 Volume 2 Chapter XI What is the secret sin, this untold tale, that art cannot extract nor penance cleanse? Her muscles hold their place, nor discomposed, nor formed to steadiness, no sudden flushing, no faltering lip. Mysterious mother. The coffin had been borne from the place where it rested. The mourners in regular gradation, according to their rank or their relationship to the deceased, had filed from the cottage, while the younger male children were led along to totter after the beer of their brother, and to view with wonder a ceremonial which they could hardly comprehend. The female gossips, next rose to depart, and with consideration for the situation of the parents, carried along with them the girls of the family, to give the unhappy pair time and opportunity to open their hearts to each other and soften their grief by communicating it. But their kind intention was without effect. The last of them had darkened the entrance of the cottage, as she went out, and drawn the door softly behind her, when the father, first ascertaining by hasty glance that no stranger remained, started up, clasped his hands wildly above his head, uttered a cry of despair which he had hitherto repressed, and, in all the impotent impatience of grief, half rushed, half staggered forward, to the bed on which the coffin had been deposited, threw himself down upon it, and smothering as it were, his head among the bed-clothes, gave vent to the full passion of his sorrow. It was in vain that the wretched mother, terrified by the vehemence of her husband's affliction, affliction still more fearful, as agitating a man apart in manners and a robust frame. Surprised her own sobs and tears, and pulling him by the skirts of his coat, implored him to rise and remember that, though one was removed, he had still a wife and children to comfort and support. The appeal came at too early a period of his anguish, and was totally unattended to. He continued to remain prostrate, indicating by sobs so bitter and violent, that they shook the bed in partition against which it rested, by clenched hands which grasped the bed-clothes, and by the vehement and convulsive motion of his legs. How deep and how terrible was the agony of a father's sorrow! "'What a day is this! What a day is this!' said the poor mother, her woman in affliction, already exhausted by sobs and tears, and now almost lost in terror for the state in which she beheld her husband. "'What an hour is this! A night-buddy to help a poor lone woman! Oi, good mother! Could you but speak a word to him? Would you but bid him be comforted?' To her astonishment, and even to the increase of her fear, her husband's mother heard and answered the appeal. She rose and walked across the floor without support, and without much apparent feebleness, and standing by the bed in which her son had extended himself, she said, "'Rise up, my son!' And sorrow not for him that is beyond sin and sorrow, and temptation. Sorrow is for those that remain in this veil of sorrow and darkness. Hai, wood-done sorrow, and wood-cone sorrow for any eye, I must need that ye shall eye sorrow for me!' The voice of his mother, not heard for years as taking part in the act of duties of life, or offering advice or consolation, produced its effect upon her son. He assumed a sitting posture on the side of the bed, and his appearance, attitude, and gestures changed from those of angry despair to deep grief and ejection. The grandmother retired to her nook, the mother mechanically took in her hand her tattered Bible, and seemed to read, though her eyes were drowned with tears. They were thus occupied when a loud knock was heard of the door. "'Hays, sirs,' said the poor mother, "'why is this that can be come in at the gate now? They cannot hear it of our misfortune, I am sure.' The knock being repeated, she rose and opened the door, saying, carelessly, when a gate set to disturb a sorrowful house. A tall man in black stood before her, whom she instantly recognized to be Lord Glen Allen. "'Is there not?' he said, an old woman lodging in this, or one of the neighboring cottages, called Ellsworth, who was long resident at Craigburn foot of Glen Allen. "'Hits me good mother, my lord,' said Margaret, but she cannot see anybody in now. "'Hon, we are dreaming a side of weird, we have had a heavy dispensation.' "'God forbid,' said Lord Glen Allen, that I should onlide occasion disturb your sorrow, but my days are numbered, your mother-in-law is in the extremity of age, and if I see her not to-day we may never meet on this side of time.' "'And what?' answered the desolate mother. "'Would you see an eyed woman, broken down with age and sorrow and heartbreak? Gentle or simple, shall not darken my door the day my barn's been carried out to corpse.' While she spoke thus, indulging the natural irritability of disposition and profession, which began to mingle itself with her grief, when its first uncontrolled burst were gone by, she held the door about one third part open, and placed herself in the gap, as if to render the visitor's entrance impossible. But the voice of her husband was heard from within. "'Why is that, Maggie? What far are you staking them out? Let them come in.' He doesn't signify in old ropes, and why comes in, or why guise out to this house, for I this time forward.' The woman stood aside, at her husband's command, and permitted Lord Glen Allen to enter the hut. The dejection exhibited in his broken frame and emaciated countenance formed a strong contrast with the effects of grief, as they were displayed in the rude and weather-beaten visage of the fisherman, and the masculine features of his wife. He approached the old woman, as she was seated on her usual settle, and asked her, in a tone as audible as his voice could make it, "'Are you Elsbeth of the Craigburn foot of Glen Allen? Why is it that asked about the inhaled residence of that evil woman? Was the answer returned to his query?' The unhappy earl of Glen Allen. "'Earn?' "'Earn of Glen Allen!' Who who was called William, Lord Geraldine, said the earl? And whom his mother's death has made earl of Glen Allen?' "'Open the bold,' said the old woman firmly and hastily to her daughter-in-law. "'Open the bold, we speed, that I may see if this be the right Lord, Geraldine, the son of my mistress, him that I received in my arms within the hour after he was born, him that has reasoned to curse me that I did not smother him before the hour was passed.' The window, which had been shut in order that a gloomy twilight might add to the solemnity of the funeral meeting, was open as she commanded, and through a sudden and strong light through the smoky and misty atmosphere of the stifling cabin. Falling in a stream upon the chimney, the rays illuminated in the way that Rembrandt would have chosen, the features of the unfortunate nobleman, and those of the old Sibyl, who now, standing upon her feet and holding him by one hand, peered anxiously in his features, with her light-blue eyes, and holding her long and withered forefinger within a small distance of his face, moved it slowly as if to trace the outlines and reconcile what she recollected, with that she now beheld. As she finished her scrutiny, she sighed with a deep sigh. It's a sigh, a sigh of change. And why is fault is it? But that's written down where it will be remembered. It's written on tablets of brass with a pen of steel, where all is recorded that is done in the flesh. And what? She sighed after a pause. What is Lord Gelden seeking from a poor old creature like me that's dead already? I know he belongs, saith prior to the living, that she isn't yet laid in the molds. Nay, answered Lord Glen-Ellen, in the name of heaven, why was it that you requested so urgently to see me? And why did you back your request by sending a token which you knew, well, I dared not refuse? As he spoke thus, he took from his purse the ring which Eddie Oakletree had delivered to him at Glen-Ellen House. The sight of this token produced a strange and instantaneous effect upon the old woman. The palsy of fear was immediately added to that of age, and she began instantly to search her pockets with the tremulous and hasty agitation of one who becomes first apprehensive of having lost something of great importance. Then, as if convinced of the reality of her fears, she turned to the earl and demanded, and how came you by it then? I thought I had kept it, saith securely. What will the countess say? You know, saith the earl, at least you must have heard, that my mother is dead. Dead? Are you no imposing upon me? Has she left IA at last? Lands and lordship in the niches. All, all, saith the earl, as mortals must leave all human vanities. I mind now, answered Elspeth. I heard of it before, but there has been sick distress in our house since, and my memory is as I muckled impaired. But ye are sure your mother, the lady Countess, is going home? The earl again assured her that her former mistress was no more. Then, said Elspeth, a child brought in my mind night longer. When she lived, why dared speak? Would it would I displease her, that I had noised abroad? But she is going, and I would confess all. Then, turning to her son and daughter-in-law, she commanded them imperatively to quit the house, and leave Lord Geraldine, for so she still called him, alone with her. But Macky mucklebacket, her first burst of grief being over, was by no means disposed in her own house to pay passive obedience to the commands of her mother-in-law, an authority which is peculiarly obnoxious to persons in her rank of life, and which she was the more astonished at hearing revived, when it seemed to have been so long-wreeling questioned and forgotten. It was an uncouthing, she said, in a grumbling tone of voice. For the rank of Lord Glenn Allen was somewhat imposing. It was an uncouthing to bid a mother leave her own house, with the tear in her eye. The moment her eldest son had been carried to corpse out of the door right. The fisherman, in a stubborn and sullen tone, added to the same purpose. This is my day for your hide-word story's mother. My lord, if he be a lord, my kind some other day, we may speak out what he has gotten to say if he likes it. There's nine here, we'll think it worth their while to listen to him or you