smile; “and before your hospitality settles all my accommodations, let
me thank you most sincerely for so kind an offer--it is not at present
in my power to accept of it; but very likely, before I bid adieu
to Scotland, I shall find an opportunity to pay you a visit of some
length.”
Mr. Oldbuck’s countenance fell. “Why, I thought I had hit on the very
arrangement that would suit us both,--and who knows what might happen
in the long run, and whether we might ever part? Why, I am master of my
acres, man--there is the advantage of being descended from a man of more
sense than pride--they cannot oblige me to transmit my goods chattels,
and heritages, any way but as I please. No string of substitute heirs of
entail, as empty and unsubstantial as the morsels of paper strung to
the train of a boy’s kite, to cumber my flights of inclination, and my
humours of predilection. Well,--I see you won’t be tempted at present--but
Caledonia goes on I hope?”
“O certainly,” said Lovel; “I cannot think of relinquishing a plan so
hopeful.”
“It is indeed,” said the Antiquary, looking gravely upward,--for, though
shrewd and acute enough in estimating the variety of plans formed
by others, he had a very natural, though rather disproportioned good
opinion of the importance of those which originated with himself--“it is
indeed one of those undertakings which, if achieved with spirit equal
to that which dictates its conception, may redeem from the charge of
frivolity the literature of the present generation.”
Here he was interrupted by a knock at the room door, which introduced
a letter for Mr. Lovel. The servant waited, Mrs. Hadoway said, for an
answer. “You are concerned in this matter, Mr. Oldbuck,” said Lovel,
after glancing over the billet, and handing it to the Antiquary as he
spoke.
It was a letter from Sir Arthur Wardour, couched in extremely civil
language, regetting that a fit of the gout had prevented his hitherto
showing Mr. Lovel the attentions to which his conduct during a late
perilous occasion had so well entitled him--apologizing for not paying
his respects in person, but hoping Mr. Lovel would dispense with that
ceremony, and be a member of a small party which proposed to visit the
ruins of Saint Ruth’s priory on the following day, and afterwards to
dine and spend the evening at Knockwinnock Castle. Sir Arthur concluded
with saying, that he had sent to request the Monkbarns family to join
the party of pleasure which he thus proposed. The place of rendezvous
was fixed at a turnpike-gate, which was about an equal distance from all
the points from which the company were to assemble.
“What shall we do?” said Lovel, looking at the Antiquary, but pretty
certain of the part he would take.
“Go, man--we’ll go, by all means. Let me see--it will cost a post-chaise
though, which will hold you and me, and Mary M’Intyre, very well--and the
other womankind may go to the manse--and you can come out in the chaise
to Monkbarns, as I will take it for the day.”
“Why, I rather think I had better ride.”
“True, true, I forgot your Bucephalus. You are a foolish lad, by the by,
for purchasing the brute outright; you should stick to eighteenpence a
side, if you will trust any creature’s legs in preference to your own.”
“Why, as the horse’s have the advantage of moving considerably faster,
and are, besides, two pair to one, I own I incline”--
“Enough said--enough said--do as you please. Well then, I’ll bring either
Grizel or the minister, for I love to have my full pennyworth out of
post-horses--and we meet at Tirlingen turnpike on Friday, at twelve
o’clock precisely. “--And with this ageement the friends separated.
CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
Of seats they tell, where priests, ‘mid tapers dim,
Breathed the warm prayer, or tuned the midnight hymn
To scenes like these the fainting soul retired;
Revenge and Anger in these cells expired:
By Pity soothed, Remorse lost half her fears,
And softened Pride dropped penitential tears.
Crabbe’s Borough.
