“My time,” said Lovel, with a glance at his black dress, “has been less pleasantly employed.”
“The death of a friend?” said the Antiquary.
“Yes, Mr. Oldbuck—of almost the only friend I could ever boast of possessing.”
“Indeed? Well, young man,” replied his visitor, in a tone of seriousness very different from his affected gravity, “be comforted. To have lost a friend by death while your mutual regard was warm and unchilled, while the tear can drop unembittered by any painful recollection of coldness or distrust or treachery, is perhaps an escape from a more heavy dispensation. Look round you—how few do you see grow old in the affections of those with whom their early friendships were formed! Our sources of common pleasure gradually dry up as we journey on through the vale of Bacha, and we hew out to ourselves other reservoirs, from which the first companions of our pilgrimage are excluded;—jealousies, rivalries, envy, intervene to separate others from our side, until none remain but those who are connected with us rather by habit than predilection, or who, allied more in blood than in disposition, only keep the old man company in his life, that they may not be forgotten at his death—
Haec data poena diu viventibus.
Ah, Mr. Lovel! if it be your lot to reach the chill, cloudy, and comfortless evening of life, you will remember the sorrows of your youth as the light shadowy clouds that intercepted for a moment the beams of the sun when it was rising. But I cram these words into your ears against the stomach of your sense.”
“I am sensible of your kindness,” answered the youth; “but the wound that is of recent infliction must always smart severely, and I should be little comforted under my present calamity—forgive me for saying so—by the conviction that life had nothing in reserve for me but a train of successive sorrows. And permit me to add, you, Mr. Oldbuck, have least reason of many men to take so gloomy a view of life. You have a competent and easy fortune—are generally respected—may, in your own phrase, vacare musis, indulge yourself in the researches to which your taste addicts you; you may form your own society without doors—and within you have the affectionate and sedulous attention of the nearest relatives.”
“Why, yes—the womankind, for womankind, are, thanks to my training, very civil and tractable—do not disturb me in my morning studies—creep across the floor with the stealthy pace of a cat, when it suits me to take a nap in my easy-chair after dinner or tea. All this is very well; but I want something to exchange ideas with—something to talk to.”
“Then why do you not invite your nephew, Captain M’Intyre, who is mentioned by every one as a fine spirited young fellow, to become a member of your family?”
“Who?” exclaimed Monkbarns, “my nephew Hector?—the Hotspur of the North? Why, Heaven love you, I would as soon invite a firebrand into my stackyard. He’s an Almanzor, a Chamont—has a Highland pedigree as long as his claymore, and a claymore as long as the High Street of Fairport, which he unsheathed upon the surgeon the last time he was at Fairport. I expect him here one of these days; but I will keep him at staff’s end, I promise you. He an inmate of my house! to make my very chairs and tables tremble at his brawls. No, no—I’ll none of Hector M’Intyre. But hark ye, Lovel;—you are a quiet, gentle-tempered lad; had not you better set up your staff at Monkbarns for a month or two, since I conclude you do not immediately intend to leave this country?—I will have a door opened out to the garden—it will cost but a trifle—there is the space for an old one which was condemned long ago—by which said door you may pass and repass into the Green Chamber at pleasure, so you will not interfere with the old man, nor he with you. As for your fare, Mrs. Hadoway tells me you are, as she terms it, very moderate of your mouth, so you will not quarrel with my humble table. Your washing”—