``In which she has fully succeeded, I presume, for I see that on the table is salted.But that is nothing--my lachrymatory, the main pillar of my theory on which I rested to show, in despite of the ignorant obstinacy of Mac-Cribb, that the Romans had passed the defiles of these mountains, and left behind them traces of their arts and arms, is gone--annihilated --reduced to such fragments as might be the shreds of a broken-flowerpot!
--Hector, I love thee, But never more be officer of mine.''
``Why, really, sir, I am afraid I should make a bad figure in a regiment of your raising.''
``At least, Hector, I would have you despatch your camp train, and travel _expeditus,_ or _relictis impedimentis._ You cannot conceive how I am annoyed by this beast--she commits burglary, I believe, for I heard her charged with breaking into the kitchen after all the doors were locked, and eating up a shoulder of mutton.''--(Our readers, if they chance to remember Jenny Rintherout's precaution of leaving the door open when she went down to the fisher's cottage, will probably acquit poor Juno of that aggravation of guilt which the lawyers call a _claustrum fregit,_ and which makes the distinction between burglary and privately stealing.)``I am truly sorry, sir,'' said Hector, ``that Juno has committed so much disorder; but Jack Muirhead, the breaker, was never able to bring her under command.She has more travel than any bitch I ever knew, but''--``Then, Hector, I wish the bitch would travel herself out of my grounds.''
``We will both of us retreat to-morrow, or to-day, but Iwould not willingly part from my mother's brother in unkindness about a paltry pipkin.''
``O brother! brother!'' ejaculated Miss M`Intyre, in utter despair at this vituperative epithet.
``Why, what would you have me call it?'' continued Hector;``it was just such a thing as they use in Egypt to cool wine, or sherbet, or water;--I brought home a pair of them--I might have brought home twenty.''
``What!'' said Oldbuck, ``shaped such as that your dog threw down?''
``Yes, sir, much such a sort of earthen jar as that which was on the sideboard.They are in my lodgings at Fairport; we brought a parcel of them to cool our wine on the passage--they answer wonderfully well.If I could think they would in any degree repay your loss, or rather that they could afford you pleasure, I am sure I should be much honoured by your accepting them.''
``Indeed, my dear boy, I should be highly gratified by possessing them.To trace the connection of nations by their usages, and the similarity of the implements which they employ, has been long my favourite study.Everything that can illustrate such connections is most valuable to me.''
``Well, sir, I shall be much gratified by your acceptance of them, and a few trifles of the same kind.And now, am I to hope you have forgiven me?''
``O, my dear boy, you are only thoughtless and foolish.''
``But Juno--she is only thoughtless too, I assure you--the breaker tells me she has no vice or stubbornness.''
``Well, I grant Juno also a free pardon--conditioned, that you will imitate her in avoiding vice and stubbornness, and that henceforward she banish herself forth of Monkbarns parlour.''
``Then, uncle,'' said the soldier, ``I should have been very sorry and ashamed to propose to you anything in the way of expiation of my own sins, or those of my follower, that I thought _worth_ your acceptance; but now, as all is forgiven, will you permit the orphan-nephew, to whom you have been a father, to offer you a trifle, which I have been assured is really curious, and which only the cross accident of my wound has prevented my delivering to you before? I got it from a French savant, to whom I rendered some service after the Alexandria affair.''
The captain put a small ring-case into the Antiquary's hands, which, when opened, was found to contain an antique ring of massive gold, with a cameo, most beautifully executed, bearing a head of Cleopatra.The Antiquary broke forth into unrepressed ecstasy, shook his nephew cordially by the hand, thanked him an hundred times, and showed the ring to his sister and niece, the latter of whom had the tact to give it sufficient admiration;but Miss Griselda (though she had the same affection for her nephew) had not address enough to follow the lead.
``It's a bonny thing,'' she said, ``Monkbarns, and, I dare say, a valuable; but it's out o'my way--ye ken I am nae judge o' sic matters.''
``There spoke all Fairport in one voice!'' exclaimed Oldbuck ``it is the very spirit of the borough has infected us all; I think I have smelled the smoke these two days, that the wind has stuck, like a _remora,_ in the north-east--and its prejudices fly farther than its vapours.Believe me, my dear Hector, were Ito walk up the High Street of Fairport, displaying this inestimable gem in the eyes of each one I met, no human creature, from the provost to the town-crier, would stop to ask me its history.But if I carried a bale of linen cloth under my arm, I could not penetrate to the Horsemarket ere I should be overwhelmed with queries about its precise texture and price.Oh, one might parody their brutal ignorance in the words of Gray:
Weave the warp and weave the woof, The winding-sheet of wit and sense, Dull garment of defensive proof, 'Gainst all that doth not gather pence.''
