Oldbuck.
“Dear sir,” answered Edie, assuming a countenance of great simplicity,
“what likelihood is there o’that? d’ye think sae puir an auld creature
as me wad hae kend o’ sic a like thing without getting some gude out
o’t?--and ye wot weel I sought nane and gat nane, like Michael Scott’s
man. What concern could I hae wi’t?”
“That’s just what I want you to explain to me,” said Oldbuck; “for I am
positive you knew it was there.”
“Your honour’s a positive man, Monkbarns--and, for a positive man, I must
needs allow ye’re often in the right.”
“You allow, then, Edie, that my belief is well founded?”
Edie nodded acquiescence.
“Then please to explain to me the whole affair from beginning to end,”
said the Antiquary.
“If it were a secret o’ mine, Monkbarns,” replied the beggar, “ye suldna
ask twice; for I hae aye said ahint your back, that for a’ the nonsense
maggots that ye whiles take into your head, ye are the maist wise and
discreet o’ a’ our country gentles. But I’se een be open-hearted wi’
you, and tell you that this is a friend’s secret, and that they suld
draw me wi’ wild horses, or saw me asunder, as they did the children of
Ammon, sooner than I would speak a word mair about the matter, excepting
this, that there was nae ill intended, but muckle gude, and that the
purpose was to serve them that are worth twenty hundred o’ me. But
there’s nae law, I trow, that makes it a sin to ken where ither folles
siller is, if we didna pit hand til’t oursell?”
Oldbuck walked once or twice up and down the room in profound thought,
endeavouring to find some plausible reason for transactions of a nature
so mysterious--but his ingenuity was totally at fault. He then placed
himself before the prisoner.
“This story of yours, friend Edie, is an absolute enigma, and would
require a second OEdipus to solve it--who OEdipus was, I will tell you
some other time if you remind me--However, whether it be owing to the
wisdom or to the maggots with which you compliment me, I am strongly
disposed to believe that you have spoken the truth, the rather that you
have not made any of those obtestations of the superior powers, which
I observe you and your comrades always make use of when you mean to
deceive folks.” (Here Edie could not suppress a smile.) “If, therefore,
you will answer me one question, I will endeavour to procure your
liberation.”
“If ye’ll let me hear the question,” said Edie, with the caution of a
canny Scotchman, “I’ll tell you whether I’ll answer it or no.”
“It is simply,” said the Antiquary, “Did Dousterswivel know anything
about the concealment of the chest of bullion?”
“He, the ill-fa’ard loon!” answered Edie, with much frankness of manner--
“there wad hae been little speerings o’t had Dustansnivel ken’d it was
there--it wad hae been butter in the black dog’s hause.”
“I thought as much,” said Oldbuck. “Well, Edie, if I procure your
freedom, you must keep your day, and appear to clear me of the
bail-bond, for these are not times for prudent men to incur forfeitures,
unless you can point out another Aulam auri plenam quadrilibrem--another
Search, No. I.”
“Ah!” said the beggar, shaking his head, “I doubt the bird’s flown that
laid thae golden eggs--for I winna ca’ her goose, though that’s the gait
it stands in the story-buick--But I’ll keep my day, Monkbarns; ye’se no
loss a penny by me--And troth I wad fain be out again, now the weather’s
fine--and then I hae the best chance o’ hearing the first news o’ my
friends.”
“Well, Edie, as the bouncing and thumping beneath has somewhat ceased, I
presume Bailie Littlejohn has dismissed his military preceptor, and has
retired from the labours of Mars to those of Themis--I will have some
conversation with him--But I cannot and will not believe any of those
wretched news you were telling me.”
“God send your honour may be right!” said the mendicant, as Oldbuck left
the room.
The Antiquary found the magistrate, exhausted with the fatigues of the
drill, reposing in his gouty chair, humming the air, “How merrily we
live that soldiers be!” and between each bar comforting himself with
a spoonful of mock-turtle soup. He ordered a similar refreshment for
Oldbuck, who declined it, observing, that, not being a military man, he
did not feel inclined to break his habit of keeping regular hours for
meals--“Soldiers like you, Bailie, must snatch their food as they find
means and time. But I am sorry to hear ill news of young Taffril’s
brig.”
“Ah, poor fellow!” said the bailie, “he was a credit to the town--much
distinguished on the first of June.”
“But,” said Oldbuck, “I am shocked to hear you talk of him in the
preterite tense.”
