Her niece, the same whom Lovel had seen transiently during his first
visit, was a pretty young woman, genteelly dressed according to the
fashion of the day, with an air of _espieglerie_ which became her very
well, and which was perhaps derived from the caustic humour peculiar to
her uncle's family, though softened by transmission.

Mr. Lovel paid his respects to both ladies, and was answered by the elder
with the prolonged courtesy of 1760, drawn from the righteous period,

                       When folks conceived a grace
                       Of half an hour's space,
                       And rejoiced in a Friday's capon,

and by the younger with a modern reverence, which, like the festive
benediction of a modern divine, was of much shorter duration.

While this salutation was exchanging, Sir Arthur, with his fair daughter
hanging upon his arm, having dismissed his chariot, appeared at the
garden door, and in all due form paid his respects to the ladies.

"Sir Arthur," said the Antiquary, "and you, my fair foe, let me make
known to you my young friend Mr. Lovel, a gentleman who, during the
scarlet-fever which is epidemic at present in this our island, has the
virtue and decency to appear in a coat of a civil complexion. You see,
however, that the fashionable colour has mustered in his cheeks which
appears not in his garments. Sir Arthur, let me present to you a young
gentleman, whom your farther knowledge will find grave, wise, courtly,
and scholar-like, well seen, deeply read, and thoroughly grounded in all
the hidden mysteries of the green-room and stage, from the days of Davie
Lindsay down to those of Dibdin--he blushes again, which is a sign of
grace."

"My brother," said Miss Griselda, addressing Lovel, "has a humorous way
of expressing himself, sir; nobody thinks anything of what Monkbarns
says--so I beg you will not be so confused for the matter of his
nonsense; but you must have had a warm walk beneath this broiling sun
--would you take anything?--a glass of balm-wine?"

Ere Lovel could answer, the Antiquary interposed. "Aroint thee, witch!
wouldst thou poison my guests with thy infernal decoctions? Dost thou not
remember how it fared with the clergyman whom you seduced to partake of
that deceitful beverage?"

"O fy, fy, brother!--Sir Arthur, did you ever hear the like?--he must
have everything his ain way, or he will invent such stories--But there
goes Jenny to ring the old bell to tell us that the dinner is ready."

Rigid in his economy, Mr. Oldbuck kept no male servant. This he disguised
under the pretext that the masculine sex was too noble to be employed in
those acts of personal servitude, which, in all early periods of society,
were uniformly imposed on the female. "Why," would he say, "did the boy,
Tam Rintherout, whom, at my wise sister's instigation, I, with equal
wisdom, took upon trial--why did he pilfer apples, take birds' nests,
break glasses, and ultimately steal my spectacles, except that he felt
that noble emulation which swells in the bosom of the masculine sex,
which has conducted him to Flanders with a musket on his shoulder, and
doubtless will promote him to a glorious halbert, or even to the gallows?
And why does this girl, his full sister, Jenny Rintherout, move in the
same vocation with safe and noiseless step--shod, or unshod--soft as the
pace of a cat, and docile as a spaniel--Why? but because she is in her
vocation. Let them minister to us, Sir Arthur,--let them minister, I
say,--it's the only thing they are fit for. All ancient legislators, from
Lycurgus to Mahommed, corruptly called Mahomet, agree in putting them in
their proper and subordinate rank, and it is only the crazy heads of our
old chivalrous ancestors that erected their Dulcineas into despotic
princesses."

Miss Wardour protested loudly against this ungallant doctrine; but the
bell now rung for dinner.

"Let me do all the offices of fair courtesy to so fair an antagonist,"
said the old gentleman, offering his arm. "I remember, Miss Wardour,
Mahommed (vulgarly Mahomet) had some hesitation about the mode of
summoning his Moslemah to prayer. He rejected bells as used by
Christians, trumpets as the summons of the Guebres, and finally adopted
the human voice. I have had equal doubt concerning my dinner-call. Gongs,
now in present use, seemed a newfangled and heathenish invention, and the
voice of the female womankind I rejected as equally shrill and dissonant;
wherefore, contrary to the said Mahommed, or Mahomet, I have resumed the
bell. It has a local propriety, since it was the conventual signal for
spreading the repast in their refectory, and it has the advantage over
the tongue of my sister's prime minister, Jenny, that, though not quite
so loud and shrill, it ceases ringing the instant you drop the bell-rope:
whereas we know, by sad experience, that any attempt to silence Jenny,
only wakes the sympathetic chime of Miss Oldbuck and Mary M'Intyre to
join in chorus."

With this discourse he led the way to his dining-parlour, which Lovel had
not yet seen;--it was wainscotted, and contained some curious paintings.
The dining-table was attended by Jenny; but an old superintendent, a sort
of female butler, stood by the sideboard, and underwent the burden of
bearing several reproofs from Mr. Oldbuck, and inuendos, not so much
marked, but not less cutting, from his sister.

