"That question, sir," said Bertram, "I shall also leave
unanswered."
"There is yet another circumstance to be inquired into, always
under Sir Robert's leave," insinuated Glossin. "This prisoner put
into the hands of Mrs. Mac-Candlish of Kippletringan a parcel
containing a variety of gold coins and valuable articles of
different kinds. Perhaps, Sir Robert, you might think it right to
ask, how he came by property of a description which seldom occurs?"
"You, sir, Mr, Vanbeest Brown, sir, you hear the question, sir,
which the gentleman asks you?"
"I have particular reasons for declining to answer that question,"
answered Bertram.
"Then I am afraid, sir," said Glossin, who had brought matters to
the point he desired to reach, "our duty must lay us under the
necessity to sign a warrant of committal."
"As you please, sir," answered Bertram; "take care, however, what
you do. Observe that I inform you that I am a captain in his
Majesty's--regiment, and that I am just returned from India, and
therefore cannot possibly be connected with any of those contraband
traders you talk of; that my Lieutenant-Colonel is now at
Nottingham, the Major, with the officers of my corps, at
Kingston-upon-Thames. I offer before you both to submit to any
degree of ignominy, if, within the return of the Kingston and
Nottingham posts, I am not able to establish these points. Or you
may write to the agent for the regiment, if you please, and--"
"This is all very well," said Glossin, beginning to fear lest the
firm expostulation of Bertram should make some impression on Sir
Robert, who would almost have died of shame at committing such a
solecism as sending a captain of horse to jail--"This is all very
well, sir; but is there no person nearer whom you could refer to?"
"There are only two persons in this country who know anything of
me," replied the prisoner. "One is a plain Liddesdale
sheep-farmer, called Dinmont of Charlies-hope; but he knows nothing
more of me than what I told him, and what I now tell you."
"Why, this is well enough, Sir Robert!" said Glossin, "I suppose he
would bring forward this thick-skulled fellow to give his oath of
credulity, Sir Robert, ha, ha, ha!"
"And what is your other witness, friend?" said the Baronet.
"A gentleman whom I have some reluctance to mention, because of
certain private reasons; but under whose command I served some time
in India, and who is too much a man of honour to refuse his
testimony to my character as a soldier and gentleman."
"And who is this doughty witness, pray, sir?" said Sir
Robert,--"some half-pay quarter-master or sergeant, I suppose?"
"Colonel Guy Mannering, late of tile--regiment, in which, as I told
you, I have a troop."
"Colonel Guy Mannering!" thought Glossin,--"who the devil could
have guessed this?"
"Colonel Guy Mannering!" echoed the Baronet, considerably shaken in
his opinion,--"My good sir,"--apart to Glossin, "the young man with
a dreadfully plebeian name, and a good deal of modest assurance,
has nevertheless something of the tone, and manners, and feeling of
a gentleman, of one at least who has lived in good society--they do
give commissions very loosely, and carelessly, and inaccurately, in
India--I think we had better pause till Colonel Mannering shall
return; he is now, I believe, at Edinburgh."
"You are in every respect the best judge, Sir Robert," answered
Glossin, "in every possible respect. I would only submit to you,
that we are certainly hardly entitled to dismiss this man upon an
assertion which cannot be satisfied by proof, and that we shall
incur a heavy responsibility by detaining him in private custody,
without committing him to a public jail. Undoubtedly, however, you
are the best judge, Sir Robert;--and I would only say, for my own
part, that I very lately incurred severe censure by detaining a
person in a place which I thought perfectly secure, and under the
custody of the proper officers. The man made his escape, and I
have no doubt my own character for attention and circumspection as
a magistrate has in some degree suffered--I only hint this--I will
join in any step you, Sir Robert, think most advisable." But Mr.
Glossin was well aware that such a hint was of power sufficient to
decide the motions of his self-important, but not self-relying
colleague. So that Sir Robert Hazlewood summed up the business in
the following speech, which proceeded partly upon the supposition
of the prisoner being really a gentleman, and partly upon the
opposite belief that he was a villain and an assassin.
"Sir, Mr. Vanbeest Brown--I would call you Captain Brown if there
was the least reason, or cause, or grounds to suppose that you are
a captain, or had a troop in the very respectable corps you
mention, or indeed in any other corps in his Majesty's service, as
to which circumstance I beg to be understood to give no positive,
settled, or unalterable judgment, declaration, or opinion. I say
therefore, sir, Mr. Brown, we have determined, considering the
unpleasant predicament in which you now stand, having been robbed,
as you say, an assertion as to which I suspend my opinion, and
being possessed of much and valuable treasure, and of a
brass-handled cutlass besides, as to your obtaining which you will
favour us with no explanation--I say, sir, we have determined and
resolved, and made up our minds, to commit you to jail, or rather
to assign you an apartment therein, in order that you may be
forthcoming upon Colonel Mannering's return from Edinburgh."
"With humble submission, Sir Robert," said Glossin, "may I inquire
if it is your purpose to send this young gentleman to the county
jail?--for if that were not your settled intention, I would take
the liberty to hint, that there would be less hardship in sending
him to the Bridewell at Portanferry, where he can be secured
without public exposure; a circumstance which, on the mere chance
of his story being really true, is much to be avoided."
"Why, there is a guard of soldiers at Portanferry, to be sure, for
protection of the goods in the Custom-house; and upon the whole,
considering everything, and that the place is comfortable for such
a place, I say all things considered, we will commit this person, I
would rather say authorise him to be detained, in the workhouse at
Portanferry."
The warrant was made out accordingly, and Bertram was informed he
was next morning to be removed to his place of confinement, as Sir
Robert had determined he should not be taken there under cloud of
night, for fear of rescue. He was, during the interval, to be
detained at Hazlewood House.
