Antiquarians -- Fiction; Beggars -- Fiction; Domestic fiction; Fathers and daughters -- Fiction; Love stories; Scotland -- Fiction
Old Edie, the most important man that ever wore a blue gown, bowls away
easily from one friend's house to another, and boasts that he never
travels unless on a sunny day. Latterly, indeed, he has given some
symptoms of becoming stationary, being frequently found in the corner
of a snug cottage between Monkbarns and Knockwinnock, to which
Caxon retreated upon his daughter's marriage, in order to be in the
neighbourhood of the three parochial wigs, which he continues to keep in
repair, though only for amusement. Edie has been heard to say, "This is
a gey bein place, and it's a comfort to hae sic a corner to sit in in
a bad day." It is thought, as he grows stiffer in the joints, he will
finally settle there.
The bounty of such wealthy patrons as Lord and Lady Geraldin flowed
copiously upon Mrs. Hadoway and upon the Mucklebackits. By the former
it was well employed, by the latter wasted. They continue, however, to
receive it, but under the administration of Edie Ochiltree; and they
do not accept it without grumbling at the channel through which it is
conveyed.
Hector is rising rapidly in the army, and has been more than once
mentioned in the Gazette, and rises proportionally high in his uncle's
favour; and what scarcely pleases the young soldier less, he has also
shot two seals, and thus put an end to the Antiquary's perpetual harping
upon the story of the phoca.People talk of a marriage between Miss
M'Intyre and Captain Wardour; but this wants confirmation.
The Antiquary is a frequent visitor at Knockwinnock and Glenallan House,
ostensibly for the sake of completing two essays, one on the mail-shirt
of the Great Earl, and the other on the left-hand gauntlet of
Hell-in-Harness. He regularly inquires whether Lord Geraldin has
commenced the Caledoniad, and shakes his head at the answers he
receives.En attendant, however, he has completed his notes, which, we
believe, will be at the service of any one who chooses to make them
public without risk or expense to THE ANTIQUARY.
NOTES TO THE ANTIQUARY.
Note A, p. #.Mottoes.
["It was in correcting the proof-sheets of this novel that Scott first
took to equipping his chapters with mottoes of his own fabrication. On
one occasion he happened to ask John Ballantyne, who was sitting by him,
to hunt for a particular passage in Beaumont and Fletcher. John did
as he was bid, but did not succeed in discovering the lines. 'Hang it,
Johnnie,' cried Scott, 'I believe I can make a motto sooner than you
will find one.' He did so accordingly; and from that hour, whenever
memory failed to suggest an appropriate epigraph, he had recourse to the
inexhaustible mines of "old play" or "old ballad," to which we owe
some of the most exquisite verses that ever flowed from his pen."J. G.
Lockhart.
See also the Introduction to "Chronicles of the Canongate," vol. xix.]
Note B, p. #.Sandy Gordon's Itinerarium.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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