enabled them
to baffle your zeal. The clergyman, therefore, and witnesses, as persons who had
acted in the matter only to please the powerful heir of Glenallan, were
accessible to his promises and threats, and were so provided for, that they had
no objections to leave this country for another. For myself, Mr. Oldbuck,«
pursued this unhappy man, »from that moment I considered myself as blotted out
of the book of the living, and as having nothing left to do with this world. My
mother tried to reconcile me to life by every art - even by intimations which I
can now interpret as calculated to produce a doubt of the horrible tale she
herself had fabricated. But I construed all she said as the fictions of maternal
affection. I will forbear all reproach. She is no more - and, as her wretched
associate said, she knew not how the dart was poisoned, or how deep it must
sink, when she threw it from her hand. But, Mr. Oldbuck, if ever, during these
twenty years, there crawled upon earth a living being deserving of your pity, I
have been that man. My food has not nourished me - my sleep has not refreshed me
- my devotions have not comforted me - all that is cheering and necessary to man
has been to me converted into poison. The rare and limited intercourse which I
have held with others has been most odious to me. I felt as if I were bringing
the contamination of unnatural and inexpressible guilt among the gay and the
innocent. There have been moments when I had thoughts of another description -
to plunge into the adventures of war, or to brave the dangers of the traveller
in foreign and barbarous climates - to mingle in political intrigue, or to
retire to the stern seclusion of the anchorites of our religion; - all these are
thoughts which have alternately passed through my mind, but each required an
energy, which was mine no longer, after the withering stroke I had received. I
vegetated on as I could in the same spot - fancy, feeling, judgment, and health,
gradually decaying, like a tree whose bark has been destroyed, - when first the
blossoms fade, then the boughs, until its state resembles the decayed and dying
trunk that is now before you. Do you now pity and forgive me?«
    »My lord,« answered the Antiquary, much affected, »my pity - my forgiveness,
you have not to ask, for your dismal story is of itself not only an ample excuse
for whatever appeared mysterious in your conduct, but a narrative