In elder times, the intercourse of the demon with the inhabitants was
more familiar, and, according to the traditions of the Harz, he was wont,
with the caprice usually ascribed to these earth-born powers, to
interfere with the affairs of mortals, sometimes for their weal,
sometimes for their wo. But it was observed that even his gifts often
turned out, in the long run, fatal to those on whom they were bestowed,
and it was no uncommon thing for the pastors, in their care of their
flocks, to compose long sermons, the burden whereof was a warning against
having any intercourse, direct or indirect, with the Harz demon. The
fortunes of Martin Waldeck have been often quoted by the aged to their
giddy children, when they were heard to scoff at a danger which appeared
visionary.

A travelling capuchin had possessed himself of the pulpit of the thatched
church at a little hamlet called _Morgenbrodt,_ lying in the Harz
district, from which he declaimed against the wickedness of the
inhabitants, their communication with fiends, witches, and fairies, and,
in particular, with the woodland goblin of the Harz. The doctrines of
Luther had already begun to spread among the peasantry (for the incident
is placed under the reign of Charles V. ), and they laughed to scorn the
zeal with which the venerable man insisted upon his topic. At length, as
his vehemence increased with opposition, so their opposition rose in
proportion to his vehemence. The inhabitants did not like to hear an
accustomed quiet demon, who had inhabited the Brockenberg for so many
ages, summarily confounded with Baal-peor, Ashtaroth, and Beelzebub
himself, and condemned without reprieve to the bottomless Tophet. The
apprehensions that the spirit might avenge himself on them for listening
to such an illiberal sentence, added to their national interest in his
behalf. A travelling friar, they said, that is here to-day and away
to-morrow, may say what he pleases: but it is we, the ancient and
constant inhabitants of the country, that are left at the mercy of the
insulted demon, and must, of course, pay for all. Under the irritation
occasioned by these reflections, the peasants from injurious language
betook themselves to stones, and having pebbled the priest pretty
handsomely, they drove him out of the parish to preach against demons
elsewhere.

Three young men, who had been present and assisting on this occasion were
upon their return to the hut where they carried on the laborious and mean
occupation of preparing charcoal for the smelting furnaces. On the way,
their conversation naturally turned upon the demon of the Harz and the
doctrine of the capuchin. Max and George Waldeck, the two elder brothers,
although they allowed the language of the capuchin to have been
indiscreet and worthy of censure, as presuming to determine upon the
precise character and abode of the spirit, yet contended it was
dangerous, in the highest degree, to accept of his gifts, or hold any
communication with him, He was powerful, they allowed, but wayward and
capricious, and those who had intercourse with him seldom came to a good
end. Did he not give the brave knight, Ecbert of Rabenwald, that famous
black steed, by means of which he vanquished all the champions at the
great tournament at Bremen? and did not the same steed afterwards
precipitate itself with its rider into an abyss so steep and fearful,
that neither horse nor man were ever seen more? Had he not given to Dame
Gertrude Trodden a curious spell for making butter come? and was she not
burnt for a witch by the grand criminal judge of the Electorate, because
she availed herself of his gift? But these, and many other instances
which they quoted, of mischance and ill-luck ultimately attending on the
apparent benefits conferred by the Harz spirit, failed to make any
impression upon Martin Waldeck, the youngest of the brothers.

Martin was youthful, rash, and impetuous; excelling in all the exercises
which distinguish a mountaineer, and brave and undaunted from his
familiar intercourse with the dangers that attend them. He laughed at the
timidity of his brothers. "Tell me not of such folly," he said; "the
demon is a good demon--he lives among us as if he were a peasant like
ourselves--haunts the lonely crags and recesses of the mountains like a
huntsman or goatherd--and he who loves the Harz forest and its wild
scenes cannot be indifferent to the fate of the hardy children of the
soil. But, if the demon were as malicious as you would make him, how
should he derive power over mortals, who barely avail themselves of his
gifts, without binding themselves to submit to his pleasure? When you
carry your charcoal to the furnace, is not the money as good that is paid
you by blaspheming Blaize, the old reprobate overseer, as if you got it
from the pastor himself? It is not the goblins gifts which can endanger
you, then, but it is the use you shall make of them that you must account
for. And were the demon to appear to me at this moment, and indicate to
me a gold or silver mine, I would begin to dig away even before his back
were turned,--and I would consider myself as under protection of a much
Greater than he, while I made a good use of the wealth he pointed out to
me."

To this the elder brother replied, that wealth ill won was seldom well
spent; while Martin presumptuously declared, that the possession of all
the treasures of the Harz would not make the slightest alteration on his
habits, morals, or character.

His brother entreated Martin to talk less wildly upon the subject, and
with some difficulty contrived to withdraw his attention, by calling it
to the consideration of the approaching boar-chase. This talk brought
them to their hut, a wretched wigwam, situated upon one side of a wild,
narrow, and romantic dell, in the recesses of the Brockenberg. They
released their sister from attending upon the operation of charring the
wood, which requires constant attention, and divided among themselves the
duty of watching it by night, according to their custom, one always
waking, while his brothers slept.

