 Volume 1 Chapter 3 He had a roof, the old knick-knackets, Rusty-arned cups, and jinglin jackets, would held the Loudon's three intactets, a tommon goode, and parched pots and old sight-backets afford the food—burns. After he had settled himself in his new apartments at Fairport, Mr. Lovell bethought him of pain the requested visit to his fellow-traveller. He did not make it earlier, because with all the old gentleman's good humor and information, there had sometimes glanced forth in his language and manner towards him an air of superiority, which his companion considered as being fully beyond what the difference of age warranted. He therefore waited the arrival of his baggage from Edinburgh, that he might arrange his dress according to the fashion of the day, and make his exterior corresponding to the rank in society which he supposed or felt himself entitled to hold. It was the fifth day, after his arrival, that having made the necessary inquiries concerning the road, he went forth to pay his respects at Monk Barnes, a footpath leading over a heathy hill, and through two or three meadows, conducted him to this mansion, which stood on the opposite side of the hill of Forsed, and commanded a fine prospect of the bay in shipping. Secluded from the town by the rising ground, which also screened it from the northwest wind, the house had a solitary and sheltered appearance. The exterior had little to recommend it. It was in a regular, old-fashioned building, some part of which had belonged to a grange or solitary farmhouse, inhabited by the bailiff or steward of the monastery, when the place was in possession of the monks. It was here that the community stored up the grain, which they received as ground rent from their vassals, for with the prudence belonging to their order, all their conventional revenues were made payable and kind, and hence, as the present proprietor loved to tell, came the name of Monk Barnes. To the remains of the bailiff's house, the succeeding lay inhabitants had made various additions in proportion to the accommodation required by their families. And as this was done with an equal contempt of convenience within and architectural regularity without, the whole bore the appearance of a hamlet which had suddenly stood still, when in the active, leaning down one of anthions or orfises, country dances. It was surrounded by tall, clipped hedges of ewe and holly, some of which still exhibited a skill of the topiarian artist, and presented curious armchairs, towers, and the figures of St. George and the dragon. Ars topiaria, the art of clipping ewe hedges into fantastic figures, a Latin poem entitled Ars topiaria, contains a curious account of the process. And readers note, the taste of Mr. Oldbuck did not disturb these monuments of an art, now unknown, and he was the less tempted so to do, as it must necessarily have broken the heart of the old gardener. When tall and bowing holly was, however, sacred from the shears, and on a garden seat beneath its shade, Lovell beheld his old friend with spectacles on nose and pouch on side, visibly employed in perusing the London Chronicle, sued by the summer breeze through the rustling leaves and the distant dash of the waves as they rippled upon the sand. Mr. Oldbuck immediately rose and advanced to greet his traveling acquaintance with a hearty shake of the hand. By my faith, said he, I began to think you had changed your mind, and found the stupid people of Fairport so tiresome, that you judged them unworthy of your talents, and had taken French leave, as my old friend and brother Antiquary Macrib did, when he went off with one of my Syrian medals. I hope, my good sir, I should have fallen under no such imputation. Quite as bad, let me tell you, if you had stolen yourself away without giving me the pleasure of seeing you again. I'd rather you had taken my copper Otho himself. But come, let me show you the way into my sanctum sanctorum, my sal, I may call it, for except two idle hussies of womankind, by this contentious phrase, borrowed from his brother Antiquary, the cynic Anthony Owood, Mr. Oldbuck was used to denote the fair sex in general, and his sister Anise, in particular, that on some idle pretext of relationship have established themselves in my premises, I live here as much as Senebite as my predecessor, John the Colonel, whose grave I will show you by and by. Thus speaking, the old gentleman led the way through a low door, but before entrance suddenly stopped short to point out some vestiges of what he called an inscription, and shaking his head as he pronounced it, totally illegible. Ah, if you bet new, Mr. Lovell, the time in trouble that these moldering traces of letters have cost me. No mother ever travailed so for a child, in all to no purpose. Though I am almost positive that these two last marks imply the figures or letters, L-O-V, and may give us a good guess at the real date of the building, since we know, Alayunda, that it was founded by Abbot Waldemir about the middle of the fourteenth century, and I profess I think that center ornament might be made out by better eyes than mine. I think, answered Lovell, willing to humor the old man, it has something, the appearance of a miter. I protest, you are right, you are right, it never struck me before. See what it is to have younger eyes, a miter, a miter, it corresponds in every respect. The resemblance was not much nearer than that of Polonis's cloud to a whale, or an ozzle. It was sufficient, however, to set the antiquary's brains to work. A miter, my dear sir, continued he, as he led the way through a labyrinth of inconvenient and dark passages, and accompanied his disquisition with certain necessary cautions to his guest. A miter, my dear sir, will suit our Abbot as well as a bishop. He was a mitered Abbot, and at the very top of the roll. To take care of these three steps, I know McCrib denies this, but it is as certain as that he took away my Antigonus, no lie vast. You'll see the name of the Abbot of Trotocosy, Abbas Trotocosyensis, at the head of the rolls of parliament in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. There is very little light here, and these cursed womankind always leave their tubs in the passage. Now take care of the corner. Ascend twelve steps, and ye are safe. Mr. Old Buck, had by this time attained the top of the winding stair, which led to his own apartment, and opened in a door and pushing aside a piece of tapestry with which it was covered. His first exclamation was, What are you about here, you sluts? A dirty barefooted chambermaid threw down a duster, detected in the heinous fact of arranging the sanctum sanctorum, and flew out of an opposite door from the face of her incense master. A genteel-looking young woman, who was superintending the operation, stood her ground, but with some timidity. Indeed, uncle, your room was not fit to be seen, and I just came to see that Jenny laid everything down where she took it up. And how dare you, or Jenny either, presume to meddle with my private matters? Mr. Old Buck hated putting to rights as much as Dr. Orkborn, or any other professed student. Go, sow your sampler, you monkey, and do not let me find you here again, as you value your ears. I assure you, Mr. Lovell, that the last in-road of these pretended friends to cleanliness was almost as fatal to my collections as Huda Bross's visit to that of Sidrofil. And I have ever since missed. My copper plate, with almanacs engraved upon it, and other knacks, my moondyle, with Napier's bones, and several constellation stones, my flea, my morpian, and punis, I purchased for my proper ease, and so forth as Old Butler has it. The young lady, after curtsying to Lovell, had taken the opportunity to make her escape during this enumeration of losses. You will be poisoned here with the volumes of dust they have raised," continued the antiquary. But I assure you the dust was very ancient, peaceful, quiet dust about an hour ago, and would have remained so for a hundred years, and not these gypsies disturbed it, as they do everything else in the world. It was indeed some time before Lovell could, through the thick atmosphere, perceive in what sort of den his friend had constructed his retreat. It was a lofty room of middling size, obscurely lighted by high, narrow, lattice windows. One end was entirely occupied by bookshelves, greatly too limited in space for the number of volumes placed upon them, which were, therefore, drawn up in ranks of two or three files deep, while numberless others littered the floor and the tables. Amid a chaos of maps, engravings, scraps of parchment, bundles of papers, pieces of old armor, swords, dirks, helmets, and highland targets. Behind Mr. Old Buck's seat, which was an ancient, leather-covered easy chair, worn smooth by constant use, was a huge open cabinet decorated at each corner with Dutch cherubs, having their little duck wings displayed and greater jolter-headed visages placed between them. The top of this cabinet was covered with busts and Roman lamps and fatiri, intermingled with one or two bronze figures. The walls of the apartment were partly clothed with grim old tapestry, representing the memorable story of Sir Gawain's wedding in which full justice was done to the ugliness of the lowly lady. Although to judge from his own looks, the gentle knight had less reason to be disgusted with the match on account of disparity of outward favour, then the romancer has given us to understand. The rest of the room was pandled, or wainscotted, with black oak, against which hung two or three portraits in armor, being characters in Scottish history, favourites of Mr. Old Buck, and as many in tie-wigs and laced coats, staring representatives of his own ancestors. A large old-fashioned oaken table was covered with a perfusion of papers, parchment's books, and nondescript trinkets and gougas, which seemed to have little to recommend them, besides rust and the antiquity which it indicates. In the midst of this rack of ancient books and utensils, with a gravity equal to Marius among the ruins of Carthage, said a large black cat, which, to a superstitious eye, might have presented the genious loci, the tutelure demon of the apartment. The floor, as well as the table and chairs, was overflowed by the same mara magnum of miscellaneous trumpery, where it would have been as impossible to find any individual article wanted as to put it to any use when discovered. Amid this medley it was no easy matter to find one's way to a chair, without stumbling over a prostrate folio, or the still more awkward mischance of overturning some piece of Roman or ancient British pottery. And when the chair was attained, it had to be disencumbered with a careful hand of engravings which might have received damage, and of antique spurs and buckles, which would certainly have occasioned it to any sudden occupant. Amid this the antiquary maid-level particularly aware, adding that his friend, the Reverend Dr. Heveestern from the Low Countries, had sustained much injury by sitting down suddenly, and unconsciously on three ancient call-throats, or crottes, which had been lately dug up in the bog near Bannockburn, and which dispersed by Robert Bruce to lacerate the feet of the English Chargers, came thus in process of time to endamage the sitting part of a learned professor of Utrecht, having at length fairly settled himself and being nothing low to make inquiry concerning the