Through these various entanglements, Monkbarns (to use the phrase by which he was distinguished in the country) made his way at length to Mrs.Hadoway's.This good woman was the widow of a late clergyman at Fairport, who had been reduced by her husband's untimely death, to that state of straitened and embarrassed circumstances in which the widows of the Scotch clergy are too often found.The tenement which she occupied, and the furniture of which she was possessed, gave her the means of letting a part of her house; and as Lovel had been a quiet, regular, and profitable lodger, and had qualified the necessary intercourse which they had together with a great deal of gentleness and courtesy, Mrs.Hadoway, not, perhaps, much used to such kindly treatment, had become greatly attached to her lodger, and was profuse in every sort of personal attention which circumstances permitted her to render him.To cook a dish somewhat better than ordinary for ``the poor young gentleman's dinner;''
to exert her interest with those who remembered her husband, or loved her for her own sake and his, in order to procure scarce vegetables, or something which her simplicity supposed might tempt her lodger's appetite, was a labour in which she delighted, although she anxiously concealed it from the person who was its object.She did not adopt this secrecy of benevolence to avoid the laugh of those who might suppose that an oval face and dark eyes, with a clear brown complexion, though belonging to a woman of five-and-forty, and enclosed within a widow's close-drawn pinners, might possibly still aim at making conquests; for, to say truth, such a ridiculous suspicion having never entered into her own head, she could not anticipate its having birth in that of any one else.But she concealed her attentions solely out of delicacy to her guest, whose power of repaying them she doubted as much as she believed in his inclination to do so, and in his being likely to feel extreme pain at leaving any of her civilities unrequited.She now opened the door to Mr.Oldbuck, and her surprise at seeing him brought tears into her eyes, which she could hardly restrain.
``I am glad to see you, sir--I am very glad to see you.
My poor gentleman is, I am afraid, very unwell; and oh, Mr.
Oldbuck, he'll see neither doctor, nor minister, nor writer!
And think what it would be, if, as my poor Mr.Hadoway used to say, a man was to die without advice of the three learned faculties!''
``Greatly better than with them,'' grumbled the cynical Antiquary.``I tell you, Mrs.Hadoway, the clergy live by our sins, the medical faculty by our diseases, and the law gentry by our misfortunes.''
``O fie, Monkbarns!--to hear the like o' that frae you!--But yell walk up and see the poor young lad?--Hegh sirs?
sae young and weel-favoured--and day by day he has eat less and less, and now he hardly touches onything, only just pits a bit on the plate to make fashion--,-and his poor cheek has turned every day thinner and paler, sae that be now really looks as auld as me, that might be his mother--no that I might be just that neither, but something very near it.''
``Why does he not take some exercise?'' said Oldbuck.
``I think we have persuaded him to do that, for he has bought a horse from Gibbie Golightly, the galloping groom.
A gude judge o' horse-flesh Gibbie tauld our lass that he was--for he offered him a beast he thought wad answer him weel eneugh, as he was a bookish man, but Mr.Lovel wadna look at it, and bought ane might serve the Master o' Morphie--they keep it at the Gr<ae>me's Arms, ower the street;--and he rode out yesterday morning and this morning before breakfast--But winna ye walk up to his room?''
``Presently, presently.But has he no visitors?''
``O dear, Mr.Oldbuck, not ane; if he wadna receive them when he was weel and sprightly, what chance is there of onybody in Fairport looking in upon him now?''
``Ay, ay, very true,--I should have been surprised had it been otherwise--Come, show me up stairs, Mrs.Hadoway, lest I make a blunder, and go where I should not.''
The good landlady showed Mr.Oldbuck up her narrow staircase, warning him of every turn, and lamenting all the while that he was laid under the necessity of mounting up so high.At length she gently tapped at the door of her guest's parlour.``Come in,'' said Lovel; and Mrs.Hadoway ushered in the Laird of Monkbarns.
The little apartment was neat and clean, and decently furnished--ornamented, too, by such relics of her youthful arts of sempstress-ship as Mrs.Hadoway had retained; but it was close, overheated, and, as it appeared to Oldbuck, an unwholesome situation for a young person in delicate health,--an observation which ripened his resolution touching a project that had already occurred to him in Lovel's behalf.With a writing-table before him, on which lay a quantity of books and papers, Lovel was seated on a couch, in his night-gown and slippers.Oldbuck was shocked at the change which had taken place in his personal appearance.His cheek and brow had assumed a ghastly white, except where a round bright spot of hectic red formed a strong and painful contrast, totally different from the general cast of hale and hardy complexion which had formerly overspread and somewhat embrowned his countenance.
Oldbuck observed, that the dress he wore belonged to a deep mourning suit, and a coat of the same colour hung on a chair near to him.As the Antiquary entered, Lovel arose and came forward to welcome him.
``This is very kind,'' he said, shaking him by the hand, and thanking him warmly for his visit--``this is very kind, and has anticipated a visit with which I intended to trouble you.You must know I have become a horseman lately.''