Max Waldeck, the eldest, watched during the first two hours of the night,
and was considerably alarmed by observing, upon the opposite bank of the
glen, or valley, a huge fire surrounded by some figures that appeared to
wheel around it with antic gestures. Max at first bethought him of
calling up his brothers; but recollecting the daring character of the
youngest, and finding it impossible to wake the elder without also
disturbing Martin--conceiving also what he saw to be an illusion of the
demon, sent perhaps in consequence of the venturous expressions used by
Martin on the preceding evening, he thought it best to betake himself to
the safeguard of such prayers as he could murmur over, and to watch in
great terror and annoyance this strange and alarming apparition. After
blazing for some time, the fire faded gradually away into darkness, and
the rest of Max's watch was only disturbed by the remembrance of its
terrors.

George now occupied the place of Max, who had retired to rest. The
phenomenon of a huge blazing fire, upon the opposite bank of the glen,
again presented itself to the eye of the watchman. It was surrounded as
before by figures, which, distinguished by their opaque forms, being
between the spectator and the red glaring light, moved and fluctuated
around it as if engaged in some mystical ceremony. George, though equally
cautious, was of a bolder character than his elder brother. He resolved
to examine more nearly the object of his wonder; and, accordingly after
crossing the rivulet which divided the glen, he climbed up the opposite
bank, and approached within an arrow's flight of the fire, which blazed
apparently with the same fury as when he first witnessed it.

The appearance, of the assistants who surrounded it resembled those
phantoms which are seen in a troubled dream, and at once confirmed the
idea he had entertained from the first, that they did not belong to the
human world. Amongst these strange unearthly forms, George Waldeck
distinguished that of a giant overgrown with hair, holding an uprooted
fir in his hand, with which, from time to time, he seemed to stir the
blazing fire, and having no other clothing than a wreath of oak leaves
around his forehead and loins. George's heart sunk within him at
recognising the well-known apparition of the Harz demon, as he had been
often described to him by the ancient shepherds and huntsmen who had seen
his form traversing the mountains. He turned, and was about to fly; but
upon second thoughts, blaming his own cowardice, he recited mentally the
verse of the Psalmist, "All good angels, praise the Lord!" which is in
that country supposed powerful as an exorcism, and turned himself once
more towards the place where he had seen the fire. But it was no longer
visible.

The pale moon alone enlightened the side of the valley; and when George,
with trembling steps, a moist brow, and hair bristling upright under his
collier's cap, came to the spot on which the fire had been so lately
visible, marked as it was by a scathed oak-tree, there appeared not on
the heath the slightest vestiges of what he had seen. The moss and wild
flowers were unscorched, and the branches of the oak-tree, which had so
lately appeared enveloped in wreaths of flame and smoke, were moist with
the dews of midnight.

George returned to his hut with trembling steps, and, arguing like his
elder brother, resolved to say nothing of what he had seen, lest he
should awake in Martin that daring curiosity which he almost deemed to be
allied with impiety.

It was now Martin's turn to watch. The household cock had given his first
summons, and the night was well-nigh spent. Upon examining the state of
the furnace in which the wood was deposited in order to its being _coked_
or _charred,_ he was surprised to find that the fire had not been
sufficiently maintained; for in his excursion and its consequences,
George had forgot the principal object of his watch. Martin's first
thought was to call up the slumberers; but observing that both his
brothers slept unwontedly deep and heavily, he respected their repose,
and set himself to supply the furnace with fuel without requiring their
aid. What he heaped upon it was apparently damp and unfit for the
purpose, for the fire seemed rather to decay than revive. Martin next
went to collect some boughs from a stack which had been carefully cut and
dried for this purpose; but, when he returned, he found the fire totally
extinguished. This was a serious evil, and threatened them with loss of
their trade for more than one day. The vexed and mortified watchman set
about to strike a light in order to rekindle the fire but the tinder was
moist, and his labour proved in this respect also ineffectual. He was now
about to call up his brothers, for circumstances seemed to be pressing,
when flashes of light glimmered not only through the window, but through
every crevice of the rudely built hut, and summoned him to behold the
same apparition which had before alarmed the successive watches of his
brethren. His first idea was, that the Muhllerhaussers, their rivals in
trade, and with whom they had had many quarrels, might have encroached
upon their bounds for the purpose of pirating their wood; and he resolved
to awake his brothers, and be revenged on them for their audacity. But a
short reflection and observation on the gestures and manner of those who
seemed to "work in the fire," induced him to dismiss this belief, and
although rather sceptical in such matters, to conclude that what he saw
was a supernatural phenomenon. "But be they men or fiends," said the
undaunted forester, "that busy themselves yonder with such fantastical
rites and gestures, I will go and demand a light to rekindle our
furnace." He, relinquished at the same time the idea of awaking his
brethren. There was a belief that such adventures as he was about to
undertake were accessible only to one person at a time; he feared also
that his brothers, in their scrupulous timidity, might interfere to
prevent his pursuing the investigation he had resolved to commence; and,
therefore, snatching his boar-spear from the wall, the undaunted Martin
Waldeck set forth on the adventure alone.

