The Antiquary — Volume 02

"You are deceived, Mr. Oldbuck, into conclusions which are not just, however naturally they flow from the circumstances. Believe me, I respected you even when I was most embarrassed by your active attempts to investigate our family misfortunes. You showed yourself more worthy of Miss Neville than I, by the spirit with which you persisted in vindicating her reputation even after her death. But the firm belief that your well-meant efforts could only serve to bring to light a story too horrible to be detailed, induced me to join my unhappy mother in schemes to remove or destroy all evidence of the legal union which had taken place between Eveline and myself. And now let us sit down on this bank, — for I feel unable to remain longer standing, — and have the goodness to listen to the extraordinary discovery which I have this day made."

They sate down accordingly; and Lord Glenallan briefly narrated his unhappy family history — his concealed marriage — the horrible invention by which his mother had designed to render impossible that union which had already taken place. He detailed the arts by which the Countess, having all the documents relative to Miss Neville's birth in her hands, had produced those only relating to a period during which, for family reasons, his father had consented to own that young lady as his natural daughter, and showed how impossible it was that he could either suspect or detect the fraud put upon him by his mother, and vouched by the oaths of her attendants, Teresa and Elspeth. "I left my paternal mansion," he concluded, "as if the furies of hell had driven me forth, and travelled with frantic velocity I knew not whither. Nor have I the slightest recollection of what I did or whither I went, until I was discovered by my brother. I will not trouble you with an account of my sick-bed and recovery, or how, long afterwards, I ventured to inquire after the sharer of my misfortunes, and heard that her despair had found a dreadful remedy for all the ills of life. The first thing that roused me to thought was hearing of your inquiries into this cruel business; and you will hardly wonder, that, believing what I did believe, I should join in those expedients to stop your investigation, which my brother and mother had actively commenced. The information which I gave them concerning the circumstances and witnesses of our private marriage enabled them to baffle your zeal. The clergyman, therefore, and witnesses, as persons who had acted in the matter only to please the powerful heir of Glenallan, were accessible to his promises and threats, and were so provided for, that they had no objections to leave this country for another. For myself, Mr. Oldbuck," pursued this unhappy man, "from that moment I considered myself as blotted out of the book of the living, and as having nothing left to do with this world. My mother tried to reconcile me to life by every art — even by intimations which I can now interpret as calculated to produce a doubt of the horrible tale she herself had fabricated. But I construed all she said as the fictions of maternal affection. I will forbear all reproach. She is no more — and, as her wretched associate said, she knew not how the dart was poisoned, or how deep it must sink, when she threw it from her hand. But, Mr. Oldbuck, if ever, during these twenty years, there crawled upon earth a living being deserving of your pity, I have been that man. My food has not nourished me — my sleep has not refreshed me — my devotions have not comforted me — all that is cheering and necessary to man has been to me converted into poison. The rare and limited intercourse which I have held with others has been most odious to me. I felt as if I were bringing the contamination of unnatural and inexpressible guilt among the gay and the innocent. There have been moments when I had thoughts of another description — to plunge into the adventures of war, or to brave the dangers of the traveller in foreign and barbarous climates — to mingle in political intrigue, or to retire to the stern seclusion of the anchorites of our religion; — all these are thoughts which have alternately passed through my mind, but each required an energy, which was mine no longer, after the withering stroke I had received. I vegetated on as I could in the same spot — fancy, feeling, judgment, and health, gradually decaying, like a tree whose bark has been destroyed, — when first the blossoms fade, then the boughs, until its state resembles the decayed and dying trunk that is now before you. Do you now pity and forgive me?"

"My lord," answered the Antiquary, much affected, "my pity — my forgiveness, you have not to ask, for your dismal story is of itself not only an ample excuse for whatever appeared mysterious in your conduct, but a narrative that might move your worst enemies (and I, my lord, was never of the number) to tears and to sympathy. But permit me to ask what you now mean to do, and why you have honoured me, whose opinion can be of little consequence, with your confidence on this occasion?"

