“I am afraid, sir, our mess would be better supplied if it chanced to be in the neighbourhood of a good poultry-yard.”
“Alas, that you should say so! No wonder the days of Cressy and Agincourt are no more, when respect for ancient valour has died away in the breasts of the British soldiery.”
“By no means, sir—by no manner of means. I dare say that Edward and Henry, and the rest of these heroes, thought of their dinner, however, before they thought of examining an old tombstone. But I assure you, we are by no means insensible to the memoir of our fathers’ fame; I used often of an evening to get old Rory MAlpin to sing us songs out of Ossian about the battles of Fingal and Lamon Mor, and Magnus and the Spirit of Muirartach.”
“And did you believe,” asked the aroused Antiquary, “did you absolutely believe that stuff of Macpherson’s to be really ancient, you simple boy?”
“Believe it, sir?—how could I but believe it, when I have heard the songs sung from my infancy?”
“But not the same as Macpherson’s English Ossian—you’re not absurd enough to say that, I hope?” said the Antiquary, his brow darkening with wrath.
But Hector stoutly abode the storm; like many a sturdy Celt, he imagined the honour of his country and native language connected with the authenticity of these popular poems, and would have fought knee-deep, or forfeited life and land, rather than have given up a line of them. He therefore undauntedly maintained, that Rory MAlpin could repeat the whole book from one end to another;—and it was only upon cross-examination that he explained an assertion so general, by adding “At least, if he was allowed whisky enough, he could repeat as long as anybody would hearken to him.”
“Ay, ay,” said the Antiquary; “and that, I suppose, was not very long.”
“Why, we had our duty, sir, to attend to, and could not sit listening all night to a piper.”
“But do you recollect, now,” said Oldbuck, setting his teeth firmly together, and speaking without opening them, which was his custom when contradicted—“Do you recollect, now, any of these verses you thought so beautiful and interesting—being a capital judge, no doubt, of such things?”