The Antiquary

by Walter Scott

  "Indeed, my dear boy, I should be highly gratified by possessing them. To trace the connection of nations by their usages, and the similarity of the implements which they employ, has been long my favourite study. Everything that can illustrate such connections is most valuable to me."

  "Well, sir, I shall be much gratified by your acceptance of them, and a few trifles of the same kind. And now, am I to hope you have forgiven me?"

  "O, my dear boy, you are only thoughtless and foolish."

  "But Juno—she is only thoughtless too, I assure you—the breaker tells me she has no vice or stubbornness."

  "Well, I grant Juno also a free pardon—conditioned, that you will imitate her in avoiding vice and stubbornness, and that henceforward she banish herself forth of Monkbarns parlour."

  "Then, uncle," said the soldier, "I should have been very sorry and ashamed to propose to you anything in the way of expiation of my own sins, or those of my follower, that I thought worth your acceptance; but now, as all is forgiven, will you permit the orphan-nephew, to whom you have been a father, to offer you a trifle, which I have been assured is really curious, and which only the cross accident of my wound has prevented my delivering to you before? I got it from a French savant, to whom I rendered some service after the Alexandria affair."

  The captain put a small ring-case into the Antiquary's hands, which, when opened, was found to contain an antique ring of massive gold, with a cameo, most beautifully executed, bearing a head of Cleopatra. The Antiquary broke forth into unrepressed ecstasy, shook his nephew cordially by the hand, thanked him an hundred times, and showed the ring to his sister and niece, the latter of whom had the tact to give it sufficient admiration; but Miss Griselda (though she had the same affection for her nephew) had not address enough to follow the lead.

  "It's a bonny thing," she said, "Monkbarns, and, I dare say, a valuable; but it's out o'my way—ye ken I am nae judge o' sic matters."

  "There spoke all Fairport in one voice!" exclaimed Oldbuck "it is the very spirit of the borough has infected us all; I think I have smelled the smoke these two days, that the wind has stuck, like a remora, in the north-east—and its prejudices fly farther than its vapours. Believe me, my dear Hector, were I to walk up the High Street of Fairport, displaying this inestimable gem in the eyes of each one I met, no human creature, from the provost to the town-crier, would stop to ask me its history. But if I carried a bale of linen cloth under my arm, I could not penetrate to the Horsemarket ere I should be overwhelmed with queries about its precise texture and price. Oh, one might parody their brutal ignorance in the words of Gray:

  Weave the warp and weave the woof,

  The winding-sheet of wit and sense,

  Dull garment of defensive proof,

  'Gainst all that doth not gather pence."

  The most remarkable proof of this peace-offering being quite acceptable was, that while the Antiquary was in full declamation, Juno, who held him in awe, according to the remarkable instinct by which dogs instantly discover those who like or dislike them, had peeped several times into the room, and encountering nothing very forbidding in his aspect, had at length presumed to introduce her full person; and finally, becoming bold by impunity, she actually ate up Mr. Oldbuck's toast, as, looking first at one then at another of his audience, he repeated, with self-complacency,

  "Weave the warp and weave the woof,—

  "You remember the passage in the Fatal Sisters, which, by the way, is not so fine as in the original—But, hey-day! my toast has vanished!—I see which way—Ah, thou type of womankind! no wonder they take offence at thy generic appellation!"—(So saying, he shook his fist at Juno, who scoured out of the parlour.)—"However, as Jupiter, according to Homer, could not rule Juno in heaven, and as Jack Muirhead, according to Hector M'Intyre, has been equally unsuccessful on earth, I suppose she must have her own way." And this mild censure the brother and sister justly accounted a full pardon for Juno's offences, and sate down well pleased to the morning meal.

  When breakfast was over, the Antiquary proposed to his nephew to go down with him to attend the funeral. The soldier pleaded the want of a mourning habit.

  "O, that does not signify—your presence is all that is requisite. I assure you, you will see something that will entertain—no, that's an improper phrase—but that will interest you, from the resemblances which I will point out betwixt popular customs on such occasions and those of the ancients."

  "Heaven forgive me!" thought M'Intyre;—"I shall certainly misbehave, and lose all the credit I have so lately and accidentally gained."

