The Dominie did accordingly pronounce a benediction, that exceeded
in length any speech which Mannering had yet heard him utter. The
tea, which of course belonged to the noble Captain Hatteraick's
trade, was pronounced excellent. Still Mannering hinted, though
with due delicacy, at the risk of encouraging such desperate
characters: "Were it but in justice to the revenue, I should have
supposed--"

"Ah, the revenue-lads"--for Mr. Bertram never embraced a general or
abstract idea, and his notion of the revenue was personified in the
commissioners, surveyors, comptrollers, and riding officers, whom
he happened to know--"the revenue-lads can look sharp eneugh out
for themselves--no one needs to help them--and they have a' the
soldiers to assist them besides--and as to justice--you'll be
surprised to hear it, Mr. Mannering--but I am not a justice of
peace."

Mannering assumed the expected look of surprise, but thought within
himself that the worshipful bench suffered no great deprivation
from wanting the assistance of his good-humoured landlord. Mr.
Bertram had now hit upon one of the few subjects on which he felt
sore, and went on with some energy. "No, sir,--the name of Godfrey
Bertram of Ellangowan is not in the last commission, though there's
scarce a carle in the country that has a plough-gate of land, but
what he must ride to quarter-sessions, and write J.P. after his
name. I ken fu' weel whom I am obliged to--Sir Thomas
Kittlecourt as good as tell'd me he would sit in my skirts, if he
had not my interest at the last election; and because I chose to go
with my own blood and third cousin, the Laird of Balruddery, they
keepit me off the roll of freeholders; and now there comes a new
nomination of justices, and I am left out! And whereas they
pretend it was because I let David Mac-Guffog, the constable, draw
the warrants, and manage the business his ain gate, [*Own way] as
if I had been a nose a' wax, it's a main untruth; for I granted but
seven warrants in my life, and the Dominie wrote every one of
them--and if it had not been that unlucky business of Sandy
Mac-Gruthar's, that the constables should have keepit twa or three
days up yonder at the auld castle, just till they could get
conveniency to send him to the county jail--and that cost me eneugh
o' siller--But I ken what Sir Thomas wants very weel--it was just
sic and siclike about the seat in the kirk o' Kilmagirdle--was I
not entitled to have the front gallery facing the minister, rather
than Mac-Crosskie of Creochstone, the son of Deacon Mac-Crosskie,
the Dumfries weaver?"

Mannering expressed his acquiescence in the justice of these
various complaints.

"And then, Mr. Mannering, there was the story about the road, and
the fauld-dike--I ken Sir Thomas was behind there, and I said
plainly to the clerk to the trustees that I saw the cloven foot,
let them take that as they like.--Would any gentleman, or set of
gentlemen, go and drive a road right through the corner of a
fauld-dike, and take away, as my agent observed to them, like twa
roods of gude moorland pasture?--And there was the story about
choosing the collector of the cess--"

"Certainly, sir, it is hard you should meet with any neglect in a
country, where, to judge from the extent of their residence, your
ancestors must have made a very important figure."

"Very true, Mr. Mannering--I am a plain man, and do not dwell on
these things; and I must needs say, I have little memory for them;
but I wish ye could have heard my father's stories about the auld
fights of the Mac-Dingawaies--that's the Bertrams that now
is--wi' the Irish, and wi' the Highlanders, that came here in their
berlings from Islay and Cantire--and how they went to the Holy
Land-that is, to Jerusalem and Jericho, wi' a' their clan at their
heels--they had better have gaen to Jamaica, like Sir Thomas
Kittlecourt's uncle--and how they brought hame relics, like those
that Catholics have, and a flag that's up yonder in the garret--if
they had been casks of Muscavado, and puncheons of rum, it would
have been better for the estate at this day--but there's little
comparison between the auld keep at Kittlecourt and the castle o'
Ellangowan--I doubt if the keep's forty feet of front--But ye make
no breakfast, Mr. Mannering; ye're no eating your meat; allow me to
recommend some of the kipper--It was John Hay that catcht it,
Saturday was three weeks, down at the stream below Hempseed ford,"
etc., etc., etc.

The Laird, whose indignation had for some time kept him pretty
steady to one topic, now launched forth into his usual roving style
of conversation, which gave Mannering ample time to reflect upon
the disadvantages attending the situation, which, an hour before,
he had thought worthy of so much envy. Here was a country
gentleman, whose most estimable quality seemed his perfect good
nature, secretly fretting himself and murmuring against others, for
causes which, compared with any real evil in life, must weigh like
dust in the balance. But such is the equal distribution of
Providence. To those who lie out of the road of great afflictions,
are assigned petty vexations, which answer all the purpose of
disturbing their serenity; and every reader must have observed,
that neither natural apathy nor acquired philosophy can render
country gentlemen insensible to the grievances which occur at
elections, quarter-sessions, and meetings of trustees.

Curious to investigate the manners of the country Mannering took
the advantage of a pause in good Mr. Bertram's string of stories,
to inquire what Captain Hatteraick so earnestly wanted with the
gipsy woman.

"Oh, to bless his ship, I suppose. You must know, Mr. Mannering,
that these free-traders, whom the law calls smugglers, having no
religion, make it all up in superstition; and they have as many
spells, and charms, and nonsense--"

"Vanity and waur!" said the Dominie--"it is a trafficking with the
Evil One. Spells, periapts, and charms, are of his device--choice
arrows out of Apollyon's quiver."