The dinner was such as suited a professed antiquary, comprehending many
savoury specimens of Scottish viands, now disused at the tables of those
who affect elegance. There was the relishing Solan goose, whose smell is
so powerful that he is never cooked within doors. Blood-raw he proved to
be on this occasion, so that Oldbuck half threatened to throw the greasy
sea-fowl at the head of the negligent housekeeper, who acted as priestess
in presenting this odoriferous offering. But, by good-hap, she had been
most fortunate in the hotch-potch, which was unanimously pronounced to be
inimitable. "I knew we should succeed here," said Oldbuck exultingly,
"for Davie Dibble, the gardener (an old bachelor like myself), takes care
the rascally women do not dishonour our vegetables. And here is fish and
sauce, and crappit-heads--I acknowledge our womankind excel in that dish
--it procures them the pleasure of scolding, for half an hour at least,
twice a-week, with auld Maggy Mucklebackit, our fish-wife. The
chicken-pie, Mr. Lovel, is made after a recipe bequeathed to me by my
departed grandmother of happy memory--And if you will venture on a glass
of wine, you will find it worthy of one who professes the maxim of King
Alphonso of Castile,--Old wood to burn--old books to read--old wine to
drink--and old friends, Sir Arthur--ay, Mr. Lovel, and young friends too,
to converse with."

"And what news do you bring us from Edinburgh, Monkbarns?" said Sir
Arthur; "how wags the world in Auld Reekie?"

"Mad, Sir Arthur, mad--irretrievably frantic--far beyond dipping in the
sea, shaving the crown, or drinking hellebore. The worst sort of frenzy,
a military frenzy, hath possessed man, woman, and child."

"And high time, I think," said Miss Wardour, "when we are threatened with
invasion from abroad and insurrection at home."

"O, I did not doubt you would join the scarlet host against me--women,
like turkeys, are always subdued by a red rag--But what says Sir Arthur,
whose dreams are of standing armies and German oppression?"

"Why, I say, Mr. Oldbuck," replied the knight, "that so far as I am
capable of judging, we ought to resist _cum toto corpore regni_--as the
phrase is, unless I have altogether forgotten my Latin--an enemy who
comes to propose to us a Whiggish sort of government, a republican
system, and who is aided and abetted by a sort of fanatics of the worst
kind in our own bowels. I have taken some measures, I assure you, such as
become my rank in the community; for I have directed the constables to
take up that old scoundrelly beggar, Edie Ochiltree, for spreading
disaffection against church and state through the whole parish. He said
plainly to old Caxon, that Willie Howie's Kilmarnock cowl covered more
sense than all the three wigs in the parish--I think it is easy to make
out that inuendo--But the rogue shall be taught better manners."

"O no, my dear sir," exclaimed Miss Wardour, "not old Edie, that we have
known so long;--I assure you no constable shall have my good graces that
executes such a warrant."

"Ay, there it goes," said the Antiquary; "you, to be a staunch Tory, Sir
Arthur, have nourished a fine sprig of Whiggery in your bosom--Why, Miss
Wardour is alone sufficient to control a whole quarter-session--a
quarter-session? ay, a general assembly or convocation to boot--a
Boadicea she--an Amazon, a Zenobia."

"And yet, with all my courage, Mr. Oldbuck, I am glad to hear our people
are getting under arms."

"Under arms, Lord love thee! didst thou ever read the history of Sister
Margaret, which flowed from a head, that, though now old and somedele
grey, has more sense and political intelligence than you find now-a-days
in the whole synod? Dost thou remember the Nurse's dream in that
exquisite work, which she recounts in such agony to Hubble Bubble?--When
she would have taken up a piece of broad-cloth in her vision, lo! it
exploded like a great iron cannon; when she put out her hand to save a
pirn, it perked up in her face in the form of a pistol. My own vision in
Edinburgh has been something similar. I called to consult my lawyer; he
was clothed in a dragoon's dress, belted and casqued, and about to mount
a charger, which his writing-clerk (habited as a sharp-shooter) walked to
and fro before his door. I went to scold my agent for having sent me to
advise with a madman; he had stuck into his head the plume, which in more
sober days he wielded between his fingers, and figured as an artillery
officer. My mercer had his spontoon in his hand, as if he measured his
cloth by that implement, instead of a legitimate yard. The banker's
clerk, who was directed to sum my cash-account, blundered it three times,
being disordered by the recollection of his military _tellings-off_ at
the morning-drill. I was ill, and sent for a surgeon--

               He came--but valour so had fired his eye,
               And such a falchion glittered on his thigh,
               That, by the gods, with such a load of steel,
              I thought he came to murder,--not to heal.

I had recourse to a physician, but he also was practising a more
wholesale mode of slaughter than that which his profession had been
supposed at all times to open to him. And now, since I have returned
here, even our wise neighbours of Fairport have caught the same valiant
humour. I hate a gun like a hurt wild duck--I detest a drum like a
quaker;--and they thunder and rattle out yonder upon the town's common,
so that every volley and roll goes to my very heart."

