The antiquary

Front matter

VICTORIA

EOUTION® rm AimwAroY

EDIE OCHILTREE APPEARS AT THE PRjETORIUM.

CHAPTER SECOND. Sir, they do scandal me upon the road here !

A poor quotidian rack of mutton roasted Dry to be grated ! and that driven down With beer and butter-milk, mingled together.

It is against my freehold, my inheritance.

Wine is the word that glads the heart of man,

And mine’s the house of wine. Sack , says my bush,

Be merry and drink Sherry , that’s my posie.

Ben Jonson’s New Inn,

As the senior traveller descended the crazy steps of the diligence at the inn, he was greeted by the fat, gouty, pursy landlord, with that mixture of familiarity and respect which the Scotch innkeepers of the old school used to assume towards their more valued customers.

“ Have a care o’ us, Monkbarns (distinguishing him by his territorial epithet, always most agreeable to the ear of a Scottish proprietor), is this you? I little thought to have seen your honour here till the summer session was ower.”

“ Ye donnard auld deevil,” answered his guest, his Scottish accent predominating when in anger though otherwise not particularly remarkable, — “ ye donnard auld crippled idiot, what have I to do with the session, or the geese that flock to it, or the hawks that pick their pinions for them ?”

“ Troth, and that’s true,” said mine host, who, in fact, only spoke upon a very general recollection of the stranger’s original education, yet would have been sorry not to have been supposed accurate as to the station and profession of him, or any other occasional guest — “That’s very true — but I thought ye had some law affair of your ain to look after — I have ane mysell — a ganging plea that my father left me, and his father afore left to him. It’s about our back-yard — ye’ll maybe hae heard of it in the Parliament-house, Hutchison against Mackitchinson — it’s a weel-kenn’d plea — its been four times in afore the fifteen, and deil ony thing the wisest o’ them could make o’t, but just to send it out again to the outer-house. — 0 it’s a beautiful thing to see how lang and how carefully justice is considered in this country !”

“ Hold your tongue, you fool,” said the traveller, but in great

WAVERLEY NOVELS.

good-humour, “and tell us what you can give this young gentleman and me for dinner.”

“Ou, there’s fish, nae doubt, — that’s sea-trout and caller* haddocks,” said Mackitchinson, twisting his napkin ; “ and ye’ll be for a mutton-chop, and there’s cranberry tarts, very weel preserved, and — and there’s just ony thing else ye like.”

“Which is to say, there is nothing else whatever? Well, well, the fish and the chop, and the tarts, will do veiy well. But don’t imitate the cautious delay that you praise in the courts of justice. Let there be no remits from the inner to the outer house, hear ye me ?”

“ Na, na,” said Mackitchinson, whose long and heedful perusal of volumes of printed session papers had made him acquainted with some law phrases — “the denner shall be served quam prvrmm and that peremptwie” And with the flattering laugh of a promising host, he left them in his sanded parlour, hung with prints of the Four Seasons.

As, notwithstanding his pledge to the contrary, the glorious delays of the law were not without their parallel in the kitchen of the inn, our younger traveller had an opportunity to step out and make some inquiry of the people of the house concerning the rank and station of his companion. The information which he received was of a general and less authentic nature, but quite sufficient to make him acquainted with the name, history, and circumstances of the gentleman, whom we shall endeavour, in a few words, to introduce more accurately to our readers.

Jonathan Oldenbuck, or Oldinbuck, by popular contraction Oldbuck, of Monkbarns, was the second son of a gentleman possessed of a small property in the neighbourhood of a thriving seaport town on the north-eastern coast of Scotland, which, for various reasons, we shall denominate Fairport. They had been established for several generations, as landowners in the county, and in most shires of England would have been accounted a

family of some standing. But the shire of was filled with

gentlemen of more ancient descent and larger fortune, in the last generation, also, the neighbouring gentry had been almost uniformly Jacobites, while the proprietors of Monkbarns, like the burghers of the town near which they were settled, were steady assertors of the Protestant succession. The latter had, however, a pedigree of their own, on which they prided them * [For Scotch expressions, see Glossary at end of volume.]

the antiquary.