strange objects around him, which his host was equally ready, as far as possible, to explain. Level was introduced to a large club, or a bludgeon, with an iron spike at the end of it, which, it seems, had been lately found in a field on the Monk Barn's property, adjacent to an old bearing-ground. It had mildly the air of such a stick as the High Island Reapers used to walk with, on their annual peregrinations from their mountains. But Mr. Old Buck was strongly tempted to believe that, as its shape was singular, it might have been one of the clubs with which the monks armed their peasants in lieu of more marshal weapons. Once he observed, the villains were called Cove-Carls, or Cove-Curls, that is, clavigiri, or club-bearers. For the truth of this custom, he quoted the chronicle of Antwerp and that of St. Martin, against which authorities level had nothing to oppose, having never heard of them till that moment. Mr. Old Buck next exhibited thumb-screws, which had given the covenanters of former days the cramp in their joints, and a caller with the name of a fellow convicted of theft, whose surfaces, as the inscription bore, had been a judge to a neighbouring baron in lieu of the modern Scottish punishment, which, as Old Buck said, sent such culprits to enrich England by their labour and themselves by their dexterity. Many and various were the other curiosities which he showed, but it was chiefly upon his books that he prided himself, repeating, with a complacenair, as he led the way to the crowded and dusty shelves, the verses of Old Chaucer. For he would rather have, at his bed-head, a twenty books clothed in black or red, a veristodal or his philosophy, than robes rich, rubic, or sultry. This pithy motto he delivered, shaking his head, and giving each guttural the true Anglo-Saxon annunciation, which is now forgotten in the southern parts of this realm. The collection was indeed a curious one, and might well be envied by an amateur. It was not collected at the enormous prices of modern times, which are sufficient to have appalled the most determined, as well as earliest, bibliomaniac upon record, whom we take to have been none else than the renowned Don Quixote de la Mancha. As among other slight indications of an infirm understanding, he is stated by his voracious historian, Sid Hammett Beningelli, to have exchanged fields and farms for folios and quartos of chivalry. In this species of exploit, the good night-errant had been imitated by lords, knights and squires of our own day, though we have not yet heard of any that is mistaken and in for a castle, or laid his lance in rest against a windmill. Mr. Oldbuck did not follow these collectors in such excess of expenditure, but taking a pleasure in the personal labor of forming his library, saved his purse at the expense of his time in toil. He was no encourager of that ingenious race of peripatetic middlemen, who, trafficking between the obscure keeper of a stall and the eager amateur, make their profident ones of the ignorance of the former, and the dear-bought skill and taste of the latter. When such were mentioned in his hearing, he seldom failed to point out how necessary it was to arrest the object of your curiosity in its first transit, and to tell his favorite story of Snuffy Davy and Caxton's Game at Chess. Davy Wilson, he said, commonly called Snuffy Davy, from his inveterate addiction to black wrappy, was the very prince of scouts for searching blind alleys, cellars and stalls for rare volumes. He had the scent of a slow houncer and the snap of a bulldog. He would detect you, an old black-letter ballad, among the leaves of a law paper, and find in adeptio-princepts under the mask of a school, Cordarius. Snuffy Davy bought the Game of Chess, fourteen seventy-four, the first book ever printed in England, from a stall in Holland, for about two grossion, or two pens of our money. He sold it to Osborne for twenty pounds, and as many books as came to twenty pounds more. Osborne resold this inimitable windfall to Dr. Askew for sixty guineas. At Dr. Askew's sale continued the old gentleman, kindling as he spoke. This inescapable treasure blazed forth in its full value, and was purchased by royalty itself for one hundred and seventy pounds. Could a copy now occur? Lord only knows. He ejaculated, with a deep sigh, and lifted up his hands. Lord only knows what would be its ransom, and yet it was originally secured by skill and research for the easy equivalent of two-pent sterling. Readers note, this bibliomaniacal anecdote is literally true, and David Wilson, the author need not tell his brethren, of the Roxbury and Bannentine clubs, was a real personage. Happy, thrice-happy Snuffy Davey, and blessed were the times when thy industry could be so rewarded. Even I, sir, he went on, though far inferior in industry and discernment and presence of mind, to that great man, can show you a few, a very few things, which I have collected, not by force of money, as any wealthy man might. Although, as my friend Lucien says, my right chance to throw away his coin, only to illustrate his ignorance, but gained in a manner that shows I know something of the matter. See this bundle of ballads, not one of them, later than seventeen hundred, and some of them a hundred years older. I weedled an old woman out of these, who loved them better than her psalm book. Tobacco, sir, Snuff, and the complete siren, were the equivalent. For that mutilated copy of the Complain of Scotland, I set out the drinking of two dozen bottles of strong ale, with the late-thurned proprietor, who, in gratitude, bequeathed it to me by his last will. These little Elseviers are the memoranda and trophies of many a walk by night and morning through the cow gate, the cannon gate, the bow, St. Mary's Wind. Wherever and far in, there were to be fallen brokers and trokers, those miscellaneous dealers and things rare and curious. How often have I stood haggling on a halfpenny, lest by a too ready acquiescence in the dealer's first price, he should be led to suspect the value I set upon the article? How have I trembled, lest some passing stranger should chop in between me and the prize, and regarded each poor student of divinity that stopped to turn over the books at the stall as a rival amateur, or prowling bookseller in disguise? And then, Mr. Lovell, the sly satisfaction with which one pays the consideration and pockets the article, affecting a cold indifference, while the hand is trembling with pleasure, then to dazzle the eyes of our wealthier and emulous rivals, by showing them such treasure as this, displaying a little black smoked book about the size of a primer. To enjoy their surprise and envy, shrouding meanwhile, under a veil of mysterious consciousness, our own superior knowledge and dexterity, these, my young friend, these are the white moments of life that repay the toil and pains and sedulous attention which our profession above all others so peculiarly demands. Lovell was not a little amused at hearing the old gentleman run on in this manner, and, however incapable of entering into the full merits of what he beheld, he admired as much as could have been expected the various treasures which Old Buck exhibited. Here were additions esteemed as being the first, and there stood those scarcely less regarded as being the last and best. Here was a book valued because it had the author's final improvements, and there another which, strange to tell, was in request because it had them not. One was precious because it was a folio, another because it was a duodesimo. Some because they were tall, some because they were short. The merit of this lay in the title page of that and the arrangement of the letters in the word finis. There was, it seemed, no peculiar distinction, however trifling or minute, which might not give value to a volume, providing the indispensable quality of scarcity or rare occurrence was attached to it. Not the least fascinating was the original broadside, the dying speech, the bloody murder or wonderful wonder of wonders in its primary tattered guise as it was hawked through the streets and sold for the cheap and easy price of one penny, though now worth the weight of that penny in gold. On these the antiquary dilated with transport and read with a rapture's voice, the elaborate titles, which bore the same proportion to the contents that the painted signs without a showman's booth due to the animals within. Mr. Oldbuck, for example, peaked himself especially in possessing a unique broadside entitled and called Strange and Wonderful News from Chippeen, Norton, the County of Oxen, a certain dreadful apparitions which were seen in the air on the 26th of July, 1610, at half an hour after nine o'clock at noon and continued till eleven, in which time was seen appearances of several flaming swords, strange motions of the superior orbs, with the unusual sparkling of the stars, with their dreadful continuations, with the account of the opening of the heavens and strange appearances therein disclosing themselves, with several other prodigious circumstances not heard of in any age, in the great amazement of the beholders, as it was communicated in a letter to one Mr. Coley, living in West Smithfield, and attested by Thomas Brown, Elizabeth Greenaway, and Anne Guthridge, who were spectators of the dreadful apparitions, and, if any one would be further satisfied at the truth of this relation, let them repair to Mr. Nightingale's at the Baron in West Smithfield, and they may be satisfied. Reader's Note Of this thrice and four times rare broadsign, the author possesses an exemplar. End Reader's Note You laugh at this, said the proprietor of the collection, and I forgive you, I do acknowledge that the charms on which we don't are not so obvious to the eyes of youth as those of a fair lady, but you will grow wiser and see more justly when you come to wear spectacles. Yet, stay, I have one piece of antiquity which you perhaps will prize more highly. So, saying Mr. O'Buck unlocked a drawer and took out a bundle of keys, then pulled aside a piece of the tapestry, which concealed the door of a small closet, into which he descended by four stone steps, and, after some tinkling among bottles and cans, produced two long-stocked wine-glasses with bell-mouths, such as are seen in tenures' pieces, and a small bottle of what he called rich, racy canary, with a little bit of diet cake, on a small silver-server of exquisite old workmanship. I will say nothing of the server, he remarked, though it is said to have been wrought by the old mad Florentine Benvenuto Cedini. But, Mr. Lovell, our ancestor is drank sack, you who admire the drama know where that's to be found. Here's success to your exertions at Fairport, sir. And to you, sir, and an ample increase to your treasure, with no more trouble on your part, then it's just necessary to make the acquisitions valuable. After a libation so suitable to the amusement in which they had been engaged, Lovell rose to take his leave, and Mr. O'Buck prepared to give him his company a part of the way, and show him something worthy of his curiosity on his return to Fairport. End Chapter 3 Volume 1, Chapter 4, of the Antiquary This Leerovox recording is in the public domain. The Antiquary by Sir Walter Scott. Chapter 4 The pocky old Carly came o'er the weed, with money, good irons, and good morrows to me, saying, kind sir, for your courtesy, will you ludge a silly poor man. The