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.”
[Illustration: Eddie Ochiltree Visits Miss Wardour]
“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”--