The Antiquary — Complete

“Bah! mischiefs? no!—sometimes if de circle be no quite just, or de beholder be de frightened coward, and not hold de sword firm and straight towards him, de Great Hunter will take his advantage, and drag him exorcist out of de circle and throttle him. Dat does happens.”

“Well then, Dousterswivel, with every confidence in my courage and your skill, we will dispense with this apparition, and go on to the business of the night.”

“With all mine heart—it is just one thing to me—and now it is de time—hold you de sword till I kindle de little what you call chip.”

Dousterswivel accordingly set fire to a little pile of chips, touched and prepared with some bituminous substance to make them burn fiercely; and when the flame was at the highest, and lightened, with its shortlived glare, all the ruins around, the German flung in a handful of perfumes which produced a strong and pungent odour. The exorcist and his pupil both were so much affected as to cough and sneeze heartily; and, as the vapour floated around the pillars of the building, and penetrated every crevice, it produced the same effect on the beggar and Lovel.

“Was that an echo?” said the Baronet, astonished at the sternutation which resounded from above; “or”—drawing close to the adept, “can it be the spirit you talked of, ridiculing our attempt upon his hidden treasures?”

“N—n—no,” muttered the German, who began to partake of his pupil’s terrors, “I hope not.”

Here a violent of sneezing, which the mendicant was unable to suppress, and which could not be considered by any means as the dying fall of an echo, accompanied by a grunting half-smothered cough, confounded the two treasure-seekers. “Lord have mercy on us!” said the Baronet.

“Alle guten Geistern loben den Herrn!” ejaculated the terrified adept. “I was begun to think,” he continued, after a moment’s silence, “that this would be de bestermost done in de day-light—we was bestermost to go away just now.”

“You juggling villain!” said the Baronet, in whom these expressions awakened a suspicion that overcame his terrors, connected as it was with the sense of desperation arising from the apprehension of impending ruin—“you juggling mountebank! this is some legerdemain trick of yours to get off from the performance of your promise, as you have so often done before. But, before Heaven! I will this night know what I have trusted to when I suffered you to fool me on to my ruin! Go on, then—come fairy, come fiend, you shall show me that treasure, or confess yourself a knave and an impostor, or, by the faith of a desperate and ruined man, I’ll send you where you shall see spirits enough.”

The treasure-finder, trembling between his terror for the supernatural beings by whom he supposed himself to be surrounded, and for his life, which seemed to be at the mercy of a desperate man, could only bring out, “Mine patron, this is not the allerbestmost usage. Consider, mine honoured sir, that de spirits”—

Here Edie, who began to enter into the humour of the scene, uttered an extraordinary howl, being an exaltation and a prolongation of the most deplorable whine in which he was accustomed to solicit charity.

Dousterswivel flung himself on his knees—“Dear Sir Arthurs, let us go, or let me go!”

“No, you cheating scoundrel!” said the knight, unsheathing the sword which he had brought for the purposes of the exorcism, “that shift shall not serve you—Monkbarns warned me long since of your juggling pranks—I will see this treasure before you leave this place, or I will have you confess yourself an impostor, or, by Heaven, I’ll run this sword through you, though all the spirits of the dead should rise around us!”

“For de lofe of Heaven be patient, mine honoured patron, and you shall hafe all de treasure as I knows of—yes, you shall indeed—But do not speak about de spirits—it makes dem angry.”

Edie Ochiltree here prepared himself to throw in another groan, but was restrained by Lovel, who began to take a more serious interest, as he observed the earnest and almost desperate demeanour of Sir Arthur. Dousterswivel, having at once before his eyes the fear of the foul fiend, and the violence of Sir Arthur, played his part of a conjuror extremely ill, hesitating to assume the degree of confidence necessary to deceive the latter, lest it should give offence to the invisible cause of his alarm. However, after rolling his eyes, muttering and sputtering German exorcisms, with contortions of his face and person, rather flowing from the impulse of terror than of meditated fraud, he at length proceeded to a corner of the building where a flat stone lay upon the ground, bearing upon its surface the effigy of an armed warrior in a recumbent posture carved in bas-relief. He muttered to Sir Arthur, “Mine patrons, it is here—Got save us all!”