The morning of Friday was as serene and beautiful as if no pleasure
party had been intended; and that is a rare event, whether in
novel-writing or real life. Lovel, who felt the genial influence of the
weather, and rejoiced at the prospect of once more meeting with Miss
Wardour, trotted forward to the place of rendezvous with better spirits
than he had for some time enjoyed. His prospects seemed in many respects
to open and brighten before him--and hope, although breaking like the
morning sun through clouds and showers, appeared now about to illuminate
the path before him. He was, as might have been expected from this state
of spirits, first at the place of meeting,--and, as might also have been
anticipated, his looks were so intently directed towards the road from
Knockwinnock Castles that he was only apprized of the arrival of
the Monkbarns division by the gee-hupping of the postilion, as the
post-chaise lumbered up behind him. In this vehicle were pent up, first,
the stately figure of Mr. Oldbuck himself; secondly, the scarce less
portly person of the Reverend Mr. Blattergowl, minister of Trotcosey,
the parish in which Monkbarns and Knockwinnock were both situated. The
reverend gentleman was equipped in a buzz wig, upon the top of which
was an equilateral cocked hat. This was the paragon of the three yet
remaining wigs of the parish, which differed, as Monkbarns used to
remark, like the three degrees of comparison--Sir Arthur’s ramilies being
the positive, his own bob-wig the comparative, and the overwhelming
grizzle of the worthy clergyman figuring as the superlative. The
superintendent of these antique garnitures, deeming, or affecting to
deem, that he could not well be absent on an occasion which assembled
all three together, had seated himself on the board behind the carriage,
“just to be in the way in case they wanted a touch before the gentlemen
sat down to dinner.” Between the two massive figures of Monkbarns
and the clergyman was stuck, by way of bodkin, the slim form of Mary
M’Intyre, her aunt having preferred a visit to the manse, and a social
chat with Miss Beckie Blattergowl, to investigating the ruins of the
priory of Saint Ruth.
As greetings passed between the members of the Monkbarns party and Mr.
Lovel, the Baronet’s carriage, an open barouche, swept onward to the
place of appointment, making, with its smoking bays, smart drivers,
arms, blazoned panels, and a brace of outriders, a strong contrast with
the battered vehicle and broken-winded hacks which had brought thither
the Antiquary and his followers. The principal seat of the carriage
was occupied by Sir Arthur and his daughter. At the first glance which
passed betwixt Miss Wardour and Lovel, her colour rose considerably;--but
she had apparently made up her mind to receive him as a friend, and only
as such, and there was equal composure and courtesy in the mode of her
reply to his fluttered salutation. Sir Arthur halted the barouche to
shake his preserver kindly by the hand, and intimate the pleasure he had
on this opportunity of returning him his personal thanks; then mentioned
to him, in a tone of slight introduction, “Mr. Dousterswivel, Mr.
Lovel.”
Lovel took the necessary notice of the German adept, who occupied the
front seat of the carriage, which is usually conferred upon dependants
or inferiors. The ready grin and supple inclination with which his
salutation, though slight, was answered by the foreigner, increased the
internal dislike which Lovel had already conceived towards him; and it
was plain, from the lower of the Antiquary’s shaggy eye-brow, that he
too looked with displeasure on this addition to the company. Little
more than distant greeting passed among the members of the party, until,
having rolled on for about three miles beyond the place at which
they met, the carriages at length stopped at the sign of the Four
Horse-shoes, a small hedge inn, where Caxon humbly opened the door, and
let down the step of the hack-chaise, while the inmates of the barouche
were, by their more courtly attendants, assisted to leave their
equipage.
Here renewed greetings passed: the young ladies shook hands; and
Oldbuck, completely in his element, placed himself as guide and cicerone
at the head of the party, who were now to advance on foot towards the
object of their curiosity. He took care to detain Lovel close beside him
as the best listener of the party, and occasionally glanced a word
of explanation and instruction to Miss Wardour and Mary M’Intyre, who
followed next in order. The Baronet and the clergyman he rather avoided,
as he was aware both of them conceived they understood such matters as
well, or better than he did; and Dousterswivel, besides that he looked
on him as a charlatan, was so nearly connected with his apprehended loss
in the stock of the mining company, that he could not abide the sight
of him. These two latter satellites, therefore, attended upon the orb
of Sir Arthur, to whom, moreover, as the most important person of the
society, they were naturally induced to attach themselves.