"Hold your peace, Dominie--ye're speaking for ever" (by the way
they were the first words the poor man had uttered that morning,
excepting that he had said grace, and returned thanks)--"Mr.
Mannering cannot get in a word for ye!--and so, Mr. Mannering,
talking of astronomy, and spells, and these matters, have ye been
so kind as to consider what we were speaking about last night?"

"I begin to think, Mr. Bertram, with your worthy friend here, that
I have been rather jesting with edge-tools; and although neither
you nor I, nor any sensible man, can put faith in the predictions
of astrology, yet as it has sometimes happened that inquiries into
futurity, undertaken in jest, have in their results produced
serious and unpleasant effects both upon actions and characters, I
really wish you would dispense with my replying to your question."

It was easy to see that this evasive answer only rendered the
Laird's curiosity more uncontrollable. Mannering however, was
determined in his own mind, not to expose the infant to the
inconveniences which might have arisen from his being supposed the
object of evil prediction. He therefore delivered the paper into
Mr. Bertram's hand, and requested him to keep it for five years
with the seal unbroken, until the month of November was expired.
After that date had intervened, he left him at liberty to examine
the writing, trusting that the first fatal period being then safely
overpassed, no credit would be paid to its further contents. This
Mr. Bertram was content to promise, and Mannering, to ensure his
fidelity, hinted at misfortunes which would certainly take place if
his injunctions were neglected. The rest of the day, which
Mannering, by Mr. Bertram's invitation, spent at Ellangowan,
passed over without anything remarkable; and on the morning of that
which followed, the traveller mounted his palfrey, bade a courteous
adieu to his hospitable landlord, and to his clerical attendant,
repeated his good wishes for the prosperity of the family, and
then, turning his horse's head towards England, disappeared from
the sight of the inmates of Ellangowan. He must also disappear
from that of our readers, for it is to another and later period of
his life that the present narrative relates.



CHAPTER VI.

  --Next, the justice, In fair round belly, with good capon
  lined, With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, Full of
  wise saws, and modern instances: And so he plays his part.
    --As You Like It.

When Mrs. Bertram of Ellangowan was able to hear the news of what
had passed during her confinement, her apartment rung with all
manner of gossiping respecting the handsome young student from
Oxford, who had told such a fortune by the stars to the young
Laird, "blessings on his dainty face." The form, accent, and
manners, of the stranger, were expatiated upon. His horse, bridle,
saddle, and stirrups, did not remain unnoticed. All this made a
great impression upon the mind of Mrs. Bertram, for the good lady
had no small store of superstition.

Her first employment, when she became capable of a little work, was
to make a small velvet bag for the scheme of nativity which she had
obtained from her husband. Her fingers itched to break the seal,
but credulity proved stronger than curiosity; and she had the
firmness to enclose it, in all its integrity, within two slips of
parchment, which she sewed round it, to prevent its being chafed.
The whole was then put into the velvet bag aforesaid, and hung as a
charm round the neck of the infant, where his mother resolved it
should remain until the period for the legitimate satisfaction of
her curiosity should arrive.

The father also resolved to do his part by the child, in securing
him a good education; and with the view that it should commence
with the first dawnings of reason, Dominie Sampson was easily
induced to renounce his public profession of parish schoolmaster,
make his constant residence at the Place, and, in consideration of
a sum not quite equal to the wages of a footman even at that time,
to undertake to communicate to the future Laird of Ellangowan all
the erudition which he had, and all the graces and accomplishments
which--he had not indeed, but which he had never discovered that he
wanted. In this arrangement, the Laird found also his private
advantage; securing the constant benefit of a patient auditor, to
whom he told his stories when they were alone, and at whose expense
he could break a sly jest when he had company.

About four years after this time, a great commotion took place in
the district where Ellangowan is situated.

Those who watched the signs of the times, had long been of opinion
that a change of ministry was about to take place; and, at length,
after a due proportion of hopes, fears, and delays, rumours from
good authority, and bad authority, and no authority at all; after
some clubs had drunk Up with this statesman, and others Down with
him; after riding, and running, and posting and addressing, and
counter-addressing, and proffers of lives and fortunes, the blow
was at length struck, the administration of the day was dissolved,
and parliament, as a natural consequence, was dissolved also.

Sir Thomas Kittlecourt, like other members in the same situation,
posted down to his county, and met but an indifferent reception. He
was a partisan of the old administration and the friends of the new
had already set about an active canvass in behalf of John
Featherhead, Esq., who kept the best hounds and hunters in the
shire. Among others who joined the standard of revolt was Gilbert
Glossin, writer in--, agent for the Laird of Ellangowan. This
honest gentleman had either been refused some favour by the old
member, or, what is as probable, he had got all that he had the
most distant pretension to ask, and could only look to the other
side for fresh advancement. Mr. Glossin had a vote upon
Ellangowan's property; and he was now determined that his patron
should have one also, there being no doubt which side Mr. Bertram
would embrace in the contest. He easily persuaded Ellangowan, that
it would be creditable to him to take the field at the head of as
strong a party as possible; and immediately went to work, making
votes, as every Scotch lawyer knows how, by splitting and
subdividing the superiorities upon this ancient and once powerful
barony. These were so extensive, that by dint of clipping and
paring here, adding and eking there, and creating over-lords upon
all the estate which Bertram held of the crown, they advanced, at
the day of contest, at the head of ten as good men of parchment as
ever took the oath of trust and possession. This strong
reinforcement turned the dubious day of battle. The principal and
his agent divided the honour; the reward fell to the latter
exclusively. Mr. Gilbert Glossin was made clerk of the peace, and
Godfrey Bertram had his name inserted in a new commission of
justices, issued immediately upon the sitting of the parliament.

