of Monkbarns, was the second son of a gentleman possessed of a small
property in the neighbourhood of a thriving seaport town on the
north-eastern coast of Scotland, which, for various reasons, we shall
denominate Fairport. They had been established for several generations,
as landholders in the county, and in most shires of England would have
been accounted a family of some standing. But the shire of----was filled
with gentlemen of more ancient descent and larger fortune. In the last
generation, also, the neighbouring gentry had been almost uniformly
Jacobites, while the proprietors of Monkbarns, like the burghers of
the town near which they were settled, were steady assertors of the
Protestant succession. The latter had, however, a pedigree of their
own, on which they prided themselves as much as those who despised them
valued their respective Saxon, Norman, or Celtic genealogies. The first
Oldenbuck, who had settled in their family mansion shortly after the
Reformation, was, they asserted, descended from one of the original
printers of Germany, and had left his country in consequence of the
persecutions directed against the professors of the Reformed religion.
He had found a refuge in the town near which his posterity dwelt,
the more readily that he was a sufferer in the Protestant cause, and
certainly not the less so, that he brought with him money enough to
purchase the small estate of Monkbarns, then sold by a dissipated laird,
to whose father it had been gifted, with other church lands, on the
dissolution of the great and wealthy monastery to which it had belonged.
The Oldenbucks were therefore, loyal subjects on all occasions of
insurrection; and, as they kept up a good intelligence with the borough,
it chanced that the Laird of Monkbarns, who flourished in 1745, was
provost of the town during that ill-fated year, and had exerted himself
with much spirit in favour of King George, and even been put to expenses
on that score, which, according to the liberal conduct of the existing
government towards their friends, had never been repaid him. By dint
of solicitation, however, and borough interest, he contrived to gain
a place in the customs, and, being a frugal, careful man, had found
himself enabled to add considerably to his paternal fortune. He had only
two sons, of whom, as we have hinted, the present laird was the younger,
and two daughters, one of whom still flourished in single blessedness,
and the other, who was greatly more juvenile, made a love-match with a
captain in the Forty-twa, who had no other fortune but his commission
and a Highland pedigree. Poverty disturbed a union which love would
otherwise have made happy, and Captain M’Intyre, in justice to his wife
and two children, a boy and girl, had found himself obliged to seek his
fortune in the East Indies. Being ordered upon an expedition against
Hyder Ally, the detachment to which he belonged was cut off, and no news
ever reached his unfortunate wife, whether he fell in battle, or was
murdered in prison, or survived in what the habits of the Indian tyrant
rendered a hopeless captivity. She sunk under the accumulated load of
grief and uncertainty, and left a son and daughter to the charge of her
brother, the existing Laird of Monkbarns.
The history of that proprietor himself is soon told. Being, as we have
said, a second son, his father destined him to a share in a substantial
mercantile concern, carried on by some of his maternal relations. From
this Jonathan’s mind revolted in the most irreconcilable manner. He was
then put apprentice to the profession of a writer, or attorney, in which
he profited so far, that he made himself master of the whole forms
of feudal investitures, and showed such pleasure in reconciling their
incongruities, and tracing their origin, that his master had great
hope he would one day be an able conveyancer. But he halted upon the
threshold, and, though he acquired some knowledge of the origin and
system of the law of his country, he could never be persuaded to
apply it to lucrative and practical purposes. It was not from any
inconsiderate neglect of the advantages attending the possession
of money that he thus deceived the hopes of his master. “Were he
thoughtless or light-headed, or rei suae prodigus,” said his instructor,
“I would know what to make of him. But he never pays away a shilling
without looking anxiously after the change, makes his sixpence go
farther than another lad’s half-crown, and wilt ponder over an old
black-letter copy of the acts of parliament for days, rather than go to
the golf or the change-house; and yet he will not bestow one of these
days on a little business of routine, that would put twenty shillings
in his pocket--a strange mixture of frugality and industry, and negligent
indolence--I don’t know what to make of him.”