selves as much as those who despised them vaiued their respective Saxon, Norman, or Celtic genealogies. The first Oldenbuck, who had settled in their family mansion shortly after the Reformation, was, they asserted, descended from one of the original printers of Germany, and had left his country in consequence of the persecutions directed against the professors of the Reformed religion. He had found a refuge in the town near which his posterity dwelt, the more readily that he was a sufferer in the Protestant cause, and certainly not the less so, that he brought with him money enough to purchase the small estate of Monkbarns, then sold by a dissipated laird, to whose father it had been gifted, with other church lands, on the dissolution of the great and wealthy monastery to which it had belonged. The Oldenbucks were therefore loyal subjects on all occasions of insurrection ; and, as they kept up a good intelligence with the borough, it chanced that the Laird of Monkbarns, who flourished in 1745, was provost of the town during that ill-fated year, and had exerted himself with much spirit in favour of King George, and even been put to expenses on that score, which, according to the liberal conduct of the existing government towards their friends, had never been repaid him. By dint of solicitation, however, and borough interest, he contrived to gain a place in the customs, and, being a frugal, careful man, had foimd himself enabled to add considerably to his paternal fortune. He had only two sons, of whom, as we have hinted, the present laird was the younger, and two daughters, one of whom still flourished in single blessedness, and the other, who was greatly more juvenile, made a love-match with a captain in the Forty-twa, who had no other fortune but his commission and a Highland pedigree. Poverty disturbed a union which love would otherwise have made happy, and Captain MTntyre, in justice to his wife and two children, a boy and girl, had found himself obliged to seek his fortune in the East Indies. Being ordered upon an expedition against Hyder Ally, the detachment to which he belonged was cut off, and no news ever reached his unfortunate wife whether he fell in battle, or was murdered in prison, or survived in what the habits of the Indian tyrant rendered a hopeless captivity. She sunk under the accumulated load of grief and uncertainty, and left a son and daughter to the charge of her brother, the existing Laird of Monkbarns.

The history of that proprietor himself is soon told. Being,

WAVERLEY NOVELS.

as we have said, a second son, his father destined him to a share in a substantial mercantile concern, carried on by some of his maternal relations. From this Jonathan’s mind revolted in the most irreconcilable manner. He was then put apprentice to the profession of a writer, or attorney, in which he profited so far, that he made himself master of the whole forms of feudal investitures, and showed such pleasure in reconciling their incongruities, and tracing their origin, that his master had great hope he would one day be an able conveyancer. But he halted upon the threshold, and, though he acquired some knowledge of the origin and system of the law of his country, he could never be persuaded to apply it to lucrative and practical purposes. It was not from any inconsiderate neglect of the advantages attending the possession of money that he thus deceived the hopes of his master. “ Were he thoughtless or light-headed, or rei suce yrodigus” said his instructor, “ I would know what to make of him. But he never pays away a shilling without looking anxiously after the change, makes his sixpence go farther than another lad’s half-crown, and will ponder over an old black-letter copy of the acts of parliament for days, rather than go to the golf or the change-house ; and yet he will not bestow one of these days on a little business of routine, that would put twenty shillings in his pocket — a strange mixture of frugality and industry, and negligent indolence — I don’t know what to make of him.”

But in process of time his pupil gained the means of making what he pleased of himself ; for his father having died, was not long survived by his eldest son, an arrant fisher and fowler, who departed this life, in consequence of a cold caught in his vocation, while shooting ducks in the swamp called Kittlefitting-moss, notwithstanding his having drunk a bottle of brandy that very night to keep the cold out of his stomach. Jonathan, therefore, succeeded to the estate, and with it to the means of subsisting without the hated drudgery of the law. His wishes were very moderate ; and as the rent of his small property rose with the improvement of the country, it soon greatly exceeded his wants and expenditure ; and though too indolent to make money, he was by no means insensible to the pleasure of beholding it accumulate. The burghers of the town near which he lived regarded him with a sort of envy, as one who affected to divide himself from their rank in society, and whose studies and

THE ANTIQUARY.