"Mr. Oldbuck," answered the Earl, "as I could never have foreseen the nature of that confession which I have heard this day, I need not say that I had no formed plan of consulting you, or any one, upon affairs the tendency of which I could not even have suspected. But I am without friends, unused to business, and, by long retirement, unacquainted alike with the laws of the land and the habits of the living generation; and when, most unexpectedly, I find myself immersed in the matters of which I know least, I catch, like a drowning man, at the first support that offers. You are that support, Mr. Oldbuck. I have always heard you mentioned as a man of wisdom and intelligence — I have known you myself as a man of a resolute and independent spirit; — and there is one circumstance," said he, "which ought to combine us in some degree — our having paid tribute to the same excellence of character in poor Eveline. You offered yourself to me in my need, and you were already acquainted with the beginning of my misfortunes. To you, therefore, I have recourse for advice, for sympathy, for support."

"You shall seek none of them in vain, my lord," said Oldbuck, "so far as my slender ability extends; — and I am honoured by the preference, whether it arises from choice, or is prompted by chance. But this is a matter to be ripely considered. May I ask what are your principal views at present?"

"To ascertain the fate of my child," said the Earl, "be the consequences what they may, and to do justice to the honour of Eveline, which I have only permitted to be suspected to avoid discovery of the yet more horrible taint to which I was made to believe it liable."

"And the memory of your mother?"

"Must bear its own burden," answered the Earl with a sigh: "better that she were justly convicted of deceit, should that be found necessary, than that others should be unjustly accused of crimes so much more dreadful."

"Then, my lord," said Oldbuck, "our first business must be to put the information of the old woman, Elspeth, into a regular and authenticated form."

"That," said Lord Glenallan, "will be at present, I fear, impossible. She is exhausted herself, and surrounded by her distressed family. To-morrow, perhaps, when she is alone — and yet I doubt, from her imperfect sense of right and wrong, whether she would speak out in any one's presence but my own. I am too sorely fatigued."

"Then, my lord," said the Antiquary, whom the interest of the moment elevated above points of expense and convenience, which had generally more than enough of weight with him, "I would propose to your lordship, instead of returning, fatigued as you are, so far as to Glenallan House, or taking the more uncomfortable alternative of going to a bad inn at Fairport, to alarm all the busybodies of the town — I would propose, I say, that you should be my guest at Monkbarns for this night. By to-morrow these poor people will have renewed their out-of-doors vocation — for sorrow with them affords no respite from labour, — and we will visit the old woman Elspeth alone, and take down her examination."

After a formal apology for the encroachment, Lord Glenallan agreed to go with him, and underwent with patience in their return home the whole history of John of the Girnel, a legend which Mr. Oldbuck was never known to spare any one who crossed his threshold.

The arrival of a stranger of such note, with two saddle-horses and a servant in black, which servant had holsters on his saddle-bow, and a coronet upon the holsters, created a general commotion in the house of Monkbarns. Jenny Rintherout, scarce recovered from the hysterics which she had taken on hearing of poor Steenie's misfortune, chased about the turkeys and poultry, cackled and screamed louder than they did, and ended by killing one-half too many. Miss Griselda made many wise reflections on the hot-headed wilfulness of her brother, who had occasioned such devastation, by suddenly bringing in upon them a papist nobleman. And she ventured to transmit to Mr. Blattergowl some hint of the unusual slaughter which had taken place in the basse-cour, which brought the honest clergyman to inquire how his friend Monkbarns had got home, and whether he was not the worse of being at the funeral, at a period so near the ringing of the bell for dinner, that the Antiquary had no choice left but to invite him to stay and bless the meat. Miss M'Intyre had on her part some curiosity to see this mighty peer, of whom all had heard, as an eastern caliph or sultan is heard of by his subjects, and felt some degree of timidity at the idea of encountering a person, of whose unsocial habits and stern manners so many stories were told, that her fear kept at least pace with her curiosity. The aged housekeeper was no less flustered and hurried in obeying the numerous and contradictory commands of her mistress, concerning preserves, pastry and fruit, the mode of marshalling and dishing the dinner, the necessity of not permitting the melted butter to run to oil, and the danger of allowing Juno — who, though formally banished from the parlour, failed not to maraud about the out-settlements of the family — to enter the kitchen.

