'I must, I must; Mr. Dinmont will protect you back to the house.'

'No,' said Meg, 'he must come with you; it is for that he is here.
He maun take part wi' hand and heart; and weel his part it is, for
redding his quarrel might have cost you dear.'

'Troth, Luckie, it's very true,' said the steady farmer; 'and ere
I turn back frae the Captain's side I'll show that I haena
forgotten 't.'

'O yes,' exclaimed both the ladies at once, 'let Mr. Dinmont go
with you, if go you must, on this strange summons.'

'Indeed I must,' answered Bertram; 'but you see I am safely
guarded. Adieu for a short time; go home as fast as you can.'

He pressed his sister's hand, and took a yet more affectionate
farewell of Julia with his eyes. Almost stupefied with surprise
and fear, the young ladies watched with anxious looks the course
of Bertram, his companion, and their extraordinary guide. Her tall
figure moved across the wintry heath with steps so swift, so long,
and so steady that she appeared rather to glide than to walk.
Bertram and Dinmont, both tall men, apparently scarce equalled her
in height, owing to her longer dress and high head-gear. She
proceeded straight across the common, without turning aside to the
winding path by which passengers avoided the inequalities and
little rills that traversed it in different directions. Thus the
diminishing figures often disappeared from the eye, as they dived
into such broken ground, and again ascended to sight when they
were past the hollow. There was something frightful and unearthly,
as it were, in the rapid and undeviating course which she pursued,
undeterred by any of the impediments which usually incline a
traveller from the direct path. Her way was as straight, and
nearly as swift, as that of a bird through the air. At length they
reached those thickets of natural wood which extended from the
skirts of the common towards the glades and brook of Derncleugh,
and were there lost to the view.

'This is very extraordinary,' said Lucy after a pause, and turning
round to her companion; 'what can he have to do with that old
hag?'

'It is very frightful,' answered Julia, 'and almost reminds me of
the tales of sorceresses, witches, and evil genii which I have
heard in India. They believe there in a fascination of the eye by
which those who possess it control the will and dictate the
motions of their victims. What can your brother have in common
with that fearful woman that he should leave us, obviously against
his will, to attend to her commands?'

'At least,' said Lucy, 'we may hold him safe from harm; for she
would never have summoned that faithful creature Dinmont, of whose
strength, courage, and steadiness Henry said so much, to attend
upon an expedition where she projected evil to the person of his
friend. And now let us go back to the house till the Colonel
returns. Perhaps Bertram may be back first; at any rate, the
Colonel will judge what is to be done.'

Leaning, then, upon each other's arm, but yet occasionally
stumbling, between fear and the disorder of their nerves, they at
length reached the head of the avenue, when they heard the tread
of a horse behind. They started, for their ears were awake to
every sound, and beheld to their great pleasure young Hazlewood.
'The Colonel will be here immediately,' he said; 'I galloped on
before to pay my respects to Miss Bertram, with the sincerest
congratulations upon the joyful event which has taken place in her
family. I long to be introduced to Captain Bertram, and to thank
him for the well-deserved lesson he gave to my rashness and
indiscretion.'

'He has left us just now,' said Lucy, 'and in a manner that has
frightened us very much.'

Just at that moment the Colonel's carriage drove up, and, on
observing the ladies, stopped, while Mannering and his learned
counsel alighted and joined them. They instantly communicated the
new cause of alarm.

'Meg Merrilies again!' said the Colonel. 'She certainly is a most
mysterious and unaccountable personage; but I think she must have
something to impart to Bertram to which she does not mean we
should be privy.'

'The devil take the bedlamite old woman,' said the Counsellor;
'will she not let things take their course, prout de lege, but
must always be putting in her oar in her own way? Then I fear from
the direction they took they are going upon the Ellangowan estate.
That rascal Glossin has shown us what ruffians he has at his
disposal; I wish honest Liddesdale maybe guard sufficient.'

'If you please,' said Hazlewood, 'I should be most happy to ride
in the direction which they have taken. I am so well known in the
country that I scarce think any outrage will be offered in my
presence, and I shall keep at such a cautious distance as not to
appear to watch Meg, or interrupt any communication which she may
make.'