Sir Arthur, who, after the first moment of his superstitious fear was over, seemed to have bent up all his faculties to the pitch of resolution necessary to carry on the adventure, lent the adept his assistance to turn over the stone, which, by means of a lever that the adept had provided, their joint force with difficulty effected. No supernatural light burst forth from below to indicate the subterranean treasury, nor was there any apparition of spirits, earthly or infernal. But when Dousterswivel had, with great trepidation, struck a few strokes with a mattock, and as hastily thrown out a shovelful or two of earth (for they came provided with the tools necessary for digging), something was heard to ring like the sound of a falling piece of metal, and Dousterswivel, hastily catching up the substance which produced it, and which his shovel had thrown out along with the earth, exclaimed, “On mine dear wort, mine patrons, dis is all—it is indeed; I mean all we can do to-night;”—and he gazed round him with a cowering and fearful glance, as if to see from what corner the avenger of his imposture was to start forth.

“Let me see it,” said Sir Arthur; and then repeated, still more sternly, “I will be satisfied—I will judge by mine own eyes.” He accordingly held the object to the light of the lantern. It was a small case, or casket,—for Lovel could not at the distance exactly discern its shape, which, from the Baronet’s exclamation as he opened it, he concluded was filled with coin. “Ay,” said the Baronet, “this is being indeed in good luck! and if it omens proportional success upon a larger venture, the venture shall be made. That six hundred of Goldieword’s, added to the other incumbent claims, must have been ruin indeed. If you think we can parry it by repeating this experiment—suppose when the moon next changes,—I will hazard the necessary advance, come by it how I may.”

“Oh, mine good patrons, do not speak about all dat,” said Dousterswivel, “as just now, but help me to put de shtone to de rights, and let us begone our own ways.” And accordingly, so soon as the stone was replaced, he hurried Sir Arthur, who was now resigned once more to his guidance, away from a spot, where the German’s guilty conscience and superstitious fears represented goblins as lurking behind each pillar with the purpose of punishing his treachery.

“Saw onybody e’er the like o’ that!” said Edie, when they had disappeared like shadows through the gate by which they had entered—“saw ony creature living e’er the like o’ that!—But what can we do for that puir doited deevil of a knight-baronet? Od, he showed muckle mair spunk, too, than I thought had been in him—I thought he wad hae sent cauld iron through the vagabond—Sir Arthur wasna half sae bauld at Bessie’s-apron yon night—but then, his blood was up even now, and that makes an unco difference. I hae seen mony a man wad hae felled another an anger him, that wadna muckle hae liked a clink against Crummies-horn yon time. But what’s to be done?”

“I suppose,” said Lovel, “his faith in this fellow is entirely restored by this deception, which, unquestionably, he had arranged beforehand.”

“What! the siller?—Ay, ay—trust him for that—they that hide ken best where to find. He wants to wile him out o’ his last guinea, and then escape to his ain country, the land-louper. I wad likeit weel just to hae come in at the clipping-time, and gien him a lounder wi’ my pike-staff; he wad hae taen it for a bennison frae some o’ the auld dead abbots. But it’s best no to be rash; sticking disna gang by strength, but by the guiding o’ the gally. I’se be upsides wi’ him ae day.”

“What if you should inform Mr. Oldbuck?” said Lovel.

“Ou, I dinna ken—Monkbarns and Sir Arthur are like, and yet they’re no like neither. Monkbarns has whiles influence wi’ him, and whiles Sir Arthur cares as little about him as about the like o’ me. Monkbarns is no that ower wise himsell, in some things;—he wad believe a bodle to be an auld Roman coin, as he ca’s it, or a ditch to be a camp, upon ony leasing that idle folk made about it. I hae garr’d him trow mony a queer tale mysell, gude forgie me. But wi’ a’ that, he has unco little sympathy wi’ ither folks; and he’s snell and dure eneugh in casting up their nonsense to them, as if he had nane o’ his ain. He’ll listen the hale day, an yell tell him about tales o’ Wallace, and Blind Harry, and Davie Lindsay; but ye maunna speak to him about ghaists or fairies, or spirits walking the earth, or the like o’ that;—he had amaist flung auld Caxon out o’ the window (and he might just as weel hae flung awa his best wig after him), for threeping he had seen a ghaist at the humlock-knowe. Now, if he was taking it up in this way, he wad set up the tother’s birse, and maybe do mair ill nor gude—he’s done that twice or thrice about thae mine-warks; ye wad thought Sir Arthur had a pleasure in gaun on wi’ them the deeper, the mair he was warned against it by Monkbarns.”

