The Antiquary — Volume 02

He was, however, presently cheered, by finding that more importance was attached to his arrival than his modesty had anticipated. A disputed cast had occurred between the bands of players, and as the gauger favoured the one party, and the schoolmaster the other, the matter might be said to be taken up by the higher powers. The miller and smith, also, had espoused different sides, and, considering the vivacity of two such disputants, there was reason to doubt whether the strife might be amicably terminated. But the first person who caught a sight of the mendicant exclaimed, "Ah! here comes auld Edie, that kens the rules of a' country games better than ony man that ever drave a bowl, or threw an axle-tree, or putted a stane either; — let's hae nae quarrelling, callants — we'll stand by auld Edie's judgment."

Edie was accordingly welcomed, and installed as umpire, with a general shout of gratulation. With all the modesty of a Bishop to whom the mitre is proffered, or of a new Speaker called to the chair, the old man declined the high trust and responsibility with which it was proposed to invest him, and, in requital for his self-denial and humility, had the pleasure of receiving the reiterated assurances of young, old, and middle-aged, that he was simply the best qualified person for the office of arbiter "in the haill country-side." Thus encouraged, he proceeded gravely to the execution of his duty, and, strictly forbidding all aggravating expressions on either side, he heard the smith and gauger on one side, the miller and schoolmaster on the other, as junior and senior counsel. Edie's mind, however, was fully made up on the subject before the pleading began; like that of many a judge, who must nevertheless go through all the forms, and endure in its full extent the eloquence and argumentation of the Bar. For when all had been said on both sides, and much of it said over oftener than once, our senior, being well and ripely advised, pronounced the moderate and healing judgment, that the disputed cast was a drawn one, and should therefore count to neither party. This judicious decision restored concord to the field of players; they began anew to arrange their match and their bets, with the clamorous mirth usual on such occasions of village sport, and the more eager were already stripping their jackets, and committing them, with their coloured handkerchiefs, to the care of wives, sisters, and mistresses. But their mirth was singularly interrupted.

On the outside of the group of players began to arise sounds of a description very different from those of sport — that sort of suppressed sigh and exclamation, with which the first news of calamity is received by the hearers, began to be heard indistinctly. A buzz went about among the women of "Eh, sirs! sae young and sae suddenly summoned!" — It then extended itself among the men, and silenced the sounds of sportive mirth.

All understood at once that some disaster had happened in the country, and each inquired the cause at his neighbour, who knew as little as the querist. At length the rumour reached, in a distinct shape, the ears of Edie Ochiltree, who was in the very centre of the assembly. The boat of Mucklebackit, the fisherman whom we have so often mentioned, had been swamped at sea, and four men had perished, it was affirmed, including Mucklebackit and his son. Rumour had in this, however, as in other cases, gone beyond the truth. The boat had indeed been overset; but Stephen, or, as he was called, Steenie Mucklebackit, was the only man who had been drowned. Although the place of his residence and his mode of life removed the young man from the society of the country folks, yet they failed not to pause in their rustic mirth to pay that tribute to sudden calamity which it seldom fails to receive in cases of infrequent occurrence. To Ochiltree, in particular, the news came like a knell, the rather that he had so lately engaged this young man's assistance in an affair of sportive mischief; and though neither loss nor injury was designed to the German adept, yet the work was not precisely one in which the latter hours of life ought to be occupied.

Misfortunes never come alone. While Ochiltree, pensively leaning upon 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."