Search -
The Antiquary. by the Author of 'waverley'.
The Antiquary by the Author of 'waverley' Author:Walter Scott Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. The pawky auld carle cam ower the lea, Wi' tn,,,,v gooil-e'ens and good-morrows to me, Saying, Rind sir, for your courtesy, Will ye lodge a silly ... more »poor man ? The Gaberlumie Man. Our two friends moved through a little orchard, 'where the aged apple-trees, well loaded with fruit, showed, as is usual in the neighbourhood of monastic buildings, that the days of the monks had not always been spent in indolence, but often dedicated to horticulture and gardening. Mr Oldbuck failed not to make Lovel remark, that the planters of those days were possessed of the modern secret of preventing the roots of the fruit-trees from penetrating the till, and compelling them to spread in a lateral direction, by placing paving-stones beneath the trees when first planted, so as to interpose between their fibres and the sub-soil. This old fellow, he said, which was blown down last summer, and still, though half-reclined on the ground, is covered with fruit, has been, as you may see, accommodated with such a barrier, between hisroots and the unkindly till. That other tree has a story : the fruit is called the Abbot's Apple; the lady of a neighbouring baron was so fond of it, that she would often pay a visit to Monkbarns, to have the pleasure of gathering it from the tree. The husbaqd, a jealous man belike, suspected that a taste so nearly resembling that of Mother Eve prognosticated a similar fall. As the honour of a noble family is concerned, I will say no more on the subject, only that the lands of Lochard and Cringlecut still pay a fine of six bolls of barley annually, to atone the guilt of their audacious owner, who intruded himself and his worldly suspicions upon the seclusion of the Abbot and his penitent. Admire the little belfry rising above the ivy-mantled porch—there was he...« less