The Antiquary — Complete by Walter Scott (fun to read .txt) 📕

“But what I should have liked to have asked him,” said Monkbarns, “would have been his purpose in frequenting the ruins of St. Ruth, so lonely a place, at such an hour, and with such a companion as Edie Ochiltree. There is no road lies that way, and I do not conceive a mere passion for the picturesque would carry the German thither in such a night of storm and wind. Depend upon it, he has been about some roguery, and in all probability hath been caught in a trap of his own setting—Nec lex justitior ulla.”

The magistrate allowed there was something mysterious in that circumstance, and apologized for not pressing Dousterswivel, as his declaration was voluntarily emitted. But for the support of the main charge, he showed the declaration of the Aikwoods concerning the state in which Dousterswivel was found, and establishing the important fact that the mendicant had left the barn in which he was quartered, and did not return to it again. Two people belonging to the Fairport undertaker, who had that night been employed in attending the funeral of Lady Glenallan, had also given declarations, that, being sent to pursue two suspicious persons who left the ruins of St. Ruth as the funeral approached, and who, it was supposed, might have been pillaging some of the ornaments prepared for the ceremony, they had lost and regained sight of them more than once, owing to the nature of the ground, which was unfavourable for riding, but had at length fairly lodged them both in Mucklebackit’s cottage. And one of the men added, that “he, the declarant, having dismounted from his horse, and gone close up to the window of the hut, he saw the old Blue-Gown and young Steenie Mucklebackit, with others, eating and drinking in the inside, and also observed the said Steenie Mucklebackit show a pocket-book to the others;—and declarant has no doubt that Ochiltree and Steenie Mucklebackit were the persons whom he and his comrade had pursued, as above mentioned.” And being interrogated why he did not enter the said cottage, declares, “he had no warrant so to do; and that as Mucklebackit and his family were understood to be rough-handed folk, he, the declarant, had no desire to meddle or make with their affairs, Causa scientiae patet. All which he declares to be truth,” etc.

“What do you say to that body of evidence against your friend?” said the magistrate, when he had observed the Antiquary had turned the last leaf.

“Why, were it in the case of any other person, I own I should say it looked, prima facie, a little ugly; but I cannot allow anybody to be in the wrong for beating Dousterswivel—Had I been an hour younger, or had but one single flash of your warlike genius, Bailie, I should have done it myself long ago. He is nebulo nebulonum, an impudent, fraudulent, mendacious quack, that has cost me a hundred pounds by his roguery, and my neighbour Sir Arthur, God knows how much. And besides, Bailie, I do not hold him to be a sound friend to Government.”

“Indeed?” said Bailie Littlejohn; “if I thought that, it would alter the question considerably.”

“Right—for, in beating him,” observed Oldbuck, “the bedesman must have shown his gratitude to the king by thumping his enemy; and in robbing him, he would only have plundered an Egyptian, whose wealth it is lawful to spoil. Now, suppose this interview in the ruins of St. Ruth had relation to politics,—and this story of hidden treasure, and so forth, was a bribe from the other side of the water for some great man, or the funds destined to maintain a seditious club?”

“My dear sir,” said the magistrate, catching at the idea, “you hit my very thoughts! How fortunate should I be if I could become the humble means of sifting such a matter to the bottom!—Don’t you think we had better call out the volunteers, and put them on duty?”

“Not just yet, while podagra deprives them of an essential member of their body. But will you let me examine Ochiltree?”

“Certainly; but you’ll make nothing of him. He gave me distinctly to understand he knew the danger of a judicial declaration on the part of an accused person, which, to say the truth, has hanged many an honester man than he is.”

“Well, but, Bailie,” continued Oldbuck, “you have no objection to let me try him?”

“None in the world, Monkbarns. I hear the sergeant below—I’ll rehearse the manual in the meanwhile. Baby, carry my gun and bayonet down to the room below—it makes less noise there when we ground arms.” And so exit the martial magistrate, with his maid behind him bearing his weapons.

“A good squire that wench for a gouty champion,” observed Oldbuck.— “Hector, my lad, hook on, hook on—Go with him, boy—keep him employed, man, for half-an-hour or so—butter him with some warlike terms—praise his dress and address.”

Captain M’Intyre, who, like many of his profession, looked down with infinite scorn on those citizen soldiers who had assumed arms without any professional title to bear them, rose with great reluctance, observing that he should not know what to say to Mr. Littlejohn; and that to see an old gouty shop-keeper attempting the exercise and duties of a private soldier, was really too ridiculous.

“It may be so, Hector,” said the Antiquary, who seldom agreed with any person in the immediate proposition which was laid down—“it may possibly be so in this and some other instances; but at present the country resembles the suitors in a small-debt court, where parties plead in person, for lack of cash to retain the professed heroes of the bar. I am sure in the one case we never regret the want of the acuteness and eloquence of the lawyers; and so, I hope, in the other, we may manage to make shift with our hearts and muskets, though we shall lack some of the discipline of you martinets.”

“I have no objection, I am sure, sir, that the whole world should fight if they please, if they will but allow me to be quiet,” said Hector, rising with dogged reluctance.

“Yes, you are a very quiet personage indeed,” said his uncle, “whose ardour for quarrelling cannot pass so much as a poor phoca sleeping upon the beach!”

But Hector, who saw which way the conversation was tending, and hated all allusions to the foil he had sustained from the fish, made his escape before the Antiquary concluded the sentence.