The Antiquary — Complete

CHAPTER SEVENTH.

The information of Davie Dibble, which had spread such general alarm at Monkbarns, proved to be strictly correct. Sir Arthur and his daughter had set out, according to their first proposal, to return to Knockwinnock by the turnpike road; but when they reached the head of the loaning, as it was called, or great lane, which on one side made a sort of avenue to the house of Monkbarns, they discerned, a little way before them, Lovel, who seemed to linger on the way as if to give him an opportunity to join them. Miss Wardour immediately proposed to her father that they should take another direction; and, as the weather was fine, walk home by the sands, which, stretching below a picturesque ridge of rocks, afforded at almost all times a pleasanter passage between Knockwinnock and Monkbarns than the high-road.

Sir Arthur acquiesced willingly. “It would be unpleasant,” he said, “to be joined by that young fellow, whom Mr. Oldbuck had taken the freedom to introduce them to.” And his old-fashioned politeness had none of the ease of the present day which permits you, if you have a mind, to cut the person you have associated with for a week, the instant you feel or suppose yourself in a situation which makes it disagreeable to own him. Sir Arthur only stipulated, that a little ragged boy, for the guerdon of one penny sterling, should run to meet his coachman, and turn his equipage back to Knockwinnock.

When this was arranged, and the emissary despatched, the knight and his daughter left the high-road, and following a wandering path among sandy hillocks, partly grown over with furze and the long grass called bent, soon attained the side of the ocean. The tide was by no means so far out as they had computed but this gave them no alarm;—there were seldom ten days in the year when it approached so near the cliffs as not to leave a dry passage. But, nevertheless, at periods of spring-tide, or even when the ordinary flood was accelerated by high winds, this road was altogether covered by the sea; and tradition had recorded several fatal accidents which had happened on such occasions. Still, such dangers were considered as remote and improbable; and rather served, with other legends, to amuse the hamlet fireside, than to prevent any one from going between Knockwinnock and Monkbarns by the sands.

As Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour paced along, enjoying the pleasant footing afforded by the cool moist hard sand, Miss Wardour could not help observing that the last tide had risen considerably above the usual water-mark. Sir Arthur made the same observation, but without its occurring to either of them to be alarmed at the circumstance. The sun was now resting his huge disk upon the edge of the level ocean, and gilded the accumulation of towering clouds through which he had travelled the livelong day, and which now assembled on all sides, like misfortunes and disasters around a sinking empire and falling monarch. Still, however, his dying splendour gave a sombre magnificence to the massive congregation of vapours, forming out of their unsubstantial gloom the show of pyramids and towers, some touched with gold, some with purple, some with a hue of deep and dark red. The distant sea, stretched beneath this varied and gorgeous canopy, lay almost portentously still, reflecting back the dazzling and level beams of the descending luminary, and the splendid colouring of the clouds amidst which he was setting. Nearer to the beach the tide rippled onward in waves of sparkling silver, that imperceptibly, yet rapidly, gained upon the sand.

With a mind employed in admiration of the romantic scene, or perhaps on some more agitating topic, Miss Wardour advanced in silence by her father’s side, whose recently offended dignity did not stoop to open any conversation. Following the windings of the beach, they passed one projecting point of headland or rock after another, and now found themselves under a huge and continued extent of the precipices by which that iron-bound coast is in most places defended. Long projecting reefs of rock, extending under water and only evincing their existence by here and there a peak entirely bare, or by the breakers which foamed over those that were partially covered, rendered Knockwinnock bay dreaded by pilots and ship-masters. The crags which rose between the beach and the mainland, to the height of two or three hundred feet, afforded in their crevices shelter for unnumbered sea-fowl, in situations seemingly secured by their dizzy height from the rapacity of man. Many of these wild tribes, with the instinct which sends them to seek the land before a storm arises, were now winging towards their nests with the shrill and dissonant clang which announces disquietude and fear. The disk of the sun became almost totally obscured ere he had altogether sunk below the horizon, and an early and lurid shade of darkness blotted the serene twilight of a summer evening. The wind began next to arise; but its wild and moaning sound was heard for some time, and its effects became visible on the bosom of the sea, before the gale was felt on shore. The mass of waters, now dark and threatening, began to lift itself in larger ridges, and sink in deeper furrows, forming waves that rose high in foam upon the breakers, or burst upon the beach with a sound resembling distant thunder.