But in process of time his pupil gained the means of making what he
pleased of himself; for his father having died, was not long survived by
his eldest son, an arrant fisher and fowler, who departed this life, in
consequence of a cold caught in his vocation, while shooting ducks in
the swamp called Kittlefittingmoss, notwithstanding his having drunk a
bottle of brandy that very night to keep the cold out of his stomach.
Jonathan, therefore, succeeded to the estate, and with it to the means
of subsisting without the hated drudgery of the law. His wishes were
very moderate; and as the rent of his small property rose with the
improvement of the country, it soon greatly exceeded his wants and
expenditure; and though too indolent to make money, he was by no means
insensible to the pleasure of beholding it accumulate. The burghers of
the town near which he lived regarded him with a sort of envy, as one
who affected to divide himself from their rank in society, and whose
studies and pleasures seemed to them alike incomprehensible. Still,
however, a sort of hereditary respect for the Laird of Monkbarns,
augmented by the knowledge of his being a ready-money man, kept up his
consequence with this class of his neighbours. The country gentlemen
were generally above him in fortune, and beneath him in intellect,
and, excepting one with whom he lived in habits of intimacy, had little
intercourse with Mr. Oldbuck of Monkbarns. He, had, however, the usual
resources, the company of the clergyman, and of the doctor, when he
chose to request it, and also his own pursuits and pleasures, being in
correspondence with most of the virtuosi of his time, who, like himself,
measured decayed entrenchments, made plans of ruined castles, read
illegible inscriptions, and wrote essays on medals in the proportion
of twelve pages to each letter of the legend. Some habits of hasty
irritation he had contracted, partly, it was said in the borough of
Fairport, from an early disappointment in love in virtue of which he had
commenced misogynist, as he called it, but yet more by the obsequious
attention paid to him by his maiden sister and his orphan niece, whom he
had trained to consider him as the greatest man upon earth, and whom he
used to boast of as the only women he had ever seen who were well
broke in and bitted to obedience; though, it must be owned, Miss Grizzy
Oldbuck was sometimes apt to jibb when he pulled the reins too tight.
The rest of his character must be gathered from the story, and we
dismiss with pleasure the tiresome task of recapitulation.
During the time of dinner, Mr. Oldbuck, actuated by the same curiosity
which his fellow-traveller had entertained on his account, made some
advances, which his age and station entitled him to do in a more direct
manner, towards ascertaining the name, destination, and quality of his
young companion.
His name, the young gentleman said, was Lovel.
“What! the cat, the rat, and Lovel our dog? Was he descended from King
Richard’s favourite?”
“He had no pretensions,” he said, “to call himself a whelp of that
litter; his father was a north-of-England gentleman. He was at present
travelling to Fairport (the town near to which Monkbarns was situated),
and, if he found the place agreeable, might perhaps remain there for
some weeks.”
“Was Mr. Lovel’s excursion solely for pleasure?”
“Not entirely.”
“Perhaps on business with some of the commercial people of Fairport?”
“It was partly on business, but had no reference to commerce.”
Here he paused; and Mr. Oldbuck, having pushed his inquiries as far
as good manners permitted, was obliged to change the conversation. The
Antiquary, though by no means an enemy to good cheer, was a determined
foe to all unnecessary expense on a journey; and upon his companion
giving a hint concerning a bottle of port wine, he drew a direful
picture of the mixture, which, he said, was usually sold under that
denomination, and affirming that a little punch was more genuine and
better suited for the season, he laid his hand upon the bell to order
the materials. But Mackitchinson had, in his own mind, settled their
beverage otherwise, and appeared bearing in his hand an immense double
quart bottle, or magnum, as it is called in Scotland, covered with
saw-dust and cobwebs, the warrants of its antiquity.
“Punch!” said he, catching that generous sound as he entered the
parlour, “the deil a drap punch ye’se get here the day, Monkbarns, and
that ye may lay your account wi’.”
“What do you mean, you impudent rascal?”
“Ay, ay, it’s nae matter for that--but do you mind the trick ye served me
the last time ye were here!”