This had been the summit of Mr. Bertram's ambition; not that he
liked either the trouble or the responsibility of the office, but
he thought it was a dignity to which he was well entitled, and that
it had been withheld from him by malice prepense. But there is an
old and true Scotch proverb, "Fools should not have chapping
sticks"; that is, weapons of offence. Mr. Bertram was no sooner
possessed of the judicial authority which he had so much longed
for, than he began to exercise it with more severity than mercy,
and totally belied all the opinions which had hitherto been formed
of his inert good nature. We have read somewhere of a justice of
peace, who, on being nominated in the commission, wrote a letter to
a bookseller for the statutes respecting his official duty, in the
following orthography,--"Please send the ax relating to a gustus
pease." No doubt, when this learned gentleman had possessed himself
of the axe, he hewed the laws with it to some purpose. Mr.
Bertram was not quite so ignorant of English grammar as his
worshipful predecessor: but Augustus Pease himself could not have
used more indiscriminately the weapon unwarily put into his hand.

In good earnest, he considered the commission with which he had
been intrusted as a personal mark of favour from his sovereign;
forgetting that he had formerly thought his being deprived of a
privilege, or honour, common to those of his rank, was the result
of mere party cabal. He commanded his trusty aide-de-camp, Dominie
Sampson, to read aloud the commission; and at the first words, "The
king has been pleased to appoint"--"Pleased!" he exclaimed, in a
transport of gratitude; "honest gentleman! I'm sure he cannot be
better pleased than I am."

Accordingly, unwilling to confine his gratitude to mere feelings,
or verbal expressions, he gave full current to the new-born zeal of
office, and endeavoured to express his sense of the honour
conferred upon him, by an unmitigated activity in the discharge of
his duty. New brooms, it is said, sweep clean; and I myself can
bear witness, that, on the arrival of a new housemaid, the ancient,
hereditary, and domestic spiders, who have spun their webs over the
lower division of my book-shelves (consisting chiefly of law and
divinity) during the peaceful reign of her predecessor, fly at full
speed before the probationary inroads of the new mercenary. Even
so the Laird of Ellangowan ruthlessly commenced his magisterial
reform, at the expense of various established and superannuated
pickers and stealers, who had been his neighbours for half a
century. He wrought his miracles like a second Duke Humphrey; and
by the influence of the beadle's rod, caused the lame to walk, the
blind to see, and the palsied to labour. He detected poachers,
black-fishers, orchard-breakers, and pigeon-shooters; had the
applause of the bench for his reward, and the public credit of an
active magistrate.

All this good had its rateable proportion of evil. Even an
admitted nuisance, of ancient standing, should not be abated
without some caution. The zeal of our worthy friend now involved
in great distress sundry personages whose idle and mendicant habits
his own lochesse had contributed to foster, until these habits had
become irreclaimable, or whose real incapacity for exertion
rendered them fit objects, in their own phrase, for the charity of
all well-disposed Christians. The "long-remembered beggar," who for
twenty years had made his regular rounds within the neighbourhood,
received rather as an humble friend than as an object of charity,
was sent to the neighbouring workhouse. The decrepit dame, who
travelled round the parish upon a hand-barrow, circulating from
house to house like a bad shilling, which every one is in haste to
pass to his neighbour; she, who used to call for her bearers as
loud, or louder, than a traveller demands post-horses, even she
shared the same disastrous fate. The "daft Jock," who, half knave,
half idiot, had been the sport of each succeeding race of village
children for a good part of a century, was remitted to the county
bridewell, where, secluded from free air and sunshine, the only
advantages he was capable of enjoying, he pined and died in the
course of six months. The old sailor, who had so long rejoiced the
smoky rafters of every kitchen in the country, by singing Captain
Ward, and Bold Admiral Benbow, was banished from the district for
no better reason, than that he was supposed to speak with a strong
Irish accent. Even the annual rounds of the pedlar were abolished
by the justice, in his hasty zeal for the administration of rural
police.

These things did not pass without notice and censure. We are not
made of wood or stone, and the things which connect themselves with
our hearts and habits cannot, like bark or lichen, be rent away
without our missing them. The farmer's dame lacked her usual share
of intelligence, perhaps also the self-applause which she had felt
while distributing the awmous (alms), in shape of a gowpen
(handful) of oatmeal, to the mendicant who brought the news. The
cottage felt inconvenience from interruption of the petty trade
carried on by the itinerant dealers. The children lacked their
supply of sugar-plums and toys; the young women wanted pins,
ribbons, combs, and ballads; and the old could no longer barter
their eggs for salt, snuff, and tobacco. All these circumstances
brought the busy Laird of Ellangowan into discredit, which was the
more general on account of his former popularity. Even his lineage
was brought up in judgment against him. They thought "naething of
what the like of Greenside, or Burnville, or Viewforth, might do,
that were strangers in the country; but Ellangowan! that had been a
name amang them since the mirk Monanday, and lang before--him to be
grinding the puir at that rate!--They ca'd his grandfather the
Wicked Laird; but, though he was whiles fractious aneuch, when he
got into roving company" and had ta'en the drap drink, he would
have scorned to gang on at this gate. Na, na, the muckle chumlay
in the Auld Place reeked like a killogie [*Lime-kiln] in his
time, and there were as mony puir folk riving at the banes in the
court, and about the door, as there were gentles in the ha'. And
the leddy, on ilka Christmas night as it came round, gae twelve
siller pennies to ilka puir body about, in honour of the twelve
apostles like. They were fond to ca' it papistrie; but I think our
great folk might take a lesson frae the papists whiles. They gie
another sort o' help to puir folk than just dinging down a saxpence
in the brod [*Collection-plate] on the Sabbath, and kilting, and
scourging, and drumming them a' the sax days o' the week besides."

