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 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, _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, you look as if flying through the night air had been your natural and most congenial occupation; your colour is even better than when you honoured my _hospitium_ yesterday. And Sir Arthur–how fares my good old friend?”
“Indifferently well, Mr. Oldbuck; but I am afraid, not quite able to receive your congratulations, or to pay–to pay–Mr. Lovel his thanks for his unparalleled exertions.”
“I 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