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

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—

—Money placed for show, Like nest-eggs, to make clients lay, And