The Antiquary — Complete

'I remember, Miss Wardour, Mahommed (vulgarly Mahomet) had some hesitation about the mode of summoning his Moslemah to prayer. He rejected bells as used by Christians, trumpets as the summons of the Guebres, and finally adopted the human voice. I have had equal doubt concerning my dinner-call. Gongs, now in present use, seemed a newfangled and heathenish invention, and the voice of the female womankind I rejected as equally shrill and dissonant; wherefore, contrary to the said Mahommed, or Mahomet, I have resumed the bell. It has a local propriety, since it was the conventual signal for spreading the repast in their refectory, and it has the advantage over the tongue of my sister's prime minister, Jenny, that, though not quite so loud and shrill, it ceases ringing the instant you drop the bell-rope: whereas we know, by sad experience, that any attempt to silence Jenny, only wakes the sympathetic chime of Miss Oldbuck and Mary M'Intyre to join in chorus.'

With this discourse he led the way to his dining-parlour, which Lovel had not yet seen;—it was wainscotted, and contained some curious paintings. The dining-table was attended by Jenny; but an old superintendent, a sort of female butler, stood by the sideboard, and underwent the burden of bearing several reproofs from Mr. Oldbuck, and inuendos, not so much marked, but not less cutting, from his sister.

The dinner was such as suited a professed antiquary, comprehending many savoury specimens of Scottish viands, now disused at the tables of those who affect elegance. There was the relishing Solan goose, whose smell is so powerful that he is never cooked within doors. Blood-raw he proved to be on this occasion, so that Oldbuck half threatened to throw the greasy sea-fowl at the head of the negligent housekeeper, who acted as priestess in presenting this odoriferous offering. But, by good-hap, she had been most fortunate in the hotch-potch, which was unanimously pronounced to be inimitable. 'I knew we should succeed here,' said Oldbuck exultingly, 'for Davie Dibble, the gardener (an old bachelor like myself), takes care the rascally women do not dishonour our vegetables. And here is fish and sauce, and crappit-heads—I acknowledge our womankind excel in that dish—it procures them the pleasure of scolding, for half an hour at least, twice a-week, with auld Maggy Mucklebackit, our fish-wife. The chicken-pie, Mr. Lovel, is made after a recipe bequeathed to me by my departed grandmother of happy memory —And if you will venture on a glass of wine, you will find it worthy of one who professes the maxim of King Alphonso of Castile,—Old wood to burn—old books to read—old wine to drink—and old friends, Sir Arthur—ay, Mr. Lovel, and young friends too, to converse with.'

'And what news do you bring us from Edinburgh, Monkbarns?' said Sir Arthur; 'how wags the world in Auld Reekie?'

'Mad, Sir Arthur, mad—irretrievably frantic—far beyond dipping in the sea, shaving the crown, or drinking hellebore. The worst sort of frenzy, a military frenzy, hath possessed man, woman, and child.'

'And high time, I think,' said Miss Wardour, 'when we are threatened with invasion from abroad and insurrection at home.'

'O, I did not doubt you would join the scarlet host against me—women, like turkeys, are always subdued by a red rag—But what says Sir Arthur, whose dreams are of standing armies and German oppression?'

'Why, I say, Mr. Oldbuck,' replied the knight, 'that so far as I am capable of judging, we ought to resist cum toto corpore regni—as the phrase is, unless I have altogether forgotten my Latin— an enemy who comes to propose to us a Whiggish sort of government, a republican system, and who is aided and abetted by a sort of fanatics of the worst kind in our own bowels. I have taken some measures, I assure you, such as become my rank in the community; for I have directed the constables to take up that old scoundrelly beggar, Edie Ochiltree, for spreading disaffection against church and state through the whole parish. He said plainly to old Caxon, that Willie Howie's Kilmarnock cowl covered more sense than all the three wigs in the parish—I think it is easy to make out that inuendo—But the rogue shall be taught better manners.'

