 Volume 1 of THE ANTIQUARY I Knew on Selmo. He was shrewd and prudent. His domain cunning had their shares of him, but he was shrewish as a wayward child, and pleased again by toys which childhood pleased, as, book of fables, graced with print of wood, or else the jingling of a rusty metal, or the rare melody of some old ditty, that first was sung to please King Peppin's cradle. Introduction The present work completes a series of fictitious narratives intended to illustrate the manner of Scotland at three different periods. Waverly embrace the age of our fathers, guy-mannering that of our own youth, and the antiquary refers to the last ten years of the eighteenth century. I have in the two last narratives especially sought my principal personages in the class of society who are the last to feel the influence of that general polish, which assimilates to each other the manners of different nations. Among the same class I have placed some of the scenes in which I have endeavored to illustrate the operation of the higher and more violent passions, both because the lower orders are less restrained by the habit of suppressing their feelings, and because I agree with my friend Mordsworth that they seldom fail to express them in the strongest and most powerful language. This is, I think, peculiarly the case with the peasantry of my own country, a class with whom I have long been familiar. The antique force and simplicity of their language, often tinctured with the oriental eloquence of Scripture, in the mouths of those of an elevated understanding, give pathos to their grief and dignity to their resentment. I have been more solicitous to describe manners minutely than to arrange in any case an artificial and combined narrative, and have but to regret that I felt myself unable to unite these two requisites of a good novel. The navery of the adept in the following sheets may appear forced and improbable, but we have had very late instances of the force of superstitious credulity to a much greater extent, and the reader may be assured that this part of the narrative is founded on a fact of actual occurrence. I have now only to express my gratitude to the public for the distinguished reception which they have given to works that have little more than some truth of coloring to recommend them, and to make my respectful leave, as one who is not likely again to solicit their favor, to the above advertisement which was prefixed to the first edition of the antiquary. It is necessary in the present edition to add a few words transferred from the introduction to the chronicles of the canon gate, respecting the character of Jonathan Oldbuck. I may here state generally that although I have deemed historical personages free subjects of delineation, I have never on any occasion violated the respect due to private life. It was indeed impossible that traits proper to persons both living and dead, with whom I have had intercourse in society, should not have risen to my pen in such works as gravely, and those which followed it. But I have always studied to generalize the portraits, so that they should still seem on the whole the productions of fancy, though possessing some resemblance to real individuals. Yet I must own my attempts have not in this last particular been uniformly successful. There are men whose characters are so peculiarly marked, that the delineation of some leading and principal feature inevitably places the whole person before you in his individuality. Thus the character of Jonathan Oldbuck in the antiquary was partly founded on that of an old friend of my youth, to whom I am indebted for introducing me to Shakespeare and other invaluable favors. But I thought I had so completely disguised the likeness that it could not be recognized by anyone now alive. I was mistaken, however, and indeed had endangered what I desired should be considered as a secret, for I afterwards learned that a highly respectable gentleman, one of the few surviving friends of my father, and an acute critic, had said upon the appearance of the work that he was now convinced who was the author of it, as he recognized in the antiquary traces of the character of a very intimate friend of my father's family. Note the late George Constable of Wallace Craigie, near Dundee. And note, I have only father to request the reader not to suppose that my late respected friend resembled Mr. Oldbuck, either in his pedigree or the history imputed to the ideal personage. There is not a single incident in the novel, which is borrowed from his real circumstances, accepting the fact that he resided in an old house near a flourishing seaport, and that the author chanced to witness a scene betwixt him and the female proprietor of a stagecoach, very similar to that which commences the history of the antiquary. An excellent temper, with a slight degree of sub-acid humor, learning wit and rollery, the more poignant that they were little marked by the peculiarities of an old bachelor. A soundness of thought, rendered more forcible, by an occasional quaintness of expression, were the author concedes, the only qualities in which the creature of his imagination resembled his benevolent and excellent old friend. The prominent part performed by the beggar in the following narrative induces the author to prefix a few remarks of that character as it formerly existed in Scotland, though it is now scarcely to be traced. Many of the old Scottish mendicants were by no means to be confounded with the utterly degraded classes of beings who now practice that wandering trade. Such of them, as were in the habit of traveling through a particular district, were usually well-received both in the farmer's haw and in the kitchens of the country gentlemen. Martin, author of the Reliquiae Dewey Sancti Andreae, written in 1683, gives the following account of one class of this order of men in the seventeenth century, in terms which would induce an antiquary like Mr. Oldbuck to regret its extinction. He conceives them to be descended from the ancient bards and proceeds. They are called by others and by themselves jockeys who go about begging, and used still to recite the slow-gorn, gathering words or war cries, of most of the true ancient surnames of Scotland from old experience and observation. Some of them I have discoursed and found to have reason and discretion. One of them told me there was not now above twelve of them in the whole isle, but he remembered when they abounded, so as at one time he was one of five that usually met at St. Andrew's. The race of jockeys of the above description has I suppose been long extinct in Scotland, but the old remembered beggar, even in my own time, like the bar coach or traveling cripple of Ireland, was expected to merit his quarters by something beyond an exposition of his distresses. He was often a talkative, facetious fellow, prompt at repartee and not withheld from exercising his powers that way, by any respect of persons, his patch cloak giving him the privilege of the ancient gesture. To be a good crack, that is, to possess talents of conversation, was essential to the trade of a poor body of the more esteemed class, and Burns, who delighted in the amusement their discourse afforded, seems to have looked forward with gloomy firmness to the possibility of himself becoming one day or other a member of their itinerant society. In his poetical works it is alluded to so often as perhaps to indicate that he considered the consummation as not utterly impossible. Thus in the fine dedication of his works to Gavin Hamilton, he says, And when I don't know Yoke and Iag, then Lord be think it, I can beg. Again in his epistle to Davy, a brother poet, he states that in their closing career the last aunt, the war-stot, is only just to beg. And after having remarked that, to lying kilns and barns-edding, when veins are crazed and bludestine, is doubtless great distress, the bard reckons up, with the true poetical spirit, the free enjoyment of the beauties of nature, which might counterbalance the hardship and uncertainty of a life, even of a mendicant. In one of his prose letters, to which I have lost the reference, he details this idea yet more seriously and dwells upon it, as not ill-adapted to his habits and powers. As the life of a Scottish mendicant of the eighteenth century seems to have been contemplated without much horror by Robert Burns, the author can hardly avert in giving to any uncle tree, something of poetical character and personal dignity, above the more abject of his miserable calling. The class had intact some privileges. A lodging, such as it was, was readily granted to them in some of the outhouses, and the usual, a mouse, alms, of a handful of meal, called a gopen, was scarce denied by the poorest cottager. The mendicant disposed these, according to their different quality, in various bags round his person, and thus carried about with him the principal part of his sustenance, which he literally received for the asking. At the houses of the gentry, his cheer was mended by scraps of broken meat, and perhaps a Scottish twal penny, or English penny, which was expended in snuff or whiskey. In fact, these indolent, peripatetics suffered much less real hardship and wanted food than the poor peasants from whom they received alms. If, in addition to his personal qualifications, the mendicant chance to be a king's beadsman, or blue gown, he belonged in virtue thereof to the aristocracy of his order, and was esteemed a parson of great importance. These beadsmen are an order of paupers to whom the kings of Scotland were in the custom of distributing a certain alms, in conformity with the ordinances of the Catholic Church, and who were expected to return to pray for the royal welfare and that of the state. This order is still kept up. Their number is equal to the number of years which his majesty has lived, and one blue gown, additional, is put on the roll for every returning royal birthday. On the same auspicious era, each beadsman receives a new cloak, or gown of coarse cloth, the color light blue, with a pewter badge, which confers on them the general privilege of asking alms through all Scotland, all laws against soreness, masterful beggary, and every other species of mendicity being suspended in favor of this privileged class. With his cloak, each receives a leather purse containing as many shilling scots, the dilacent, Penny's