self in the glass--"to make it somewhat
decent. And now let us set to breakfast--with what appetite we may. Well
may I say to Hector, as Sir Isaac Newton did to his dog Diamond, when
the animal (I detest dogs) flung down the taper among calculations which
had occupied the philosopher for twenty years, and consumed the whole
mass of materials--Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the mischief
thou hast done!"

"I assure you, sir," replied his niece, "my brother is quite sensible
of the rashness of his own behaviour, and allows that Mr. Lovel behaved
very handsomely."

"And much good that will do, when he has frightened the lad out of the
country! I tell thee, Mary, Hector's understanding, and far more that
of feminity, is inadequate to comprehend the extent of the loss which he
has occasioned to the present age and to posterity--aureum quidem opus--a
poem on such a subject, with notes illustrative of all that is clear,
and all that is dark, and all that is neither dark nor clear, but hovers
in dusky twilight in the region of Caledonian antiquities. I would have
made the Celtic panegyrists look about them. Fingal, as they conceitedly
term Fin-Mac-Coul, should have disappeared before my search, rolling
himself in his cloud like the spirit of Loda. Such an opportunity can
hardly again occur to an ancient and grey-haired man; and to see it lost
by the madcap spleen of a hot-headed boy! But I submit--Heaven's will be
done!"

Thus continued the Antiquary to maunder, as his sister expressed it,
during the whole time of breakfast, while, despite of sugar and honey,
and all the comforts of a Scottish morning tea-table, his reflections
rendered the meal bitter to all who heard them. But they knew the
nature of the man. "Monkbarns's bark," said Miss Griselda Oldbuck, in
confidential intercourse with Miss Rebecca Blattergowl, "is muckle waur
than his bite."

In fact, Mr. Oldbuck had suffered in mind extremely while his nephew was
in actual danger, and now felt himself at liberty, upon his returning
health, to indulge in complaints respecting the trouble he had been
put to, and the interruption of his antiquarian labours. Listened to,
therefore, in respectful silence, by his niece and sister, he unloaded
his discontent in such grumblings as we have rehearsed, venting many
a sarcasm against womankind, soldiers, dogs, and guns, all which
implements of noise, discord, and tumult, as he called them, he
professed to hold in utter ab