Gavralenzi man. Our two friends moved through a little orchard where the aged apple trees, well loaded with fruit, showed, as is usual in the neighbourhood of monastic buildings, that the days of the monks had not always been spent in indolence, but often dedicated to horticulture and gardening. Mr. O'Buck failed not to make a Lovell remark that the planters of those days were possessed of the modern secret of preventing the roots of the fruit trees from penetrating the till, and compelling them to spread in a lateral direction by placing paving stones beneath the trees, wind-first planted, so as to interpose between their fibres and the subsoil. This old fellow, he said, which was blown down last summer, and still, though half reclined on the ground, is covered with fruit, has been, as you may see, accommodated with such a barrier between his roots and the unkindly till. That other tree has a story. The fruit is called the Abbot's Apple. The lady of a neighbouring baron was so fond of it that she would often pay a visit to Monk Barnes for the pleasure of gathering it from the tree. The husband, a jealous man-belike, suspected that a taste so nearly resembling that of Mother Eve prognosticated a similar fall. As the honour of a noble family is concerned, I will say no more on the subject, only that the lands of Lockard and Crinklecut still pay a fine of six bowls of barley annually to atone the guilt of their audacious owner, who intruded himself and his worldly suspicions of the Abbot and his penitent. I admire the little belfry rising above the ivy-mantled porch. There was here a hospidium, hospetala, or hospitamentum, for it is written in all these various ways in the old writings and evidence, in which the monks received pilgrims. I know our minister has said, in the statistical account, that the hospidium was situated either in the lands of Haltweery or upon those of Half-Starved. But he's incorrect, Mr. Level. That is the gate called still the Palmer's Port, and my gardener found many hewn stones when he was trenching the ground for winter celery, some of which I have sent to specimens to my wounded friends and to the various antiquarian societies of which I am an unworthy member. But I will say no more at present. I reserve something for another visit, and we have an object of real curiosity before us. While he was thus speaking, he led the way briskly through one or two rich pasture meadows to an open heath or common, and so to the top of a gentle eminence. Here, he said, Mr. Level is a truly remarkable spot. It commands a fine view, said his companion, looking around him. True, but it is not for the prospect I brought you hither. Do you see nothing else remarkable, nothing on the surface of the ground? Why, yes, I do see something like a ditch, indistinctly marked. Indistinctly, pardon me, sir, but the indistinctness must be in your powers of vision. Nothing can be more plainly traced, a proper agor or a volume, with its corresponding ditch or a fossa. Indistinctly, why, Heaven help you, the lassie, my niece, as light-headed a goose's woman kind of forts, saw the traces of the ditch at once. Indistinctly, why, the great station at Arduk, or that at Brunswark and Annandale, may be clear doubtless, because there are state of forts, whereas this was only an occasional encampment. Indistinctly, why, you must suppose that fools, boars, and idiots, have plowed at the land and, like beasts and ignorant savages, have thereby obliterated two sides of the square and greatly injured the third. But you see yourself the fourth side is quite entire. Lovell endeavored to apologize and to explain away his ill-timed phrase and pleaded his inexperience, but he was not at once quite successful. His first expression had come too frankly and naturally not to alarm the antiquary, and he could not easily get over the shock it had given him. Why, dear sir, continue the senior, your eyes are not inexperienced. You know a ditch from Lovell Ground, I presume, when you see them. Indistinctly, why, the very common people, the very least boy that can herd a cow, calls it the came of kin prunes, and if that does not imply an ancient camp, I am ignorant, what does? Lovell having again acquiesced and at length lulled to sleep the irritated and suspicious vanity of the antiquary. He proceeded in his task of Ciccerone. You must know, he said, our Scottish antiquaries have been greatly divided about the local situation of the final conflict between Agricola and the Caledonians. Some contend for Arduk in Strat-Holland, some for Enner-Peferee, some for the Rydikes in the Moons, and some for carrying the scene of action as far north as Blair in Atoll. Now, after all of this discussion, continue the old gentleman with one of his slyest and most complacent looks. What would you think, Mr. Lovell? I say what would you think if the memorable scene of conflict should happen to be on the very spot called the came of kin prunes, the property of the obscure and humble individual who now speaks to you? Then, having paused a little to suffer his guest to digest a communication so important, he resumed his disquisition in a higher tone. Yes, my good friend, I am indeed greatly deceived that this place does not correspond with all the marks of that celebrated place of action. It was near to the Grampian Mountains, low, yonder they are, mixing and contending with the sky on the skirts of the horizon. It was, and conspect to, classies inside of the Roman fleet. And would any admiral, Roman or British, wish a fairer bay to ride in than that on your right hand? It is astonishing how blind we professed antiquaries sometimes are. Sir Robert Sibbled, Saunders Gordon, General Roy, Dr. Stokely, why, it escaped all of them. I was unwilling to say a word about it and secured the ground, for it belonged to old Johnny Howie, a bonnet-laird. Hard buy in many a communing we had before he and I could agree. Readers note, a bonnet-laird signifies a petty proprietor wearing the dress, along with the habits of a yeoman. And Readers note, at length I am almost ashamed to say it, but I even brought my mind to give acre for acre of corn land for this barren spot. But then it was a national concern, and when the scene of so celebrated an event became my own, I was overpaid. Whose patriotism would not grow warmer, as old Johnson says, on the plains of Marathon. I began to trench the ground to see what might be discovered, and the third day, sir, we found a stone, which I have transported to Monk Barnes. In order to have the sculpture taken off with plaster of Paris, it bears a sacrificing vessel, and the letters A-D-L-L, which may stand without much violence for agricula, decavite, livens, lubens. Certainly, sir, for the Dutch antiquaries claim Caligula as the founder of a lighthouse on the sole authority of the letters C-C-P-F, which they interpret, C-I-S-C-L-I-G-L-A, F-R-M-F-S-I-T. True, and it has ever been recorded as a sound exposition, I see we shall make something of you even before you wear spectacles. Notwithstanding, you thought the traces of this beautiful camp indistinct when you first observed them. In time, sir, and by good instruction, you will become more apt, I doubt it not. You shall peruse upon your next visit to Monk Barnes, my trivial essay upon castrumitation, with some particular remarks upon the vestiges of ancient fortifications lately discovered by the author at the came of Can Prunes. I think I have pointed out the infallible touchstone of supposed antiquity. I premise a few general rules on that point, on the nature namely of the evidence to be received in such cases. Meanwhile, be pleased to observe, for example, that I could press into my service Claudian's famous line Illa claudinuis posuit qui costra prunis. For prunis, though interpreted to mean horifros, to which I own we are somewhat subject in this northeastern sea coast, may also signify a locality, namely prunes. The costra prunis posita would therefore be the came of Can Prunes. But I waive this, for I am sensible it might be laid hold of by Cavaliers as carrying down my costra to the time of Theodosius, sent by Valentinian into Britain as late as the year 367 or there about. No, my good friend, I appeal to people's eyesight. It's not here, the Decremon gate, and there but for the ravage of the Horde plow, or whatever your friend calls it, would be the Praetorian gate. On the left hand you may see some slight visages of the Porta Sinistra, and on the right, one side of the Porta Dextra, well nigh and higher. Here then, let us take our stand on this tumulus, exhibiting the foundation of ruined buildings, the central point, the Praetorium, doubtless of the camp. This place now scares to be distinguished, but by its slight elevation and its greener turf from the rest of the fortification. We may suppose a Greekola to have looked forth on the immense army of Caledonians occupying the Declevities of Yon opposite hill. The infantry rising rank over rank as the former ground displayed their array to its utmost advantage, the Calvary and Coenari, by which I understand the charioteers. Another guise of folks from your Bond Street, Foreign Handmen, itro, scouring the more level space below. See then, level, see, see that huge battle moving from the mountains, their gilt-coat shine like dragon-scales, their march like a rough tumbling storm, see them and view them, and then see Rome no more. Yes, my dear friend, from this stance it is probable nay, it is nearly certain that Julius, a Greekola, beheld what our Beaumont has so admirably described from this very praetorium. A voice from behind interrupted his ecstatic description. Praetorian here, praetorian there, I mine the biggy knot. Both at once turned round, level with surprise and old buck with mingled surprise and indignation at so uncivil and interruption. Inauditor had stolen upon them, unseen and unheard, amid the energy of the antiquary's enthusiastic declamation and the attentive civility of level. He had the exterior appearance of a mendicant, a slouch-tat of huge dimensions, a long white beard which mingled with his grizzled hair, an age but strongly marked an expressive countenance, hardened by climate and exposure, to a bright brick-dust complexion, a long blue gown with a pewter badge on the right arm, two or three wallets or bags slung across his shoulder for holding the different kinds of meal when he received his charity in kind from those who were but a degree richer than himself. All these marked at once a beggar by profession and one of that privileged class which are called in Scotland the Kings Beadsman or vulgarly, blue gowns. What is that you say, Eddie? said Old Buck, hoping perhaps that his ears have betrayed their duty. What were you speaking about? About this bit borough, Your Honor. Answer the undaunted, Eddie. I mind the biggie-naught. The devil you do. Why, you old fool, it was here before you were born and will be after you were hanged, man. Hanged or drowned, here I lie, dead or alive, I mind the biggie-naught. You, you, you, said the antiquary, stammering between confusion and anger, you strolling old vagabond, what the devil do you know about it? Why, I can this about Monk Barnes and what profit have I for telling you I lie? I just can this about it, that about twenty years I and a ween Holland-Shackers like myself, and the masson lads that build the lying dyke that guise down the loaning, and twenty-three