pleasures seemed to them alike incomprehensible. Still, however, a sort of hereditary respect for the Laird of Monkbams, augmented by the knowledge of his being a ready-money man, kept up his consequence with this class of his neighbours. The country gentlemen were generally above him in fortune, and beneath him in intellect, and, excepting one with whom he lived in habits of intimacy, had little intercourse with Mr. Oldbuck of Monkbarns. He had, however, the usual resources, the company of the clergyman, and of the doctor, when he chose to request it, and also his own pursuits and pleasures, being in correspondence with most of the virtuosi of his time, who, like himself, measured decayed entrenchments, made plans of ruined castles, read illegible inscriptions, and wrote essays on medals in the proportion of twelve pages to each letter of the legend. Some habits of hasty irritation he had contracted, partly, it was said in the borough of Fairport, from an early disappointment in love, in virtue of which he had commenced misogynist, as he called it, but yet more by the obsequious attention paid to him by his maiden sister and his orphan niece, whom he had trained to consider him as the greatest man upon earth, and whom he used to boast of as the only women he had ever seen who were well broke in and bitted to obedience ; though, it must be owned, Miss Grizzy Oldbuck was sometimes apt to gib when he pulled the reins too tight. The rest of his character must be gathered from the story, and we dismiss with pleasure the tiresome task of recapitulation.

During the time of dinner, Mr. Oldbuck, actuated by the same curiosity which his fellow-traveller had entertained on his account, made some advances, which his age and station entitled him to do in a more direct manner, towards ascertaining the name, destination, and quality of his young companion.

His name, the young gentleman said, was Lovel.

“ What ! the cat, the rat, and Lovel our dog ? Was he descended from King Richard’s favourite?”

“ He had no pretensions,” he said, “ to call himself a whelp of that litter; his father was a north-of-England gentleman. He was at present travelling to Fairport (the town near to which Monkbams was situated), and, if he found the place agreeable, might perhaps remain there for some weeks.”

“Was Mr. Lovel’s excursion solely for pleasure?”

“ Not entirely.”

WAVEIILKY NOVELS.

“ Perhaps on business with some of the commercial people of Fail-port ?”

“ It was partly on business, but had no reference to commerce.”

Here he paused; and Mr. Oldbuck, having pushed his inquiries as far as good manners permitted, was obliged to change the conversation. The Antiquary, though by no means an enemy to good cheer, was a determined foe to all unnecessary expense on a journey ; and upon his companion giving a hint concerning a bottle of port wine, he drew a direful picture of the mixture, which, he said, was usually sold under that denomination, and affirming that a little punch was more genuine and better suited for the season, he laid his hand upon the bell to order the materials. But Mackitchinson had, in his own mind, settled their beverage otherwise, and appeared bearing in his hand an immense double quart bottle, or magnum, as it is called in Scotland, covered with saw-dust and cobwebs, the warrants of its antiquity.

“Punch!” said he, catching that generous sound as he entered the parlour, “ the deil a drap punch ye’se get here the day, Monkbams, and that ye may lay your account wi’.”

“ What do you mean, you impudent rascal ?”

“ Ay, ay, it’s nae matter for that — but do you mind the trick ye served me the last time ye were here1?”

“ I trick you !”

“Ay, just yoursell, Monkbams. The Laird o’ Tamlowrie, aud Sir Gilbert Grizzlecleuch, and Auld Rossballoh, and the Bailie, were just setting in to make an afternoon o’t, and you, wi’ some o’ your auld-warld stories, that the mind o’ man canna resist, whirl’d them to the back o’ beyont to look at the auld Roman camp — Ah, sir!” turning to Lovel, “he wad wile the bird aff the tree wi’ the tales he tells about folk lang syne — and did not I lose the drinking o’ sax pints o’ gude claret, for the deil ane wad hae stirred till he had seen that out at the least ?”

“ D’ye hear the impudent scoundrel !” said Monkbams, but laughing at the same time ; for the worthy landlord, as he used to boast, knew the measure of a guest’s foot as well as e’er a Bouter on this side Solway ; “ well, well, you may send us in a bottle of port.”

“ Port ! naa na ! ye maun leave port and punch to the like o’

THE ANTIQUARY.

ns, it’s claret that’s fit for you lairds ; and, I dare say, nane of the folk ye speak so much o’ ever drank either of the twa.”

“ Do you hear how absolute the knave is ? Well, my young friend, we must for once prefer the Falernian to the vile Sabinum”

The ready landlord had the cork instantly extracted, decanted the wine into a vessel of suitable capaciousness, and, declaring it parfumed the very room, left his guests to make the most of it.