“What say you then,” said Lovel, “to letting Miss Wardour know the circumstance?”

“Ou, puir thing, how could she stop her father doing his pleasure?—and, besides, what wad it help? There’s a sough in the country about that six hundred pounds, and there’s a writer chield in Edinburgh has been driving the spur-rowels o’ the law up to the head into Sir Arthur’s sides to gar him pay it, and if he canna, he maun gang to jail or flee the country. He’s like a desperate man, and just catches at this chance as a’ he has left, to escape utter perdition; so what signifies plaguing the puir lassie about what canna be helped? And besides, to say the truth, I wadna like to tell the secret o’ this place. It’s unco convenient, ye see yoursell, to hae a hiding-hole o’ ane’s ain; and though I be out o’ the line o’ needing ane e’en now, and trust in the power o’ grace that I’ll neer do onything to need ane again, yet naebody kens what temptation ane may be gien ower to—and, to be brief, I downa bide the thought of anybody kennin about the place;—they say, keep a thing seven year, an’ yell aye find a use for’t—and maybe I may need the cove, either for mysell, or for some ither body.”

This argument, in which Edie Ochiltree, notwithstanding his scraps of morality and of divinity, seemed to take, perhaps from old habit, a personal interest, could not be handsomely controverted by Lovel, who was at that moment reaping the benefit of the secret of which the old man appeared to be so jealous.

This incident, however, was of great service to Lovel, as diverting his mind from the unhappy occurrence of the evening, and considerably rousing the energies which had been stupefied by the first view of his calamity. He reflected that it by no means necessarily followed that a dangerous wound must be a fatal one—that he had been hurried from the spot even before the surgeon had expressed any opinion of Captain M’Intyre’s situation—and that he had duties on earth to perform, even should the very worst be true, which, if they could not restore his peace of mind or sense of innocence, would furnish a motive for enduring existence, and at the same time render it a course of active benevolence.—Such were Lovel’s feelings, when the hour arrived when, according to Edie’s calculation—who, by some train or process of his own in observing the heavenly bodies, stood independent of the assistance of a watch or time-keeper—it was fitting they should leave their hiding-place, and betake themselves to the seashore, in order to meet Lieutenant Taffril’s boat according to appointment.

They retreated by the same passage which had admitted them to the prior’s secret seat of observation, and when they issued from the grotto into the wood, the birds which began to chirp, and even to sing, announced that the dawn was advanced. This was confirmed by the light and amber clouds that appeared over the sea, as soon as their exit from the copse permitted them to view the horizon.—Morning, said to be friendly to the muses, has probably obtained this character from its effect upon the fancy and feelings of mankind. Even to those who, like Lovel, have spent a sleepless and anxious night, the breeze of the dawn brings strength and quickening both of mind and body. It was, therefore, with renewed health and vigour that Lovel, guided by the trusty mendicant, brushed away the dew as he traversed the downs which divided the Den of St. Ruth, as the woods surrounding the ruins were popularly called, from the sea-shore.

The first level beam of the sun, as his brilliant disk began to emerge from the ocean, shot full upon the little gun-brig which was lying-to in the offing—close to the shore the boat was already waiting, Taffril himself, with his naval cloak wrapped about him, seated in the stern. He jumped ashore when he saw the mendicant and Lovel approach, and, shaking the latter heartily by the hand, begged him not to be cast down. “M’Intyre’s wound,” he said, “was doubtful, but far from desperate.” His attention had got Lovel’s baggage privately sent on board the brig; “and,” he said, “he trusted that, if Lovel chose to stay with the vessel, the penalty of a short cruise would be the only disagreeable consequence of his rencontre. As for himself, his time and motions were a good deal at his own disposal, he said, excepting the necessary obligation of remaining on his station.”

“We will talk of our farther motions,” said Lovel, “as we go on board.”

Then turning to Edie, he endeavoured to put money into his hand. “I think,” said Edie, as he tendered it back again, “the hale folk here have either gane daft, or they hae made a vow to rain my trade, as they say ower muckle water drowns the miller. I hae had mair gowd offered me within this twa or three weeks than I ever saw in my life afore. Keep the siller, lad—yell hae need o’t, I’se warrant ye, and I hae nane my claes is nae great things, and I get a blue gown every year, and as mony siller groats as the king, God bless him, is years auld—you and I serve the same master, ye ken, Captain Taffril; there’s rigging provided for—and my meat and drink I get for the asking in my rounds, or, at an orra time, I can gang a day without it, for I make it a rule never to pay for nane;—so that a’ the siller I need is just to buy tobacco and sneeshin, and maybe a dram at a time in a cauld day, though I am nae dram-drinker to be a gaberlunzie;—sae take back your gowd, and just gie me a lily-white shilling.”