herds maybe, just set to work and build this bit-thing here, that jikai they the praetorian, and I just for a beelded oid, I can drums bridle, and a bit blithe guy down with hideant, some sire runny-weather. Merby token, Monk Barnes, if you hike up the borough, as you seem to have begun, I had not fund it already, I stined the nine, all the masson collants, cut the ladle, and to have a board at the bridegroom, and he put four letters on't, that's I-D-E-L-N, I can drums lang ladle, for I can, was I know the kale-soppers of fife. This, thought-level to himself, is a famous counterpart to the story of kaip on thy side. He then ventured to steal a glance at our antiquary, but quickly withdrew it in sheer compassion. For a gentle reader, if thou hast ever beheld the visage of a damsel of sixteen, whose romance of true love has been blown up by an untimely discovery, or of a child of ten years, whose castle of cars has been blown down by a malicious companion, I can safely avare to you that Jonathan Oldbuck of Monk Barnes looked neither more wise nor less disconcerted. There is some mistake about this, he said, abruptly turning away from the mendicant. Dan, a bit on my side of the way answered the sturdy beggar, I never do the mistakes, they I bring mischances. Now, Monk Barnes, that young gentleman, that's with your honour, thinks little of a carly like me, and yet I'll wager, I'll tell him more he was yesterday at the glomen, like Ty Spokanot in company. Lovel soul rushed to his cheeks, with a vivid plush of two and twenty. Never mind the old rogue, said Mr Oldbuck, don't suppose I think the worse of you for your profession, there are only prejudiced fools and coxcombs that do so. You remember what old Tully says in his oration, pro archia poeta, concerning one of your confraternity? Quees nostrum tam anino agresti octuro fut ut ut I forget the Latin, the meaning is, which of us was so rude and barbarous as to remain unmoved at the death of the great Raskis, whose advanced age was so far from preparing us for his death, that we rather hoped one so graceful, so excellent in his art, ought to be exempted from the common lot of mortality. So the Prince of Orders spoke of the stage and its professor. The words of the old man fell upon Lovel's ears, but without conveying any precise idea to his mind, which was then occupied in thinking by what means the old beggar, who still continued to regard him with accountants provokingly sly and intelligent, had contrived to thrust himself into any knowledge of his affairs. He put his hand in his pocket as the ready smote of intimating his desire of secrecy and securing the concurrence of the person whom he addressed. And while he bestowed on him an alms, the amount of which rather bore a proportion to his fears than to his charity, looked at him with a marked expression, which the mendicant, a physiognomist by profession, seemed perfectly to understand. Never mind me, sir, I am no tailpite, but there are a mire-ine in the world than mine. Answered he as he pocketed Lovel's bounty, but in a tone to be heard by him alone and with an expression which amply filled up what was left unspoken. Then turning to Old Buck, I am away to the mines, Your Honor. Has Your Honor any word there, or to Sir Arthur, for I'll come in by knock Winwick Castle againing. Old Buck started, as from a dream, and in a hurry tone, where vexations drove with a wish to conceal it, paying at the same time a tribute to Eddie's smooth, greasy, unlined hat, he said, go down, go down to Mock Barnes, let them give you some dinner, or stay, if you do go to the mines, or to knock Winwick. You need say nothing about the foolish story of yours. Who, hi? said the mendicant. Lord bless Your Honor, nobody said a word about it from me. Mere than if the bit boric had been there since Noah's flood. But, Lord, they tell me Your Honor, high sky and joanie howee, acre for acre, of the lay crops for this, Arthurino. Now, if he has really imposed the work on ye, for an ancient work, it's my real opinion the bargain will never hide good, let the law, and say that he be God ye, provoking scoundrel, mutter the indignant antiquary between his teeth, all have the hangman's lash and his back acquainted for this. And then, in a louder tone, never mind, Eddie, it is all a mistake. Troth, I'm thinking sigh, continued his tormentor, who seemed to have pleasure in rubbing the gold wound. Troth, I thought sigh, there's no sigh lying since I said to Lucky Gimmers. Never think ye lucky, said I, that His Honor Mark Burns would have done sick adapting like this, as to Guy, groomed wheel worth fifty shillings an acre, for a mailing that would be dear of po'd scots. Nigh, nigh, quote I, depend upon the lords being imposed upon with that wily, do little devil, joanie howee. But, Lord, how to care us, sirs, how can that be, quote she again, when the Laird sigh book-learned? There's no like thy hymn in the countryside, and joanie howee is hardly sense enough to cry the cows out of his kale-yard. Weed a wheel, quote I, but ye'll hear his circumvented him with some of his old word-stories. For ye can, Laird, ye another time about the bottle that ye thought was annoyed coin. Go to the devil, said old Buck, and then in a more mild tone, as one that was conscious his reputation lay at the mercy of his antagonist, he added, Away with you down to Monk Barnes, and when I come back, I'll send ye a bottle of ale to the kitchen. Heaven reward your honour. This was uttered with the true mendicant line, as, sending his pike staff before him, he began to move in the direction of Monk Barnes. But did your honour, turning around, ever get back this silly guy to the travelling pack men for the bottle? Curse thee, go about thy business. How ye hear the wheel, sir? God bless your honour, I hope you're deeming Johnny Howey yet, and that I'll leave to see it. And so, saying the old beggar moved off, we're leaving Mr. Old Buck of our collections, which were anything rather than agreeable. Who is this familiar old gentleman, said Lovell, when the mendicant was out of hearing? Oh, one of the plagues of the country, I've been always against poor's rates and a workhouse. I think I'll vote for them now, to have that scoundrel shut up. Oh, your old remembered guest of a beggar, becomes as well acquainted with you as he is with his dish, as intimate as one of the beasts familiar to man, which signify Lovell, and with which his own trade is especially conversant. Who is he? Why, he has gone the roll, has been soldier, ballad singer, traveling tinker, and is now a beggar. He is spoiled by our foolish gentry, who laugh at his jokes, and rehearse Eddie Oakle Tree's good things as regularly as Joe Millar's. Why, he uses freedom, apparently, which is the soul of wit, answered Lovell. Oh, I, freedom enough, said the antiquary. He genuinely invents some damned improbable lie or another to provoke you, like that nonsense he talked just now, not that I'll publish my tract, until I've examined the thing to the bottom. In England, said Lovell, such a mendicant would get a speedy check. Yes, your church-bordons and dog-whips would make slender allowance for his vain of humor, but here, curse him, he's a sort of privileged nuisance, one of the last specimens of the old-fashioned Scottish mendicant who kept his rounds within particular space and was the news-carrier, the minstrel, and sometimes the historian of the district. That rascal now knows more old ballads and traditions than any other man in this and the four next parishes. And, after all, continued he, softening as he went on describing Eddie's good gifts. The dog has some good humor, he is born his heart-fate with unbroken spirits, and it's cruel to deny him the comfort of a laugh The pleasure of having quizzed me, as you gay folk would call it, will be meat and drink to him for a day or two. But I must go back and look after him, or he will spread his damn nonsensical story over half the country. So, saying our hero is parted, Mr. Oldbuck to return to his hospitium at Monk Barnes, and Lovell to pursue his way to Fairport where he arrived without further adventure. Let's note C. Prytorium It may be worthwhile to mention that the incident of the supposed Prytorium actually happened to an antiquary of great learning and acuteness, Sir John Clerk of Pininquik, one of the barons of the Scottish Corridor of Exchequer, and a parliamentary commissioner for arrangement of the union between England and Scotland. As many of his writings show, in British antiquities, he had a small property in Dumfrieshire near the Roman station on the hill called Burnswalk. Here he received the distinguished English antiquarian, Roger Gale, and, of course, conducted him to see this remarkable spot where the lords of the world have thus such decisive marks of their martial labours. An aged shepherd, whom they had used as a guide listened with mouth agape to the dissertations on Foss and Bellum, Ports Dextre, Sinistre, and Decumana, which Sir John Clerk delivered ex cathedra, and his learned visitor listened with a deference to the dignity of a connoisseur on his own ground. But when the Ciceroni proceeded to point out a small hillock near the centre of the enclosure as the Prytorium, Cory Dunn's patients could hold no longer, and like Eddie Oakletree, he forgot all reverence and broke in with nearly the same words, Prytorium here, Prytorium there, I made the bork myself with a flaxster spade. The effect of this undeniable evidence on the two lettered sages may be left to the reader's imagination. The late excellent and venerable John Clerk of Elden, the celebrated author of Naval Tactics, used to tell this story with glee, and being a younger son of Sir John's, was perhaps present on the occasion. End Editor's Note End Chapter Fourth Volume One, Chapter Fifth of The Antiquary This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Antiquary by Sir Walter Scott Chapter Fifth Lancelot Gobot Mark me now. Now will I raise the waters. Merchant of Venice The theatre at Fairport had opened, but no Mr. Lovell appeared on the boards, nor was there anything in the habits or deportment of the young gentleman, so named, which authorized Mr. Oldbuck's conjecture that his fellow-traveller was a candidate for the public favour. Regular were the Antiquary's and old-fashioned barber, who dressed the only three wigs in the parish, which, in defiance of taxes and times, were still subjected to the operation of powdering and frizzling, and who, for that purpose, divided his time among the three employers whom fashion had yet left him. Regular, I say, were Mr. Oldbuck's inquiries at this personage, concerning the news of the little theatre at Fairport, expecting every day to hear Mr. Lovell's appearance, on which occasion the old gentleman had determined to put himself to charges in honour of his young friend, and not only to go to the play himself, but to carry his womankind along with him. But old Jacob Caxon conveyed no information which warranted his taking so decisive a step as that of securing a box. He brought information, on the contrary, that there was a young man in Fairport, of whom the town by which he met all the gossips, who, having no business of their own, fill up their leisure moments by attending to that of other people, could make nothing. He sought no society, but rather avoided that which the apparent gentleness of his manners and some degree of