With the same success as his brother George, but with courage far
superior, Martin crossed the brook, ascended the hill, and approached so
near the ghostly assembly, that he could recognise, in the presiding
figure, the attributes of the Harz demon. A cold shuddering assailed him
for the first time in his life; but the recollection that he had at a
distance dared and even courted the intercourse which was now about to
take place, confirmed his staggering courage; and pride supplying what he
wanted in resolution, he advanced with tolerable firmness towards the
fire, the figures which surrounded it appearing still more wild,
fantastical, and supernatural, the more near he approached to the
assembly. He was received with a loud shout of discordant and unnatural
laughter, which, to his stunned ears, seemed more alarming than a
combination of the most dismal and melancholy sounds that could be
imagined. "Who art thou?" said the giant, compressing his savage and
exaggerated features into a sort of forced gravity, while they were
occasionally agitated by the convulsion of the laughter which he seemed
to suppress.

"Martin Waldeck, the forester," answered the hardy youth;--"and who are
you?"

"The King of the Waste and of the Mine," answered the spectre;--"and why
hast thou dared to encroach on my mysteries?"

"I came in search of light to rekindle my fire," answered Martin,
hardily, and then resolutely asked in his turn, "What mysteries are those
that you celebrate here?"

"We celebrate," answered the complaisant demon, "the wedding of Hermes
with the Black Dragon--But take thy fire that thou camest to seek, and
begone! no mortal may look upon us and live."

The peasant struck his spear-point into a large piece of blazing wood,
which he heaved up with some difficulty, and then turned round to regain
his hut, the, shouts of laughter being renewed behind him with treble
violence, and ringing far down the narrow valley. When Martin returned to
the hut, his first care, however much astonished with what he had seen,
was to dispose the kindled coal among the fuel so as might best light the
fire of his furnace; but after many efforts, and all exertions of bellows
and fire-prong, the coal he had brought from the demon's fire became
totally extinct without kindling any of the others. He turned about, and
observed the fire still blazing on the hill, although those who had been
busied around it had disappeared. As he conceived the spectre had been
jesting with him, he gave way to the natural hardihood of his temper,
and, determining to see the adventure to an end, resumed the road to the
fire, from which, unopposed by the demon, he brought off in the same
manner a blazing piece of charcoal, but still without being able to
succeed in lighting his fire. Impunity having increased his rashness, he
resolved upon a third experiment, and was as successful as before in
reaching the fire; but when he had again appropriated a piece of burning
coal, and had turned to depart, he heard the harsh and supernatural voice
which had before accosted him, pronounce these words, "Dare not return
hither a fourth time!"

The attempt to kindle the fire with this last coal having proved as
ineffectual as on the former occasions, Martin relinquished the hopeless
attempt, and flung himself on his bed of leaves, resolving to delay till
the next morning the communication of his supernatural adventure to his
brothers. He was awakened from a heavy sleep into which he had sunk, from
fatigue of body and agitation of mind, by loud exclamations of surprise
and joy. His brothers, astonished at finding the fire extinguished when
they awoke, had proceeded to arrange the fuel in order to renew it, when
they found in the ashes three huge metallic masses, which their skill
(for most of the peasants in the Harz are practical mineralogists)
immediately ascertained to be pure gold.

It was some damp upon their joyful congratulations when they learned from
Martin the mode in which he had obtained this treasure, to which their
own experience of the nocturnal vision induced them to give full credit.
But they were unable to resist the temptation of sharing in their
brother's wealth. Taking now upon him as head of the house, Martin
Waldeck bought lands and forests, built a castle, obtained a patent of
nobility, and, greatly to the indignation of the ancient aristocracy of
the neighbourhood, was invested with all the privileges of a man of
family. His courage in public war, as well as in private feuds, together
with the number of retainers whom he kept in pay, sustained him for some
time against the odium which was excited by his sudden elevation, and the
arrogance of his pretensious.

And now it was seen in the instance of Martin Waldeck, as it has been in
that of many others, how little mortals can foresee the effect of sudden
prosperity on their own disposition. The evil propensities in his nature,
which poverty had checked and repressed, ripened and bore their
unhallowed fruit under the influence of temptation and the means of
indulgence. As Deep calls unto Deep, one bad passion awakened another the
fiend of avarice invoked that of pride, and pride was to be supported by
cruelty and oppression. Waldeck's character, always bold and daring but
rendered harsh and assuming by prosperity, soon made him odious, not to
the nobles only, but likewise to the lower ranks, who saw, with double
dislike, the oppressive rights of the feudal nobility of the empire so
remorselessly exercised by one who had risen from the very dregs of the
people. His adventure, although carefully concealed, began likewise to be
whispered abroad, and the clergy already stigmatized as a wizard and
accomplice of fiends, the wretch, who, having acquired so huge a treasure
in so strange a manner, had not sought to sanctify it by dedicating a
considerable portion to the use of the church. Surrounded by enemies,
public and private, tormented by a thousand feuds, and threatened by the
church with excommunication, Martin Waldeck, or, as we must now call him,
the Baron von Waldeck, often regretted bitterly the labours and sports of
his unenvied poverty. But his courage failed him not under all these
difficulties, and seemed rather to augment in proportion to the danger
which darkened around him, until an accident precipitated his fall.