Such was the gossip over the good twopenny in every alehouse within
three or four miles of Ellangowan, that being about the diameter of
the orbit in which our friend Godfrey Bertram, Esq., J.P., must be
considered as the principal luminary. Still greater scope was
given to evil tongues by the removal of a colony of gipsies, with
one of whom our reader is somewhat acquainted, and who had for a
great many years enjoyed their chief settlement upon the estate of
Ellangowan.



CHAPTER VII.

  Come, princes of the ragged regiment, You of the blood!
  Prigg, my most upright lord, And these, what name or title
  e'er they bear, Jarkman, or Patrico, Cranke or
  Clapper-dudgeon, Frater or Abram-man--I speak of all.--

                  Beggar's Bush.

ALTHOUGH the character of those gipsy tribes which formerly
inundated most of the nations of Europe, and which in some degree
still subsist among them as a distinct people, is generally
understood, the reader will pardon my saying a few words respecting
their situation in Scotland.

It is well known that the gipsies were, at an early period,
acknowledged as a separate and independent race by one of the
Scottish monarchs, and that they were less favourably distinguished
by a subsequent law, which rendered the character of gipsy equal,
in the judicial balance, to that of common and habitual thief, and
prescribed his punishment accordingly. Notwithstanding the
severity of this and other statutes, the fraternity prospered amid
the distresses of the country, and received large accessions from
among those whom famine, oppression, or the sword of war, had
deprived of the ordinary means of subsistence. They lost, in a
great measure, by this intermixture, the national character of
Egyptians, and became a mingled race, having all the idleness and
predatory habits of their Eastern ancestors, with a ferocity which
they probably borrowed from the men of the north who joined their
society. They travelled in different bands, and had rules among
themselves, by which each tribe was confined to its own district.
The slightest invasion of the precincts which had been assigned to
another tribe produced desperate skirmishes, in which there was
often much blood shed.

The patriotic Fletcher of Saltoun drew a picture of these banditti
about a century ago, which my readers will peruse with
astonishment.

"There are at this day in Scotland (besides a great many poor
families very meanly provided for by the church boxes, with others,
who, by living on bad food, fall into various diseases) two hundred
thousand people begging from door to door. These are not only no
way advantageous, but a very grievous burden to so poor a country.
And though the number of them be perhaps double to what it was
formerly, by reason of this present great distress, yet in all
times there have been about one hundred thousand of those
vagabonds, who have lived without any regard or subjection either
to the laws of the land, or even those of God and nature; . . .
No magistrate could ever discover or be informed, which way one in
a hundred of these wretches died, or that ever they were baptized.
Many murders have been discovered among them; and they are not only
a most unspeakable oppression to poor tenants (who, if they give
not bread, or some kind of provision to perhaps forty such villains
in one day, are sure to be insulted. by them), but they rob many
poor people who live in houses distant from any neighbourhood. In
years of plenty many thousands of them meet together in the
mountains, where they feast and riot for many days; and at country
weddings, markets, burials, and other the like public occasions,
they are to be seen, both man and woman, perpetually drunk,
cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together."

Notwithstanding the deplorable picture presented in this extract,
and which Fletcher himself, though the energetic and eloquent
friend of freedom, saw no better mode of correcting than by
introducing a system of domestic slavery, the progress of time, and
increase both of the means of life and of the power of the laws,
gradually reduced this dreadful evil within more narrow bounds. The
tribes of gipsies, jockies, or cairds,--for by all these
denominations such banditti were known,--became few in number, and
many were entirely rooted out. Still, however, a sufficient number
remained to give occasional alarm and constant vexation. Some rude
handicrafts were entirely resigned to these itinerants,
particularly the art of trencher-making, of manufacturing
horn-spoons, and the whole mystery of the tinker. To these they
added a petty trade in the coarse sorts of earthenware. Such were
their ostensible means of livelihood. Each tribe had usually some
fixed place of rendezvous, which they occasionally occupied. and
considered as their standing camp, and in the vicinity of which
they generally abstained from depredation. They had even talents
and accomplishments, which made them occasionally useful and
entertaining. Many cultivated music with success; and the
favourite fiddler or piper of a district was often to be found in a
gipsy town. They understood all out-of-door sports, especially
otter-hunting, fishing, or finding game. They bred the best and
boldest terriers, and sometimes had good pointers for sale. In
winter, the women told fortunes, the men showed tricks of
legerdemain; and these accomplishments often helped to while away a
weary or stormy evening in the circle of the "farmer's ha'." The
wildness of their character, and the indomitable pride with which
they despised all regular labour, commanded a certain awe, which
was not diminished by the consideration, that these strollers were
a vindictive race, and were restrained by no check, either of fear
or conscience, from taking desperate vengeance upon those who had
offended them. These tribes were, in short, the Parias of
Scotland, living like wild Indians among European settlers, and,
like them, judged of rather by their own customs, habits, and
opinions, than as if they had been members of the civilised part of
the community. Some hordes of them yet remain, chiefly in such
situations as afford a ready escape either into a waste country, or
into another jurisdiction. Nor are the features of their character
much softened. Their numbers, however, are so greatly diminished,
that, instead of one hundred thousand, as calculated by Fletcher,
it would now perhaps be impossible to collect above five hundred
throughout all Scotland.