Appalled by this sudden change of weather, Miss Wardour drew close to her father, and held his arm fast. “I wish,” at length she said, but almost in a whisper, as if ashamed to express her increasing apprehensions, “I wish we had kept the road we intended, or waited at Monkbarns for the carriage.”

Sir Arthur looked round, but did not see, or would not acknowledge, any signs of an immediate storm. They would reach Knockwinnock, he said, long before the tempest began. But the speed with which he walked, and with which Isabella could hardly keep pace, indicated a feeling that some exertion was necessary to accomplish his consolatory prediction.

They were now near the centre of a deep but narrow bay or recess, formed by two projecting capes of high and inaccessible rock, which shot out into the sea like the horns of a crescent;—and neither durst communicate the apprehension which each began to entertain, that, from the unusually rapid advance of the tide, they might be deprived of the power of proceeding by doubling the promontory which lay before them, or of retreating by the road which brought them thither.

As they thus pressed forward, longing doubtless to exchange the easy curving line, which the sinuosities of the bay compelled them to adopt, for a straighter and more expeditious path, Sir Arthur observed a human figure on the beach advancing to meet them. “Thank God,” he exclaimed, “we shall get round Halket-head!—that person must have passed it;” thus giving vent to the feeling of hope, though he had suppressed that of apprehension.

“Thank God, indeed!” echoed his daughter, half audibly, half internally, as expressing the gratitude which she strongly felt.

The figure which advanced to meet them made many signs, which the haze of the atmosphere, now disturbed by wind and by a drizzling rain, prevented them from seeing or comprehending distinctly.—Some time before they met, Sir Arthur could recognise the old blue-gowned beggar, Edie Ochiltree. It is said that even the brute creation lay aside their animosities and antipathies when pressed by an instant and common danger. The beach under Halket-head, rapidly diminishing in extent by the encroachments of a spring-tide and a north-west wind, was in like manner a neutral field, where even a justice of peace and a strolling mendicant might meet upon terms of mutual forbearance.

“Turn back! turn back!” exclaimed the vagrant; “why did ye not turn when I waved to you?”

“We thought,” replied Sir Arthur, in great agitation, “we thought we could get round Halket-head.”

“Halket-head!—the tide will be running on Halket-head by this time like the Fall of Fyers!—it was a’ I could do to get round it twenty minutes since—it was coming in three feet abreast. We will maybe get back by Bally-burgh Ness Point yet. The Lord help us!—it’s our only chance. We can but try.”

“My God, my child!”—“My father! my dear father!” exclaimed the parent and daughter, as, fear lending them strength and speed, they turned to retrace their steps, and endeavoured to double the point, the projection of which formed the southern extremity of the bay.

“I heard ye were here frae the bit callant ye sent to meet your carriage,” said the beggar, as he trudged stoutly on a step or two behind Miss Wardour; “and I couldna bide to think o’ the dainty young leddy’s peril, that has aye been kind to ilka forlorn heart that cam near her. Sae I lookit at the lift and the rin o’ the tide, till I settled it that if I could get down time eneugh to gie you warning, we wad do weel yet. But I doubt, I doubt, I have been beguiled! for what mortal ee ever saw sic a race as the tide is risening e’en now? See, yonder’s the Ratton’s Skerry—he aye held his neb abune the water in my day—but he’s aneath it now.”

Sir Arthur cast a look in the direction in which the old man pointed. A huge rock, which in general, even in spring-tides, displayed a hulk like the keel of a large vessel, was now quite under water, and its place only indicated by the boiling and breaking of the eddying waves which encountered its submarine resistance.

“Mak haste, mak haste, my bonny leddy,” continued the old man—“mak haste, and we may do yet! Take haud o’ my arm—an auld and frail arm it’s now, but it’s been in as sair stress as this is yet. Take haud o’ my arm, my winsome leddy! D’ye see yon wee black speck amang the wallowing waves yonder? This morning it was as high as the mast o’ a brig—it’s sma’ eneugh now—but, while I see as muckle black about it as the crown o’ my hat, I winna believe but we’ll get round the Ballyburgh Ness, for a’ that’s come and gane yet.”

Isabella, in silence, accepted from the old man the assistance which Sir Arthur was less able to afford her. The waves had now encroached so much upon the beach, that the firm and smooth footing which they had hitherto had on the sand must be exchanged for a rougher path close to the foot of the precipice, and in some places even raised upon its lower ledges. It would have been utterly impossible for Sir Arthur Wardour, or his daughter, to have found their way along these shelves without the guidance and encouragement of the beggar, who had been there before in high tides, though never, he acknowledged, “in sae awsome a night as this.”