Mackitchinson’s wine was really good, and had its effect upon the spirits of the elder guest, who told some good stories, cut some sly jokes, and at length entered into a learned discussion concerning the ancient dramatists ; a ground on which he found his new acquaintance so strong, that at length he began to suspect he had made them his professional study. “ A traveller partly for business and partly for pleasure? — Why, the stage partakes of both ; it is a labour to the performers, and affords, or is meant to afford, pleasure to the spectators. He seems, in manner and rank, above the class of young men who take that turn ; but I remember hearing them say, that the little theatre at Fairport was to open with the performance of a young gentleman, being his first appearance on any stage. — If this should be thee, Lovel ! — Lovel ? yes, Lovel or Belville are just the names which youngsters are apt to assume on such occasions — on my life, I am sorry for the lad.”

Mr. Oldbuck was habitually parsimonious, but in no respects mean • his first thought was to save his fellow-traveller any part of the expense of the entertainment, which he supposed must be in his situation more or less inconvenient. He therefore took an opportunity of settling privately with Mr. Mackitchinson. The young traveller remonstrated against his liberality, and only acquiesced in deference to his years and respectability.

The mutual satisfaction which they found in each other’s society induced Mr. Oldbuck to propose, and Lovel willingly to accept, a scheme for travelling together to the end of their journey. Mr. Oldbuck intimated a wish to pay two-thirds of the hire of a post-chaise, saying, that a proportional quantity of room was necessary to his accommodation ■ but this Mr. Lovel resolutely declined. Their expense then was mutual, unless when Lovel occasionally slipt a shilling into the hand of a growling postilion ; for Oldbuck, tenacious of ancient customs, never extended his guerdon beyond eighteen-pence a stage. In

WAVERLEY NOVELS.

this manner they travelled, until they arrived at Fairport* about two o’clock on the following day.

Lovel probably expected that his travelling companion would have invited him to dinner on his arrival ; but his consciousness of a want of ready preparation for unexpected guests, and perhaps some other reasons, prevented Oldbuck from paying him that attention. He only begged to see him as early as he could make it convenient to call in a forenoon, recommended him to a widow who had apartments to let, and to a person who kept a decent ordinary ; cautioning both of them apart, that he only knew Mr. Lovel as a pleasant companion in a post-chaise, and did not mean to guarantee any bids which he might contract while residing at Fairport. The young gentleman’s figure and manners, not to mention a well-furnished tnmk, which soon arrived by sea, to his address at Fairport, probably went as far in his favour as the limited recommendation of his fellow-traveller.

* [The “Fairport” of this novel is supposed to refer to the town of Arbroath, in Forfarshire, and “ Musselcrag,” post, to the fishing village of Auchmithie, in the same county.]

CHAPTER THIRD. He had a routh o’ auld nick-nackets

Rusty aim caps, and jinglin-jackets,

Would held the Loudons three in tackets,

A towmond gude ;

And parritch-pats, and auld saut-backets.

Afore the flude.

Burns.

After he had settled himself in his new apartments at Fairport, Mr. Lovel bethought him of paying the requested visit to his fellow-traveller. He did not make it earlier, because, with all the old gentleman’s good-humour 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 Monkbarns. 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 aforesaid, and commanded a fine prospect of the bay and shipping. Secluded from the town by the rising ground, which also screened it from the north-west wind, the house had a solitary and sheltered appearance. The exterior had little to recommend it. It was an irregular old-fashioned building, some part of which had belonged to a grange, or solitary farm-house, 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 in kind, and hence, as the present proprietor loved to tell, came the name of Monkbarns. 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 act of leading down one of Amphion’s, or Orpheus’s, country dances. It was surrounded by tall clipped hedges of yew and holly, some of which still exhibited the skill of the topiarian artist, * and presented curious arm-chairs, towers, and the figures of Saint George and the Dragon. 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. One tall embowering holly was, however, sacred from the shears ; and, on a garden seat beneath its shade, Lovel beheld his old friend with spectacles on nose, and pouch on side, busily employed in perusing the London Chronicle, soothed by the summer breeze through the rustling leaves, and the distant dash of the waves as they rippled upon the sand.

