by Walter Scott
"Oh, mine good patrons, do not speak about all dat," said Dousterswivel, "as just now, but help me to put de shtone to de rights, and let us begone our own ways." And accordingly, so soon as the stone was replaced, he hurried Sir Arthur, who was now resigned once more to his guidance, away from a spot, where the German's guilty conscience and superstitious fears represented goblins as lurking behind each pillar with the purpose of punishing his treachery.
"Saw onybody e'er the like o' that!" said Edie, when they had disappeared like shadows through the gate by which they had entered—"saw ony creature living e'er the like o' that!—But what can we do for that puir doited deevil of a knight-baronet? Od, he showed muckle mair spunk, too, than I thought had been in him—I thought he wad hae sent cauld iron through the vagabond—Sir Arthur wasna half sae bauld at Bessie's-apron yon night—but then, his blood was up even now, and that makes an unco difference. I hae seen mony a man wad hae felled another an anger him, that wadna muckle hae liked a clink against Crummies-horn yon time. But what's to be done?"
"I suppose," said Lovel, "his faith in this fellow is entirely restored by this deception, which, unquestionably, he had arranged beforehand."
"What! the siller?—Ay, ay—trust him for that—they that hide ken best where to find. He wants to wile him out o' his last guinea, and then escape to his ain country, the land-louper. I wad likeit weel just to hae come in at the clipping-time, and gien him a lounder wi' my pike-staff; he wad hae taen it for a bennison frae some o' the auld dead abbots. But it's best no to be rash; sticking disna gang by strength, but by the guiding o' the gally. I'se be upsides wi' him ae day."
"What if you should inform Mr. Oldbuck?" said Lovel.
"Ou, I dinna ken—Monkbarns and Sir Arthur are like, and yet they're no like neither. Monkbarns has whiles influence wi' him, and whiles Sir Arthur cares as little about him as about the like o' me. Monkbarns is no that ower wise himsell, in some things;—he wad believe a bodle to be an auld Roman coin, as he ca's it, or a ditch to be a camp, upon ony leasing that idle folk made about it. I hae garr'd him trow mony a queer tale mysell, gude forgie me. But wi' a' that, he has unco little sympathy wi' ither folks; and he's snell and dure eneugh in casting up their nonsense to them, as if he had nane o' his ain. He'll listen the hale day, an yell tell him about tales o' Wallace, and Blind Harry, and Davie Lindsay; but ye maunna speak to him about ghaists or fairies, or spirits walking the earth, or the like o' that;—he had amaist flung auld Caxon out o' the window (and he might just as weel hae flung awa his best wig after him), for threeping he had seen a ghaist at the humlock-knowe. Now, if he was taking it up in this way, he wad set up the tother's birse, and maybe do mair ill nor gude—he's done that twice or thrice about thae mine-warks; ye wad thought Sir Arthur had a pleasure in gaun on wi' them the deeper, the mair he was warned against it by Monkbarns."
"What say you then," said Lovel, "to letting Miss Wardour know the circumstance?"
"Ou, puir thing, how could she stop her father doing his pleasure?—and, besides, what wad it help? There's a sough in the country about that six hundred pounds, and there's a writer chield in Edinburgh has been driving the spur-rowels o' the law up to the head into Sir Arthur's sides to gar him pay it, and if he canna, he maun gang to jail or flee the country. He's like a desperate man, and just catches at this chance as a' he has left, to escape utter perdition; so what signifies plaguing the puir lassie about what canna be helped? And besides, to say the truth, I wadna like to tell the secret o' this place. It's unco convenient, ye see yoursell, to hae a hiding-hole o' ane's ain; and though I be out o' the line o' needing ane e'en now, and trust in the power o' grace that I'll neer do onything to need ane again, yet naebody kens what temptation ane may be gien ower to—and, to be brief, I downa bide the thought of anybody kennin about the place;—they say, keep a thing seven year, an' yell aye find a use for't—and maybe I may need the cove, either for mysell, or for some ither body."
This argument, in which Edie Ochiltree, notwithstanding his scraps of morality and of divinity, seemed to take, perhaps from old habit, a personal interest, could not be handsomely controverted by Lovel, who was at that moment reaping the benefit of the secret of which the old man appeared to be so jealous.