sterling, as the sovereign is years old. The zeal of their intercession for the king's long life receiving, it is to be supposed, a great stimulus from their own present and increasing interest in the object of their prayers. On the same occasion, one of the royal chaplains preaches a sermon to the beadsman, who, as one of the Reverend gentlemen expressed himself, are the most impatient and inattentive audience in the world. Something of this may arise from a feeling on the part of the beadsman that they are paid for their own devotions, not for listening to those of others. Or more probably, it arises from impatience, natural, though in decorous and men-bearing so venerable a character, to arrive at the conclusion of the ceremonial of the royal birthday, which, so far as they are concerned, ends in a lusty breakfast of bread and ale, the whole moral and religious exhibition, terminating in the advice of Johnson's hermit horror to his proselyte, come my lad and drink some beer. Of the charity bestowed on these aged beadsman and money and clothing, there are many records in the treasures on comps. The following extract, kindly supplied by Mr. McDonald of the Register House, may interest those whose taste is akin to that of Jonathan Oldbuck of Monk Barnes. Blue gowns. In the account of Sir Robert Melville of Myrta Carney, treasurer and deputy of King James VI, there are the following payments. Hoonie E. 1590, item to Mr. Peter Young, el-Mocinar, 24 gowns of blue cloth to be given to 24 old men, according to the years of his highness's age, extending to eight by eight el's cloth, price of the el, 24 shillings. Inda, 201 pounds, 12 shillings. Item for 16 el's buckram to the said gowns, price of the el, 10 shillings. Inda, eight pounds. Item, 24 purses, and in ilk purse, 24 shillings. Inda, 28 pounds, 16 shillings. Item, the price of ilk purse, four pence. Inda, eight shillings. Item for making of the said gowns, eight pounds. In the account of John Earl of Myr, great treasurer of Scotland, and a Sir Gideon Murray of Ella Bank, treasurer deputy, the blue gowns also appear. Thus, Hoonie E. 1617, item to James Murray merchant for 15 score, six el's, and one half el of blue cloth to be gowns to 51 aged men, according to the years of his majesty's age, at 40 shillings to el. Inda, 613 pounds. Item to workmen for carrying the blues to James Akeman Taylor, his house, 13 shillings, four pence. Item for six el's and one half of harden to the said gowns, at six shillings, eight pence, the el. Inda, 44 shillings, four pence. Item to the said workmen for carrying of the gowns from the said James Akeman's house to the palace of Holyroot house, 18 shillings. Item for making the said 51 gowns, at 12 shillings the peace. Inda, 30 pounds, 12 shillings. Item for 51 purses to the said poor men, 51 shillings. Item to Sir Peter and beyond, 51 shillings to be put in every one of the said 51 purses to the said poor men, 530 pounds, one shillings. Item to the said Sir Peter to buy bread and drink to the said poor men, six pounds, 13 shillings, four pence. Item to the said Sir Peter to be dealt among other poor folk, pounds. Item upon the last day of Junee to Dr. Young, Dean of Winchester, L.A. Mostynary Deputy to His Majesty, 25 pounds sterling to be given to the poor, by the way, in His Majesty's progress. Inda, 300 pounds. I have only to add that although the institution of King's Beatsmen still subsists, they are now seldom to be seen on the streets of Edinburgh, of which their peculiar dress made them rather a characteristic feature. Having thus given an account of the genus and species to which any oak tree appertains, the author may add that the individual he had in his eye was Andrew Gemmels, an old mendicant of the character described, who was many years since well known and must still be remembered in the veils of Gala, Tweed, Etric, Yaro, and the adjoining country. The author has in his youth repeatedly seen and conversed with Andrew, but cannot recollect whether he held the rank of blue gown. He was a remarkably fine old figure, very tall in maintaining a soldier-like or military manner and a dress. His features were intelligent with a powerful expression of sarcasm. His motions were always so graceful that he might almost have been suspected of having studied them, for he might on any occasion have served as a model for an artist, so remarkably striking were his ordinary attitudes. Andrew Gemmels had little of the cant of his calling. His wands were food and shelter, or a trifle of money, which he always claimed and seemed to receive as his due. He sung a good song, told a good story, and could crack a severe jest with all the acumen of Shakespeare's jesters, though without using, like them, the cloak of insanity. It was some fear of Andrew's satire, as much as a feeling of kindness or charity, which secured him the general good reception, which he enjoyed everywhere. In fact, a jest of Andrew Gemmels, especially at the expense of a person of consequence, flew round the circle, which he frequented, as surely as the bon mot of a man of established character, for wit glides through fashionable world. Many of his good things are held in remembrance, but are generally too local and personal to be introduced here. Andrew had a character peculiar to himself among his tribe, for all I ever heard. He was ready and willing to play at cards or dice with anyone who desired such amusement. This was more in the character of the Irish, itinerant gambler, called in that country, a caro, then of the Scottish beggar, but the late Reverend Doctor Robert Douglas, minister of Golisules, assured the author that the last time he saw Andrew Gemmels, he was engaged in a game at Bragg with a gentleman of fortune, distinction and birth. To preserve the due gradations of rank, the party was made at an open window of the chateau, the laird sitting on his chair in the inside, the beggar on a stool in the yard, and they played on the windowsill. The stake was a considerable parcel of silver. The author expressing some surprise, Doctor Douglas observed that the laird was no doubt a humorist or original, but that many decent persons in those times would like him, have thought there was nothing extraordinary in passing an hour, either in card playing or conversation with Andrew Gemmels. This singular mendicant had generally or was supposed to have much money about his person, as would have been thought the value of his life among modern footpaths. On one occasion, a country gentleman, generally esteemed, a very narrow man, happening to meet Andrew, expressed great regret that he had no silver in his pocket or he would have given him six pence. I can give you change for a note, laird, replied Andrew. Like most who have arisen to the head of their profession, the modern degradation, which mendicity is undergone, was often the subject of Andrew's lamentations. As a trade, he said, it was 40 pounds a year worse since he had first practiced it. On another occasion, he observed, begging was in modern times, scarcely the profession of the gentleman, and that if he had 20 sons, he would not easily be induced to read one of them up in his own line. When or where this laudator, temporis octi, closed his wanderings, the author never heard with certainty, but most probably, as Byrne says, he died a Cajarapony's death at some dike's side. The author may add another picture of the same kind as Eddie Oakletree and Andrew Gemmels, considering these illustrations as a sort of gallery, open to the reception of anything, which may elucidate former manners or amuse the reader. The author's contemporaries at the University of Edinburgh will probably remember the thin, wasted form of a venerable old Beatsman, who stood by the Potter Rowport, now demolished, and without speaking the syllable, gently inclined his head and offered his hat, but with the least possible degree of urgency, towards each individual who passed. This man gained by silence and the extenuated and wasted appearance of a Palmer from a remote country. The same tribute, which was yielded to Andrew Gemmels's sarcastic humor and stately deportment. He was understood to be able to maintain a son, a student in the theological classes of the University, at the gate of which the father was a mendicant. The young man was modest and inclined to learning so that a student of the same age and his parents were rather of the lower order. Moved by seeing him excluded from the society of other scholars, when the secret of his birth was suspected, endeavored to console him by offering him some occasional civilities. The old mendicant was grateful for his attention to his son, and one day, as a friendly student passed, he stooped forward more than usual as if to intercept his passage. The scholar drew out a half penny, which he concluded was the beggar's object. When he was surprised to receive his thanks for the kindness he had shown to Jemmy, and at the same time, a cordial invitation to dine with them next Saturday, on a shoulder of mutton and potatoes, adding, you'll put on your clean sark as I have company. The student was strongly tempted to accept this hospitable proposal, as many in his place would probably have done. But as the motive might have been capable of misrepresentation, he thought it most prudent, considering the character and circumstances of the old man to decline the invitation. Such are a few traits of Scottish mendicity designed to throw light on a novel in which a character of that description plays a prominent part. We conclude that we have vindicated Eddie Oakley's right to the importance assigned to him, and have shown that we have known one beggar take a hand at cards with a person of distinction, and another give dinner parties. I know not if it be worthwhile to observe that the antiquary was not so well received on its first appearance as either of its predecessors, though in course of time it rose to equal and, with some readers, superior popularity. Note A to the introduction, mottos. It wasn't correcting the proof sheets of this novel that Scott first took to equipping his chapters with mottos of his own fabrication. On one occasion he happened to ask John Valentine, who was sitting by him, to hunt for a particular passage in Beaumont and Fletcher. John did as he was been, but did not succeed in discovering the lines. Hang it, Johnny, cried Scott. I believe