It was indeed a dreadful evening. The howling of the storm mingled with the shrieks of the sea-fowl, and sounded like the dirge of the three devoted beings, who, pent between two of the most magnificent, yet most dreadful objects of nature—a raging tide and an insurmountable precipice—toiled along their painful and dangerous path, often lashed by the spray of some giant billow, which threw itself higher on the beach than those that had preceded it. Each minute did their enemy gain ground perceptibly upon them! Still, however, loth to relinquish the last hopes of life, they bent their eyes on the black rock pointed out by Ochiltree. It was yet distinctly visible among the breakers, and continued to be so, until they came to a turn in their precarious path, where an intervening projection of rock hid it from their sight. Deprived of the view of the beacon on which they had relied, they now experienced the double agony of terror and suspense. They struggled forward, however; but, when they arrived at the point from which they ought to have seen the crag, it was no longer visible: the signal of safety was lost among a thousand white breakers, which, dashing upon the point of the promontory, rose in prodigious sheets of snowy foam, as high as the mast of a first-rate man-of-war, against the dark brow of the precipice.

The countenance of the old man fell. Isabella gave a faint shriek, and, “God have mercy upon us!” which her guide solemnly uttered, was piteously echoed by Sir Arthur—“My child! my child!—to die such a death!”

“My father! my dear father!” his daughter exclaimed, clinging to him—“and you too, who have lost your own life in endeavouring to save ours!”

“That’s not worth the counting,” said the old man. “I hae lived to be weary o’ life; and here or yonder—at the back o’ a dyke, in a wreath o’ snaw, or in the wame o’ a wave, what signifies how the auld gaberlunzie dies?”

“Good man,” said Sir Arthur, “can you think of nothing?—of no help?—I’ll make you rich—I’ll give you a farm—I’ll”—

“Our riches will be soon equal,” said the beggar, looking out upon the strife of the waters—“they are sae already; for I hae nae land, and you would give your fair bounds and barony for a square yard of rock that would be dry for twal hours.”

While they exchanged these words, they paused upon the highest ledge of rock to which they could attain; for it seemed that any further attempt to move forward could only serve to anticipate their fate. Here, then, they were to await the sure though slow progress of the raging element, something in the situation of the martyrs of the early church, who, exposed by heathen tyrants to be slain by wild beasts, were compelled for a time to witness the impatience and rage by which the animals were agitated, while awaiting the signal for undoing their grates, and letting them loose upon the victims.

Yet even this fearful pause gave Isabella time to collect the powers of a mind naturally strong and courageous, and which rallied itself at this terrible juncture. “Must we yield life,” she said, “without a struggle? Is there no path, however dreadful, by which we could climb the crag, or at least attain some height above the tide, where we could remain till morning, or till help comes? They must be aware of our situation, and will raise the country to relieve us.”

Sir Arthur, who heard, but scarcely comprehended, his daughter’s question, turned, nevertheless, instinctively and eagerly to the old man, as if their lives were in his gift. Ochiltree paused—“I was a bauld craigsman,” he said, “ance in my life, and mony a kittywake’s and lungie’s nest hae I harried up amang thae very black rocks; but it’s lang, lang syne, and nae mortal could speel them without a rope—and if I had ane, my ee-sight, and my footstep, and my hand-grip, hae a’ failed mony a day sinsyne—And then, how could I save you? But there was a path here ance, though maybe, if we could see it, ye would rather bide where we are—His name be praised!” he ejaculated suddenly, “there’s ane coming down the crag e’en now!”—Then, exalting his voice, he hilloa’d out to the daring adventurer such instructions as his former practice, and the remembrance of local circumstances, suddenly forced upon his mind:—“Ye’re right!—ye’re right!—that gate—that gate!—fasten the rope weel round Crummies-horn, that’s the muckle black stane—cast twa plies round it—that’s it!—now, weize yoursell a wee easel-ward—a wee mair yet to that ither stane—we ca’d it the Cat’s-lug—there used to be the root o’ an aik tree there—that will do!—canny now, lad—canny now—tak tent and tak time—Lord bless ye, tak time—Vera weel!—Now ye maun get to Bessy’s apron, that’s the muckle braid flat blue stane—and then, I think, wi’ your help and the tow thegither, I’ll win at ye, and then we’ll be able to get up the young leddy and Sir Arthur.”