Upon these whims, which he imagined intimately connected with the honour of his vagabond profession, Edie was flint and adamant, not to be moved by rhetoric or entreaty; and therefore Lovel was under the necessity of again pocketing his intended bounty, and taking a friendly leave of the mendicant by shaking him by the hand, and assuring him of his cordial gratitude for the very important services which he had rendered him, recommending, at the same time, secrecy as to what they had that night witnessed.—“Ye needna doubt that,” said Ochiltree; “I never tell’d tales out o’ yon cove in my life, though mony a queer thing I hae seen in’t.”

The boat now put off. The old man remained looking after it as it made rapidly towards the brig under the impulse of six stout rowers, and Lovel beheld him again wave his blue bonnet as a token of farewell ere he turned from his fixed posture, and began to move slowly along the sands as if resuming his customary perambulations.

VOLUME II.

CHAPTER FIRST.

* The author cannot remember where these lines are to be found: perhaps in Bishop Hall’s Satires. [They occur in Book iv. Satire iii.]

About a week after the adventures commemorated in our last CHAPTER, Mr. Oldbuck, descending to his breakfast-parlour, found that his womankind were not upon duty, his toast not made, and the silver jug, which was wont to receive his libations of mum, not duly aired for its reception.

“This confounded hot-brained boy!” he said to himself; “now that he begins to get out of danger, I can tolerate this life no longer. All goes to sixes and sevens—an universal saturnalia seems to be proclaimed in my peaceful and orderly family. I ask for my sister—no answer. I call, I shout—I invoke my inmates by more names than the Romans gave to their deities—at length Jenny, whose shrill voice I have heard this half-hour lilting in the Tartarean regions of the kitchen, condescends to hear me and reply, but without coming up stairs, so the conversation must be continued at the top of my lungs. “—Here he again began to hollow aloud—“Jenny, where’s Miss Oldbuck?”

“Miss Grizzy’s in the captain’s room.”

“Umph!—I thought so—and where’s my niece?”

“Miss Mary’s making the captain’s tea.”

“Umph! I supposed as much again—and where’s Caxon?”

“Awa to the town about the captain’s fowling-gun, and his setting-dog.”

“And who the devil’s to dress my periwig, you silly jade?—when you knew that Miss Wardour and Sir Arthur were coming here early after breakfast, how could you let Caxon go on such a Tomfool’s errand?”

“Me! what could I hinder him?—your honour wadna hae us contradict the captain e’en now, and him maybe deeing?”

“Dying!” said the alarmed Antiquary,—“eh! what? has he been worse?”

“Na, he’s no nae waur that I ken of.” *

* It is, I believe, a piece of free-masonry, or a point of conscience, among the Scottish lower orders, never to admit that a patient is doing better. The closest approach to recovery which they can be brought to allow, is, that the pairty inquired after is “Nae waur.”

“Then he must be better—and what good is a dog and a gun to do here, but the one to destroy all my furniture, steal from my larder, and perhaps worry the cat, and the other to shoot somebody through the head. He has had gunning and pistolling enough to serve him one while, I should think.”

Here Miss Oldbuck entered the parlour, at the door of which Oldbuck was carrying on this conversation, he bellowing downward to Jenny, and she again screaming upward in reply.

“Dear brother,” said the old lady, “ye’ll cry yoursell as hoarse as a corbie—is that the way to skreigh when there’s a sick person in the house?”

“Upon my word, the sick person’s like to have all the house to himself,— I have gone without my breakfast, and am like to go without my wig; and I must not, I suppose, presume to say I feel either hunger or cold, for fear of disturbing the sick gentleman who lies six rooms off, and who feels himself well enough to send for his dog and gun, though he knows I detest such implements ever since our elder brother, poor Williewald, marched out of the world on a pair of damp feet, caught in the Kittlefitting-moss. But that signifies nothing; I suppose I shall be expected by and by to lend a hand to carry Squire Hector out upon his litter, while he indulges his sportsmanlike propensities by shooting my pigeons, or my turkeys—I think any of the ferae naturae are safe from him for one while.”

