Chapter 1

Wiser Raymondus, in his closet pent,
Laughs at such danger and adventurement
When half his lands are spent in golden smoke,
And now his second hopeful glasse is broke,
But yet, if haply his third furnace hold,
Devoteth all his pots and pans to gold.*

* The author cannot remember where these lines are to be found: perhaps
in Bishop Hall's Satires. [They occur in Book iv. Satire iii.]

About a week after the adventures commemorated in our last
CHAPTER, Mr.
Oldbuck, descending to his breakfast-parlour, found that his womankind
were not upon duty, his toast not made, and the silver jug, which was
wont to receive his libations of mum, not duly aired for its reception.

"This confounded hot-brained boy!" he said to himself; "now that he
begins to get out of danger, I can tolerate this life no longer. All goes
to sixes and sevens--an universal saturnalia seems to be proclaimed in my
peaceful and orderly family. I ask for my sister--no answer. I call, I
shout--I invoke my inmates by more names than the Romans gave to their
deities--at length Jenny, whose shrill voice I have heard this half-hour
lilting in the Tartarean regions of the kitchen, condescends to hear me
and reply, but without coming up stairs, so the conversation must be
continued at the top of my lungs. "--Here he again began to hollow aloud
--"Jenny, where's Miss Oldbuck?"

"Miss Grizzy's in the captain's room."

"Umph!--I thought so--and where's my niece?"

"Miss Mary's making the captain's tea."

"Umph! I supposed as much again--and where's Caxon?"

"Awa to the town about the captain's fowling-gun, and his setting-dog."

"And who the devil's to dress my periwig, you silly jade?--when you knew
that Miss Wardour and Sir Arthur were coming here early after breakfast,
how could you let Caxon go on such a Tomfool's errand?"

"Me! what could I hinder him?--your honour wadna hae us contradict the
captain e'en now, and him maybe deeing?"

"Dying!" said the alarmed Antiquary,--"eh! what? has he been worse?"

"Na, he's no nae waur that I ken of."*

* It is, I believe, a piece of free-masonry, or a point of conscience,
among the Scottish lower orders, never to admit that a patient is doing
better. The closest approach to recovery which they can be brought to
allow, is, that the pairty inquired after is "Nae waur."

"Then he must be better--and what good is a dog and a gun to do here, but
the one to destroy all my furniture, steal from my larder, and perhaps
worry the cat, and the other to shoot somebody through the head. He has
had gunning