his staff, added his regrets to those of the hamlet which bewailed
the young man’s sudden death, and internally blamed himself for the
transaction in which he had so lately engaged him, the old man’s collar
was seized by a peace-officer, who displayed his baton in his right
hand, and exclaimed, “In the king’s name.”
The gauger and schoolmaster united their rhetoric, to prove to the
constable and his assistant that he had no right to arrest the king’s
bedesman as a vagrant; and the mute eloquence of the miller and smith,
which was vested in their clenched fists, was prepared to give Highland
bail for their arbiter; his blue gown, they said, was his warrant for
travelling the country.
“But his blue gown,” answered the officer, “is nae protection for
assault, robbery, and murder; and my warrant is against him for these
crimes.”
“Murder!” said Edie, “murder! wha did I e’er murder?”
“Mr. German Doustercivil, the agent at Glen-Withershins mining-works.”
“Murder Doustersnivel?--hout, he’s living, and life-like, man.”
“Nae thanks to you if he be; he had a sair struggle for his life, if a’
be true he tells, and ye maun answer for’t at the bidding of the law.”
The defenders of the mendicant shrunk back at hearing the atrocity of
the charges against him, but more than one kind hand thrust meat and
bread and pence upon Edie, to maintain him in the prison, to which the
officers were about to conduct him.
“Thanks to ye! God bless ye a’, bairns!--I’ve gotten out o’ mony a snare
when I was waur deserving o’ deliverance--I shall escape like a bird from
the fowler. Play out your play, and never mind me--I am mair grieved for
the puir lad that’s gane, than for aught they can do to me.”
Accordingly, the unresisting prisoner was led off, while he mechanically
accepted and stored in his wallets the alms which poured in on every
hand, and ere he left the hamlet, was as deep-laden as a government
victualler. The labour of bearing this accumulating burden was, however,
abridged, by the officer procuring a cart and horse to convey the old
man to a magistrate, in order to his examination and committal.
The disaster of Steenie, and the arrest of Edie, put a stop to the
sports of the village, the pensive inhabitants of which began to
speculate upon the vicissitudes of human affairs, which had so suddenly
consigned one of their comrades to the grave, and placed their master
of the revels in some danger of being hanged. The character of
Dousterswivel being pretty generally known, which was in his case
equivalent to being pretty generally detested, there were many
speculations upon the probability of the accusation being malicious. But
all agreed, that if Edie Ochiltree behoved in all events to suffer upon
this occasion, it was a great pity he had not better merited his fate by
killing Dousterswivel outright.
CHAPTER NINTH
Who is he?--One that for the lack of land
Shall fight upon the water--he hath challenged
Formerly the grand whale; and by his titles
Of Leviathan, Behemoth, and so forth.
He tilted with a sword-fish--Marry, sir,
Th’ aquatic had the best--the argument
Still galls our champion’s breech.
Old Play.
“And the poor young fellow, Steenie Mucklebackit, is to be buried this
morning,” said our old friend the Antiquary, as he exchanged his quilted
night-gown for an old-fashioned black coat in lieu of the snuff-coloured
vestment which he ordinarily wore, “and, I presume, it is expected that
I should attend the funeral?”
“Ou, ay,” answered the faithful Caxon, officiously brushing the white
threads and specks from his patron’s habit. “The body, God help us! was
sae broken against the rocks that they’re fain to hurry the burial. The
sea’s a kittle cast, as I tell my daughter, puir thing, when I want
her to get up her spirits; the sea, says I, Jenny, is as uncertain a
calling”--
“As the calling of an old periwig-maker, that’s robbed of his business
by crops and the powder-tax. Caxon, thy topics of consolation are as ill
chosen as they are foreign to the present purpose. _Quid mihi cum faemina?_
What have I to do with thy womankind, who have enough and to spare of
mine own?--I pray of you again, am I expected by these poor people to
attend the funeral of their son?”
“Ou, doubtless, your honour is expected,” answered Caxon; “weel I wot ye
are expected. Ye ken, in this country ilka gentleman is wussed to be sae
civil as to see the corpse aff his grounds; ye needna gang higher than
the loan-head--it’s no expected your honour suld leave the land; it’s
just a Kelso convoy, a step and a half ower the doorstane.”
“A Kelso convoy!” echoed the inquisitive Antiquary; “and why a Kelso
convoy more than any other?”
“Dear sir,” answered Caxon, “how should I ken? it’s just a by-word.”
“Caxon,” answered Oldbuck, “thou art a mere periwig-maker--Had I asked
Ochiltree the question, he would have had a legend ready made to my
hand.”
“My business,” replied Caxon, with more animation than he commonly
displayed, “is with the outside of your honour’s head, as ye are
accustomed to say.”
“True, Caxon, true; and it is no reproach to a thatcher that he is not
an upholsterer.”
He then took out his memorandum-book and wrote down “Kelso convoy--said
to be a step and a half over the threshold. Authority--Caxon.--Quaere--
Whence derived? Mem. To write to Dr. Graysteel upon the subject.”