"Dear brother, dinna speak that gate o' the gentlemen volunteers--I am
sure they have a most becoming uniform--Weel I wot they have been wet to
the very skin twice last week--I met them marching in terribly doukit, an
mony a sair hoast was amang them--And the trouble they take, I am sure it
claims our gratitude."

"And I am sure," said Miss M'Intyre, "that my uncle sent twenty guineas
to help out their equipments."

"It was to buy liquorice and sugar-candy," said the cynic, "to encourage
the trade of the place, and to refresh the throats of the officers who
had bawled themselves hoarse in the service of their country."

"Take care, Monkbarns! we shall set you down among the black-nebs by and
by."

"No Sir Arthur--a tame grumbler I. I only claim the privilege of croaking
in my own corner here, without uniting my throat to the grand chorus of
the marsh--_Ni quito Rey, ni pongo Rey_--I neither make king nor mar
king, as Sancho says, but pray heartily for our own sovereign, pay scot
and lot, and grumble at the exciseman--But here comes the ewe-milk cheese
in good time; it is a better digestive than politics."

When dinner was over, and the decanters placed on the table, Mr. Oldbuck
proposed the King's health in a bumper, which was readily acceded to both
by Lovel and the Baronet, the Jacobitism of the latter being now a sort
of speculative opinion merely,--the shadow of a shade.

After the ladies had left the apartment, the landlord and Sir Arthur
entered into several exquisite discussions, in which the younger guest,
either on account of the abstruse erudition which they involved, or for
some other reason, took but a slender share, till at length he was
suddenly started out of a profound reverie by an unexpected appeal to his
judgment.

"I will stand by what Mr. Lovel says; he was born in the north of
England, and may know the very spot."

Sir Arthur thought it unlikely that so young a gentleman should have paid
much attention to matters of that sort.

"I am avised of the contrary," said Oldbuck.

"How say you, Mr. Lovel?--speak up for your own credit, man."

Lovel was obliged to confess himself in the ridiculous situation of one
alike ignorant of the subject of conversation and controversy which had
engaged the company for an hour.

"Lord help the lad, his head has been wool-gathering!--I thought how it
would be when the womankind were admitted--no getting a word of sense out
of a young fellow for six hours after.--Why, man, there was once a people
called the Piks"--

"More properly _Picts,_" interrupted the Baronet.

"I say the _Pikar, Pihar, Piochtar, Piaghter,_ or _Peughtar,_"
vociferated Oldbuck; "they spoke a Gothic dialect"--

"Genuine Celtic," again asseverated the knight.

"Gothic! Gothic! I'll go to death upon it!" counter-asseverated the
squire.

"Why, gentlemen," sad Lovel, "I conceive that is a dispute which may be
easily settled by philologists, if there are any remains of the
language."

"There is but one word," said the Baronet, "but, in spite of Mr.
Oldbuck's pertinacity, it is decisive of the question."

"Yes, in my favour," said Oldbuck: "Mr. Lovel, you shall be judge--I have
the learned Pinkerton on my side."

"I, on mine, the indefatigable and erudite Chalmers."

"Gordon comes into my opinion."

"Sir Robert Sibbald holds mine."

"Innes is with me!" vociferated Oldbuck.

"Riston has no doubt!" shouted the Baronet.

"Truly, gentlemen," said Lovel, "before you muster your forces and
overwhelm me with authorities, I should like to know the word in
dispute."

"_Benval_" said both the disputants at once.

"Which signifies _caput valli,_" said Sir Arthur.

"The head of the wall," echoed Oldbuck.

There was a deep pause.--"It is rather a narrow foundation to build a
hypothesis upon," observed the arbiter.

"Not a whit, not a whit," said Oldbuck; "men fight best in a narrow ring
--an inch is as good as a mile for a home-thrust."

"It is decidedly Celtic," said the Baronet; "every hill in the Highlands
begins with _Ben._"

"But what say you to _Val,_ Sir Arthur; is it not decidedly the Saxon
_wall?_"

"It is the Roman _vallum,_" said Sir Arthur;--"the Picts borrowed that
part of the word."

"No such thing; if they borrowed anything, it must have been your _Ben,_
which they might have from the neighbouring Britons of Strath Cluyd."

"The Piks, or Picts," said Lovel, "must have been singularly poor in
dialect, since, in the only remaining word of their vocabulary, and that
consisting only of two syllables, they have been confessedly obliged to
borrow one of them from another language; and, methinks, gentlemen, with
submission, the controversy is not unlike that which the two knights
fought, concerning the shield that had one side white and the other
black. Each of you claim one-half of the word, and seem to resign the
other. But what strikes me most, is the poverty of the language which has
left such slight vestiges behind it."

"You are in an error," said Sir Arthur; "it was a copious language, and
they were a great and powerful people; built two steeples--one at
Brechin, one at Abernethy. The Pictish maidens of the blood-royal were
kept in Edinburgh Castle, thence called _Castrum Puellarum._"

"A childish legend," said Oldbuck, "invented to give consequence to
trumpery womankind. It was called the Maiden Castle, _quasi lucus a non
lucendo,_ because it resisted every attack, and women never do."