“I trick you!”
“Ay, just yoursell, Monkbarns. The Laird o’ Tamlowrie and Sir Gilbert
Grizzlecleuch, and Auld Rossballoh, and the Bailie, were just setting in
to make an afternoon o’t, and you, wi’ some o’ your auld-warld stories,
that the mind o’ man canna resist, whirl’d them to the back o’ beyont to
look at the auld Roman camp--Ah, sir!” turning to Lovel, “he wad wile the
bird aff the tree wi’ the tales he tells about folk lang syne--and did
not I lose the drinking o’ sax pints o’ gude claret, for the deil ane
wad hae stirred till he had seen that out at the least?”
“D’ye hear the impudent scoundrel!” said Monkbarns, but laughing at
the same time; for the worthy landlord, as he used to boast, know the
measure of a guest’s foot as well as e’er a souter on this side Solway;
“well, well, you may send us in a bottle of port.”
“Port! na, na! ye maun leave port and punch to the like o’ us, it’s
claret that’s fit for you lairds; and, I dare say, nane of the folk ye
speak so much o’ ever drank either of the twa.”
“Do you hear how absolute the knave is? Well, my young friend, we must
for once prefer the Falernian to the vile Sabinum.”
The ready landlord had the cork instantly extracted, decanted the wine
into a vessel of suitable capaciousness, and, declaring it parfumed the
very room, left his guests to make the most of it.
Mackitchinson’s wine was really good, and had its effect upon the
spirits of the elder guest, who told some good stories, cut some sly
jokes, and at length entered into a learned discussion concerning the
ancient dramatists; a ground on which he found his new acquaintance
so strong, that at length he began to suspect he had made them his
professional study. “A traveller partly for business and partly for
pleasure?--why, the stage partakes of both; it is a labour to the
performers, and affords, or is meant to afford, pleasure to the
spectators. He seems, in manner and rank, above the class of young men
who take that turn; but I remember hearing them say, that the little
theatre at Fairport was to open with the performance of a young
gentleman, being his first appearance on any stage.--If this should be
thee, Lovel!--Lovel? yes, Lovel or Belville are just the names which
youngsters are apt to assume on such occasions--on my life, I am sorry
for the lad.”
Mr. Oldbuck was habitually parsimonious, but in no respects mean; his
first thought was to save his fellow-traveller any part of the expense
of the entertainment, which he supposed must be in his situation more
or less inconvenient. He therefore took an opportunity of settling
privately with Mr. Mackitchinson. The young traveller remonstrated
against his liberality, and only acquiesced in deference to his years
and respectability.
The mutual satisfaction which they found in each other’s society induced
Mr. Oldbuck to propose, and Lovel willingly to accept, a scheme for
travelling together to the end of their journey. Mr. Oldbuck intimated
a wish to pay two-thirds of the hire of a post-chaise, saying, that a
proportional quantity of room was necessary to his accommodation; but
this Mr. Lovel resolutely declined. Their expense then was mutual,
unless when Lovel occasionally slipt a shilling into the hand of a
growling postilion; for Oldbuck, tenacious of ancient customs, never
extended his guerdon beyond eighteen-pence a stage. In this manner they
travelled, until they arrived at Fairport* about two o’clock on the
following day.
* [The “Fairport” of this novel is supposed to refer to the town of *
Arbroath, in Forfarshire, and “Musselcrag,” post, to the fishing village
of * Auchmithie, in the same county.]
Lovel probably expected that his travelling companion would have invited
him to dinner on his arrival; but his consciousness of a want of ready
preparation for unexpected guests, and perhaps some other reasons,
prevented Oldbuck from paying him that attention. He only begged to
see him as early as he could make it convenient to call in a forenoon,
recommended him to a widow who had apartments to let, and to a person
who kept a decent ordinary; cautioning both of them apart, that he only
knew Mr. Lovel as a pleasant companion in a post-chaise, and did not
mean to guarantee any bills which he might contract while residing at
Fairport. The young gentleman’s figure and manners; not to mention
a well-furnished trunk, which soon arrived by sea, to his address
at Fairport, probably went as far in his favour as the limited
recommendation of his fellow-traveller.