Miss M’Intyre now entered, and began to her usual morning’s task of arranging her uncle’s breakfast, with the alertness of one who is too late in setting about a task, and is anxious to make up for lost time. But this did not avail her. “Take care, you silly womankind—that mum’s too near the fire—the bottle will burst; and I suppose you intend to reduce the toast to a cinder as a burnt-offering for Juno, or what do you call her—the female dog there, with some such Pantheon kind of a name, that your wise brother has, in his first moments of mature reflection, ordered up as a fitting inmate of my house (I thank him), and meet company to aid the rest of the womankind of my household in their daily conversation and intercourse with him.”

“Dear uncle, don’t be angry about the poor spaniel; she’s been tied up at my brother’s lodgings at Fairport, and she’s broke her chain twice, and came running down here to him; and you would not have us beat the faithful beast away from the door?—it moans as if it had some sense of poor Hector’s misfortune, and will hardly stir from the door of his room.”

“Why,” said his uncle, “they said Caxon had gone to Fairport after his dog and gun.”

“O dear sir, no,” answered Miss M’Intyre, “it was to fetch some dressings that were wanted, and Hector only wished him to bring out his gun, as he was going to Fairport at any rate.”

“Well, then, it is not altogether so foolish a business, considering what a mess of womankind have been about it—Dressings, quotha?—and who is to dress my wig?—But I suppose Jenny will undertake”—continued the old bachelor, looking at himself in the glass—“to make it somewhat decent. And now let us set to breakfast—with what appetite we may. Well may I say to Hector, as Sir Isaac Newton did to his dog Diamond, when the animal (I detest dogs) flung down the taper among calculations which had occupied the philosopher for twenty years, and consumed the whole mass of materials—Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done!”

“I assure you, sir,” replied his niece, “my brother is quite sensible of the rashness of his own behaviour, and allows that Mr. Lovel behaved very handsomely.”

“And much good that will do, when he has frightened the lad out of the country! I tell thee, Mary, Hector’s understanding, and far more that of feminity, is inadequate to comprehend the extent of the loss which he has occasioned to the present age and to posterity—aureum quidem opus—a poem on such a subject, with notes illustrative of all that is clear, and all that is dark, and all that is neither dark nor clear, but hovers in dusky twilight in the region of Caledonian antiquities. I would have made the Celtic panegyrists look about them. Fingal, as they conceitedly term Fin-Mac-Coul, should have disappeared before my search, rolling himself in his cloud like the spirit of Loda. Such an opportunity can hardly again occur to an ancient and grey-haired man; and to see it lost by the madcap spleen of a hot-headed boy! But I submit—Heaven’s will be done!”

Thus continued the Antiquary to maunder, as his sister expressed it, during the whole time of breakfast, while, despite of sugar and honey, and all the comforts of a Scottish morning tea-table, his reflections rendered the meal bitter to all who heard them. But they knew the nature of the man. “Monkbarns’s bark,” said Miss Griselda Oldbuck, in confidential intercourse with Miss Rebecca Blattergowl, “is muckle waur than his bite.”

In fact, Mr. Oldbuck had suffered in mind extremely while his nephew was in actual danger, and now felt himself at liberty, upon his returning health, to indulge in complaints respecting the trouble he had been put to, and the interruption of his antiquarian labours. Listened to, therefore, in respectful silence, by his niece and sister, he unloaded his discontent in such grumblings as we have rehearsed, venting many a sarcasm against womankind, soldiers, dogs, and guns, all which implements of noise, discord, and tumult, as he called them, he professed to hold in utter abomination.

This expectoration of spleen was suddenly interrupted by the noise of a carriage without, when, shaking off all sullenness at the sound, Oldbuck ran nimbly up stairs and down stairs, for both operations were necessary ere he could receive Miss Wardour and her father at the door of his mansion.

A cordial greeting passed on both sides. And Sir Arthur, referring to his previous inquiries by letter and message, requested to be particularly informed of Captain M’Intyre’s health.

“Better than he deserves,” was the answer—“better than he deserves, for disturbing us with his vixen brawls, and breaking God’s peace and the King’s.”

“The young gentleman,” Sir Arthur said, “had been imprudent; but he understood they were indebted to him for the detection of a suspicious character in the young man Lovel.”