"There is a list of the Pictish kings," persisted Sir Arthur, "well
authenticated from Crentheminachcryme (the date of whose reign is
somewhat uncertain) down to Drusterstone, whose death concluded their
dynasty. Half of them have the Celtic patronymic _Mac_ prefixed--Mac, _id
est filius;_--what do you say to that, Mr. Oldbuck? There is Drust
Macmorachin, Trynel Maclachlin (first of that ancient clan, as it may be
judged), and Gormach Macdonald, Alpin Macmetegus, Drust Mactallargam"
(here he was interrupted by a fit of coughing)--"ugh, ugh, ugh--Golarge
Macchan--ugh, ugh--Macchanan--ugh--Macchananail, Kenneth--ugh--ugh--
Macferedith, Eachan Macfungus--and twenty more, decidedly Celtic names,
which I could repeat, if this damned cough would let me."

"Take a glass of wine, Sir Arthur, and drink down that bead-roll of
unbaptized jargon, that would choke the devil--why, that last fellow has
the only intelligible name you have repeated--they are all of the tribe
of Macfungus--mushroom monarchs every one of them; sprung up from the
fumes of conceit, folly, and falsehood, fermenting in the brains of some
mad Highland seannachie."

"I am surprised to hear you, Mr. Oldbuck: you know, or ought to know,
that the list of these potentates was copied by Henry Maule of Melguin,
from the Chronicles of Loch Leven and St. Andrews, and put forth by him
in his short but satisfactory history of the Picts, printed by Robert
Freebairn of Edinburgh, and sold by him at his shop in the Parliament
Close, in the year of God seventeen hundred and five, or six, I am not
precisely certain which--but I have a copy at home that stands next to my
twelvemo copy of the Scots Acts, and ranges on the shelf with them very
well. What say you to that, Mr. Oldbuck?"

"Say?--why, I laugh at Harry Maule and his history," answered Oldbuck,
"and thereby comply with his request, of giving it entertainment
according to its merits."

"Do not laugh at a better man than yourself," said Sir Arthur, somewhat
scornfully.

"I do not conceive I do, Sir Arthur, in laughing either at him or his
history,"

"Henry Maule of Melgum was a gentleman, Mr. Oldbuck."

"I presume he had no advantage of me in _that_ particular," replied the
Antiquary, somewhat tartly.

"Permit me, Mr. Oldbuck--he was a gentleman of high family, and ancient
descent, and therefore"--

"The descendant of a Westphalian printer should speak of him with
deference? Such may be your opinion, Sir Arthur--it is not mine. I
conceive that my descent from that painful and industrious typographer,
Wolfbrand Oldenbuck, who, in the month of December 1193, under the
patronage, as the colophon tells us, of Sebaldus Scheyter and Sebastian
Kammermaister, accomplished the printing of the great Chronicle of
Nuremberg--I conceive, I say, that my descent from that great restorer of
learning is more creditable to me as a man of letters, than if I had
numbered in my genealogy all the brawling, bullet-headed, iron-fisted,
old Gothic barons since the days of Crentheminachcryme--not one of whom,
I suppose, could write his own name."

"If you mean the observation as a sneer at my ancestry," said the knight,
with an assumption of dignified superiority and composure, "I have the
pleasure to inform you, that the name of my ancestor, Gamelyn de
Guardover, Miles, is written fairly with his own hand in the earliest
copy of the Ragman-roll."

"Which only serves to show that he was one of the earliest who set the
mean example of submitting to Edward I. What have, you to say for the
stainless loyalty of your family, Sir Arthur, after such a backsliding as
that?"

"It's enough, sir," said Sir Arthur, starting up fiercely, and pushing
back his chair; "I shall hereafter take care how I honour with my company
one who shows himself so ungrateful for my condescension."

"In that you will do as you find most agreeable, Sir Arthur;--I hope,
that as I was not aware of the extent of the obligation which you have
done me by visiting my poor house, I may be excused for not having
carried my gratitude to the extent of servility."

"Mighty well--mighty well, Mr. Oldbuck--I wish you a good evening--Mr.
a--a--a--Shovel--I wish you a very good evening."

Out of the parlour door flounced the incensed Sir Arthur, as if the
spirit of the whole Round Table inflamed his single bosom, and traversed
with long strides the labyrinth of passages which conducted to the
drawing-room.

"Did you ever hear such an old tup-headed ass?" said Oldbuck, briefly
apostrophizing Lovel. "But I must not let him go in this mad-like way
neither."

So saying, he pushed off after the retreating Baronet, whom he traced by
the clang of several doors which he opened in search of the apartment for
tea, and slammed with force behind him at every disappointment. "You'll
do yourself a mischief," roared the Antiquary; "_Qui ambulat in tenebris,
nescit quo vadit_--You'll tumble down the back-stair."

Sir Arthur had now got involved in darkness, of which the sedative effect
is well known to nurses and governesses who have to deal with pettish
children. It retarded the pace of the irritated Baronet, if it did not
abate his resentment, and Mr. Oldbuck, better acquainted with the
_locale,_ got up with him as he had got his grasp upon the handle of the
drawing-room door.