A proclamation by the reigning Duke of Brunswick had invited to a solemn
tournament all German nobles of free and honourable descent; and Martin
Waldeck, splendidly armed, accompanied by his two brothers, and a
gallantly-equipped retinue, had the arrogance to appear among the
chivalry of the province, and demand permission to enter the lists. This
was considered as filling up the measure of his presumption. A thousand
voices exclaimed, "We will have no cinder-sifter mingle in our games of
chivalry." Irritated to frenzy, Martin drew his sword and hewed down the
herald, who, in compliance with the general outcry, opposed his entry
into the lists. An hundred swords were unsheathed to avenge what was in
those days regarded as a crime only inferior to sacrilege or regicide.
Waldeck, after defending himself like a lion, was seized, tried on the
spot by the judges of the lists, and condemned, as the appropriate
punishment for breaking the peace of his sovereign, and violating the
sacred person of a herald-at-arms, to have his right hand struck from his
body, to be ignominiously deprived of the honour of nobility, of which he
was unworthy, and to be expelled from the city. When he had been stripped
of his arms, and sustained the mutilation imposed by this severe
sentence, the unhappy victim of ambition was abandoned to the rabble, who
followed him with threats and outcries levelled alternately against the
necromancer and oppressor, which at length ended in violence. His
brothers (for his retinue were fled and dispersed) at length succeeded in
rescuing him from the hands of the populace, when, satiated with cruelty,
they had left him half dead through loss of blood, and through the
outrages he had sustained. They were not permitted, such was the
ingenious cruelty of their enemies, to make use of any other means of
removing him, excepting such a collier's cart as they had themselves
formerly used, in which they deposited their brother on a truss of straw,
scarcely expecting to reach any place of shelter ere death should release
him from his misery.

When the Waldecks, journeying in this miserable manner, had approached
the verge of their native country, in a hollow way, between two
mountains, they perceived a figure advancing towards them, which at first
sight seemed to be an aged man. But as he approached, his limbs and
stature increased, the cloak fell from his shoulders, his pilgrim's staff
was changed into an uprooted pine-tree, and the gigantic figure of the
Harz demon passed before them in his terrors. When he came opposite to
the cart which contained the miserable Waldeck, his huge features dilated
into a grin of unutterable contempt and malignity, as he asked the
sufferer, "How like you the fire my coals have kindled?" The power of
motion, which terror suspended in his two brothers, seemed to be restored
to Martin by the energy of his courage. He raised himself on the cart,
bent his brows, and, clenching his fist, shook it at the spectre with a
ghastly look of hate and defiance. The goblin vanished with his usual
tremendous and explosive laugh, and left Waldeck exhausted with this
effort of expiring nature.

The terrified brethren turned their vehicle toward the towers of a
convent, which arose in a wood of pine-trees beside the road. They were
charitably received by a bare-footed and long-bearded capuchin, and
Martin survived only to complete the first confession he had made since
the day of his sudden prosperity, and to receive absolution from the very
priest whom, precisely on that day three years, he had assisted to pelt
out of the hamlet of Morgenbrodt. The three years of precarious
prosperity were supposed to have a mysterious correspondence with the
number of his visits to the spectral fire upon the bill.

The body of Martin Waldeck was interred in the convent where he expired,
in which his brothers, having assumed the habit of the order, lived and
died in the performance of acts of charity and devotion. His lands, to
which no one asserted any claim, lay waste until they were reassumed by
the emperor as a lapsed fief, and the ruins of the castle, which Waldeck
had called by his own name, are still shunned by the miner and forester
as haunted by evil spirits. Thus were the miseries attendant upon wealth,
hastily attained and ill employed, exemplified in the fortunes of Martin
Waldeck.




                           CHAPTER NINETEENTH.


                 Here has been such a stormy encounter
                 Betwixt my cousin Captain, and this soldier,
                 About I know not what!--nothing, indeed;
                 Competitions, degrees, and comparatives
                          Of soldiership!--
                                    A Faire Qurrell.

The attentive audience gave the fair transcriber of the foregoing legend
the thanks which politeness required. Oldbuck alone curled up his nose,
and observed, that Miss Wardour's skill was something like that of the
alchemists, for she had contrived to extract a sound and valuable moral
out of a very trumpery and ridiculous legend. "It is the fashion, as I am
given to understand, to admire those extravagant fictions--for me,

                            --I bear an English heart,
             Unused at ghosts and rattling bones to start."

"Under your favour, my goot Mr. Oldenbuck," said the German, "Miss
Wardour has turned de story, as she does every thing as she touches, very
pretty indeed; but all the history of de Harz goblin, and how he walks
among de desolate mountains wid a great fir-tree for his walking cane,
and wid de great green bush around his head and his waist--that is as
true as I am an honest man."

"There is no disputing any proposition so well guaranteed," answered the
Antiquary, drily. But at this moment the approach of a stranger cut short
the conversation.

The new comer was a handsome young man, about five-and-twenty, in a
military undress, and bearing, in his look and manner, a good deal of
the, martial profession--nay, perhaps a little more than is quite
consistent with the ease of a man of perfect good-breeding, in whom no
professional habit ought to predominate. He was at once greeted by the
greater part of the company. "My dear Hector!" said Miss M'Intyre, as she
rose to take his hand--

"Hector, son of Priam, whence comest thou?" said the Antiquary.

"From Fife, my liege," answered the young soldier, and continued, when he
had politely saluted the rest of the company, and particularly Sir Arthur
and his daughter--"I learned from one of the servants, as I rode towards
Monkbarns to pay my respects to you, that I should find the present
company in this place, and I willingly embrace the opportunity to pay my
respects to so many of my friends at once."