either. But neither forlorn or loon, gentle or simple, when I leave my own house to pleasure anybody, on the very day in life whore. Here his voice choked, and he could proceed, no farther. But as he had risen, when Lord Glenn Allen came in, and had since remained standing, he now threw himself doggily upon his seat, and remained in the sole imposter of one who was determined to keep his word. But the old woman, whom this crisis seemed to repossess in all those powers of mental superiority, with which she had once been eminently gifted, arose and advancing towards him, said with a sullen voice, My son, as you would shun hearing of your mother's shame, as you would not willingly be a witness of her guilt, as you would deserve her blessing and avoid her curse, high-chargy, by the body that bore and that nursed ye, to leave me at freedom to speak, with Lord Geraldine, with nine mortal ears but his eye and one listened to, obey my words, that when you lay the molds on my head, and whore that that day were come, you may remember this hour without the reproach of having disobeyed the last earthly command, that ever your mother wore it on ye. The terms of the solemn charge revived in the fisherman's heart the habit of instinctive obedience, in which his mother had trained him up, and to which he had submitted implicitly, while her powers of exacting it remained entire. The recollection mingled also with the prevailing passion of the moment, foreglancing his eye at the bed on which the dead body had been laid. He muttered to himself. He never disobeyed me, in reason nor out to reason, and what for should I vex her? Then taking his reluctant spouse by the arm, he let her gently out of the cottage and latched the door behind them as he left it. As the unhappy pairs withdrew, Lord Glen Allen, to prevent the old woman from relapsing into her lethargy, again pressed her on the subject of the communication which she proposed to make to him. You'll have it soon enough, she replied. My mind's clear enough now, and there's not, I think there's not, a chance of my forgetting what I have to say. My dwelling at Craigburn foot is before my eye, as it were present in reality, the green bank with its salvage, just where the burn met with the sea, the twilight little barks with their sails furled, lying in the natural cove which it formed, the high cliff that joined it with the pleasure grounds of the house of Glen Allen, and hung right over the stream. Ah, yes, I may forget that I had a husband, and have lost him, that I but ain't alive of our four of our sons, that misfortune upon misfortune was devoured, our ill-gotten wealth, that they carried the corpse of my son's eldest born, fry the house this morning. But I never couldn't forget the days I spent at Bonnie Craigburn foot. You were a favorite of my mother, said Lord Glen Allen, desires to bring her back to the point from which she was wandering. I was, I was. You didn't mind me of that. She brought me up among my station, and with knowledge more than my fellows, but like the tempter of I'd, with the knowledge of good, she taught me the knowledge of evil. For God's sake, Elspeth, said the astonished girl, proceed if you can to explain the dreadful hints you have thrown out. I well know you are confinat to one dreadful secret which should split this roof, even to hear it named, but speak on farther. I will, she said, I will, just bear with me for a little. And again, she seemed lost in recollection, but it was no longer tinged with imbecility or apathy. She was now entering upon the topic which had long loaded her mind and which doubtless often occupied her whole soul at times when she seemed dead to all around her. And I may add, as a remarkable fact, that such was the intense operation of mental energy upon her physical powers and nervous system, that notwithstanding her infirmity of deafness, each word that Lord Glen Island spoke during this remarkable conference, although in the lowest tone of horror or agony, fell as full and distinct upon Elspeth's ear as it could have done at any period of her life. She spoke also herself clearly, distinctly and slowly, as if anxious that the intelligence she communicated should be fully understood, concisely at the same time and with none of the verbiage or circumlocutory additions natural to those of her sex and condition. In short, her language bespoke a better education as well as an uncommonly firm and resolved mind and a character of that sort from which great virtues or great crimes may be naturally expected. The tender of her communication is disclosed in the following chapter. End Chapter 11. Volume 2, Chapter 12 of the Antiquary. This leverbox recording is in the public domain. The Antiquary by Sir Walter Scott. Chapter 12. Rumors. She near forsakes us. A bloodhound staunch. She tracks our rapid step through the wild labyrinth of youthful frenzy, unheard for chance, until old age hath tamed us then and are there. When time hath chilled our joints and maimed our hope of combat or a flight, we hear her deep-mouthed bay, announcing all of wrath and woe and punishment that bides us. Old play. I need not tell you, said the old woman, addressing the role of Glen Allen, that I was the favoured and confidential attendant of Jocelyn, countess of Glen Allen, whom God assoys ye. Here she crossed herself. And I think, Father, you may not have forgotten that I shared her regard for many years. I returned it by the most sincere attachment, but I found to disgrace Freyja, trifling act of disobedience, reported to your mother by eyeing that thought, and she was Narang, that I was despise upon her actions and yours. I charged the woman, said the earl, in a voice trembling with passion, name not her name in my hearing. I must return the penitent firmly and calmly, for how can ye understand me? The earl leaned upon one of the wooden chairs of the hut, drew his hat over his face, clenched his hands together, said his teeth like one whose summons apt courage to undergo a painful operation, and made a signal to her to proceed. I say then, she resumed, that my disgrace with my mistress was chiefly owing to Miss Evelyn Neville, then bred up in Glen Allen House, as a daughter of a cousin German and intimate friend of your father, that was Gein. There was no mystery in her history, but why dare to inquire farther than the Countess liked to tell? Hald in Glen Allen House, loved Miss Neville, all but twice, your mother and myself, we both hated her. God, for what reason, since a creature so mild, so gentle, so formed to inspire affection, never walked on this wretched world? It may have been so, rejoined Ellsworth, but your mother hated I that came of your father's family, Hybe but himself. Her reasons related to strife, which fell between them soon after a marriage, the particulars are nothing to this purpose. But woe, doubly did she hate Heaven and Neville, when she perceived that there was a growing kindness between you and that unfortunate young lady. You may mind that the Countess's dislike didn't gain father at first, than just showing all the coed shoulder. At least it wasn't a seen father. But at the land-run it break out into such downright violence that Miss Neville was even fined to seek refuge at Nockwinnett Castle with Sir Arthur's lady, who I, Gein Seiner, was then with the living. You rend my heart by recalling these particulars. But go on, it may my present agony be accepted as additional penance for the involuntary crime. She'd been absent some months, continued Ellsworth, when I was eye-night, watching in my hut the return of my husband from fishing, and shedding in private those bitter tears that my proud spirit wrung by me whenever I thought in my disgrace. The snake was drawn, and the Countess, your mother, entered my dwelling. I thought I had seen a spectre for even in the height of my favour. This was an honour she had never done me, and she'd looked as pale and geistly as if she had risen from the grave. She sat down and wrung the drops from her hair and cloak, for the night was drizzling, and her walk had been through the plantations that were I loaded with dew. I only mention these things that she may understand how well that night lives in my memory, and read it may. I was surprised to see her, but I'd just not speak first more than if I had seen a phantom. And I'd just not, my lord, I that I seen many sites of tear I never shook at them. So I, after silent, she said, Ellsworth's chain, for she always gave me my maiden name. Why not she the daughter of that original chain who died to save his master, Lord Glen-Ellen, on the field of Sheriff Moore? And I answered her as proudly as herself nearly, as sure as you are the daughter of that early Glen-Ellen, whom my father saved that day by his own death. Here she made a deep pause. And what followed? What followed? For heaven's sake, good woman. But why should I use that word? Yet good or bad, I command you to tell me. I little I should value earthly command, answered Ellsworth, whether or not a voice that is spoken to me sleeping and waking that drives me forward to tell this sad tale. Hoey and my lord, the Countess said to me, my son loves Emily Neville. They are agreed, they are plighted. Should they have a son, my right over Glen-Ellen merges, I sink from that moment, from a countess into a miserable, steppendiery dowager. I, who brought lands and vassals, and high blood and ancient fame to my husband, I must cease to be mistress when my son has an heir male. But I care not for that, had he married any but one of the hated Neville's. I had been patient. But for them, that they and their descendants should enjoy the right and honors of my ancestors, goes through my heart like a two-edged dirk. And this girl, I detest her. And I answered, for my heart kindled at her words, that her hate was equaled by mine. Ratch, exclaimed the Earl, in spite of his determination to preserve silence, wretched woman, what cause of hate could have arisen from a being so innocent and gentle? I hated what my mistress hated, as was the use with the these vassals of the House of Glen. For though, my lord, I married under my degree. Yet an ancestor of yours never went to the field of battle, but an ancestor of the frail, demented, eyed, useless wretch, why