“Troth, I fear there may be too much reason for it, Monkbarns;--and
yet let us hope the best. The accident is said to have happened in
the Rattray reef of rocks, about twenty miles to the northward, near
Dirtenalan Bay--I have sent to inquire about it--and your nephew run out
himself as if he had been flying to get the Gazette of a victory.”
Here Hector entered, exclaiming as he came in, “I believe it’s all a
damned lie--I can’t find the least authority for it, but general rumour.”
“And pray, Mr. Hector,” said his uncle, “if it had been true, whose
fault would it have been that Lovel was on board?”
“Not mine, I am sure,” answered Hector; “it would have been only my
misfortune.”
“Indeed!” said his uncle, “I should not have thought of that.”
“Why, sir, with all your inclination to find me in the wrong,” replied
the young soldier, “I suppose you will own my intention was not to blame
in this case. I did my best to hit Lovel, and if I had been successful,
‘tis clear my scrape would have been his, and his scrape would have been
mine.”
“And whom or what do you intend to hit now, that you are lugging with
you that leathern magazine there, marked Gunpowder?”
“I must be prepared for Lord Glenallan’s moors on the twelfth, sir,”
said M’Intyre.
“Ah, Hector! thy great chasse, as the French call it, would take place
best--
Omne cum Proteus pecus agitaret altos
Visere montes--
Could you meet but with a martial phoca, instead of an unwarlike
heath-bird.”
“The devil take the seal, sir, or phoca, if you choose to call it so!
It’s rather hard one can never hear the end of a little piece of folly
like that.”
“Well, well,” said Oldbuck, “I am glad you have the grace to be ashamed
of it--as I detest the whole race of Nimrods, I wish them all as well
matched. Nay, never start off at a jest, man--I have done with the
phoca--though, I dare say, the Bailie could tell us the value of
seal-skins just now.”
“They are up,” said the magistrate, “they are well up--the fishing has
been unsuccessful lately.”
“We can bear witness to that,” said the tormenting Antiquary, who was
delighted with the hank this incident had given him over the young
sportsman: One word more, Hector, and
We’ll hang a seal-skin on thy recreant limbs.
Aha, my boy! Come, never mind it; I must go to business.--Bailie, a
word with you: you must take bail--moderate bail, you understand--for old
Ochiltree’s appearance.”
“You don’t consider what you ask,” said the Bailie; “the offence is
assault and robbery.”
“Hush! not a word about it,” said the Antiquary. “I gave you a hint
before--I will possess you more fully hereafter--I promise you, there is a
secret.”
“But, Mr. Oldbuck, if the state is concerned, I, who do the whole
drudgery business here, really have a title to be consulted, and until I
am”--
“Hush! hush!” said the Antiquary, winking and putting his finger to his
nose,--“you shall have the full credit, the entire management, whenever
matters are ripe. But this is an obstinate old fellow, who will not hear
of two people being as yet let into his mystery, and he has not fully
acquainted me with the clew to Dousterswivel’s devices.”
“Aha! so we must tip that fellow the alien act, I suppose?”
“To say truth, I wish you would.”
“Say no more,” said the magistrate; “it shall forthwith be done--he
shall be removed tanquam suspect--I think that’s one of your own phrases,
Monkbarns?”
“It is classical, Bailie--you improve.”
“Why, public business has of late pressed upon me so much, that I have
been obliged to take my foreman into partnership. I have had two several
correspondences with the Under Secretary of State--one on the proposed
tax on Riga hemp-seed, and the other on putting down political
societies. So you might as well communicate to me as much as you know of
this old fellow’s discovery of a plot against the state.”
“I will, instantly, when I am master of it,” replied Oldbuck---“I hate
the trouble of managing such matters myself. Remember, however, I
did not say decidedly a plot against the state I only say I hope to
discover, by this man’s means, a foul plot.”
“If it be a plot at all, there must be treason in it, or sedition at
least,” said the Bailie--“Will you bail him for four hundred merks?”
“Four hundred merks for an old Blue-Gown! Think on the act 1701
regulating bail-bonds!--Strike off a cipher from the sum--I am content to
bail him for forty merks.”
“Well, Mr. Oldbuck, everybody in Fairport is always willing to oblige
you--and besides, I know that you are a prudent man, and one that would
be as unwilling to lose forty, as four hundred merks. So I will accept
your bail, meo periculo--what say you to that law phrase again? I had
it from a learned counsel. I will vouch it, my lord, he said, meo
periculo.”
“And I will vouch for Edie Ochiltree, meo periculo, in like manner,”
said Oldbuck. “So let your clerk draw out the bail-bond, and I will sign
it.”