It frequently happens that the most beautiful points of Scottish scenery
lie hidden in some sequestered dell, and that you may travel through the
country in every direction without being aware of your vicinity to what
is well worth seeing, unless intention or accident carry you to the
very spot. This is particularly the case in the country around Fairport,
which is, generally speaking, open, unenclosed, and bare. But here and
there the progress of rills, or small rivers, has formed dells, glens,
or as they are provincially termed, dens, on whose high and rocky banks
trees and shrubs of all kinds find a shelter, and grow with a luxuriant
profusion, which is the more gratifying, as it forms an unexpected
contrast with the general face of the country. This was eminently the
case with the approach to the ruins of Saint Ruth, which was for some
time merely a sheep-track, along the side of a steep and bare hill. By
degrees, however, as this path descended, and winded round the hillside,
trees began to appear, at first singly, stunted, and blighted, with
locks of wool upon their trunks, and their roots hollowed out into
recesses, in which the sheep love to repose themselves--a sight much more
gratifying to the eye of an admirer of the picturesque than to that of
a planter or forester. By and by the trees formed groups, fringed on the
edges, and filled up in the middle, by thorns and hazel bushes; and at
length these groups closed so much together, that although a broad glade
opened here and there under their boughs, or a small patch of bog or
heath occurred which had refused nourishment to the seed which they
sprinkled round, and consequently remained open and waste, the scene
might on the whole be termed decidedly woodland. The sides of the valley
began to approach each other more closely; the rush of a brook was heard
below, and between the intervals afforded by openings in the natural
wood, its waters were seen hurling clear and rapid under their silvan
canopy.
Oldbuck now took upon himself the full authority of cicerone, and
anxiously directed the company not to go a foot-breadth off the track
which he pointed out to them, if they wished to enjoy in full perfection
what they came to see. “You are happy in me for a guide, Miss Wardour,”
exclaimed the veteran, waving his hand and head in cadence as he
repeated with emphasis,
I know each lane, and every alley green,
Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood,
And every bosky bower from side to side. *
* (Milton’s Comus.)
Ah! deuce take it!--that spray of a bramble has demolished all
Caxon’s labours, and nearly canted my wig into the stream--so much for
recitations, hors de propos.”
“Never mind, my dear sir,” said Miss Wardour; “you have your faithful
attendant ready to repair such a disaster when it happens, and when you
appear with it as restored to its original splendour, I will carry on
the quotation:
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames on the forehead”--*
* (Lycidas.)
“O! enough, enough!” answered Oldbuck; “I ought to have known what it
was to give you advantage over me--But here is what will stop your career
of satire, for you are an admirer of nature, I know.” In fact, when they
had followed him through a breach in a low, ancient, and ruinous wall,
they came suddenly upon a scene equally unexpected and interesting.
They stood pretty high upon the side of the glen, which had suddenly
opened into a sort of amphitheatre to give room for a pure and profound
lake of a few acres extent, and a space of level ground around it. The
banks then arose everywhere steeply, and in some places were varied by
rocks--in others covered with the copse, which run up, feathering their
sides lightly and irregularly, and breaking the uniformity of the green
pasture-ground.--Beneath, the lake discharged itself into the huddling
and tumultuous brook, which had been their companion since they had
entered the glen. At the point at which it issued from “its parent
lake,” stood the ruins which they had come to visit. They were not
of great extent; but the singular beauty, as well as the wild and
sequestered character of the spot on which they were situated, gave them
an interest and importance superior to that which attaches itself
to architectural remains of greater consequence, but placed near to
ordinary houses, and possessing less romantic accompaniments. The
eastern window of the church remained entire, with all its ornaments
and tracery work; and the sides, upheld by flying buttresses whose airy
support, detached from the wall against which they were placed, and
ornamented with pinnacles and carved work, gave a variety and lightness
to the building. The roof and western end of the church were completely
ruinous; but the latter appeared to have made one side of a square, of
which the ruins of the conventual buildings formed other two, and the
gardens a fourth. The side of these buildings which overhung the brook,
was partly founded on a steep and precipitous rock; for the place had
been occasionally turned to military purposes, and had been taken with
great slaughter during Montrose’s wars. The ground formerly occupied
by the garden was still marked by a few orchard trees. At a greater
distance from the buildings were detached oaks and elms and chestnuts,
growing singly, which had attained great size. The rest of the space
between the ruins and the hill was a close-cropt sward, which the
daily pasture of the sheep kept in much finer order than if it had been
subjected to the scythe and broom. The whole scene had a repose, which
was still and affecting without being monotonous. The dark, deep basin,
in which the clear blue lake reposed, reflecting the water lilies which
grew on its surface, and the trees which here and there threw their arms
from the banks, was finely contrasted with the haste and tumult of the
brook which broke away from the outlet, as if escaping from confinement
and hurried down the glen, wheeling around the base of the rock on which
the ruins were situated, and brawling in foam and fury with every shelve
and stone which obstructed its passage. A similar contrast was seen
between the level green meadow, in which the ruins were situated, and
the large timber-trees which were scattered over it, compared with the
precipitous banks which arose at a short distance around, partly fringed
with light and feathery underwood, partly rising in steeps clothed with
purple heath, and partly more abruptly elevated into fronts of grey
rock, chequered with lichen, and with those hardy plants which find root
even in the most arid crevices of the crags.