"It cannot be so hard as my imprisonment by the Looties in India,"
he thought; "nor can it last so long. But the deuce take the old
formal dunderhead, and his more sly associate, who speaks always
under his breath,--they cannot understand a plain man's story when
it is told them."
In the meanwhile Glossin took leave of the Baronet, with a thousand
respectful bows and cringing apologies for not accepting his
invitation to dinner, and venturing to hope he might be pardoned in
paying his respects to him, Lady Hazlewood, and young Mr.
Hazlewood, on some future occasion.
"Certainly, sir," said the Baronet, very graciously. I hope our
family was never at any time deficient in civility to our
neighbours; and when I ride that way, good Mr. Glossin, I will
convince you of this by calling at your house as familiarly as is
consistent--that is, as can be hoped or expected."
"And now," said Glossin to himself, "to find Dirk Hatteraick and
his people,--to get the guard sent off from the Custom-house,--and
then for the grand cast of the dice. Everything must depend upon
speed. How lucky that Mannering has betaken himself to Edinburgh!
His knowledge of this young fellow is a most perilous addition to
my dangers,"--here he suffered his horse to slacken his
pace--"What if I should try to compound with the heir?--It's likely
he might be brought to pay a round sum for restitution, and I could
give up Hatteraick--But no, no, no! there were too many eyes on me,
Hatteraick himself, and the gipsy sailor, and that old hag--No, no!
I must stick to my original plan. "And with that he struck his
spurs against his horse's flanks, and rode forward at a hard trot
to put his machines in motion.
CHAPTER XLIV.
A prison is a house of care, A place where none can thrive,
A touchstone true to try a friend, A grave for one alive.
Sometimes a place of right, Sometimes a place of wrong,
Sometimes a place of rogues and thieves, And honest men
among. Inscription on Edinburgh Tollbooth.
Early on the following morning, the carriage which had brought
Bertram to Hazlewood House, was, with his two silent and surly
attendants, appointed to convey him to his place of confinement at
Portanferry. This building adjoined to the Custom-house
established at that little seaport, and both were situated so close
to the sea-beach that it was necessary to defend the back part with
a large and strong rampart or bulwark of huge stones, disposed in a
slope towards the surf, which often reached and broke upon them.
The front was surrounded by a high wall, enclosing a small
courtyard, within which the miserable inmates of the mansion were
occasionally permitted to take exercise and air. The prison was
used as a House of Correction, and sometimes as a chapel of case
to the county jail, which was old, and far from being conveniently
situated with reference to the Kippletringan district of the
county. Mac-Guffog, the officer by whom Bertram had at first been
apprehended, and who was now in attendance upon him, was keeper of
this palace of little-ease. He caused the carriage to be drawn
close up to the outer gate, and got out himself to summon the
warders. The noise of his rap alarmed some twenty or thirty ragged
boys, who left off sailing their mimic sloops and frigates in the
little pools of salt water left by the receding tide, and hastily
crowded round the vehicle to see what luckless being was to be
delivered to the prison-house out of "Glossin's braw new
carriage." The door of the courtyard, after the heavy clanking of
many chains and bars, was opened by Mrs. MacGuffog, an awful
spectacle, being a woman for strength and resolution capable of
maintaining order among her riotous inmates, and of administering
the discipline of the house, as it was called, during the absence
of her husband, or when he chanced to have taken an overdose of the
creature. The growling voice of this Amazon, which rivalled in
harshness the crashing music of her own bolts and bars, soon
dispersed in every direction the little varlets who had thronged
around her threshold, and she next addressed her amiable
helpmate:--
"Be sharp, man, and get out the swell, canst thou not?"
"Hold your tongue and be d-d, you--," answered her loving husband,
with two additional epithets of great energy, but which we beg to
be excused from repeating. Then, addressing Bertram:
"Come, will you get out, my handy lad, or must we lend you a lift?"
Bertram came out of the carriage, and, collared by the constable as
he put his foot on the ground, was dragged, though he offered no
resistance, across the threshold, amid the continued shouts of the
little sans-culottes, who looked on at such distance as their fear
of Mrs. Mac-Guffog permitted. The instant his foot had crossed the
fatal porch, the portress again dropped her chains, drew her bolts,
and turning with both hands an immense key, took it from the lock,
and thrust it into a huge side-pocket of red cloth.
Bertram was now in the small court already mentioned. Two or three
prisoners were sauntering along the pavement, and deriving as it
were a feeling of refreshment from the monetary glimpse with which
the opening door had extended their prospect to the other side of a
dirty street. Nor can this he thought surprising, when it is
considered, that, unless on such occasions, their view was confined
to the grated front of their prison, the high and sable walls of
the courtyard, the heaven above them, and the pavement beneath
their feet; a sameness of landscape, which, to use the poet's
expression, "lay like a load on the wearied eye," and had fostered
in some a callous and dull misanthropy, in others that sickness of
the heart which induces him who is immured already in a living
grave, to wish for a sepulchre yet more calm and sequestered.
Mac-Guffog, when they entered the courtyard, suffered Bertram to
pause for a minute, and look upon his companions in affliction.
When he had cast his eye around, on faces on which guilt, and
despondence, and low excess, had fixed their stigma; upon the
spendthrift, and the swindler, and the thief, the bankrupt debtor,
the "moping idiot, and the madman gay," whom a paltry spirit of
economy congregated to share this dismal habitation, he felt his
heart recoil with inexpressible loathing from enduring the
contamination of their society even for a moment.
"I hope, sir," he said to the keeper "you intend to assign me a
place of confinement apart?
"And what should I be the better of that?"
"Why, sir I can but be detained here a day or two, and it would be
very disagreeable to me to mix in the sort of company this place
affords."