When this ceremony had been performed, the Antiquary communicated to
Edie the joyful tidings that he was once more at liberty, and directed
him to make the best of his way to Monkbarns House, to which he himself
returned with his nephew, after having perfected their good work.
CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
Full of wise saws and modern instances.
As You Like It.
“I wish to Heaven, Hector,” said the Antiquary, next morning after
breakfast, “you would spare our nerves, and not be keeping snapping that
arquebuss of yours.”
“Well, sir, I’m sure I’m sorry to disturb you,” said his nephew, still
handling his fowling-piece;--“but it’s a capital gun--it’s a Joe Manton,
that cost forty guineas.”
“A fool and his money are soon parted, nephew--there is a Joe Miller for
your Joe Manton,” answered the Antiquary; “I am glad you have so many
guineas to throw away.”
“Every one has their fancy, uncle,--you are fond of books.”
“Ay, Hector,” said the uncle, “and if my collection were yours, you
would make it fly to the gunsmith, the horse-market, the dog-breaker,--
Coemptos undique nobiles libros--mutare loricis Iberis.”
“I could not use your books, my dear uncle,” said the young soldier,
“that’s true; and you will do well to provide for their being in better
hands. But don’t let the faults of my head fall on my heart--I would
not part with a Cordery that belonged to an old friend, to get a set of
horses like Lord Glenallan’s.”
“I don’t think you would, lad--I don’t think you would,” said his
softening relative. “I love to tease you a little sometimes; it keeps up
the spirit of discipline and habit of subordination--You will pass your
time happily here having me to command you, instead of Captain, or
Colonel, or Knight in Arms,’ as Milton has it; and instead of the
French,” he continued, relapsing into his ironical humour, “you have the
Gens humida ponti--for, as Virgil says,
Sternunt se somno diversae in littore phocae;
which might be rendered,
Here phocae slumber on the beach,
Within our Highland Hector’s reach.
Nay, if you grow angry, I have done. Besides, I see old Edie in the
court-yard, with whom I have business. Good-bye, Hector--Do you remember
how she splashed into the sea like her master Proteus, et se jactu dedit
aequor in altum?”
M’Intyre,--waiting, however, till the door was shut,--then gave way to the
natural impatience of his temper.
“My uncle is the best man in the world, and in his way the kindest; but
rather than hear any more about that cursed phoca, as he is pleased to
call it, I would exchange for the West Indies, and never see his face
again.”
Miss M’Intyre, gratefully attached to her uncle, and passionately
fond of her brother, was, on such occasions, the usual envoy of
reconciliation. She hastened to meet her uncle on his return, before he
entered the parlour.
“Well, now, Miss Womankind, what is the meaning of that imploring
countenance?--has Juno done any more mischief?”
“No, uncle; but Juno’s master is in such fear of your joking him about
the seal--I assure you, he feels it much more than you would wish;--it’s
very silly of him, to be sure; but then you can turn everybody so
sharply into ridicule”--
“Well, my dear,” answered Oldbuck, propitiated by the compliment, “I
will rein in my satire, and, if possible, speak no more of the phoca--I
will not even speak of sealing a letter, but say umph, and give a nod
to you when I want the wax-light--I am not monitoribus asper, but, Heaven
knows, the most mild, quiet, and easy of human beings, whom sister,
niece, and nephew, guide just as best pleases them.”
With this little panegyric on his own docility, Mr. Oldbuck entered the
parlour, and proposed to his nephew a walk to the Mussel-crag. “I
have some questions to ask of a woman at Mucklebackit’s cottage,” he
observed, “and I would willingly have a sensible witness with me--so, for
fault of a better, Hector, I must be contented with you.”
“There is old Edie, sir, or Caxon--could not they do better than me?”
answered M’Intyre, feeling somewhat alarmed at the prospect of a long
tete-a-tete with his uncle.
“Upon my word, young man, you turn me over to pretty companions, and I
am quite sensible of your politeness,” replied Mr. Oldbuck. “No, sir,
I intend the old Blue-Gown shall go with me--not as a competent witness,
for he is, at present, as our friend Bailie Littlejohn says (blessings
on his learning!) tanquam suspectus, and you are suspicione major, as
our law has it.”
“I wish I were a major, sir,” said Hector, catching only the last, and,
to a soldier’s ear, the most impressive word in the sentence,--“but,
without money or interest, there is little chance of getting the step.”
“Well, well, most doughty son of Priam,” said the Antiquary, “be ruled
by your friends, and there’s no saying what may happen--Come away with
me, and you shall see what may be useful to you should you ever sit upon
a court-martial, sir.”