"Stay a minute, Sir Arthur," said Oldbuck, opposing his abrupt entrance;
"don't be quite so hasty, my good old friend. I was a little too rude
with you about Sir Gamelyn--why, he is an old acquaintance of mine, man,
and a favourite; he kept company with Bruce and Wallace--and, I'll be
sworn on a black-letter Bible, only subscribed the Ragman-roll with the
legitimate and justifiable intention of circumventing the false Southern
--'twas right Scottish craft, my good knight--hundreds did it. Come,
come, forget and forgive--confess we have given the young fellow here a
right to think us two testy old fools."

"Speak for yourself, Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck," said Sir Arthur with much
majesty.

"A-well, a-well--a wilful man must have his way."

With that the door opened, and into the drawing-room marched the tall
gaunt form of Sir Arthur, followed by Lovel and Mr. Oldbuck, the
countenances of all the three a little discomposed.

"I have been waiting for you, sir," said Miss Wardour, "to propose we
should walk forward to meet the carriage, as the evening is so fine."

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
dry passage. But, nevertheless, at periods of spring-tide, or even when
the ordinary flood was accelerated by high winds, this road was
altogether covered by the sea; and tradition had recorded several fatal
accidents which had happened on such occasions. Still, such dangers were
considered as remote and improbable; and rather served, with other
legends, to amuse the hamlet fireside, than to prevent any one from going
between Knockwinnock and Monkbarns by the sands.

As Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour paced along, enjoying the pleasant footing
afforded by the cool moist hard sand, Miss Wardour could not help
observing that the last tide had risen considerably above the usual
water-mark. Sir Arthur made the same observation, but without its
occurring to either of them to be alarmed at the circumstance. The sun
was now resting his huge disk upon the edge of the level ocean, and
gilded the accumulation of towering clouds through which he had travelled
the livelong day, and which now assembled on all sides, like misfortunes
and disasters around a sinking empire and falling monarch. Still,
however, his dying splendour gave a sombre magnificence to the massive
congregation of vapours, forming out of their unsubstantial gloom the
show of pyramids and towers, some touched with gold, some with purple,
some with a hue of deep and dark red. The distant sea, stretched beneath
this varied and gorgeous canopy, lay almost portentously still,
reflecting back the dazzling and level beams of the descending luminary,
and the splendid colouring of the clouds amidst which he was setting.
Nearer to the beach the tide rippled onward in waves of sparkling silver,
that imperceptibly, yet rapidly, gained upon the sand.

With a mind employed in admiration of the romantic scene, or perhaps on
some more agitating topic, Miss Wardour advanced in silence by her
father's side, whose recently offended dignity did not stoop to open any
conversation. Following the windings of the beach, they passed one
projecting point of headland or rock after another, and now found
themselves under a huge and continued extent of the precipices by which
that iron-bound coast is in most places defended. Long projecting reefs
of rock, extending under water and only evincing their existence by here
and there a peak entirely bare, or by the breakers which foamed over
those that were partially covered, rendered Knockwinnock bay dreaded by
pilots and ship-masters. The crags which rose between the beach and the
mainland, to the height of two or three hundred feet, afforded in their
crevices shelter for unnumbered sea-fowl, in situations seemingly secured
by their dizzy height from the rapacity of man. Many of these wild
tribes, with the instinct which sends them to seek the land before a
storm arises, were now winging towards their nests with the shrill and
dissonant clang which announces disquietude and fear. The disk of the sun
became almost totally obscured ere he had altogether sunk below the
horizon, and an early and lurid shade of darkness blotted the serene
twilight of a summer evening. The wind began next to arise; but its wild
and moaning sound was heard for some time, and its effects became visible
on the bosom of the sea, before the gale was felt on shore. The mass of
waters, now dark and threatening, began to lift itself in larger ridges,
and sink in deeper furrows, forming waves that rose high in foam upon the
breakers, or burst upon the beach with a sound resembling distant
thunder.

Appalled by this sudden change of weather, Miss Wardour drew close to her
father, and held his arm fast. "I wish," at length she said, but almost
in a whisper, as if ashamed to express her increasing apprehensions, "I
wish we had kept the road we intended, or waited at Monkbarns for the
carriage."

Sir Arthur looked round, but did not see, or would not acknowledge, any
signs of an immediate storm. They would reach Knockwinnock, he said, long
before the tempest began. But the speed with which he walked, and with
which Isabella could hardly keep pace, indicated a feeling that some
exertion was necessary to accomplish his consolatory prediction.

They were now near the centre of a deep but narrow bay or recess, formed
by two projecting capes of high and inaccessible rock, which shot out
into the sea like the horns of a crescent;--and neither durst communicate
the apprehension which each began to entertain, that, from the unusually
rapid advance of the tide, they might be deprived of the power of
proceeding by doubling the promontory which lay before them, or of
retreating by the road which brought them thither.