The adventurer, following the directions of old Edie, flung him down the end of the rope, which he secured around Miss Wardour, wrapping her previously in his own blue gown, to preserve her as much as possible from injury. Then, availing himself of the rope, which was made fast at the other end, he began to ascend the face of the crag—a most precarious and dizzy undertaking, which, however, after one or two perilous escapes, placed him safe on the broad flat stone beside our friend Lovel. Their joint strength was able to raise Isabella to the place of safety which they had attained. Lovel then descended in order to assist Sir Arthur, around whom he adjusted the rope; and again mounting to their place of refuge, with the assistance of old Ochiltree, and such aid as Sir Arthur himself could afford, he raised himself beyond the reach of the billows.

The sense of reprieve from approaching and apparently inevitable death, had its usual effect. The father and daughter threw themselves into each other’s arms, kissed and wept for joy, although their escape was connected with the prospect of passing a tempestuous night upon a precipitous ledge of rock, which scarce afforded footing for the four shivering beings, who now, like the sea-fowl around them, clung there in hopes of some shelter from the devouring element which raged beneath. The spray of the billows, which attained in fearful succession the foot of the precipice, overflowing the beach on which they so lately stood, flew as high as their place of temporary refuge; and the stunning sound with which they dashed against the rocks beneath, seemed as if they still demanded the fugitives in accents of thunder as their destined prey. It was a summer night, doubtless; yet the probability was slender, that a frame so delicate as that of Miss Wardour should survive till morning the drenching of the spray; and the dashing of the rain, which now burst in full violence, accompanied with deep and heavy gusts of wind, added to the constrained and perilous circumstances of their situation.

“The lassie!—the puir sweet, lassie!” said the old man: “mony such a night have I weathered at hame and abroad, but, God guide us, how can she ever win through it!”

His apprehension was communicated in smothered accents to Lovel; for with the sort of freemasonry by which bold and ready spirits correspond in moments of danger, and become almost instinctively known to each other, they had established a mutual confidence.—“I’ll climb up the cliff again,” said Lovel—“there’s daylight enough left to see my footing; I’ll climb up, and call for more assistance.”

“Do so, do so, for Heaven’s sake!” said Sir Arthur eagerly.

“Are ye mad?” said the mendicant: “Francie o’ Fowlsheugh, and he was the best craigsman that ever speel’d heugh (mair by token, he brake his neck upon the Dunbuy of Slaines), wodna hae ventured upon the Halket-head craigs after sun-down—It’s God’s grace, and a great wonder besides, that ye are not in the middle o’ that roaring sea wi’ what ye hae done already—I didna think there was the man left alive would hae come down the craigs as ye did. I question an I could hae done it mysell, at this hoar and in this weather, in the youngest and yaldest of my strength—But to venture up again—it’s a mere and a clear tempting o’ Providence.”

“I have no fear,” answered Lovel; “I marked all the stations perfectly as I came down, and there is still light enough left to see them quite well—I am sure I can do it with perfect safety. Stay here, my good friend, by Sir Arthur and the young lady.”

“Dell be in my feet then,” answered the bedesman sturdily; “if ye gang, I’ll gang too; for between the twa o’ us, we’ll hae mair than wark eneugh to get to the tap o’ the heugh.”

“No, no—stay you here and attend to Miss Wardour—you see Sir Arthur is quite exhausted.”

“Stay yoursell then, and I’ll gae,” said the old man;—“let death spare the green corn and take the ripe.”

“Stay both of you, I charge you,” said Isabella, faintly; “I am well, and can spend the night very well here—I feel quite refreshed.” So saying, her voice failed her—she sunk down, and would have fallen from the crag, had she not been supported by Lovel and Ochiltree, who placed her in a posture half sitting, half reclining, beside her father, who, exhausted by fatigue of body and mind so extreme and unusual, had already sat down on a stone in a sort of stupor.

“It is impossible to leave them,” said Lovel—“What is to be done?—Hark! hark!—did I not hear a halloo?”

“The skreigh of a Tammie Norie,” answered Ochiltree—“I ken the skirl weel.”

“No, by Heaven!” replied Lovel, “it was a human voice.”