"And to a new one also, my trusty Trojan," said Oldbuck. "Mr. Lovel, this
is my nephew, Captain M'Intyre--Hector, I recommend Mr. Lovel to your
acquaintance."

The young soldier fixed his keen eye upon Lovel, and paid his compliment
with more reserve than cordiality and as our acquaintance thought his
coldness almost supercilious, he was equally frigid and haughty in making
the necessary return to it; and thus a prejudice seemed to arise between
them at the very commencement of their acquaintance.

The observations which Lovel made during the remainder of this pleasure
party did not tend to reconcile him with this addition to their society.
Captain M'Intyre, with the gallantry to be expected from his age and
profession, attached himself to the service of Miss Wardour, and offered
her, on every possible opportunity, those marks of attention which Lovel
would have given the world to have rendered, and was only deterred from
offering by the fear of her displeasure. With forlorn dejection at one
moment, and with irritated susceptibility at another, he saw this
handsome young soldier assume and exercise all the privileges of a
_cavaliere servente._ He handed Miss Wardour's gloves, he assisted her in
putting on her shawl, he attached himself to her in the walks, had a hand
ready to remove every impediment in her path, and an arm to support her
where it was rugged or difficult; his conversation was addressed chiefly
to her, and, where circumstances permitted, it was exclusively so. All
this, Lovel well knew, might be only that sort of egotistical gallantry
which induces some young men of the present day to give themselves the
air of engrossing the attention of the prettiest women in company, as if
the others were unworthy of their notice. But he thought he observed in
the conduct of Captain M'Intyre something of marked and peculiar
tenderness, which was calculated to alarm the jealousy of a lover. Miss
Wardour also received his attentions; and although his candour allowed
they were of a kind which could not be repelled without some strain of
affectation, yet it galled him to the heart to witness that she did so.

The heart-burning which these reflections occasioned proved very
indifferent seasoning to the dry antiquarian discussions with which
Oldbuck, who continued to demand his particular attention, was
unremittingly persecuting him; and he underwent, with fits of impatience
that amounted almost to loathing, a course of lectures upon monastic
architecture, in all its styles, from the massive Saxon to the florid
Gothic, and from that to the mixed and composite architecture of James
the First's time, when, according to Oldbuck, all orders were confounded,
and columns of various descriptions arose side by side, or were piled
above each other, as if symmetry had been forgotten, and the elemental
principles of art resolved into their primitive confusion. "What can be
more cutting to the heart than the sight of evils," said Oldbuck, in
rapturous enthusiasm, "which we are compelled to behold, while we do not
possess the power of remedying them?" Lovel answered by an involulatary
groan. "I see, my dear young friend, and most congenial spirit, that you
feel these enormities almost as much as I do. Have you ever approached
them, or met them, without longing to tear, to deface, what is so
dishonourable?"

"Dishonourable!" echoed Lovel--"in what respect dishonourable?"

"I mean, disgraceful to the arts."

"Where? how?"

"Upon the portico, for example, of the schools of Oxford, where, at
immense expense, the barbarous, fantastic, and ignorant architect has
chosen to represent the whole five orders of architecture on the front of
one building."

By such attacks as these, Oldbuck, unconscious of the torture he was
giving, compelled Lovel to give him a share of his attention,--as a
skilful angler, by means of his line, maintains an influence over the
most frantic movements of his agonized prey.

They were now on their return to the spot where they had left the
carriages; and it is inconceivable how often, in the course of that short
walk, Lovel, exhausted by the unceasing prosing of his worthy companion,
mentally bestowed on the devil, or any one else that would have rid him
of hearing more of them, all the orders and disorders of architecture
which had been invented or combined from the building of Solomon's temple
downwards. A slight incident occurred, however, which sprinkled a little
patience on the heat of his distemperature.

Miss Wardour, and her self-elected knight companion, rather preceded the
others in the narrow path, when the young lady apparently became desirous
to unite herself with the rest of the party, and, to break off her
_tete-a-tete_ with the young officer, fairly made a pause until Mr.
Oldbuck came up. "I wished to ask you a question, Mr. Oldbuck, concerning
the date of these interesting ruins."

It would be doing injustice to Miss Wardour's _savoir faire,_ to suppose
she was not aware that such a question would lead to an answer of no
limited length. The Antiquary, starting like a war-horse at the trumpet
sound, plunged at once into the various arguments for and against the
date of 1273, which had been assigned to the priory of St. Ruth by a late
publication on Scottish architectural antiquities. He raked up the names
of all the priors who had ruled the institution, of the nobles who had
bestowed lands upon it, and of the monarchs who had slept their last
sleep among its roofless courts. As a train which takes fire is sure to
light another, if there be such in the vicinity, the Baronet, catching at
the name of one of his ancestors which occurred in Oldbuck's
disquisition, entered upon an account of his wars, his conquests, and his
trophies; and worthy Dr. Blattergowl was induced, from the mention of a
grant of lands, _cum decimis inclusis tam vicariis quam garbalibus, et
nunquan antea separatis,_ to enter into a long explanation concerning the
interpretation given by the Teind Court in the consideration of such a
clause, which had occurred in a process for localling his last
augmentation of stipend. The orators, like three racers, each pressed
forward to the goal, without much regarding how each crossed and jostled
his competitors. Mr. Oldbuck harangued, the Baronet declaimed, Mr.
Blattergowl prosed and laid down the law, while the Latin forms of feudal
grants were mingled with the jargon of blazonry, and the yet more
barbarous phraseology of the Teind Court of Scotland. "He was," exclaimed
Oldbuck, speaking of the Prior Adhemar, "indeed an exemplary prelate;
and, from his strictness of morals, rigid execution of penance, joined to
the charitable disposition of his mind, and the infirmities endured by
his great age and ascetic habits"--