curiosity induced many to offer him. Nothing could be more regular or less resembling an adventurer than his mode of living, which was simple, but so completely well arranged that all who had any transactions with him were loud in their approbation. These are not the virtues of a staged dark hero, thought old Buck to himself, and, however habitually pertenacious in his opinions, he must have been compelled to abandon that which he had formed in the present instance, but for a part of Caxon's communication. The young gentleman, he said, was sometimes heard speaking to himself and rampaging about in his room just as if he was either the player folk. Nothing, however, accepting this single circumstance occurred to confirm Mr. Old Buck's supposition, and it remained a high and doubtful question what a well-formed young man without friends, connections or employment of any kind could have to do as a resident at Fairport. Neither Port Wine nor Wist had apparently any charms for him. He declined dining with the mess of the volunteer cohort which had been lately embodied and shunned joining the convivialities of either of the two parties which then divided Fairport as they did more important places. He was too little of an aristocrat to join the club of royal choux-blues and too little of a democrat to fraternize with an affiliated society of the Swa de Saint friends of the people which the borough had also the happiness of possessing. A coffee-room was his detestation and I agree to say it he had his few sympathies with the tea-table. In short, since the name was fashionable in novel writing and that is a great while ago there was never a master level of whom so little positive was known and who was so universally described by negatives. One negative, however, was important. Nobody knew any harm of level. Indeed, had such existed it would have been speedily made public. For the natural desire speaking evil of our neighbor could in his case have been checked by no feelings of sympathy for being so unsocial. On one account alone he fell somewhat under suspicion. As he made free use of his pencil in his solitary walks and had drawn several views of the harbor in which the signal-tower and even the foregun battery were introduced Samzela's friends of the public sent abroad a whisper that this mysterious stranger must certainly be a French spy. The sheriff paid his respects to Mr. Lovell accordingly but in the interview which followed he had entirely removed the magistrate's suspicions since he had not only suffered him to remain undisturbed in his retirement but it was credibly reported sent him to invitations to dinner parties both which were civilly declined. But what the nature of the explanation was the magistrate kept a profound secret not only from the public at large but from his substitute, his clerk his wife and his two daughters who formed his privy council on all questions of official duty. All these particulars being faithfully reported by Mr. Caxon to his patron at Montmarnes tended much to raise Lovell in the opinion of his former fellow traveller. A decent sensible lad said he to himself who scorns to enter into the fulleries and nonsense of these idiot people at Fairport I must do something for him and I will write Sir Arthur to come to Montmarnes to meet him I must consult my woman kind. Accordingly, such consultation having been previously held a special messenger being no other than Caxon himself was ordered to prepare for a walk to Nock-Winnick Castle with a letter for the honoured Sir Arthur Wardour of Nock-Winnick, Bart The contents ran thus Dear Sir Arthur On Tuesday the 17th Kurt Stilo Novo I hold a sign of biblical symposium at Montmarnes and pray you to assist there at at four o'clock precisely If my fair enemy, Miss Isabel can and will honour us by accompanying you my woman kind will be but too proud to have the aid of such an auxiliary in the cause of resistance to awful rule and right supremacy If not, I will send the woman kind to the mans for the day I have a young acquaintance to make known to you who is touched with some strain of a better spirit than belongs to these giddy pastimes reveres his elders and has a pretty notion of the classics and as such a youth must have a natural contempt for the people about Fairport I wish to show him some rational as well as worshipful society Dear Sir Arthur et cetera et cetera et cetera Fly with this letter of coxswain said the senior holding out his missive Signatum, Atqua, Sigalatum Fly to Noquineck and bring me back an answer Go as fast as if the town council were met and waiting for the provost and the provost was waiting for his new powdered wing Ah, Sir, answer the messenger with a deep sigh Today's high-lying guineby De La Big has a provost of Fairport warrants an old provost Jervie's time and he had a quaint of servant lass that dressed it herself with a drop of a candle and a drudgen box but I have seen the day of Monk Barnes when the town council of Fairport would I assume wanted their town clerk or their gilla brandy or head after the haddies as if they would have wanted ilk iron wheel favoured, sonsy and isn't pairably gone as pow Hey, Sirs, now you wonder the commons will be discontent and rise against the law when they see magistrates and baileys and deacons and the provost himself with heads as bald and as bare as iron-mine blocks and as well furnished within Caxon By the way with you you have an excellent view of public affairs and, I dare say, have touched the cause of our popular discontent as closely as the provost could have done himself but away with you Caxon an off went Caxon upon his walk of three miles he hobbled, but his heart was good could he go faster than he could while he is engaged in his journey and return it may not be impertinent to inform the reader to whose mansion he was burying his embassy we have said that Mr. Oldbug kept little company with this rounding gentleman accepting with one person only this was Sir Arthur Wardour a baronet of ancient descent and of a large but embarrassed fortune his father Sir Anthony had been a Jacobite and had displayed all the enthusiasm of that party while it could be served with words only no man squeezed the orange with more significant gesture no one could more dexterously intimate a dangerous health without coming under the penal statutes and above all none drank success to the cause more deeply and devoutly but on the approach of the Highland Army in 1745 it would appear that the worthy baronet zeal became a little more moderate just when its warmth was of most consequence he talked much indeed of taking the field for the rights of Scotland and Charles Stewart but his demi-peak saddle would suit only one of his horses and that horse could by no means be brought to stand fire perhaps the worshipful owner sympathized in the scruples of this sagacious quadrupen and began to think that what was so much dreaded by the horse could not be very wholesome for the rider at any rate while Sir Anthony Wardour talked and drank and hesitated the sturdy provost of Fairport whose we before noticed was the father of our antiquary followed from his ancient Burg heading the body of Whigburgers and seized at once the name of George II upon the castle of Noquineck and on the four carriage horses and person of the proprietor Sir Anthony was shortly after sent off to the Tower of London by a secretary of state's warrant and with him went to son Arthur then a youth but as nothing appeared like an overt act of treason Arthur and son were soon set at liberty and returned to their own mansion of Noquineck to drink health by fathoms deep and talk of their sufferings in the royal cause this became so much a matter of habit with Sir Arthur that even after his father's death the non-jurian chaplain used to pray regularly for the restoration of the rightful sovereign for the downfall of the usurper and for deliverance from their cruel and bloodthirsty enemies although all idea of serious opposition to the House of Hanover had long moldered away and this treasonable liturgy was kept up rather as a matter of form than as conveying any distinct meaning so much was this the case that about the year 1770 upon a disputed election occurring in the county the worthy knight fairly gulped down the oaths of abduration and allegiance to serve a candidate in whom he was interested thus renouncing the error for whose restoration he weakly petitioned heaven and acknowledging the usurper whose dethronement he had never ceased to pray for and to add to this melancholy instance of human inconsistency Sir Arthur continued to pray for the House of Stuart even after the family had been extinct and when in truth though in his theoretical loyalty he was pleased to regard them as alive yet in all actual service and practical exertion he was the most zealous and devoted subject of George III in other respects Sir Arthur Warder lived like most country gentlemen in Scotland hunted and fished gave and received dinners attended races and county meetings was a deputy lieutenant and trustee upon term pike acts but in his more advanced years as he became too lazy or unwieldy for field sports he supplied them by now and then reading Scottish history and having gradually acquired a taste for antiquities though neither very deep nor very correct he became a crony of his neighbour Mr. Oldbuck of Mock Barnes and a joint labourer with him in his antiquarian pursuits there were however points of difference between these two humorous were sometimes occasioned discord the faith of Sir Arthur as an antiquary was boundless and Mr. Oldbuck notwithstanding the affair of the Prytorian at the came of Kinprunes was much more scrupulous in receiving legends as current and authentic coin Sir Arthur would have deemed himself guilty of the crime of majesty had he doubted the existence of any single individual of that formidable head roll of 104 kings of Scotland received by Boethius and rendered classical by Buchanan in virtue of whom James VI claimed to rule his ancient kingdom and whose portraits still frown grimly upon the walls of the gallery of Holyrood now Oldbuck a shrewd and suspicious man and no respecter of divine hereditary right was apt to cavill at this sacred list and to affirm that the procession of the posterity of Fergus through the pages of Scottish history was as vain and unsubstantial as the gleaming pageant of the descendants of Banquo through the cavern of Hecate another tender topic was the good fame of Queen Mary of which the night was the most chivalrous asserter while the Esquire impugned it in spite both of her beauty and misfortunes when unhappily their conversation turned on yet later times motives of discord occurred in almost every page of history Oldbuck was upon principle a staunch Presbyterian a ruling elder of the Kirk and a friend to revolution principles and protestant succession the author was the very reverse of all this they agreed it is true in dutiful love and allegiance to the sovereign who now fills the throne but this was their only point of union Reader's note the reader will understand that this refers to the reign of our late gracious sovereign George III and Reader's note it therefore often happened that bickering's hot broke out between them in which Oldbuck was not always able to suppress his cost to humor while it would sometimes occur to the baronet that the descendant of a German printer whose sire's