answered Lovel, in the same tone, ``shall be at your service whenever you choose to inquire after it!''
``I certainly shall not fail to do so,'' rejoined the soldier.
``Come, come,'' exclaimed Oldbuck, ``what is the meaning of all this? Have we got Hiren here?--We'll have no swaggering youngsters.Are you come from the wars abroad, to stir up domestic strife in our peaceful land? Are you like bull-dog puppies, forsooth, that when the bull, poor fellow, is removed from the ring, fall to brawl among themselves, worry each other, and bite honest folk's shins that are standing by?''
Sir Arthur trusted, he said, the young gentlemen would not so far forget themselves as to grow warm upon such a trifling subject as the back of a letter.
Both the disputants disclaimed any such intention, and, with high colour and flashing eyes, protested they were never so cool in their lives.But an obvious damp was cast over the party;--they talked in future too much by the rule to be sociable, and Lovel, conceiving himself the object of cold and suspicious looks from the rest of the company, and sensible that his indirect replies had given them permission to entertain strange opinions respecting him, made a gallant determination to sacrifice the pleasure he had proposed in spending the day at Knockwinnock.
He affected, therefore, to complain of a violent headache, occasioned by the heat of the day, to which he had not been exposed since his illness, and made a formal apology to Sir Arthur, who, listening more to recent suspicion than to the gratitude due for former services, did not press him to keep his engagement more than good-breeding exactly demanded.
When Lovel took leave of the ladies, Miss Wardour's manner seemed more anxious than he had hitherto remarked it.She indicated by a glance of her eye towards Captain M`Intyre, perceptible only by Lovel, the subject of her alarm, and hoped, in a voice greatly under her usual tone, it was not a less pleasant engagement which deprived them of the pleasure of Mr.Lovel's company.``No engagement had intervened,'' he assured her;``it was only the return of a complaint by which he had been for some time occasionally attacked.''
``The best remedy in such a case is prudence, and I--every friend of Mr.Lovel's will expect him to employ it.''
Lovel bowed low and coloured deeply, and Miss Wardour, as if she felt that she had said too much, turned and got into the carriage.Lovel had next to part with Oldbuck, who, during this interval, had, with Caxon's assistance, been arranging his disordered periwig, and brushing his coat, which exhibited some marks of the rude path they had traversed.``What, man!''
said Oldbuck, ``you are not going to leave us on account of that foolish Hector's indiscreet curiosity and vehemence? Why, he is a thoughtless boy--a spoiled child from the time he was in the nurse's arms--he threw his coral and bells at my head for refusing him a bit of sugar; and you have too much sense to mind such a shrewish boy: _<ae>quam servare mentem_ is the motto of our friend Horace.I'll school Hector by and by, and put it all to rights.'' But Lovel persisted in his design of returning to Fairport.
The Antiquary then assumed a graver tone.--``Take heed, young man, to your present feelings.Your life has been given yon for useful and valuable purposes, and should be reserved to illustrate the literature of your country, when you are not called upon to expose it in her defence, or in the rescue of the innocent.