A tribe of these itinerants, to whom Meg Merrilies appertained, had
long been as stationary as their habits permitted, in a glen upon
the estate of Ellangowan. They had there erected a few huts, which
they denominated their "city of refuge," and where, when not absent
on excursions, they harboured unmolested, as the crows that roosted
in the old ash-trees around them. They had been such long
occupants, that they were considered in some degree as proprietors
of the wretched shealings which they inhabited. This protection
they were said anciently to have repaid, by service to the laird in
war, or, more frequently, by infesting or plundering the lands of
those neighbouring barons with whom he chanced to be at feud.
Latterly, their services were of a more pacific nature. The women
spun mittens for the lady, and knitted boot-hose for the laird,
which were annually presented at Christmas with great form. The
aged sibyls blessed the bridal bed of the laird when he married,
and the cradle of the heir when born. The men repaired her
ladyship's cracked china, and assisted the laird in his sporting
parties, wormed his dogs, and cut the ears of his terrier puppies.
The children gathered nuts in the woods, and cranberries in the
moss, and mushrooms on the pastures, for tribute to the Place.
These acts of voluntary service, and acknowledgments of dependence,
were rewarded by protection on some occasions, connivance on
others, and broken victuals, ale, and brandy, when circumstances
called for a display of generosity; and this mutual intercourse of
good offices, which had been carried on for at least two centuries,
rendered the inhabitants of Derncleugh a kind of privileged
retainers upon the estate of Ellangowan. "The knaves" were the
Laird's "exceeding good friends"; and he would have deemed himself
very ill used, if his countenance could not now and then have borne
them out against the law of the country and the local magistrate.
But this friendly union was soon to be dissolved.

The community of Derncleugh, who cared for no rogues but their own,
were wholly without alarm at the severity of the justice's
proceedings towards other itinerants. They had no doubt that he
determined to suffer no mendicants or strollers in the country, but
what resided on his own property, and practised their trade by his
immediate permission, implied or expressed. Nor was Mr. Bertram in
a hurry to exert his newly-acquired authority at the expense of
these old settlers. But he was driven on by circumstances.

At the quarter-sessions, our new justice was publicly upbraided by
a gentleman of the opposite party in county politics, that, while
he affected a great zeal for the public police, and seemed
ambitious of the fame of an active magistrate, he fostered a tribe
of the greatest rogues in the country, and permitted them to
harbour within a mile of the house of Ellangowan. To this there
was no reply, for the fact was too evident and well known. The
Laird digested the taunt as he best could, and in his way home
amused himself with speculations on the easiest method of ridding
himself of these vagrants, who brought a stain upon his fair fame
as a magistrate. Just as he had resolved to take the first
opportunity of quarrelling with the Parias of Derncleugh, a cause
of provocation presented itself.

Since our friend's advancement to be a conservator of the peace, he
had caused the gate at the head of his avenue, which formerly,
having only one hinge remained at all times hospitably open--he had
caused this gate, I say, to be newly hung and handsomely painted.
He had also shut up with paling, curiously twisted with furze,
certain holes in tie fences adjoining, through which the gipsy boys
used to scramble into the plantations to gather birds' nests, the
seniors of the village to make a short cut from one point to
another, and the lads and lasses for evening rendezvous--all
without offence taken, or leave asked. But these halcyon days were
now to have an end, and a minatory inscription on one side of the
gate intimated "prosecution according to law" (the painter had
spelt it persecution--l'un vaut bien l'autre) to all who should
be found trespassing on these enclosures. On the other side, for
uniformity's sake, was a precautionary annunciation of spring-guns
and man-traps of such formidable powers, that, said the rubrick,
with an emphatic nota bene--"if a man goes in, they will break a
horse's leg."

In defiance of these threats, six well-grown gipsy boys and girls
were riding cock-horse upon the new gate, and plaiting May-flowers,
which it was but too evident had been gathered within the forbidden
precincts. With as much anger as he was capable of feeling, or
perhaps of assuming, the Laird commanded them to descend;--they
paid no attention to his mandate: he then began to pull them down
one after another;--they resisted, passively at least, each
sturdy bronzed varlet making himself as heavy as he could, or
climbing up as fast as he was dismounted.

The Laird then called in the assistance of his servant, a surly
fellow, who had immediate recourse to his horse-whip. A few lashes
sent the party a-scampering; and thus commenced the first breach of
the peace between the house of Ellangowan and the Gipsies of
Derncleugh.

The latter could not for some time imagine that the war was real;
until they found that their children were horse-whipped by the
grieve when found trespassing; that their asses were poinded by the
ground-officer when left in the plantations, or even when turned to
graze by the roadside, against the provision of the turnpike acts;
that the constable began to make curious inquiries into their made
of gaining a livelihood, and expressed his surprise that the men
should sleep in the hovels all day, and be abroad the greater part
of the night.