CHAPTER THIRD.
He had a routh o’ auld nick-nackets,
Rusty airn caps, and jinglin-jackets,
Would held the Loudons three in tackets,
A towmond gude;
And parritch-pats, and auld sayt-backets,
Afore the flude.
Burns.
After he had settled himself in his new apartments at Fairport,
Mr. Lovel bethought him of paying the requested visit to his
fellow-traveller. He did not make it earlier, because, with all the old
gentleman’s good-humour and information, there had sometimes glanced
forth in his language and manner towards him an air of superiority,
which his companion considered as being fully beyond what the difference
of age warranted. He therefore waited the arrival of his baggage from
Edinburgh, that he might arrange his dress according to the fashion
of the day, and make his exterior corresponding to the rank in society
which he supposed or felt himself entitled to hold.
It was the fifth day after his arrival, that, having made the necessary
inquiries concerning the road, he went forth to pay his respects at
Monkbarns. A footpath leading over a heathy hill, and through two
or three meadows, conducted him to this mansion, which stood on the
opposite side of the hill aforesaid, and commanded a fine prospect of
the bay and shipping. Secluded from the town by the rising ground, which
also screened it from the north-west wind, the house had a solitary, and
sheltered appearance. The exterior had little to recommend it. It was an
irregular old-fashioned building, some part of which had belonged to a
grange, or solitary farm-house, inhabited by the bailiff, or steward,
of the monastery, when the place was in possession of the monks. It
was here that the community stored up the grain, which they received
as ground-rent from their vassals; for, with the prudence belonging to
their order, all their conventional revenues were made payable in kind,
and hence, as the present proprietor loved to tell, came the name of
Monkbarns. To the remains of the bailiff’s house, the succeeding
lay inhabitants had made various additions in proportion to the
accommodation required by their families; and, as this was done with
an equal contempt of convenience within and architectural regularity
without, the whole bore the appearance of a hamlet which had suddenly
stood still when in the act of leading down one of Amphion’s, or
Orpheus’s, country dances. It was surrounded by tall clipped hedges of
yew and holly, some of which still exhibited the skill of the topiarian
artist,* and presented curious arm-chairs, towers, and the figures of
Saint George and the Dragon.
* Ars Topiaria, the art of clipping yew-hedges into fantastic figures.
A Latin poem, entitled Ars Topiaria, contains a curious account of the
process.
The taste of Mr. Oldbuck did not disturb these monuments of an art now
unknown, and he was the less tempted so to do, as it must necessarily
have broken the heart of the old gardener. One tall embowering holly
was, however, sacred from the shears; and, on a garden seat beneath its
shade, Lovel beheld his old friend with spectacles on nose, and pouch on
side, busily employed in perusing the London Chronicle, soothed by the
summer breeze through the rustling leaves, and the distant dash of the
waves as they rippled upon the sand.
Mr. Oldbuck immediately rose, and advanced to greet his travelling
acquaintance with a hearty shake of the hand. “By my faith,” said he, “I
began to think you had changed your mind, and found the stupid people of
Fairport so tiresome, that you judged them unworthy of your talents, and
had taken French leave, as my old friend and brother-antiquary Mac-Cribb
did, when he went off with one of my Syrian medals.”
“I hope, my good sir, I should have fallen under no such imputation.”
“Quite as bad, let me tell you, if you had stolen yourself away without
giving me the pleasure of seeing you again. I had rather you had taken
my copper Otho himself.--But come, let me show you the way into my
sanctum sanctorum--my cell I may call it, for, except two idle hussies
of womankind,” (by this contemptuous phrase, borrowed from his
brother-antiquary, the cynic Anthony a-Wood, Mr. Oldbuck was used to
denote the fair sex in general, and his sister and niece in particular),
“that, on some idle pretext of relationship, have established themselves
in my premises, I live here as much a Coenobite as my predecessor, John
o’ the Girnell, whose grave I will show you by and by.”