had sought the base fellowship of paltry burgers forgot himself and took an unlicensed freedom of debate considering the rank and ancient descent of his antagonist this with the old feud of the coach horses and the seizure of his manor place and the power of strength by Mr. Oldbuck's father would at times rush upon his mind and inflame at once his cheeks and his arguments and lastly as Mr. Oldbuck thought his worthy friend in compere was in some respects little better than a fool he was apt to come more near communicating to him that unfavorable opinion than the rules of modern politeness warrant in such cases they often parted in a big dungeon and with something like a resolution to forebear each other's company in future but with the morning calm reflection came and as each was sensible that the society of the other had become through habit essential to his comfort the breach was speedily made up between them on such occasions Oldbuck considering that the baronet's pettishness resembled out of a child usually showed his superior sense by compassionately making the first advances to reconciliation but it once or twice happened that the aristocratic pride of the far descent at night took a flight too offensive to the feelings of the representative of the typographer in these cases the breach between these two originals might have been immortal but for the kind exertion and interposition of the baronet's daughter Miss Isabella who with the son now absent upon foreign and military service formed his whole surviving family she was well aware how necessary Mr. Oldbuck was to her father's amusement and comfort and seldom failed to interpose with effect when the office of a mediator between them was rendered necessary by this enterical shrewdness of the one or the assumed superiority of the other under Isabella's mild influence the wrongs of Queen Mary were forgotten by her father and Mr. Oldbuck forgave the blasphemy which reviled the memory of King William however as she used in general to take her father's part playfully in these disputes Oldbuck was want to call Isabella his fair enemy though in fact he made more account of her than any other of her sex of whom as we have seen he was no admirer and there existed another connection betwixt these worthies which had alternately a repelling and attractive influence upon their intimacy Sir Arthur always wished to borrow Mr. Oldbuck was not always willing to lend Mr. Oldbuck, per contra always wished to be repaid with regularity Sir Arthur was not always nor indeed often prepared to gratify this reasonable desire and in accomplishing an arrangement between tendencies so opposite little myths would occasionally take place still there was a spirit of mutual accommodation upon the whole and they dragged on like dogs in couples with some difficulty in occasional snarling but without absolutely coming to a standstill or throttling each other some little disagreement such as we have mentioned or politics had divided the houses of Nockwinnick and Monk Barnes when the emissary of the latter arrived to discharge his errand in his ancient gothic parlor whose windows on one side looked out upon the restless ocean and on the other upon the long straight avenue was the baronet seated now turning over the leaves of a folio now casting a weary glance where the sun quivered on the dark green foliage and smooth trunks of the large and branching lines with which the avenue was planted at length side of joy a moving object is seen and it gives rise to the usual inquiries who is it and what can be his errand the old whitish gray coat the hobbling gate the hut half slouched half cocked announced the forlorn maker of periwigs and left for investigation only the second query this was soon solved by a servant entering the parlor a letter from Monk Barnes Sir Arthur Sir Arthur took the epistle with a due assumption of consequential dignity take the old man to the kitchen and let him get some refreshment said the young lady whose compassion I had remarked his thin gray hair and weary gate Mr. Oldbuck my love invites us to dinner on Tuesday the 17th set the baronet pausing he really seems to forget that he has not aflate conducted himself so civilly towards me as might have been expected dear sir you have so many advantages over poor Mr. Oldbuck that no wonder it should put him a little out of humor but I know he has much respect for your person and your conversation nothing would give him more more pain than to be wanting in any real attention true true Isabella one must allow for the original descent something of the German borishness still flows in the blood something of the wiggish and perverse opposition to established rank and privilege you may observe that he never has any advantage of me in dispute unless when he avails himself of a sort of petty fogging intimacy with dates, names and trifling matters of fact a tiresome and frivolous accuracy of memory which is entirely owing to his mechanical descent he must find a convenient and historical investigation I should think sir said the young lady it leads to an uncivil and positive mode of disputing and nothing seems more unreasonable than to hear him impute even Bellingdon's rare translation of Hector of Boise which I have the satisfaction to possess and which is a black letter folio of great value upon the authority of some old scrap apartment which he has saved from its deserved destiny of being cut up into Taylor's measures and besides that habit of minute and troublesome accuracy leads to a mercantile manner of dream business which ought to be beneath a landed proprietor whose family has stood two or three generations I question if there's a dealer's clerk in Fairport that can summon a count of interest better than Monk Barnes but you'll accept his invitation sir Why, yes we have no other engagement on hand I think who can the young man be he talks of he seldom picks up new acquaintance and he has no relation that I ever heard of probably some relation of his brother-in-law Captain very possibly yes we will accept the mentires are of a very ancient Highland family you may answer his card in the affirmative Isabella I believe I have no leisure to be dear sirring myself so this important matter being adjusted Miss Wardour intimated her own and Sir Arthur's compliments and that they would have the honor of waiting upon Mr. Oldbuck and Sir Arthur takes this opportunity to renew her hostility with Mr. Oldbuck on account of his late long absence from Nocwinnick where his visits give so much pleasure with this placebo she concluded her note with which Old Caxon now refreshed in limbs and wind set out in his return to the antiquaries mansion End Chapter 5 Volume 1 Chapter 6 Moth by Woden God of Saxons from whence comes Wednesday that is Woden's Day Truth is the thing that I will ever keep until Volk Day in which I creep into my supple cure Cartwright's Ordinary Our young friend Lovell who had received a corresponding invitation for his visit arrived at Monk Barn's about five minutes before four o'clock on the 17th of July The day had been remarkably sultry and large drops of rain had occasionally fallen though the threatened showers had as yet passed away Mr. Oldbuck received him at the Palmer's Port in his complete brown suit gray silk stockings and wig powdered with all the skill of the veteran Caxon who having smelt out the dinner had taken care not to finish his job till the hour of eating approached You are welcome to my symposium Mr. Lovell and now let me introduce you to my clogged dog-do as Tom Otter calls them my unlucky and good-for-nothing woman kind My lie best day I Mr. Lovell I shall be disappointed, sir by the way these very undeserving of your satire Tillie Valley, Mr. Lovell which by the way one commentator derives from Titi Willitium and another from Tally Ho but Tillie Valley, I say a truce with your politeness You will find them but samples of woman kind but here they be, Mr. Lovell I present to you in due order my most discreet sister Griselda who disdains the simplicity as well as patience and next to the poor old name of Grisel and my most exquisite niece Maria whose mother was called Mary and sometimes Molly The elderly lady rustled in sulks and satins and bore upon her head a structure resembling the fashion in the lady's memorandum book for the year 1770 a superb piece of architecture not much less than a modern gothic castle of which the curls might represent the torrets the black pins the chevaux de frise and the lapets, the banners the face which like that of the ancient statues of Vesta was thus crowned with towers, was large and long and peaked at nose and chin and bore another respect such a ludicrous resemblance to the physiognomy of Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck that level had they not appeared at once like Sebastian and Viola in the last scene of the twelfth night might as opposed that the figure before him was his old friend masquerading in female attire an antique flowered silk gown graced the extraordinary person to whom belonged this unparalleled tete which her brother was want to say was fitter for a turban for Mahound or Temmergant then a headgear for a reasonable creature or a Christian gentleman two long and bony arms were terminated at the elbows by triple bond ruffles and being folded cell tire wise in front of her person and decorated with long gloves of a bright vermilion color presented no bad resemblance to a pair of gigantic lobsters high heeled shoes and a short silk cloak thrown in easy negligence over her shoulders completed the exterior of Miss Griselda Oldbuck her niece the same whom Lovell had seen transiently during his first visit was a pretty young woman gentilly dressed according to the fashion of the day with an air of espigliere which became her very well and which was perhaps derived from the caustic humor peculiar to her uncle's family those softened by transmission Mr. Lovell paid his respects to both ladies and was answered by the elder with a prolonged courtesy of 1760 drawn from the righteous period when folks conceived a grace of half an hour space and rejoiced in a Friday's capon and by the younger with a modern reverence which like the festive benediction of a modern divine was of much shorter duration while the salutation was exchanging Sir Arthur with his fair daughter hanging upon his arm having dismissed his chariot appeared at the garden door and in all due form paid his respects to the ladies Sir Arthur said the antiquary and you my fair foe let me make known to you my young friend Mr. Lovell a gentleman who during the scarlet fever which is epidemic at present as our island has a virtue and decency to appear in a coat of a civil complexion you see however that the fashionable color has mustard in his cheeks which appears not in his garments Sir Arthur let me present to you a young gentleman whom your father knowledge will find grave wise courtly and scholar like well seen deeply red and thoroughly grounded in all the hidden mysteries of the green room of the village from the days of Davey Lindsay down to those of Dibdon he blushes again which is a sign of grace my brother said Miss Griselda has a humorous way of expressing himself Sir nobody thinks anything of what Monk Barn says so I beg you will not be so confused for the matter of his nonsense but you must have had a warm walk beneath this boiling sun or anything a glass of balm