A distant hail was repeated, the sound plainly distinguishable among the various elemental noises, and the clang of the sea-mews by which they were surrounded. The mendicant and Lovel exerted their voices in a loud halloo, the former waving Miss Wardour’s handkerchief on the end of his staff to make them conspicuous from above. Though the shouts were repeated, it was some time before they were in exact response to their own, leaving the unfortunate sufferers uncertain whether, in the darkening twilight and increasing storm, they had made the persons who apparently were traversing the verge of the precipice to bring them assistance, sensible of the place in which they had found refuge. At length their halloo was regularly and distinctly answered, and their courage confirmed, by the assurance that they were within hearing, if not within reach, of friendly assistance.

CHAPTER EIGHTH.

The shout of human voices from above was soon augmented, and the gleam of torches mingled with those lights of evening which still remained amidst the darkness of the storm. Some attempt was made to hold communication between the assistants above and the sufferers beneath, who were still clinging to their precarious place of safety; but the howling of the tempest limited their intercourse to cries as inarticulate as those of the winged denizens of the crag, which shrieked in chorus, alarmed by the reiterated sound of human voices, where they had seldom been heard.

On the verge of the precipice an anxious group had now assembled. Oldbuck was the foremost and most earnest, pressing forward with unwonted desperation to the very brink of the crag, and extending his head (his hat and wig secured by a handkerchief under his chin) over the dizzy height, with an air of determination which made his more timorous assistants tremble.

“Haud a care, haud a care, Monkbarns!” cried Caxon, clinging to the skirts of his patron, and withholding him from danger as far as his strength permitted—“God’s sake, haud a care!—Sir Arthur’s drowned already, and an ye fa’ over the cleugh too, there will be but ae wig left in the parish, and that’s the minister’s.”

“Mind the peak there,” cried Mucklebackit, an old fisherman and smuggler—“mind the peak—Steenie, Steenie Wilks, bring up the tackle—I’se warrant we’ll sune heave them on board, Monkbarns, wad ye but stand out o’ the gate.”

“I see them,” said Oldbuck—“I see them low down on that flat stone—Hilli-hilloa, hilli-ho-a!”

“I see them mysell weel eneugh,” said Mucklebackit; “they are sitting down yonder like hoodie-craws in a mist; but d’yo think ye’ll help them wi’ skirling that gate like an auld skart before a flaw o’ weather?—Steenie, lad, bring up the mast—Od, I’se hae them up as we used to bouse up the kegs o’ gin and brandy lang syne—Get up the pickaxe, make a step for the mast—make the chair fast with the rattlin—haul taught and belay!”

The fishers had brought with them the mast of a boat, and as half of the country fellows about had now appeared, either out of zeal or curiosity, it was soon sunk in the ground, and sufficiently secured. A yard across the upright mast, and a rope stretched along it, and reeved through a block at each end, formed an extempore crane, which afforded the means of lowering an arm-chair, well secured and fastened, down to the flat shelf on which the sufferers had roosted. Their joy at hearing the preparations going on for their deliverance was considerably qualified when they beheld the precarious vehicle by means of which they were to be conveyed to upper air. It swung about a yard free of the spot which they occupied, obeying each impulse of the tempest, the empty air all around it, and depending upon the security of a rope, which, in the increasing darkness, had dwindled to an almost imperceptible thread. Besides the hazard of committing a human being to the vacant atmosphere in such a slight means of conveyance, there was the fearful danger of the chair and its occupant being dashed, either by the wind or the vibrations of the cord, against the rugged face of the precipice. But to diminish the risk as much as possible, the experienced seaman had let down with the chair another line, which, being attached to it, and held by the persons beneath, might serve by way of gy, as Mucklebackit expressed it, to render its descent in some measure steady and regular. Still, to commit one’s self in such a vehicle, through a howling tempest of wind and rain, with a beetling precipice above and a raging abyss below, required that courage which despair alone can inspire. Yet, wild as the sounds and sights of danger were, both above, beneath, and around, and doubtful and dangerous as the mode of escaping appeared to be, Lovel and the old mendicant agreed, after a moment’s consultation, and after the former, by a sudden strong pull, had, at his own imminent risk, ascertained the security of the rope, that it would be best to secure Miss Wardour in the chair, and trust to the tenderness and care of those above for her being safely craned up to the top of the crag.

“Let my father go first,” exclaimed Isabella; “for God’s sake, my friends, place him first in safety!”

“It cannot be, Miss Wardour,” said Lovel;—“your life must be first secured—the rope which bears your weight may”—

“I will not listen to a reason so selfish!”