it can make a motto sooner than you will find one. He did so accordingly, and from that hour, whenever memory failed to suggest an appropriate epigraph, he had recourse to the inexhaustible lines of old play or old ballad, to which we owe some of the most exquisite verses that ever flowed from his pen, J.G. Lockhart. See also the introduction to Chronicles of the Canon Gate, volume 19. End note A. End introduction. Editor's introduction to the antiquary, written by Andrew Lang. Readers' disclaimer, readers who do not want to learn the events of the novel before it is read, should proceed to the next section, chapter first. End Readers' disclaimer. The antiquary was begun in 1815. The bargain for its publication by Constable was made in the October of that year. On December 22nd, Scott wrote to Morit, I shall set myself seriously to the antiquary, in which I have only a very general sketch at present, but when once I get my pen to the paper, it will walk fast enough. I am sometimes tempted to leave it alone and try whether it will not ride as well, without the assistance of my head, as with it. A hopeful prospect for the reader. It is amazing enough that he even constructed a general sketch, for to such sketches, he confesses that he never could keep constant. I had generally written to the middle of one of these novels, without having the least idea of how it was to end. In short, in the Habnab at a Wentura style of composition. Journal, February 24th, 1828. Yet it is almost impossible, but that the plot of the antiquary should have been duly considered. Scott must have known from the first who level was to turn out to be, and must have recognized in the halfless ride of Lord Glenellen, the object of the antiquary solitary and unfortunate passion. To introduce another wandering air immediately after the hairy birch-rim of Guy Mandarin was rather audacious, but the old favorite, the lost air, is nearly certain to be popular. For the antiquary's immortal sorrow, Scott had a model in his own experience. What a romance to tell and told, I fear, it will one day be. And then my three years of dreaming and my two years of awakening will be chronicle doubtless. But the dead will feel no pain. The dead, as Aristotle says, if they care for such things at all, care no more than we do for what has passed in a dream. The journal sketch probably began to take full shape about the last day of 1815. On December 29th, Scott wrote to Ballantine, Dear James, I've done, thank God, with the long yarns of the most prosy of apostles. Paul, and now advanced, sweet heathen of monk-warns, step out, old quiz, as fast as I can crawl. In the antiquary, Scott had a subject thoroughly to his mind. He had been an antiquary from his childhood. His earliest pens have been devoted to that collection of printed ballads, which is still at Abbotsford. These he mentions in the unfinished fragment of his, reliquiae trocociensis, in much the same words as in his manuscript note on one of the seven volumes. This little collection of stall tracks and ballads was formed by me when a boy from the baskets of the traveling peddlers until, put into its present, decent binding, it had such charms to the servants that it was repeatedly and with difficulty recovered from their clutches. It contains most of the pieces that were popular about 30 years since, and I dare say many that could not now be procured for any price, 1810, nor did he collect only the rare melody of some old ditties that first resung to please King Pepin's cradle. Walter had soon begun to gather out of the way things of all sorts. He had more books than shelves, sick. A small painted cabinet with scotch and Roman coins in it and so forth. A claymore and lacquer-bracks, given him by old Invernehyle, mounted guard on a little print of Prince Charlie, and brought in saucer was hooked up on the mall below it. He had entered literature through the ruined gateway of archeology in the border minstrelsea, and his last project was an addition of Peralts, Contema, Mielwé. As pleasant to him as the purchase of new lands like Ternigan, bought dearly, as in Monk Martin's case, from Bonnet Lodz, was a fresh acquisition of an old book or of old armor. Yet with all his enthusiasm, he did not please the antiquaries of his own day. George Chalmers in Constable's Life and Correspondence, I, 431, sneers at his want of learning. His notes are loose and unlearned as they generally are. Charles Kirkpatrick-Shark, his friend in life, disborded himself in jealous and ribbled mockery of Scott's archeological knowledge when Scott was dead. In the letter of the enigmatic Thomas Allen, or James Stewart Hay, father of John Sowiecki, and Charles Edward Stewart, this mysterious person avares that he never knew Scott's opinion to be held of as of any value by antiquaries, 1829. They probably missed in him a sort of petty-fogging intimacy with dates, names, and trifling matters of fact, a tiresome and frivolous accuracy of memory which Sir Arthur Wardour reproves in Monk Barnes. Scott in brief was not as dry as dust, all the dead bones that he touches come to life. He was as great an archeologist as a poet can be, and with Virgil was the greatest antiquary among poets. Like Monk Barnes, he was not incapable of being beguiled. As Old Buck bought the bottle from the peddler at the price of a rare coin, so Scott took Sir T's, Barthram Sturge, and his Latin legend of the tourney with the specter knight for genuine antiquities. No adiocal tree ever revealed to him the truth about these forgeries, and the specter knight with the ballad of Anthony Featherston Hall, hold their own in Marmian to assure the world that this antiquary was gullible when this light was practiced by a friend. None estante, he would have said, had he learned the truth. For he was ever conscious of the humorous side of the study of the moldering past. I do not know anything which relieves the mind so much from the solons as a trifling discourse about antiquarian old womanries. It is like knitting a stocking, diverting the mind without occupying it. Journal, March 9th, 1828. Begun about January 1st, 1816, the antiquary was published before May 16th, 1816, when Scott writes to say that he has sent Mr. Morritt, the novel, sometimes since. It is not so interesting as his predecessors, the period does not admit of so much romantic situation, but it has been more fortunate than any of them in the sale for 6,000 went off in the first six days, and it is now at press again. The preface of the first edition ends with the melancholy statement that the author takes his respectful leave as one who is not likely again to solicit favor. Apparently Scott had already determined not to announce his next novels, The Black Dwarf and Old Mortality, as by the author of Waverly. Mr. Constable and the biographies of his father says, 384, even before the publication of the antiquary, John Ballantine had been empowered by the author to negotiate with Mr. Murray and Mr. Blackwood for the first series of The Tales of My Landlord. The noted withdrawal from the stage in the first edition of the antiquary was probably only a part of another experiment on public sagacity. As Lockhart says, Mr. Murray, Mr. Blackwood thought that the consequent absence of the author of Waverly's name from The Tales of My Landlord would check very much the first success of the book, but they risked this to disturb Constable's tenure. Scott's temporary desertion of Constable in The Tales of My Landlord may have had various motives. There was a slight grudge against Constable, born of some complications of the Ballantine's affairs. Perhaps the mere amusement of the experiment on public sagacity was one of the more powerful reasons for the change. In our day, Lord Lighton and Mr. Tollup made similar trials of their popularity when anonymous, the former author with the greater success. The idea of these mass grades and veils of the incognito appears to bewitch Constable. William Godwin was writing for him, his novel, Mandeville, and Godwin had obviously been counseled to try a disguise. He says, January 30th, 1816, I have amused my imagination a thousand times since last we parted with the masquerade he devised for me. The world is full of wonder. An old favorite is always reviewed with coldness. Poo, they say, Godwin has worn his pen to the stump. But let me once be equipped with a significant mask and an unknown character from your masquerade shop, and admitted to figure in with the last minstrel, the Lady of the Lake, and Guy Manorine in the Scottish Carnival. Gods, how the boys and girls will admire me. Here is a new wonder, they will say. Ah, this is something like, here is Godwin beaten on his own ground. Here is for one's a Scottish writer that they cannot say as anything of the Scotsman about him. However, Mr. Godwin did not don the mask and domino. Manville came out about the same time as Rob Roy, but the craziness of the public for the author Waverly was not changed into a passion for the father-in-law of Shelley. The antiquary, after a little pause of hesitation, attained popularity not inferior to Guy Manorine. And though the author appears for a moment to have shared the doubts which he read in the countenance of James Valentine, it certainly was in the sequel his chief favorite among all his novels. As Scott said to Terry, if a man will paint from nature, he will be likely to amuse those who are daily looking at it. The years which saw the first appearance of Guy Manorine also witnessed that of Emma. By the singular chance or law, which links great authors closely in time, giving us novelists and pairs, Miss Austin was drawing from nature at the very moment when Scott was wetting nature with romance. How generously and wisely he admired her is familiar. And it made a sum seem curious that he never deliberately sent himself to a picture of ordinary life, free from the intrusion of the unusual of the heroic. Once looking down at the village which lies on the tweed opposite Melrose, he remarked that under its roofs, tragedies and tales were doubtless being lived. I undertake to say there are some real romance at this moment going on down there that if it could have just as done to it would be well worth all the fiction that was ever spun out of human brains. But the example he gave was terrible. Anything more dreadful was never conceived by Crabb. Yet, at its lock