'Upon my word,' said Pleydell (aside), 'to be a sprig whom I
remember with a whey face and a satchel not so very many years
ago, I think young Hazlewood grows a fine fellow. I am more afraid
of a new attempt at legal oppression than at open violence, and
from that this young man's presence would deter both Glossin and
his understrappers.--Hie away then, my boy; peer out--peer out,
you'll find them somewhere about Derncleugh, or very probably in
Warroch wood.'

Hazlewood turned his horse. 'Come back to us to dinner,
Hazlewood,' cried the Colonel. He bowed, spurred his horse, and
galloped off.

We now return to Bertram and Dinmont, who continued to follow
their mysterious guide through the woods and dingles between the
open common and the ruined hamlet of Derncleugh. As she led the
way she never looked back upon her followers, unless to chide them
for loitering, though the sweat, in spite of the season, poured
from their brows. At other times she spoke to herself in such
broken expressions as these: 'It is to rebuild the auld house, it
is to lay the corner-stone; and did I not warn him? I tell'd him I
was born to do it, if my father's head had been the stepping-
stane, let alane his. I was doomed--still I kept my purpose in the
cage and in the stocks; I was banished--I kept it in an unco land;
I was scourged, I was branded--my resolution lay deeper than
scourge or red iron could reach;--and now the hour is come.'

'Captain,' said Dinmont, in a half whisper, 'I wish she binna
uncanny! her words dinna seem to come in God's name, or like other
folks'. Od, they threep in our country that there ARE sic things.'

'Don't be afraid, my friend,' whispered Bertram in return.

'Fear'd! fient a haet care I,' said the dauntless farmer; 'be she
witch or deevil, it's a' ane to Dandie Dinmont.'

'Haud your peace, gudeman,' said Meg, looking sternly over her
shoulder; 'is this a time or place for you to speak, think ye?'

'But, my good friend,' said Bertram, 'as I have no doubt in your
good faith or kindness, which I have experienced, you should in
return have some confidence in me; I wish to know where you are
leading us.'

'There's but ae answer to that, Henry Bertram,' said the sibyl. 'I
swore my tongue should never tell, but I never said my finger
should never show. Go on and meet your fortune, or turn back and
lose it: that's a' I hae to say.'

'Go on then,' answered Bertram; 'I will ask no more questions.'

They descended into the glen about the same place where Meg had
formerly parted from Bertram. She paused an instant beneath the
tall rock where he had witnessed the burial of a dead body and
stamped upon the ground, which, notwithstanding all the care that
had been taken, showed vestiges of having been recently moved.
'Here rests ane,' she said; 'he'll maybe hae neibours sune.'

She then moved up the brook until she came to the ruined hamlet,
where, pausing with a look of peculiar and softened interest
before one of the gables which was still standing, she said in a
tone less abrupt, though as solemn as before, 'Do you see that
blackit and broken end of a sheeling? There my kettle boiled for
forty years; there I bore twelve buirdly sons and daughters. Where
are they now? where are the leaves that were on that auld ash tree
at Martinmas! The west wind has made it bare; and I'm stripped
too. Do you see that saugh tree? it's but a blackened rotten stump
now. I've sate under it mony a bonnie summer afternoon, when it
hung its gay garlands ower the poppling water. I've sat there,
and,' elevating her voice, 'I've held you on my knee, Henry
Bertram, and sung ye sangs of the auld barons and their bloody
wars. It will ne'er be green again, and Meg Merrilies will never
sing sangs mair, be they blythe or sad. But ye'll no forget her,
and ye'll gar big up the auld wa's for her sake? And let somebody
live there that's ower gude to fear them of another warld. For if
ever the dead came back amang the living, I'll be seen in this
glen mony a night after these crazed banes are in the mould.'

The mixture of insanity and wild pathos with which she spoke these
last words, with her right arm bare and extended, her left bent
and shrouded beneath the dark red drapery of her mantle, might
have been a study worthy of our Siddons herself. 'And now,' she
said, resuming at once the short, stern, and hasty tone which was
most ordinary to her, 'let us to the wark, let us to the wark.'

