The Antiquary Part 46

"That," said Lord Glenallan, "will be at present, I fear, impossible.

She is exhausted herself, and surrounded by her distressed family.

To-morrow, perhaps, when she is alone--and yet I doubt, from her imperfect sense of right and wrong, whether she would speak out in any one's presence but my own. I am too sorely fatigued."

"Then, my lord," said the Antiquary, whom the interest of the moment elevated above points of expense and convenience, which had generally more than enough of weight with him, "I would propose to your lords.h.i.+p, instead of returning, fatigued as you are, so far as to Glenallan House, or taking the more uncomfortable alternative of going to a bad inn at Fairport, to alarm all the busybodies of the town--I would propose, I say, that you should be my guest at Monkbarns for this night. By to-morrow these poor people will have renewed their out-of-doors vocation--for sorrow with them affords no respite from labour,--and we will visit the old woman Elspeth alone, and take down her examination."

After a formal apology for the encroachment, Lord Glenallan agreed to go with him, and underwent with patience in their return home the whole history of John of the Girnel, a legend which Mr. Oldbuck was never known to spare any one 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-bow, and a coronet upon the holsters, created a general commotion in the house of Monkbarns. Jenny Rintherout, scarce recovered from the hysterics which she had taken on hearing of poor Steenie'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 wilfulness of her brother, who had occasioned such devastation, by suddenly bringing in upon them a papist n.o.bleman. And she ventured to transmit to Mr. Blattergowl some hint of the unusual slaughter which had taken place in the ba.s.se-cour, which brought the honest clergyman to inquire how his friend Monkbarns 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 M'Intyre had on her part some curiosity to see this mighty peer, 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 fl.u.s.tered and hurried in obeying the numerous and contradictory commands of her mistress, concerning preserves, pastry and fruit, the mode of marshalling and dis.h.i.+ng the dinner, the necessity of not permitting the melted b.u.t.ter to run to oil, and the danger of allowing Juno--who, though formally banished from the parlour, failed not to maraud about the out-settlements of the family--to enter the kitchen.

The only inmate of Monkbarns who remained entirely indifferent on this momentous occasion was Hector M'Intyre, 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 harboured 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 phoca, or seal.

To these, the inmates of his household, Oldbuck presented the Earl of Glenallan, who underwent, with meek and subdued civility, the prosing speeches of the honest divine, and the lengthened apologies of Miss Griselda Oldbuck, which her brother in vain endeavoured to abridge.

Before the dinner hour, Lord Glenallan requested permission to retire a while to his chamber. Mr. Oldbuck 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. Oldbuck, that I have been in this apartment before."

"Yes, my lord," answered Oldbuck, "upon occasion of an excursion hither from Knockwinnock--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 Providence, Mr. Oldbuck, 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. Oldbuck did not attempt an answer to this burst of the grief which lay ever nearest to the heart of his guest, but, pressing Lord Glenallan's hand with one of his own, and drawing the other across his s.h.a.ggy eyelashes, as if to brush away a mist that intercepted his sight, he left the Earl at liberty to arrange himself previous to dinner.

CHAPTER FOURTEENTH

--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: Mine is the poor residuum of the cup, Vapid, and dull, and tasteless, only soiling, With its base dregs, the vessel that contains it.

Old Play.

"Now, only think what a man my brother is, Mr. Blattergowl, for a wise man and a learned man, to bring this Yerl into our house without speaking a word to a body! And there's the distress of thae Mucklebackits--we canna get a fin o' fish--and we hae nae time to send ower to Fairport for beef, and the mutton's but new killed--and that silly fliskmahoy, Jenny Rintherout, has taen the exies, and done naething but laugh and greet, the skirl at the tail o' the guffaw, for twa days successfully--and now we maun ask that strange man, that's as grand and as grave as the Yerl himsell, to stand at the sideboard! and I canna gang into the kitchen to direct onything, for he's hovering there, making some pousowdie* for my Lord, for he doesna eat like ither folk neither--And how to sort the strange servant man at dinner time--I am sure, Mr. Blattergowl, a'thegither, it pa.s.ses my judgment."

* Pousowdie,--Miscellaneous mess.

"Truly, Miss Griselda," replied the divine, "Monkbarns was inconsiderate. He should have taen a day to see the invitation, as they do wi' the t.i.tular's condescendence in the process of valuation and sale. But the great man could not have come on a sudden to ony house in this parish where he could have been better served with vivers--that I must say--and also that the steam from the kitchen is very gratifying to my nostrils;--and if ye have ony household affairs to attend to, Mrs.

Griselda, never make a stranger of me--I can amuse mysell very weel with the larger copy of Erskine's Inst.i.tutes."

And taking down from the window-seat that amusing folio, (the Scottish c.o.ke upon Littleton), he opened it, as if instinctively, at the tenth t.i.tle of Book Second, "of Teinds or Tythes," 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, was at length placed upon the table; and the Earl of Glenallan, 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 still unable to take any share in the conversation that pa.s.sed 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 harangues of his sister, the pedantry of the divine, and the vivacity of the young soldier, which savoured much more of the camp than of the court, were all new to a n.o.bleman 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. Miss M'Intyre alone, from the natural politeness and unpretending simplicity of her manners, appeared to belong to that cla.s.s of society to which he had been accustomed in his earlier and better days.