As they thus pressed forward, longing doubtless to exchange the easy
curving line, which the sinuosities of the bay compelled them to adopt,
for a straighter and more expeditious path, Sir Arthur observed a human
figure on the beach advancing to meet them. "Thank God," he exclaimed,
"we shall get round Halket-head!--that person must have passed it;" thus
giving vent to the feeling of hope, though he had suppressed that of
apprehension.

"Thank God, indeed!" echoed his daughter, half audibly, half internally,
as expressing the gratitude which she strongly felt.

The figure which advanced to meet them made many signs, which the haze of
the atmosphere, now disturbed by wind and by a drizzling rain, prevented
them from seeing or comprehending distinctly.--Some time before they met,
Sir Arthur could recognise the old blue-gowned beggar, Edie Ochiltree. It
is said that even the brute creation lay aside their animosities and
antipathies when pressed by an instant and common danger. The beach under
Halket-head, rapidly diminishing in extent by the encroachments of a
spring-tide and a north-west wind, was in like manner a neutral field,
where even a justice of peace and a strolling mendicant might meet upon
terms of mutual forbearance.

"Turn back! turn back!" exclaimed the vagrant; "why did ye not turn when
I waved to you?"

"We thought," replied Sir Arthur, in great agitation, "we thought we
could get round Halket-head."

"Halket-head!--the tide will be running on Halket-head by this time like
the Fall of Fyers!--it was a' I could do to get round it twenty minutes
since--it was coming in three feet abreast. We will maybe get back by
Bally-burgh Ness Point yet. The Lord help us!--it's our only chance. We
can but try."

"My God, my child!"--"My father! my dear father!" exclaimed the parent
and daughter, as, fear lending them strength and speed, they turned to
retrace their steps, and endeavoured to double the point, the projection
of which formed the southern extremity of the bay.

"I heard ye were here frae the bit callant ye sent to meet your
carriage," said the beggar, as he trudged stoutly on a step or two behind
Miss Wardour; "and I couldna bide to think o' the dainty young leddy's
peril, that has aye been kind to ilka forlorn heart that cam near her.
Sae I lookit at the lift and the rin o' the tide, till I settled it that
if I could get down time eneugh to gie you warning, we wad do weel yet.
But I doubt, I doubt, I have been beguiled! for what mortal ee ever saw
sic a race as the tide is risening e'en now? See, yonder's the Ratton's
Skerry--he aye held his neb abune the water in my day--but he's aneath it
now."

Sir Arthur cast a look in the direction in which the old man pointed. A
huge rock, which in general, even in spring-tides, displayed a hulk like
the keel of a large vessel, was now quite under water, and its place only
indicated by the boiling and breaking of the eddying waves which
encountered its submarine resistance.

"Mak haste, mak haste, my bonny leddy," continued the old man--"mak
haste, and we may do yet! Take haud o' my arm--an auld and frail arm it's
now, but it's been in as sair stress as this is yet. Take haud o' my arm,
my winsome leddy! D'ye see yon wee black speck amang the wallowing waves
yonder? This morning it was as high as the mast o' a brig--it's sma'
eneugh now--but, while I see as muckle black about it as the crown o' my
hat, I winna believe but we'll get round the Ballyburgh Ness, for a'
that's come and gane yet."

Isabella, in silence, accepted from the old man the assistance which Sir
Arthur was less able to afford her. The waves had now encroached so much
upon the beach, that the firm and smooth footing which they had hitherto
had on the sand must be exchanged for a rougher path close to the foot of
the precipice, and in some places even raised upon its lower ledges. It
would have been utterly impossible for Sir Arthur Wardour, or his
daughter, to have found their way along these shelves without the
guidance and encouragement of the beggar, who had been there before in
high tides, though never, he acknowledged, "in sae awsome a night as
this."

It was indeed a dreadful evening. The howling of the storm mingled with
the shrieks of the sea-fowl, and sounded like the dirge of the three
devoted beings, who, pent between two of the most magnificent, yet most
dreadful objects of nature--a raging tide and an insurmountable
precipice--toiled along their painful and dangerous path, often lashed by
the spray of some giant billow, which threw itself higher on the beach
than those that had preceded it. Each minute did their enemy gain ground
perceptibly upon them! Still, however, loth to relinquish the last hopes
of life, they bent their eyes on the black rock pointed out by Ochiltree.
It was yet distinctly visible among the breakers, and continued to be so,
until they came to a turn in their precarious path, where an intervening
projection of rock hid it from their sight. Deprived of the view of the
beacon on which they had relied, they now experienced the double agony of
terror and suspense. They struggled forward, however; but, when they
arrived at the point from which they ought to have seen the crag, it was
no longer visible: the signal of safety was lost among a thousand white
breakers, which, dashing upon the point of the promontory, rose in
prodigious sheets of snowy foam, as high as the mast of a first-rate
man-of-war, against the dark brow of the precipice.

The countenance of the old man fell. Isabella gave a faint shriek, and,
"God have mercy upon us!" which her guide solemnly uttered, was piteously
echoed by Sir Arthur--"My child! my child!--to die such a death!"