The only inmate of Monkbarns who remained entirely indifferent on this momentous occasion was Hector M'Intyre, who cared no more for an Earl than he did for a commoner, and who was only interested in the unexpected visit, as it might afford some protection against his uncle's displeasure, if he harboured any, for his not attending the funeral, and still more against his satire upon the subject of his gallant but unsuccessful single combat with the phoca, or seal.

To these, the inmates of his household, Oldbuck presented the Earl of Glenallan, who underwent, with meek and subdued civility, the prosing speeches of the honest divine, and the lengthened apologies of Miss Griselda Oldbuck, which her brother in vain endeavoured to abridge. Before the dinner hour, Lord Glenallan requested permission to retire a while to his chamber. Mr. Oldbuck accompanied his guest to the Green Room, which had been hastily prepared for his reception. He looked around with an air of painful recollection.

"I think," at length he observed, "I think, Mr. Oldbuck, that I have been in this apartment before."

"Yes, my lord," answered Oldbuck, "upon occasion of an excursion hither from Knockwinnock — and since we are upon a subject so melancholy, you may perhaps remember whose taste supplied these lines from Chaucer, which now form the motto of the tapestry."

"I guess", said the Earl, "though I cannot recollect. She excelled me, indeed, in literary taste and information, as in everything else; and it is one of the mysterious dispensations of Providence, Mr. Oldbuck, that a creature so excellent in mind and body should have been cut off in so miserable a manner, merely from her having formed a fatal attachment to such a wretch as I am."

Mr. Oldbuck did not attempt an answer to this burst of the grief which lay ever nearest to the heart of his guest, but, pressing Lord Glenallan's hand with one of his own, and drawing the other across his shaggy eyelashes, as if to brush away a mist that intercepted his sight, he left the Earl at liberty to arrange himself previous to dinner.

CHAPTER FOURTEENTH

                           — Life, with you,             Glows in the brain and dances in the arteries;            'Tis like the wine some joyous guest hath quaffed,                  That glads the heart and elevates the fancy:                  Mine is the poor residuum of the cup,              Vapid, and dull, and tasteless, only soiling,              With its base dregs, the vessel that contains it. Old Play.

"Now, only think what a man my brother is, Mr. Blattergowl, for a wise man and a learned man, to bring this Yerl into our house without speaking a word to a body! And there's the distress of thae Mucklebackits — we canna get a fin o' fish — and we hae nae time to send ower to Fairport for beef, and the mutton's but new killed — and that silly fliskmahoy, Jenny Rintherout, has taen the exies, and done naething but laugh and greet, the skirl at the tail o' the guffaw, for twa days successfully — and now we maun ask that strange man, that's as grand and as grave as the Yerl himsell, to stand at the sideboard! and I canna gang into the kitchen to direct onything, for he's hovering there, making some pousowdie8 for my Lord, for he doesna eat like ither folk neither — And how to sort the strange servant man at dinner time — I am sure, Mr. Blattergowl, a'thegither, it passes my judgment."

"Truly, Miss Griselda," replied the divine, "Monkbarns was inconsiderate. He should have taen a day to see the invitation, as they do wi' the titular's condescendence in the process of valuation and sale. But the great man could not have come on a sudden to ony house in this parish where he could have been better served with vivers— that I must say — and also that the steam from the kitchen is very gratifying to my nostrils; — and if ye have ony household affairs to attend to, Mrs. Griselda, never make a stranger of me — I can amuse mysell very weel with the larger copy of Erskine's Institutes."

And taking down from the window-seat that amusing folio, (the Scottish Coke upon Littleton), he opened it, as if instinctively, at the tenth title of Book Second, "of Teinds or Tythes," and was presently deeply wrapped up in an abstruse discussion concerning the temporality of benefices.