  When they set out, schooled as he was by the warning and entreating looks of his sister, the soldier made his resolution strong to give no offence by evincing inattention or impatience. But our best resolutions are frail, when opposed to our predominant inclinations. Our Antiquary,—to leave nothing unexplained, had commenced with the funeral rites of the ancient Scandinavians, when his nephew interrupted him, in a discussion upon the "age of hills," to remark that a large sea-gull, which flitted around them, had come twice within shot. This error being acknowledged and pardoned, Oldbuck resumed his disquisition.

  "These are circumstances you ought to attend to and be familiar with, my dear Hector; for, in the strange contingencies of the present war which agitates every corner of Europe, there is no knowing where you may be called upon to serve. If in Norway, for example, or Denmark, or any part of the ancient Scania, or Scandinavia, as we term it, what could be more convenient than to have at your fingers' ends the history and antiquities of that ancient country, the officina gentium, the mother of modern Europe, the nursery of those heroes,

  Stern to inflict, and stubborn to endure,

  Who smiled in death?—

  How animating, for example, at the conclusion of a weary march, to find yourself in the vicinity of a Runic monument, and discover that you have pitched your tent beside the tomb of a hero!"

  "I am afraid, sir, our mess would be better supplied if it chanced to be in the neighbourhood of a good poultry-yard."

  "Alas, that you should say so! No wonder the days of Cressy and Agincourt are no more, when respect for ancient valour has died away in the breasts of the British soldiery."

  "By no means, sir—by no manner of means. I dare say that Edward and Henry, and the rest of these heroes, thought of their dinner, however, before they thought of examining an old tombstone. But I assure you, we are by no means insensible to the memoir of our fathers' fame; I used often of an evening to get old Rory MAlpin to sing us songs out of Ossian about the battles of Fingal and Lamon Mor, and Magnus and the Spirit of Muirartach."

  "And did you believe," asked the aroused Antiquary, "did you absolutely believe that stuff of Macpherson's to be really ancient, you simple boy?"

  "Believe it, sir?—how could I but believe it, when I have heard the songs sung from my infancy?"

  "But not the same as Macpherson's English Ossian—you're not absurd enough to say that, I hope?" said the Antiquary, his brow darkening with wrath.

  But Hector stoutly abode the storm; like many a sturdy Celt, he imagined the honour of his country and native language connected with the authenticity of these popular poems, and would have fought knee-deep, or forfeited life and land, rather than have given up a line of them. He therefore undauntedly maintained, that Rory MAlpin could repeat the whole book from one end to another;—and it was only upon cross-examination that he explained an assertion so general, by adding "At least, if he was allowed whisky enough, he could repeat as long as anybody would hearken to him."

  "Ay, ay," said the Antiquary; "and that, I suppose, was not very long."

  "Why, we had our duty, sir, to attend to, and could not sit listening all night to a piper."

  "But do you recollect, now," said Oldbuck, setting his teeth firmly together, and speaking without opening them, which was his custom when contradicted—"Do you recollect, now, any of these verses you thought so beautiful and interesting—being a capital judge, no
doubt, of such things?"

  "I don't pretend to much skill, uncle; but it's not very reasonable to be angry with me for admiring the antiquities of my own country more than those of the Harolds, Harfagers, and Hacos you are so fond of."

  "Why, these, sir—these mighty and unconquered Goths—were your ancestors! The bare-breeched Celts whom theysubdued, and suffered only to exist, like a fearful people, in the crevices of the rocks, were but their Mancipia and Serfs!"

  Hector's brow now grew red in his turn. "Sir," he said, "I don't understand the meaning of Mancipia and Serfs, but I conceive that such names are very improperly applied to Scotch Highlanders: no man but my mother's brother dared to have used such language in my presence; and I pray you will observe, that I consider it as neither hospitable, handsome, kind, nor generous usage towards your guest and your kinsman. My ancestors, Mr. Oldbuck"—

  "Were great and gallant chiefs, I dare say, Hector; and really I did not mean to give you such immense offence in treating a point of remote antiquity, a subject on which I always am myself cool, deliberate, and unimpassioned. But you are as hot and hasty, as if you were Hector and Achilles, and Agamemnon to boot."

  "I am sorry I expressed myself so hastily, uncle, especially to you, who have been so generous and good. But my ancestors"—

  "No more about it, lad; I meant them no affront—none."

