Meanwhile doom was coming fast upon poor Sir Arthur Wardour. He seemed
to be utterly ruined. The treachery of Dousterswivel, the pressing and
extortionate demands of a firm called Goldiebirds, who held a claim over
his estate, the time-serving of his own lawyers, at last brought the
officers of the law down upon him. He found himself arrested for debt in
his own house. He was about to be sent to prison, when Edie Ochiltree,
who in his day had been deep in many plots, begged that he might be
allowed to drive over to Tannanburgh, and promised that he would
certainly bring back some good news from the post-office there.
It was all that Oldbuck, with his best tact and wisdom, could do to keep
Hector MacIntyre from assaulting the officers of the law during the
absence of Edie. Two long hours they waited. The carriage had already
been ordered round to the door to convey Sir Arthur to prison. Miss
Wardour was in agony, her father desperate with shame and grief, when
Edie arrived triumphantly grasping a packet. He delivered it forthwith
to the Antiquary. For Sir Arthur, knowing his own weakness, had put
himself unreservedly into the hands of his abler friend. The packet,
being opened, was found to contain a writ stopping the proceedings, a
letter of apology from the lawyers who had been most troublesome, and a
note from Captain Wardour, Sir Arthur's son, enclosing a thousand pounds
for his father's immediate needs. It also declared that ere long he
himself would come to the castle along with a distinguished officer,
Major Neville, who had been appointed to report to the War Office
concerning the state of the defences of the country.
"Thus," said the Antiquary, summing up the situation, "was the last
siege of Knockwinnock House laid by Saunders Sweepclean, the bailiff,
and raised by Edie Ochiltree, the King's Blue-Gown!"
There was, at the time when the story of the Antiquary and his doings
draws to a close, a daily expectation of a French invasion. Beacons had
been prepared on every hill and headland, and men were set to watch. One
of these beacons had been intrusted to old Caxon the hairdresser, and
one night he saw, directly in the line of the hill to the south which he
was to watch, a flame start suddenly up. It was undoubtedly the token
agreed upon to warn the country of the landing of the French.
He lighted his beacon accordingly. It threw up to the sky a long
wavering train of light, startling the sea-fowl from their nests, and
reddening the sea beneath the cliffs. Caxon's brother warders, equally
zealous, caught and repeated the signal. The district was soon awake and
alive with the tidings of invasion.
[Illustration: "ONE night he saw, directly in the line of the hill to
the south which he was to watch, a flame start suddenly up. It was
undoubtedly the token agreed upon to warn the country of the landing of
the French.
"He lighted his beacon accordingly."]
From far and near the Lowland burghers, the country lairds, the Highland
chiefs and clans responded to the summons. They had been drilling for
long, and now in the dead of the night they marched with speed upon
Fairport, eager to defend that point of probable attack.
Last of all the Earl of Glenallan came in with a splendidly mounted
squadron of horse, raised among his Lowland tenants, and five hundred
Highland clansmen with their pipes playing stormily in the van.
Presently also Captain Wardour arrived in a carriage drawn by four
horses, bringing with him Major Neville, the distinguished officer
appointed to the command of the district. The magistrates assembled at
the door of their town-house to receive him. The volunteers, the
yeomanry, the Glenallan clansmen--all were there awaiting the great man.
What was the astonishment of the people of Fairport, and especially of
the Antiquary, to see descend from the open door of the carriage,--who
but the quiet Mr. Lovel.
He had brought with him the news that the alarm of invasion was false.
The beacon which Caxon had seen was only the burning of the mining
machinery in Glen Withershins which had been ordered by Oldbuck and Sir
Arthur to make a final end of Dousterswivel's plots and deceits.
But there was yet further and more interesting private news. The proofs
that Lovel was indeed the son of the Earl of Glenallan were found to be
overwhelming. His heirship to the title had been fully made out. The
chaplain who had performed his father's wedding had returned from
abroad, exiled by the French Revolution. The witnesses also had been
found. Most decisive of all, among the papers of the Earl's late
brother, there was discovered a duly authenticated account of his
carrying off the child, and of how he had had him educated and pushed on
in the army.
So that very night the Antiquary enjoyed in some degree the crowning
pleasure of his whole life, in bringing together father and son for the
first time. That is, if the marriage which took place soon after between
his young friend Lovel (or Lord William Geraldin) and Miss Isabella
Wardour of Knockwinnock Castle did not turn out to be a yet greater
pleasure. Old Edie still travels from farm to farm, but mostly now
confines himself to the short round between Monkbarns and Knockwinnock.
It is reported, however, that he means soon to settle with old Caxon,
who, since the marriage of his daughter to Lieutenant Taffril, has been
given a cottage near the three wigs which he still keeps in order in the
parish,--the minister's, Sir Arthur's, and best of all, that of our good
and well-beloved Antiquary.