“No more suspicious than his own,” answered the Antiquary, eager in his favourites defence;—“the young gentleman was a little foolish and headstrong, and refused to answer Hector’s impertinent interrogatories— that is all. Lovel, Sir Arthur, knows how to choose his confidants better—Ay, Miss Wardour, you may look at me—but it is very true;—it was in my bosom that he deposited the secret cause of his residence at Fairport; and no stone should have been left unturned on my part to assist him in the pursuit to which he had dedicated himself.”

On hearing this magnanimous declaration on the part of the old Antiquary, Miss Wardour changed colour more than once, and could hardly trust her own ears. For of all confidants to be selected as the depositary of love affairs,—and such she naturally supposed must have been the subject of communication,—next to Edie Ochiltree, Oldbuck seemed the most uncouth and extraordinary; nor could she sufficiently admire or fret at the extraordinary combination of circumstances which thus threw a secret of such a delicate nature into the possession of persons so unfitted to be entrusted with it. She had next to fear the mode of Oldbuck’s entering upon the affair with her father, for such, she doubted not, was his intention. She well knew that the honest gentleman, however vehement in his prejudices, had no great sympathy with those of others, and she had to fear a most unpleasant explosion upon an e’claircissement taking place between them. It was therefore with great anxiety that she heard her father request a private interview, and observed Oldbuck readily arise and show the way to his library. She remained behind, attempting to converse with the ladies of Monkbarns, but with the distracted feelings of Macbeth, when compelled to disguise his evil conscience by listening and replying to the observations of the attendant thanes upon the storm of the preceding night, while his whole soul is upon the stretch to listen for the alarm of murder, which he knows must be instantly raised by those who have entered the sleeping apartment of Duncan. But the conversation of the two virtuosi turned on a subject very different from that which Miss Wardour apprehended.

“Mr. Oldbuck,” said Sir Arthur, when they had, after a due exchange of ceremonies, fairly seated themselves in the sanctum sanctorum of the Antiquary,—“you, who know so much of my family matters, may probably be surprised at the question I am about to put to you.”

“Why, Sir Arthur, if it relates to money, I am very sorry, but”—

“It does relate to money matters, Mr. Oldbuck.”

“Really, then, Sir Arthur,” continued the Antiquary, “in the present state of the money-market—and stocks being so low”—

“You mistake my meaning, Mr. Oldbuck,” said the Baronet; “I wished to ask your advice about laying out a large sum of money to advantage.”

“The devil!” exclaimed the Antiquary; and, sensible that his involuntary ejaculation of wonder was not over and above civil, he proceeded to qualify it by expressing his joy that Sir Arthur should have a sum of money to lay out when the commodity was so scarce. “And as for the mode of employing it,” said he, pausing, “the funds are low at present, as I said before, and there are good bargains of land to be had. But had you not better begin by clearing off encumbrances, Sir Arthur?—There is the sum in the personal bond—and the three notes of hand,” continued he, taking out of the right-hand drawer of his cabinet a certain red memorandum-book, of which Sir Arthur, from the experience of former frequent appeals to it, abhorred the very sight—“with the interest thereon, amounting altogether to—let me see”—

“To about a thousand pounds,” said Sir Arthur, hastily; “you told me the amount the other day.”

“But there’s another term’s interest due since that, Sir Arthur, and it amounts (errors excepted) to eleven hundred and thirteen pounds, seven shillings, five pennies, and three-fourths of a penny sterling—But look over the summation yourself.”

“I daresay you are quite right, my dear sir,” said the Baronet, putting away the book with his hand, as one rejects the old-fashioned civility that presses food upon you after you have eaten till you nauseate— “perfectly right, I dare say; and in the course of three days or less you shall have the full value—that is, if you choose to accept it in bullion.”

“Bullion! I suppose you mean lead. What the deuce! have we hit on the vein then at last? But what could I do with a thousand pounds’ worth, and upwards, of lead? The former abbots of Trotcosey might have roofed their church and monastery with it indeed—but for me”—

“By bullion,” said the Baronet, “I mean the precious metals,—gold and silver.”

“Ay! indeed?—and from what Eldorado is this treasure to be imported?”

“Not far from hence,” said Sir Arthur, significantly. “And naow I think of it, you shall see the whole process, on one small condition.”

“And what is that?” craved the Antiquary.