Thus speaking the old gentleman led the way through a low door; but
before entrance, suddenly stopped short to point out some vestiges of
what he called an inscription, and, shaking his head as he pronounced it
totally illegible, “Ah! if you but knew, Mr. Lovel, the time and trouble
that these mouldering traces of letters have cost me! No mother ever
travailed so for a child--and all to no purpose--although I am almost
positive that these two last marks imply the figures, or letters, LV,
and may give us a good guess at the real date of the building, since we
know, aliunde, that it was founded by Abbot Waldimir about the middle
of the fourteenth century--and, I profess, I think that centre ornament
might be made out by better eyes than mine.”
“I think,” answered Lovel, willing to humour the old man, “it has
something the appearance of a mitre.”
“I protest you are right! you are right! it never struck me before--see
what it is to have younger eyes--A mitre--a mitre--it corresponds in every
respect.”
The resemblance was not much nearer than that of Polonius’s cloud to a
whale, or an owzel; it was sufficient, however, to set the Antiquary’s
brains to work. “A mitre, my dear sir,” continued he, as he led the way
through a labyrinth of inconvenient and dark passages, and accompanied
his disquisition with certain necessary cautions to his guest--“A mitre,
my dear sir, will suit our abbot as well as a bishop--he was a mitred
abbot, and at the very top of the roll--take care of these three steps--I
know Mac-Cribb denies this, but it is as certain as that he took away my
Antigonus, no leave asked--you’ll see the name of the Abbot of Trotcosey,
Abbas Trottocosiensis, at the head of the rolls of parliament in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--there is very little light here, and
these cursed womankind always leave their tubs in the passage--now take,
care of the corner--ascend twelve steps, and ye are safe!”
[Illustration: The Antiquary and Lovel--the Sanctum]
Mr. Oldbuck had by this time attained the top of the winding stair which
led to his own apartment, and opening a door, and pushing aside a piece
of tapestry with which it was covered, his first exclamation was, “What
are you about here, you sluts?” A dirty barefooted chambermaid threw
down her duster, detected in the heinous fact of arranging the sanctum
sanctorum, and fled out of an opposite door from the face of her
incensed master. A genteel-looking young woman, who was superintending
the operation, stood her ground, but with some timidity.
“Indeed, uncle, your room was not fit to be seen, and I just came to see
that Jenny laid everything down where she took it up.”
“And how dare you, or Jenny either, presume to meddle with my private
matters?” (Mr. Oldbuck hated puttting to rights as much as Dr. Orkborne,
or any other professed student.) “Go, sew your sampler, you monkey, and
do not let me find you here again, as you value your ears.--I assure
you, Mr. Lovel, that the last inroad of these pretended friends to
cleanliness was almost as fatal to my collection as Hudibras’s visit to
that of Sidrophel; and I have ever since missed
My copperplate, with almanacks
Engraved upon’t and other knacks
My moon-dial, with Napier’s bones,
And several constellation Stones;
My flea, my morpeon, and punaise,
I purchased for my proper ease.
And so forth, as old Butler has it.”
The young lady, after courtesying to Lovel, had taken the opportunity to
make her escape during this enumeration of losses. “You’ll be poisoned
here with the volumes of dust they have raised,” continued the
Antiquary; “but I assure you the dust was very ancient, peaceful, quiet
dust, about an hour ago, and would have remained so for a hundred years,
had not these gipsies disturbed it, as they do everything else in the
world.”
It was indeed some time before Lovel could, through the thick
atmosphere, perceive in what sort of den his friend had constructed his
retreat. It was a lofty room of middling size, obscurely lighted by high
narrow latticed windows. One end was entirely occupied by book-shelves,
greatly too limited in space for the number of volumes placed upon them,
which were, therefore, drawn up in ranks of two or three files deep,
while numberless others littered the floor and the tables, amid a chaos
of maps, engraving, scraps of parchment, bundles of papers, pieces of
old armour, swords, dirks, helmets, and Highland targets. Behind Mr.
