The Antiquary Part 13

The bed was of a dark and faded green, wrought to correspond with the tapestry, but by a more modern and less skilful hand. The large and heavy stuff-bottomed chairs, with black ebony backs, were embroidered after the same pattern, and a lofty mirror, over the antique chimney-piece, corresponded in its mounting with that on the old-fashioned toilet.

"I have heard," muttered Lovel, as he took a cursory view of the room and its furniture, "that ghosts often chose the best room in the mansion to which they attached themselves; and I cannot disapprove of the taste of the disembodied printer of the Augsburg Confession." But he found it so difficult to fix his mind upon the stories which had been told him of an apartment with which they seemed so singularly to correspond, that he almost regretted the absence of those agitated feelings, half fear half curiosity, which sympathise with the old legends of awe and wonder, from which the anxious reality of his own hopeless pa.s.sion at present detached him. For he now only felt emotions like those expressed in the lines,--

Ah! cruel maid, how hast thou changed The temper of my mind!

My heart, by thee from all estranged, Becomes like thee unkind.

He endeavoured to conjure up something like the feelings which would, at another time, have been congenial to his situation, but his heart had no room for these vagaries of imagination. The recollection of Miss Wardour, determined not to acknowledge him when compelled to endure his society, and evincing her purpose to escape from it, would have alone occupied his imagination exclusively. But with this were united recollections more agitating if less painful,--her hair-breadth escape--the fortunate a.s.sistance which he had been able to render her--Yet what was his requital? She left the cliff while his fate was yet doubtful--while it was uncertain whether her preserver had not lost the life which he had exposed for her so freely. Surely grat.i.tude, at least, called for some little interest in his fate--But no--she could not be selfish or unjust--it was no part of her nature. She only desired to shut the door against hope, and, even in compa.s.sion to him, to extinguish a pa.s.sion which she could never return.

But this lover-like mode of reasoning was not likely to reconcile him to his fate, since the more amiable his imagination presented Miss Wardour, the more inconsolable he felt he should be rendered by the extinction of his hopes. He was, indeed, conscious of possessing the power of removing her prejudices on some points; but, even in extremity, he determined to keep the original determination which he had formed, of ascertaining that she desired an explanation, ere he intruded one upon her. And, turn the matter as he would, he could not regard his suit as desperate. There was something of embarra.s.sment as well as of grave surprise in her look when Oldbuck presented him--and, perhaps, upon second thoughts, the one was a.s.sumed to cover the other. He would not relinquish a pursuit which had already cost him such pains. Plans, suiting the romantic temper of the brain that entertained them, chased each other through his head, thick and irregular as the motes of the sun-beam, and, long after he had laid himself to rest, continued to prevent the repose which he greatly needed. Then, wearied by the uncertainty and difficulties with which each scheme appeared to be attended, he bent up his mind to the strong effort of shaking off his love, "like dew-drops from the lion's mane,"

and resuming those studies and that career of life which his unrequited affection had so long and so fruitlessly interrupted. In this last resolution he endeavoured to fortify himself by every argument which pride, as well as reason, could suggest. "She shall not suppose," he said, "that, presuming on an accidental service to her or to her father, I am desirous to intrude myself upon that notice, to which, personally, she considered me as having no t.i.tle. I will see her no more. I will return to the land which, if it affords none fairer, has at least many as fair, and less haughty than Miss Wardour. Tomorrow I will bid adieu to these northern sh.o.r.es, and to her who is as cold and relentless as her climate." When he had for some time brooded over this st.u.r.dy resolution, exhausted nature at length gave way, and, despite of wrath, doubt, and anxiety, he sank into slumber.

It is seldom that sleep, after such violent agitation, is either sound or refreshing. Lovel's was disturbed by a thousand baseless and confused visions. He was a bird--he was a fish--or he flew like the one, and swam like the other,--qualities which would have been very essential to his safety a few hours before. Then Miss Wardour was a syren, or a bird of Paradise; her father a triton, or a sea-gull; and Oldbuck alternately a porpoise and a cormorant. These agreeable imaginations were varied by all the usual vagaries of a feverish dream;--the air refused to bear the visionary, the water seemed to burn him--the rocks felt like down pillows as he was dashed against them--whatever he undertook, failed in some strange and unexpected manner--and whatever attracted his attention, underwent, as he attempted to investigate it, some wild and wonderful metamorphosis, while his mind continued all the while in some degree conscious of the delusion, from which it in vain struggled to free itself by awaking;--feverish symptoms all, with which those who are haunted by the night-hag, whom the learned call Ephialtes, are but too well acquainted. At length these crude phantasmata arranged themselves into something more regular, if indeed the imagination of Lovel, after he awoke (for it was by no means the faculty in which his mind was least rich), did not gradually, insensibly, and unintentionally, arrange in better order the scene of which his sleep presented, it may be, a less distinct outline. Or it is possible that his feverish agitation may have a.s.sisted him in forming the vision.

