The mutual satisfaction which they found in each other’s society induced Mr. Oldbuck to propose, and Lovel willingly to accept, a scheme for travelling together to the end of their journey.  A postchaise having been engaged, they arrived at Fairport about two o’clock on the following day.

Lovel probably expected that his travelling companion would have invited him to dinner on his arrival; but his consciousness of a want of ready preparation for unexpected guests prevented Oldbuck from paying him that attention.  He only begged to see him as early as he could make it convenient to call in a forenoon, and recommended him to a widow who had apartments to let.

A few days later, when his baggage had arrived from Edinburgh, Mr. Lovel went forth to pay his respects at Monkbarns, and received a cordial welcome from Mr. Oldbuck.  They parted the best of friends, but the antiquary was still at a loss to know what this well-informed young man, without friends, connections, or employment, could have to do as a resident at Fairport.  Neither port wine nor whist had apparently any charms for him.  A coffee-room was his detestation, and he had as few sympathies with the tea-table.  There was never a Master Lovel of whom so little positive was known, but nobody knew any harm of him.

“A decent, sensible lad,” said the Laird of Monkbarns to himself, when these particulars of Lovel had been reported to him.  “He scorns to enter into the fooleries and nonsense of these idiot people at Fairport.  I must do something for him—­I must give him a dinner, and I will write to Sir Arthur to come to Monkbarns to meet him.  I must consult my womankind.”

Accordingly, such consultation having been held, the following letter was sent to Sir Arthur Wardour, of Knockwinnock Castle: 

“Dear Sir Arthur,—­On Tuesday, the 17th inst, I hold a symposium at Monkbarns, and pray you to assist thereat, at four o’clock precisely.  If my fair enemy, Miss Isabel, can and will honour us by accompanying you, my womankind will be but too proud.  I have a young acquaintance to make known to you, who is touched with some stain of a better spirit than belong to these giddy-paced times, reveres his elders, and has a pretty notion of the classics.  And as such a youth must have a natural contempt for the people about Fairport, I wish to show him some rational as well as worshipful society.  I am, dear Sir Arthur, etc., etc.”

In reply to this, at her father’s request, Miss Wardour intimated, “her own and Sir Arthur’s compliments, and that they would have the honour of waiting upon Mr. Oldbuck.  Miss Wardour takes this opportunity to renew her hostility with Mr. Oldbuck, on account of his long absence from Knockwinnock, where his visits give so much pleasure.”

II.—­The Treacherous Sands

Sir Arthur and his daughter had set out, on leaving Monkbarns, to return to Knockwinnock by the turnpike road; but when they discerned Lovel a little before them Miss Wardour immediately proposed to her father that they should take another direction, and walk home by the sands.