"And what do I care for that?"
"Why, then, sir, to speak to your feelings," said Bertram, "I shall
be willing to make you a handsome compliment for this indulgence."
"Ay, but when, Captain? when and how? that's the question, or
rather, the twa questions," said the jailor.
"When I am delivered, and get my remittances from England,"
answered the prisoner.
Mac-Guffog shook his head incredulously. "Why, friend, you do not
pretend to believe that I am really a malefactor?" said Bertram.
"Why, I no ken," said the fellow; "but if you are on the account,
ye're nae sharp ane, that's the daylight o't."
"And why do you say I am no sharp one?"
"Why, wha but a crack-brained greenhorn wad hae let them keep up
the siller that ye left at the Gordon Arms?" said the constable.
"Deil fetch me, but I wad have held it out o' their wames [*Bellies
] Ye had nae right to be strippit o' your money and sent to jail
without a mark to pay your fees--; they might have keepit the rest
o' the articles for evidence. But why, for a blind bottle-head,
did not ye ask the guineas? and I kept winking and nodding a' the
time, and the donnert [*Stupid] deevil wad never ance look my
way!"
"Well, sir," replied Bertram, "if I have a title to have that
property delivered up to me, I shall apply for it; and there is a
good deal more than enough to pay any demand you can set up."
"I dinna ken a bit about that," said Mac-Guffog; "ye may be here
lang eneugh. And then the giving credit maun be considered in the
fees. But, however, as ye do seem to be a chap by common, though
my wife says I lose by my good-nature, if ye gie me an order for
my fees upon that money--I dare say Glossin will make it
forthcoming--l ken something about an escape from Ellangowan--ay,
ay, he'll be glad to carry me through, and be neighbour-like."
"Well, sir," replied Bertram," if I am not furnished in a day or
two otherwise, you shall have such--an order."
"Weel, weel, then ye shall be put up like a prince," said
Mac-Guffog. "But mark ye me, friend, that we may have nae
colly-shangie [*Quarrel] afterhend, these are the fees I always
charge a swell that must have his libken to himsell--Thirty
shillings a week for lodgings, and a guinea for garnish;
half-a-guinea a week for a single bed,--and I dinna get the whole
of it, for I must gie half-a-crown out of it to Donald Laider
that's in for sheep-stealing, that should sleep with you by rule,
and he'll expect clean strae, and maybe some whisky beside. So I
make little upon that."
"Well, sir, go on."
"Then for meat and liquor, ye may have the best, and I never charge
abune twenty per cent. ower tavern price for pleasing a gentleman
that way--and that's little eneugh for sending in and sending out,
and wearing the lassie's shoon out. And then if ye're dowie, I
will sit wi' you a gliff [*Twinkling] in the evening mysell, man,
and help ye out wi' your bottle.--I have drunk mony a glass wi'
Glossin, man, that did you up, though he's a justice now. And then
I'se warrant ye'll be for fire thir cauld nights, or if ye want
candle, that's an expensive article, for it's against the rules.
And now I've tell'd ye the head articles of the charge, and I dinna
think there's muckle mair, though there will aye be some odd
expenses ower and abune."
"Well, sir, I must trust to your conscience, if ever you happened
to hear of such a thing--I cannot help myself."
"Na, na, sir," answered the cautious jailor, "I'll no permit you to
be saying that--I'm forcing naething upon ye;--an ye dinna like the
price ye needna take the article--I force no man; I was only
explaining what civility was; but if ye like to take the common run
of the house, it's a' one to me--I'll be saved trouble, that's a'."
"Nay, my friend, I have, as I suppose you may easily guess, no
inclination to dispute your terms upon such a penalty," answered
Bertram. "Come, show me where I am to be, for I would fain be
alone for a little while."
"Ay, ay, come along then, Captain," said the fellow, with a
contortion of visage which he intended to be a smile; "and I'll
tell you now,--to show you that I have a conscience, as ye ca't,
d-n me if I charge ye abune sixpence a day for the freedom o' the
court, and ye may walk in't very near three hours a day, and play
at pitch-and-toss and handba', and what not."
With this gracious promise, he ushered Bertram into the house, and
showed him up a steep and narrow stone staircase, at the top of
which was a strong door, clenched with iron and studded with
nails. Beyond this door was a narrow passage or gallery, having
three cells on each side, wretched ,vaults, with iron bed-frames
and straw mattresses. But at the farther end was a small apartment,
of rather a more decent appearance, that is, having less the air of
a place of confinement, since, unless for the large lock and chain
upon the door, and the crossed and ponderous stanchions upon the
window, it rather resembled the "worst inn's worst room." It was
designed as a sort of infirmary for prisoners whose state of health
required some indulgence; and, in fact, Donald Laider, Bertram's
destined chum, had been just dragged out of one of the two beds
which it contained, to try whether clean straw and whisky might not
have a better chance to cure his intermitting fever. This process
of ejection had been carried into force by Mrs. Mac-Guffog while
her husband parleyed with Bertram in the courtyard, that good lady
having a distinct presentiment of the manner in which the treaty
must necessarily terminate. Apparently the expulsion had not taken
place without some application of the strong hand, for one of the
bed-posts of a sort of tent-bed was broken down, so that the tester
and curtains hung forward into the middle of the narrow chamber,
like the banner of a chieftain, half-sinking amid the confusion of
a combat.
"Never mind that being out o' sorts, Captain," said Mrs.
Mac-Guffog, who now followed them into the room; then, turning her
back to the prisoner, with as much delicacy as the action admitted,
she whipped from her knee her ferret garter, and applied it to
splicing and fastening the broken bed-post--then used more pins
than her apparel could well spare to fasten up the bed-curtains in
festoons--then shook the bed-clothes into something like form--then
flung over all a tattered patchwork quilt, and pronounced that
things were now "something purpose-like."