“But ye maun listen to it, my bonnie lassie,” said Ochiltree, “for a’ our lives depend on it—besides, when ye get on the tap o’ the heugh yonder, ye can gie them a round guess o’ what’s ganging on in this Patmos o’ ours—and Sir Arthur’s far by that, as I’m thinking.”

Struck with the truth of this reasoning, she exclaimed, “True, most true; I am ready and willing to undertake the first risk—What shall I say to our friends above?”

“Just to look that their tackle does not graze on the face o’ the crag, and to let the chair down and draw it up hooly and fairly;—we will halloo when we are ready.”

With the sedulous attention of a parent to a child, Lovel bound Miss Wardour with his handkerchief, neckcloth, and the mendicant’s leathern belt, to the back and arms of the chair, ascertaining accurately the security of each knot, while Ochiltree kept Sir Arthur quiet. “What are ye doing wi’ my bairn?—what are ye doing?—She shall not be separated from me—Isabel, stay with me, I command you!”

“Lordsake, Sir Arthur, haud your tongue, and be thankful to God that there’s wiser folk than you to manage this job,” cried the beggar, worn out by the unreasonable exclamations of the poor Baronet.

“Farewell, my father!” murmured Isabella—“farewell, my—my friends!” and shutting her eyes, as Edie’s experience recommended, she gave the signal to Lovel, and he to those who were above. She rose, while the chair in which she sate was kept steady by the line which Lovel managed beneath. With a beating heart he watched the flutter of her white dress, until the vehicle was on a level with the brink of the precipice.

“Canny now, lads, canny now!” exclaimed old Mucklebackit, who acted as commodore; “swerve the yard a bit—Now—there! there she sits safe on dry land.”

A loud shout announced the successful experiment to her fellow-sufferers beneath, who replied with a ready and cheerful halloo. Monkbarns, in his ecstasy of joy, stripped his great-coat to wrap up the young lady, and would have pulled off his coat and waistcoat for the same purpose, had he not been withheld by the cautious Caxon. “Haud a care o’ us! your honour will be killed wi’ the hoast—ye’ll no get out o’your night-cowl this fortnight—and that will suit us unco ill.—Na, na—there’s the chariot down by; let twa o’ the folk carry the young leddy there.”

“You’re right,” said the Antiquary, readjusting the sleeves and collar of his coat, “you’re right, Caxon; this is a naughty night to swim in.—Miss Wardour, let me convey you to the chariot.”

“Not for worlds till I see my father safe.”

In a few distinct words, evincing how much her resolution had surmounted even the mortal fear of so agitating a hazard, she explained the nature of the situation beneath, and the wishes of Lovel and Ochiltree.

“Right, right, that’s right too—I should like to see the son of Sir Gamelyn de Guardover on dry land myself—I have a notion he would sign the abjuration oath, and the Ragman-roll to boot, and acknowledge Queen Mary to be nothing better than she should be, to get alongside my bottle of old port that he ran away from, and left scarce begun. But he’s safe now, and here a’ comes”—(for the chair was again lowered, and Sir Arthur made fast in it, without much consciousness on his own part)—“here a’ comes—Bowse away, my boys! canny wi’ him—a pedigree of a hundred links is hanging on a tenpenny tow—the whole barony of Knockwinnock depends on three plies of hemp—respice finem, respice funem—look to your end—look to a rope’s end.—Welcome, welcome, my good old friend, to firm land, though I cannot say to warm land or to dry land. A cord for ever against fifty fathom of water, though not in the sense of the base proverb—a fico for the phrase,—better sus. per funem, than sus. per coll.”

While Oldbuck ran on in this way, Sir Arthur was safely wrapped in the close embraces of his daughter, who, assuming that authority which the circumstances demanded, ordered some of the assistants to convey him to the chariot, promising to follow in a few minutes, She lingered on the cliff, holding an old countryman’s arm, to witness probably the safety of those whose dangers she had shared.

“What have we here?” said Oldbuck, as the vehicle once more ascended—“what patched and weather-beaten matter is this?” Then as the torches illumed the rough face and grey hairs of old Ochiltree,—“What! is it thou?—Come, old Mocker, I must needs be friends with thee—but who the devil makes up your party besides?”