When matters came to this point, the gipsies, without scruple,
entered upon measures of retaliation. Ellangowan's hen-roosts were
plundered, his linen stolen from the lines or bleaching ground, his
fishings poached, his dogs kidnapped, his growing trees cut or
barked. Much petty mischief was done, and some evidently for the
mischief's sake. On the other hand, warrants went forth, without
mercy, to pursue, search for, take, and apprehend; and,
notwithstanding their dexterity, one or two of the depredators were
unable to avoid conviction. One, a stout young fellow, who
sometimes had gone to sea a-fishing, was handed over to the Captain
of the impress service at D--; two children were soundly flogged,
and one Egyptian matron sent to the house of correction.

Still, however, the gipsies made no motion to leave the spot which
they had so long inhabited, and Mr. Bertram felt an unwillingness
to deprive them of their ancient "city of refuge"; so that the
petty warfare we have noticed continued for several months, without
increase or abatement of hostilities on either side.



CHAPTER VIII.

  So the red Indian, by Ontario's side, Nursed hardy on the
  brindled panther's hide, As fades his swarthy race, with
  anguish sees The white man's cottage rise beneath the trees
  He leaves the shelter of his native wood, He leaves the
  murmur of Ohio's flood, And forward rushing in indignant
  grief, Where never foot has trod the fallen leaf, He bends
  his course where twilight reigns sublime, O'er forests
  silent since the birth of
  time,
      Scenes of Infancy.

In tracing the rise and progress of the Scottish Maroon war, we
must not omit to mention that years had rolled on, and that little
Harry Bertram, one of the hardiest and most lively children that
ever made a sword and grenadier's cap of rushes, now approached his
fifth revolving birthday. A hardihood of disposition, which early
developed itself, made him already a little wanderer; he was well
acquainted with every patch of lea ground and dingle around
Ellangowan, and could tell in his broken language upon what baulks
[* Uncultivated places] grew the bonniest flowers, and what copse
had the ripest nuts. He repeatedly terrified his attendants by
clambering about the ruins of the old castle, and had more than
once made a stolen excursion as far as the gipsy hamlet.

On these occasions he was generally brought back by Meg Merrilies,
who, though she could not be prevailed upon to enter the Place of
Ellangowan after her nephew had been given up to the pressgang, did
not apparently extend her resentment to the child. On the
contrary, she often contrived to waylay him in his walks, sing him
a gipsy song, give him a ride upon her jackass, and thrust into his
pocket a piece of gingerbread or red-cheeked apple. This woman's
ancient attachment to the family, repelled and checked in every
other direction, seemed to rejoice in having some object on which
it could yet repose and expand itself. She prophesied a hundred
times, "that young Mr. Harry would be the pride o' the family, and
there hadna been sic a sprout frae the auld aik since the death of
Arthur Mac-Dingawaie, that was killed in the battle o' the Bloody
Bay; as for the present stick, it was good for naething but
firewood." On one occasion, when the child was ill, she lay all
night below the window, chanting a rhyme which she believed
sovereign as a febrifuge, and could neither be prevailed upon to
enter the house, nor to leave the station she had chosen, till she
was informed that the crisis was over.

The affection of this woman became matter of suspicion, not indeed
to the Laird, who was never hasty in suspecting evil, but to his
wife, who had indifferent health and poor spirits. She was now far
advanced in a second pregnancy, and, as she could not walk abroad
herself, and the woman who attended upon Harry was young and
thoughtless, she prayed Dominie Sampson to undertake the task of
watching the boy in his rambles, when he should not be otherwise
accompanied. The Dominie loved his young charge, and was enraptured
with his own success, in having already brought him so far in his
learning as to spell words of three syllables. The idea of this
early prodigy of erudition being carried off by the gipsies, like a
second Adam Smith, [* The father of Economical Philosophy was, when
a child, carried off by gipsies, and remained some hours in their
possession.] was not to be tolerated; and accordingly, though the
charge was contrary to all his habits of life, he readily undertook
it, and might be seen stalling about with a mathematical problem in
his head, and his eye upon a child of five years old, whose rambles
led him into a hundred awkward situations. Twice was the Dominie
chased by a cross-grained cow, once he fell into the brook crossing
at the stepping-stones, and another time was bogged up to the
middle in the slough of Lochend, in attempting to gather a
water-lily for the young Laird. It was the opinion of the village
matrons who relieved Sampson on the latter occasion, "that the
Laird might as weel trust the care o' his bairn to a potato bogle";
but the good Dominie bore all his disasters with gravity and
serenity equally imperturbable. "Pro-di-gi-ous!" was the only
ejaculation they ever extorted from the much-enduring man.