now speaks with you, carried his shield before him. But that was Nyarl, continued the Beldam, her earthly and evil passions rekindling as she became heeded in her narration. What was Nyarl? I hated Miss Evelyn Devil for her eye and sake. I brought her from England, and, during our whole journey, she gagged and scorned at my northern speech and habit, as her southland ladies' incimbers had done at the boarding school as they kited. And strange as it may seem, she spoke of an affront offered by a heedless schoolgirl, without intention, with a degree of inveteracy, which, at such a distance of time, a mortal offence would neither have authorised or excited in any while constituted mind. Yes, she scorned and gestured at me, but let them that scorned the tartan fear the dirk. She paused and then went on. But I deny not that I hated her mire than she deserved. My mistress the Countess persevered and said, Esbeth, chain, this unruly boy will marry with the false English blood, where days as they have been, I could throw her into the massimore of Glenallon, and feather him in the keep of Strath Bonon. Reader's note, Massa Mora, an ancient name for a dungeon derived from the Moorish language, perhaps as far back as the time of the Crusades. Reader's note, with these times are past, and the authority which the nobles of the land should exercise is delegated to equippling lawyers and their baser dependents. Hear me, Husbeth chain, if you are my father's daughter, as I am mine, I will find means that they shall not marry. She walks often to that cliff that overhangs your dwelling to look for a lover's boat. You may remember the pleasure you then took on the sea, my Lord. Let him find her forty fathom lower than he expects. Yes, you may stare and frown and clench your hand, but assure as I am to face the only being I ever feared, and oh that I had feared admire. These were your mother's words. Would it fail to me to light you? But I wouldn't consent to stay in my hand with blood. When she said, by the religion of our holy church, they are over sib together. But I expect nothing but that both will become heretics as well as disobedient reprobates. That was her addition to that argument. And then, as the fiend is ever, over busy with brains like mine, that are settled beyond their use and station, I wasn't happily permitted to add, but they might be brought to think themselves si sib as no Christian law will permit their wedlock. Here the Earl of Glenallon echoed her words, with a shriek so piercing as almost to rend the roof of the cottage. Ah, that Evelyn Neville was not the, the, the daughter you would say of your father, continued Elspeth, no, be it a torment or be it a comfort to you. In the truth, she was now your daughter of your father's house than I am. Woman, deceive me not, make me not curse the memory of the parent I have so lately laid in the grave, for sharing in a plot the most cruel, the most infernal. We think ye, my Lord Geraldine, if ye curse the memory of the parent that's going, is there none of the blood of Glenallon living, whose faults have led to this dreadful catastrophe? Mean ye my brother? He too is gone, said the Earl. No, replied the Sibyl. I mean yourself, Lord Geraldine, had ye not transgressed the obedience of a son by wedding Evelyn Neville in secret while a guest at Nocunic? Our plot might have separated ye for a time, but would have left at least your sorrows without remorse to canker them. But your iron conduct had put poison in the weapon that we threw, and it pierced you with the mire force because ye came Russian too immediate. Had your marriage been a proclaimed and acknowledged action, our stratagem to throw an obstacle into your way that couldn't be got horror, neither would nor could it be practiced against ye. Great Heaven, said the unfortunate nobleman. It is as if a film fell from my obscured eyes. Yes, I now well understand the doubtful hints of consolation thrown out by my wretched mother, tending indirectly to impeach the evidence of the horrors of which her arts had led me to believe myself guilty. She could not speak, Marptainly answered Elspeth, without confessing her iron fraud, and she would have submitted to be torn by wild horses rather than enfold what she had done. And if she had still lived, so would I for her sake. There were stout hearts, the race of Glenelden, men and women, and sigh were all that, in old times, cried their gathering word of clock-naven. They stood, shoulder to shoulder, nigh a man parted fries chief for love of gold or of gain, or of right or wrong. The times are changed, I hear now. The unfortunate nobleman was too much wrapped up in his own confused and distracted reflections to notice the rude expressions of savage fidelity, in which, even in the latest ebb of life, the unhappy author of his misfortunes seemed to find a stern and stubborn source of consolation. Great Heaven, he exclaimed, I am then free from the guilt the most horrible with which man can be stained, and the sense of which, however involuntary, has wrecked my peace, destroyed my health, and bowed me down to an untimely grave. Except he firmly uttered, lifting his eyes upwards, except my humble thanks, if I live miserable, at least I shall not die stained with that unnatural guilt. And thou, proceed if thou hast more to tell, proceed while thou hast voiced to speak it, and I have powers to listen. Yes, answered the beldam. Thou, when you shall hear and I shall speak, is indeed passing rapidly away. Death has crossed your brow with his finger, and I find his grasp turning every day cold-directed my heart, hindrush me no more with exclamations and groans and accusations, but hear my tale to an end, and then, if ye be indeed sicker Lord of Glen Ellen, as I heard of in my day, make your married men gather the thorn, and the ryer, and the green hullen, till they heap them as high as the house-rigan, and burn, burn, burn, the eyed witch-husbeth, an eye that can put she in mind, that sicker creature ever crawled upon the land. Go on, Satherl, go on, I will not again interrupt you. He spoke in a half-suffocated, yet determined voice, resolved that no irritability on his part should deprive him of this opportunity of acquiring proofs of the wonderful tale he then heard. But Ellsworth had become exhausted by a continuous narration of such unusual length. The subsequent part of her story was more broken, and though still distinctly intelligible in most parts, had no longer the lucid conciseness which the first part of her narrative had displayed to such an astonishing degree. Lord Glen Ellen sounded necessary when she had made some attempts to continue her narrative without success, to prompt her memory by demanding what proofs she could propose to bring of the truth of a narrative so different from that which she had originally told. The evidence, she replied, of Evelyn Neville's real birth was in the Countess's possession, with reasons for its being, for some time, kept private. They may yet be found, if she has not destroyed them, in the left-hand drawer of the ebony cabinet that stood in the dressing-room. These she meant to suppress for the time, until you went abroad again, when she trusted, before your return, to send Miss Neville back to Ryan Country, or to get her settled in marriage. But did you not show me letters of my fathers, which seemed to me, unless my senses altogether failed me in that horrible moment, to avow his relationship to the unhappy? We did, and with my testimony, how could you doubt the fact, or her either? But we suppressed the true explanation of these letters, and that was, that your father thought it right, the young lady should pass for his daughter, for a while, on account of some family reasons that were among them. But wherefore, when you learned our union, was the stressful artifice persisted in? It was not, she replied, till Lady Glen Allen had communicated this false tale, that she suspected he had actually made a marriage. Nor even then did you avow it, sigh as to satisfy her, whether the ceremony had invariably passed between you or no. But he remember, how you cannot but remember when, what passed in that awful meeting? Woman, you swore upon the Gospels to the fact which you now disavow. I did, and I would I take an yet more holy pledge on it, if there had been I, who now despaired the blood of my body, or the guilt of my soul, to serve the house of Glen Allen. Wretch, do you call that horrid perjury, attended with consequences yet more dreadful, do you esteem that of service to the house of your benefactors? I served her, why was then the head of Glen Allen, as she required me to serve her? The cause was between God and her conscience, the manner between God and mine. She is guiding to her account, and I am on photo. Have I told you, Ion? No, answered Lord Glen Allen, you have yet more to tell. You have to tell me of the death of the angel whom your perjury drove to despair, stained, as she thought herself, with a crime so horrible. Speak truth. Was that dreadful, was that horrible incident? She could scarcely articulate the words. Was it as reported? Or was it an act of yet further, though not more atrocious cruelty, inflicted by others? I understand you, said Elspeth, but report spoke truth. Our false witness was indeed the cause, but the deed was her iron, distracted act. On that fearful disclosure, when you rushed fry the Countess's presence and saddled your horse, and left the castle like a fire-float, the Countess hadn't yet discovered your private marriage. She had now found out that the union, which she had framed this awful tale to prevent, hadn't even taken place. You fled from the house as if the fire of heaven was about to fire upon it. Her misneval, a tween reason and the want-hot, was put under Sue Ward. But the ward slept at hand, the prisoner waked, the window was open, the way was before her. There was the cliff, and there was the sea. Oh, when will I forget that? And thus died, said the Earl, even so as was reported. No, my lord. I had gone out to the cove, the tide was in, and it flowed, as you'll remember, to the foot of that cliff. It was a great convenience that for my husband's trade. Where am I wandering? I saw a white object dart-fry the top of the cliff, like