wine ear level could answer the antiquarian are posed a right thee which what's thou poison my guess with thy infernal decoctions does thou not remember how it fared with the clergyman whom you seduced to partake of that deceitful beverage oh five five brother Sir Arthur did you ever hear the like he must have everything his own way or he will invent such stories but there goes Jenny to ring the old bell to tell us that the dinner is ready rigid in his economy Mr. Oldbug kept no male servant this he disguised under the pretext that the masculine sex was too noble to be employed in those acts of personal servitude which in all early periods of society were uniformly imposed on the female why would he say did the boy Tim Renterout whom at my wise sister's instigation I with equal wisdom took upon trial why did he pilfer apples take birds nests break glasses and ultimately steal my spectacles except that he felt that noble emulation which swells in the bosom of the masculine sex which has conducted him to Flanders with a musket on his shoulder and doubtless will promote him to a glorious Halbert or even to the gallows and why does this girl his full sister Jenny Renterout move in the same vocation with safe and noiseless step shot or untrod soft as the pace of a cat and docile as a spaniel why but because she is in her vocation let them minister to us Sir Arthur let them minister I say it's the only thing they are fit for all ancient legislators from Lycurgus to Mahomen corruptly called Muhammad agree in putting them in their proper and subordinate rank and it is only the crazy heads of our old chivalrous ancestors that directed their dulcenaeas into despotic princesses Miss Wardour protested loudly against this un-gallant doctrine but the bell now rung for dinner let me do all the promises of fair courtesy to so fair an antagonist said the old gentleman offering his arm I remember Miss Wardour Muhammad had some hesitation about the mode of summoning his moslem on to prayer he rejected bells as used by Christians trumpets as the summons of the gibbers and finally adopted the human voice I have had equal doubt concerning my dinner call gongs now in present use seemed a newfangled and heathenish invention and the voice of the female womankind I rejected as equally shrill and dissonant wherefore contrary to the said Muhammad or Muhammad I have resumed the bell it has a local propriety since it was the conventional signal for spreading the repast in their effectory and the advantage over the tongue of my sister's prime minister, Jenny that though not quite so loud and shrill it ceases ringing the instant you drop the bell rope whereas we know by a sad experience that any attempt to silence Jenny only makes this empathetic chime of Miss Oldbuck and Mary Mentire to join in chorus with this discourse he led the way to his dining parlor which level had not yet seen it was Wayne scotted and contained some curious paintings the dining table was attended by Jenny but an old superintendent assorted female butler stood by the sideboard and underwent the burden of burying several reproofs from Mr. Oldbuck and in new windows not so much marked but not less cutting from his sister the dinner was such as suited a professed antiquary specimens of Scottish Mayans now disused at the tables of those who effect elegance there was the relishing Solan Goose who's smell is so powerful that he's never cooked with indoors blood raw he proved to be on this occasion so that Oldbuck had threatened to throw the greasy sea-fowl at the head of the negligent housekeeper who acted as priestess and presenting this odoriferous offering but by good hap she had been most fortunate in the hodgepodge which was unanimously pronounced to be inimitable I knew we should succeed here said Oldbuck exultantly for Davy Dibble the gardener, an old bachelor like myself takes care the rascally women do not dishonor our vegetables and here is fish and sauce and crappet heads I acknowledge our womankind excel in that dish it procures in the pleasure of scolding for half an hour at least twice a week with old Maggie Mucklebacket our fishwife the chicken pie, Mr. Lovell is made after a recipe bequeathed to me by my departed grandmother of happy memory and if you will venture on a glass of wine you will find it worthy of one who professes the maxim of King Alfonso of Castile Old Wood to Burn feed, old wine to drink and old friends, Sir Arthur I, Mr. Lovell, and young friends too chicken verse with and what news do you bring us from Edinburgh, Monk Barnes said, Sir Arthur how wags the world in Aldrichie mad, Sir Arthur, mad irretrievably frantic far beyond dipping in the sea shaving the ground or drinking hellbore the worst sort of frenzy a military frenzy half possessed man, woman, and child and high time, I think said Miss Warder when we are threatened with invasion from abroad and insurrection at home oh, I did not doubt you would join the scarlet host against me women like turkeys are always subdued by a red rag but what says Sir Arthur whose dreams are of standing armies and German oppression why I say, Mr. Old Book replied the night that so far as I am capable of judging we ought to resist cum totu corpore regni as the phrase is unless I have all together forgotten my Latin and then we who comes to propose to us a wiggish sort of government a republican system and who is aided and abetted by a sort of fanatics of the worst kind in our own bowels I have taken some measures, I assure you such as become my rank in the community for I have directed the constables to take up that old scoundrely becker ediocaltree for spreading disaffection against church and state through the whole parish he said plainly told Caxon that Willy Howie's Kilmernaut Cal covered more sense than all the three wigs in the parish I think it is easy to make out that innuendo with the robe shall we tot better manners oh no my dear sir exclaim Miss Water novel edi that we have known so long I assure you no constable shall have my good graces that execute such a warrant I, there it goes said the antiquary you to be a staunch Tory, Sir Arthur have nourished a fine sprig of wiggory in your bosom why Miss Water in addition to control a whole quarter-session a quarter-session I, a general assembly or a convocation to boot a Boa de Siashii an Amazon, a Zenobia and yet with all my courage, Miss Drollbuck I am glad to hear our people are getting under arms under arms Lord Lefty did so ever read the history of Sister Margaret which flowed from ahead that though now old and some dull gray has more sense in political intelligence than you find nowadays in the whole sign-on does that remember the nurses dream in that exquisite work which she recounts in such agony to Hubble bubble when she would have taken up a piece of broad cloth in her vision low it exploded like a great iron cannon when she put out her hand to save a pern it perked up in her face in the form of a pistol my own vision in Edinburgh has been something similar I called to consult my lawyer he was clothed in a dragoon's dress belted and cast and about to mount a charger which his riding-clerk, habited as a sharpshooter walked to and fro before his door I went to school with my agent for having sent me to advise with a madman he had stuck into his head the plume which in more sober days he wielded between his fingers and figured as an artillery officer my Mercer had his spin-tune in his hand as if he measured his cloth by that implement instead of a legitimate yard the banker's clerk who was directed to sum my cash account blundered it three times being disordered by the recollection of his military tellings off at the morning drill I was ill and sent for a surgeon he came, but valor so had fired his eye and such a falchion glittered on his thigh that by the gods with such a load of steel I thought he came to murder not to heal I had recourse to a physician but he also was practicing a more wholesale mode of slaughter than that which his profession had been supposed at all times to open to him and now since I have returned here even our wise neighbors of Fairport have caught the same valiant humor I hate a gun like a hurt wild duck I detest a drum like a Quaker and they thunder and rattle out yonder upon the towns common so that every volley and roll goes to my very heart Dear brother didn't speak the gate of the gentleman volunteers I'm sure they have a most becoming uniform we'll they have been wet to the very skin twice the last week I met the marching and terribly docket and money a sire host was among them and the trouble they take I'm sure it claims our gratitude and I'm sure said Miss Mentire that my uncle sent twenty beginnings to help out their equipments it was to buy licorice and sugar candy, said the cynic to encourage the trade of the place and to refresh the throats of the officers who had balled themselves hoarse in the service of their country Take care, Monk Barnes we shall set you down among the black nebs by and by No, sir Arthur, a tame grumbler I I only claim the privilege of coking in my own corner here without uniting my throat to the grand chorus of the march Ni quito re ni pongo re I neither make king nor mar king, as Sancho says but pray hardly for our own sovereign pay scot and lot and grumble at the excise men but here comes the you milk cheese in good time it is a better digestive than politics when dinner was over and the decanters placed on the table Mr. Old Buck proposed the king's health in a bumper which was readily exceeded to, both by level and the baronet the jagabitism of the latter being now a sort of speculative opinion merely, the shadow of a shade after the ladies had left the apartment the landlord and sir Arthur entered into several exquisite discussions in which the younger guest either on account of the obtruse irredition which they involved or from some other reason took put a slender share till at length he was suddenly started out of a profound reverie by an unexpected appeal to his judgment I will stand by what Mr. Lovell says he was born in the north of England and may know the very spot sir Arthur thought it unlikely that so young a gentleman should have paid much attention to matters of that sort I'm advised of the contrary said Old Buck how say you Mr. Lovell speak up for your own credit man Lovell was obliged to confess himself in the ridiculous situation of one to like ignorant the subject of conversation and controversy which had engaged the company for an hour Lord help the lad his head has been wool gathering I thought how it would be when the woman kind were admitted no getting a word of sense out of a young fellow for six hours after why man there was once a people called the pics more properly pics interrupt the baronet I say the piccar piaque tar piaque tar or poo tar the separated old buck they spoke a gothic dialect genuine Celtic again a ciberrated the night gothic gothic I'll go to death upon it counter a ciberrated the squire why gentlemen said Lovell I conceived that it is a dispute which may be easily settled by philologist if there are any remains of the language there is but one word said the baronet but in spite of Mr. Old Buck's pertinacity it is decisive of the question yes in my favor said Old Buck Mr. Lovell you shall be judged I have the learned Pinkerton on my side I on mine the indefatigable and iridite chalmers Gordon comes into my opinion Sir Robert Sibble