ing his disordered periwig, and brushing his
coat, which exhibited some marks of the rude path they had traversed.
"What, man!" said Oldbuck, "you are not going to leave us on account of
that foolish Hector's indiscreet curiosity and vehemence? Why, he is
a thoughtless boy--a spoiled child from the time he was in the nurse's
arms--he threw his coral and bells at my head for refusing him a bit of
sugar; and you have too much sense to mind such a shrewish boy: aequam
servare mentem is the motto of our friend Horace. I'll school Hector by
and by, and put it all to rights." But Lovel persisted in his design of
returning to Fairport.

The Antiquary then assumed a graver tone.--"Take heed, young man, to your
present feelings. Your life has been given you for useful and valuable
purposes, and should be reserved to illustrate the literature of your
country, when you are not called upon to expose it in her defence, or
in the rescue of the innocent. Private war, a practice unknown to the
civilised ancients, is, of all the absurdities introduced by the Gothic
tribes, the most gross, impious, and cruel. Let me hear no more of these
absurd quarrels, and I will show you the treatise upon the duello, which
I composed when the town-clerk and provost Mucklewhame chose to assume
the privileges of gentlemen, and challenged each other. I thought of
printing my Essay, which is signed Pacificator; but there was no need,
as the matter was taken up by the town-council of the borough."

"But I assure you, my dear sir, there is nothing between Captain
M'Intyre and me that can render such respectable interference
necessary."

"See it be so; for otherwise, I will stand second to both parties."

So saying, the old gentleman got into the chaise, close to which Miss
M'Intyre had detained her brother, upon the same principle that
the owner of a quarrelsome dog keeps him by his side to prevent his
fastening upon another. But Hector contrived to give her precaution
the slip, for, as he was on horseback, he lingered behind the carriages
until they had fairly turned the corner in the road to Knockwinnock, and
then, wheeling his horse's head round, gave him the spur in the opposite
direction.

A very few minutes brought him up with Lovel, who, perhaps anticipating
his intention, had not put his horse beyond a slow walk, when the
clatter of hoofs behind him announced Captain Mlntyre. The young
soldier, his natural heat of temper exasperated by the rapi