a seam-aw through the mist, and then a heavy flash and sparkle of the water showed me it was a human creature that had fined into the waves. How is broad and strong and familiar with the tide? I washed in in grass-per-gown, and drew out and carried her on my shoulders. I could have carried twice sick then, carried her to my hut and later on my bed. Neighbors came and brought help, but the words she uttered in ravings, when she got back the use of speech, were such that Harry's feigned to send them away and get upward to get out of the house. The Countess sent down her Spanish servant, Teresa, if ever there was a fiend on earth in human form, that woman was Ein. She and I were to watch the unhappy lady and let no other person approach. God knows what Teresa's part was, to I bin. She told it not to me, but Heaven took the conclusion in its own hand. The poor lady. She took the pangs of travail before her time, bore a male child, and died in the arms of me, of her mortal enemy. I, you may weep. She was a sightly creature to see to. But think ye, if I didn't have mourn her then, that I can mourn her now? Night, night, I left Teresa with the dead corpse and new born babe, till I guide up to take the Countess's commands. What was to be done? Ladies it was, I kied her up, and she guard me, kied up her brother. My brother? Yes, Lord Gelden, even your brother, that some said, shall I wish to be rare? Had only rate, he was a person my concern in succession and inheritance of the House of Glen Allen. And is it possible to believe them that my brother, out of avarice to grasp my inheritance, would lend himself to such a base in dreadful stratagem? Your mother believed it, said the old Belden, with the Fiendish laugh, it was my plot of my making. But what they did or said, I will not say, because I did not hear. Lying in sorrow they consulted in the Black Wayne Scott dress in room, and when your brother passed through the room where I was waiting, it seemed to me, and I have often thought, sigh, since sign, that the fire of hell was in his cheek and iron. But he had left some of it with his mother, out only rate. She entered the room like a woman demented, and the first word she spoke were, Housbyth Chain, did you ever pull a new-budded flower? I answered, as you may believe, that I often had. Then said she, you will ken the better-how to blight the spurious and heretical blossom that I sprung forth this night to disgrace my mother's noble house. See here! And she gave me a golden bodkin. Nothing but gold must shed the blood of Glen Allen. This child is already as one of the dead, and since Thou and Teresa alone ken that it is, that it be doubt upon as ye would answer to me. And she turned away in her fury, and left me with the bodkin in my hand. Here it is. That and the ring in this nevel are I I have preserved in my ill-gotten gear. For muckle was the gear I got, and will I keep it the secret, but no for the god, or a gear either? Her long and bony hand held out to Lord Glen Allen a gold bodkin, down which in fancy he saw the blood of his infant trickling. Wretch! Had ye the heart? Hey, ken ne, if I could have had it or no, I returned to my cottage without feeling the ground that I trod on, but Teresa and the child were kind. All that was alive was kind. Nothing left but the lifeless corpse. And did ye never learn my infant's fate? I could would guess. I told ye your mother's purpose, and I ken Teresa was affiend. She was never Marston in Scotland, and I have heard that she returned to Rhineland. Her dark curtain has fallen over the past, and the few that witnessed only part of it could only surmise something of seduction and suicide. You yourself? I know. I know it all, answered the earl. Ye indeed know all that I can say, and now, Eric Glen Allen, can ye forgive me? Ask forgiveness of God, and not of man, said the earl, turning away. And how shall I ask of the prune and stained what is denied to me by a sinner like myself? If I sinned, I not suffered. I had a day's peace, or an hour's rest since these lying wet locks of hair first lay upon my pillow at Craigburn foot. Has not my house been burned, with my barren in the cradle? Have not my boats been wrecked, when I the others weathered the gate? Have not I that were near and dear to me, dreared penance for my sin? Has not the fire had it share of them? The winds had their part, the sea had her part. And I, she added, with a lengthened groan, looking first upwards towards heaven, and then bending her eyes on the floor. Hoi that the earth would take her part! That's been non-wearing to be joined to it. Lord Glen Allen had reached the door of the cottage, but the generosity of his nature did not permit him to leave the unhappy woman in this state of desperate reverberation. May God forgive thee, wretched woman, he said, as sincerely as I do. Turn for mercy to him who can alone grant mercy, and may your prayers be heard, as if they were mine own. I will send a religious man. Nine, nine, nine, priest, nine, priest! She ejaculated, and the door of the cottage, opening as she spoke, prevented her from proceeding. End CHAPTER XII Volume II CHAPTER XIII of the antiquary. The sleeper-box recording is in the public domain. The antiquary, by Sir Walter Scott. CHAPTER XIII. Still in his dead hand, clenched, remain the strings that thrill his father's heart. Even as the limb, lobbed off in laden grave, retains, they tell us, strange commerce with the mutilated stump, whose nerves are twinging, still, in maimed existence. To play, the antiquary, as we informed the reader in the end of the thirty-first chapter, Chapter X, Volume II, had shaken off the company of worthy Mr. Blattergell, although he offered to entertain him with an abstract of the ablest speech he had ever known in the teen court, delivered by the procurator for the church in a remarkable case of the parish of Gathoram. Resisting this temptation, our senior preferred a solitary path, which again conducted him to the cottage of Mucklebacket. When he came in front of the fisherman's hut, he observed a man working intently, as if to repair a shattered boat, which lay upon the beach, and going up to him was surprised to find it was Mucklebacket himself. I'm glad, he said in a tone of sympathy, I'm glad, Saunders, that you feel yourself able to make this exertion. And what did you have me to do? Answered the fisher, roughly, unless I wanted to see four children starve, because iron is drowned. Hve with you, Gentles, that can sit in the house with hankertures at your iron when you lose a friend. But the like awesmon to our work again, if our hearts were beaten as hard as my hammer. Without taking more notice of Old Buck, he proceeded in his sleeper, and the antiquary, to whom the display of human nature under the influence of agitating passions was never indifferent, stood beside him, in silent attention, as if watching the progress of the work. He observed more than once the man's hard features, as if by the force of association, prepared to accompany the sound of the saw and hammer, with his usual symphony of a rude tune, hummed or whistled, and as often a slight twitch of convulsive expression showed, that ere the sound was uttered, a cause for suppressing it rushed upon his mind. At length, when he had patched a considerable rent, and was beginning to mend another, his feelings appeared altogether to derange the power of attention necessary for his work. The piece of wood which he was about to nail on was at first too long, then he sold it off, too short, then chose another equally ill-adapted for the purpose. At length, throwing it down in anger, after wiping his dim eye with his quivering hand, he exclaimed, There is a curse either on me or on the solid black bitch of a boat, that I have hauled up high and dry, and patched and clouded sigh many years, that she might drown my poor stony at the end of them, and be damned to her. And he flung his hammer against the boat, as if she had been the intentional cause of his misfortune. Then recollecting himself, he added, He had what needs I am being angry at her, that is neither soul nor sense, though I know that muck will better myself. She's but a wrinkle, I owed rotten deals nade together, and warped with the wind in the sea, and I am a dour carly, battered by foul weather at sea, and land, time meistered at senseless, as herself. She might be mended, though, again, the morning tide. That's a thing I necessity. Thus speaking, he went to gather together his instruments, and attempt to resume his labour. But Old Buck took him kindly by the arm. Come, come, he said, Saunders, there's no work for you this day. I'll send down Shaving's the carpenter to mend the boat, and he may put the day's work into my account. And you had better not come out to-morrow, but stay to comfort your family under this distanciation, and the gardener will bring you some vegetables and meal from Muck Barnes. Hey, thank you, Muck Barnes. Answered the poor Fisher. I am a plain-spoken man, and I had little to say for myself. I might I learned fairer fashions from my mother-long sign, but I never saw Muck O' Good they did her. However, I thank ye. You are I kind in neighbourly, whatever folks say, or you're being near and close. And I often said, in die-times, when they were gangin' to rise up the poor folk against the gentles, I often said, Nera man should steer a hair touchin' to Muck Barnes, while Stiney and I could wag a finger. And so said Stiney, too. And Muck Barnes, when ye laid his head in the grave, and money thanks for the respect, ye saw the moles laid on and on his lad that licket ye win, though ye had made little phrase about it. Old Buck, beaten from the pride of his affected cynicism, would not willingly have had any one, by on that occasion, to quote to him his favourite maxims of the Stoic philosophy. The large drops fell fast from his own eyes, as he begged the father, who is now a mountain, at recollecting the bravery and generous sentiments of his son, to forbear useless sorrow, and led him by the arm towards his own home, where another scene awaited our antiquary. As he entered the first person whom ye beheld was Lord Glenn Allen. Mutual surprise was in their countenances, as they saluted each other, with haughty reserve on