holds mine Inez is with me Baciferated Old Buck Riston has no doubt shouted the baronet truly gentlemen said Lovell before you muster your forces and overwhelm me with authorities I should like to know the word in dispute Ben Ball said both the disputants at once which signifies Kaput Wali said Sir Arthur the head of the wall echoed Old Buck there was a deep pause it is rather a narrow foundation to build a hypothesis upon observe the arbiter not a wit, not a wit said Old Buck men fight best in a narrow ring an inches as good as a mile for a home thrust it is decidedly Celtic said the baronet every hill in the highlands begins with Ben but what say you to Ball Sir Arthur is it not decidedly the Saxon Wall it is the Roman Wallum said Sir Arthur the Picks borrowed that part of the word no such thing if they borrowed anything it must have been your Ben which they might have from the neighbouring Britons of Strathclude the Picks or Picks said Lovell must have been singularly lupour and dialect only remaining word of the vocabulary and that consisting only of two syllables they have been confessively obliged to borrow one of them from another language and the things gentlemen with submission the controversy is not unlike that which the two knights fought concerning the shield that in one side white and the other black each of you claim one half of the word and seem to resign the other but what strikes me most is the poverty of the language which has left such slight vestiges behind it you are an error said Sir Arthur it was a copious language and they were a great and powerful people built two steeples one at Brecken one at Abernathy the Pictish maidens of the Blood Royal were kept in Edinburgh Castle thence called Castrum Puellarum invented to give consequence to Trump-free womankind it was called the Maiden Castle Quasi Lucas Annan Lucendo because it resisted every attack and women never do there is a list of the Pictish kings persisted Sir Arthur well authenticated from Qurentham in a crime the date of whose reign is somewhat uncertain down to Drusterstone and their dynasty half of them have the Celtic patronymic MAC prefixed MAC Idestphilius what do you say to that, Mr. Oldbuck there is dressed Macmoracine Trinal McLaughlin first of that ancient clan as it may be judged and Gormac MacDonald Alpine MacMedicus Nrst MacTallergam interrupted by a fit of coughing ah-ah-ah Golarch Mokhan Mccannan Mccannel Kenneth McFerideth Ankin McFungus and twenty more decidedly Celtic names which I could repeat if this damned cough would let me take a glass of wine, Sir Arthur and drink down that bedroll that would choke the devil that last fellow has the only intelligible name you have repeated they're all of the tribe of McFungus Mushroom Monarchs, every one of them sprung up from the fumes of Conceit Folly and Falson fermenting in the brains of some mad Highland Senechi I'm surprised to hear you, Mr. Oldbuck you know, or ought to know that the list of these potentates was copied by Henry and sold by him at his shop in the Parliament Clothes in the Year of God, 1700 and 5 or 6 I'm not precisely certain which but I have a copy at home that stands next to my 12-month copy of the Scots Acts and I have a copy at home that stands next to my 12-month copy of the Scots Acts and I have a copy at home that stands next to my 12-month copy of the Scots Acts and ranges on the shelf with them very well What say you to that, Mr. Oldbuck? Say Why laugh at Harry Moll and his history, answered Oldbuck and thereby comply with his request of giving an entertainment according to its merits Do not laugh at a better man than yourself, said Sir Arthur somewhat scornfully I do not conceive I do, Sir Arthur in laughing either at him or his history Henry Moll of Melgom was a gentleman, Mr. Oldbuck I presume he had no advantage of me in that particular replied the antiquary, somewhat heartly Permit me, Mr. Oldbuck he was a gentleman of high family and ancient descent and therefore the descendant of a Westphalian printer should speak of him with deference Such may be your opinion, Sir Arthur it is not mine I can see that my descent from that painful and industrious typographer Wolfgang Oldenbuck who in the month of December, 1493 under the patronage as the colophon tells us of Sabaldasche, Scheiter and Sebastian Kamermeister accomplish the printing of the great chronicle of Nuremberg I conceive I say that my descent from that great restorer of learning is more credible to me as a man of letters than if I had numbered in my geology all the brawling, bullet-headed iron-fisted, old gothic barons since the days of Crenthaminocrime not one of whom I suppose could write his own name If you mean the observation as a sneer at my ancestry said the night with an assumption of dignified superiority in composure I have the pleasure to inform you that the name of my ancestor Millis is written fairly with his own hand in the earliest copy of the Ragman roll which only serves to show that he was one of the earliest who set the mean example of submitting to Edward I What have you to say for the stainless loyalty of your family, Sir Arthur after such a back-sliding as that? It's enough, Sir said Sir Arthur starting up fiercely and pushing back his chair I shall hereafter take care of how I honour with my company one who shows himself so ungrateful for my condescension In that you will do as you find most agreeable, Sir Arthur I hope that as I was not aware of the extent of the obligation which you have done me by visiting my poor house I may be excused for not having carried my gratitude to the extent of servility Mighty well Mighty well, Mr. Old Buck I wish you a good evening out of the parlor door flounce the incensed Sir Arthur as if the spirit of the whole round table inflamed his single bosom and traversed with long strides the labyrinth of passages which conducted to the drawing-room Did you ever hear such an old top-headed ass, said Old Buck briefly apostrophizing level but I must not let him go in this mad-like way neither I must not let him go in this mad-like way neither So saying he pushed off after the retreating baronet whom he traced by the clang of several doors, which he opened in search of the apartment for tea and slammed the forest behind him at every disappointment You'll do yourself a mischief roar the antiquary Que amulat intentibris nesit quo vadit You'll tumble down the back-stare Sir Arthur had now got involved in darkness of which the sedative effect is well known to nurses and governesses who have to deal with fetish children It retarded a pace of the irritated baronet if it did not abate his resentment and Mr. Old Buck, better acquainted with the locale got up with him as he had got his grasp upon the handle of the drawing-room door A few minutes, Sir Arthur, said Old Buck opposing his abrupt entrance Don't be quite so hasty, my good and old friend I was a little too rude with you about Sir Gamelin Why, he is an old acquaintance of mine, man, and a favourite He kept company with Bruce and Wallace and I'll be sworn on a black-letter Bible, only subscribe the ragwind roll with legitimate and justifiable intention of circumventing To his right Scottish craft, my good night hundreds did it Come, come, forget and forgive Confess we have given the young fellow here a right to think us two testy old fools Speak for yourself, Mr. Jonathan Old Buck said Sir Arthur with much majesty How well, how well a willful man must have his way With that the door opened and into the drawing-room marked in the form of Sir Arthur followed by Lovell and Mr. Old Buck the countenances of all the three a little discomposed I have been waiting for you, Sir said Miss Warder To propose we should walk forward to meet the carriage as the evening is so fine Sir Arthur readily assented to this proposal which suited the angry mood in which he found himself and having agreeable to the established custom in cases of pet refused the refreshment of tea and coffee He tugged his daughter under his arm and after taking a ceremoniously for the ladies and a very dry one of Old Buck off he marched I think Sir Arthur has got the black dog on his back again said Miss Old Buck Black dog black devil he's more absurd than woman kind What say you Lovell Why, the lads gone too He took his leave, Uncle while Miss Warder was putting on her things but I don't think you observed him The devils and the people This is all one gets by fussing and bustling and putting oneself out of one's way in order to give dinners besides all the charges they are put to Oh, see again Emperor of Ethiopia said he taking up a cup of tea in the one hand and a volume of the rambler in the other with a regular custom to read while he was eating or drinking in presence of his sister being a practice which served at once to evince his contempt for the society of woman kind and his resolution to lose no moment of instruction Oh, see again Emperor of Ethiopia Well has thou spoken No man should presume to say this shall be a day of happiness Old Buck receded in his studies the old man opened the door uninterrupted by the ladies who reached in profound silence pursued some female employment at length the light and modest tap was heard at the parlor door Is that you Caxon Come in, come in man The old man opened the door and thrusting in his meagre face thatched with thin gray locks and one sleeve of his white coat said in a subdued and mysterious tone of voice I was wanting to speak to you, sir Come in then, you old fool and say what you've got to say I'll maybe frighten the ladies said the ex-free sir Frighten answered the antiquary What do you mean? Never mind the ladies Have you seen another geist at the humlock, no? No, sir, it's not a geist this turn replied Caxon but I'm no easy in my mind Do you ever hear of anybody that was answered Old Buck What reason has an old battered powder puff like you to be easy in your mind more than all the rest of the world besides It's no for myself, sir but it threatens an awful night and Sir Arthur and Miss Ward are poor thing Why, man, they must have meant the carriage at the head of the loaning or theirabouts they must be home long ago No, sir, they didn't a-guide the road by the turnpike to meet the carriage they guide by the sands the word operated like electricity on Old Buck the sands, he exclaimed impossible Aye, sir, that's what I said to the gardener but he says he saw them turned down by the muscle-crack and troughs his eye to him and that be the case, Davy I am mis-stouting An almanac, an almanac said Old Buck starting up in great alarm not that bobble flinging away a little pocket almanac which his niece offered him Great God, my poor dear Miss Isabella fetch me instantly the Fairport Almanac it was brought consulted and added greatly to his agitation I'll go myself call the gardener and plowman bid them bring ropes and ladders raise more help as they come along keep the top of the cliffs and hallow down to them I'll go myself what is the matter inquired Miss Old Buck and Miss Mentire the tide, the tide answered the alarmed antiquary had not Jenny better but no I'll run myself said the younger lady partaking in all her uncle's terrors I'll run myself to Saunders' muckle-backet and make him get out his boat thank you my dear that's the wisest word that has been spoken yet run, run to go by the sands seizing his hat and cane was there ever such madness heard of End Chapter 6