The Antiquary — Complete

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, passing over a region, does great damage in its passage, 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 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 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 nobody 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 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 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 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 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 destitute 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 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 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 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 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 constitutional 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 nobleman. 'And yet,' said he, 'I have always kept aloof from the soldiery and the peerage. My coenobitium 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 lordship he did.'

So saying, Mr. Oldbuck opened a drawer of the cabinet of his ancestor Aldobrand, and produced a bundle of papers tied with a black ribband, and labelled,—Examinations, etc., taken by Jonathan Oldbuck, J. P., upon the 18th of February, 17—; a little under was written, in a small hand, Eheu Evelina! The tears dropped fast from the Earl's eyes, as he endeavoured, in vain, to unfasten the knot which secured these documents.

'Your lordship,' said Mr. Oldbuck, 'had better not read these at present. Agitated as you are, and having 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?'

'Nay, 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 horror of the ghastly dream that has poisoned my whole existence, it must have been the knowledge that such a child of misery existed.'

'Then,' continued the Antiquary, 'although it would be rash to conclude, at the distance of more than twenty