Having made this entry, he resumed--“And truly, as to this custom of
the landlord attending the body of the peasant, I approve it, Caxon. It
comes from ancient times, and was founded deep in the notions of mutual
aid and dependence between the lord and cultivator of the soil. And
herein I must say, the feudal system--(as also in its courtesy towards
womankind, in which it exceeded)--herein, I say, the feudal usages
mitigated and softened the sternness of classical times. No man, Caxon,
ever heard of a Spartan attending the funeral of a Helot--yet I dare be
sworn that John of the Girnel--ye have heard of him, Caxon?”
“Ay, ay, sir,” answered Caxon; “naebody can hae been lang in your
honour’s company without hearing of that gentleman.”
“Well,” continued the Antiquary, “I would bet a trifle there was not
a kolb kerl, or bondsman, or peasant, ascriptus glebae, died upon the
monks’ territories down here, but John of the Girnel saw them fairly and
decently interred.”
“Ay, but if it like your honour, they say he had mair to do wi’ the
births than the burials. Ha! ha! ha!” with a gleeful chuckle.
“Good, Caxon, very good!--why, you shine this morning.”
“And besides,” added Caxon, slyly, encouraged by his patron’s
approbation, “they say, too, that the Catholic priests in thae times gat
something for ganging about to burials.”
“Right, Caxon! right as my glove! By the by, I fancy that phrase comes
from the custom of pledging a glove as the signal of irrefragable faith--
right, I say, as my glove, Caxon--but we of the Protestant ascendency
have the more merit in doing that duty for nothing, which cost money in
the reign of that empress of superstition, whom Spenser, Caxon, terms in
his allegorical phrase,
--The daughter of that woman blind,
Abessa, daughter of Corecca slow--
But why talk I of these things to thee?--my poor Lovel has spoiled me,
and taught me to speak aloud when it is much the same as speaking to
myself. Where’s my nephew, Hector M’Intyre?”
“He’s in the parlour, sir, wi’ the leddies.”
“Very well,” said the Antiquary, “I will betake me thither.”
“Now, Monkbarns,” said his sister, on his entering the parlour, “ye
maunna be angry.”
“My dear uncle!” began Miss M’Intyre.
“What’s the meaning of all this?” said Oldbuck, in alarm of some
impending bad news, and arguing upon the supplicating tone of the
ladies, as a fortress apprehends an attack from the very first flourish
of the trumpet which announces the summons--“what’s all this?--what do you
bespeak my patience for?”
“No particular matter, I should hope, sir,” said Hector, who, with his
arm in a sling, was seated at the breakfast table;--“however, whatever it
may amount to I am answerable for it, as I am for much more trouble
that I have occasioned, and for which I have little more than thanks to
offer.”
“No, no! heartily welcome, heartily welcome--only let it be a warning to
you,” said the Antiquary, “against your fits of anger, which is a short
madness--Ira furor brevis--but what is this new disaster?”
“My dog, sir, has unfortunately thrown down”--
“If it please Heaven, not the lachrymatory from Clochnaben!” interjected
Oldbuck.
“Indeed, uncle,” said the young lady, “I am afraid--it was that which
stood upon the sideboard--the poor thing only meant to eat the pat of
fresh butter.”
“In which she has fully succeeded, I presume, for I see that on the
table is salted. But that is nothing--my lachrymatory, the main pillar
of my theory on which I rested to show, in despite of the ignorant
obstinacy of Mac-Cribb, that the Romans had passed the defiles of
these mountains, and left behind them traces of their arts and arms, is
gone--annihilated--reduced to such fragments as might be the shreds of a
broken-flowerpot!
--Hector, I love thee,
But never more be officer of mine.”
“Why, really, sir, I am afraid I should make a bad figure in a regiment
of your raising.”
“At least, Hector, I would have you despatch your camp train, and
travel expeditus, or relictis impedimentis. You cannot conceive how I am
annoyed by this beast--she commits burglary, I believe, for I heard her
charged with breaking into the kitchen after all the doors were locked,
and eating up a shoulder of mutton. “--(Our readers, if they chance to
remember Jenny Rintherout’s precaution of leaving the door open when
she went down to the fisher’s cottage, will probably acquit poor Juno of
that aggravation of guilt which the lawyers call a claustrum fregit, and
which makes the distinction between burglary and privately stealing. )
“I am truly sorry, sir,” said Hector, “that Juno has committed so much
disorder; but Jack Muirhead, the breaker, was never able to bring her
under command. She has more travel than any bitch I ever knew, but”--
“Then, Hector, I wish the bitch would travel herself out of my grounds.”
“We will both of us retreat to-morrow, or to-day, but I would not
willingly part from my mother’s brother in unkindness about a paltry
pipkin.”
“O brother! brother!” ejaculated Miss M’Intyre, in utter despair at this
vituperative epithet.
“Why, what would you have me call it?” continued Hector; “it was just
such a thing as they use in Egypt to cool wine, or sherbet, or water;--I
brought home a pair of them--I might have brought home twenty.”
“What!” said Oldbuck, “shaped such as that your dog threw down?”
“Yes, sir, much such a sort of earthen jar as that which was on the
sideboard. They are in my lodgings at Fairport; we brought a parcel of
them to cool our wine on the passage--they answer wonderfully well. If
I could think they would in any degree repay your loss, or rather that
they could afford you pleasure, I am sure I should be much honoured by
your accepting them.”
“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.