"And there's your bed, Captain," pointing to a massy four-posted
bulk, which, owing to the inequality of the floor that had sunk
considerably (the house, though new, having been built by
contract), stood on three legs, and held the fourth aloft as if
pawing the air, and in the attitude of advancing like an elephant
passant upon the panel of a coach--"There's your bed and the
blankets; but if ye want sheets, or bowster, or pillow, or ony sort
o' nappery for the table, or for your hands, ye'll hae to speak to
me about it, for that's out o' the gudeman's line (Mac-Guffog had
by this time left the room, to avoid, probably, any appeal which
might he made to him upon this new exaction), and he never engages
for onything like that."
"In God's name," said Bertram, "let me have what is decent, and
make any charge you please."
"Aweel, aweel, that's sune settled; we'll no excise you neither,
Though we live sae near the Custom-house. And I maun see to get
you some fire and some dinner too, I'se warrant; but your dinner
will be but a puir ane the day, no expecting company that would be
nice and fashious."--So saying, and in all haste, Mrs. Mac-Guffog
fetched a scuttle of live coals, and having replenished "the rusty
grate, unconscious of a fire" for months before, she proceeded with
unwashed hands to arrange the stipulated bed-linen (alas, how
different from Ailie Dinmont's!), and muttering to herself as she
discharged her task, seemed, in inveterate spleen of temper, to
grudge even those accommodations for which she was to receive
payment. At length, however, she departed, grumbling between her
teeth, that "she wad rather lock up a haill ward than be fiking
about thae niff-naffy [*Fastidious] gentles that gae sae muckle
fash [*Trouble] wi' their fancies."
When she was gone, Bertram found himself reduced to the alternative
of pacing his little apartment for exercise, or gazing out upon the
sea in such proportions as could be seen from the narrow panes of
his window, obscured by dirt and by close iron-bars, or reading
over the records of brutal wit and black-guardism which despair had
scrawled upon the half-whitened walls. The sounds were as
uncomfortable as the objects of sight; the sullen dash of the tide,
which was now retreating, and the occasional opening and shutting
of a door, with all its accompaniments of jarring bolts and
creaking hinges, mingling occasionally with the dull monotony of
the retiring ocean. Sometimes, too, he could hear the hoarse growl
of the keeper, or the shriller strain of his helpmate, almost
always in the tone of discontent, anger, or insolence. At other
times the large mastiff, chained in the court-yard, answered with
furious bark the insults of the idle loiterers who made a sport of
incensing him.
At length the tedium of this weary space was broken by the entrance
of a dirty-looking serving wench, who made some preparations for
dinner by laying a half-dirty cloth upon a whole-dirty deal table.
A knife and fork, which had not been worn out by over-cleaning,
flanked a cracked delf plate; a nearly empty mustard-pot, placed on
one side of the table, balanced a salt-cellar, containing an
article of a grayish, or rather a blackish mixture, upon the other,
both of stone-ware, and bearing too obvious marks of recent
service. Shortly after, the same Hebe brought up a plate of
beef-collops, done in the frying-pan, with a huge allowance of
grease floating in an ocean of lukewarm water; and having added a
coarse loaf to these savoury viands, she requested to know what
liquors the gentleman chose to order. The appearance of this fare
was not very inviting; but Bertram endeavoured to mend his commons
by ordering wine, which he found tolerably good, and, with the
assistance of some indifferent cheese, made his dinner chiefly off
the brown loaf. When his meal was over, the girl presented her
master's compliments, and, if agreeable to the gentleman, he would
help him to spend the evening. Bertram desired to be excused, and
begged, instead of this gracious society, that he might be
furnished with paper, pen, ink, and candles. The light appeared in
the shape of one long broken tallow-candle, inclining over a tin
candlestick coated with grease; as for the writing materials, the
prisoner was informed that he might have them the next day if he
chose to send out to buy them. Bertram next desired the maid to
procure him a book, and enforced his request with a shilling; in
consequence of which, after long absence, she reappeared with two
odd volumes of the Newgate Calendar, which she had borrowed from
Sam Silverquill, an idle apprentice, who was imprisoned under a
charge of forgery. Having laid the books on the table she retired,
and left Bertram to studies which were not ill adapted to his
present melancholy situation.
CHAPTER XLV.
But if thou shouldst he dragg'd in scorn
To yonder ignominious tree,
Thou shalt not want one faithful friend
To share the cruel fates' decree.
Shenstone.
Plunged in the gloomy reflections which were naturally excited by
his dismal reading, and disconsolate situation, Bertram, for the
first time in his life, felt himself affected with a disposition to
low spirits. "I have been in worse situations than this too," he
said;--"more dangerous, for here is no danger; more dismal in
prospect, for my present confinement must necessarily be short;
more intolerable for the time, for here, at least, I have fire,
food, and shelter. Yet, with reading these bloody tales of crime
and misery, in a place so corresponding to the ideas which they
excite, and in listening to these sad sounds, I feel a stronger
disposition to melancholy than in my life I ever experienced. But
I will not give way to it.--Begone, thou record of guilt and
infamy!" he said, flinging the book upon the spare bed; "a Scottish
jail shall not break, on the very first day, the spirits which have
resisted climate, and want, and penury, and disease, and
imprisonment, in a foreign land. I have fought many a hard battle
with dame Fortune, and she shall not beat me now if I can help it."