She then led the way to the promontory on which the Kaim of
Derncleugh was situated, produced a large key from her pocket, and
unlocked the door. The interior of this place was in better order
than formerly. 'I have made things decent,' she said; 'I may be
streekit here or night. There will be few, few at Meg's lykewake,
for mony of our folk will blame what I hae done, and am to do!'

She then pointed to a table, upon which was some cold meat,
arranged with more attention to neatness than could have been
expected from Meg's habits. 'Eat,' she said--'eat; ye'll need it
this night yet.'

Bertram, in complaisance, eat a morsel or two; and Dinmont, whose
appetite was unabated either by wonder, apprehension, or the meal
of the morning, made his usual figure as a trencherman. She then
offered each a single glass of spirits, which Bertram drank
diluted, and his companion plain.

'Will ye taste naething yoursell, Luckie?' said Dinmont.

'I shall not need it,' replied their mysterious hostess. 'And
now,' she said, 'ye maun hae arms: ye maunna gang on dry-handed;
but use them not rashly. Take captive, but save life; let the law
hae its ain. He maun speak ere he die.'

'Who is to be taken? who is to speak?' said Bertram, in
astonishment, receiving a pair of pistols which she offered him,
and which, upon examining, he found loaded and locked.

'The flints are gude,' she said, 'and the powder dry; I ken this
wark weel.'

Then, without answering his questions, she armed Dinmont also with
a large pistol, and desired them to choose sticks for themselves
out of a parcel of very suspicious-looking bludgeons which she
brought from a corner. Bertram took a stout sapling, and Dandie
selected a club which might have served Hercules himself. They
then left the hut together, and in doing so Bertram took an
opportunity to whisper to Dinmont, 'There's something inexplicable
in all this. But we need not use these arms unless we see
necessity and lawful occasion; take care to do as you see me do.'

Dinmont gave a sagacious nod, and they continued to follow, over
wet and over dry, through bog and through fallow, the footsteps of
their conductress. She guided them to the wood of Warroch by the
same track which the late Ellangowan had used when riding to
Derncleugh in quest of his child on the miserable evening of
Kennedy's murder.

When Meg Merrilies had attained these groves, through which the
wintry sea-wind was now whistling hoarse and shrill, she seemed to
pause a moment as if to recollect the way. 'We maun go the precise
track,' she said, and continued to go forward, but rather in a
zigzag and involved course than according to her former steady and
direct line of motion. At length she guided them through the mazes
of the wood to a little open glade of about a quarter of an acre,
surrounded by trees and bushes, which made a wild and irregular
boundary. Even in winter it was a sheltered and snugly sequestered
spot; but when arrayed in the verdure of spring, the earth sending
forth all its wild flowers, the shrubs spreading their waste of
blossom around it, and the weeping birches, which towered over the
underwood, drooping their long and leafy fibres to intercept the
sun, it must have seemed a place for a youthful poet to study his
earliest sonnet, or a pair of lovers to exchange their first
mutual avowal of affection. Apparently it now awakened very
different recollections. Bertram's brow, when he had looked round
the spot, became gloomy and embarrassed. Meg, after uttering to
herself, 'This is the very spot!' looked at him with a ghastly
side-glance--'D'ye mind it?'

'Yes!' answered Bertram, 'imperfectly I do.'

'Ay!' pursued his guide, 'on this very spot the man fell from his
horse. I was behind that bourtree bush at the very moment. Sair,
sair he strove, and sair he cried for mercy; but he was in the
hands of them that never kenn'd the word! Now will I show you the
further track; the last time ye travelled it was in these arms.'

She led them accordingly by a long and winding passage, almost
overgrown with brushwood, until, without any very perceptible
descent, they suddenly found themselves by the seaside. Meg then
walked very fast on between the surf and the rocks, until she came
to a remarkable fragment of rock detached from the rest. 'Here,'
she said in a low and scarcely audible whisper--'here the corpse
was found.'