“Ane that’s weel worth ony twa o’ us, Monkbarns;—it’s the young stranger lad they ca’ Lovel—and he’s behaved this blessed night as if he had three lives to rely on, and was willing to waste them a’ rather than endanger ither folk’s. Ca’ hooly, sirs, as ye, wad win an auld man’s blessing!—mind there’s naebody below now to haud the gy—Hae a care o’ the Cat’s-lug corner—bide weel aff Crummie’s-horn!”

“Have a care indeed,” echoed Oldbuck. “What! is it my rara avis—my black swan—my phoenix of companions in a post-chaise?—take care of him, Mucklebackit.”

“As muckle care as if he were a graybeard o’ brandy; and I canna take mair if his hair were like John Harlowe’s.—Yo ho, my hearts! bowse away with him!”

Lovel did, in fact, run a much greater risk than any of his precursors. His weight was not sufficient to render his ascent steady amid such a storm of wind, and he swung like an agitated pendulum at the mortal risk of being dashed against the rocks. But he was young, bold, and active, and, with the assistance of the beggar’s stout piked staff, which he had retained by advice of the proprietor, contrived to bear himself from the face of the precipice, and the yet more hazardous projecting cliffs which varied its surface. Tossed in empty space, like an idle and unsubstantial feather, with a motion that agitated the brain at once with fear and with dizziness, he retained his alertness of exertion and presence of mind; and it was not until he was safely grounded upon the summit of the cliff, that he felt temporary and giddy sickness. As he recovered from a sort of half swoon, he cast his eyes eagerly around. The object which they would most willingly have sought, was already in the act of vanishing. Her white garment was just discernible as she followed on the path which her father had taken. She had lingered till she saw the last of their company rescued from danger, and until she had been assured by the hoarse voice of Mucklebackit, that “the callant had come off wi’ unbrizzed banes, and that he was but in a kind of dwam.” But Lovel was not aware that she had expressed in his fate even this degree of interest,—which, though nothing more than was due to a stranger who had assisted her in such an hour of peril, he would have gladly purchased by braving even more imminent danger than he had that evening been exposed to. The beggar she had already commanded to come to Knockwinnock that night. He made an excuse.—“Then to-morrow let me see you.”

The old man promised to obey. Oldbuck thrust something into his hand—Ochiltree looked at it by the torchlight, and returned it—“Na, na! I never tak gowd—besides, Monkbarns, ye wad maybe be rueing it the morn.” Then turning to the group of fishermen and peasants—“Now, sirs, wha will gie me a supper and some clean pease-strae?”

“I,” “and I,” “and I,” answered many a ready voice.

“Aweel, since sae it is, and I can only sleep in ae barn at ance, I’ll gae down with Saunders Mucklebackit—he has aye a soup o’ something comfortable about his begging—and, bairns, I’ll maybe live to put ilka ane o’ ye in mind some ither night that ye hae promised me quarters and my awmous;” and away he went with the fisherman.

Oldbuck laid the band of strong possession on Lovel—“Deil a stride ye’s go to Fairport this night, young man—you must go home with me to Monkbarns. Why, man, you have been a hero—a perfect Sir William Wallace, by all accounts. Come, my good lad, take hold of my arm;—I am not a prime support in such a wind—but Caxon shall help us out—Here, you old idiot, come on the other side of me.—And how the deil got you down to that infernal Bessy’s-apron, as they call it? Bess, said they? Why, curse her, she has spread out that vile pennon or banner of womankind, like all the rest of her sex, to allure her votaries to death and headlong ruin.”

“I have been pretty well accustomed to climbing, and I have long observed fowlers practise that pass down the cliff.”

“But how, in the name of all that is wonderful, came you to discover the danger of the pettish Baronet and his far more deserving daughter?”

“I saw them from the verge of the precipice.”

“From the verge!—umph—And what possessed you dumosa pendere procul de rupe?—though dumosa is not the appropriate epithet—what the deil, man, tempted ye to the verge of the craig?”

“Why—I like to see the gathering and growling of a coming storm—or, in your own classical language, Mr. Oldbuck, suave mari magno—and so forth—but here we reach the turn to Fairport. I must wish you good-night.”

“Not a step, not a pace, not an inch, not a shathmont, as I may say,—the meaning of which word has puzzled many that think themselves antiquaries. I am clear we should read salmon-length for shathmont’s-length. You are aware that the space allotted for the passage of a salmon through a dam, dike, or weir, by statute, is the length within which a full-grown pig can turn himself round. Now I have a scheme to prove, that, as terrestrial objects were thus appealed to for ascertaining submarine measurement, so it must be supposed that the productions of the water were established as gauges of the extent of land.—Shathmont—salmont—you see the close alliance of the sounds; dropping out two h's, and a t, and assuming an l, makes the whole difference—I wish to heaven no antiquarian derivation had demanded heavier concessions.”