Leaving this discussion to the learned, we will say, that after a succession of wild images, such as we have above described, our hero, for such we must acknowledge him, so far regained a consciousness of locality as to remember where he was, and the whole furniture of the Green Chamber was depicted to his slumbering eye. And here, once more, let me protest, that if there should be so much old-fashioned faith left among this shrewd and sceptical generation, as to suppose that what follows was an impression conveyed rather by the eye than by the imagination, I do not impugn their doctrine. He was, then, or imagined himself, broad awake in the Green Chamber, gazing upon the flickering and occasional flame which the unconsumed remnants of the f.a.ggots sent forth, as, one by one, they fell down upon the red embers, into which the princ.i.p.al part of the boughs to which they belonged had crumbled away. Insensibly the legend of Aldobrand Oldenbuck, and his mysterious visits to the inmates of the chamber, awoke in his mind, and with it, as we often feel in dreams, an anxious and fearful expectation, which seldom fails instantly to summon up before our mind's eye the object of our fear. Brighter sparkles of light flashed from the chimney, with such intense brilliancy as to enlighten all the room. The tapestry waved wildly on the wall, till its dusky forms seemed to become animated. The hunters blew their horns--the stag seemed to fly, the boar to resist, and the hounds to a.s.sail the one and pursue the other; the cry of deer, mangled by throttling dogs--the shouts of men, and the clatter of horses'

hoofs, seemed at once to surround him--while every group pursued, with all the fury of the chase, the employment in which the artist had represented them as engaged. Lovel looked on this strange scene devoid of wonder (which seldom intrudes itself upon the sleeping fancy), but with an anxious sensation of awful fear. At length an individual figure among the tissued huntsmen, as he gazed upon them more fixedly, seemed to leave the arras and to approach the bed of the slumberer. As he drew near, his figure appeared to alter. His bugle-horn became a brazen clasped volume; his hunting-cap changed to such a furred head-gear as graces the burgomasters of Rembrandt; his Flemish garb remained but his features, no longer agitated with the fury of the chase, were changed to such a state of awful and stern composure, as might best portray the first proprietor of Monkbarns, such as he had been described to Lovel by his descendants in the course of the preceding evening. As this metamorphosis took place, the hubbub among the other personages in the arras disappeared from the imagination of the dreamer, which was now exclusively bent on the single figure before him. Lovel strove to interrogate this awful person in the form of exorcism proper for the occasion; but his tongue, as is usual in frightful dreams, refused its office, and clung, palsied, to the roof of his mouth. Aldobrand held up his finger, as if to impose silence upon the guest who had intruded on his apartment, and began deliberately to unclasp the venerable, volume which occupied his left hand. When it was unfolded, he turned over the leaves hastily for a short s.p.a.ce, and then raising his figure to its full dimensions, and holding the book aloft in his left hand, pointed to a pa.s.sage in the page which he thus displayed. Although the language was unknown to our dreamer, his eye and attention were both strongly caught by the line which the figure seemed thus to press upon his notice, the words of which appeared to blaze with a supernatural light, and remained riveted upon his memory. As the vision shut his volume, a strain of delightful music seemed to fill the apartment--Lovel started, and became completely awake. The music, however, was still in his ears, nor ceased till he could distinctly follow the measure of an old Scottish tune.

He sate up in bed, and endeavoured to clear his brain of the phantoms which had disturbed it during this weary night. The beams of the morning sun streamed through the half-closed shutters, and admitted a distinct light into the apartment. He looked round upon the hangings,--but the mixed groups of silken and worsted huntsmen were as stationary as tenter-hooks could make them, and only trembled slightly as the early breeze, which found its way through an open crevice of the latticed window, glided along their surface. Lovel leapt out of bed, and, wrapping himself in a morning-gown, that had been considerately laid by his bedside, stepped towards the window, which commanded a view of the sea, the roar of whose billows announced it still disquieted by the storm of the preceding evening, although the morning was fair and serene. The window of a turret, which projected at an angle with the wall, and thus came to be very near Lovel's apartment, was half-open, and from that quarter he heard again the same music which had probably broken short his dream. With its visionary character it had lost much of its charms--it was now nothing more than an air on the harpsichord, tolerably well performed--such is the caprice of imagination as affecting the fine arts. A female voice sung, with some taste and great simplicity, something between a song and a hymn, in words to the following effect:--

"Why sitt'st thou by that ruin'd hall, Thou aged carle so stern and grey?