'And the cave,' said Bertram, in the same tone, 'is close beside
it; are you guiding us there?'

'Yes,' said the gipsy in a decided tone. 'Bend up both your
hearts; follow me as I creep in; I have placed the fire-wood so as
to screen you. Bide behind it for a gliff till I say, "The hour
and the man are baith come"; then rin in on him, take his arms,
and bind him till the blood burst frae his finger nails.'

'I will, by my soul,' said Henry, 'if he is the man I suppose--
Jansen?'

'Ay, Jansen, Hatteraick, and twenty mair names are his.'

'Dinmont, you must stand by me now,' said Bertram, 'for this
fellow is a devil.'

'Ye needna doubt that,' said the stout yeoman; 'but I wish I could
mind a bit prayer or I creep after the witch into that hole that
she's opening. It wad be a sair thing to leave the blessed sun and
the free air, and gang and be killed like a tod that's run to
earth, in a dungeon like that. But, my sooth, they will be hard-
bitten terriers will worry Dandie; so, as I said, deil hae me if I
baulk you.' This was uttered in the lowest tone of voice possible.
The entrance was now open. Meg crept in upon her hands and knees,
Bertram followed, and Dinmont, after giving a rueful glance toward
the daylight, whose blessings he was abandoning, brought up the
rear.




CHAPTER LIV

     Die, prophet! in thy speech;
     For this, among the rest, was I ordained.

          Henry VI. Part III.


The progress of the Borderer, who, as we have said, was the last
of the party, was fearfully arrested by a hand, which caught hold
of his leg as he dragged his long limbs after him in silence and
perturbation through the low and narrow entrance of the
subterranean passage. The steel heart of the bold yeoman had well-
nigh given way, and he suppressed with difficulty a shout, which,
in the defenceless posture and situation which they then occupied,
might have cost all their lives. He contented himself, however,
with extricating his foot from the grasp of this unexpected
follower. 'Be still,' said a voice behind him, releasing him; 'I
am a friend--Charles Hazlewood.'

These words were uttered in a very low voice, but they produced
sound enough to startle Meg Merrilies, who led the van, and who,
having already gained the place where the cavern expanded, had
risen upon her feet. She began, as if to confound any listening
ear, to growl, to mutter, and to sing aloud, and at the same time
to make a bustle among some brushwood which was now heaped in the
cave.

'Here, beldam, deyvil's kind,' growled the harsh voice of Dirk
Hatteraick from the inside of his den, 'what makest thou there?'

'Laying the roughies to keep the cauld wind frae you, ye desperate
do-nae-good. Ye're e'en ower weel off, and wotsna; it will be
otherwise soon.'

'Have you brought me the brandy, and any news of my people?' said
Dirk Hatteraick.

'There's the flask for ye. Your people--dispersed, broken, gone,
or cut to ribbands by the redcoats.'

'Der deyvil! this coast is fatal to me.'

'Ye may hae mair reason to say sae.'

While this dialogue went forward, Bertram and Dinmont had both
gained the interior of the cave and assumed an erect position. The
only light which illuminated its rugged and sable precincts was a
quantity of wood burnt to charcoal in an iron grate, such as they
use in spearing salmon by night. On these red embers Hatteraick
from time to time threw a handful of twigs or splintered wood; but
these, even when they blazed up, afforded a light much
disproportioned to the extent of the cavern; and, as its principal
inhabitant lay upon the side of the grate most remote from the
entrance, it was not easy for him to discover distinctly objects
which lay in that direction. The intruders, therefore, whose
number was now augmented unexpectedly to three, stood behind the
loosely-piled branches with little risk of discovery. Dinmont had
the sense to keep back Hazlewood with one hand till he whispered
to Bertram, 'A friend--young Hazlewood.'

It was no time for following up the introduction, and they all
stood as still as the rocks around them, obscured behind the pile
of brushwood, which had been probably placed there to break the
cold wind from the sea, without totally intercepting the supply of
air. The branches were laid so loosely above each other that,
looking through them towards the light of the fire-grate, they
could easily discover what passed in its vicinity, although a much
stronger degree of illumination than it afforded would not have
enabled the persons placed near the bottom of the cave to have
descried them in the position which they occupied.