heart, it would never have entered his head to elaborate such a tale. He could not dwell on the unbroken gloom dear to some modern malingerers. But he could easily have made a tale of common scotch life dark with a sorrow of mucklebacket and bright with the mirth of a cuddly headring. There was, however, this difficulty that Scott cared not to write a story of a single class. From the pure to the plowman, all society mingles in each of his novels, a fiction of middle-class life did not allure him and he was not at the best but at his worst as Sidney Smith observed in the light talk of society. He could admire Miss Austin and read her novels again and again, but had he attempted to follow her by way of variety, then inevitably, wild as well as discipline tumor would have kept breaking in and his fancy would have wandered like the old knights of Arthur's court at adventure. St. Ronan's well proved the truth of all this. Thus it happens that in the antiquary with all his sympathy for the people with all his knowledge of them, he does not confine himself to their cottages. As Lockhart says, in his admirable piece of criticism, he preferred to choose topics in which he could display his highest art that is skillful contrast. Even the tragic romance of Waverly does not set off its mock weeples and column bags better than the oddities of Jonathan Oldbuck and his circle are believed. On the one hand by the stately gloom of the Glen Allens, on the other by the stern affliction of the poor fisherman who when discovered repairing the old black bitch of a boat in which his boy had been lost and congratulated by his visitors on being capable of the exertion makes answer. And what would you have me to do unless I wanted to see four children starve because one is drowned? It's will with you gentles that can sit in the house with hand-curtures at your eye when you lose a friend. But like of us, Maun, to our work again if our hearts were beating as hard as Oni Hammer. Enter his work again, Scott had to go when he lost the partner of his life. The simple unsought charm which Lockhart notes in the antiquary may have passed away in later works when would have been the amusement of happy days became the task of sadness. But this magic, the antiquary keeps perhaps beyond all its companions, the magic of pleasant memories and friendly associations. The sketches of the up-off of expected invasion with his patriarchal musters and volunteer drillings are pictures out of that part in the author's life which with his early Highland wanderings, Waverly and his light-stale raids, Guy Manorine was most dear to him. In Red Gauntlet again he makes, as Alvin Fairford, a return on his youth and his home. And in Rockboy, he revives his Highland recollections, his Highland lairds of the blind, pleasing stories. None of the rest of the tales are so intimate in their connection with Scott's own personal history. The antiquary has always, therefore, been held in the very first rank of his novels. As far as plot goes, though Godwin denied that it had any story, the antiquary may be placed among the most careful. The underplot of the Glen Allens, gloomy, almost beyond endurance, is very ingeniously made to unravel the mystery of love. The other side narrative, that of D'Auster Swivel, is the weak point of the whole. But this Scott justifies by very late instances of the force of superstitious credulity, to a much greater extent. Some occurrence of the hour may have suggested the Navish adept with his divining rod, but facts are never a real excuse for the morally incredible, or all but incredible, in fiction. On the wealth and raison blancs, and variety of character, it was a proofless to dilate. As in Shakespeare, there is not even a minor person, but lives and is a flesh and blood, if we accept perhaps D'Auster Swivel and Sir Arthur Wardour. Sir Arthur is only Sir Robert Hazelwood, over again, with a slightly different folly and a somewhat more amiable nature. Love's place as usual is among the shades of heroes, and his love affair is far less moving, far more summarily treated than that of Jenny Caxon. The skillful contrasts are perhaps most remarkable when we compare Elspeth of the burn foot with the gossiping old women in the post-office at Fairport, a town, studied perhaps, from our birth. It was the opinion of Sidney Smith that every one of the novels before The Fortunes of Nigel contained a Meg Merleys and a Dominique Sampson. He may have recognized a male Meg in Eddie Oakletree, the invaluable character who is always behind a wall, always overhears everything and holds the threads of the plot. Or he may have been hypercritical enough to think that Elspeth of the burn foot is the Meg of the romance. Few will agree with him that Meg Merleys in either of these cases is good, but good too often. The supposed originals of certain persons in the tale have been topics of discussion. The character of Old Buck, like most characters in fiction, is a combination of traits observed in various persons. Scott says in a note to the Oshet Steel fragment of autobiography that Mr. George Constable, an old friend of his father's, had many of those peculiarities of character, which long afterwards I tried to develop in the character of Jonathan Old Buck. Sir Walter, when a child, made Mr. Constable's acquaintance at Preston Pans in 1777 where he explored the battlefield under the learned guidance of Dal Getty. Mr. Constable first introduced him to Shakespeare's plays and gave him his first German dictionary. Other traits may have been suggested by John Clerk of Alden whose grandfather was the hero of the story, Priatorian here, Priatorian there. I made it with a flutter spade. Lockhart is no doubt right in thinking that Old Buck is partly a caricature of Old Buck's creator. Sir Walter indeed frankly accepted the kinship and the book which he began on his own collection. He proposed a style, reliquium trocosiensis or the gabions of Jonathan Old Buck. Another person who added a few points to Old Buck was Sandy Gordon, author of the Itinerarium, September Nola, 1726. The very folio, which Monk Barnes carried in the dilatory coach to Queensbury. Gordon had been a student in the University of Aberdeen. He was an amateur in many arts but antiquarianism was his favorite hobby. He was an acquaintance of Sir John Clerk of Alden, the hero of the Priatorium. The words of Gordon in his Itinerarium where he describes the battle of the grampions has applied or suggested the speech of Monk Barnes at the time of Kin Prunes. The great question was, where is the Monk's grampus of Tacitus? Dismissing Camden's Grantsbane. Because he does not know where it is, Gordon says, as for our Scotch antiquaries, they're so divided that some will have it to be in the Shire of Angus or in the Myrnes, some with the Blair of Athol in Perthshire or Adrock in Stratholen and others at Edinburgh Peffery. Gordon votes for Strathorn, half a mile short of the Kirk of Comrie. This spot is both at the foot of the Mons Graempie and both suburban camp capable of holding an army fit to encounter so formidable a number as 30,000 Caledonians. Here is the Porta Decumana, opposite the Prectoria, together with the Dextra and Sinistra Gates, all discovered by Sandy Gordon. Moreover, the situation of the ground is so very exact with the description given by Tacitus that in all my travels through Britain, I never beheld anything with more pleasure. Nor is it difficult in viewing this ground to say where the Comronari, or charioteers, stood. In fine, to an antiquary, this is a ravishing scene. He adds the argument that Galcaucas' name still remains on this ground for the more on which the camp stood is called to this day Galcaucan, or Galcauchan Rosemore. All this lore, Gordon illustrates by an immense chart on camp and a picture of very small Montes Graempie about the size and shape of buns. The plate is dedicated to his Excellency, General Wade. In another point, Monk Barnes borrows from Gordon. Sandy has a plate, page 20, of the Roman Cecillum of Mars' signifer, vulgarly called Arthur's Un. With regard to its shape, it is not unlike the famous Pantheon at Rome before the noble portico was added to it by Marcus Agrippa. Gordon agrees with Stuckley in attributing Arthur's own to Agricola, and here Monk Barnes and Lovell adopt almost his words. Times left Julius Agricola's very name on the place. And if ever those initial letters, J-M-P-M-P-T, mentioned by Sir Robert Sibould, were engraven on a stone in this building, it may not be reckoned altogether absurd that they should bear this reading, Julius Agricola Magnus Payatatus, Monumentum Pawswet Templum. But this my reader may either accept or reject as he pleases. However, I think it may be as probably received as that inscription on Caligula's pharaohs in Holland, which have in these following letters, C-C-P-F, is read Caius Caligula Farum Fesset. This, Monk Barnes adds, has ever been recorded as a sound exposition. The character of Eddie Ocultry, Scott himself of heirs to have been suggested by Andrew Gemmels, pleasantly described in the introduction. Mr. Chambers, in illustrations of the author of Waverly, clears up a point doubtful in Scott's memory by saying that Gemmels really was a blue gown. He rode a horse of his own and at races was a bookmaker. He once dropped at Rutherford in Teviotdale, a clue of yarn containing 20 guineas. Like Eddie Ocultry, he had served at Fontenoy. He died at Roxburg, Newton in 1793 at the age of 105, according to his own reckoning. His wealth was the means of enriching an ethue in Archer, who is now, 1825, a considerable landholder there, and belongs to respectable classes of society. An old iris of similar character patrolled Teviotdale while Andrew Gemmels was attached to Etric and Yaro. This was blind Willie Craw. Willie was a society journal of Hawwick and Levy Blackmail on the Inhabitants. He is thus described by Mr. Grieve in the diary already quoted. He lived at Brock's hometown in a free house set apart for the gamekeeper and for many a year carried all the bread from Hawwick used in my father's family. He came in that way at breakfast time and got a wallet which he put in it and returned to dinner time with the Bobby Rose and two loaves. He laid the town of Hawwick under contribution for Bobby's and he knew the history of every individual and went rhyming through the town from door to