“I have been on many a regimental court-martial, sir,” answered Captain
M’Intyre. “But here’s a new cane for you.”
“Much obliged, much obliged.”
“I bought it from our drum-major,” added M’Intyre, “who came into our
regiment from the Bengal army when it came down the Red Sea. It was cut
on the banks of the Indus, I assure you.”
“Upon my word, ‘tis a fine ratan, and well replaces that which the ph--
Bah! what was I going to say?”
The party, consisting of the Antiquary, his nephew, and the old beggar,
now took the sands towards Mussel-crag--the former in the very highest
mood of communicating information, and the others, under a sense of
former obligation, and some hope for future favours, decently attentive
to receive it. The uncle and nephew walked together, the mendicant about
a step and a half behind, just near enough for his patron to speak to
him by a slight inclination of his neck, and without the trouble of
turning round. (Petrie, in his Essay on Good-breeding, dedicated to the
magistrates of Edinburgh, recommends, upon his own experience, as tutor
in a family of distinction, this attitude to all led captains, tutors,
dependants, and bottle-holders of every description. ) Thus escorted,
the Antiquary moved along full of his learning, like a lordly man
of war, and every now and then yawing to starboard and larboard to
discharge a broadside upon his followers.
“And so it is your opinion,” said he to the mendicant, “that this
windfall--this _arca auri_, as Plautus has it, will not greatly avail Sir
Arthur in his necessities?”
“Unless he could find ten times as much,” said the beggar, “and that I
am sair doubtful of;--I heard Puggie Orrock, and the tother thief of a
sheriff-officer, or messenger, speaking about it--and things are ill aff
when the like o’ them can speak crousely about ony gentleman’s affairs.
I doubt Sir Arthur will be in stane wa’s for debt, unless there’s swift
help and certain.”
“You speak like a fool,” said the Antiquary.--“Nephew, it is a remarkable
thing, that in this happy country no man can be legally imprisoned for
debt.”
“Indeed, sir?” said M’Intyre; “I never knew that before--that part of our
law would suit some of our mess well.”
“And if they arena confined for debt,” said Ochiltree, “what is’t that
tempts sae mony puir creatures to bide in the tolbooth o’ Fairport
yonder?--they a’ say they were put there by their creditors--Od! they maun
like it better than I do, if they’re there o’ free will.”
“A very natural observation, Edie, and many of your betters would
make the same; but it is founded entirely upon ignorance of the feudal
system. Hector, be so good as to attend, unless you are looking out
for another-- Ahem!” (Hector compelled himself to give attention at this
hint. ) “And you, Edie, it may be useful to you reram cognoscere causas.
The nature and origin of warrant for caption is a thing haud alienum
a Scaevolae studiis.--You must know then, once more, that nobody can be
arrested in Scotland for debt.”
“I haena muckle concern wi’ that, Monkbarns,” said the old man, “for
naebody wad trust a bodle to a gaberlunzie.”
“I pr’ythee, peace, man--As a compulsitor, therefore, of payment, that
being a thing to which no debtor is naturally inclined, as I have too
much reason to warrant from the experience I have had with my own,--we
had first the letters of four forms, a sort of gentle invitation, by
which our sovereign lord the king, interesting himself, as a monarch
should, in the regulation of his subjects’ private affairs, at first by
mild exhortation, and afterwards by letters of more strict enjoinment
and more hard compulsion--What do you see extraordinary about that bird,
Hector?--it’s but a seamaw.”
“It’s a pictarnie, sir,” said Edie.
“Well, what an if it were--what does that signify at present?--But I see
you’re impatient; so I will waive the letters of four forms, and come to
the modern process of diligence.--You suppose, now, a man’s committed to
prison because he cannot pay his debt? Quite otherwise: the truth is,
the king is so good as to interfere at the request of the creditor, and
to send the debtor his royal command to do him justice within a certain
time--fifteen days, or six, as the case may be. Well, the man resists and
disobeys: what follows? Why, that he be lawfully and rightfully declared
a rebel to our gracious sovereign, whose command he has disobeyed, and
that by three blasts of a horn at the market-place of Edinburgh, the
metropolis of Scotland. And he is then legally imprisoned, not on
account of any civil debt, but because of his ungrateful contempt of the
royal mandate. What say you to that, Hector?--there’s something you never
knew before.” *
* The doctrine of Monkbarns on the origin of imprisonment for civil debt
in Scotland, may appear somewhat whimsical, but was referred to, and
admitted to be correct, by the Bench of the Supreme Scottish Court, on
5th December 1828, in the case of Thom v. Black. In fact, the Scottish
law is in this particular more jealous of the personal liberty of the
subject than any other code in Europe.