The scene, independent of the peculiar moral interest and personal
danger which attended it, had, from the effect of the light and
shade on the uncommon objects which it exhibited, an appearance
emphatically dismal. The light in the fire-grate was the dark-red
glare of charcoal in a state of ignition, relieved from time to
time by a transient flame of a more vivid or duskier light, as the
fuel with which Dirk Hatteraick fed his fire was better or worse
fitted for his purpose. Now a dark cloud of stifling smoke rose up
to the roof of the cavern, and then lighted into a reluctant and
sullen blaze, which flashed wavering up the pillar of smoke, and
was suddenly rendered brighter and more lively by some drier fuel,
or perhaps some splintered fir-timber, which at once converted the
smoke into flame. By such fitful irradiation they could see, more
or less distinctly, the form of Hatteraick, whose savage and
rugged cast of features, now rendered yet more ferocious by the
circumstances of his situation and the deep gloom of his mind,
assorted well with the rugged and broken vault, which rose in a
rude arch over and around him. The form of Meg Merrilies, which
stalked about him, sometimes in the light, sometimes partially
obscured in the smoke or darkness, contrasted strongly with the
sitting figure of Hatteraick as he bent over the flame, and from
his stationary posture was constantly visible to the spectator,
while that of the female flitted around, appearing or disappearing
like a spectre.

Bertram felt his blood boil at the sight of Hatteraick. He
remembered him well under the name of Jansen, which the smuggler
had adopted after the death of Kennedy; and he remembered also
that this Jansen, and his mate Brown, the same who was shot at
Woodbourne, had been the brutal tyrants of his infancy. Bertram
knew farther, from piecing his own imperfect recollections with
the narratives of Mannering and Pleydell, that this man was the
prime agent in the act of violence which tore him from his family
and country, and had exposed him to so many distresses and
dangers. A thousand exasperating reflections rose within his
bosom; and he could hardly refrain from rushing upon Hatteraick
and blowing his brains out.

At the same time this would have been no safe adventure. The
flame, as it rose and fell, while it displayed the strong,
muscular, and broad-chested frame of the ruffian, glanced also
upon two brace of pistols in his belt, and upon the hilt of his
cutlass: it was not to be doubted that his desperation was
commensurate with his personal strength and means of resistance.
Both, indeed, were inadequate to encounter the combined power of
two such men as Bertram himself and his friend Dinmont, without
reckoning their unexpected assistant Hazlewood, who was unarmed,
and of a slighter make; but Bertram felt, on a moment's
reflection, that there would be neither sense nor valour in
anticipating the hangman's office, and he considered the
importance of making Hatteraick prisoner alive. He therefore
repressed his indignation, and awaited what should pass between
the ruffian and his gipsy guide.

'And how are ye now?' said the harsh and discordant tones of his
female attendant.' Said I not, it would come upon you--ay, and in
this very cave, where ye harboured after the deed?'

'Wetter and sturm, ye hag!' replied Hatteraick, 'keep your
deyvil's matins till they're wanted. Have you seen Glossin?'

'No,' replied Meg Merrilies; 'you've missed your blow, ye blood-
spiller! and ye have nothing to expect from the tempter.'

'Hagel!' exclaimed the ruffian, 'if I had him but by the throat!
And what am I to do then?'

'Do?' answered the gipsy; 'die like a man, or be hanged like a
dog!'

'Hanged, ye hag of Satan! The hemp's not sown that shall hang me.'

'It's sown, and it's grown, and it's heckled, and it's twisted.
Did I not tell ye, when ye wad take away the boy Harry Bertram, in
spite of my prayers,--did I not say he would come back when he had
dree'd his weird in foreign land till his twenty-first year? Did I
not say the auld fire would burn down to a spark, but wad kindle
again?'