Dost thou its former pride recall, Or ponder how it pa.s.sed away?

"Know'st thou not me!" the Deep Voice cried, "So long enjoyed, so oft misused-- Alternate, in thy fickle pride, Desired, neglected, and accused?

"Before my breath, like, blazing flax, Man and his marvels pa.s.s away; And changing empires wane and wax, Are founded, flourish and decay.

"Redeem mine hours--the s.p.a.ce is brief-- While in my gla.s.s the sand-grains shiver, And measureless thy joy or grief, When Time and thou shalt part for ever!"

While the verses were yet singing, Lovel had returned to his bed; the train of ideas which they awakened was romantic and pleasing, such as his soul delighted in, and, willingly adjourning till more broad day the doubtful task of determining on his future line of conduct, he abandoned himself to the pleasing languor inspired by the music, and fell into a sound and refreshing sleep, from which he was only awakened at a late hour by old Caxon, who came creeping into the room to render the offices of a valet-de-chambre.

"I have brushed your coat, sir," said the old man, when he perceived Lovel was awake; "the callant brought it frae Fairport this morning, for that ye had on yesterday is scantly feasibly dry, though it's been a'

night at the kitchen fire; and I hae cleaned your shoon. I doubt ye'll no be wanting me to tie your hair, for" (with a gentle sigh) "a' the young gentlemen wear crops now; but I hae the curling tangs here to gie it a bit turn ower the brow, if ye like, before ye gae down to the leddies."

Lovel, who was by this time once more on his legs, declined the old man's professional offices, but accompanied the refusal with such a douceur as completely sweetened Caxon's mortification.

"It's a pity he disna get his hair tied and pouthered," said the ancient friseur, when he had got once more into the kitchen, in which, on one pretence or other, he spent three parts of his idle time--that is to say, of his whole time--"it's a great pity, for he's a comely young gentleman."

"Hout awa, ye auld gowk," said Jenny Rintherout, "would ye creesh his bonny brown hair wi' your nasty ulyie, and then moust it like the auld minister's wig? Ye'll be for your breakfast, I'se warrant?--hae, there's a soup parritch for ye--it will set ye better tae be slaistering at them and the lapper-milk than meddling wi' Mr. Lovel's head--ye wad spoil the maist natural and beautifaest head o' hair in a' Fairport, baith burgh and county."

The poor barber sighed over the disrespect into which his art had so universally fallen, but Jenny was a person too important to offend by contradiction; so, sitting quietly down in the kitchen, he digested at once his humiliation, and the contents of a bicker which held a Scotch pint of substantial oatmeal porridge.

CHAPTER ELEVENTH.

Sometimes he thinks that Heaven this pageant sent, And ordered all the pageants as they went; Sometimes that only 'twas wild Fancy's play,-- The loose and scattered relics of the day.

We must now request our readers to adjourn to the breakfast parlour of Mr. Oldbuck, who, despising the modern slops of tea and coffee, was substantially regaling himself, more majorum, with cold roast-beef, and a gla.s.s of a sort of beverage called mum--a species of fat ale, brewed from wheat and bitter herbs, of which the present generation only know the name by its occurrence in revenue acts of parliament, coupled with cider, perry, and other excisable commodities. Lovel, who was seduced to taste it, with difficulty refrained from p.r.o.nouncing it detestable, but did refrain, as he saw he should otherwise give great offence to his host, who had the liquor annually prepared with peculiar care, according to the approved recipe bequeathed to him by the so-often mentioned Aldobrand Oldenbuck. The hospitality of the ladies offered Lovel a breakfast more suited to modern taste, and while he was engaged in partaking of it, he was a.s.sailed by indirect inquiries concerning the manner in which he had pa.s.sed the night.

"We canna compliment Mr. Lovel on his looks this morning, brother--but he winna condescend on any ground of disturbance he has had in the night time. I am certain he looks very pale, and when he came here he was as fresh as a rose."

"Why, sister, consider this rose of yours has been knocked about by sea and wind all yesterday evening, as if he had been a bunch of kelp or tangle, and how the devil would you have him retain his colour?"

"I certainly do still feel somewhat fatigued," said Lovel, "notwithstanding the excellent accommodations with which your hospitality so amply supplied me."