door. And as he knew something against everyone which they would rather wish should not be rehearsed, a Bobby put a stop to the paragraph which they were suppressed. Willie Craw was a son of a gamekeeper of the Dukes and enjoyed a free house at rank's hometown as long as he lived. Had Burns ever betaken himself to the Gabberlonsie's life which he speaks of in one of his poems as the last ought, the worst ought. He would have proved a much more formidable satirist than poor Willie Craw. The last of the blind Crowders. Burns wrote of course in the spirit of reckless humor but he could not even in sport had alluded to the life as suited to his habits and powers. Had Gabberlonsie's been mere mendicants. In Hertz collection of ballads is one of the ancient Scottish beggar. In Scotland they lived a humble beggar. He had nor house nor hold nor home but he was well liked by Ilke body and they gave him sunken to racks his womb. A sieve for a meal, a handful of grotes, a dad or a bonnock or pudding brie, cold porridge or the licking's plates would make him as blithe as a body could be. The dress and trade of the beggar are said to have been adopted by James V in his adventures and tradition attributes to him a song the Gabberlonsie man. One of Eddie's most charming traits is his readiness to fight for his dish like the lair for his land when a French invasion was expected. Scott places a date of the false alarm when he himself rode a hundred miles to join his regiment on February 2nd, 1804. Lockhart gives it as an event of 1805, volume two, page 275. The occasion gave great pleasure to Scott on account of the patriotism and courage displayed by all classes. Me no muckl to fight for, says Eddie, is there a country to fight for and the burns I gang thundering beside and the hearse of the good wives that guide me my bitter bread, had the bits of weens that come toddling to play with me when I come about to Landward town. Eddie had fought at Fontenoy and was at the old school. Scott would have been less pleased with the recruit from St. Boswells on the tweed. This man was a shoemaker, John Younger, a very intelligent and worthy person, famous as an angler and rider on angling, who has left an account of the false alarm in his memoirs. His view was that the people, unlike Eddie, had nothing to fight for, that only the rich had any reason to be patriotic, that the French had no quarrel with the poor. In fact, Mr. Younger was a cosmopolitan Democrat and sneered at the old border glories of the war-like days. Probably, however, he would have done his duty, had the enemy landed, and, like Eddie, might have remembered the burns he dandered beside, always with a fishing rod in his hand. The editor cannot resist the temptation to add that the patriotic lady mentioned in Scott's note, who would rather have seen her son dead on the hearth than hear that he had been a horse's length behind his companions, was his paternal great-grandmother, Mrs. John Lang, her husband, who died shortly afterwards, so that she was a widow when Scott conversed with her, chance to be Chief Magistrate of Selkirk. His family was aroused late one night by the sound of a carriage hurrying down the steep and narrow street. Lord Napier was bringing, probably from Haywick, the tidings that the beacons were ablaze. The town bell was instantly rung, the inhabitants met in the marketplace, where Scott's statue now stands, and the whole force, with one solitary exception, armed and marched to Dahlkeith. According to the gentleman whose horse and arms were sent on to meet him, it was intended, if the French proved victorious, that the population of the border towns should abandon their homes and retire to the hills. No characters in the antiquary, except Monk Barnes and Eddie Ogletree, seemed to have been borrowed from notable originals. The frauds of Dahlster's swivel, Scott says, are rendered plausible by very late instances of the force of superstitious credulity to a much greater extent. He can hardly be referring to the career of Cagliostro, but he may have had in his memory some unsuccessful mining speculations by Charles Earl of Trequire, who sought for lead and found little or none in Trequire Hills. The old statistical account of Scotland, volume 12, page 370, says nothing about imposter, and really remarks that the noble family of Trequire have made several attempts to discover lead mines and have found quantities of the ore of that metal, though not adequate to indemnify the expenses of working and have therefore given up the attempt. This was published in 1794, so 20 years has passed when the antiquary was written. If there was here an instance of superstitious credulity, it was not a very late instance. The divining or dousing rod of Dahlster's swivel still keeps his place in mining superstition and in the search for wells. With the antiquary, most contemporary reviews of the novels lose their interest. Their author had firmly established his position at least till the monastery caused some murmurings. Even the quarterly review was infinitely more genial in its reception of the antiquary than of Guy Manorine. The critic only grumbled at Lovell's feverish dreams, which he thought showed an intention to introduce the marvellous. He complained of the dark dialect of anglified earth, but found comfort in the glossary of pendant. The Edinburgh review pronounced the chapter on the escape from the tide to be one of the very best description we have ever met in verse or in prose, in ancient or in modern writing. No reviewer seems to have noticed that the sun is made to set in the sea on the east coast of Scotland. The Edinburgh, however, declared that the antiquary, at least insofar as he is an antiquary, was a chief blemish on the book. The sweet heathen of Monk Barnes has not suffered from this disparagement. The British critic pledged its reputation that Scott was the author. If an argument were wanted, it would be that which has been applied to prove the authenticity of the last book of the Iliad, that Homer must have written it because no one else could. Alas, that argument does not convince German critics. Andrew Lang. End editor's introduction. Volume one, chapter first of the antiquary. The sleeper box recording is in the public domain. The antiquary by Sir Walter Scott. Chapter first. Go call a coach and let a coach be called and let the man who calleth be the caller. And in his calling, let him nothing call. But coach, coach, coach, oh, for a coach, he gods. Cronon hotentholagus. It was early on a fine summer's day near the end of the 18th century when a young man of genteel appearance journeying towards the northeast of Scotland provided himself with a ticket in one of those public carriages which traveled between Edinburgh and the Queensferry at which place as the name implies. And as is well known to all my northern readers, there is a passageboat for crossing the frith of fourth. The coach was calculated to carry six regular passengers besides such interlopers as the coachman could pick up by the way and intrude upon those who were legally in possession. The tickets which conferred right to a seat in this vehicle of little ease were dispensed by a sharp-looking old dame with a pair of spectacles on a very thin nose who inhabited a lay shop, Onglissie, a cellar, opening to the high street by a straight and steep stair at the bottom of which she sold tape, thread, needles, skeins of worsted coarse linen cloth and such feminine gear to those who had the courage and skill to descend to the profundity of her dwelling without falling headlong themselves or throwing down any of the numerous articles which piled on each side of the descent indicated the profession of the trader below. The written hand-bill which pasted on a projecting board announced that the Queensferry diligence or Hawesfly departed precisely at 12 o'clock on Tuesday, the 15th, July, 17. In order to secure for passengers the opportunity of passing the frith with the flood-tide lied on the present occasion like a bulletin. For although that hour was peeled from St. Giles' steeple and repeated by the tron, no coach appeared upon the appointed stand, it is true only two tickets had been taken out and possibly the lady of the subterranean mansion might have an understanding with her automadone, that in such cases a little space was to be allowed for the chance of filling up the vacant places or the said automadone might have been attending a funeral and be delayed by the necessity of stripping his vehicle of its lugubrious trappings or he might have stayed to take a half munchkin extraordinary with his crony, the hustler or in short he did not make his appearance. The young gentleman who began to grow somewhat impatient was now joined by a companion in this petty misery of human life, the person who had taken out the other place. He who has bent upon a journey is usually easily to be distinguished from his fellow citizens. The boots, the great coat, the umbrella, the little bundle in his hand, the hat pulled over his resolved brows, the determined importance of his pace, his brief answers to the salutations of lounging acquaintances are all marks by which the experienced traveler in male coach or diligence can distinguish at a distance the companion of his future journey as he pushes onward to the place of rendezvous. It is then that with worldly wisdom the first comer hastens to secure the best birth in the coach for himself and to make the most convenient arrangement for his baggage before the arrival of his competitors. Our youth who was gifted with little prudence of any sort and who was moreover by the absence of the coach deprived of the power of availing himself of his priority of choice amused himself instead by speculating upon the occupation and character of the personage who was now come to the coach office. He was a good looking man of the age of 60, perhaps older, but his hail complexion and firm step announced that years had not impaired his strength or health. His countenance was of the true Scottish cast strongly marked and rather harsh in features with a shrewd and penetrating eye and a countenance in which habitual gravity wasn't livened by a cast of ironical humor. His dress was uniform and of a color becoming his age and gravity. A wig, well-dressed and powdered, surmounted by a slouched hat had something of a professional air. He might