"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 1493, 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.