  "I'm glad of it, sir; for the house of M'Intyre"—

  "Peace be with them all, every man of them," said the Antiquary. "But to return to our subject—Do you recollect, I say, any of those poems which afforded you such amusement?"

  "Very hard this," thought M'Intyre, "that he will speak with such glee of everything which is ancient, excepting my family. "—Then, after some efforts at recollection, he added aloud, "Yes, sir,—I think I do remember some lines; but you do not understand the Gaelic language."

  "And will readily excuse hearing it. But you can give me some idea of the sense in our own vernacular idiom?"

  "I shall prove a wretched interpreter," said M'Intyre, running over the original, well garnished with aghes, aughs, and oughs, and similar gutterals, and then coughing and hawking as if the translation stuck in his throat. At length, having premised that the poem was a dialogue between the poet Oisin, or Ossian, and Patrick, the tutelar Saint of Ireland, and that it was difficult, if not impossible, to render the exquisite felicity of the first two or three lines, he said the sense was to this purpose:

  "Patrick the psalm-singer,

  Since you will not listen to one of my stories,

  Though you never heard it before,

  I am sorry to tell you

  You are little better than an ass"—

  "Good! good!" exclaimed the Antiquary; "but go on. Why, this is, after all, the most admirable fooling—I dare say the poet was very right. What says the Saint?"

  "He replies in character," said M'Intyre; "but you should hear MAlpin sing the original. The speeches of Ossian come in upon a strong deep bass—those of Patrick are upon a tenor key."

  "Like MAlpin's drone and small pipes, I suppose," said Oldbuck. "Well? Pray go on."

  "Well then, Patrick replies to Ossian:

  Upon my word, son of Fingal,

  While I am warbling the psalms,

  The clamour of your old women's tales

  Disturbs my devotional exercises."

  "Excellent!—why, this is better and better. I hope Saint Patrick sung better than Blattergowl's precentor, or it would be hang—choice between the poet and psalmist. But what I admire is the courtesy of these two eminent persons towards each other. It is a pity there should not be a word of this in Macpherson's translation."

  "If you are sure of that," said M'Intyre, gravely, "he must have taken very unwarrantable liberties with his original."

  "It will go near to be thought so shortly—but pray proceed."

  "Then," said M'Intyre, "this is the answer of Ossian:

  Dare you compare your psalms,

  You son of a—"

  "Son of a what?" exclaimed Oldbuck.

  "It means, I think," said the young soldier, with some reluctance, "son of a female dog:

  Do you compare your psalms,

  To the tales of the bare-arm'd Fenians"

  "Are you sure you are translating that last epithet correctly, Hector?"

  "Quite sure, sir," answered Hector, doggedly.

  "Because I should have thought the nudity might have been quoted as existing in a different part of the body."

  Disdaining to reply to this insinuation, Hector proceeded in his recitation:

  "I shall think it no great harm

  To wring your bald head from your shoulders—

  But what is that yonder?" exclaimed Hector, interrupting himself.

  "One of the herd of Proteus," said the Antiquary—"a phoca, or seal, lying asleep on the beach."

  Upon which M'Intyre, with the eagerness of a young sportsman, totally forgot both Ossian, Patrick, his uncle, and his wound, and exclaiming—"I shall have her! I shall have her!" snatched the walking-stick out of the hand of the astonished Antiquary, at some risk of throwing him down, and set off at full speed to get between the animal and the sea, to which element, having caught the alarm, she was rapidly retreating.

  Not Sancho, when his master interrupted his account of the combatants of Pentapolin with the naked arm, to advance in person to the charge of the flock of sheep, stood more confounded than Oldbuck at this sudden escapade of his nephew.

  "Is the devil in him," was his first exclamation, "to go to disturb the brute that was never thinking of him!"—Then elevating his voice, "Hector—nephew—fool—let alone the Phoca—let alone the Phoca!— they bite, I tell you, like furies. He minds me no more than a post. There—there they are at it—Gad, the Phoca has the best of it! I am glad to see it," said he, in the bitterness of his heart, though really alarmed for his nephew's safety—"I am glad to see it, with all my heart and spirit."