Here he chanced to cough, and Sir Arthur burst in, or rather continued
--"was called popularly Hell-in-Harness; he carried a shield, gules with
a sable fess, which we have since disused, and was slain at the battle of
Vernoil, in France, after killing six of the English with his own"--

"Decreet of certification," proceeded the clergyman, in that prolonged,
steady, prosing tone, which, however overpowered at first by the
vehemence of competition, promised, in the long run, to obtain the
ascendancy in this strife of narrators;--"Decreet of certification having
gone out, and parties being held as confessed, the proof seemed to be
held as concluded, when their lawyer moved to have it opened up, on the
allegation that they had witnesses to bring forward, that they had been
in the habit of carrying the ewes to lamb on the teind-free land; which
was a mere evasion, for"--

But here the, Baronet and Mr. Oldbuck having recovered their wind, and
continued their respective harangues, the three _strands_ of the
conversation, to speak the language of a rope-work, were again twined
together into one undistinguishable string of confusion.

Yet, howsoever uninteresting this piebald jargon might seem, it was
obviously Miss Wardour's purpose to give it her attention, in preference
to yielding Captain M'Intyre an opportunity of renewing their private
conversation. So that, after waiting for a little time with displeasure,
ill concealed by his haughty features, he left her to enjoy her bad
taste, and taking his sister by the arm, detained her a little behind the
rest of the party.

"So I find, Mary, that your neighbour has neither become more lively nor
less learned during my absence."

"We lacked your patience and wisdom to instruct us, Hector."

"Thank you, my dear sister. But you have got a wiser, if not so lively an
addition to your society, than your unworthy brother--Pray, who is this
Mr. Lovel, whom our old uncle has at once placed so high in his good
graces?--he does not use to be so accessible to strangers."

"Mr. Lovel, Hector, is a very gentleman-like young man."

"Ay,--that is to say, he bows when he comes into a room, and wears a coat
that is whole at the elbows."

"No, brother; it says a great deal more. It says that his manners and
discourse express the feelings and education of the higher class."

"But I desire to know what is his birth and his rank in society, and what
is his title to be in the circle in which I find him domesticated?"

"If you mean, how he comes to visit at Monkbarns, you must ask my uncle,
who will probably reply, that he invites to his own house such company as
he pleases; and if you mean to ask Sir Arthur, you must know that Mr.
Lovel rendered Miss Wardour and him a service of the most important
kind."

"What! that romantic story is true, then?--And pray, does the valorous
knight aspire, as is befitting on such occasions, to the hand of the
young lady whom he redeemed from peril? It is quite in the rule of
romance, I am aware; and I did think that she was uncommonly dry to me as
we walked together, and seemed from time to time as if she watched
whether she was not giving offence to her gallant cavalier."

"Dear Hector," said his sister, "if you really continue to nourish any
affection for Miss Wardour"--

"If, Mary?--what an _if_ was there!"

"--I own I consider your perseverance as hopeless."

"And why hopeless, my sage sister?" asked Captain M'Intyre: "Miss
Wardour, in the state of her father's affairs, cannot pretend to much
fortune;--and, as to family, I trust that of Mlntyre is not inferior."

"But, Hector," continued his sister, "Sir Arthur always considers us as
members of the Monkbarns family."

"Sir Arthur may consider what he pleases," answered the Highlander
scornfully; "but any one with common sense will consider that the wife
takes rank from the husband, and that my father's pedigree of fifteen
unblemished descents must have ennobled my mother, if her veins had been
filled with printer's ink."

"For God's sake, Hector," replied his anxious sister, "take care of
yourself! a single expression of that kind, repeated to my uncle by an
indiscreet or interested eavesdropper, would lose you his favour for
ever, and destroy all chance of your succeeding to his estate."

"Be it so," answered the heedless young man; "I am one of a profession
which the world has never been able to do without, and will far less
endure to want for half a century to come; and my good old uncle may tack
his good estate and his plebeian name to your apron-string if he pleases,
Mary, and you may wed this new favourite of his if you please, and you
may both of you live quiet, peaceable, well-regulated lives, if it
pleases Heaven. My part is taken--I'll fawn on no man for an inheritance
which should be mine by birth."

Miss M'Intyre laid her hand on her brother's arm, and entreated him to
suppress his vehemence. "Who," she said, "injures or seeks to injure you,
but your own hasty temper?--what dangers are you defying, but those you
have yourself conjured up?--Our uncle has hitherto been all that is kind
and paternal in his conduct to us, and why should you suppose he will in
future be otherwise than what he has ever been, since we were left as
orphans to his care?"

"He is an excellent old gentleman, I must own," replied M'Intyre, "and I
am enraged at myself when I chance to offend him; but then his eternal
harangues upon topics not worth the spark of a flint--his investigations
about invalided pots and pans and tobacco-stoppers past service--all
these things put me out of patience. I have something of Hotspur in me,
sister, I must confess."