the part of Mr. Old Buck, and embarrassment on that of the Earl. My Lord Glenn Allen, I think, said Mr. Old Buck. Yes, much change from what he was when he knew Mr. Old Buck. I do not mean, said the antiquary, to intrude upon your lordship. I only came to see this distressed family. And you have found one, sir, who has stole greater claims on your compassion. My compassion? Lord Glenn Allen cannot need my compassion. If Lord Glenn Allen could need it, I think he would hardly ask it. Our former acquaintance, said the Earl, is of such ancient date, my Lord, was of such short duration, and was connected with circumstances so exquisitely painful, that I think we may dispense with renewing it. So saying, the antiquary turned away, and left the hut. But Lord Glenn Allen followed him into the open air, and, in spite of the hasty, good morning, my Lord, requested a few minutes' conversation, and the favour of his advice in an important manner. Your lordship will find many more capable to advise you, my Lord, and by whom your intercourse will be deemed an honour. For me, I am a man retired from business and the world, and not very fond of raking up the past events of my useless life. And forgive me if I say, I have particular pain in reverting to that period of it, when I acted like a fool, and your lordship, like he stopped short, like a villain, you would say, said Lord Glenn Allen, for such I must have appeared to you. My Lord, my Lord, I have no desire to hear your shrift, said the antiquary. But, sir, if I can show you that I am more sinned against than sinning, that I have been a man miserable beyond the power of description, and who looks forward at this moment to an untimely grave as to a haven of rest, you will not refuse the confidence which, accepting your appearance at this critical moment as a hint from heaven, I venture less to press on you. Assuredly, my Lord, I shall shun no longer the continuation of this extraordinary interview. I must then recall to you our occasional meetings upwards of twenty years since at Nockwinnett Castle, and I need not remind you of a lady who was then a member of that family. The unfortunate Miss Evelyn Neville, my Lord, I remember it well, towards whom you entertain sentiments, very different from those with which I before and since have regarded her sex. Her gentleness, her docility, her pleasure in the studies which I pointed out to her, attached my affections more than became my age, though that was not then much advanced, or the solidity of my character. But I need not remind your Lordship of the various modes in which you indulged your gaiety at the expense of an awkward and retired student, embarrassed by the expression of feelings so new to him. And I have no doubt that the young lady joined you in the well-deserved ridicule. It is the way of womankind. I have spoken at once to the painful circumstances of my addresses and their rejection that your Lordship may be satisfied everything is full in my memory, and may, so far as I am concerned, tell your story without scruple or needless delicacy. I will, said Lord Gunn-Ellen, but first let me say you do injustice to the memory of the gentlest and kindest as well as to the most unhappy of women, to suppose she could make a jest of the honest affection of a man like you. Frequently did she blame me, Mr. Oldbuck, for indulging my levity at your expense. May I now presume you will excuse the gay freedoms which then offended you. My state of mind has never since laid me under the necessity of apologizing for the inadvertencies of alight and happy temper. My Lord, you are fully pardoned, said Mr. Oldbuck. You should be aware that, like all others, I was ignorant at the time that I had placed myself in competition with your Lordship, and understood that Miss Neville was in a state of dependence, which might make her prefer a competent independence, and the hand of an honest man. But I am wasting time. I would I could believe that the views entertained towards her by others were as fair and honest as mine. Mr. Oldbuck, you judge harshly. Not without cause, my Lord, when I only, of all the magistrates of this county, have been either like some of them, the honor to be connected with your powerful family, nor like others, the meanness to fear it. When I made some inquiring to the manner of Miss Neville's death, I shake you, my Lord, but I must be plain. I do own I had every reason to believe that she had met most unfair dealing, and had either been imposed upon by a counterfeit marriage, or that very strong measures had been adopted to stifle and destroy the evidence of a real union. And I cannot doubt in my own mind that this cruelty on your Lordship's part, whether coming of your own free will, or proceeding from the influence of the late Countess, hurried the unfortunate young lady to the desperate act by which her life was terminated. You are deceived, Mr. Oldbuck, into conclusions which are not just, however naturally they flow from the circumstances. Believe me, I respected you, even when I was most embarrassed by your active attempts to investigate our family's misfortunes. You showed yourself more worthy of Miss Neville than I, by the spirit with which you persisted in vindicating her reputation, even after her death. But the firm belief that your well-meant efforts could only serve to bring to light a story too horrible to be detailed induced me to join my happy mother in schemes to remove or destroy all evidence of the legal union which had taken place between Evelyn and myself. And now let us sit down on this bank, for I feel unable to remain longer standing, and have the goodness to listen to the extraordinary discovery which I have this day made. They sat down accordingly, and Lord Glenellen briefly narrated his unhappy family history, his concealed marriage, the horrible invention by which his mother had designed to render impossible that union which had already taken place. He detailed the arts by which the Countess, having all the documents relative to Miss Neville's birth, in her hands, had produced those only relating to a period during which, for family reasons, his father had consented to own that young lady as his natural daughter, and showed how impossible it was that he could either suspect or detect the fraud put upon him by his mother, and vouched by the oaths of her attendance to Raysa and Elzbeth, I left my paternal mansion. He concluded, as if the theories of hell had driven me forth, and traveled with frantic velocity I knew not wither, nor have I the slightest recollection of what I did or whither I went, until I was discovered by my brother. I will not trouble you with an account of my sick bed in recovery, or how long afterwards I ventured to inquire after the share of my misfortunes, and heard that her despair had found a dreadful remedy for all the ills of life. The first thing that roused me to thought was hearing of your inquiries into this cruel business, and you will hardly wonder that, believing what I did believe, I should join in those expedience to stop your investigation, which my brother and mother had actively commenced. The information which I gave them concerning the circumstances and witnesses of our private marriage enabled them to baffle your zeal. The clergymen, therefore, and witnesses, as persons who had acted in the matter, only to please the powerful heir of Glen Allen, were accessible to his promises and threats, and were so provided for that they had no objections to leave this country for another. For myself, Mr. Oldbuck, pursued this unhappy man. From that moment I considered myself as blotted out of the book of the living, and as having nothing left to do with this world. My mother tried to reconcile me to life by every art, even by intimations which I can now interpret as calculated to produce a doubt of the horrible tale she herself had fabricated. What I construed all, she said, is the fictions of maternal affection. I will forbear all reproach. She is no more, and as her wretched associate said, she knew not how the dart was poisoned, or how deep it must sink, when she threw it from her hand. But Mr. Oldbuck, if ever, during these twenty years, there called upon the earth a living being deserving of your pity, I have been that man. My food is not nourish me, my sleep is not refresh me. My devotions have not comforted me. All that is cheering a necessary demand has been to me converted into poison. The rare and limited intercourse, which I have held with others, has been most odious to me. I thought as if I were bringing the contamination of a natural and inexpressible guilt among the gay and the innocent. There have been moments when I have thoughts of another description, to plunge into the adventures of war, or to brave the dangers of the traveller in foreign and barbarous climates, to mingle in political intrigue, or to retire to the stern seclusion of the anchorites of our religion. All these are thoughts which have alternately passed through my mind, but each required an energy, which was mine no longer, after the withering stroke I had received. I vegetated, on as I could, in the same spot, fancy, feeling, judgment and health gradually decaying, like a tree whose bark has been destroyed. When first the blossoms fade, then the boughs, until its state resembles a decayed and dying trunk that is now before you. Do you now pity and forgive me? My Lord, answer the antiquary, much affected. My pity, my forgiveness, you have not to ask, for your dismal stories of itself not only an ample excuse for whatever appeared mysterious in your conduct, but a narrative that might move your worst enemies, and I, my Lord, was never of the number, to tears and to sympathy. But permit me to ask what you now mean to do, and why you have honored me, whose opinion can be of little consequence, with your confidence on this occasion. Mr. Oldbuck answered the earl, as I could never have foreseen the nature of that confession which I have heard this day, I need not say that I had no form-plan of consulting you, or any one, upon affairs the tendency of which I could not even have suspected. But I am without friends, unused to business, and by long retirement, unequainted alike with the laws of the land, and the habits of a living