The Antiquary regarded his youthful companion with a look half of pity, half of sympathy, and shrugged up his shoulders as he replied--``Wait, young man--wait till your bark has been battered by the storm of sixty years of mortal vicissitude:
you will learn by that time, to reef your sails, that she may obey the helm;--or, in the language of this world, you will find distresses enough, endured and to endure, to keep your feelings and sympathies in full exercise, without concerning yourself more in the fate of others than you cannot possibly avoid.''
``Well, Mr.Oldbuck, it may be so;--but as yet I resemble you more in your practice than in your theory, for I cannot help being deeply interested in the fate of the family we have just left.''
``And well you may,'' replied Oldbuck.``Sir Arthur's embarrassments have of late become so many and so pressing, that I am surprised you have not heard of them.And then his absurd and expensive operations carried on by this High-German landlouper, Dousterswivel''--``I think I have seen that person, when, by some rare chance, I happened to be in the coffee-room at Fairport;--a tall, beetle-browed, awkward-built man, who entered upon scientific subjects, as it appeared to my ignorance at least, with more assurance than knowledge--was very arbitrary in laying down and asserting his opinions, and mixed the terms of science with a strange jargon of mysticism.A simple youth whispered me that he was an _Illumin,_ and carried on an intercourse with the invisible world.''
``O, the same--the same.He has enough of practical knowledge to speak scholarly and wisely to those of whose intelligence he stands in awe; and, to say the truth, this faculty, joined to his matchless impudence, imposed upon me for some time when I first knew him.But I have since understood, that when he is among fools and womankind, he exhibits himself as a perfect charlatan--talks of the _magisterium_--of sympathies and antipathies--of the cabala--of the divining-rod--and all the trumpery with which the Rosicrucians cheated a darker age, and which, to our eternal disgrace, has in some degree revived in our own.My friend Heavysterne know this fellow abroad, and unintentionally (for he, you must know, is, God bless the mark! a sort of believer) let me into a good deal of his real character.Ah! were I caliph for a day, as Honest Abon Hassan wished to be, I would scourge me these jugglers out of the commonwealth with rods of scorpions.They debauch the spirit of the ignorant and credulous with mystical trash, as effectually as if they had besotted their brains with gin, and then pick their pockets with the same facility.And now has this strolling blackguard and mountebank put the finishing blow to the ruin of an ancient and honourable family!''
``But how could he impose upon Sir Arthur to any ruinous extent?''
``Why, I don't know.Sir Arthur is a good honourable gentleman; but, as you may see from his loose ideas concerning the Pikish language, he is by no means very strong in the understanding.His estate is strictly entailed, and he has been always an embarrassed man.This rapparee promised him mountains of wealth, and an English company was found to advance large sums of money--I fear on Sir Arthur's guarantee.
Some gentlemen--I was ass enough to be one--took small shares in the concern, and Sir Arthur himself made great outlay;we were trained on by specious appearances and more specious lies; and now, like John Bunyan, we awake, and behold it is a dream!''
``I am surprised that you, Mr.Oldbuck, should have encouraged Sir Arthur by your example.''
``Why,'' said Oldbuck, dropping his large grizzled eyebrow, ``I am something surprised and ashamed at it myself; it was not the lucre of gain--nobody cares less for money (to be a prudent man) than I do--but I thought I might risk this small sum.It will be expected (though I am sure I cannot see why) that I should give something to any one who will be kind enough to rid me of that slip of womankind, my niece, Mary M`Intyre; and perhaps it may be thought I should do something to get that jackanapes, her brother, on in the army.In either case, to treble my venture, would have helped me out.And besides, I had some idea that the Phnicians had in former times wrought copper in that very spot.That cunning scoundrel, Dousterswivel, found out my blunt side, and brought strange tales (d--n him) of appearances of old shafts, and vestiges of mining operations, conducted in a manner quite different from those of modern times; and I--in short, I was a fool, and there is an end.My loss is not much worth speaking about; but Sir Arthur's engagements are, I understand, very deep, and my heart aches for him) and the poor young lady who must share his distress.''
Here the conversation paused, until renewed in the next chapter.