The Laird had, by this time, determined to make root-and-branch
work with the Maroons of Derncleugh. The old servants shook their
heads at his proposal, and even Dominie Sampson ventured upon an
indirect remonstrance. As, however, it was couched in the oracular
phrase, "Ne moveas Camerinam," neither the allusion, nor the
language in which it was expressed, were calculated for Mr.
Bertram's edification, and matters proceeded against the gipsies in
form of law. Every door in the hamlet was chalked by the
ground-officer, in token of a formal warning to remove at next
term. Still, however, they showed no symptoms either of submission
or of compliance. At length the term-day, the fatal Martinmas,
arrived, and violent measures of' ejection were resorted to. A
strong posse of peace-officers, sufficient to render all resistance
vain, charged the inhabitants to depart by noon; and, as they did
not obey, the officers, in terms of the warrant, proceeded to
unroof the cottages, and pull down the wretched doors and windows,
--a summary and effectual mode of ejection still practised in some
remote parts of Scotland, when a tenant proves refractory. The
gipsies, for a time, beheld the work of destruction in sullen
silence and inactivity; then set about saddling and loading their
asses, and making preparations for their departure. These were
soon accomplished, where all had the habits of wandering Tartars;
and they set forth on their journey to seek new settlements, where
their patrons should neither be of the quorum, nor custos
rotulorum.

Certain qualms of feeling had deterred Ellangowan from attending in
person to see his tenants expelled. He left the executive part of
the business to the officers of the law, under the immediate
direction of Frank Kennedy, a supervisor, or riding-officer,
belonging to the excise, who had of late become intimate at the
Place, and of whom we shall have more to say in the next chapter.
Mr. Bertram himself chose that day to make a visit to a friend at
some distance. But it so happened, notwithstanding his
precautions, that he could not avoid meeting his late tenants
during their retreat from his property.

It was in a hollow way, near the top of a steep ascent, upon the
verge of the Ellangowan estate, that Mr. Bertram met the gipsy
procession. Four or five men formed the advanced guard, wrapped in
long loose greatcoats that hid their tall slender figures, as the
large slouched hats, drawn over their brows, concealed their wild
features, dark eyes, and swarthy faces. Two of them carried long
fowling-pieces, one wore a broadsword without a sheath, and all had
the Highland dirk, though they did not wear that weapon openly or
ostentatiously. Behind them followed the train of laden asses, and
small carts or tumblers, as they were called in that country, on
which were laid the decrepit and the helpless, the aged and infant
part of the exiled community. The women in their red cloaks and
straw hats, the elder children with bare heads and bare feet, and
almost naked bodies, had the immediate care of the little caravan.
The road was narrow, running between two broken banks of sand, and
Mr. Bertram's servant rode forward, smacking his whip with an air
of authority, and motioning to the drivers to allow free passage to
their betters. His signal was unattended to. He then called to
the men who lounged idly on before, "Stand to your beasts' beads,
and make room for the Laird to pass."

"He shall have his share of the road," answered a male gipsy from
under his slouched and large-brimmed hat, and without raising his
face, "and he shall have nae mair; the highway is as free to our
cuddies as to his gelding."

The tone of the man being sulky, and even menacing, Mr. Bertram
thought it best to put his dignity in his pocket, and pass by the
procession quietly, on such space as they chose to leave for his
accommodation, which was narrow enough. To cover with an
appearance of indifference his feeling of the want of respect with
which he was treated, he addressed one of the men, as he passed him
without any show of greeting, salute, or recognition,--"Giles
Baillie," he said, "have you heard that your son Gabriel is well?"
(The question respected the young man who had been pressed.)

"If I had heard otherwise," said the old man, looking up with a
stern and menacing countenance, "you should have heard of it too."
And he plodded on his way, tarrying no further question.  [*This
anecdote is a literal fact.] When the Laird had pressed on with
difficulty among a crowd of familiar faces, which had on all former
occasions marked his approach with the reverence due to that of a
superior being, but in which he now only read hatred and contempt,
and had got clear of the throng, he could not help turning his
horse, and looking back to mark the progress of their march. The
group would have been an excellent subject for the pencil of
Calotte. The van had already reached a small and stunted thicket,
which was at the bottom of the hill, and which gradually hid the
line of march until the last stragglers disappeared.

His sensations were bitter enough. The race, it is true, which he
had thus summarily dismissed from their ancient place of refuge,
was idle and vicious; but had he endeavoured to render them
otherwise? They were not more irregular characters now, than they
had been while they were admitted to consider themselves as a sort
of subordinate dependants of his family; and ought the mere
circumstance of his becoming a magistrate to have made at once such
a change in his conduct towards them? Some means of reformation
ought at least to have been tried, before sending seven families at
once upon the wide world, and depriving them of a degree of
countenance, which withheld them at least from atrocious guilt.
There was also a natural yearning of heart on parting with so many
known and familiar faces; and to this feeling Godfrey Bertram was
peculiarly accessible, from the limited qualities of his mind,
which sought its principal amusements among the petty objects
around him. As he was about to turn his horse's head to pursue his
journey, Meg Merrilies, who lagged behind the troop, unexpectedly
presented herself.

She was standing upon one of those high precipitous banks, which,
as we before noticed, overhung the road; so that she was placed
considerably higher than Ellangowan, even though he was on
horseback; and her tall figure, relieved against the clear blue
sky, seemed almost of supernatural stature. We have noticed, that
there was in her general attire, or rather in her mode of adjusting
it, somewhat of a foreign costume, artfully, adopted perhaps for
the purpose of adding to the effect of her spells and predictions,
or perhaps from some traditional notions respecting the dress of
her ancestors. On this occasion, she had a large piece of red
cotton cloth rolled about her head in the form of a turban, from
beneath which her dark eyes flashed with uncommon lustre. Her long
and tangled black hair fell in elf-locks from the folds of this
singular head-gear. Her attitude was that of a sibyl in frenzy,
and she stretched out, in her right hand, a sapling bough which
seemed just pulled.