“Why, it will be necessary for you to give me your friendly assistance, by advancing one hundred pounds or thereabouts.”

Mr. Oldbuck, who had already been grasping in idea the sum, principal and interest, of a debt which he had long regarded as wellnigh desperate, was so much astounded at the tables being so unexpectedly turned upon him, that he could only re-echo, in an accent of wo and surprise, the words, “Advance one hundred pounds!”

“Yes, my good sir,” continued Sir Arthur; “but upon the best possible security of being repaid in the course of two or three days.”

There was a pause—either Oldbuck’s nether jaw had not recovered its position, so as to enable him to utter a negative, or his curiosity kept him silent.

“I would not propose to you,” continued Sir Arthur, “to oblige me thus far, if I did not possess actual proofs of the reality of those expectations which I now hold out to you. And I assure you, Mr. Oldbuck, that in entering fully upon this topic, it is my purpose to show my confidence in you, and my sense of your kindness on many former occasions.”

Mr. Oldbuck professed his sense of obligation, but carefully avoided committing himself by any promise of farther assistance.

“Mr. Dousterswivel,” said Sir Arthur, “having discovered”—

Here Oldbuck broke in, his eyes sparkling with indignation. “Sir Arthur, I have so often warned you of the knavery of that rascally quack, that I really wonder you should quote him to me.”

“But listen—listen,” interrupted Sir Arthur in his turn, “it will do you no harm. In short, Dousterswivel persuaded me to witness an experiment which he had made in the ruins of St. Ruth—and what do you think we found?”

“Another spring of water, I suppose, of which the rogue had beforehand taken care to ascertain the situation and source.”

“No, indeed—a casket of gold and silver coins—here they are.”

With that, Sir Arthur drew from his pocket a large ram’s horn, with a copper cover, containing a considerable quantity of coins, chiefly silver, but with a few gold pieces intermixed. The Antiquary’s eyes glistened as he eagerly spread them out on the table.

“Upon my word—Scotch, English, and foreign coins, of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and some of them rari—et rariores—etiam rarissimi! Here is the bonnet-piece of James V., the unicorn of James II.,—ay, and the gold festoon of Queen Mary, with her head and the Dauphin’s. And these were really found in the ruins of St. Ruth?”

“Most assuredly—my own eyes witnessed it.”

“Well,” replied Oldbuck; “but you must tell me the when—the where-the how.”

“The when,” answered Sir Arthur, “was at midnight the last full moon—the where, as I have told you, in the ruins of St. Ruth’s priory—the how, was by a nocturnal experiment of Dousterswivel, accompanied only by myself.”

“Indeed!” said Oldbuck; “and what means of discovery did you employ?”

“Only a simple suffumigation,” said the Baronet, “accompanied by availing ourselves of the suitable planetary hour.”

“Simple suffumigation? simple nonsensification—planetary hour? planetary fiddlestick! Sapiens dominabitur astris. My dear Sir Arthur, that fellow has made a gull of you above ground and under ground, and he would have made a gull of you in the air too, if he had been by when you was craned up the devil’s turnpike yonder at Halket-head—to be sure the transformation would have been then peculiarly apropos.”

“Well, Mr. Oldbuck, I am obliged to you for your indifferent opinion of my discernment; but I think you will give me credit for having seen what I say I saw.”

“Certainly, Sir Arthur,” said the Antiquary,—“to this extent at least, that I know Sir Arthur Wardour will not say he saw anything but what he thought he saw.”

“Well, then,” replied the Baronet, “as there is a heaven above us, Mr. Oldbuck, I saw, with my own eyes, these coins dug out of the chancel of St. Ruth at midnight. And as to Dousterswivel, although the discovery be owing to his science, yet, to tell the truth, I do not think he would have had firmness of mind to have gone through with it if I had not been beside him.”

“Ay! indeed?” said Oldbuck, in the tone used when one wishes to hear the end of a story before making any comment.

“Yes truly,” continued Sir Arthur—“I assure you I was upon my guard—we did hear some very uncommon sounds, that is certain, proceeding from among the ruins.”

“Oh, you did?” said Oldbuck; “an accomplice hid among them, I suppose?”