Oldbuck’s seat (which was an ancient leathern-covered easy-chair, worn
smooth by constant use) was a huge oaken cabinet, decorated at each
corner with Dutch cherubs, having their little duck-wings displayed, and
great jolter-headed visages placed between them. The top of this cabinet
was covered with busts, and Roman lamps and paterae, intermingled
with one or two bronze figures. The walls of the apartment were partly
clothed with grim old tapestry, representing the memorable story of Sir
Gawaine’s wedding, in which full justice was done to the ugliness of the
Lothely Lady; although, to judge from his own looks, the gentle knight
had less reason to be disgusted with the match on account of disparity
of outward favour, than the romancer has given us to understand. The
rest of the room was panelled, or wainscotted, with black oak, against
which hung two or three portraits in armour, being characters in
Scottish history, favourites of Mr. Oldbuck, and as many in tie-wigs
and laced coats, staring representatives of his own ancestors. A large
old-fashioned oaken table was covered with a profusion of papers,
parchments, books, and nondescript trinkets and gewgaws, which seemed to
have little to recommend them, besides rust and the antiquity which it
indicates. In the midst of this wreck of ancient books and utensils,
with a gravity equal to Marius among the ruins of Carthage, sat a large
black cat, which, to a superstitious eye, might have presented the
genius loci, the tutelar demon of the apartment. The floor, as well
as the table and chairs, was overflowed by the same mare magnum of
miscellaneous trumpery, where it would have been as impossible to find
any individual article wanted, as to put it to any use when discovered.
Amid this medley, it was no easy matter to find one’s way to a chair,
without stumbling over a prostrate folio, or the still more awkward
mischance of overturning some piece of Roman or ancient British pottery.
And, when the chair was attained, it had to be disencumbered, with a
careful hand, of engravings which might have received damage, and of
antique spurs and buckles, which would certainly have occasioned it
to any sudden occupant. Of this the Antiquary made Lovel particularly
aware, adding, that his friend, the Rev. Doctor Heavysterne from the
Low Countries, had sustained much injury by sitting down suddenly and
incautiously on three ancient calthrops, or craw-taes, which had been
lately dug up in the bog near Bannockburn, and which, dispersed by
Robert Bruce to lacerate the feet of the English chargers, came thus in
process of time to endamage the sitting part of a learned professor of
Utrecht.
Having at length fairly settled himself, and being nothing loath to make
inquiry concerning the strange objects around him, which his host was
equally ready, as far as possible, to explain, Lovel was introduced to a
large club, or bludgeon, with an iron spike at the end of it, which,
it seems, had been lately found in a field on the Monkbarns property,
adjacent to an old burying-ground. It had mightily the air of such
a stick as the Highland reapers use to walk with on their annual
peregrinations from their mountains; but Mr. Oldbuck was strongly
tempted to believe, that, as its shape was singular, it might have been
one of the clubs with which the monks armed their peasants in lieu of
more martial weapons,--whence, he observed, the villains were called
Colve-carles, or Kolb-kerls, that is, Clavigeri, or club-bearers. For
the truth of this custom, he quoted the chronicle of Antwerp and that
of St. Martin; against which authorities Lovel had nothing to oppose,
having never heard of them till that moment.
Mr. Oldbuck next exhibited thumb-screws, which had given the Covenanters
of former days the cramp in their joints, and a collar with the name of
a fellow convicted of theft, whose services, as the inscription bore,
had been adjudged to a neighbouring baron, in lieu of the modern
Scottish punishment, which, as Oldbuck said, sends such culprits to
enrich England by their labour, and themselves by their dexterity.
Many and various were the other curiosities which he showed;--but it
was chiefly upon his books that he prided himself, repeating, with a
complacent air, as he led the way to the crowded and dusty shelves, the
verses of old Chaucer--
For he would rather have, at his bed-head,
A twenty books, clothed in black or red,
Of Aristotle, or his philosophy,
Than robes rich, rebeck, or saltery.