"Too much, too much, my dear brother! Into how many risks, and, forgive
me for saying, some of them little creditable, has this absolute and
violent temper led you! Do not let such clouds darken the time you are
now to pass in our neighbourhood, but let our old benefactor see his
kinsman as he is--generous, kind, and lively, without being rude,
headstrong, and impetuous."

"Well," answered Captain M'Intyre, "I am schooled--good-manners be my
speed! I'll do the civil thing by your new friend--I'll have some talk
with this Mr. Lovel."

With this determination, in which he was for the time perfectly sincere,
he joined the party who were walking before them. The treble disquisition
was by this time ended; and Sir Arthur was speaking on the subject of
foreign news, and the political and military situation of the country,
themes upon which every man thinks himself qualified to give an opinion.
An action of the preceding year having come upon the _tapis,_ Lovel,
accidentally mingling in the conversation, made some assertion concerning
it, of the accuracy of which Captain M'Intyre seemed not to be convinced,
although his doubts were politely expressed.

"You must confess yourself in the wrong here, Hector," said his uncle,
"although I know no man less willing to give up an argument; but you were
in England at the time, and Mr. Lovel was probably concerned in the
affair."

"I am speaking to a military man, then?" said M'Intyre; "may I inquire to
what regiment Mr. Lovel belongs?"--Mr. Lovel gave him the number of the
regiment. "It happens strangely that we should never have met before, Mr.
Lovel. I know your regiment very well, and have served along with them at
different times."

A blush crossed Lovel's countenance. "I have not lately been with my
regiment," he replied; "I served the last campaign upon the staff of
General Sir----."

"Indeed! that is more wonderful than the other circumstance!--for
although I did not serve with General Sir----, yet I had an opportunity
of knowing the names of the officers who held situations in his family,
and I cannot recollect that of Lovel."

At this observation Lovel again blushed so deeply as to attract the
attention of the whole company, while, a scornful laugh seemed to
indicate Captain M'Intyre's triumph. "There is something strange in
this," said Oldbuck to himself; "but I will not readily give up my
phoenix of post-chaise companions--all his actions, language, and
bearing, are those of a gentleman."

Lovel in the meanwhile had taken out his pocket-book, and selecting a
letter, from which he took off the envelope, he handed it to Mlntyre.
"You know the General's hand, in all probability--I own I ought not to
show these exaggerated expressions of his regard and esteem for me." The
letter contained a very handsome compliment from the officer in question
for some military service lately performed. Captain M'Intyre, as he
glanced his eye over it, could not deny that it was written in the
General's hand, but drily observed, as he returned it, that the address
was wanting. "The address, Captain M'Intyre," answered Lovel, in the same
tone, "shall be at your service whenever you choose to inquire after it!"

"I certainly shall not fail to do so," rejoined the soldier.

"Come, come," exclaimed Oldbuck, "what is the meaning of all this? Have
we got Hiren here?--We'll have no swaggering youngsters. Are you come
from the wars abroad, to stir up domestic strife in our peaceful land?
Are you like bull-dog puppies, forsooth, that when the bull, poor fellow,
is removed from the ring, fall to brawl among themselves, worry each
other, and bite honest folk's shins that are standing by?"

Sir Arthur trusted, he said, the young gentlemen would not so far forget
themselves as to grow warm upon such a trifling subject as the back of a
letter.

Both the disputants disclaimed any such intention, and, with high colour
and flashing eyes, protested they were never so cool in their lives. But
an obvious damp was cast over the party;--they talked in future too much
by the rule to be sociable, and Lovel, conceiving himself the object of
cold and suspicious looks from the rest of the company, and sensible that
his indirect replies had given them permission to entertain strange
opinions respecting him, made a gallant determination to sacrifice the
pleasure he had proposed in spending the day at Knockwinnock.

He affected, therefore, to complain of a violent headache, occasioned by
the heat of the day, to which he had not been exposed since his illness,
and made a formal apology to Sir Arthur, who, listening more to recent
suspicion than to the gratitude due for former services, did not press
him to keep his engagement more than good-breeding exactly demanded.

When Lovel took leave of the ladies, Miss Wardour's manner seemed more
anxious than he had hitherto remarked it. She indicated by a glance of
her eye towards Captain M'Intyre, perceptible only by Lovel, the subject
of her alarm, and hoped, in a voice greatly under her usual tone, it was
not a less pleasant engagement which deprived them of the pleasure of Mr.
Lovel's company. "No engagement had intervened," he assured her; "it was
only the return of a complaint by which he had been for some time
occasionally attacked."

"The best remedy in such a case is prudence, and I--every friend of Mr.
Lovel's will expect him to employ it."

Lovel bowed low and coloured deeply, and Miss Wardour, as if she felt
that she had said too much, turned and got into the carriage. Lovel had
next to part with Oldbuck, who, during this interval, had, with Caxon's
assistance, been arranging his disordered periwig, and brushing his coat,
which exhibited some marks of the rude path they had traversed. "What,
man!" said Oldbuck, "you are not going to leave us on account of that
foolish Hector's indiscreet curiosity and vehemence? Why, he is a
thoughtless boy--a spoiled child from the time he was in the nurse's
arms--he threw his coral and bells at my head for refusing him a bit of
sugar; and you have too much sense to mind such a shrewish boy: _aequam
servare mentem_ is the motto of our friend Horace. I'll school Hector by
and by, and put it all to rights." But Lovel persisted in his design of
returning to Fairport.

