The Antiquary — Complete

by Walter Scott

“Hector, son of Priam, whence comest thou?” said the Antiquary.

“From Fife, my liege,” answered the young soldier, and continued, when he had politely saluted the rest of the company, and particularly Sir Arthur and his daughter—“I learned from one of the servants, as I rode towards Monkbarns to pay my respects to you, that I should find the present company in this place, and I willingly embrace the opportunity to pay my respects to so many of my friends at once.”

“And to a new one also, my trusty Trojan,” said Oldbuck. “Mr. Lovel, this is my nephew, Captain M’Intyre—Hector, I recommend Mr. Lovel to your acquaintance.”

The young soldier fixed his keen eye upon Lovel, and paid his compliment with more reserve than cordiality and as our acquaintance thought his coldness almost supercilious, he was equally frigid and haughty in making the necessary return to it; and thus a prejudice seemed to arise between them at the very commencement of their acquaintance.

The observations which Lovel made during the remainder of this pleasure party did not tend to reconcile him with this addition to their society. Captain M’Intyre, with the gallantry to be expected from his age and profession, attached himself to the service of Miss Wardour, and offered her, on every possible opportunity, those marks of attention which Lovel would have given the world to have rendered, and was only deterred from offering by the fear of her displeasure. With forlorn dejection at one moment, and with irritated susceptibility at another, he saw this handsome young soldier assume and exercise all the privileges of a cavaliere servente. He handed Miss Wardour’s gloves, he assisted her in putting on her shawl, he attached himself to her in the walks, had a hand ready to remove every impediment in her path, and an arm to support her where it was rugged or difficult; his conversation was addressed chiefly to her, and, where circumstances permitted, it was exclusively so. All this, Lovel well knew, might be only that sort of egotistical gallantry which induces some young men of the present day to give themselves the air of engrossing the attention of the prettiest women in company, as if the others were unworthy of their notice. But he thought he observed in the conduct of Captain M’Intyre something of marked and peculiar tenderness, which was calculated to alarm the jealousy of a lover. Miss Wardour also received his attentions; and although his candour allowed they were of a kind which could not be repelled without some strain of affectation, yet it galled him to the heart to witness that she did so.

The heart-burning which these reflections occasioned proved very indifferent seasoning to the dry antiquarian discussions with which Oldbuck, who continued to demand his particular attention, was unremittingly persecuting him; and he underwent, with fits of impatience that amounted almost to loathing, a course of lectures upon monastic architecture, in all its styles, from the massive Saxon to the florid Gothic, and from that to the mixed and composite architecture of James the First’s time, when, according to Oldbuck, all orders were confounded, and columns of various descriptions arose side by side, or were piled above each other, as if symmetry had been forgotten, and the elemental principles of art resolved into their primitive confusion. “What can be more cutting to the heart than the sight of evils,” said Oldbuck, in rapturous enthusiasm, “which we are compelled to behold, while we do not possess the power of remedying them?” Lovel answered by an involulatary groan. “I see, my dear young friend, and most congenial spirit, that you feel these enormities almost as much as I do. Have you ever approached them, or met them, without longing to tear, to deface, what is so dishonourable?”

“Dishonourable!” echoed Lovel—“in what respect dishonourable?”

“I mean, disgraceful to the arts.”

“Where? how?”

“Upon the portico, for example, of the schools of Oxford, where, at immense expense, the barbarous, fantastic, and ignorant architect has chosen to represent the whole five orders of architecture on the front of one building.”