generation. And when most unexpectedly I find myself immersed in the matters of which I know least, I catch, like a drowning man, at the first support that offers. You are that support, Mr. Oldbuck. I have always heard you mentioned as a man of wisdom and intelligence. I have known you myself as a man of a resolute and independent spirit. And there is one circumstance, said he, which ought to combine us in some degree, are having paid tribute to the same excellence of character in poor Evelyn. You offered yourself to me in my need, and you were already acquainted with the beginning of my misfortunes. To you, therefore, I have recourse for advice, for sympathy, for support. You shall seek none of them in vain, my lord, said Oldbuck, so far as my slender ability extends. And I am honored by the preference, whether it arises from choice or is prompted by chance. But this is a matter to be rightly considered. May I ask, what are your principal views at present? To ascertain the fate of my child, said the Earl, be the consequences what they may, and to do justice to the honor of Evelyn, which I have only permitted to be suspected to avoid discovery of the yet more horrible taint to which I was made to believe it liable. And the memory of your mother? Must bear its own burden, answered the Earl with a sigh. Better that she were justly convicted of deceit, should that be found necessary, than that other should be unjustly accused of crimes so much more dreadful than my lord. Said Oldbuck, our first business must be to put the information of the old woman, Elspeth, into a regular and authenticated form. That, said Lord Glenellen, will be at present, I fear, impossible. She has exhausted herself and surrounded by our distressed family, tomorrow, perhaps, when she is alone. And yet I doubt, from her imperfect sense of right and wrong, whether she would speak out in anyone's presence but my own. I am too sorely fatigued. Than my lord, said the antiquary, whom the interests of the moment elevated above points of expense and convenience, which had generally, more than enough, of wait with him. I would propose to your lordship, instead of returning, fatigued as you are, so far as to Glenellen House, or taking the more uncomfortable alternative of going to a bad inn at Fairport, to alarm all the busy bodies of the town. I would propose, I say, that you should be my guest among barns for this night. By tomorrow these poor people will have renewed their out-of-doors vocation, for sorrow with them before it's no respite from labor. And we will visit the old woman else but alone, and take down her examination. After a formal apology for the encroachment, Lord Glenellen agreed to go with him, and underwent with patience in their return home the whole history of John of the Gernel, a legend which Mr. Oldbuck was never known to spare anyone who crossed his threshold. The arrival of a stranger of such note, with two saddle horses and a servant in black, which servant had holsters on his saddle-bowl, and a coronet upon the holsters, created a general commotion in the house of muck barns. Jenny Renterout, scarce recovered from the hysterics which he had taken on, on hearing of poor Stiney's misfortune, chased about the turkeys and poultry, cackled and screamed louder than they did, and ended by killing one half too many. Miss Griselda made many wise reflections on the hot-headed wolfiness of her brother, who had occasioned such devastation by suddenly bringing in upon them a papous nobleman. And she ventured to transmit to Mr. Blattergau some hint of the unusual slaughter which had taken place in the boss-core, which brought the honest clergyman to inquire how his friend Muck Barns had got home, and whether he was not, the worse of being at the funeral, at a period so near the ringing of the bell for dinner, that the antiquary had no choice left but to invite him to stay and bless the meat. Miss Mentire had, on her part, some curiosity to see this mighty pier, of whom all had heard, as an eastern caliph or sultan is heard of by his subjects, and felt some degree of timidity at the idea of encountering a person, of whose unsocial habits and stern manners so many stories were told, that her fear kept at least pace with her curiosity. The aged housekeeper was no less flustered, and hurried, in obeying the numerous and contradictory commands of her mistress, concerning preserves, pastry, and fruit, the mode of marshaling and dishing the dinner, the necessity of not permitting the melted butter to run to oil, and the danger of allowing Juno, who, though formally banished from the parlor, failed not to maraud about the out-settlements of the family, to enter the kitchen. The only inmate of Muck Barns, who remained entirely indifferent on this momentous occasion, was Hector Mentire, who cared no more for an earl than he did for a commoner, and who was only interested in the unexpected visit, as it might afford some protection against his uncle's displeasure, if he harbored any, for his not attending the funeral, and still more against his satire upon the subject of his gallant but unsuccessful single combat with the foca, or seal. To these the inmates of his household, Old Buck presented the earl of Glen Allen, who underwent, with meek and subdued civility, the prosing speeches of the honest divine, and the lengthened apologies of Miss Griselda, Old Buck, which her brother in vain endeavored to abridge. Before the dinner hour, Lord Glen Allen requested permission to retire awhile to his chamber. Mr. Old Buck accompanied his guest to the green room, which had been hastily prepared for his reception. He looked around with an air of painful recollection. I think, at length he observed, I think, Mr. Old Buck, that I have been in this apartment before. Yes, my lord, answered Old Buck, upon occasion of an excursion, hither, from Nock Winick, and since we are upon a subject so melancholy, you may perhaps remember, whose taste supplied these lines from Chaucer, which now form the motto of the tapestry. I guess, said the earl, though I cannot recollect. She excelled me, indeed, in literary taste and information, as in everything else, and it is one of the mysterious dispensations of provenance, Mr. Old Buck, that a creature so excellent in mind and body should have been cut off in so miserable a manner, merely from her having formed a fatal attachment to such a wretch as I am. Mr. Old Buck did not attempt an answer to this burst of the grief which lay ever nearest to the heart of his guest, but pressing Lord Glen Ellen's hand, with one of his own, and drawing the other across his shaggy eyelashes, as if to brush away a mist that intercepted his sight, he left the earl at liberty to range himself previous to dinner. CHAPTER XIV LIFE with you glows in the brain and dances in the arteries, tis like the wine some joyous guest hath quaffed, that glads the heart and elevates the fancy. Then is the poor residuum of the cup, vapid and dull and tasteless, only soiling, with its base-drags, the vessel that contains it. OLD PLAYING No. Only think what a man my brother is, Mr. Blattergall, for a wise man and a learned man, to bring this earl into our house without speaking a word to a body. And there's the distress of thy muckle-backets, we kind of get a fin-o-fish, and we have no time to send o'er to Fairport for beef, and the muttons mutt new killed. And that silly flisk-mahue, Jenny Renterout, has tied the egg- size, and done nothing but laugh and greet, the squirrel at the tail of the guffaw, for twi-day successfully. And now we want us that strange man, that's as grand in his grave as the earl himself, to stand at the side-board. And I kind of gang into the kitchen to direct anything, for he's hoverin' over there, makin' some pow-soud-ee for my lord. For it doesn't eat, like either folk neither. Reader's note, pow-city, miscellaneous mass, I know how to sort that strange servant man at dinner-time, I'm sure Mr. Blattergall, hi-together, it passes my judgment. Truly in Miss Griselda replied the divine, Monk Barnes was inconsiderate. He should have taken a day to see the invitation, as I do with the tit-to-lar's condescendence, in the process of valuation and sale. But the great man could not have come on a sudden to any house in this parish, where he could have been better served with bibbers. That I must say. And also that the steam from the kitchen is very grad-fine to my nostrils. And if you have any household affairs to attend to, Mr. Griselda, never make a stranger of me. I can't amuse myself very well with the larger copy of Erskine's Institutes. And taking down from the window-seat that amusing folio, the Scottish Cook, upon Littleton, he opened it, as if instinctively, at the tenth title of Book Second, of Teens or Types, and was presently deeply wrapped up in an abstruse discussion concerning the temporality of benefices. The entertainment about which Miss Oldbuck expressed so much anxiety wasn't length-placed upon the table, and the Earl of Glen Ellyn, for the first time since the date of his calamity, sat at a stranger's board surrounded by strangers. He seemed to himself like a man in a dream or one whose brain was not fully recovered from the effects of an intoxicating potion. Relieved as he had that morning been, from the image of guilt which had so long haunted his imagination, he felt his sorrows as a lighter and more tolerable load, but was so unable to take any share in the conversation that passed around him. It was, indeed, of a cast very different from that which he had been accustomed to. The bluntness of Oldbuck, the tiresome apologetic harangs of his sister, the pedantry of the divine, and the vivacity of the young soldier, which savored much more of the camp than of the court, were all new to a nobleman who had lived in a retired and melancholy state for so many years, that the manners of the world seemed to him equally strange and unpleasing. His entire loan, from the natural politeness and unpretending simplicity of her manners, appeared to belong to that class of society to which he had been accustomed in his earlier and better days. Nor did Lord Glanellan's deportment less surprise the company. Though a plain but excellent family dinner was provided, for as Mr. Blattergau had