Then bending his mind to a strong effort, he endeavoured to view
his situation in the most favourable light. Delaserre must soon be
in Scotland; the certificates from his commanding officer must soon
arrive; nay, if Mannering were first applied to, who could say but
the effect might be a reconciliation between them? He had often
observed, and now remembered, that when his former colonel took the
part of any one, it was never by halves, and that he seemed to love
those persons most who had lain under obligation to him. In the
present case, a favour, which could be asked with honour and
granted with readiness, might be the means of reconciling them to
each other. From this his feelings naturally turned towards Julia;
and, without very nicely measuring the distance between a soldier
of fortune, who expected that her father's attestation would
deliver him from confinement, and the heiress of that father's
wealth and expectations, he was building the gayest castle in the
clouds, and varnishing it with all the tints of a summer-evening
sky, when his labour was interrupted by a loud knocking at the
outer gate, answered by the barking of the gaunt half-starved
mastiff, which was quartered in the courtyard as an addition to the
garrison. After much scrupulous precaution the gate was opened,
and some person admitted. The house-door was next unbarred,
unlocked, and unchained, a dog's feet pattered upstairs in great
haste, and the animal was heard scratching and whining at the door
of the room. Next a heavy step was heard lumbering up, and
Mac-Guffog's voice in the character of pilot--"This way, this way;
take care of the step;--that's the room."--Bertram's door was
then unbolted, and, to his great surprise and joy, his terrier,
Wasp, rushed into the apartment, and almost devoured him with
caresses, followed by the massy form of his friend from
Charlies-hope.
"Eh whow! Eh whow!" ejaculated the honest farmer, as he looked
round upon his friend's miserable apartment and wretched
accommodation--"What's this o't! what's this o't!"
"Just a trick of fortune, my good friend," said Bertram, rising and
shaking him heartily by the hand, "that's all."
"But what will be done about it?--or what can be done about it?"
said honest Dandie--"is't for debt, or what is't for?"
"Why, it is not for debt," answered Bertram; and if you have time
to sit down, I'll tell you all I know of the matter myself."
"If I hae time?" said Dandie, with an accent on the word that
sounded like a howl of derision--"Ou, what the deevil am I come
here for, man, but just ance errand to see about it? But ye'll no
be the waur o' something to eat, I trow;--it's getting late at
e'en--I tell'd the folk at the Change, where I put up Dumple, to
send ower my supper here, and the chield Mac-Guffog is agreeable to
let it in--I hae settled a' that.--And now let's hear your
story--Whisht, Wasp, man! wow but he's glad to see you, poor
thing!"
Bertram's story, being confined to the accident of Hazlewood, and
the confusion made between his own ,identity and that of one of the
smugglers, who had been active in the assault of Woodbourne, and
chanced to bear the same name, was soon told. Dinmont listened
very attentively. "Aweel," he said, "this suld be nae sic
dooms-desperate business surely--the lad's doing weel again that
was hurt, and what signifies twa or three lead draps in his
shouther? if ye had putten out his ee it would hae been another
case. But eh, as I wuss auld Sherra Pleydell was to the fore
here!--odd, he was the man for sorting them, and the queerest
rough-spoken deevil too that ever ye heard!"
"But now tell me, my excellent friend, how did you find out I was
here?"
"Odd, lad, queerly eneugh," said Dandie; "but I'll tell ye that
after ye are done wi' our supper, for it will maybe no be sae weel
to speak about it while that lang-lugged limmer o' a lass is gaun
flisking in and out o' the room."
Bertram's curiosity was in some degree put to rest by the
appearance of the supper which his friend had ordered, which,
although homely enough, had the appetising cleanliness in which
Mrs. Mac-Guffog's cookery was so eminently deficient. Dinmont
also, premising he had ridden the whole day since breakfast-time,
without tasting anything "to speak of," which qualifying phrase
related to about three pounds of cold roast mutton which he had
discussed at his midday stage,--Dinmont, I say, fell stoutly upon
the good cheer, and, like one of Homer's heroes, said little,
either good or bad, till the rage of thirst and hunger was
appeased. At length, after a draught of home-brewed ale, he began
by observing, "Aweel, aweel, that hen," looking upon the lamentable
relics of what had been once a large fowl, "wasna a bad ane to be
bred at a town end, though it's no like our barn-door chuckles at
Charlies-hope--and I am glad to see that this vexing job hasna taen
awa your appetite, Captain."
"Why, really, my dinner was not so excellent, Mr. Dinmont, as to
spoil my supper."
"I dare say no, I dare say no," said Dandie:--"But now, hinny, that
ye hae brought us the brandy, and the mug wi' the het water, and
the sugar, and a' right, ye may steak [*Fasten] the door, ye see,
for we wad hae some o' our ain cracks." [*Conversation] The
damsel accordingly retired, and shut the door of the apartment, to
which she added the precaution of drawing a large bolt on the
outside.
As soon as she was gone, Dandie reconnoitred the premises, listened
at the keyhole as if he had been listening for the blowing of an
otter, and having satisfied himself that there were no
eavesdroppers, returned to the table; and making himself what he
called a gey stiff cheerer, poked the fire, and began his story in
an undertone of gravity and importance not very usual with him.
"Ye see, Captain, I had been in Edinbro' for twa or three days,
looking after the burial of a friend that we hae lost, and maybe I
suld hae had something for my ride; but there's disappointments in
a' things, and wha can help the like o' that? And I had a wee bit
law business besides, but that's neither here nor there. In short,
I had got my matters settled, and hame I cam; and the morn awa to
the muirs to see what the herds had been about, and I thought I
might as weel gie a look to the Tout-hope head, where Jock o'
Dawston and me has the outcast about a march.--Weel, just as I was
coming upon the bit I saw a man afore me that I kenn'd was nane o'
our herds, and it's a wild bit to meet ony other body, so when I
cam up to him, it was Tod Gabriel the fox-hunter. So I says to
him, rather surprised like, 'What are ye doing up amang the craws
here, without your hounds, man? are ye seeking the fox without the
dogs?' So he said, 'Na, gudeman, but I wanted to see yourself.'