"My father! my dear father!" his daughter exclaimed, clinging to him
--"and you too, who have lost your own life in endeavouring to save
ours!"

"That's not worth the counting," said the old man. "I hae lived to be
weary o' life; and here or yonder--at the back o' a dyke, in a wreath o'
snaw, or in the wame o' a wave, what signifies how the auld gaberlunzie
dies?"

"Good man," said Sir Arthur, "can you think of nothing?--of no help?
--I'll make you rich--I'll give you a farm--I'll"--

"Our riches will be soon equal," said the beggar, looking out upon the
strife of the waters--"they are sae already; for I hae nae land, and you
would give your fair bounds and barony for a square yard of rock that
would be dry for twal hours."

While they exchanged these words, they paused upon the highest ledge of
rock to which they could attain; for it seemed that any further attempt
to move forward could only serve to anticipate their fate. Here, then,
they were to await the sure though slow progress of the raging element,
something in the situation of the martyrs of the early church, who,
exposed by heathen tyrants to be slain by wild beasts, were compelled for
a time to witness the impatience and rage by which the animals were
agitated, while awaiting the signal for undoing their grates, and letting
them loose upon the victims.

Yet even this fearful pause gave Isabella time to collect the powers of a
mind naturally strong and courageous, and which rallied itself at this
terrible juncture. "Must we yield life," she said, "without a struggle?
Is there no path, however dreadful, by which we could climb the crag, or
at least attain some height above the tide, where we could remain till
morning, or till help comes? They must be aware of our situation, and
will raise the country to relieve us."

Sir Arthur, who heard, but scarcely comprehended, his daughter's
question, turned, nevertheless, instinctively and eagerly to the old man,
as if their lives were in his gift. Ochiltree paused--"I was a bauld
craigsman," he said, "ance in my life, and mony a kittywake's and
lungie's nest hae I harried up amang thae very black rocks; but it's
lang, lang syne, and nae mortal could speel them without a rope--and if I
had ane, my ee-sight, and my footstep, and my hand-grip, hae a' failed
mony a day sinsyne--And then, how could I save _you?_ But there was a
path here ance, though maybe, if we could see it, ye would rather bide
where we are--His name be praised!" he ejaculated suddenly, "there's ane
coming down the crag e'en now!"--Then, exalting his voice, he hilloa'd
out to the daring adventurer such instructions as his former practice,
and the remembrance of local circumstances, suddenly forced upon his
mind:--"Ye're right!--ye're right!--that gate--that gate!--fasten the
rope weel round Crummies-horn, that's the muckle black stane--cast twa
plies round it--that's it!--now, weize yoursell a wee easel-ward--a wee
mair yet to that ither stane--we ca'd it the Cat's-lug--there used to be
the root o' an aik tree there--that will do!--canny now, lad--canny now
--tak tent and tak time--Lord bless ye, tak time--Vera weel!--Now ye maun
get to Bessy's apron, that's the muckle braid flat blue stane--and then,
I think, wi' your help and the tow thegither, I'll win at ye, and then
we'll be able to get up the young leddy and Sir Arthur."

The adventurer, following the directions of old Edie, flung him down the
end of the rope, which he secured around Miss Wardour, wrapping her
previously in his own blue gown, to preserve her as much as possible from
injury. Then, availing himself of the rope, which was made fast at the
other end, he began to ascend the face of the crag--a most precarious and
dizzy undertaking, which, however, after one or two perilous escapes,
placed him safe on the broad flat stone beside our friend Lovel. Their
joint strength was able to raise Isabella to the place of safety which
they had attained. Lovel then descended in order to assist Sir Arthur,
around whom he adjusted the rope; and again mounting to their place of
refuge, with the assistance of old Ochiltree, and such aid as Sir Arthur
himself could afford, he raised himself beyond the reach of the billows.

The sense of reprieve from approaching and apparently inevitable death,
had its usual effect. The father and daughter threw themselves into each
other's arms, kissed and wept for joy, although their escape was
connected with the prospect of passing a tempestuous night upon a
precipitous ledge of rock, which scarce afforded footing for the four
shivering beings, who now, like the sea-fowl around them, clung there in
hopes of some shelter from the devouring element which raged beneath. The
spray of the billows, which attained in fearful succession the foot of
the precipice, overflowing the beach on which they so lately stood, flew
as high as their place of temporary refuge; and the stunning sound with
which they dashed against the rocks beneath, seemed as if they still
demanded the fugitives in accents of thunder as their destined prey. It
was a summer night, doubtless; yet the probability was slender, that a
frame so delicate as that of Miss Wardour should survive till morning the
drenching of the spray; and the dashing of the rain, which now burst in
full violence, accompanied with deep and heavy gusts of wind, added to
the constrained and perilous circumstances of their situation.

"The lassie!--the puir sweet, lassie!" said the old man: "mony such a
night have I weathered at hame and abroad, but, God guide us, how can she
ever win through it!"