The entertainment, about which Miss Oldbuck expressed so much anxiety, was at length placed upon the table; and the Earl of Glenallan, for the first time since the date of his calamity, sat at a stranger's board, surrounded by strangers. He seemed to himself like a man in a dream, or one whose brain was not fully recovered from the effects of an intoxicating potion. Relieved, as he had that morning been, from the image of guilt which had so long haunted his imagination, he felt his sorrows as a lighter and more tolerable load, but was still unable to take any share in the conversation that passed around him. It was, indeed, of a cast very different from that which he had been accustomed to. The bluntness of Oldbuck, the tiresome apologetic harangues of his sister, the pedantry of the divine, and the vivacity of the young soldier, which savoured much more of the camp than of the court, were all new to a nobleman who had lived in a retired and melancholy state for so many years, that the manners of the world seemed to him equally strange and unpleasing. Miss M'Intyre alone, from the natural politeness and unpretending simplicity of her manners, appeared to belong to that class of society to which he had been accustomed in his earlier and better days.

Nor did Lord Glenallan's deportment less surprise the company. Though a plain but excellent family-dinner was provided (for, as Mr. Blattergowl had justly said, it was impossible to surprise Miss Griselda when her larder was empty), and though the Antiquary boasted his best port, and assimilated it to the Falernian of Horace, Lord Glenallan was proof to the allurements of both. His servant placed before him a small mess of vegetables, that very dish, the cooking of which had alarmed Miss Griselda, arranged with the most minute and scrupulous neatness. He ate sparingly of these provisions; and a glass of pure water, sparkling from the fountain-head, completed his repast. Such, his servant said, had been his lordship's diet for very many years, unless upon the high festivals of the Church, or when company of the first rank were entertained at Glenallan House, when he relaxed a little in the austerity of his diet, and permitted himself a glass or two of wine. But at Monkbarns, no anchoret could have made a more simple and scanty meal.

The Antiquary was a gentleman, as we have seen, in feeling, but blunt and careless in expression, from the habit of living with those before whom he had nothing to suppress. He attacked his noble guest without scruple on the severity of his regimen.

"A few half-cold greens and potatoes — a glass of ice-cold water to wash them down — antiquity gives no warrant for it, my lord. This house used to be accounted a hospitium, a place of retreat for Christians; but your lordship's diet is that of a heathen Pythagorean, or Indian Bramin — nay, more severe than either, if you refuse these fine apples."

"I am a Catholic, you are aware," said Lord Glenallan, wishing to escape from the discussion, "and you know that our church" —

"Lays down many rules of mortification," proceeded the dauntless Antiquary; "but I never heard that they were quite so rigorously practised — Bear witness my predecessor, John of the Girnel, or the jolly Abbot, who gave his name to this apple, my lord."

And as he pared the fruit, in spite of his sister's "O fie, Monkbarns!" and the prolonged cough of the minister, accompanied by a shake of his huge wig, the Antiquary proceeded to detail the intrigue which had given rise to the fame of the abbot's apple with more slyness and circumstantiality than was at all necessary. His jest (as may readily be conceived) missed fire, for this anecdote of conventual gallantry failed to produce the slightest smile on the visage of the Earl. Oldbuck then took up the subject of Ossian, Macpherson, and Mac-Cribb; but Lord Glenallan had never so much as heard of any of the three, so little conversant had he been with modern literature. The conversation was now in some danger of flagging, or of falling into the hands of Mr. Blattergowl, who had just pronounced the formidable word, "teind-free," when the subject of the French Revolution was started — a political event on which Lord Glenallan looked with all the prejudiced horror of a bigoted Catholic and zealous aristocrat. Oldbuck was far from carrying his detestation of its principles to such a length.

"There were many men in the first Constituent Assembly," he said, "who held sound Whiggish doctrines, and were for settling the Constitution with a proper provision for the liberties of the people. And if a set of furious madmen were now in possession of the government, it was," he continued, "what often happened in great revolutions, where extreme measures are adopted in the fury of the moment, and the State resembles an agitated pendulum which swings from side to side for some time ere it can acquire its due and perpendicular station. Or it might be likened to a storm or hurricane, which, passing over a region, does great damage in its passage, yet sweeps away stagnant and unwholesome vapours, and repays, in future health and fertility, its immediate desolation and ravage."

The Earl shook his head; but having neither spirit nor inclination for debate, he suffered the argument to pass uncontested.