"'Ay,' said I, 'and ye'll be wanting eilding now, or something to
pit ower the winter?'
"'Na, na,' quo' he, I it's no that I'm seeking; but ye tak an unco
concern in that Captain Brown that was staying wi' you, d'ye no?'
"Troth do I, Gabriel,' says I; 'and what about him, lad?'
"Says he, 'There's mair tak an interest in him than you, and some
that I am bound to obey; and it's no just on my ain will that I'm
here to tell you something about him that will no please you.'
"'Faith, naething will please me,' quo' I, 'that's no pleasing to
him.'
"'And then,' quo' he, 'ye'll be ill-sorted to hear that he's like
to be in the prison at Portanferrv, if he disna tak a' the better
care o' himself, for there's been warrants out to tak him as soon
as he comes ower the water frae Allonby. And now, gudeman, an ever
ye wish him weel, ye maun ride down to Portanferry, and let nae
grass grow at the nag's heels; and if ye find him in confinement,
ye maun stay beside him night and day, for a day or twa, for he'll
want friends that hae baith heart and hand; and if ye neglect this
ye'll never rue but ance, for it will be for a' your life.,
"'But, safe us, man,' quo' I, 'how did ye learn a' this? it's an
unco way between this and Portanferry.'
"'Never ye mind that,' quo' he, 'them that brought us the news rade
night and day, and ye maun be aff instantly if ye wad do ony
gude--and sae I have naething mair to tell ye.'--Sae he sat
himself doun and hirselled [*Creeping sideways in a sitting
posture by means of the hands.] doun into the glen, where it wad
hae been ill following him wi' the beast, and I cam back to
Charlies-hope to tell the gudewife, for I was uncertain what to
do. It wad look unco-like, I thought, just to be sent out on a
hunt-the-gowk errand wi' a land-louper [*Vagrant] like that. But,
Lord! as the gudewife set up her throat about it, and said what a
shame it wad be if ye was to come to ony wrang, an I could help ye;
and then in cam your letter that confirmed it. So I took to the
kist, and out wi' the, pickle [*A supply.] notes in case they
should be needed, and a' the bairns ran to saddle Dumple. By great
luck I had taen the other beast to Edinbro', sae Dumple was as
fresh as a rose Sae aff I set, and Wasp wi' me, for ye wad really
hae thought he kenn'd where I was gaun, puir beast; and here I am
after a trot o' sixty mile, or near by. But Wasp rade thirty of
them afore me on the saddle, and the puir doggie balanced itself as
ane o' the weans wad hae dune, whether I trotted or cantered."
In this strange story Bertram obviously saw, supposing the warning
to be true, some intimation of danger more violent and imminent
than could be likely to arise from a few days' imprisonment. At
the same time it was equally evident that some unknown friend was
working in his behalf. "Did you not say," he asked Dinmont, "that
this man Gabriel was of gipsy blood?"
"It was e'en judged sae," said Dinmont, "and I think this maks it
likely; for they aye ken where the gangs o' ilk ither I are to be
found, and they can gar news flee like a footba' through the
country an they like. An' I forgat to tell ye, there's been an
unco inquiry after the auld wife that we saw in Bewcastle; the
Sheriffs had folk ower the Limestane Edge after her, and down the
Hermitage and Liddel, and a' gates, and a reward offered for her to
appear, o' fifty pound sterling, nae less; and justice Forster,
he's had out warrants, as I am tell'd, in Cumberland, and an unco
ranging and riping [*A Searching.] they have had a' gates seeking
for her; but she'll no be taen wi' them unless she likes, for a'
that."
"And how comes that?" said Bertram.
"Ou, I dinna ken; I daur say it's nonsense, but they say she has
gathered the fern-seed, and can gang ony gate she likes, like
Jock-the-Giant-killer in the ballant, wi' his coat o'darkness and
his shoon o' swiftness. Ony way she's a kind o' queen amang the
gipsies; she is mair than a hundred year auld, folk say, and minds
the coming in o' the moss-troopers in the troublesome times when
the Stuarts were put awa. Sae, if she canna hide herself, she kens
them that can hide her weel eneugh, ye needna doubt that. Odd, an
I had kenn'd it had been Meg Merrilies yon night at Tibb Mumps's, I
wad taen care how I crossed her."
Bertram listened with great attention to this account, which
tallied so well in many points with what he had himself seen of
this gipsy sibyl. After a moment's consideration, he concluded it
would be no breach of faith to mention what he had seen at
Derncleugh to a person who held Meg in such reverence as Dinmont
obviously did. He told his story accordingly, often interrupted by
ejaculations such as, "Weel, the like o' that now!" or, "Na, deil
an that's no something now!"
When our Liddesdale friend had heard the whole to an end, he shook
his great black head--"Weel, I'll uphaud there's baith gude and ill
amang the gipsies, and if they deal wi' the Enemy, it's a' their
ain business and no ours.--I ken what the streeking the corpse wad
be, weel eneugh. Thae smuggler deevils, when ony o' them's killed
in a fray, they'll send for a wife like Meg far eneugh to dress the
corpse; odd, it's a' the burial they ever think o'! and then to be
put into the ground without ony decency, just like dogs. But they
stick to it, that they" be streekit, and hae an auld wife when
they're dying to rhyme ower prayers, and ballants, and charms, as
they ca' them, rather than they'll hae a minister to come and pray
wi' them--that's an auld threep o' theirs; and I am thinking the
man that died will hae been ane o' the folk that was shot when they
burnt Woodbourne."
"But, my good friend, Woodbourne is not burnt," said Bertram.
