at Fairport, of whom the town (by which he meant all the gossips, who, having no
business of their own, fill up their leisure moments by attending to that of
other people) could make nothing. He sought no society, but rather avoided that
which the apparent gentleness of his manners, and some degree of curiosity,
induced many to offer him. Nothing could be more regular, or less resembling an
adventurer, than his mode of living, which was simple, but so completely well
arranged, that all who had any transactions with him were loud in their
approbation.
    »These are not the virtues of a stage-struck hero,« thought Oldbuck to
himself; and, however habitually pertinacious in his opinions, he must have been
compelled to abandon that which he had formed in the present instance, but for a
part of Caxon's communication. »The young gentleman,« he said, »was sometimes
heard speaking to himsell, and rampauging about in his room, just as if he was
ane o' the player folk.«
    Nothing, however, excepting this single circumstance, occurred to confirm
Mr. Oldbuck's supposition; and it remained a high and doubtful question, what a
well-informed young man, without friends, connections, or employment of any
kind, could have to do as a resident at Fairport. Neither port wine nor whist
had apparently any charms for him. He declined dining with the mess of the
volunteer cohort which had been lately embodied, and shunned joining the
convivialities of either of the two parties which then divided Fairport, as they
did more important places. He was too little of an aristocrat to join the club
of Royal True Blues, and too little of a democrat to fraternise with an
affiliated society of the soi-disant Friends of the People, which the borough
had also the happiness of possessing. A coffee-room was his detestation; and, I
grieve to say it, he had as few sympathies with the tea-table. - In short, since
the name was fashionable in novel-writing, and that is a great while agone,
there was never a Master Lovel of whom so little positive was known, and who was
so universally described by negatives.
    One negative, however, was important - nobody knew any harm of Lovel.
Indeed, had such existed, it would have been speedily made public; for the
natural desire of speaking evil of our neighbour could in his case have been
checked by no feelings of sympathy for a being so unsocial. On one account alone
he fell somewhat under suspicion.