dressily said, it was impossible to surprise Miss Griselda when her larder was empty. And though the antiquary boasted his best port, and assimilated it to the Fallurnian of Horus, Lord Glanellan was proof to the alernments of both. His serpent placed before him a small mess of vegetables, that very dish, the cooking of which had alarmed Miss Griselda, arranged with the most minute and scrupulous neatness. He ate sparingly of these provisions, and a glass of pure water, sparkling from the fountain-head, completed his repast. Such his servant said had been his lordship's diet for very many years, unless upon the high festivals of the church, or when company of the first rank were entertained at Glanellan's house, when he relaxed a little in the austerity of his diet, and permitted himself a glass or two of wine. But at Munch Barn's, no anchor-right could have made a more simple and scanty meal. The antiquary was a gentleman, as we have seen, in feeling, but blunt and careless in expression, from the habit of living with those before whom he had nothing to surprise. He attacked his noble guest, without scruple, on the severity of his regimen. A few half-cold greens and potatoes, a glass of ice-cold water to wash them down, antiquity gives no warrant for it, my lord. This house used to be accounted a hospitium, a place of retreat for Christians, but your lordship's diet is that of a heathen, Pythagorean, or Indian Brahmin, nay, more severe than either, if you refuse these fine apples. I am a Catholic, you are aware, said Lord Glanellan, wishing to escape from the discussion, and you know that our church lays down many rules of mortification, preceded the Dauntless Antiquary, but I never heard that they were quite so rigorously practiced. Bear witness, my predecessor, John of the Gernel, or the Jolly Abbot, who gave his name to this apple, my lord. And as he impaired the fruit, in spite of his sister's all five month-burns, and the prolonged cough of the minister, accompanied by a shake of his huge wig, the Antiquary proceeded to detail the intrigue which had given rise to the fame of the Appet's apple, with more slowness and circumstantiality than was it all necessary. His jest, as may readily be conceived, missed fire, for this anecdote of conventional gallantry failed to produce the slightest smile on the visage of the earl. Old Buck then took up the subject of Ocean, Macpherson, and McCrim, but Lord Glanellan had never so much as heard of any of the three. So little conversant had he been with modern literature. The conversation was now in some danger of flagging, or of falling to the hands of Mr. Blattergau, who had just pronounced the formidable word, teemed free, when the subject of the French Revolution was started, a political event on which Lord Glanellan looked with all the prejudice horror of a bigoted Catholic and zealous aristocrat. Old Buck was far from carrying his detestation of its principles to such a length. There were many men in the first constituent assembly, he said, who held some wiggish doctrines, and were for settling the Constitution with a proper provision for the liberties of the people. And if a set of furious madmen were now in possession of the government, it was, he continued, what often happened in great revolutions, where extreme measures are adopted in the fury of the moment, and the state resembles an agitated pendulum which swings from side to side for some time ere it can acquire its due in perpendicular station. Or it might be likened to a storm or hurricane, which, passing over a region, does great damage in its passage, yet sweeps away stagnant and unwholesome vapors, and repays in future health and fertility its immediate desolation and ravage. The Earl shook his head, but having neither spirit nor inclination for debate, he suffered the argument to pass uncontested. This discussion served to introduce the young soldier's experiences, and he spoke of the actions in which he had been engaged with modesty and, at the same time with an air of spirit and zeal, which delighted the Earl, who had been bred up, like others of his house, in the opinion that the trade of arms was the first duty of man, and believed that to employ them against the French was a sort of holy warfare. What would I give? said he, a part to Old Buck, as they rose to join the ladies in the drawing-room. What would I give to have a son of such spirit as that young gentleman? He wanted something of a dress and manner, something of polish, which, mixing in good society, would soon give him. But with what zeal and animation he expresses himself? How fond of his profession! How loud and the praise of others! How modest when speaking of himself! Hector as much obliged to you, my lord, replied his uncle, gratified, yet not so much so as to suppress his consciousness of his own mental superiority over the young soldier. I believe in my heart nobody ever spoke half so much good of him before, except perhaps the sergeant of his company. When was wielding a Highland recruit to enlist with him? He is a good lad notwithstanding, although he be not quite the hero your lordship supposes him, and although my commendations rather attest the kindness than the vivacity of his character. In fact, his high spirit is a sort of constitutional vehemence, which attends him in everything he sets about, and is often very inconvenient to his friends. I saw him today engage in an animated contest with afoka, or seal, cel, our people more properly call them, retaining the gothic guttural guh. With as much vehemence as if he had fought against demoria. Mary, my lord, the foca had the better, as the said demoria had of some other folks. And he'll talk with equal if not superior rapture of the good behavior of a pointer-bitch as of the plan of a campaign. He shall have full permission to sport over my grounds, said the Earl, if he is so fond of that exercise. You will bind him to you, my lord, said Monk Barns, body and soul, give him leave to crack off his birding peace at a poor cove of partridges or moriffel, and he's yours forever. I will enchant him by the intelligence. But oh, my lord, that you could have seen my phoenix level, the very prince in chieftain of the youth of his age, and not destitute of spirit, neither. I promise you, he gave my termigant, kinsmen, a quid pro quo, a raland for his Oliver, as the vulgar say, alluding to the two celebrated paladins of Charlemagne. After coffee, Lord Glen Allen requested a private interview with the antiquary, and was ushered to his library. I must withdraw you from your own amiable family, he said, to involve you in the perplexities of an unhappy man. You are acquainted with the world from which I have long been banished, for Glen Allen House has been to me rather a prison than a dwelling, although a prison which I had neither fortitude nor spirit to break from. Let me first ask your lordship, said the antiquary, what are your own wishes and designs in this matter? I wish most especially, answered Lord Glen Allen, to declare my luckless marriage and to vindicate the reputation of the unhappy Evelyn, that is, if you see a possibility of doing so without making public the conduct of my mother. Sum quick way to read to her, said the antiquary. Do write to everyone, the memory of that unhappy young lady has too long suffered, and I think it might be cleared, without further impeaching that of your mother, than by letting it be understood in general, that she greatly disapproved and bitterly opposed the match. All, forgive me, my lord, all who ever heard of the late Countess of Glen Allen will learn that without much surprise. But you forget one horrible circumstance, Mr. Oldbuck, said the Earl, in an agitated voice. I am not aware of it, replied the antiquary. The fate of the infant, its disappearance with the confidential intendant of my mother, and the dreadful surmises which may be drawn from my conversation with Elspeth. If you would have my free opinion, my lord, answered Mr. Oldbuck, and will not catch too rapidly at it as matter of hope, I would say that it is very possible the child yet lives. For thus much I ascertained, by my former inquiries concerning the event of that deplorable evening, that a child and woman were carried that night from the cottage at the Craigburn foot, in a carriage and fore, by her brother Edward, Geraldine Neville, whose journey towards England with these companions I traced for several stages. I believed then it was a part of the family compact to carry a child whom you meant to stigmatize with illegitimacy, out of that country where chance might have raised protectors and proofs of its rights. But I now think that your brother, having reason like yourself to believe the child stained with shame yet more indelible, had nevertheless withdrawn it, partly from regard to the honor of his house, partly from the risk to which it might have been exposed in the neighborhood of the Lady Glenalland. As he spoke the Earl of Glenalland grew extremely pale and had nearly fallen from his chair. The alarmed antiquary ran hither and dither, looking for remedies, but his museum, though sufficiently well filled with a vast variety of useless matters, contained nothing that could be serviceable on the present or any other occasion. As he posted out of the room to borrow his sister's salt, he could not help giving a constitutional growl of chagrin and wonder, at the various incidents which had converted his mansion, first into a hospital for a wounded dualist, and now into the sick chamber of a dying nobleman. And yet, said he, I have always kept aloof from the soldiery and the peerage. My Quona Bintium has only next to be made a lying in hospital, and then, I trove, the transformation will be complete. When he returned with the remedy, Lord Glenalland was much better. The new and unexpected light which Mr. Oldbuck had thrown upon the melancholy history of his family had almost overpowered him. You think, then, Mr. Oldbuck, for you are capable of thinking, which I am not. You think, then, that it is possible, that it is not impossible. My child may yet live, I think, said the antiquary. It is impossible that it could come to any violent harm through your brother's means. He was known to be a gay and dissipated