"Weel, the better for them that bides in't," answered the
store-farmer. "Odd, we had it up the water wi' us, that there
wasna a stane on the tap o' anither. But there was fighting, ony
way; I daur to say, it would he fine fun! And, as I said, Ye may
take it on trust, that that's been ane o' the men killed there, and
that it's been the gipsies that took your pockmanky when they fand
the chaise stickin' in the snaw--they wadna pass the like a'
that--it wad just come to their hand like the bowl o' a pint
stoup." [*The handle of a stoup of liquor; than which, our proverb
seems to infer, there is nothing comes more readily to the grasp.]
"But if this woman is a sovereign among them, why was she not able
to afford me open protection, and to get me back my property?"
"Ou, wha kens? she has muckle to say wi' them, but whiles they'll
tak their ain way for a' that, when they're under temptation. And
then there's the smugglers that they're aye leagued wi', she maybe
couldna manage them sae weel-they're aye banded thegither--l've
heard that the gipsies ken when the smugglers will come aff, and
where they're to land, better than the very merchants that deal wi'
them. And then, to the boot o' that, she's whiles crack-brained,
and has a bee in her head; they say that whether her spaeings and
fortune-tellings be true or no, for certain she believes in them a'
hersell, and is aye guiding herself by some queer prophecy or
anither. So she disna aye gang the straight road to the well.--But
deil o' sic a story as yours, wi' glamour and dead folk and losing
ane's gate, I ever heard out o' the tale-books!--But whisht, I hear
the keeper coming."
Mac-Guffog accordingly interrupted their discourse by the harsh
harmony of the bolts and bars, and showed his bloated visage at the
opening door. "Come, Mr. Dinmont, we have put off locking up for
an hour to oblige ye; ye must go to your quarters."
"Quarters, man? I intend to sleep here the night. There's a spare
bed in the Captain's room."
"It's impossible!" answered the keeper.
"But I say it is possible, and that I winna stir--and there's a
dram t'ye."
Mac-Guffog drank off the spirits, and resumed his objection. "But
it's against rule, sir; ye have committed nae malefaction."
"I'll break your head," said the sturdy Liddesdale man, "if ye say
ony mair about it, and that will be malefaction eneugh to entitle
me to ae night's lodging wi' you ony way."
"But I tell ye, Mr. Dinmont," reiterated the keeper, it's against
rule, and I behoved to lose my post."
"Weel, Mac-Guffog," said Dandie, "I hae just twa things to say. Ye
ken wha I am weel eneugh, and that I wadna loose a prisoners"
"And how do I ken that?" answered the jailor.
"Weel, if ye dinna ken that," said the resolute farmer, "ye ken
this;--ye ken ye're whiles obliged to be up our water in the way o'
your business; now, if ye let me stay quietly here the night wi'
the Captain, I'se pay ye double fees for the room; and if ye say
no, ye shall hae the best sark-fu' o' sair banes that ever ye had
in your life, the first time ye set a foot by Liddel-moat!"
"Aweel, aweel, gudeman," said Mac-Guffog, "a wilfu' man maun hae
his way; but if I am challenged for it by the justices, I ken wha
sail bear the wyte;"--and having scaled this observation with a
deep oath or two, he retired to bed, after carefully securing all
the doors of the Bridewell. The bell from the town steeple toiled
nine just as the ceremony was concluded.
"Although it's but early hours," said the farmer, who had observed
that his friend looked somewhat pale and fatigued, "I think we had
better lie down, Captain, if ye're no agreeable to another
cheerer. But troth, ye're nae glass-breaker; and neither am I,
unless it be a screed wi' the neighbours, or when I'm on a ramble."
Bertram readily assented to the motion of his faithful friend, but,
on looking at the bed, felt repugnance to trust himself undressed
to Mrs. Mac-Guffog's clean sheets.
"I'm muckle o' your opinion, Captain," said Dandie. "Odd, this bed
looks as if a' the colliers in Sanquhar had been in't thegither.
But it'll no win through my muckle coat. "So saying, he flung
himself upon the frail bed with a force that made all its timbers
crack, and in a few moments gave audible signal that he was fast
asleep. Bertram slipped off his coat and boots, and, occupied the
other dormitory. The strangeness of his destiny, and the mysteries
which appeared to thicken around him, while he seemed alike to be
persecuted and protected by secret enemies and friends, arising out
of a class of people with whom he had no previous connection, for
some time occupied his thoughts. Fatigue, however, gradually
composed his mind, and in a short time he was as fast asleep as his
companion. And in this comfortable state of oblivion we must leave
them, until we acquaint the reader with some other circumstances
which occurred about the same period.
CHAPTER XLVI.
--Say from whence You owe this strange intelligence? or
why Upon this blasted heath you stop our way With such
prophetic greeting?--Speak, I charge you.
Macbeth
Upon the evening of the day when Bertram's examination had taken
place, Colonel Mannering arrived at Woodbourne from Edinburgh. He
found his family n their usual state, which probably, so far as
Julia vas concerned, would not have been the case had she learned
the news of Bertram's arrest. But as, during the Colonel's
absence, the two young ladies lived much retired, this circumstance
fortunately had not reached Woodbourne. A letter had already made
Miss Bertram acquainted with the downfall of the expectations which
had been formed upon the bequest of her kinswoman. Whatever hopes
that news night have dispelled, the disappointment did not prevent
her from joining her friend in affording a cheerful reception to
the Colonel, to whom she thus endeavoured to express the deep sense
she entertained of his paternal kindness. She touched on her
regret, that at such a season of the year he should have made, upon
her account, a journey so fruitless.
