published in May, 1816, the third of the Waverley Novels, and in it the author intended to illustrate the manners of Scotland during the last ten years of the eighteenth century.  “I have been more solicitous,” he writes, “to describe manners minutely, than to arrange in any case an artificial and combined narrative, and have but to regret that I felt myself unable to unite these two requisites of a good novel.”  Scott took considerable pains to point out that old Edie Ochiltree, the wandering mendicant with his blue gown, was by no means to be confounded with the utterly degraded class of beings who now practise that wandering trade.  Although “The Antiquary” was not so well received on its first appearance as “Waverley” or “Guy Mannering,” it soon rose to equal, and with some readers, superior popularity.

I.—­Travelling Companions

It was early on a fine summer’s day, near the end of the eighteenth century, when a young man of genteel appearance, journeying towards the north-east of Scotland, provided himself with a ticket in one of those public carriages which travel between Edinburgh and the Queensferry, at which place there is a passage-boat for crossing the Firth of Forth.

The young gentleman was soon joined by a companion, a good-looking man of the age of sixty, perhaps older, but his hale complexion and firm step announced that years had not impaired his strength of health.  This senior traveller, Mr. Jonathan Oldenbuck (by popular contraction Oldbuck), of Monkbarns, was the owner of a small property in the neighbourhood of a thriving seaport town on the north-eastern coast of Scotland, which we shall denominate Fairport.  His tastes were antiquarian, his wishes very moderate.  The burghers of the town regarded him with a sort of envy, as one who affected to divide himself from their rank in society, and whose studies and pleasures seemed to them alike incomprehensible.  Some habits of hasty irritation he had contracted, partly from an early disappointment in love, but yet more by the obsequious attention paid to him by his maiden sister and his orphan niece.

Mr. Oldbuck, finding his fellow-traveller an interested and intelligent auditor, plunged at once into a sea of discussion concerning urns, vases, and Roman camps, and when they reached Queensferry, and stopped for dinner at the inn, he at once made some advances towards ascertaining the name, destination, and quality of his young companion.

His name, the young gentleman said, was Lovel.  His father was a north of England gentleman.  He was at present travelling to Fairport, and if he found the place agreeable, might perhaps remain there for some weeks.

“Was Mr. Lovel’s excursion solely for pleasure?”

“Not entirely.”

“Perhaps on business with some of the commercial people of Fairport?”

“It was partly on business, but had no reference to commerce.”

Here he paused, and Mr. Oldbuck, having pushed his inquiries as far as good manners permitted, was obliged to change the conversation.