This incident, however, was of great service to Lovel, as diverting his mind from the unhappy occurrence of the evening, and considerably rousing the energies which had been stupefied by the first view of his calamity. He reflected that it by no means necessarily followed that a dangerous wound must be a fatal one—that he had been hurried from the spot even before the surgeon had expressed any opinion of Captain M'Intyre's situation—and that he had duties on earth to perform, even should the very worst be true, which, if they could not restore his peace of mind or sense of innocence, would furnish a motive for enduring existence, and at the same time render it a course of active benevolence.—Such were Lovel's feelings, when the hour arrived when, according to Edie's calculation—who, by some train or process of his own in observing the heavenly bodies, stood independent of the assistance of a watch or time-keeper—it was fitting they should leave their hiding-place, and betake themselves to the seashore, in order to meet Lieutenant Taffril's boat according to appointment.
They retreated by the same passage which had admitted them to the prior's secret seat of observation, and when they issued from the grotto into the wood, the birds which began to chirp, and even to sing, announced that the dawn was advanced. This was confirmed by the light and amber clouds that appeared over the sea, as soon as their exit from the copse permitted them to view the horizon.—Morning, said to be friendly to the muses, has probably obtained this character from its effect upon the fancy and feelings of mankind. Even to those who, like Lovel, have spent a sleepless and anxious night, the breeze of the dawn brings strength and quickening both of mind and body. It was, therefore, with renewed health and vigour that Lovel, guided by the trusty mendicant, brushed away the dew as he traversed the downs which divided the Den of St. Ruth, as the woods surrounding the ruins were popularly called, from the sea-shore.
The first level beam of the sun, as his brilliant disk began to emerge from the ocean, shot full upon the little gun-brig which was lying-to in the offing—close to the shore the boat was already waiting, Taffril himself, with his naval cloak wrapped about him, seated in the stern. He jumped ashore when he saw the mendicant and Lovel approach, and, shaking the latter heartily by the hand, begged him not to be cast down. "M'Intyre's wound," he said, "was doubtful, but far from desperate." His attention had got Lovel's baggage privately sent on board the brig; "and," he said, "he trusted that, if Lovel chose to stay with the vessel, the penalty of a short cruise would be the only disagreeable consequence of his rencontre. As for himself, his time and motions were a good deal at his own disposal, he said, excepting the necessary obligation of remaining on his station."
"We will talk of our farther motions," said Lovel, "as we go on board."
Then turning to Edie, he endeavoured to put money into his hand. "I think," said Edie, as he tendered it back again, "the hale folk here have either gane daft, or they hae made a vow to rain my trade, as they say ower muckle water drowns the miller. I hae had mair gowd offered me within this twa or three weeks than I ever saw in my life afore. Keep the siller, lad—yell hae need o't, I'se warrant ye, and I hae nane my claes is nae great things, and I get a blue gown every year, and as mony siller groats as the king, God bless him, is years auld—you and I serve the same master, ye ken, Captain Taffril; there's rigging provided for—and my meat and drink I get for the asking in my rounds, or, at an orra time, I can gang a day without it, for I make it a rule never to pay for nane;—so that a' the siller I need is just to buy tobacco and sneeshin, and maybe a dram at a time in a cauld day, though I am nae dram-drinker to be a gaberlunzie;—sae take back your gowd, and just gie me a lily-white shilling."
Upon these whims, which he imagined intimately connected with the honour of his vagabond profession, Edie was flint
and adamant, not to be moved by rhetoric or entreaty; and therefore Lovel was under the necessity of again pocketing his intended bounty, and taking a friendly leave of the mendicant by shaking him by the hand, and assuring him of his cordial gratitude for the very important services which he had rendered him, recommending, at the same time, secrecy as to what they had that night witnessed.—"Ye needna doubt that," said Ochiltree; "I never tell'd tales out o' yon cove in my life, though mony a queer thing I hae seen in't."
The boat now put off. The old man remained looking after it as it made rapidly towards the brig under the impulse of six stout rowers, and Lovel beheld him again wave his blue bonnet as a token of farewell ere he turned from his fixed posture, and began to move slowly along the sands as if resuming his customary perambulations.
VOLUME TWO
CHAPTER FIRST.
Wiser Raymondus, in his closet pent,
Laughs at such danger and adventurement
When half his lands are spent in golden smoke,
And now his second hopeful glasse is broke,
But yet, if haply his third furnace hold,
Devoteth all his pots and pans to gold.[16]
About a week after the adventures commemorated in our last CHAPTER, Mr. Oldbuck, descending to his breakfast-parlour, found that his womankind were not upon duty, his toast not made, and the silver jug, which was wont to receive his libations of mum, not duly aired for its reception.
