The Antiquary found the magistrate, exhausted with the fatigues of the drill, reposing in his gouty chair, humming the air, “How merrily we live that soldiers be!” and between each bar comforting himself with a spoonful of mock-turtle soup. He ordered a similar refreshment for Oldbuck, who declined it, observing, that, not being a military man, he did not feel inclined to break his habit of keeping regular hours for meals—“Soldiers like you, Bailie, must snatch their food as they find means and time. But I am sorry to hear ill news of young Taffril’s brig.”
“Ah, poor fellow!” said the bailie, “he was a credit to the town—much distinguished on the first of June.”
“But,” said Oldbuck, “I am shocked to hear you talk of him in the preterite tense.”
“Troth, I fear there may be too much reason for it, Monkbarns;—and yet let us hope the best. The accident is said to have happened in the Rattray reef of rocks, about twenty miles to the northward, near Dirtenalan Bay—I have sent to inquire about it—and your nephew run out himself as if he had been flying to get the Gazette of a victory.”
Here Hector entered, exclaiming as he came in, “I believe it’s all a damned lie—I can’t find the least authority for it, but general rumour.”
“And pray, Mr. Hector,” said his uncle, “if it had been true, whose fault would it have been that Lovel was on board?”
“Not mine, I am sure,” answered Hector; “it would have been only my misfortune.”
“Indeed!” said his uncle, “I should not have thought of that.”
“Why, sir, with all your inclination to find me in the wrong,” replied the young soldier, “I suppose you will own my intention was not to blame in this case. I did my best to hit Lovel, and if I had been successful, ‘tis clear my scrape would have been his, and his scrape would have been mine.”
“And whom or what do you intend to hit now, that you are lugging with you that leathern magazine there, marked Gunpowder?”