The Antiquary — Complete by Walter Scott (best fiction novels to read TXT) 📖

lead to an answer of no limited length. The Antiquary, starting like a war-horse at the trumpet sound, plunged at once into the various arguments for and against the date of 1273, which had been assigned to the priory of St. Ruth by a late publication on Scottish architectural antiquities. He raked up the names of all the priors who had ruled the institution, of the nobles who had bestowed lands upon it, and of the monarchs who had slept their last sleep among its roofless courts. As a train which takes fire is sure to light another, if there be such in the vicinity, the Baronet, catching at the name of one of his ancestors which occurred in Oldbuck’s disquisition, entered upon an account of his wars, his conquests, and his trophies; and worthy Dr. Blattergowl was induced, from the mention of a grant of lands, cum decimis inclusis tam vicariis quam garbalibus, et nunquan antea separatis, to enter into a long explanation concerning the interpretation given by the Teind Court in the consideration of such a clause, which had occurred in a process for localling his last augmentation of stipend. The orators, like three racers, each pressed forward to the goal, without much regarding how each crossed and jostled his competitors. Mr. Oldbuck harangued, the Baronet declaimed, Mr. Blattergowl prosed and laid down the law, while the Latin forms of feudal grants were mingled with the jargon of blazonry, and the yet more barbarous phraseology of the Teind Court of Scotland. “He was,” exclaimed Oldbuck, speaking of the Prior Adhemar, “indeed an exemplary prelate; and, from his strictness of morals, rigid execution of penance, joined to the charitable disposition of his mind, and the infirmities endured by his great age and ascetic habits”—

Here he chanced to cough, and Sir Arthur burst in, or rather continued—“was called popularly Hell-in-Harness; he carried a shield, gules with a sable fess, which we have since disused, and was slain at the battle of Vernoil, in France, after killing six of the English with his own”—

“Decreet of certification,” proceeded the clergyman, in that prolonged, steady, prosing tone, which, however overpowered at first by the vehemence of competition, promised, in the long run, to obtain the ascendancy in this strife of narrators;—“Decreet of certification having gone out, and parties being held as confessed, the proof seemed to be held as concluded, when their lawyer moved to have it opened up, on the allegation that they had witnesses to bring forward, that they had been in the habit of carrying the ewes to lamb on the teind-free land; which was a mere evasion, for”—

But here the Baronet and Mr. Oldbuck having recovered their wind, and continued their respective harangues, the three strands of the conversation, to speak the language of a rope-work, were again twined together into one undistinguishable string of confusion.

Yet, howsoever uninteresting this piebald jargon might seem, it was obviously Miss Wardour’s purpose to give it her attention, in preference to yielding Captain M’Intyre an opportunity of renewing their private conversation. So that, after waiting for a little time with displeasure, ill concealed by his haughty features, he left her to enjoy her bad taste, and taking his sister by the arm, detained her a little behind the rest of the party.

“So I find, Mary, that your neighbour has neither become more lively nor less learned during my absence.”

“We lacked your patience and wisdom to instruct us, Hector.”

“Thank you, my dear sister. But you have got a wiser, if not so lively an addition to your society, than your unworthy brother—Pray, who is this Mr. Lovel, whom our old uncle has at once placed so high in his good graces?—he does not use to be so accessible to strangers.”

“Mr. Lovel, Hector, is a very gentleman-like young man.”

“Ay,—that is to say, he bows when he comes into a room, and wears a coat that is whole at the elbows.”

“No, brother; it says a great deal more. It says that his manners and discourse express the feelings and education of the higher class.”

“But I desire to know what is his birth and his rank in society, and what is his title to be in the circle in which I find him domesticated?”

“If you mean, how he comes to visit at Monkbarns, you must ask my uncle, who will probably reply, that he invites to his own house such company as he pleases; and if you mean to ask Sir Arthur, you must know that Mr. Lovel rendered Miss Wardour and him a service of the most important kind.”

“What! that romantic story is true, then?—And pray, does the valorous knight aspire, as is befitting on such occasions, to the hand of the young lady whom he redeemed from peril? It is quite in the rule of romance, I am aware; and I did think that she was uncommonly dry to me as we walked together, and seemed from time to time as if she watched whether she was not giving offence to her gallant cavalier.”

“Dear Hector,” said his sister, “if you really continue to nourish any affection for Miss Wardour”—

“If, Mary?—what an if was there!”

“—I own I consider your perseverance as hopeless.”

“And why hopeless, my sage sister?” asked Captain M’Intyre: “Miss Wardour, in the state of her father’s affairs, cannot pretend to much fortune;—and, as to family, I trust that of Mlntyre is not inferior.”

“But, Hector,” continued his sister, “Sir Arthur always considers us as members of the Monkbarns family.”

“Sir Arthur may consider what he pleases,” answered the Highlander scornfully; “but any one with common sense will consider that the wife takes rank from the husband, and that my father’s pedigree of fifteen unblemished descents must have ennobled my mother, if her veins had been filled with printer’s ink.”

“For God’s sake, Hector,” replied his anxious sister, “take care of yourself! a single expression of that kind, repeated to my uncle by an indiscreet or interested eavesdropper, would lose you his favour for ever, and destroy all chance of your succeeding to his estate.”

“Be it so,” answered the heedless young man; “I am one of a profession which the world has never been able to do without, and will far less endure to want for half a century to come; and my good old uncle may tack his good estate and his plebeian name to your apron-string if he pleases, Mary, and you may wed this new favourite of his if you please, and you may both of you live quiet, peaceable, well-regulated lives, if it pleases Heaven. My part is taken—I’ll fawn on no man for an inheritance which should be mine by birth.”

Miss M’Intyre laid her hand on her brother’s arm, and entreated him to suppress his vehemence. “Who,” she said, “injures or seeks to injure you, but your own hasty temper?—what dangers are you defying, but those you have yourself conjured up?—Our uncle has hitherto been all that is kind and paternal in his conduct to us, and why should you suppose he will in future be otherwise than what he has ever been, since we were left as orphans to his care?”

“He is an excellent old gentleman, I must own,” replied M’Intyre, “and I am enraged at myself when I chance to offend him; but then his eternal harangues upon topics not worth the spark of a flint—his investigations