechanical aid the Duke required in his
-    literary researches. To secure the attendance of Archie, there was a bell
-    hung in his room, which was used on no occasion except to call him
-    individually to the Duke's study.
-</p>
-<p>
-    His Grace died in Saint James's Square, London, in the year 1804; the
-    body was to be conveyed to Scotland, to lie in state at his mansion of
-    Fleurs, and to be removed from thence to the family burial-place at
-    Bowden.
-</p>
-<p>
-    At this time, Archie, who had been long attacked by a liver-complaint,
-    was in the very last stage of that disease. Yet he prepared himself to
-    accompany the body of the master whom he had so long and so faithfully
-    waited upon. The medical persons assured him he could not survive the
-    journey. It signified nothing, he said, whether he died in England or
-    Scotland; he was resolved to assist in rendering the last honours to the
-    kind master from whom he had been inseparable for so many years, even if
-    he should expire in the attempt. The poor invalid was permitted to attend
-    the Duke's body to Scotland; but when they reached Fleurs he was totally
-    exhausted, and obliged to keep his bed, in a sort of stupor which
-    announced speedy dissolution. On the morning of the day fixed for
-    removing the dead body of the Duke to the place of burial, the private
-    bell by which he was wont to summon his attendant to his study was rung
-    violently. This might easily happen in the confusion of such a scene,
-    although the people of the neighbourhood prefer believing that the bell
-    sounded of its own accord. Ring, however, it did; and Archie, roused by
-    the well-known summons, rose up in his bed, and faltered, in broken
-    accents, "Yes, my Lord Duke&mdash;yes&mdash;I will wait on your Grace instantly;"
-    and with these words on his lips he is said to have fallen back and
-    expired.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Note J, p. #.&mdash;Alarm of invasion.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The story of the false alarm at Fairport, and the consequences, are taken
-    from a real incident. Those who witnessed the state of Britain, and of
-    Scotland in particular, from the period that succeeded the war which
-    commenced in 1803 to the battle of Trafalgar, must recollect those times
-    with feelings which we can hardly hope to make the rising generation
-    comprehend. Almost every individual was enrolled either in a military or
-    civil capacity, for the purpose of contributing to resist the
-    long-suspended threats of invasion, which were echoed from every quarter.
-    Beacons were erected along the coast, and all through the country, to
-    give the signal for every one to repair to the post where his peculiar
-    duty called him, and men of every description fit to serve held
-    themselves in readiness on the shortest summons. During this agitating
-    period, and on the evening of the 2d February 1804, the person who kept
-    watch on the commanding station of Home Castle, being deceived by some
-    accidental fire in the county of Northumberland, which he took for the
-    corresponding signal-light in that county with which his orders were to
-    communicate, lighted up his own beacon. The signal was immediately
-    repeated through all the valleys on the English Border. If the beacon at
-    Saint Abb's Head had been fired, the alarm would have run northward, and
-    roused all Scotland. But the watch at this important point judiciously
-    considered, that if there had been an actual or threatened descent on our
-    eastern sea-coast, the alarm would have come along the coast and not from
-    the interior of the country.
-</p>
-<p>
-    Through the Border counties the alarm spread with rapidity, and on no
-    occasion when that country was the scene of perpetual and unceasing war,
-    was the summons to arms more readily obeyed. In Berwickshire,
-    Roxburghshire, and Selkirkshire, the volunteers and militia got under
-    arms with a degree of rapidity and alacrity which, considering the
-    distance individuals lived from each other, had something in it very
-    surprising&mdash;they poured to the alarm-posts on the sea-coast in a state so
-    well armed and so completely appointed, with baggage, provisions, etc.,
-    as was accounted by the best military judges to render them fit for
-    instant and effectual service.
-</p>
-<p>
-    There were some particulars in the general alarm which are curious and
-    interesting. The men of Liddesdale, the most remote point to the westward
-    which the alarm reached, were so much afraid of being late in the field,
-    that they put in requisition all the horses they could find, and when
-    they had thus made a forced march out of their own country, they turned
-    their borrowed steeds loose to find their way back through the hills, and
-    they all got back safe to their own stables. Another remarkable
-    circumstance was, the general cry of the inhabitants of the smaller towns
-    for arms, that they might go along with their companions. The
-    Selkirkshire Yeomanry made a remarkable march, for although some of the
-    individuals lived at twenty and thirty miles' distance from the place
-    where they mustered, they were nevertheless embodied and in order in so
-    short a period, that they were at Dalkeith, which was their alarm-post,
-    about one o'clock on the day succeeding the first signal, with men and
-    horses in good order, though the roads were in a bad state, and many of
-    the troopers must have ridden forty or fifty miles without drawing
-    bridle. Two members of the corps chanced to be absent from their homes,
-    and in Edinburgh on private business. The lately married wife of one of
-    these gentlemen, and the widowed mother of the other, sent the arms,
-    uniforms, and chargers of the two troopers, that they might join their
-    companions at Dalkeith. The author was very much struck by the answer
-    made to him by the last-mentioned lady, when he paid her some compliment
-    on the readiness which she showed in equipping her son with the means of
-    meeting danger, when she might have left him a fair excuse for remaining
-    absent. "Sir," she replied, with the spirit of a Roman matron, "none can
-    know better than you that my son is the only prop by which, since his
-    father's death, our family is supported. But I would rather see him dead
-    on that hearth, than hear that he had been a horse's length behind his
-    companions in the defence of his king and country." The author mentions
-    what was immediately under his own eye, and within his own knowledge; but
-    the spirit was universal, wherever the alarm reached, both in Scotland
-    and England.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The account of the ready patriotism displayed by the country on this
-    occasion, warmed the hearts of Scottishmen in every corner of the world.
-    It reached the ears of the well-known Dr. Leyden, whose enthusiastic love
-    of Scotland, and of his own district of Teviotdale, formed a
-    distinguished part of his character. The account which was read to him
-    when on a sick-bed, stated (very truly) that the different corps, on
-    arriving at their alarm-posts, announced themselves by their music
-    playing the tunes peculiar to their own districts, many of which have
-    been gathering-signals for centuries. It was particularly remembered,
-    that the Liddesdale men, before mentioned, entered Kelso playing the
-    lively tune&mdash;
-</p>
-<pre>
-                       O wha dare meddle wi' me,
-                       And wha dare meddle wi' me!
-                       My name it is little Jock Elliot,
-                       And wha dare meddle wi' me!
-</pre>
-<p>
-    The patient was so delighted with this display of ancient Border spirit,
-    that he sprung up in his bed, and began to sing the old song with such
-    vehemence of action and voice, that his attendants, ignorant of the cause
-    of excitation, concluded that the fever had taken possession of his
-    brain; and it was only the entry of another Borderer, Sir John Malcolm,
-    and the explanation which he was well qualified to give, that prevented
-    them from resorting to means of medical coercion.
-</p>
-<p>
-    The circumstances of this false alarm and its consequences may be now
-    held of too little importance even for a note upon a work of fiction;
-    but, at the period when it happened, it was hailed by the country as a
-    propitious omen, that the national force, to which much must naturally
-    have been trusted, had the spirit to look in the face the danger which
-    they had taken arms to repel; and every one was convinced, that on
-    whichever side God might bestow the victory, the invaders would meet with
-    the most determined opposition from the children of the soil.
-</p>
-
-
-<div style="height: 6em;"><br><br><br><br><br><br></div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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