The Antiquary — Complete, Walter Scott [best novels for beginners .TXT] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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Sir Arthur readily assented to this proposal, which suited the angry mood in which he found himself; and having, agreeable to the established custom in cases of pet, refused the refreshment of tea and coffee, he tucked his daughter under his arm; and after taking a ceremonious leave of the ladies, and a very dry one of Oldbuck—off he marched.
“I think Sir Arthur has got the black dog on his back again,” said Miss Oldbuck.
“Black dog!—black devil!—he’s more absurd than womankind—What say you, Lovel?—Why, the lad’s gone too.”
“He took his leave, uncle, while Miss Wardour was putting on her things; but I don’t think you observed him.”
“The devil’s in the people! This is all one gets by fussing and bustling, and putting one’s self out of one’s way in order to give dinners, besides all the charges they are put to!—O Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia!” said he, taking up a cup of tea in the one hand, and a volume of the Rambler in the other,—for it was his regular custom to read while he was eating or drinking in presence of his sister, being a practice which served at once to evince his contempt for the society of womankind, and his resolution to lose no moment of instruction,—“O Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia! well hast thou spoken—No man should presume to say, This shall be a day of happiness.”
Oldbuck proceeded in his studies for the best part of an hour, uninterrupted by the ladies, who each, in profound silence, pursued some female employment. At length, a light and modest tap was heard at the parlour door. “Is that you, Caxon?—come in, come in, man.”
The old man opened the door, and thrusting in his meagre face, thatched with thin grey locks, and one sleeve of his white coat, said in a subdued and mysterious tone of voice, “I was wanting to speak to you, sir.”
“Come in then, you old fool, and say what you have got to say.”
“I’ll maybe frighten the ladies,” said the ex-friseur.
“Frighten!” answered the Antiquary,—“what do you mean?—never mind the ladies. Have you seen another ghaist at the Humlock-knowe?”
“Na, sir—it’s no a ghaist this turn,” replied Caxton;—“but I’m no easy in my mind.”
“Did you ever hear of any body that was?” answered Oldbuck;—“what reason has an old battered powder-puff like you to be easy in your mind, more than all the rest of the world besides?”
“It’s no for mysell, sir; but it threatens an awfu’ night; and Sir Arthur, and Miss Wardour, poor thing”—
“Why, man, they must have met the carriage at the head of the loaning, or thereabouts; they must be home long ago.”
“Na, sir; they didna gang the road by the turnpike to meet the carriage, they gaed by the sands.”
The word operated like electricity on Oldbuck. “The sands!” he exclaimed; “impossible!”
“Ou, sir, that’s what I said to the gardener; but he says he saw them turn down by the Mussel-craig. In troth, says I to him, an that be the case, Davie, I am misdoubting”—
“An almanac! an almanac!” said Oldbuck, starting up in great alarm—“not that bauble!” flinging away a little pocket almanac which his niece offered him.—“Great God! my poor dear Miss Isabella!—Fetch me instantly the Fairport Almanac.”—It was brought, consulted, and added greatly to his agitation. “I’ll go myself—call the gardener and ploughman—bid them bring ropes and ladders—bid them raise more help as they come along—keep the top of the cliffs, and halloo down to them—I’ll go myself.”
“What is the matter?” inquired Miss Oldbuck and Miss M’Intyre.
“The tide!—the tide!” answered the alarmed Antiquary.
“Had not Jenny better—but no, I’ll run myself,” said the younger lady, partaking in all her uncle’s terrors—“I’ll run myself to Saunders Mucklebackit, and make him get out his boat.”
“Thank you, my dear, that’s the wisest word that has been spoken yet—Run! run!—To go by the sands!” seizing his hat and cane; “was there ever such madness heard of!”
CHAPTER SEVENTH. —Pleased awhile to view The watery waste, the prospect wild and new; The now receding waters gave them space, On either side, the growing shores to trace And then returning, they contract the scene, Till small and smaller grows the walk between. Crabbe.
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
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