Nor did Lord Glenallan's deportment less surprise the company. Though a plain but excellent family-dinner was provided (for, as Mr. Blattergowl had justly said, it was impossible to surprise Miss Griselda when her larder was empty), and though the Antiquary boasted his best port, and a.s.similated it to the Falernian of Horace, Lord Glenallan was proof to the allurements of both. His servant 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 gla.s.s of pure water, sparkling from the fountain-head, completed his repast. Such, his servant said, had been his lords.h.i.+p's diet for very many years, unless upon the high festivals of the Church, or when company of the first rank were entertained at Glenallan House, when he relaxed a little in the austerity of his diet, and permitted himself a gla.s.s or two of wine. But at Monkbarns, no anch.o.r.et 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 suppress. He attacked his n.o.ble guest without scruple on the severity of his regimen.

"A few half-cold greens and potatoes--a gla.s.s 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 lords.h.i.+p's diet is that of a heathen Pythagorean, or Indian Bramin--nay, more severe than either, if you refuse these fine apples."

"I am a Catholic, you are aware," said Lord Glenallan, wis.h.i.+ng to escape from the discussion, "and you know that our church"----

"Lays down many rules of mortification," proceeded the dauntless Antiquary; "but I never heard that they were quite so rigorously practised--Bear witness my predecessor, John of the Girnel, or the jolly Abbot, who gave his name to this apple, my lord."

And as he pared the fruit, in spite of his sister's "O fie, Monkbarns!"

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 abbot's apple with more slyness and circ.u.mstantiality than was at all necessary. His jest (as may readily be conceived) missed fire, for this anecdote of conventual gallantry failed to produce the slightest smile on the visage of the Earl. Oldbuck then took up the subject of Ossian, Macpherson, and Mac-Cribb; but Lord Glenallan 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 into the hands of Mr.

Blattergowl, who had just p.r.o.nounced the formidable word, "teind-free,"

when the subject of the French Revolution was started--a political event on which Lord Glenallan looked with all the prejudiced horror of a bigoted Catholic and zealous aristocrat. Oldbuck was far from carrying his detestation of its principles to such a length.

"There were many men in the first Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly," he said, "who held sound Whiggish doctrines, and were for settling the Const.i.tution 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 and perpendicular station. Or it might be likened to a storm or hurricane, which, pa.s.sing over a region, does great damage in its pa.s.sage, yet sweeps away stagnant and unwholesome vapours, 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 pa.s.s 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 apart to Oldbuck, 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 wants something of address 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 in the praise of others--how modest when speaking of himself!"

"Hector is 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 n.o.body ever spoke half so much good of him before, except perhaps the sergeant of his company, when was wheedling a Highland recruit to enlist with him.

He is a good lad notwithstanding, although he be not quite the hero your lords.h.i.+p 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 const.i.tutional vehemence, which attends him in everything he sets about, and is often very inconvenient to his friends. I saw him to-day engage in an animated contest with a phoca, or seal (sealgh, our people more properly call them, retaining the Gothic guttural gh), with as much vehemence as if he had fought against Dumourier--Marry, my lord, the phoca had the better, as the said Dumourier had of some other folks.

And he'll talk with equal if not superior rapture of the good behaviour of a pointer b.i.t.c.h, 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 Monkbarns, "body and soul: give him leave to crack off his birding-piece at a poor covey of partridges or moor-fowl, and he's yours for ever--I will enchant him by the intelligence. But O, my lord, that you could have seen my phoenix Lovel!--the very prince and chieftain of the youth of this age; and not dest.i.tute of spirit neither--I promise you he gave my termagant kinsman a quid pro quo--a Rowland for his Oliver, as the vulgar say, alluding to the two celebrated Paladins of Charlemagne."

After coffee, Lord Glenallan 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 Glenallan House has been to me rather a prison than a dwelling, although a prison which I had neither fort.i.tude nor spirit to break from."

"Let me first ask your lords.h.i.+p," said the Antiquary, "what are your own wishes and designs in this matter?"

"I wish most especially," answered Lord Glenallan, "to declare my luckless marriage, and to vindicate the reputation of the unhappy Eveline--that is, if you see a possibility of doing so without making public the conduct of my mother."

"Suum cuique tribuito," said the Antiquary; "do right 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 Glenallan, will learn that without much surprise."

"But you forget one horrible circ.u.mstance, 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 attendant 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 Craigburnfoot in a carriage and four by your brother Edward Geraldin 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 honour of his house, partly from the risk to which it might have been exposed in the neighbourhood of the Lady Glenallan."

As he spoke, the Earl of Glenallan grew extremely pale, and had nearly fallen from his chair.--The alarmed Antiquary ran hither and thither 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 salts, he could not help giving a const.i.tutional growl of chagrin and wonder at the various incidents which had converted his mansion, first into an hospital for a wounded duellist, and now into the sick chamber of a dying n.o.bleman. "And yet,"

said he, "I have always kept aloof from the soldiery and the peerage.

My coen.o.bitium has only next to be made a lying-in hospital, and then, I trow, the transformation will be complete."

When he returned with the remedy, Lord Glenallan 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 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 dishonourable; 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 will prove to your lords.h.i.+p he did."