'Well, mother, you did say so,' said Hatteraick, in a tone that
had something of despair in its accents; 'and, donner and blitzen!
I believe you spoke the truth. That younker of Ellangowan has been
a rock ahead to me all my life! And now, with Glossin's cursed
contrivance, my crew have been cut off, my boats destroyed, and I
daresay the lugger's taken; there were not men enough left on
board to work her, far less to fight her--a dredge-boat might have
taken her. And what will the owners say? Hagel and sturm! I shall
never dare go back again to Flushing.'

'You'll never need,' said the gipsy.

'What are you doing there,' said her companion; 'and what makes
you say that?'

During this dialogue Meg was heaping some flax loosely together.
Before answer to this question she dropped a firebrand upon the
flax, which had been previously steeped in some spirituous liquor,
for it instantly caught fire and rose in a vivid pyramid of the
most brilliant light up to the very top of the vault. As it
ascended Meg answered the ruffian's question in a firm and steady
voice: 'BECAUSE THE HOUR'S COME, AND THE MAN.'

At the appointed signal Bertram and Dinmont sprung over the
brushwood and rushed upon Hatteraick. Hazlewood, unacquainted with
their plan of assault, was a moment later. The ruffian, who
instantly saw he was betrayed, turned his first vengeance on Meg
Merrilies, at whom he discharged a pistol. She fell with a
piercing and dreadful cry between the shriek of pain and the sound
of laughter when at its highest and most suffocating height. 'I
kenn'd it would be this way,' she said.

Bertram, in his haste, slipped his foot upon the uneven rock which
floored the cave--a fortunate stumble, for Hatteraick's second
bullet whistled over him with so true and steady an aim that, had
he been standing upright, it must have lodged in his brain. Ere
the smuggler could draw another pistol, Dinmont closed with him,
and endeavoured by main force to pinion down his arms. Such,
however, was the wretch's personal strength, joined to the efforts
of his despair, that, in spite of the gigantic force with which
the Borderer grappled him, he dragged Dinmont through the blazing
flax, and had almost succeeded in drawing a third pistol, which
might have proved fatal to the honest farmer, had not Bertram, as
well as Hazlewood, come to his assistance, when, by main force,
and no ordinary exertion of it, they threw Hatteraick on the
ground, disarmed him, and bound him. This scuffle, though it takes
up some time in the narrative, passed in less than a single
minute. When he was fairly mastered, after one or two desperate
and almost convulsionary struggles, the ruffian lay perfectly
still and silent. 'He's gaun to die game ony how,' said Dinmont;
'weel, I like him na the waur for that.'

This observation honest Dandie made while he was shaking the
blazing flax from his rough coat and shaggy black hair, some of
which had been singed in the scuffle. 'He is quiet now,' said
Bertram; 'stay by him and do not permit him to stir till I see
whether the poor woman be alive or dead.' With Hazlewood's
assistance he raised Meg Merrilies.

'I kenn'd it would be this way,' she muttered, 'and it's e'en this
way that it should be.'

The ball had penetrated the breast below the throat. It did not
bleed much externally; but Bertram, accustomed to see gunshot
wounds, thought it the more alarming. 'Good God! what shall we do
for this poor woman?' said he to Hazlewood, the circumstances
superseding the necessity of previous explanation or introduction
to each other.

'My horse stands tied above in the wood,' said Hazlewood. 'I have
been watching you these two hours. I will ride off for some
assistants that may be trusted. Meanwhile, you had better defend
the mouth of the cavern against every one until I return.' He
hastened away. Bertram, after binding Meg Merrilies's wound as
well as he could, took station near the mouth of the cave with a
cocked pistol in his hand; Dinmont continued to watch Hatteraick,
keeping a grasp like that of Hercules on his breast. There was a
dead silence in the cavern, only interrupted by the low and
suppressed moaning of the wounded female and by the hard breathing
of the prisoner.




CHAPTER LV

     For though, seduced and led astray,
       Thoust travell'd far and wander'd long,
     Thy God hath seen thee all the way,
       And all the turns that led thee wrong

          The Hall of Justice.


After the space of about three-quarters of an hour, which the
uncertainty and danger of their situation made seem almost thrice
as long, the voice of young Hazlewood was heard without. 'Here I
am,' he cried, 'with a sufficient party.'