This discussion served to introduce the young soldier's experiences; and he spoke of the actions in which he, had been engaged, with modesty, and at the same time with an air of spirit and zeal which delighted the Earl, who had been bred up, like others of his house, in the opinion that the trade of arms was the first duty of man, and believed that to employ them against the French was a sort of holy warfare.

"What would I give," said he apart to Oldbuck, as they rose to join the ladies in the drawing-room, "what would I give to have a son of such spirit as that young gentleman! — He wants something of address and manner, something of polish, which mixing in good society would soon give him; but with what zeal and animation he expresses himself — how fond of his profession — how loud in the praise of others — how modest when speaking of himself!"

"Hector is much obliged to you, my lord," replied his uncle, gratified, yet not so much so as to suppress his consciousness of his own mental superiority over the young soldier; "I believe in my heart nobody ever spoke half so much good of him before, except perhaps the sergeant of his company, when was wheedling a Highland recruit to enlist with him. He is a good lad notwithstanding, although he be not quite the hero your lordship supposes him, and although my commendations rather attest the kindness than the vivacity of his character. In fact, his high spirit is a sort of constitutional vehemence, which attends him in everything he sets about, and is often very inconvenient to his friends. I saw him to-day engage in an animated contest with a phoca, or seal (sealgh, our people more properly call them, retaining the Gothic guttural gh), with as much vehemence as if he had fought against Dumourier — Marry, my lord, the phoca had the better, as the said Dumourier had of some other folks. And he'll talk with equal if not superior rapture of the good behaviour of a pointer bitch, as of the plan of a campaign."

"He shall have full permission to sport over my grounds," said the Earl, "if he is so fond of that exercise."

"You will bind him to you, my lord," said Monkbarns, "body and soul: give him leave to crack off his birding-piece at a poor covey of partridges or moor-fowl, and he's yours for ever — I will enchant him by the intelligence. But O, my lord, that you could have seen my phoenix Lovel! — the very prince and chieftain of the youth of this age; and not destitute of spirit neither — I promise you he gave my termagant kinsman a quid pro quo— a Rowland for his Oliver, as the vulgar say, alluding to the two celebrated Paladins of Charlemagne."

After coffee, Lord Glenallan requested a private interview with the Antiquary, and was ushered to his library.

"I must withdraw you from your own amiable family," he said, "to involve you in the perplexities of an unhappy man. You are acquainted with the world, from which I have long been banished; for Glenallan House has been to me rather a prison than a dwelling, although a prison which I had neither fortitude nor spirit to break from."

"Let me first ask your lordship," said the Antiquary, "what are your own wishes and designs in this matter?"

"I wish most especially," answered Lord Glenallan, "to declare my luckless marriage, and to vindicate the reputation of the unhappy Eveline — that is, if you see a possibility of doing so without making public the conduct of my mother."

"Suum cuique tribuito," said the Antiquary; "do right to everyone. The memory of that unhappy young lady has too long suffered, and I think it might be cleared without further impeaching that of your mother, than by letting it be understood in general that she greatly disapproved and bitterly opposed the match. All — forgive me, my lord — all who ever heard of the late Countess of Glenallan, will learn that without much surprise."

"But you forget one horrible circumstance, Mr. Oldbuck," said the Earl, in an agitated voice.

"I am not aware of it," replied the Antiquary.

"The fate of the infant — its disappearance with the confidential attendant of my mother, and the dreadful surmises which may be drawn from my conversation with Elspeth."

"If you would have my free opinion, my lord," answered Mr. Oldbuck, "and will not catch too rapidly at it as matter of hope, I would say that it is very possible the child yet lives. For thus much I ascertained, by my former inquiries concerning the event of that deplorable evening, that a child and woman were carried that night from the cottage at the Craigburnfoot in a carriage and four by your brother Edward Geraldin Neville, whose journey towards England with these companions I traced for several stages. I believed then it was a part of the family compact to carry a child whom you meant to stigmatize with illegitimacy, out of that country where chance might have raised protectors and proofs of its rights. But I now think that your brother, having reason, like yourself, to believe the child stained with shame yet more indelible, had nevertheless withdrawn it, partly from regard to the honour of his house, partly from the risk to which it might have been exposed in the neighbourhood of the Lady Glenallan."