The Antiquary — Volume 01. Вальтер Скотт

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ have proved a much more formidable satirist than poor Willie Craw, the last of the "blind crowders." Burns wrote, of course, in a spirit of reckless humour; but he could not, even in sport, have alluded to the life as "suited to his habits and powers," had gaberlunzies been mere mendicants. In Herd's collection of Ballads is one on the ancient Scottish beggar: —

                      In Scotland there lived a humble beggar,

                        He had nor house, nor hald, nor hame;

                        But he was well liked by ilk a body,

                      And they gave him sunkets to rax his wame.

                      A sieve fu' o' meal, a handfu' o' groats,

                        A dad o' a bannock, or pudding bree,

                        Cauld porridge, or the lickings o' plates,

                      Wad make him as blythe as a body could be.

      The dress and trade of the beggar are said to have been adopted by James V. in his adventures, and tradition attributes to him a song, "The Gaberlunzie Man."

      One of Edie's most charming traits is his readiness to "fight for his dish, like the laird for his land," when a French invasion was expected. Scott places the date of "The False Alarm," when he himself rode a hundred miles to join his regiment, on Feb. 2, 1804.

      Lockhart gives it as an event of 1805 (vol. ii. p. 275). The occasion gave great pleasure to Scott, on account of the patriotism and courage displayed by all classes. "Me no muckle to fight for?" says Edie. "Isna there the country to fight for, and the burns I gang dandering beside, and the hearths o' the gudewives that gie me my bit bread, and the bits o' weans that come toddling to play wi' me when I come about a landward town?" Edie had fought at Fontenoy, and was of the old school. Scott would have been less pleased with a recruit from St. Boswells, on the Tweed. This man was a shoemaker, John Younger, a very intelligent and worthy person, famous as an angler and writer on angling, who has left an account of the "False Alarm" in his memoirs. His view was that the people, unlike Edie, had nothing to fight for, that only the rich had any reason to be patriotic, that the French had no quarrel with the poor. In fact, Mr. Younger was a cosmopolitan democrat, and sneered at the old Border glories of the warlike days. Probably, however, he would have done his duty, had the enemy landed, and, like Edie, might have remembered the "burns he dandered beside," always with a fishingrod in his hand.

      The Editor cannot resist the temptation to add that the patriotic lady mentioned in Scott's note, who "would rather have seen her son dead on that hearth than hear that he had been a horse's length behind his companions," was his paternal great-grandmother, Mrs. John Lang. Her husband, who died shortly afterwards, so that she was a widow when Scott conversed with her, chanced to be chief magistrate of Selkirk. His family was aroused late one night by the sound of a carriage hurrying down the steep and narrow street. Lord Napier was bringing, probably from Hawick, the tidings that the beacons were ablaze. The town-bell was instantly rung, the inhabitants met in the marketplace, where Scott's statue now stands, and the whole force, with one solitary exception, armed and marched to Dalkeith. According to the gentleman whose horse and arms were sent on to meet him, it was intended, if the French proved victorious, that the population of the Border towns should abandon their homes and retire to the hills.

      No characters in the "Antiquary," except Monkbarns and Edie Ochiltree, seem to have been borrowed from notable originals. The frauds of Dousterswivel, Scott says, are rendered plausible by "very late instances of the force of superstitious credulity to a much greater extent." He can hardly be referring to the career of Cagliostro, but he may have had in his memory some unsuccessful mining speculations by Charles Earl of Traquair, who sought for lead and found little or none in Traquair hills. The old "Statistical Account of Scotland" (vol. xii. p. 370) says nothing about imposture, and merely remarks that "the noble family of Traquair have made several attempts to discover lead mines, and have found quantities of the ore of that metal, though not adequate to indemnify the expenses of working, and have therefore given up the attempt." This was published in 1794, so twenty years had passed when "The Antiquary" was written. If there was here an "instance of superstitious credulity," it was not "a very late instance." The divining, or "dowsing," rod of Dousterswivel still keeps its place in mining superstition and in the search for wells.

      With "The Antiquary" most contemporary reviews of the novels lose their interest. Their author had firmly established his position, at least till "The Monastery" caused some murmurings. Even the "Quarterly Review" was infinitely more genial in its reception of "The Antiquary" than of "Guy Mannering." The critic only grumbled at Lovel's feverish dreams, which, he thought, showed an intention to introduce the marvellous. He complained of "the dark dialect of Anglified Erse," but found comfort in the glossary appended. The "Edinburgh Review" pronounced the chapter on the escape from the tide to be "I the very best description we have ever met, inverse or in prose, in ancient or in modern writing." No reviewer seems to have noticed that the sun is made to set in the sea, on the east coast of Scotland. The "Edinburgh," however, declared that the Antiquary, "at least in so far as he is an Antiquary," was the chief blemish on the book. The "sweet heathen of Monkbarns" has not suffered from this disparagement. The "British Critic" pledged its reputation that Scott was the author. If an argument were wanted, "it would be that which has been applied to prove the authenticity of the last book of the Iliad, — that Homer must have written it, because no one else could." Alas! that argument does not convince German critics.

ANDREW LANG.

      CHAPTER FIRST

                     Go call a coach, and let a coach be called,

                     And let the man who calleth be the caller;

                     And in his calling let him nothing call,

                     But Coach! Coach! Coach! O for a coach, ye gods!

Chrononhotonthologos.

      It was early on a fine summer's day, near the end of the eighteenth century, when a young man, of genteel appearance, journeying towards the north-east of Scotland, provided himself with a ticket in one of those public carriages which travel between Edinburgh and the Queensferry, at which place, as the name implies, and as is well known to all my northern readers, there is a passage-boat for crossing the Firth of Forth. The coach was calculated to carry six regular passengers, besides such interlopers as the coachman could pick up by the way, and intrude upon those who were legally in possession. The tickets, which conferred right to a seat in this vehicle, of little ease, were dispensed by a sharp-looking old dame, with a pair of spectacles on a very thin nose, who inhabited a "laigh shop," anglice, a cellar, opening to the High Street by a straight and steep stair, at the bottom of which she sold tape, thread, needles, skeins of worsted, coarse linen cloth, and such feminine gear, to those who had the courage and skill to descend to the profundity of her dwelling, without falling headlong themselves, or throwing down any of the numerous articles which, piled on each side of the descent, indicated the profession of the trader below.

      The written hand-bill, which, pasted on a projecting board, announced that the Queensferry Diligence, or Hawes Fly, departed precisely at twelve o'clock on Tuesday, the fifteenth July 17 — , in order to secure for travellers the opportunity of passing the Firth with the flood-tide, lied on the present occasion like a bulletin; for although that hour was pealed from Saint Giles's steeple, and repeated by the Tron, no coach СКАЧАТЬ