"This confounded hot-brained boy!" he said to himself; "now that he begins to get out of danger, I can tolerate this life no longer. All goes to sixes and sevens—an universal saturnalia seems to be proclaimed in my peaceful and orderly family. I ask for my sister—no answer. I call, I shout—I invoke my inmates by more names than the Romans gave to their deities—at length Jenny, whose shrill voice I have heard this half-hour lilting in the Tartarean regions of the kitchen, condescends to hear me and reply, but without coming up stairs, so the conversation must be continued at the top of my lungs. "—Here he again began to hollow aloud—"Jenny, where's Miss Oldbuck?"
"Miss Grizzy's in the captain's room."
"Umph!—I thought so—and where's my niece?"
"Miss Mary's making the captain's tea."
"Umph! I supposed as much again—and where's Caxon?"
"Awa to the town about the captain's fowling-gun, and his setting-dog."
"And who the devil's to dress my periwig, you silly jade?—when you knew that Miss Wardour and Sir Arthur were coming here early after breakfast, how could you let Caxon go on such a Tomfool's errand?"
"Me! what could I hinder him?—your honour wadna hae us contradict the captain e'en now, and him maybe deeing?"
"Dying!" said the alarmed Antiquary,—"eh! what? has he been worse?"
"Na, he's no nae waur that I ken of."[17]
"Then he must be better—and what good is a dog and a gun to do here, but the one to destroy all my furniture, steal from my larder, and perhaps worry the cat, and the other to shoot somebody through the head. He has had gunning and pistolling enough to serve him one while, I should think."
Here Miss Oldbuck entered the parlour, at the door of which Oldbuck was carrying on this conversation, he bellowing downward to Jenny, and she again screaming upward in reply.
"Dear brother," said the old lady, "ye'll cry yoursell as hoarse as a corbie—is that the way to skreigh when there's a sick person in the house?"
"Upon my word, the sick person's like to have all the house to himself,— I have gone without my breakfast, and am like to go without my wig; and I must not, I suppose, presume to say I feel either hunger or cold, for fear of disturbing the sick gentleman who lies six rooms off, and who feels himself well enough to send for his dog and gun, though he knows I detest such implements ever since our elder brother, poor Williewald, marched out of the world on a pair of damp feet, caught in the Kittlefitting-moss. But that signifies nothing; I suppose I shall be expected by and by to lend a hand to carry Squire Hector out upon his litter, while he indulges his sportsmanlike propensities by shooting my pigeons, or my turkeys—I think any of the ferae naturae are safe from him for one while."
Miss M'Intyre now entered, and began to her usual morning's task of arranging her uncle's breakfast, with the alertness of one who is too late in setting about a task, and is anxious to make up for lost time. But this did not avail her. "Take care, you silly womankind—that mum's too near the fire—the bottle will burst; and I suppose you intend to reduce the toast to a cinder as a burnt-offering for Juno, or what do you call her—the female dog there, with some such Pantheon kind of a name, that your wise brother has, in his first moments of mature reflection, ordered up as a fitting inmate of my house (I thank him), and meet company to aid the rest of the womankind of my household in their daily conversation and intercourse with him."
"Dear uncle, don't be angry about the poor spaniel; she's been tied up at my brother's lodgings at Fairport, and she's broke her chain twice, and came running down here to him; and you would not have us beat the faithful beast away from the door?—it moans as if it had some sense of poor Hector's misfortune, and will hardly stir from the door of his room."
"Why," said his uncle, "they said Caxon had gone to Fairport after his dog and gun."
"O dear sir, no," answered Miss M'Intyre, "it was to fetch some dressings that were wanted, and Hector only wished him to bring out his gun, as he was going to Fairport at any rate."
"Well, then, it is not altogether so foolish a business, considering what a mess of womankind have been about it—Dressings, quotha?—and who is to dress my wig?—But I suppose Jenny will undertake"—continued the old bachelor, looking at himself in the glass—"to make it somewhat decent. And now let us set to breakfast—with what appetite we may. Well may I say to Hector, as Sir Isaac Newton did to his dog Diamond, when the animal (I detest dogs) flung down the taper among calculations which had occupied the philosopher for twenty years, and consumed the whole mass of materials—Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done!"