“Not a jot,” said the Baronet;—“the sounds, though of a hideous and preternatural character, rather resembled those of a man who sneezes violently than any other—one deep groan I certainly heard besides; and Dousterswivel assures me that he beheld the spirit Peolphan, the Great Hunter of the North—(look for him in your Nicolaus Remigius, or Petrus Thyracus, Mr. Oldbuck)—who mimicked the motion of snuff-taking and its effects.”

“These indications, however singular as proceeding from such a personage, seem to have been apropos to the matter,” said the Antiquary; “for you see the case, which includes these coins, has all the appearance of being an old-fashioned Scottish snuff-mill. But you persevered, in spite of the terrors of this sneezing goblin?”

“Why, I think it probable that a man of inferior sense or consequence might have given way; but I was jealous of an imposture, conscious of the duty I owed to my family in maintaining my courage under every contingency, and therefore I compelled Dousterswivel, by actual and violent threats, to proceed with what he was about to do;—and, sir, the proof of his skill and honesty is this parcel of gold and silver pieces, out of which I beg you to select such coins or medals as will best suit your collection.”

“Why, Sir Arthur, since you are so good, and on condition you will permit me to mark the value according to Pinkerton’s catalogue and appreciation, against your account in my red book, I will with pleasure select”—

“Nay,” said Sir Arthur Wardour, “I do not mean you should consider them as anything but a gift of friendship and least of all would I stand by the valuation of your friend Pinkerton, who has impugned the ancient and trustworthy authorities upon which, as upon venerable and moss-grown pillars, the credit of Scottish antiquities reposed.”

“Ay, ay,” rejoined Oldbuck, “you mean, I suppose, Mair and Boece, the Jachin and Boaz, not of history but of falsification and forgery. And notwithstanding all you have told me, I look on your friend Dousterswivel to be as apocryphal as any of them.”

“Why then, Mr. Oldbuck,” said Sir Arthur, “not to awaken old disputes, I suppose you think, that because I believe in the ancient history of my country, I have neither eyes nor ears to ascertain what modern events pass before me?”

“Pardon me, Sir Arthur,” rejoined the Antiquary; “but I consider all the affectation of terror which this worthy gentleman, your coadjutor, chose to play off, as being merely one part of his trick or mystery. And with respect to the gold or silver coins, they are so mixed and mingled in country and date, that I cannot suppose they could be any genuine hoard, and rather suppose them to be, like the purses upon the table of Hudibras’s lawyer—

It is the trick of all professions, my dear Sir Arthur. Pray, may I ask you how much this discovery cost you?”

“About ten guineas.”

“And you have gained what is equivalent to twenty in actual bullion, and what may be perhaps worth as much more to such fools as ourselves, who are willing to pay for curiosity. This was allowing you a tempting profit on the first hazard, I must needs admit. And what is the next venture he proposes?”

“An hundred and fifty pounds;—I have given him one-third part of the money, and I thought it likely you might assist me with the balance.”

“I should think that this cannot be meant as a parting blow—is not of weight and importance sufficient; he will probably let us win this hand also, as sharpers manage a raw gamester.—Sir Arthur, I hope you believe I would serve you?”

“Certainly, Mr. Oldbuck; I think my confidence in you on these occasions leaves no room to doubt that.”

“Well, then, allow me to speak to Dousterswivel. If the money can be advanced usefully and advantageously for you, why, for old neighbourhood’s sake, you shall not want it but if, as I think, I can recover the treasure for you without making such an advance, you will, I presume, have no objection!”

“Unquestionably, I can have none whatsoever.”

“Then where is Dousterswivel?” continued the Antiquary.

“To tell you the truth, he is in my carriage below; but knowing your prejudice against him”—

“I thank Heaven, I am not prejudiced against any man, Sir Arthur: it is systems, not individuals, that incur my reprobation.” He rang the bell. “Jenny, Sir Arthur and I offer our compliments to Mr. Dousterswivel, the gentleman in Sir Arthur’s carriage, and beg to have the pleasure of speaking with him here.”

Jenny departed and delivered her message. It had been by no means a part of the project of Dousterswivel to let Mr. Oldbuck into his supposed mystery. He had relied upon Sir Arthur’s obtaining the necessary accommodation without any discussion as to the nature of the application, and only waited below for the purpose of possessing himself of the deposit as soon as possible, for he foresaw that his career was drawing to a close. But when summoned to the presence of Sir Arthur and Mr. Oldbuck, he resolved gallantly to put confidence in his powers of impudence, of which, the reader may have observed, his natural share was very liberal.