"Ah, sir!" said Miss Oldbuck looking at him with a knowing smile, or what was meant to be one, "ye'll not allow of ony inconvenience, out of civility to us."

"Really, madam," replied Lovel, "I had no disturbance; for I cannot term such the music with which some kind fairy favoured me."

"I doubted Mary wad waken you wi' her skreighing; she dinna ken I had left open a c.h.i.n.k of your window, for, forbye the ghaist, the Green Room disna vent weel in a high wind--But I am judging ye heard mair than Mary's lilts yestreen. Weel, men are hardy creatures--they can gae through wi' a' thing. I am sure, had I been to undergo ony thing of that nature,--that's to say that's beyond nature--I would hae skreigh'd out at once, and raised the house, be the consequence what liket--and, I dare say, the minister wad hae done as mickle, and sae I hae tauld him,--I ken naebody but my brother, Monkbarns himsell, wad gae through the like o't, if, indeed, it binna you, Mr. Lovel."

"A man of Mr. Oldbuck's learning, madam," answered the questioned party, "would not be exposed to the inconvenience sustained by the Highland gentleman you mentioned last night."

"Ay, ay--ye understand now where the difficulty lies. Language? he has ways o' his ain wad banish a' thae sort o' worricows as far as the hindermost parts of Gideon" (meaning possibly Midian), "as Mr.

Blattergowl says--only ane widna be uncivil to ane's forbear, though he be a ghaist. I am sure I will try that receipt of yours, brother, that ye showed me in a book, if onybody is to sleep in that room again, though I think, in Christian charity, ye should rather fit up the matted-room--it's a wee damp and dark, to be sure, but then we hae sae seldom occasion for a spare bed."

"No, no, sister;--dampness and darkness are worse than spectres--ours are spirits of light, and I would rather have you try the spell."

"I will do that blythely, Monkbarns, an I had the ingredients, as my cookery book ca's them--There was vervain and dill--I mind that--Davie Dibble will ken about them, though, maybe, he'll gie them Latin names--and Peppercorn, we hae walth o' them, for"--

"Hypericon, thou foolish woman!" thundered Oldbuck; "d'ye suppose you're making a haggis--or do you think that a spirit, though he be formed of air, can be expelled by a receipt against wind?--This wise Grizel of mine, Mr. Lovel, recollects (with what accuracy you may judge) a charm which I once mentioned to her, and which, happening to hit her superst.i.tious noddle, she remembers better than anything tending to a useful purpose, I may chance to have said for this ten years. But many an old woman besides herself"--

"Auld woman, Monkbarns!" said Miss Oldbuck, roused something above her usual submissive tone; "ye really are less than civil to me."

"Not less than just, Grizel: however, I include in the same cla.s.s many a sounding name, from Jamblichus down to Aubrey, who have wasted their time in devising imaginary remedies for non-existing diseases.--But I hope, my young friend, that, charmed or uncharmed--secured by the potency of Hypericon,

With vervain and with dill, That hinder witches of their will,

or left disarmed and defenceless to the inroads of the invisible world, you will give another night to the terrors of the haunted apartment, and another day to your faithful and feal friends."

"I heartily wish I could, but"--

"Nay, but me no buts--I have set my heart upon it."

"I am greatly obliged, my dear sir, but"--

"Look ye there, now--but again!--I hate but; I know no form of expression in which he can appear, that is amiable, excepting as a b.u.t.t of sack.

But is to me a more detestable combination of letters than no itself.No is a surly, honest fellow--speaks his mind rough and round at once. But is a sneaking, evasive, half-bred, exceptuous sort of a conjunction, which comes to pull away the cup just when it is at your lips--

--it does allay The good precedent--fie upon but yet!

But yet is as a jailor to bring forth Some monstrous malefactor."

"Well, then," answered Lovel, whose motions were really undetermined at the moment, "you shall not connect the recollection of my name with so churlish a particle. I must soon think of leaving Fairport, I am afraid--and I will, since you are good enough to wish it, take this opportunity of spending another day here."

"And you shall be rewarded, my boy. First, you shall see John o' the Girnel's grave, and then we'll walk gently along the sands, the state of the tide being first ascertained (for we will have no more Peter Wilkins' adventures, no more Glum and Gawrie work), as far as Knockwinnock Castle, and inquire after the old knight and my fair foe--which will but be barely civil, and then"--

"I beg pardon, my dear sir; but, perhaps, you had better adjourn your visit till to-morrow--I am a stranger, you know."