"That it was fruitless to you, my dear," said the Colonel, "I do
most deeply lament; but for, my own share, I have made some
valuable acquaintances, and have spent the time I have been absent
in Edinburgh with peculiar satisfaction; so that, on that score,
there is nothing to be regretted. Even our friend the Dominie is
returned thrice the man he was, from having sharpened his wits in
controversy with the geniuses of the northern metropolis."
"Of a surety," said the Dominie, with great complacency, "I did
wrestle, and was not overcome, though my adversary was cunning in
his art."
"I presume," said Miss Mannering, "the conquest was somewhat
fatiguing, Mr. Sampson?"
"Very much, young lady--howbeit I girded up my loins and strove
against him."
"I can bear witness," said the Colonel; "I never saw an affair
better contested. The enemy was like the Mahratta cavalry; he
assailed on all sides, and presented no fair mark for artillery;
but Mr. Sampson stood to his guns, notwithstanding, and fired away,
now upon the enemy, and now upon the dust which he had raised. But
we must not fight our battles over again to-night--to-morrow we
shall have the whole at breakfast."
The next morning at breakfast, however, the Dominie did not make
his appearance. He had walked out, a servant said, early in the
morning. It was so common for him to forget his meals, that his
absence never deranged the family. The housekeeper, a decent
old-fashioned Presbyterian matron, having, as such, the highest
respect for Sampson's theological acquisitions, had it in charge on
these occasions to take care that he was no sufferer by his absence
of mind, and therefore usually, waylaid him on his return, to
remind him of his sublunary wants, and to minister to their
relief. It seldom, however, happened that he was absent from two
meals together, as was the case in the present instance. We must
explain the cause of this unusual occurrence.
The conversation which Mr. Pleydell had held with Mr. Mannering on
the subject of the loss of Harry Bertram, had awakened all the
painful sensations which that event had inflicted upon Sampson. The
affectionate heart of the poor Dominie had always reproached him,
that his negligence in leaving the child in the care of Frank
Kennedy had been the proximate cause of the murder of the one, the
loss of the other, the death of Mrs. Bertram, and the ruin of the
family of his patron. It was a subject which he never conversed
upon,--if indeed his mode of speech could be called conversation at
any time,--but it was often present to his imagination. The sort
of hope so strongly affirmed and asserted in Mrs. Bertram's last
settlement, had excited a corresponding feeling in the Dominie's
bosom, which was exasperated into a sort of sickening anxiety, by
the discredit with which Pleydell had treated it.--"Assuredly,"
thought Sampson to himself, "he is a man of erudition, and well
skilled in the weighty matters of the law; but he is also a man of
humorous levity and inconsistency of speech; and wherefore should
he pronounce ex cathedra, as it were, on the hope expressed by
worthy Madam Margaret Bertram of Singleside?"
All this, I say, the Dominie thought to himself for had he uttered
half the sentence, his jaws would have ached for a month under the
unusual fatigue of such a continued exertion. The result of these
cogitations was a resolution to go and visit the scene of the
tragedy at Warroch Point, where he had not been for many
years--not, indeed, since the fatal accident had happened. The
walk was a long one, for the Point of Warroch lay on the farther
side of the Ellangowan property, which was interposed between it
and Woodbourne. Besides, the Dominie went astray more than once,
and met with brooks swollen into torrents by the melting of the
snow, where he, honest man, had only the summer-recollection of
little trickling rills.
At length, however, he reached the woods which he had made the
object of his excursion, and traversed them with care, muddling
his disturbed brains with vague efforts to recall every
circumstance of the catastrophe. It will readily be supposed that
the influence of local situation and association was inadequate to
produce conclusions different from those which he had formed under
the immediate pressure of the occurrences themselves. "With many a
weary sigh, therefore, and many a groan," the poor Dominie returned
from his hopeless pilgrimage, and weariedly plodded his way towards
Woodbourne, debating at times in his altered mind a question which
was forced upon him by the cravings of an appetite rather of the
keenest, namely, whether he had breakfasted that morning or no?--It
was in this twilight humour, now thinking of the loss of the child,
then involuntarily compelled to meditate upon the somewhat
incongruous subject of hung-beef, rolls, and butter, that his
route, which was different from that which he had taken in the
morning, conducted him past the small ruined--tower, or rather
vestige of a tower, called by the country people the Kaim of
Derncleugh.
The reader may recollect the description of this ruin in the
twenty-seventh chapter of this narrative, as the vault in which
young Bertram, under the auspices of Meg Merrilies, witnessed the
death of Hatteraick's lieutenant. The tradition of the country
added ghostly terrors to the natural awe inspired by the situation
of this place, which terrors the gipsies, who so long inhabited the
vicinity, had probably invented, or at least propagated, for their
own advantage. It was said that, during the times of the Galwegian
independence, one Hanlon MacDingawaie, brother to the reigning
chief, Knarth MacDingawaie, murdered his brother and sovereign, in
order to usurp the principality from his infant nephew, and that
being pursued for vengeance by the faithful allies and retainers of
the house, who espoused the cause of the lawful heir, he was
compelled to retreat, with a few followers whom he had involved in
his crime, to his impregnable tower called the Kaim of Derncleugh,
where he defended himself until nearly reduced by famine, when,
setting fire to the place, he and the small remaining garrison
desperately perished by their own swords, rather than fall into the
hands of their exasperated enemies. This tragedy, which,
considering the wild times wherein it was placed, might have some
foundation in truth, was larded with many legends of superstition
and diablerie, so that most of the peasants of the neighbourhood,
if benighted, would rather have chosen to make a considerable
circuit, than pass these haunted walls. The lights, often seen
around the tower when used as the rendezvous of the lawless
characters by whom it was occasionally frequented, were accounted
for, under authority of these tales of witchery, in a manner at
once convenient for the private parties concerned, and satisfactory
to the public.