* Ars Topiaria, the art of clipping yew-hedges into fantastic figures. A Latin poem, entitled Ars Topiaria , contains a curious account of tha

process.

WAYERLEY NOVELS.

Mr. Oldbuck immediately rose, and advanced to greet liis travelling 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 Mac- Cribb 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 had rather you had taken my copper Otho himself. — But come, let me show you the way into my sanctum sanctorum — my cell I may call it, for, except two idle hussies of womankind,” (by this contemptuous phrase, borrowed from his brother-antiquary, the cynic Anthony a- Wood, Mr. Oldbuck was used to denote the fair sex in general, and his sister and niece in particular), “that, on some idle pretext of relationship, have established themselves in my premises, I live here as much a Coenobite as my predecessor, John o’ the Gimell, 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 but knew, Mr. Lovel, the time and trouble that these mouldering traces of letters have cost me ! No mother ever travailed so foi a child — and all to no purpose — although I am almost positive that these two last marks imply the figures, or letters, LV, and may give us a good guess at the real date of the building, since we know, aliunde , that it was founded by Abbot Waldimir about the middle of the fourteenth century — and, I profess, I think that centre ornament might be made out by better eyes than mine.

“ I think,” answered Lovel, willing to humour the old man, “ it has something the appearance of a mitre.”

“ I protest you are right ! you are right ! it never struck me before — see what it is to have younger eyes — A mitre — a mitre — it corresponds in every respect.”

The resemblance was not much nearer than that of Polonius’s cloud to a whale, or an owzel ; it was sufficient, however, to set

THE ANTIQUARY.

the Antiquary’s brains to work. “ A mitre, 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 mitre, my dear sir, will suit our abbot as well as a bishop — he was a mitred abbot, and at the very top of the roll — take care of these three steps — I know Mac-Cribb denies this, but it is as certain as that he took away my Antigonus, no leave asked — you’ll see the name of the Abbot of Trotcosey, Abbas Trottocosiensis, 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 comer — ascend twelve steps, and ye are safe ! ”

Mr. Oldbuck had by this time attained the top of the winding stair which led to his own apartment, and opening 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 her duster, detected in the heinous fact of arranging the sanctum sanctorum, and fled out of an opposite door from the face of her incensed 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. Oldbuck hated putting to rights as much as Dr. Orkborne, or any other professed student.) “ Go, sew your sampler, you monkey, and do not let me find you here again, as you value your ears. — I assure you, Mr. Lovel, that the last inroad of these pretended friends to cleanliness was almost as fatal to my collection as Hudibras’s visit to that of Sidrophel ; and I have ever since missed

My moon-dial, with Napier’s bones,

And several constellation stones ;

My flea, my morpeon, and punaise,

I purchased for my proper ease.

And so forth, as old Butler has it.”

The young lady, after courtesying to Lovel, had taken the

WAVERLEY NOVELS.

opportunity to make her escape during this enumeration ot losses. “ You’ll 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, had not these gipsies disturbed it, as they do everything else in the world.”

It was indeed some time before Lovel 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 latticed windows. One end was entirely occupied by book-shelves, 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 armour, swords, dirks, helmets, and Highland targets. Behind Mr. Oldbuck’s seat (which was an ancient leathern-covered easy-chair, worn smooth by constant use) was a huge oaken cabinet, decorated at each comer with Dutch cherubs, having their little duck-wings displayed, and great jolter-headed visages placed between them. The top of this cabinet was covered with busts, and Roman lamps and paterae, 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 Gawaine’s wedding, in which full justice was done to the ugliness of the Lothely 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, than the romancer has given us to understand. The rest of the room was panelled, or wamscotted, with black oak, against which hung two or three portraits in armour, being characters in Scottish history, favourites of Mr. Oldbuck, 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 profusion of papers, parchments, books, and nondescript trinkets and gewgaws, which seemed to have little to recommend them, besides rust and the antiquity which it indicates. In the midst of this wreck of ancient books and utensils, with a gravity equal to Marius among the mins of Carthage, sat a large black cat, which, to a superstitious eye, might have presented the genius lod, the tutelar demon of the

THE ANTIQUARY.

apartment. The floor, as well as the table and chairs, was overflowed by the same mare 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.