"I assure you, sir," replied his niece, "my brother is quite sensible of the rashness of his own behaviour, and allows that Mr. Lovel behaved very handsomely."
"And much good that will do, when he has frightened the lad out of the country! I tell thee, Mary, Hector's understanding, and far more that of feminity, is inadequate to comprehend the extent of the loss which he has occasioned to the present age and to posterity—aureum quidem opus—a poem on such a subject, with notes illustrative of all that is clear, and all that is dark, and all that is neither dark nor clear, but hovers in dusky twilight in the region of Caledonian antiquities. I would have made the Celtic panegyrists look about them. Fingal, as they conceitedly term Fin-Mac-Coul, should have disappeared before my search, rolling himself in his cloud like the spirit of Loda. Such an opportunity can hardly again occur to an ancient and grey-haired man; and to see it lost by the madcap spleen of a hot-headed boy! But I submit—Heaven's will be done!"
Thus continued the Antiquary to maunder, as his sister expressed it, during the whole time of breakfast, while, despite of sugar and honey, and all the comforts of a Scottish morning tea-table, his reflections rendered the meal bitter to all who heard them. But they knew the nature of the man. "Monkbarns's bark," said Miss Griselda Oldbuck, in confidential intercourse with Miss Rebecca Blattergowl, "is muckle waur than his bite."
In fact, Mr. Oldbuck had suffered in mind extremely while his nephew was in actual danger, and now felt himself at liberty, upon his returning health, to indulge in complaints respecting the trouble he had been put to, and the interruption of his antiquarian labours. Listened to, therefore, in respectful silence, by his niece and sister, he unloaded his discontent in such grumblings as we have rehearsed, venting many a sarcasm against womankind, soldiers, dogs, and guns, all which implements of noise, discord, and tumult, as he called them, he professed to hold in utter abomination.
This expectoration of spleen was suddenly interrupted b
y the noise of a carriage without, when, shaking off all sullenness at the sound, Oldbuck ran nimbly up stairs and down stairs, for both operations were necessary ere he could receive Miss Wardour and her father at the door of his mansion.
A cordial greeting passed on both sides. And Sir Arthur, referring to his previous inquiries by letter and message, requested to be particularly informed of Captain M'Intyre's health.
"Better than he deserves," was the answer—"better than he deserves, for disturbing us with his vixen brawls, and breaking God's peace and the King's."
"The young gentleman," Sir Arthur said, "had been imprudent; but he understood they were indebted to him for the detection of a suspicious character in the young man Lovel."
"No more suspicious than his own," answered the Antiquary, eager in his favourites defence;—"the young gentleman was a little foolish and headstrong, and refused to answer Hector's impertinent interrogatories— that is all. Lovel, Sir Arthur, knows how to choose his confidants better—Ay, Miss Wardour, you may look at me—but it is very true;—it was in my bosom that he deposited the secret cause of his residence at Fairport; and no stone should have been left unturned on my part to assist him in the pursuit to which he had dedicated himself."
On hearing this magnanimous declaration on the part of the old Antiquary, Miss Wardour changed colour more than once, and could hardly trust her own ears. For of all confidants to be selected as the depositary of love affairs,—and such she naturally supposed must have been the subject of communication,—next to Edie Ochiltree, Oldbuck seemed the most uncouth and extraordinary; nor could she sufficiently admire or fret at the extraordinary combination of circumstances which thus threw a secret of such a delicate nature into the possession of persons so unfitted to be entrusted with it. She had next to fear the mode of Oldbuck's entering upon the affair with her father, for such, she doubted not, was his intention. She well knew that the honest gentleman, however vehement in his prejudices, had no great sympathy with those of others, and she had to fear a most unpleasant explosion upon an e'claircissement taking place between them. It was therefore with great anxiety that she heard her father request a private interview, and observed Oldbuck readily arise and show the way to his library. She remained behind, attempting to converse with the ladies of Monkbarns, but with the distracted feelings of Macbeth, when compelled to disguise his evil conscience by listening and replying to the observations of the attendant thanes upon the storm of the preceding night, while his whole soul is upon the stretch to listen for the alarm of murder, which he knows must be instantly raised by those who have entered the sleeping apartment of Duncan. But the conversation of the two virtuosi turned on a subject very different from that which Miss Wardour apprehended.