“There was the retreat of learning in the days of darkness, Mr. Lovel!”
said Oldbuck,--around whom the company had now grouped themselves while
they admired the unexpected opening of a prospect so romantic;--“there
reposed the sages who were aweary of the world, and devoted either to
that which was to come, or to the service of the generations who should
follow them in this. I will show you presently the library;--see that
stretch of wall with square-shafted windows--there it existed, stored,
as an old manuscript in my possession assures me, with five thousand
volumes. And here I might well take up the lamentation of the learned
Leland, who, regretting the downfall of the conventual libraries,
exclaims, like Rachel weeping for her children, that if the Papal laws,
decrees, decretals, clementines, and other such drugs of the devil--yea,
if Heytesburg’s sophisms, Porphyry’s universals, Aristotle’s logic,
and Dunse’s divinity, with such other lousy legerdemains (begging your
pardon, Miss Wardour) and fruits of the bottomless pit,--had leaped
out of our libraries, for the accommodation of grocers, candlemakers,
soapsellers, and other worldly occupiers, we might have been therewith
contented. But to put our ancient chronicles, our noble histories,
our learned commentaries, and national muniments, to such offices of
contempt and subjection, has greatly degraded our nation, and showed
ourselves dishonoured in the eyes of posterity to the utmost stretch of
time--O negligence most unfriendly to our land!”
“And, O John Knox” said the Baronet, “through whose influence, and under
whose auspices, the patriotic task was accomplished!”
The Antiquary, somewhat in the situation of a woodcock caught in his own
springe, turned short round and coughed, to excuse a slight blush as he
mustered his answer--“as to the Apostle of the Scottish Reformation”--
But Miss Wardour broke in to interrupt a conversation so dangerous.
“Pray, who was the author you quoted, Mr. Oldbuck?”
“The learned Leland, Miss Wardour, who lost his senses on witnessing the
destruction of the conventual libraries in England.”
“Now, I think,” replied the young lady, “his misfortune may have saved
the rationality of some modern antiquaries, which would certainly have
been drowned if so vast a lake of learning had not been diminished by
draining.”
“Well, thank Heaven, there is no danger now--they have hardly left us a
spoonful in which to perform the dire feat.”
So saying, Mr. Oldbuck led the way down the bank, by a steep but secure
path, which soon placed them on the verdant meadow where the ruins
stood. “There they lived,” continued the Antiquary, “with nought to do
but to spend their time in investigating points of remote antiquity,
transcribing manuscripts, and composing new works for the information of
posterity.”
“And,” added the Baronet, “in exercising the rites of devotion with a
pomp and ceremonial worthy of the office of the priesthood.”
“And if Sir Arthur’s excellence will permit,” said the German, with a
low bow, “the monksh might also make de vary curious experiment in deir
laboraties, both in chemistry and magia naturalis.”
“I think,” said the clergyman, “they would have enough to do in
collecting the teinds of the parsonage and vicarage of three good
parishes.”
“And all,” added Miss Wardour, nodding to the Antiquary, “without
interruption from womankind.”
“True, my fair foe,” said Oldbuck; “this was a paradise where no Eve was
admitted, and we may wonder the rather by what chance the good fathers
came to lose it.”
With such criticisms on the occupations of those by whom the ruins had
been formerly possessed, they wandered for some time from one moss-grown
shrine to another, under the guidance of Oldbuck, who explained,
with much plausibility, the ground-plan of the edifice, and read and
expounded to the company the various mouldering inscriptions which yet
were to be traced upon the tombs of the dead, or under the vacant niches
of the sainted images.