“But, my dear sir, I really must go home—I am wet to the skin.”

“Shalt have my night-gown, man, and slippers, and catch the antiquarian fever as men do the plague, by wearing infected garments. Nay, I know what you would be at—you are afraid to put the old bachelor to charges. But is there not the remains of that glorious chicken-pie—which, meo arbitrio, is better cold than hot—and that bottle of my oldest port, out of which the silly brain-sick Baronet (whom I cannot pardon, since he has escaped breaking his neck) had just taken one glass, when his infirm noddle went a wool-gathering after Gamelyn de Guardover?”

So saying he dragged Lovel forward, till the Palmer’s-port of Monkbarns received them. Never, perhaps, had it admitted two pedestrians more needing rest for Monkbarns’s fatigue had been in a degree very contrary to his usual habits, and his more young and robust companion had that evening undergone agitation of mind which had harassed and wearied him even more than his extraordinary exertions of body.

CHAPTER NINTH.

They reached the room in which they had dined, and were clamorously welcomed by Miss Oldbuck.

“Where’s the younger womankind?” said the Antiquary.

“Indeed, brother, amang a’ the steery, Maria wadna be guided by me she set away to the Halket-craig-head—I wonder ye didna see her.”

“Eh!—what—what’s that you say, sister?—did the girl go out in a night like this to the Halket-head?—Good God! the misery of the night is not ended yet!”

“But ye winna wait, Monkbarns—ye are so imperative and impatient”—

“Tittle-tattle, woman,” said the impatient and agitated Antiquary, “where is my dear Mary?”

“Just where ye suld be yoursell, Monkbarns—up-stairs, and in her warm bed.”

“I could have sworn it,” said Oldbuck laughing, but obviously much relieved—“I could have sworn it;—the lazy monkey did not care if we were all drowned together. Why did you say she went out?”

“But ye wadna wait to hear out my tale, Monkbarns—she gaed out, and she came in again with the gardener sae sune as she saw that nane o’ ye were clodded ower the Craig, and that Miss Wardour was safe in the chariot; she was hame a quarter of an hour syne, for it’s now ganging ten—sair droukit was she, puir thing, sae I e’en put a glass o’ sherry in her water-gruel.”

“Right, Grizel, right—let womankind alone for coddling each other. But hear me, my venerable sister—start not at the word venerable; it implies many praiseworthy qualities besides age; though that too is honourable, albeit it is the last quality for which womankind would wish to be honoured—But perpend my words: let Lovel and me have forthwith the relics of the chicken-pie, and the reversion of the port.”

“The chicken-pie! the port!—ou dear! brother—there was but a wheen banes, and scarce a drap o’ the wine.”

The Antiquary’s countenance became clouded, though he was too well bred to give way, in the presence of a stranger, to his displeased surprise at the disappearance of the viands on which he had reckoned with absolute certainty. But his sister understood these looks of ire. “Ou dear! Monkbarns, what’s the use of making a wark?”

“I make no wark, as ye call it, woman.”

“But what’s the use o’ looking sae glum and glunch about a pickle banes?—an ye will hae the truth, ye maun ken the minister came in, worthy man—sair distressed he was, nae doubt, about your precarious situation, as he ca’d it (for ye ken how weel he’s gifted wi’ words), and here he wad bide till he could hear wi’ certainty how the matter was likely to gang wi’ ye a’—He said fine things on the duty of resignation to Providence’s will, worthy man! that did he.”

Oldbuck replied, catching the same tone, “Worthy man!—he cared not how soon Monkbarns had devolved on an heir-female, I’ve a notion;—and while he was occupied in this Christian office of consolation against impending evil, I reckon that the chicken-pie and my good port disappeared?”

“Dear brother, how can you speak of sic frivolities, when you have had sic an escape from the craig?”

“Better than my supper has had from the minister’s craig, Grizzle—it’s all discussed, I suppose?”

“Hout, Monkbarns, ye speak as if there was nae mair meat in the house—wad ye not have had me offer the honest man some slight refreshment after his walk frae the manse?”

Oldbuck half-whistled, half-hummed, the end of the old Scottish ditty,