"I'll be d-d," said the groom, "if she has not been cutting the
young ashes in the Dukit park!"--The Laird made no answer, but
continued to look at the figure which was thus perched above his
path.

"Ride your ways," said the gipsy, "ride your ways, Laird of
Ellangowan--ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram!--This day have ye
quenched seven smoking hearths--see if the fire in your ain parlour
burn the blyther for that. Ye have riven the back off seven cottar
houses--look if your ain roof-tree stand the faster. Ye may stable
your stirks in the shealings at Derncleugh--see that the hare does
not couch on the hearth-stone at Ellangowan.--Ride your ways,
Godfrey Bertram--what do ye glower after our folk for?--There's
thirty hearts there, that wad hae wanted bread ere ye had wanted
sunkets, [*Delicacies] and spent their lifeblood ere ye had
scratched your finger. Yes--there's thirty yonder, from the auld
wife of a hundred to the babe that was born last week, that ye have
turned out o' their bits o' bields, to sleep with the tod and the
black-cock in the muirs!--Ride your ways, Ellangowan.--Our bairns
are hinging at our weary backs--look that your braw cradle at hame
be the fairer spread up--not that I am wishing ill to little Harry,
or to the babe that's yet to be born--God forbid--and make them
kind to the poor, and better folk than their father! And now, ride
e'en your ways; for these are the last words ye'll ever hear Meg
Merrilies speak, and this is the last reise that I'll ever cut in
the bonnie woods of Ellangowan."

So saying, she broke the sapling she held in her hand, and flung it
into the road Margaret of Anjou, bestowing on her triumphant foes
her keen-edged malediction, could not have turned from them with a
gesture more proudly contemptuous. The Laird was clearing his voice
to speak, and thrusting his hand in his pocket to find a
half-crown; the gipsy waited neither for his reply nor his
donation, but strode down the hill to overtake the caravan.

Ellangowan rode pensively home; and it was remarkable that he did
not mention this interview to any of his family. The groom was not
so reserved. He told the story at great length to a full audience
in the kitchen, and concluded by swearing, that if ever the devil
spoke by the mouth of a woman, he had spoken by that of Meg
Merrilies that blessed day.



CHAPTER IX.

  Paint Scotland greeting ower her thrissle,
  Her mutchkin stoup as toom's a whistle,
  And d-n'd excisemen in a bustle,
  Seizing a stell;
  Triumphant crushin't like a mussell,
  Or lampit shell.
   Burns.

During the period of Mr. Bertram's active magistracy, he did not
forget the affairs of the revenue. Smuggling, for which the Isle
of Man then afforded peculiar facilities, was general, or rather
universal, all along the south-western coast of Scotland. Almost
all the common people were engaged in these practices; the gentry
connived at them, and the officers of the revenue were frequently
discountenanced in the exercise of their duty, by those who should
have protected them.

There was, at this period, employed as a riding-officer, or
supervisor, in that part of the country, a certain Francis Kennedy,
already named in our narrative; a stout, resolute, and active man,
who had made seizures to a great amount, and was proportionally
hated by those who had an interest in the fair Trade, as they
called the pursuit of these contraband adventurers. This person
was natural son to a gentleman of good family, owing to which
circumstance, and to his being of a jolly convivial disposition,
and singing a good song, he was admitted to the occasional society
of the gentlemen of the country, and was a member of several of
their clubs for practising athletic games, at which he was
particularly expert.

At Ellangowan, Kennedy was a frequent and always an acceptable
guest. His vivacity relieved Mr. Bertram of the trouble of
thought, and the labour which it cost him to support a detailed
communication of ideas; while the daring and dangerous exploits
which he had undertaken in the discharge of his office, formed
excellent conversation. To all these revenue adventures did the
Laird of Ellangowan seriously incline, and the amusement which he
derived from Kennedy's society, formed an excellent reason for
countenancing and assisting the narrator in the execution of his
invidious and hazardous duty.

"Frank Kennedy," he said, "was a gentleman, though on the wrang
side of the blanket--he was connected with the family of Ellangowan
through the house of Glengubble. The last Laird of Glengubble
would have brought the estate into the Ellangowan line; but
happening to go to Harrigate, he there met with Miss Jean
Hadaway--by the bye, the Green Dragon at Harrigate is the best
house of the twa--but for Frank Kennedy, he's in one sense a
gentleman born, and it's a shame not to support him against these
blackguard smugglers."

After this league hid taken place between judgment and execution,
it chanced that Captain Dirk Hatteraick had landed a cargo of
spirits, and other contraband goods, upon the beach not far from
Ellangowan, and, confiding in the indifference with which the Laird
had formerly regarded similar infractions of the law, he was
neither very anxious to conceal nor to expedite the transaction.
The consequence was, that Mr. Frank Kennedy, armed with a warrant
from Ellangowan, and supported by some of the Laird's people who
knew the country, and by a party of military, poured down upon the
kegs, bates, and bags, and after a desperate affray, in which
severe wounds were given and received, succeeded in clapping the
broad arrow upon the articles, and bearing them off in triumph to
the next custom-house. Dirk Hatteraick vowed, in Dutch, German,
and English, a deep and full revenge, both against the gauger and
his abettors; and all who knew him thought it likely he would keep
his word.