be a clergyman, yet his appearance was more that of a man of the world than usually belongs to the Kirk of Scotland. And his first ejaculation put the matter beyond question. He arrived with a hurried pace and casting an alarm glance towards the dial plate of the church then looking at the place where the coach should have been exclaimed. Dale's in it, I'm too late after all. The young man relieved his anxiety by telling him the coach had not yet appeared. The old gentleman apparently conscious of his own want of punctuality did not at first feel courageous enough to censure that of the coachman. He took a parcel containing apparently a large folio from a little boy who followed him and patting him on the head and bid him go back and tell Mr. B that if he had known he was to have had so much time he would have put another word or two to their bargain, then told the boy to mind his business and he would be as thrive and alive as ever dusted a duodecima. The boy lingered perhaps in hopes of a penny to buy marbles, but none was forthcoming. Our senior leaned his little bundle upon one of the posts at the head of the staircase and facing the traveler who had first arrived, waited in silence for about five minutes, the arrival of the expected diligence. At length, after one or two impatient glances at the progress of the minute hand of the clock, having compared it with his own watch, a huge and antique gold repeater, and having twitched about his features to give due emphasis to one or two peevish shaws, he held the old lady of the cavern. Good woman! What the devil is her name? Mrs. McCluchard. Mrs. McCluchard, aware that she had a defensive part to sustain in the encounter which was to follow, was in no hurry to hasten the discussion by returning a ready answer. Mrs. McCluchard, good woman! With an elevated voice, then apart. Old doided hag, she says deaf as a post. I say, Mrs. McCluchard! I'm just serving a customer. Indeed, honey, it will no be a bolder cheaper than I tell ye. Woman, reiterated the traveller. Do you think we can stand her all day to have cheated that poor servant wench out of her half year's fee and bountiful? Cheated, retorted Mrs. McCluchard, eager to take up the quarrel upon a defensible ground. I scorn your words, sir. You are an uncivil person, and I desire you will not stand there to slander me at my iron stair-head. The woman, said the senior, looking with an orange glance at his destined travelling companion, does not understand the words of action. Woman, again turning to the vault. I reign not thy character, but I desire to know what has become of thy coach. What's your will? Answered Mrs. McCluchard, relapsing into deafness. We have taken places, ma'am, said the younger stranger, in your diligence for Queensferry, which should have been half way on the road before now. Continue the elder and more impatient traveller, rising and wrath, as he spoke. And now, in all likelihood, we shall miss the tide, and I have business of importance on the other side, and your accursed coach. The coach? Good guide us, gentlemen, is it no on the stand yet? Answered the old lady. Her shrill tone of expostulation, sinking into a kind of apologetic wine. Is it the coach, yet I've been waiting for? What else could have kept us boiling in the sun by the side of the gutter here? You, you faithless woman, eh? Mrs. McCluchard now ascended her trap-stare, for such it might be called, though constructed a stone, until her nose came upon a level with the pavement. Then after wiping her spectacles, to look for that which she well knew was not to be found, she exclaimed, with well-famed astonishment. Good guide us, so I area anybody the like of that? Yes, you abominable woman, the sifirated the traveller. Many have seen the like of it, and all will see the like of it, that of anything to do with your trolloping sex. Then pacing with great indignation before the door of the shop, still as he passed and repast, like a vessel, who gives her broadside as she comes abreast of a hostile fortress, he shot down complaints, threats, and reproaches on the embarrassed Mrs. McCluchard. He would take a post-chase, he would call a hackney-coach. He would take four horses, he must. He would be on the north side today, and all the expense of his journey besides damages, direct and consequential, arising from delay, should be accumulated on the devoted head of Mrs. McCluchard. There was something so comic in his petish resentment that the younger traveller, who is in no such pressing hurry to depart, could not help being amused with it, especially as it was obvious that every now and then the old gentleman, though very angry, could not help laughing at his own vehemence. But when Mrs. McCluchard began also to join in the laughter, he quickly put a stop to her ill-timed merriment. Woman, said he, is that advertisement thine? Showing a bit of crumpled printed paper, does it not set forth that God-willing, as you hypocritically express it, the Haws fly, or Queen's fairy diligence, would set forth today at twelve o'clock? And is it not, thou falsest of creatures, now a quarter past twelve, and no such fly are diligence to be seen? Does thou know the consequence of seducing the lieges by false reports? Does thou know it might be brought under the statute of leasing-making? Answer, and for once in thy long, useless and evil life, let it be in the words of truth and sincerity. Has thou such a coach? Is it in rarum natura? Or is this base enunciation a mere swindle of thee, incautious, to beguile them of their time, their patience, and three shillings of sterling money of this realm? Has, though I say, such a coach? I or no? Oh, dear, yes, sir, the neighbor's Ken, the diligence-wheel, green-picked, oat with red, three yellow wheels and a black-ine. Woman, thy special description will not serve, it may be only a lie with a circumstance. Oh, man, man, said the overwhelmed Mrs. McCluchard, totally exhausted, and having been so long, the butt of his rhetoric. Take back your three shillings, and make me quitty. Not so fast, not so fast, woman. Will three shillings transport me to Queensferry, a grubly, tele-treacherous program? Or will it requite the damage I may sustain by leaving my business undone? Or pay the expenses, which I must disperse if I am obliged to tarry a day at the Southferry for lack of tide? Will it hire, I say, a penance for which alone the regular price is five shillings? Here his argument was cut short by a lumbering noise, which proved to be the advance of the expected vehicle, pressing forward with all the dispatch to which the broken-winded jades that drew it could possibly be urged. With ineffable pleasure, Mrs. McCluchard saw her tormentor deposited in the leather convenience, but still, as it was driving off, his head thrust out of the window, reminded her, in words, drowned amid the rumbling of the wheels, that if the diligence did not attain the ferry in time to save the flood-tide, she, Mrs. McCluchard, should be held responsible for all the consequences that might ensue. The coach had continued in motion for a mile or two before the stranger had completely repossessed himself of his equanimity. As was manifested by the doleful ejaculations, which he made from time to time, on the two great probability or even certainty of their missing the flood-tide. By degrees, however, his wrath subsided. He wiped his brows, relaxed his frown, and, undoing the parcel in his hand, produced his folio, on which he gazed from time to time with the knowing look of an amateur, admiring its height and condition, and ascertaining by a minute and individual inspection of each leaf, that the volume was uninjured and entire from tidal page to colophon. His fellow traveler took the liberty of inquiring the subject of his studies. He lifted up his eyes with something of a sarcastic glance, as if he supposed the young queerist would not relish, or perhaps understand, his answer, and pronounced the work to be Sandy Gordon's Itinerarium Septemberinola, a book illustrative of the Roman remains in Scotland. The queerist, unappalled by this learned title, proceeded to put several questions, which indicated that he had made good use of a good education, and, although not possessed of minute information on the subject of antiquities, had yet acquaintance enough with the classics to render him an interested and intelligent auditor when they were enlarged upon. The elder traveler, observing with pleasure the capacity of his temporary companion to understand and answer him, plunged, nothing loathe, into a sea of discussion concerning urns, bosses, votive, altars, Roman camps, and the rules of castremitation. The pleasure of this discourse had such a dulcifying tendency that, although two causes of delay occurred, each of much more serious duration than that which had drawn down his wrath upon the unlucky Mrs. McClutcher, our antiquary only bestowed on the delay the honor of a few episodical poos and shaws, which rather seemed to regard the interruption of his disquisition than the retardation of his journey. The first of these stops was occasioned by the breaking of a spring, which half an hour's labor hardly repaired. To the second, the antiquary was himself accessory, if not the principal cause of it. For, observing that one of the horses had cast a four-foot chew, he apprised the coachman of this important deficiency. It's Jamie Martingale that furnishes the nags on contract and appalts them, answered John, and I'm not entitled to make any stop or to suffer prejudice by the like of these accidents. And when you go to, I mean, the place you deserve to go to, you scoundrel, who do you think will uphold you on contract? If you don't stop directly and carry the poor brute to the next smithy, I'll have you punished if there's a justice of peace in Midlothian. And opening the coach-door, out he jumped, while the coachman obeyed his orders, muttering that if the gentleman lost the tide now they could not say but it was their own fault since he was willing to get on. I like so little to analyze the complication of the causes which influence actions that I will not venture to ascertain whether our antiquary's humanity to the poor horse was on some degree aided by his desire of showing his companion a pix-camp or roundabout, a subject which he had been elaborately discussing, and of which a specimen, very curious and perfect