The Antiquary — Complete, Walter Scott [best novels for beginners .TXT] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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The Antiquary then went through the strange and melancholy circumstances concerning his mother’s death.
“I have no doubt,” he said, “that your uncle wished the report to be believed, that the child of this unhappy marriage was no more—perhaps he might himself have an eye to the inheritance of his brother—he was then a gay wild young man—But of all intentions against your person, however much the evil conscience of Elspeth might lead her to inspect him from the agitation in which he appeared, Teresa’s story and your own fully acquit him. And now, my dear sir, let me have the pleasure of introducing a son to a father.”
We will not attempt to describe such a meeting. The proofs on all sides were found to be complete, for Mr. Neville had left a distinct account of the whole transaction with his confidential steward in a sealed packet, which was not to be opened until the death of the old Countess; his motive for preserving secrecy so long appearing to have been an apprehension of the effect which the discovery, fraught with so much disgrace, must necessarily produce upon her haughty and violent temper.
In the evening of that day, the yeomanry and volunteers of Glenallan drank prosperity to their young master. In a month afterwards Lord Geraldin was married to Miss Wardour, the Antiquary making the lady a present of the wedding ring—a massy circle of antique chasing, bearing the motto of Aldobrand Oldenbuck, Kunst macht gunst.
Old Edie, the most important man that ever wore a blue gown, bowls away easily from one friend’s house to another, and boasts that he never travels unless on a sunny day. Latterly, indeed, he has given some symptoms of becoming stationary, being frequently found in the corner of a snug cottage between Monkbarns and Knockwinnock, to which Caxon retreated upon his daughter’s marriage, in order to be in the neighbourhood of the three parochial wigs, which he continues to keep in repair, though only for amusement. Edie has been heard to say, “This is a gey bein place, and it’s a comfort to hae sic a corner to sit in in a bad day.” It is thought, as he grows stiffer in the joints, he will finally settle there.
The bounty of such wealthy patrons as Lord and Lady Geraldin flowed copiously upon Mrs. Hadoway and upon the Mucklebackits. By the former it was well employed, by the latter wasted. They continue, however, to receive it, but under the administration of Edie Ochiltree; and they do not accept it without grumbling at the channel through which it is conveyed.
Hector is rising rapidly in the army, and has been more than once mentioned in the Gazette, and rises proportionally high in his uncle’s favour; and what scarcely pleases the young soldier less, he has also shot two seals, and thus put an end to the Antiquary’s perpetual harping upon the story of the phoca.People talk of a marriage between Miss M’Intyre and Captain Wardour; but this wants confirmation.
The Antiquary is a frequent visitor at Knockwinnock and Glenallan House, ostensibly for the sake of completing two essays, one on the mail-shirt of the Great Earl, and the other on the left-hand gauntlet of Hell-in-Harness. He regularly inquires whether Lord Geraldin has commenced the Caledoniad, and shakes his head at the answers he receives. En attendant, however, he has completed his notes, which, we believe, will be at the service of any one who chooses to make them public without risk or expense to THE ANTIQUARY.
NOTES TO THE ANTIQUARY.
Note A, p. #.—Mottoes.
[“It was in correcting the proof-sheets of this novel that Scott first took to equipping his chapters with mottoes of his own fabrication. On one occasion he happened to ask John Ballantyne, who was sitting by him, to hunt for a particular passage in Beaumont and Fletcher. John did as he was bid, but did not succeed in discovering the lines. ‘Hang it, Johnnie,’ cried Scott, ‘I believe I can make a motto sooner than you will find one.’ He did so accordingly; and from that hour, whenever memory failed to suggest an appropriate epigraph, he had recourse to the inexhaustible mines of “old play” or “old ballad,” to which we owe some of the most exquisite verses that ever flowed from his pen.”—J. G. Lockhart.
See also the Introduction to “Chronicles of the Canongate,” vol. xix.]
Note B, p. #.—Sandy Gordon’s Itinerarium.
[This well-known work, the “Itinerarium Septentrionale, or a Journey thro’ most of the Counties of Scotland, and those in the North of England,” was published at London in 1727, folio. The author states, that in prosecuting his work he “made a pretty laborious progress through almost every part of Scotland for three years successively.” Gordon was a native of Aberdeenshire, and had previously spent some years in travelling abroad, probably as a tutor. He became Secretary to the London Society of Antiquaries in 1736. This office he resigned in 1741, and soon after went out to South Carolina with Governor Glen, where he obtained a considerable grant of land. On his death, about the year 1753, he is said to have left “a handsome estate to his family.”—See Literary Anecdotes of Bowyer, by John Nichols, vol. v., p. 329, etc.]
Note C, p. #.—Praetorium.
It may be worth while to mention that the incident of the supposed Praetorium actually happened to an antiquary of great learning and acuteness, Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, one of the Barons of the Scottish Court of Exchequer, and a parliamentary commissioner for arrangement of the Union between England and Scotland. As many of his writings show, Sir John was much attached to the study of Scottish antiquities. He had a small property in Dumfriesshire, near the Roman station on the hill called Burrenswark. Here he received the distinguished English antiquarian Roger Gale, and of course conducted him to see this remarkable spot, where the lords of the world have left such decisive marks of their martial labours.
An aged shepherd whom they had used as a guide, or who had approached them from curiosity, listened with mouth agape to the dissertations on foss and vellum, ports dextra, sinistra, and decumana, which Sir John Clerk delivered ex cathedra, and his learned visitor listened with the deference to the dignity of a connoisseur on his own ground. But when the cicerone proceeded to point out a small hillock near the centre of the enclosure as the Praetorium, Corydon’s patience could hold no longer, and, like Edie Ochiltree, he forgot all reverence, and broke in with nearly the same words—“Praetorium here, Praetorium there, I made the bourock mysell with a flaughter-spade.” The effect of this undeniable evidence on the two lettered sages may be left to the reader’s imagination.
The late excellent and venerable John Clerk of Eldin, the celebrated author of Naval Tactics, used to tell this story with glee, and being a younger son of Sir John’s was perhaps present on the occasion.
Note D, p. #.—Mr. Rutherfurd’s Dream
The legend of Mrs. Grizel Oldbuck was partly taken from an extraordinary story which happened about seventy years since, in the South of Scotland, so peculiar in its circumstances that it merits being mentioned in this place. Mr. Rutherfurd of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property
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