'Come in then,' answered Bertram, not a little pleased to find his
guard relieved. Hazlewood then entered, followed by two or three
countrymen, one of whom acted as a peace-officer. They lifted
Hatteraick up and carried him in their arms as far as the entrance
of the vault was high enough to permit them; then laid him on his
back and dragged him along as well as they could, for no
persuasion would induce him to assist the transportation by any
exertion of his own. He lay as silent and inactive in their hands
as a dead corpse, incapable of opposing, but in no way aiding,
their operations. When he was dragged into daylight and placed
erect upon his feet among three or four assistants who had
remained without the cave, he seemed stupefied and dazzled by the
sudden change from the darkness of his cavern. While others were
superintending the removal of Meg Merrilies, those who remained
with Hatteraick attempted to make him sit down upon a fragment of
rock which lay close upon the high-water mark. A strong shuddering
convulsed his iron frame for an instant as he resisted their
purpose. 'Not there! Hagel! you would not make me sit THERE?'

These were the only words he spoke; but their import, and the deep
tone of horror in which they were uttered, served to show what was
passing in his mind.

When Meg Merrilies had also been removed from the cavern, with all
the care for her safety that circumstances admitted, they
consulted where she should be carried. Hazlewood had sent for a
surgeon, and proposed that she should be lifted in the meantime to
the nearest cottage. But the patient exclaimed with great
earnestness, 'Na, na, na! to the Kaim o' Derncleugh--the Kaim o'
Derncleugh; the spirit will not free itself o' the flesh but
there.'

'You must indulge her, I believe,' said Bertram; 'her troubled
imagination will otherwise aggravate the fever of the wound.'

They bore her accordingly to the vault. On the way her mind seemed
to run more upon the scene which had just passed than on her own
approaching death. 'There were three of them set upon him: I
brought the twasome, but wha was the third? It would be HIMSELL,
returned to work his ain vengeance!'

It was evident that the unexpected appearance of Hazlewood, whose
person the outrage of Hatteraick left her no time to recognise,
had produced a strong effect on her imagination. She often
recurred to it. Hazlewood accounted for his unexpected arrival to
Bertram by saying that he had kept them in view for some time by
the direction of Mannering; that, observing them disappear into
the cave, he had crept after them, meaning to announce himself and
his errand, when his hand in the darkness encountering the leg of
Dinmont had nearly produced a catastrophe, which, indeed, nothing
but the presence of mind and fortitude of the bold yeoman could
have averted.

When the gipsy arrived at the hut she produced the key; and when
they entered, and were about to deposit her upon the bed, she
said, in an anxious tone, 'Na, na! not that way--the feet to the
east'; and appeared gratified when they reversed her posture
accordingly, and placed her in that appropriate to a dead body.

'Is there no clergyman near,' said Bertram, 'to assist this
unhappy woman's devotions?'

A gentleman, the minister of the parish, who had been Charles
Hazlewood's tutor, had, with many others, caught the alarm that
the murderer of Kennedy was taken on the spot where the deed had
been done so many years before, and that a woman was mortally
wounded. From curiosity, or rather from the feeling that his duty
called him to scenes of distress, this gentleman had come to the
Kaim of Derncleugh, and now presented himself. The surgeon arrived
at the same time, and was about to probe the wound; but Meg
resisted the assistance of either. 'It's no what man can do that
will heal my body or save my spirit. Let me speak what I have to
say, and then ye may work your will; I'se be nae hindrance. But
where's Henry Bertram?' The assistants, to whom this name had been
long a stranger, gazed upon each other. 'Yes!' she said, in a
stronger and harsher tone, 'I said HENRY BERTRAM OF ELLANGOWAN.
Stand from the light and let me see him.'