  In truth, the seal, finding her retreat intercepted by the light-footed soldier, confronted him manfully, and having sustained a heavy blow without injury, she knitted her brows, as is the fashion of the animal when incensed, and making use at once of her fore-paws and her unwieldy strength, wrenched the weapon out of the assailant's hand, overturned him on the sands, and scuttled away into the sea, without doing him any farther injury. Captain M'Intyre, a good deal out of countenance at the issue of his exploit, just rose in time to receive the ironical congratulations of his uncle, upon a single combat worthy to be commemorated by Ossian himself, "since," said the Antiquary, "your magnanimous opponent has fled, though not upon eagle's wings, from the foe that was low—Egad, she walloped away with all the grace of triumph, and has carried my stick off also, by way of spolia opima."

  M'Intyre had little to answer for himself, except that a Highlander could never pass a deer, a seal, or a salmon, where there was a possibility of having a trial of skill with them, and that he had forgot one of his arms was in a sling. He also made his fall an apology for returning back to Monkbarns, and thus escape the farther raillery of his uncle, as well as his lamentations for his walking-stick.

  "I cut it," he said, "in the classic woods of Hawthornden, when I did not expect always to have been a bachelor—I would not have given it for an ocean of seals—O Hector! Hector!—thy namesake was born to be the prop of Troy, and thou to be the plague of Monkbarns!"

  CHAPTER TENTH.

  Tell me not of it, friend—when the young weep,

  Their tears are luke-warm brine;—from your old eyes

  Sorrow falls down like hail-drops of the North,

  Chilling the furrows of our withered cheeks,

  Cold as our hopes, and hardened as our feeling—

  Theirs, as they fall, sink sightless—ours recoil,

  Heap the fair plain, and bleaken all before us.

  Old Play.

  The Antiquary, being now alone, hastened his pace, which had been retarded by these various discussions, and
the rencontre which had closed them, and soon arrived before the half-dozen cottages at Mussel-crag. They had now, in addition to their usual squalid and uncomfortable appearance, the melancholy attributes of the house of mourning. The boats were all drawn up on the beach; and, though the day was fine, and the season favourable, the chant, which is used by the fishers when at sea, was silent, as well as the prattle of the children, and the shrill song of the mother, as she sits mending her nets by the door. A few of the neighbours, some in their antique and well-saved suits of black, others in their ordinary clothes, but all bearing an expression of mournful sympathy with distress so sudden and unexpected, stood gathered around the door of Mucklebackit's cottage, waiting till "the body was lifted." As the Laird of Monkbarns approached, they made way for him to enter, doffing their hats and bonnets as he passed, with an air of melancholy courtesy, and he returned their salutes in the same manner.

  In the inside of the cottage was a scene which our Wilkie alone could have painted, with that exquisite feeling of nature that characterises his enchanting productions.

  The body was laid in its coffin within the wooden bedstead which the young fisher had occupied while alive. At a little distance stood the father, whose rugged weather-beaten countenance, shaded by his grizzled hair, had faced many a stormy night and night-like day. He was apparently revolving his loss in his mind, with that strong feeling of painful grief peculiar to harsh and rough characters, which almost breaks forth into hatred against the world, and all that remain in it, after the beloved object is withdrawn. The old man had made the most desperate efforts to save his son, and had only been withheld by main force from renewing them at a moment when, without the possibility of assisting the sufferer, he must himself have perished. All this apparently was boiling in his recollection. His glance was directed sidelong towards the coffin, as to an object on which he could not stedfastly look, and yet from which he could not withdraw his eyes. His answers to the necessary questions which were occasionally put to him, were brief, harsh, and almost fierce. His family had not yet dared to address to him a word, either of sympathy or consolation. His masculine wife, virago as she was, and absolute mistress of the family, as she justly boasted herself, on all ordinary occasions, was, by this great loss, terrified into silence and submission, and compelled to hide from her husband's observation the bursts of her female sorrow. As he had rejected food ever since the disaster had happened, not daring herself to approach him, she had that morning, with affectionate artifice, employed the youngest and favourite child to present her husband with some nourishment. His first action was to put it from him with an angry violence that frightened the child; his next, to snatch up the boy and devour him with kisses. "Yell be a bra' fallow, an ye be spared, Patie,—but ye'll never—never can be—what he was to me!—He has sailed the coble wi' me since he was ten years auld, and there wasna the like o' him drew a net betwixt this and Buchan-ness.—They say folks maun submit—I will try."