His apprehension was communicated in smothered accents to Lovel; for with
the sort of freemasonry by which bold and ready spirits correspond in
moments of danger, and become almost instinctively known to each other,
they had established a mutual confidence.--"I'll climb up the cliff
again," said Lovel--"there's daylight enough left to see my footing; I'll
climb up, and call for more assistance."

"Do so, do so, for Heaven's sake!" said Sir Arthur eagerly.

"Are ye mad?" said the mendicant: "Francie o' Fowlsheugh, and he was the
best craigsman that ever speel'd heugh (mair by token, he brake his neck
upon the Dunbuy of Slaines), wodna hae ventured upon the Halket-head
craigs after sun-down--It's God's grace, and a great wonder besides, that
ye are not in the middle o' that roaring sea wi' what ye hae done
already--I didna think there was the man left alive would hae come down
the craigs as ye did. I question an I could hae done it mysell, at this
hoar and in this weather, in the youngest and yaldest of my strength--But
to venture up again--it's a mere and a clear tempting o' Providence,"

"I have no fear," answered Lovel; "I marked all the stations perfectly as
I came down, and there is still light enough left to see them quite well
--I am sure I can do it with perfect safety. Stay here, my good friend, by
Sir Arthur and the young lady."

"Dell be in my feet then," answered the bedesman sturdily; "if ye gang,
I'll gang too; for between the twa o' us, we'll hae mair than wark eneugh
to get to the tap o' the heugh."

"No, no--stay you here and attend to Miss Wardour--you see Sir Arthur is
quite exhausted."

"Stay yoursell then, and I'll gae," said the old man;--"let death spare
the green corn and take the ripe."

"Stay both of you, I charge you," said Isabella, faintly; "I am well, and
can spend the night very well here--I feel quite refreshed." So saying,
her voice failed her--she sunk down, and would have fallen from the crag,
had she not been supported by Lovel and Ochiltree, who placed her in a
posture half sitting, half reclining, beside her father, who, exhausted
by fatigue of body and mind so extreme and unusual, had already sat down
on a stone in a sort of stupor.

"It is impossible to leave them," said Lovel--"What is to be done?--Hark!
hark!--did I not hear a halloo?"

"The skreigh of a Tammie Norie," answered Ochiltree--"I ken the skirl
weel."

"No, by Heaven!" replied Lovel, "it was a human voice."

A distant hail was repeated, the sound plainly distinguishable among the
various elemental noises, and the clang of the sea-mews by which they
were surrounded. The mendicant and Lovel exerted their voices in a loud
halloo, the former waving Miss Wardour's handkerchief on the end of his
staff to make them conspicuous from above. Though the shouts were
repeated, it was some time before they were in exact response to their
own, leaving the unfortunate sufferers uncertain whether, in the
darkening twilight and increasing storm, they had made the persons who
apparently were traversing the verge of the precipice to bring them
assistance, sensible of the place in which they had found refuge. At
length their halloo was regularly and distinctly answered, and their
courage confirmed, by the assurance that they were within hearing, if not
within reach, of friendly assistance.




                             CHAPTER EIGHTH.

              There is a cliff, whose high and bending head
                 Looks fearfully on the confined deep;
                 Bring me but to the very brim of it,
              And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear.
                                    King Lear.

The shout of human voices from above was soon augmented, and the gleam of
torches mingled with those lights of evening which still remained amidst
the darkness of the storm. Some attempt was made to hold communication
between the assistants above and the sufferers beneath, who were still
clinging to their precarious place of safety; but the howling of the
tempest limited their intercourse to cries as inarticulate as those of
the winged denizens of the crag, which shrieked in chorus, alarmed by the
reiterated sound of human voices, where they had seldom been heard.

On the verge of the precipice an anxious group had now assembled. Oldbuck
was the foremost and most earnest, pressing forward with unwonted
desperation to the very brink of the crag, and extending his head (his
hat and wig secured by a handkerchief under his chin) over the dizzy
height, with an air of determination which made his more timorous
assistants tremble.

"Haud a care, haud a care, Monkbarns!" cried Caxon, clinging to the
skirts of his patron, and withholding him from danger as far as his
strength permitted--"God's sake, haud a care!--Sir Arthur's drowned
already, and an ye fa' over the cleugh too, there will be but ae wig left
in the parish, and that's the minister's."

"Mind the peak there," cried Mucklebackit, an old fisherman and smuggler
--"mind the peak--Steenie, Steenie Wilks, bring up the tackle--I'se
warrant we'll sune heave them on board, Monkbarns, wad ye but stand out
o' the gate."

"I see them," said Oldbuck--"I see them low down on that flat stone
--Hilli-hilloa, hilli-ho-a!"

"I see them mysell weel eneugh," said Mucklebackit; "they are sitting
down yonder like hoodie-craws in a mist; but d'yo think ye'll help them
wi' skirling that gate like an auld skart before a flaw o' weather?
--Steenie, lad, bring up the mast--Od, I'se hae them up as we used to
bouse up the kegs o' gin and brandy lang syne--Get up the pickaxe, make
a step for the mast--make the chair fast with the rattlin--haul taught
and belay!"