The Antiquary — Complete, Walter Scott [best novels for beginners .TXT] 📗

being likely to feel extreme pain at leaving any of her civilities unrequited. She now opened the door to Mr. Oldbuck, and her surprise at seeing him brought tears into her eyes, which she could hardly restrain.

“I am glad to see you, sir—I am very glad to see you. My poor gentleman is, I am afraid, very unwell; and oh, Mr. Oldbuck, he’ll see neither doctor, nor minister, nor writer! And think what it would be, if, as my poor Mr. Hadoway used to say, a man was to die without advice of the three learned faculties!”

“Greatly better than with them,” grumbled the cynical Antiquary. “I tell you, Mrs. Hadoway, the clergy live by our sins, the medical faculty by our diseases, and the law gentry by our misfortunes.”

“O fie, Monkbarns!—to hear the like o’ that frae you!—But yell walk up and see the poor young lad?—Hegh sirs? sae young and weel-favoured—and day by day he has eat less and less, and now he hardly touches onything, only just pits a bit on the plate to make fashion—and his poor cheek has turned every day thinner and paler, sae that he now really looks as auld as me, that might be his mother—no that I might be just that neither, but something very near it.”

“Why does he not take some exercise?” said Oldbuck.

“I think we have persuaded him to do that, for he has bought a horse from Gibbie Golightly, the galloping groom. A gude judge o’ horse-flesh Gibbie tauld our lass that he was—for he offered him a beast he thought wad answer him weel eneugh, as he was a bookish man, but Mr. Lovel wadna look at it, and bought ane might serve the Master o’ Morphie—they keep it at the Graeme’s Arms, ower the street;—and he rode out yesterday morning and this morning before breakfast—But winna ye walk up to his room?”

“Presently, presently. But has he no visitors?”

“O dear, Mr. Oldbuck, not ane; if he wadna receive them when he was weel and sprightly, what chance is there of onybody in Fairport looking in upon him now?”

“Ay, ay, very true,—I should have been surprised had it been otherwise—Come, show me up stairs, Mrs. Hadoway, lest I make a blunder, and go where I should not.”

The good landlady showed Mr. Oldbuck up her narrow staircase, warning him of every turn, and lamenting all the while that he was laid under the necessity of mounting up so high. At length she gently tapped at the door of her guest’s parlour. “Come in,” said Lovel; and Mrs. Hadoway ushered in the Laird of Monkbarns.

The little apartment was neat and clean, and decently furnished—ornamented, too, by such relics of her youthful arts of sempstress-ship as Mrs. Hadoway had retained; but it was close, overheated, and, as it appeared to Oldbuck, an unwholesome situation for a young person in delicate health,—an observation which ripened his resolution touching a project that had already occurred to him in Lovel’s behalf. With a writing-table before him, on which lay a quantity of books and papers, Lovel was seated on a couch, in his night-gown and slippers. Oldbuck was shocked at the change which had taken place in his personal appearance. His cheek and brow had assumed a ghastly white, except where a round bright spot of hectic red formed a strong and painful contrast, totally different from the general cast of hale and hardy complexion which had formerly overspread and somewhat embrowned his countenance. Oldbuck observed, that the dress he wore belonged to a deep mourning suit, and a coat of the same colour hung on a chair near to him. As the Antiquary entered, Lovel arose and came forward to welcome him.

“This is very kind,” he said, shaking him by the hand, and thanking him warmly for his visit—“this is very kind, and has anticipated a visit with which I intended to trouble you. You must know I have become a horseman lately.”

“I understand as much from Mrs. Hadoway—I only hope, my good young friend, you have been fortunate in a quiet horse. I myself inadvertently bought one from the said Gibbie Golightly, which brute ran two miles on end with me after a pack of hounds, with which I had no more to do than the last year’s snow; and after affording infinite amusement, I suppose, to the whole hunting field, he was so good as to deposit me in a dry ditch—I hope yours is a more peaceful beast?”

“I hope, at least, we shall make our excursions on a better plan of mutual understanding.”

“That is to say, you think yourself a good horseman?”

“I would not willingly,” answered Lovel, “confess myself a very bad one.”

“No—all you young fellows think that would be equal to calling yourselves tailors at once—But have you had experience? for, crede experto, a horse in a passion is no joker.”

“Why, I should be sorry to boast myself as a great horseman; but when I acted as aide-de-camp to Sir——in the cavalry action at—, last year, I saw many better cavaliers than myself dismounted.”

“Ah! you have looked in the face of the grisly god of arms then?—you are acquainted with the frowns of Mars armipotent? That experience fills up the measure of your qualifications for the epopea! The Britons, however, you will remember, fought in chariots—covinarii is the phrase of Tacitus;—you recollect the fine description of their dashing among the Roman infantry, although the historian tells us how ill the rugged face of the ground was calculated for equestrian combat; and truly, upon the whole, what sort of chariots could be driven in Scotland anywhere but on turnpike roads, has been to me always matter of amazement. And well now—has the Muse visited you?—have you got anything to show me?”

“My time,” said Lovel, with a glance at his black dress, “has been less pleasantly employed.”

“The death of a friend?” said the Antiquary.

“Yes, Mr. Oldbuck—of almost the only friend I could ever boast of possessing.”

“Indeed? Well, young man,” replied his visitor, in a tone of seriousness very different from his affected gravity, “be comforted. To have lost a friend by death while your mutual regard was warm and unchilled, while the tear can drop unembittered by any painful recollection of coldness or distrust or treachery, is perhaps an escape from a more heavy dispensation. Look round you—how few do you see grow old in the affections of those with whom their early friendships were formed! Our sources of common pleasure gradually dry up as we journey on through the vale of Bacha, and we hew out to ourselves other reservoirs, from which the first companions of our pilgrimage are excluded;—jealousies, rivalries, envy, intervene to separate others from our side, until none remain but those who are connected with us rather by habit than predilection, or who, allied more in blood than in disposition, only keep the old man company in his life, that they may not be forgotten at his death—

Haec data poena diu viventibus.

Ah, Mr. Lovel! if it be your lot to reach the chill, cloudy, and comfortless evening of life, you will remember the sorrows of your youth as the light shadowy clouds that intercepted for a moment the beams of the