"Prince Hector of Rauchpfeifenheim has given me a lucrative appointment in his dominions. Before assuming its duties, I have come to pass a few days here, and trust I am welcome."
Wirtig shook his nephew's hand.
"Welcome you are!" said he, kindly. "Hospitality is the attribute of the noblest races. So long it please ye, remain under this poor roof. By the honour of a cavalier! I would gladly have you with me in the spring, when I think of rebuilding my house on a very different plan. You will find many changes here, kinsman Alexis. Come, fill your glass. A health to the Great Unknown! He has been my good genius. But we will talk of that on our way to the harvest feast."
The innkeeper's conversation on the road to the hamlet, where the festival was held, was in complete accordance with Caleb's account of his vagaries. He was perfectly mad on the subject of the author of Waverley. Never had human being, whether sage, poet, or philosopher, made so extraordinary an impression on an admirer as had the poet of Abbotsford on the host of the Star—now the Bear of Bradwardine. Wirtig identified himself with all the most striking characters of the Scottish novels. He assumed the tone by turns of a stern Presbyterian, a gossiping and eccentric antiquary, a haughty noble, an enthusiastic royalist, a warlike Highland chief. His intense study of the Waverley Novels, at a time when he was much shaken by his wife's sudden death, had warped his mind upon this particular subject. Combined with this monomania was a feeling of boundless gratitude to the Scottish bard for the prosperity the inn had enjoyed under the auspices of the Blessed Bear. His portrait hung in the dining-room, where his birthday was annually celebrated. Wirtig scarcely ever emptied a glass but to his health, or uttered a sentence without garnishing it with his favourite oaths and expressions. In his hour of sorrow, the honest German had made himself a new world out of the novelist's creations. The sorrow faded away, but the illusion remained. And Wirtig deeply resented every attempt to destroy it. Emily's lover, Elben, a thriving young attorney, had dared to attack the daily increasing folly of his future father-in-law, and had boldly taken the field against his Scottish idol. He paid dearly for his temerity. Argument sharpened into irony, and irony led to a quarrel, whose consequence was a sentence of banishment from the territory of the Clan Wirtig, pronounced against the unlucky lover, who then heartily bewailed his rashness—the more so that, whilst he himself was excluded from the presence of his mistress, he was kept in constant alarm lest some one of the numerous English visitors to the Bear of Bradwardine should seduce her affections, and bear her off to his island. In vain did he endeavour, through mutual friends, to mollify Scott's furious partisan; in vain did Emily, in secret concert with her lover, exert all her powers of coaxing. At last Wirtig declared he would no longer oppose their union when Elben should have atoned for his crime by presenting him with a novel from his own pen, written in the exact style of that stupendous genius whom the rash attorney had dared to vilify. Elben was horrified at this condition, but nevertheless, remembering that love works miracles, and has even been known to make a tolerable painter out of a blacksmith, he did not despair. He shut himself up with a complete edition of the Waverley novels, read and re-read, wrote, altered, corrected, and finally tore up his manuscripts. A hundred times he was on the point of abandoning the task in despair; a hundred times, stimulated by the promised recompense, he resumed his pen. But his labour was fruitless. A year elapsed; he had consumed sundry reams of paper, bottles of ink, and pounds of canister; the result was nil. The time allowed him expired at the approaching Christmas. Poor Emily's cheeks had lost their roses through anxiety and suspense. The Miffelstein gossips pitied her, abused her father, and laughed at Elben.
These latter details did not reach Alexis through either his uncle or his cousin. The former, on casual mention of the attorney's name, looked as grim as the most truculent Celt that ever carried claymore; in her father's presence Emily—or Amy, as the Scotomaniac now called her—dared not even allude to her lover. Elben himself, whom Alexis encountered gliding like a pale and melancholy ghost amidst the throng of holiday-makers, confided to his former school-mate the story of his woes. Alexis alternately pitied and laughed at him.
"Poor fellow!" said he, "how can I help you? I am no novelist, to write your book for you, nor yet a magnificent barbarian from the Scottish hills, to snatch your mistress from her father's tyranny and bear her to your arms amidst the soft melodies of the bagpipe. I see nothing for it but to give her up."
Elben looked indignant at the coldblooded suggestion.
"You do not understand these matters," said he, with an expression of disdain.
"Possibly not," replied Alexis, "but only reflect—you a romance-writer!"
Elben sighed. "True," he said, "it is a hopeless case. How many nights have I not sat in the moonlight upon the ruins of the old castle, to try and catch a little inspiration. I never caught anything but a cold. How many times have I stolen disguised into the lowest pot-houses, where it would ruin my reputation to be recognised, to acquire the popular phraseology. And yet I am no further advanced than a year ago!"