The mendicant started, dried his eyes very hastily with the sleeve of his gown, and endeavouring to recover his usual tone of indifference and jocularity, answered, but with a voice more tremulous than usual, “I might weel hae judged, Monkbarns, it was you, or the like o’ you, was coming in to disturb me—for it’s ae great advantage o’ prisons and courts o’ justice, that ye may greet your een out an ye like, and nane o’ the folk that’s concerned about them will ever ask you what it’s for.”
“Well, Edie,” replied Oldbuck, “I hope your present cause of distress is not so bad but it may be removed.”
“And I had hoped, Monkbarns,” answered the mendicant, in a tone of reproach, “that ye had ken’d me better than to think that this bit trifling trouble o’ my ain wad bring tears into my auld een, that hae seen far different kind o’ distress.—Na, na!—But here’s been the puir lass, Caxon’s daughter, seeking comfort, and has gotten unco little— there’s been nae speerings o’ Taffril’s gunbrig since the last gale; and folk report on the key that a king’s ship had struck on the Reef of Rattray, and a’ hands lost—God forbid! for as sure as you live, Monkbarns, the puir lad Lovel, that ye liked sae weel, must have perished.”
“God forbid indeed!” echoed the Antiquary, turning pale—“I would rather Monkbarns House were on fire. My poor dear friend and coadjutor! I will down to the quay instantly.”
“I’m sure yell learn naething mair than I hae tauld ye, sir,” said Ochiltree, “for the officer-folk here were very civil (that is, for the like o’ them), and lookit up ae their letters and authorities, and could throw nae light on’t either ae way or another.”
“It can’t be true! it shall not be true!” said the Antiquary, “And I won’t believe it if it were!—Taffril’s an excellent sea man, and Lovel (my poor Lovel!) has all the qualities of a safe and pleasant companion by land or by sea—one, Edie, whom, from the ingenuousness of his disposition, I would choose, did I ever go a sea-voyage (which I never do, unless across the ferry), fragilem mecum solvere phaselum, to be the companion of my risk, as one against whom the elements could nourish no vengeance. No, Edie, it is not, and cannot be true—it is a fiction of the idle jade Rumour, whom I wish hanged with her trumpet about her neck, that serves only with its screech-owl tones to fright honest folks out of their senses.—Let me know how you got into this scrape of your own.”
“Are ye axing me as a magistrate, Monkbarns, or is it just for your ain satisfaction!”
“For my own satisfaction solely,” replied the Antiquary.
“Put up your pocket-book and your keelyvine pen then, for I downa speak out an ye hae writing materials in your hands—they’re a scaur to unlearned folk like me—Od, ane o’ the clerks in the neist room will clink down, in black and white, as muckle as wad hang a man, before ane kens what he’s saying.”
Monkbarns complied with the old man’s humour, and put up his memorandum-book.