'O no, my dear sir,' exclaimed Miss Wardour, 'not old Edie, that we have known so long;—I assure you no constable shall have my good graces that executes such a warrant.'

'Ay, there it goes,' said the Antiquary; 'you, to be a staunch Tory, Sir Arthur, have nourished a fine sprig of Whiggery in your bosom—Why, Miss Wardour is alone sufficient to control a whole quarter-session—a quarter- session? ay, a general assembly or convocation to boot—a Boadicea she—an Amazon, a Zenobia.'

'And yet, with all my courage, Mr. Oldbuck, I am glad to hear our people are getting under arms.'

'Under arms, Lord love thee! didst thou ever read the history of Sister Margaret, which flowed from a head, that, though now old and somedele grey, has more sense and political intelligence than you find now-a-days in the whole synod? Dost thou remember the Nurse's dream in that exquisite work, which she recounts in such agony to Hubble Bubble?—When she would have taken up a piece of broad-cloth in her vision, lo! it exploded like a great iron cannon; when she put out her hand to save a pirn, it perked up in her face in the form of a pistol. My own vision in Edinburgh has been something similar. I called to consult my lawyer; he was clothed in a dragoon's dress, belted and casqued, and about to mount a charger, which his writing-clerk (habited as a sharp-shooter) walked to and fro before his door. I went to scold my agent for having sent me to advise with a madman; he had stuck into his head the plume, which in more sober days he wielded between his fingers, and figured as an artillery officer. My mercer had his spontoon in his hand, as if he measured his cloth by that implement, instead of a legitimate yard. The banker's clerk, who was directed to sum my cash-account, blundered it three times, being disordered by the recollection of his military tellings-off at the morning-drill. I was ill, and sent for a surgeon—

He came—but valour so had fired his eye,
And such a falchion glittered on his thigh,
That, by the gods, with such a load of steel,
I thought he came to murder,—not to heal.

I had recourse to a physician, but he also was practising a more wholesale mode of slaughter than that which his profession had been supposed at all times to open to him. And now, since I have returned here, even our wise neighbours of Fairport have caught the same valiant humour. I hate a gun like a hurt wild duck—I detest a drum like a quaker;—and they thunder and rattle out yonder upon the town's common, so that every volley and roll goes to my very heart.'

'Dear brother, dinna speak that gate o' the gentlemen volunteers—I am sure they have a most becoming uniform—Weel I wot they have been wet to the very skin twice last week—I met them marching in terribly doukit, an mony a sair hoast was amang them—And the trouble they take, I am sure it claims our gratitude.'

'And I am sure,' said Miss M'Intyre, 'that my uncle sent twenty guineas to help out their equipments.'

'It was to buy liquorice and sugar-candy,' said the cynic, 'to encourage the trade of the place, and to refresh the throats of the officers who had bawled themselves hoarse in the service of their country.'

'Take care, Monkbarns! we shall set you down among the black-nebs by and by.'

'No Sir Arthur—a tame grumbler I. I only claim the privilege of croaking in my own corner here, without uniting my throat to the grand chorus of the marsh—Ni quito Rey, ni pongo Rey—I neither make king nor mar king, as Sancho says, but pray heartily for our own sovereign, pay scot and lot, and grumble at the exciseman—But here comes the ewe-milk cheese in good time; it is a better digestive than politics.'

When dinner was over, and the decanters placed on the table, Mr. Oldbuck proposed the King's health in a bumper, which was readily acceded to both by Lovel and the Baronet, the Jacobitism of the latter being now a sort of speculative opinion merely,—the shadow of a shade.

After the ladies had left the apartment, the landlord and Sir Arthur entered into several exquisite discussions, in which the younger guest, either on account of the abstruse erudition which they involved, or for some other reason, took but a slender share, till at length he was suddenly started out of a profound reverie by an unexpected appeal to his judgment.

'I will stand by what Mr. Lovel says; he was born in the north of England, and may know the very spot.'

Sir Arthur thought it unlikely that so young a gentleman should have paid much attention to matters of that sort.