THE FIRST TALE FROM "THE ANTIQUARY"
The children lay prone on the floor of the library in various positions of juvenile comfort, watching the firewood in the big wide grate sparkle and crackle, or the broad snowflakes "spat" against the window-panes, where they stuck awhile as if gummed, and then began reluctantly to trickle down. As Sir Toady Lion said, "It was certainly a nice day on which to stop in!"
The choice of the book from which to tell the next Red Cap Tale had been a work of some difficulty. Hugh John had demanded Ivanhoe, chiefly because there was a chapter in it about shooting with the bow, the which he had read in his school reader when he ought to have been preparing his Latin. Sir Toady wanted The Fortunes of Nigel, because the title sounded adventurous. Sweetheart, who has been sometimes to the play, was insistent for The Bride of Lammermoor, while as to Maid Margaret, she was indifferent, so long as it was "nice and eecitin'."
But the tale-teller, being in the position of the Man-with-the-Purse (or in that of the House of Commons with regard to the granting of supplies), held to it that, in spite of its "growed-up" title, The Antiquary would be the most suitable. First, because we had agreed to go right through the Scottish stories; secondly, because The Antiquary was one of the first which Sir Walter wrote; and thirdly and lastly, because he, the tale-teller aforesaid, "felt like it."
At this, I saw Hugh John look at his brother with the quick glance of intelligence which children exchange when they encounter the Superior Force.
That unspoken message said clearly and neatly, "Pretty thing asking us to select the book, when he had it all settled from the start!"
Nevertheless, I made no remark, but with my eyes on the click of Sweetheart's knitting needles (for in the intervals of nursery wars Sweetheart grows a diligent housewife), I began in the restful silence of that snowy Saturday my first tale from The Antiquary.
I. THE MYSTERIOUS MR. LOVEL
As though all the tin pots on a tinker's wagon had been jolted and jangled, the bells of St. Giles's steeple in Edinburgh town, had just told the hour of noon. It was the time for the Queensferry diligence (which is to say, omnibus) to set out for the passage of the Firth, if it were to catch the tide of that day, and connect with the boat which sets passengers from the capital upon the shores of Fife.
A young man had been waiting some time. An old one had just bustled up. "Deil's in it!" cried the latter, with a glance at the dial of the church clock, "I am late, after all!"