indeed, happened to exist about a hundred yards distant from the spot where this interruption took place. But where I compelled to decompose the motives of my worthy friend, for such was the gentleman in the sober suit with powdered wig and slouched hat. I should say that although he certainly would not in any case have suffered the coachman to proceed while the horse was unfit for service, and likely to suffer by being urged forward, yet the man of whip-cord escaped some severe abuse and reproach by the agreeable mode which the chopper found out to pass the interval of delay. So much time was consumed by these interruptions of the journey that when they descended the hill above the haws, for so the inn on the southern side of the Queens Ferry is denominated. The experienced eye of the antiquary at once discerned from the extent of wet sand and the number of black stones and rocks covered with seaweed, which were visible along the skirts of the shore, that the hour of tide was past. The young traveler expected a burst of indignation, but whether, as Croker says in The Good Natured Man, our hero had exhausted himself in fretting away his misfortunes beforehand, so that he did not feel them when they actually arrived, or whether he found the company in which he was placed too congenial to lead him to repine at anything which delayed his journey. It is certain that he submitted to his lot with much resignation. The Devils and the Diligence and the Old Hag it belongs to. Diligence, Quoth I, thou shouldst have called it the sloth. Fly, Quoth she, why it moves like a fly through a glue-pot, as the Irishman says. But however, time untied tarry for no man, and so, my young friend, we'll have a snack here at the Hawes, which is a very decent sort of a place, and I'll be very happy to finish the account I was giving you of the difference between the mode of entrenching Castra Statiba and Castra Ice-Tiba. Things confounded by too many of our historians. Like a day, if they had taken the pains to satisfy their own eyes instead of following each other's blind guidance. Well, we shall be pretty comfortable at the Hawes, and besides, after all, we must have dined somewhere, and it will be pleasanter sailing with the tide of ebb and the evening breeze. In this Christian temper of making the best of all occurrences, our travelers alighted at the Hawes. Note B, Chapter First, Sandy Gordon's Itinerarium. This well-known work, The Itinerarium, Septentrionola, or A Journey Through Most of the Counties of Scotland and Those in the North of England, was published at London in 1727, Folio. The author states that in prosecuting his work, he made a pretty laborious progress through almost every part of Scotland for three years successively. Gordon was a native of Aberdeenshire and had previously spent some years in traveling abroad, probably as a tutor. He became secretary to the London Society of Antiquaries in 1736. This office he resigned in 1741, and soon after, went out to South Carolina with Governor Glenn, where he obtained a considerable grant of land. On his death about the year 1753, he is said to have left a handsome estate to his family. See Literary Anecdotes of Boyer by John Nichols, volume five, page 329, et cetera. End note, end chapter the first. Volume one, chapter second, of the antiquary. This Libra Box recording is in the public domain. The antiquary by Sir Walter Scott, chapter second. Sir, they do scandal me upon the road here. A poor quotidian rack of mutton roasted, dry to be grated, and that driven down with beer and buttermilk mingled together. It is against my freehold, my inheritance. Wine is the word that glads the heart of man and mines the house of wine. Sack, says my bush, be merry and drink sherry. That's my posy. Ben Johnson's new inn. As the senior traveler descended the crazy steps of the diligence at the inn, he was greeted by the fat, gaudy, Percy landlord, with the mixture of familiarity and respect, which the Scotch innkeepers of the old school used to assume towards their more valued customers. Have a care of us, Monk Barnes. Distinguishing him by his territorial epithet, always most agreeable to the ear of a Scottish proprietor. Is this you? A little thought to have seen your honor here until the summer session was over. He had done it all devil, answered his guest. His Scottish accent, predominating, went in anger, though otherwise not particularly remarkable. He had done it all to crippled idiot. What have I to do with this season, or the geese that flocked to it, or the hawks that pick their opinions for them? Truth, and that's true, said mine host, who in fact only spoke upon a very general recollection of the stranger's original education, yet would have been sorry not to have been supposed accurate as to the station and profession of him, or any other occasional guest. That's very true, but I thought you had some lawfare of your own to look after. I find myself a gang employee that my father left me and his father of four left to him. It's about our backyard. You may be a herd of it in the Parliament House, Hutchison against Maxchison. It's a real keen plea. It's been four times in the four of the 15, and they'll only think the wisest of them could make out, but just to send it out again to the outer house. Oh, it's a beautiful thing to see how lying and how carefully justice is considered in this country. Hold your tongue, you fool, said the traveller, but in great good humour. And tell us what you can give this young gentleman and me for dinner. Boy, there's fish night out, that sea trout and collar hudducks, said my kitchens and twisting this napkin. And you'll be for mutton chop and there's cranberry tarts, very well preserved, and there's just anything else you like, which is to say there's nothing else, whatever. Well, well, the fish and the chop and the tarts will do very well, but don't imitate the cautious delay that you praise in the courts of justice. Let there be no remits from the inner to the outer house. Hear ye me? Nigh, nigh, said McKitchenson, whose long and heedful prusel of volumes of printed session papers had made him acquainted with some law phrases. The dinner shall be served quim primum and that peremptori. And with the flattering laugh of a promising host, he left them in his sanded parlor, hung with Prince of the Four Seasons. As notwithstanding his pledge to the contrary, the glorious delays of the law were not without their parallel in the kitchen of the inn. Our younger traveller had an opportunity to step out and make some inquiry of the people of the house concerning the rank and station of his companion. The information which he received was of a general and less authentic nature, but quite sufficient to make him acquainted with the name, history and circumstances of the gentleman, whom we shall endeavor, in a few words, to introduce more accurately to our readers. Jonathan Oldenbuck, or Oldenbuck, by a popular contraction, Oldbuck, of Monk Barnes, was the second son of a gentleman possessed of a small property in the neighborhood of a thriving sea port town on the northeastern coast of Scotland, which for various reasons we shall denominate Fairport. They had been established for several generations as landholders in the county, and in most shires of England, would have been accounted a family of some standing, but the shire of was filled with gentlemen of more ancient descent and larger fortune. In the last generation also, the neighboring gentry had been almost uniformly Jacobites, while the proprietors of Monk Barnes, like the burgers of the town near which they settled, were steady asserters of the Protestant succession. The latter had, however, a pedigree of their own, on which they prided themselves, as much as those who despise them valued their respective Saxon, Norman, or Celtic genealogies. The first Oldenbuck, who had settled in their family mansion shortly after the Reformation, was they asserted, descended from one of the original Printers of Germany, and had left his country in consequence of the persecutions directed against the professors of the Reformed religion. He had found a refuge in the town near which his posterity dwelt, the more readily that he was a sufferer in the Protestant cause, and certainly not the less so, that he brought with him money enough to purchase the smallest state of Monk Barnes, then sold by a dissipated lad to whose father had been gifted, with other church lands, on the dissolution of the great and wealthy monastery to which it had belonged. The Oldenbucks were therefore, loyal subjects on all occasions of insurrection, and as they kept up a good intelligence with the borough, a chance that the Laird of Monk Barnes, who flourished in 1745, was provost of the town during that ill-fated year, and had exerted himself with much spirit in favor of King George, and even been put to expenses on that score, which, according to the liberal conduct of the existing government towards their friends, had never been repaid him. By dint of solicitation, however, and borough interest, he contrived to gain a place in the customs, and, being a frugal, careful man, had found himself unable to add considerably to his paternal fortune. He had only two sons, of whom, as we have hinted, the present Laird was the younger, and two daughters, one of whom still flourished in single blessedness, and the other, who was greatly more juvenile, made a love match with a captain in the Forty-Twa, who had no other fortune but his commission and a Highland pedigree. Poverty disturbed a union, which love would otherwise have made happy, and Captain Mentire, in justice to his wife and two children, a boy and girl, had found himself obliged to seek his fortune in the East Indies. Being ordered upon an expedition against Hyderhally, the detachment to which he belonged was cut off, and no news ever reached his unfortunate wife, whether he fell in battle or was murdered in prison, or survived in what the habits of the Indian tyrant rendered a hopeless captivity. She sunk under the accumulated load of grief and uncertainty, and left a son and daughter to the charge of her brother, the existing Laird of Monk Barnes. The history of that proprietor himself is soon told, being, as we have said, a second son, his father destined him to share in a substantial, mercantile concern carried on by some of his maternal