man, but not cruel nor dishonorable, nor is it possible that, if he had intended any foul play, he would have placed himself so forward in the charge of the infant, as I would prove to your lordship he did. So sane, Mr. Oldbuck opened a drawer of the cabinet of his ancestor, Aldebrand, and produced a bundle of papers tied with a black ribbon, and labeled examinations, et cetera, taken by Jonathan Oldbuck, J.P., upon the 18th of February, 17. A little under was written in a small hand, E.U.Evelina. The tears dropped fast from the earl's eyes as he endeavored in vain to infasten the knot which secured these documents. Your lordship, said Mr. Oldbuck, had better not read these at present. Agitate as you are, and have me much business before you. You must not exhaust your strength. Your brother's succession is now, I presume, your own, and it will be easy for you to make inquiry among his servants and retainers. So as to hear where the child is, if, fortunately, it shall be still alive. I dare hardly hope it, said the earl, with a deep sigh. Why should my brother have been silent to me? May my lord, why should he have communicated to your lordship the existence of a being whom you must have supposed the offspring of? Most true. There is an obvious and a kind reason for his being silent. If anything indeed could have added to the whore of the gassy dream that has poisoned my whole existence, it must have been the knowledge that such a child of misery existed. Then continue the antiquary. Though it would be rash to conclude, at the distance of more than twenty years, that your son must needs be still alive because he was not destroyed in infancy, I own I think you should instantly set on foot inquiries. It shall be done, replied Lord Glen Allen, catching eagerly at the hope held out to him, the first he had nourished for many years. I will write to a faithful steward of my father, who acted in the same capacity under my brother Neville. But Mr. Old Black, I am not my brother's heir. Indeed, I am sorry for that, my lord. It is a noble estate, and the ruins of the old castle of Neville's Burg, alone, which are the most superb relics of Anglo-Norman architecture in that part of the country. Our possession much to be coveted. I thought your father had no other son or near relative. He had not, Mr. Old Black, replied Lord Glen Allen, but my brother adopted views in politics and a former religion, alien from those which had been always held by our house. Our tempers had long differed, nor did my unhappy mother always think him sufficiently observant to her. In short, there was a family quarrel, and my brother, whose property was at his own free disposal, availed himself of the power vested in him to choose a stranger for his heir. It is a matter which never struck me as being of the least consequence, for if worldly possessions could alleviate misery, I have enough and a spare. But now I shall regret it if it throws any difficulty in the way of our inquiries, and ever think me that it may, for in case of my having a lawful son of my body, and my brother dying without issue, my father's possessions stood entailed upon my son. It is not therefore likely that this heir, be he who he may, will afford his assistance in making a discovery which may turn out so much to his own prejudice. And in all probability the steward your lordship mentions is also in his service, said the antiquary. It is most likely. And the man being a Protestant, how far it is safe to entrust him. I should hope, my lord, said Old Buck gravely, that a Protestant may be as trustworthy as a Catholic. I am doubly interested in the Protestant faith, my lord. My ancestor, Alderbrand Oldenbuck, printed the celebrated confession of Augsburg, as I can show by the original edition now in this house. I am not the least doubted of what you say, Mr. Old Buck, replied the Earl, nor do I speak out of bigotry or intolerance, but probably the Protestant steward will favor the Protestant heir rather than the Catholic. If indeed my son has been bred in his father's faith. Or alas, if indeed he yet lives. We must look close into this, said Old Buck, before committing ourselves. I have a literary friend at York, with whom I have long corresponded on the subject of the Saxon horn that is preserved in the minster there. We interchange letters for six years and have only as yet been able to settle the first line of the inscription. I will write forthwith to this gentleman, Dr. Dryastust, and be particular in my inquiries concerning the character, et cetera, of your brother's heir, of the gentleman employed in his affairs, and what else may be likely to further your lordship's inquiries. In the meantime your lordship will collect the evidence of the marriage, which I hope can still be recovered. Unquestionably, replied the Earl, the witnesses who were formally withdrawn from your research are still living. My tutor, who solemnized the marriage, was provided for by living in France, and has lately returned to this country as an immigrant. A victim of his zeal for loyalty, legitimacy, and religion. That's one lucky consequence of the French Revolution, my lord. You must allow that, at least, said old luck. But no offense, I will act as warmly in your affairs as if I were of your own faith in politics and religion. And take my advice, if you want an affair of consequence properly managed, put it into the hands of an antiquary, for as they are internally exercising their genius and research upon trifles, it is impossible they can be baffled into affairs of importance. Use makes perfect, and the core that is most frequently drilled upon the parade will be most prompt in its exercise upon the day of battle. And talking upon that subject, I would willingly reach your lordship in order to pass away the time betwixt and supper. I beg I may not interfere with family arrangements, said Lord Glen-Ellen, but I never taste anything after sunset. Nor I either, my lord, answered his host, notwithstanding it is said to have been the custom of the ancients. But then I died differently from your lordship, and therefore am better enabled to dispense with those elaborate entertainments, which my woman kind, that is my sister and niece, my lord, are apt to place on the table. For the display, rather of their own house-wipery than the accommodation of our wands. However, a boiled bone, or a smoked attic, or an oyster, or a slice of bacon of our own curing, with a toast and a tanker, or something or other of that sort, to close the orifice of the stomach before going to bed does not fall under my restriction, nor I hope under your lordships. My no supper is literal, Mr. Oldbuck, but I will attend you at your meal with pleasure. While, my lord, reply the antiquary, I will endeavor to entertain your ears, at least, since I cannot banquet to your palate. What I am about to read to your lordship relates to the upland glens. Lord Glen-Ellen, though he would rather have recurred to the subject of his own uncertainties, was compelled to make a sign of rueful civility and acquiescence. The antiquary, therefore, took out his portfolio of luce sheets, and after premising that the topographical details, here, laid down, were designed to illustrate a slight essay upon castrimitation, which had been read with indulgence at several societies of antiquaries. He commenced as follows. The subject, my lord, is the hillfort of Quickensbog, with the sight of which your lordship is doubtless familiar. It is upon your store-farm of Mantaner, in the barony of Clocknobon. I think I have heard the names of these places, said the earl, in answer to the antiquary's appeal. Heard the name, and the farm brings him six hundred a year, oh lord! Such was the scarce subdued ejaculation of the antiquary. But his hospitality got the better of his surprise, and he proceeded to read his essay with an audible voice, in great glee at having secured a patient, and, as he fondly hoped, an interested hearer. Quickensbog may at first seem to derive its name from the plant Quicken, by which scottis we understand couchgrass, doggrass, or the triticum-repense of lanais, and the common English monosyllable bog, by which we mean, in popular language, a marsh or morass, in Latin, palus. But it may confound the rash adopters of the more obvious etymological derivations to learn that the couchgrass, or doggrass, or to speak scientifically the triticum-repense of lanais, does not grow within a quart of a mile of this castrum or hillfort, whose ramparts are uniformly clothed with short verdant turf, and that we must seek a bog, or palus, at a still greater distance, the nearest being that of Gerd the near, a full half-mile distant. The last syllable, bog, is obviously, therefore, a mere corruption of the Saxon burg, where we find in the various transmutations of burg, burrow, brog, brough, boff, and boff, which last approaches very near the sound in question, since supposing the word to have been originally borg, which is the genuine Saxon spelling, a slight change, such as modern organs too often make upon ancient sounds, will produce first bog, and then alisa h, or compromising in syncing the guttural, agreeable to the common vernacular practice, you have either boff, or bog, as it happens. The word quickens requires in like manner to be altered, decomposed as it were, and reduced to its original and genuine sound, ere we can discern its real meaning. By the ordinary exchange of the quah into waw, familiar to the rudist Tyro, who has opened a book of old Scottish poetry, we can either Wilkins or Wiccansborg, but we may suppose, by way of question, as if those who impose the name struck with the extreme antiquity of the place, had expressed it in an interrogation, to whom did this fortress belong, or it might be Wacansburg, from the Saxon Wacan, to strike with the hand, as doubtless the skirmishes near a place of such apparent consequence must have legitimated such a derivation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I will be more merciful to my readers than Old Buck was to his guest, for considering his opportunities of gaining patient attention from a person of such consequence, as Lord Glen Ellen, were not many. He used, or rather abused, the present to the uttermost. End chapter 14.