“What is the reason,” at length Miss Wardour asked the Antiquary, “why
tradition has preserved to us such meagre accounts of the inmates of
these stately edifices, raised with such expense of labour and taste,
and whose owners were in their times personages of such awful power and
importance? The meanest tower of a freebooting baron or squire who lived
by his lance and broadsword, is consecrated by its appropriate legend,
and the shepherd will tell you with accuracy the names and feats of
its inhabitants;--but ask a countryman concerning these beautiful and
extensive remains--these towers, these arches, and buttresses,
and shafted windows, reared at such cost,--three words fill up his
answer--they were made up by the monks lang syne.’”
The question was somewhat puzzling. Sir Arthur looked upward, as if
hoping to be inspired with an answer--Oldbuck shoved back his wig--the
clergyman was of opinion that his parishioners were too deeply impressed
with the true presbyterian doctrine to preserve any records concerning
the papistical cumberers of the land, offshoots as they were of the
great overshadowing tree of iniquity, whose roots are in the bowels
of the seven hills of abomination--Lovel thought the question was best
resolved by considering what are the events which leave the deepest
impression on the minds of the common people--“These,” he contended,
“were not such as resemble the gradual progress of a fertilizing river,
but the headlong and precipitous fury of some portentous flood. The eras
by which the vulgar compute time, have always reference to some period
of fear and tribulation, and they date by a tempest, an earthquake, or
burst of civil commotion. When such are the facts most alive, in the
memory of the common people, we cannot wonder,” he concluded, “that the
ferocious warrior is remembered, and the peaceful abbots are abandoned
to forgetfulness and oblivion.”
“If you pleashe, gentlemans and ladies, and ashking pardon of Sir Arthur
and Miss Wardour, and this worthy clergymansh, and my goot friend Mr.
Oldenbuck, who is my countrymansh, and of goot young Mr. Lofel also, I
think it is all owing to de hand of glory.”
“The hand of what?” exclaimed Oldbuck.
“De hand of glory, my goot Master Oldenbuck, which is a vary great and
terrible secrets--which de monksh used to conceal their treasures when
they were triven from their cloisters by what you call de Reform.”
“Ay, indeed! tell us about that,” said Oldbuck, “for these are secrets
worth knowing.”
“Why, my goot Master Oldenbuck, you will only laugh at me--But de hand of
glory is vary well known in de countries where your worthy progenitors
did live--and it is hand cut off from a dead man, as has been hanged for
murther, and dried very nice in de shmoke of juniper wood; and if you
put a little of what you call yew wid your juniper, it will not be any
better--that is, it will not be no worse--then you do take something of de
fatsh of de bear, and of de badger, and of de great eber, as you call
de grand boar, and of de little sucking child as has not been christened
(for dat is very essentials), and you do make a candle, and put it
into de hand of glory at de proper hour and minute, with de proper
ceremonish, and he who seeksh for treasuresh shall never find none at
all.”
“I dare take my corporal oath of that conclusion,” said the Antiquary.
“And was it the custom, Mr. Dousterswivel, in Westphalia, to make use of
this elegant candelabrum?”
“Alwaysh, Mr. Oldenbuck, when you did not want nobody to talk of nothing
you wash doing about--And the monksh alwaysh did this when they did hide
their church-plates, and their great chalices, and de rings, wid very
preshious shtones and jewels.”
“But, notwithstanding, you knights of the Rosy Cross have means, no
doubt, of breaking the spell, and discovering what the poor monks have
put themselves to so much trouble to conceal?”
“Ah! goot Mr. Oldenbuck,” replied the adept, shaking his head
mysteriously, “you was very hard to believe; but if you had seen de
great huge pieces of de plate so massive, Sir Arthur,--so fine fashion,
Miss Wardour--and de silver cross dat we did find (dat was Schroepfer and
my ownself) for de Herr Freygraf, as you call de Baron Von Blunderhaus,
I do believe you would have believed then.”
“Seeing is believing indeed. But what was your art--what was your
mystery, Mr. Dousterswivel?”