relations. From this, Jonathan's mind revolted in the most irreconcilable manner. He was then put apprentice to the profession of a writer, or attorney, in which he profited so far, that he made himself master of the whole forms of feudal investitures, and showed such pleasure in reconciling their incongruities and tracing their origin. That his master had great hope he would one day be an able conveyancer. But he halted upon the threshold, and though he acquired some knowledge of the origin and system of the law of his country, he could never be persuaded to apply it to lucrative and practical purposes. It was not for many inconsiderate neglect of the advantages attending the possession of money that he thus deceived the hopes of his master. Were he thoughtless, or lightheaded, or ray-e-su-y prodigous, said his instructor, I would know what to make of him. But he never pays away a shilling without looking anxiously after the change, makes his six spends go farther than another lad's half-crown, and will ponder over an old black-letter copy of the Acts of Parliament four days, rather than go to the gall for the change-house. And yet he will not bestow one of these days on a little business of routine that would put 20 shillings in his pocket. A strange mixture of frugality and industry and negligent indolence, I don't know what to make of him. But in process of time his pupil gained the means of making what he pleased of himself. For his father, having died, was not long survived by his eldest son, an errant fisher and thowler, who departed this life, in consequence of a cold caught in his vocation, while shooting ducks in the swamp called Kittle Finning Moss, notwithstanding his having drunk a bottle of brandy that very night to keep the cold out of his stomach. Jonathan, therefore, succeeded to the estate and with it to the means of subsisting without the hated drudgery of the law. His wishes were very moderate, and as the rent of his small property rose with the improvement of the country, it soon greatly exceeded his wants and expenditure. And though too indolent to make money, he was by no means insensible to the pleasure of beholding it accumulate. The burgers of the town, near which he lived, regarded him with a sort of envy, as one who affected to divide himself from their rank in society, and whose studies and pleasures seemed to them alike incomprehensible. Still, however, a sort of hereditary respect for the lair of Monk Barnes, augmented by the knowledge of his being a ready money man, kept up his consequence with the class of his neighbors. The country gentlemen were gently above him in fortune and beneath him in intellect, and, accepting one with whom he lived in habits of intimacy, had little intercourse with Mr. Oldbuck of Monk Barnes. He had, however, the usual resources, the company of the clergyman and of the doctor when he chose to request it, and also his own pursuits and pleasures, being in correspondence with most of the virtuosi of his time, who, like himself, measured decayed entrenchments, made plans of ruined castles, read illegible inscriptions, and wrote essays on medals in the proportion of 12 pages to each letter of the legend. Some habits of hasty rotation he had contracted, partly, it was said in the borough of Fairport, from an early disappointment in love, in virtue of which he had commenced misogynist, as he called it, but yet more by the obsequious attention paid to him by his maiden sister and his orphanese, whom he had trained to consider him as the greatest man upon earth, and whom he used to boast of as the only woman he had ever seen, who were well broken and bided to obedience. Though it must be owned, Miss Grizi Oldbuck was somewhat apt to jib when he pulled the reins too tight. The rest of his character must be gathered from the story, and we dismiss with pleasure the tiresome task of recapitulation. During the time of dinner, Mr. Oldbuck, actuated by the same curiosity which his fellow traveler had entertained on his account, made some advances, which his age and station entitled him to do in a more direct manner. Towards ascertaining the name, destination, and quality of his young companion, his name, the young gentleman said, was Lovell. What? The cat, the rat, and Lovell, our dog. Was he descended from King Richard's favorite? He had no pretensions, he said, to call himself a whelp of that litter. His father was a north of England gentleman. He was at present traveling to Fairport, the town near to which Monk Barnes was situated, and if he found the place agreeable, might perhaps remain there for some weeks. Was Mr. Lovell's excursion solely for pleasure? Not entirely. Perhaps on business with some of the commercial people of Fairport. It was partly on business, but had no reference to commerce. Here he paused, and Mr. Oldbuck, having pushed his inquiries as far as good manners permitted, was obliged to change the conversation. The antiquary, though by no means an enemy to good cheer, was a determined foe to all unnecessary expense on a journey, and upon his companion giving a hint concerning a bottle of port wine, he drew a direful picture of the mixture, which he said was usually sold under that denomination, and affirming that a little punch was more genuine and better suited for the season. He laid his hand upon the bell to order the materials. But McKichinson, had in his own mind, settled their beverage otherwise, and appeared bearing in his hand an immense double-court bottle, or magnum, as it is called in Scotland, covered with sawdust and cobwebs, the warrants of its antiquity. Punch, said he, catching the generous sound as he entered the parlor. The day of the drop punched you, see and get here the day of Monk Barnes, and that you may lay your account with. What do you mean, you impolite rascal? Aye, aye, it's no matter for that, but do you mind the trick you served me the last time you were here? Aye, trick you? Aye, just yourself, Monk Barnes, the lair of Tom Lottery, and Sir Gilbert Russelcuch, I know you'd Rosbola and the Byly, were just setting in to make an afternoon hunt, and you, and you were some of your eyed-word stories that the mind-man cannot resist, whirled him to the back of the aunt to look at the eyed-woman camp. Aye, sir, turning the level. He would wallow the bird off the tree with the tazzy-taz about folk lang-zine, and did not I lose the drinkin' as I expanse a good claret, for the dailin wanted stirred, till he had seen that out at the least. Do you hear the impudence counter-roll, said Monk Barnes, but laughing at the same time, for the worthy landlord, as he used to boast, know the measure of a guest's foot, as well as air a-souter on this side, Solway. Well, well, you may send us in a bottle of port. Port, nigh, nigh, you might leave port and punch, so like us, it's claret that's fits for you lads, and, I daresay, nigh to the folk you speak so much o'er, ever drank either of the twa. Do you hear how absolute the nave is? Well, my young friend, we must for once prefer the Valerian to the Willa Sabanum. The ready landlord had the cork instantly extracted, decanted the wine into a vessel of suitable capaciousness, and, declaring it, parfumed, the very room, left his guest to make the most of it. McKitchenson's wine was really good, and had its effect upon the spirits of the elder guest, who told some good stories, cut some sly jokes, and, at length, entered into a learned discussion concerning the ancient dramatis, a ground in which he found his new acquaintance so strong, that, at length, he began to suspect he had made them his professional study. A traveler partly for business and partly for pleasure. Why, the stage part takes of both. It is a laborer to the performers, and affords, or is meant to afford pleasure to the spectators. He seems, in manor and rank, above the class of young men who take that turn, but I remember hearing them say that the little theater at Fairport was to open with the performance of a young gentleman, being his first appearance on any stage. If this should be the level, level? Yes, level or bevel, are just the names which youngsters are apt to assume on such occasions. On my life, I am sorry for the lad. Mr. Oldbuck was habitually parsimonious, but in no respects mean. His first thought was to save his fellow traveler, any part of the expense of the entertainment, which he supposed must be in his situation more or less inconvenient. He therefore took an opportunity of settling privately with Mr. McKitchenson. The young traveler, remonstrated against his liberality and only acquiesced in deference to his years and respectability. The mutual satisfaction, which they found in each other's society, induced Mr. Oldbuck to propose and level willingly to accept a scheme for traveling together to the end of their journey. Mr. Oldbuck intimated a wish to pay two thirds of the hire of a post-chase, saying that a proportional quantity of room was necessary to his accommodation. But this Mr. Lovell resolutely declined. Their expense then was mutual, unless one level occasionally slipped a shillin' into the hand of the growling postillion. For Oldbuck, tenacious of ancient customs, never extended his gwarden beyond 18 pence a stage. In this manner they traveled until they arrived at Fairport about two o'clock on the following day. Readers note, the Fairport of this novel is supposed to refer to the town of Arbroath in Forfisher and Mussel Crag post to the fishing village of Occamithy in the same county. End Readers note. Lovell probably expected that his traveling companion would have invited him to dinner on his arrival, but his consciousness of a want of ready preparation for unexpected guests, and perhaps some other reasons, prevented Oldbuck from paying him that attention. He only begged to see him as early as he could make it convenient to call in a forenoon, recommended him to a widow who had apartments to let and to a person who kept a decent ordinary. Cautioning both of them apart, that he only knew Mr. Lovell as a pleasant companion in a post-chase, and did not mean to guarantee any bills which he might contract while residing at Fairport. The young gentleman's figure in manners, not to mention a well furnished trunk, which soon arrived by sea, to his address at Fairport, probably went as far in his favor as the limited recommendation of his fellow traveler. End Chapter Second.