The Antiquary then assumed a graver tone.--"Take heed, young man, to your
present feelings. Your life has been given you for useful and valuable
purposes, and should be reserved to illustrate the literature of your
country, when you are not called upon to expose it in her defence, or in
the rescue of the innocent. Private war, a practice unknown to the
civilised ancients, is, of all the absurdities introduced by the Gothic
tribes, the most gross, impious, and cruel. Let me hear no more of these
absurd quarrels, and I will show you the treatise upon the duello, which
I composed when the town-clerk and provost Mucklewhame chose to assume
the privileges of gentlemen, and challenged each other. I thought of
printing my Essay, which is signed _Pacificator;_ but there was no need,
as the matter was taken up by the town-council of the borough."

"But I assure you, my dear sir, there is nothing between Captain M'Intyre
and me that can render such respectable interference necessary."

"See it be so; for otherwise, I will stand second to both parties."

So saying, the old gentleman got into the chaise, close to which Miss
M'Intyre had detained her brother, upon the same principle that the owner
of a quarrelsome dog keeps him by his side to prevent his fastening upon
another. But Hector contrived to give her precaution the slip, for, as he
was on horseback, he lingered behind the carriages until they had fairly
turned the corner in the road to Knockwinnock, and then, wheeling his
horse's head round, gave him the spur in the opposite direction.

A very few minutes brought him up with Lovel, who, perhaps anticipating
his intention, had not put his horse beyond a slow walk, when the clatter
of hoofs behind him announced Captain Mlntyre. The young soldier, his
natural heat of temper exasperated by the rapidity of motion, reined his
horse up suddenly and violently by Lovel's side, and touching his hat
slightly, inquired, in a very haughty tone of voice, "What am I to
understand, sir, by your telling me that your address was at my service?"

"Simply, sir," replied Lovel, "that my name is Lovel, and that my
residence is, for the present, Fairport, as you will see by this card."

"And is this all the information you are disposed to give me?"

"I see no right you have to require more."

"I find you, sir, in company with my sister," said the young soldier,
"and I have a right to know who is admitted into Miss M'Intyre's
society."

"I shall take the liberty of disputing that right," replied Lovel, with a
manner as haughty as that of the young soldier;--"you find me in society
who are satisfied with the degree of information on my affairs which I
have thought proper to communicate, and you, a mere stranger, have no
right to inquire further."

"Mr. Lovel, if you served as you say you have"--

"If!" interrupted Lovel,--"_if_ I have served as _I say_ I have?"

"Yes, sir, such is my expression--_if_ you have so served, you must know
that you owe me satisfaction either in one way or other."

"If that be your opinion, I shall be proud to give it to you, Captain
M'Intyre, in the way in which the word is generally used among
gentlemen."

"Very well, sir," rejoined Hector, and, turning his horse round, galloped
off to overtake his party.

His absence had already alarmed them, and his sister, having stopped the
carriage, had her neck stretched out of the window to see where he was.

"What is the matter with you now?" said the Antiquary, "riding to and fro
as your neck were upon the wager--why do you not keep up with the
carriage?"

"I forgot my glove, sir," said Hector.

"Forgot your glove!--I presume you meant to say you went to throw it
down--But I will take order with you, my young gentleman--you shall
return with me this night to Monkbarns." So saying, he bid the postilion
go on.



                           CHAPTER TWENTIETH.


                         --If you fail Honour here,
                 Never presume to serve her any more;
                 Bid farewell to the integrity of armes;
                    And the honourable name of soldier
            Fall from you, like a shivered wreath of laurel
            By thunder struck from a desertlesse forehead.
                                    A Faire Quarrell.

Early the next morning, a gentleman came to wait upon Mr. Lovel, who was
up and ready to receive him. He was a military gentleman, a friend of
Captain M'Intyre's, at present in Fairport on the recruiting service.
Lovel and he were slightly known to each other. "I presume, sir," said
Mr. Lesley (such was the name of the visitor), "that you guess the
occasion of my troubling you so early?"

"A message from Captain M'Intyre, I presume?"

"The same. He holds himself injured by the manner in which you declined
yesterday to answer certain inquiries which he conceived himself entitled
to make respecting a gentleman whom he found in intimate society with his
family."

"May I ask, if you, Mr. Lesley, would have inclined to satisfy
interrogatories so haughtily and unceremoniously put to you?"

"Perhaps not;--and therefore, as I know the warmth of my friend M'Intyre
on such occasions, I feel very desirous of acting as peacemaker. From Mr.
Lovel's very gentleman-like manners, every one must strongly wish to see
him repel all that sort of dubious calumny which will attach itself to
one whose situation is not fully explained. If he will permit me, in
friendly conciliation, to inform Captain M'Intyre of his real name, for
we are led to conclude that of Lovel is assumed"--

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I cannot admit that inference."

"--Or at least," said Lesley, proceeding, "that it is not the name by
which Mr. Lovel has been at all times distinguished--if Mr. Lovel will
have the goodness to explain this circumstance, which, in my opinion, he
should do in justice to his own character, I will answer for the amicable
arrangement of this unpleasant business."