“No, uncle; but, I own, if I wanted money to pay my debts, I would
rather thank the king to send me some, than to declare me a rebel for
not doing what I could not do.”
“Your education has not led you to consider these things,” replied
his uncle; “you are incapable of estimating the elegance of the legal
fiction, and the manner in which it reconciles that duress, which,
for the protection of commerce, it has been found necessary to extend
towards refractory debtors, with the most scrupulous attention to the
liberty of the subject.”
“I don’t know, sir,” answered the unenlightened Hector; “but if a man
must pay his debt or go to jail, it signifies but little whether he goes
as a debtor or a rebel, I should think. But you say this command of the
king’s gives a license of so many days--Now, egad, were I in the scrape,
I would beat a march and leave the king and the creditor to settle it
among themselves before they came to extremities.”
“So wad I,” said Edie; “I wad gie them leg-bail to a certainty.”
“True,” replied Monkbarns; “but those whom the law suspects of being
unwilling to abide her formal visit, she proceeds with by means of a
shorter and more unceremonious call, as dealing with persons on whom
patience and favour would be utterly thrown away.”
“Ay,” said Ochiltree, “that will be what they ca’ the fugie-warrants--I
hae some skeel in them. There’s Border-warrants too in the south
country, unco rash uncanny things;--I was taen up on ane at Saint James’s
Fair, and keepit in the auld kirk at Kelso the haill day and night; and
a cauld goustie place it was, I’se assure ye.--But whatna wife’s this,
wi’ her creel on her back? It’s puir Maggie hersell, I’m thinking.”
It was so. The poor woman’s sense of her loss, if not diminished, was
become at least mitigated by the inevitable necessity of attending to
the means of supporting her family; and her salutation to Oldbuck was
made in an odd mixture between the usual language of solicitation with
which she plied her customers, and the tone of lamentation for her
recent calamity.
“How’s a’ wi’ ye the day, Monkbarns? I havena had the grace yet to come
down to thank your honour for the credit ye did puir Steenie, wi’ laying
his head in a rath grave, puir fallow. “--Here she whimpered and wiped
her eyes with the corner of her blue apron--“But the fishing comes on no
that ill, though the gudeman hasna had the heart to gang to sea himsell--
Atweel I would fain tell him it wad do him gude to put hand to wark--but
I’m maist fear’d to speak to him--and it’s an unco thing to hear ane o’
us speak that gate o’ a man--However, I hae some dainty caller haddies,
and they sall be but three shillings the dozen, for I hae nae pith to
drive a bargain ennow, and maun just tak what ony Christian body will
gie, wi’ few words and nae flyting.”
“What shall we do, Hector?” said Oldbuck, pausing: “I got into disgrace
with my womankind for making a bad bargain with her before. These
maritime animals, Hector, are unlucky to our family.”
“Pooh, sir, what would you do?--give poor Maggie what she asks, or allow
me to send a dish of fish up to Monkbarns.”
And he held out the money to her; but Maggie drew back her hand. “Na,
na, Captain; ye’re ower young and ower free o’ your siller--ye should
never tak a fish-wife’s first bode; and troth I think maybe a flyte
wi’ the auld housekeeper at Monkbarns, or Miss Grizel, would do me
some gude--And I want to see what that hellicate quean Jenny Ritherout’s
doing--folk said she wasna weel--She’ll be vexing hersell about Steenie,
the silly tawpie, as if he wad ever hae lookit ower his shouther at the
like o’her!--Weel, Monkbarns, they’re braw caller haddies, and they’ll
bid me unco little indeed at the house if ye want crappit-heads the
day.”
And so on she paced with her burden,--grief, gratitude for the sympathy
of her betters, and the habitual love of traffic and of gain, chasing
each other through her thoughts.
“And now that we are before the door of their hut,” said Ochiltree, “I
wad fain ken, Monkbarns, what has gar’d ye plague yoursell wi’ me a’
this length? I tell ye sincerely I hae nae pleasure in ganging in there.
I downa bide to think how the young hae fa’en on a’ sides o’ me, and
left me an useless auld stump wi’ hardly a green leaf on’t.”
“This old woman,” said Oldbuck, “sent you on a message to the Earl of
Glenallan, did she not?”
“Ay!” said the surprised mendicant; “how ken ye that sae weel?”