All eyes were turned towards Bertram, who approached the wretched
couch. The wounded woman took hold of his hand. 'Look at him,' she
said, 'all that ever saw his father or his grandfather, and bear
witness if he is not their living image?' A murmur went through
the crowd; the resemblance was too striking to be denied. 'And now
hear me; and let that man,' pointing to Hatteraick, who was seated
with his keepers on a sea-chest at some distance--'let him deny
what I say if he can. That is Henry Bertram, son to Godfrey
Bertram, umquhile of Ellangowan; that young man is the very lad-
bairn that Dirk Hatteraick carried off from Warroch wood the day
that he murdered the gauger. I was there like a wandering spirit,
for I longed to see that wood or we left the country. I saved the
bairn's life, and sair, sair I prigged and prayed they would leave
him wi' me. But they bore him away, and he's been lang ower the
sea, and now he's come for his ain, and what should withstand him?
I swore to keep the secret till he was ane-an'-twenty; I kenn'd he
behoved to dree his weird till that day cam. I keepit that oath
which I took to them; but I made another vow to mysell, that if I
lived to see the day of his return I would set him in his father's
seat, if every step was on a dead man. I have keepit that oath
too. I will be ae step mysell, he (pointing to Hatteraick) will
soon be another, and there will be ane mair yet.'

The clergyman, now interposing, remarked it was a pity this
deposition was not regularly taken and written down, and the
surgeon urged the necessity of examining the wound, previously to
exhausting her by questions. When she saw them removing
Hatteraick, in order to clear the room and leave the surgeon to
his operations, she called out aloud, raising herself at the same
time upon the couch, 'Dirk Hatteraick, you and I will never meet
again until we are before the judgment-seat; will ye own to what I
have said, or will you dare deny it?' He turned his hardened brow
upon her, with a look of dumb and inflexible defiance. 'Dirk
Hatteraick, dare ye deny, with my blood upon your hands, one word
of what my dying breath is uttering?' He looked at her with the
same expression of hardihood and dogged stubbornness, and moved
his lips, but uttered no sound. 'Then fareweel!' she said, 'and
God forgive you! your hand has sealed my evidence. When I was in
life I was the mad randy gipsy, that had been scourged and
banished and branded; that had begged from door to door, and been
hounded like a stray tyke from parish to parish; wha would hae
minded HER tale? But now I am a dying woman, and my words will not
fall to the ground, any more than the earth will cover my blood!'

She here paused, and all left the hut except the surgeon and two
or three women. After a very short examination he shook his head
and resigned his post by the dying woman's side to the clergyman.

A chaise returning empty to Kippletringan had been stopped on the
highroad by a constable, who foresaw it would be necessary to
convey Hatteraick to jail. The driver, understanding what was
going on at Derncleugh, left his horses to the care of a
blackguard boy, confiding, it is to be supposed, rather in the
years and discretion of the cattle than in those of their keeper,
and set off full speed to see, as he expressed himself, 'whaten a
sort o' fun was gaun on.' He arrived just as the group of tenants
and peasants, whose numbers increased every moment, satiated with
gazing upon the rugged features of Hatteraick, had turned their
attention towards Bertram. Almost all of them, especially the aged
men who had seen Ellangowan in his better days, felt and
acknowledged the justice of Meg Merrilies's appeal. But the Scotch
are a cautious people: they remembered there was another in
possession of the estate, and they as yet only expressed their
feelings in low whispers to each other. Our friend Jock Jabos, the
postilion, forced his way into the middle of the circle; but no
sooner cast his eyes upon Bertram than he started back in
amazement, with a solemn exclamation, 'As sure as there's breath
in man, it's auld Ellangowan arisen from the dead!'

This public declaration of an unprejudiced witness was just the
spark wanted to give fire to the popular feeling, which burst
forth in three distinct shouts: 'Bertram for ever!' 'Long life to
the heir of Ellangowan!' 'God send him his ain, and to live among
us as his forebears did of yore!'

'I hae been seventy years on the land,' said one person.

'I and mine hae been seventy and seventy to that,' said another;
'I have a right to ken the glance of a Bertram.'

'I and mine hae been three hundred years here,' said another old
man, 'and I sail sell my last cow, but I'll see the young Laird
placed in his right.'

The women, ever delighted with the marvellous, and not less so
when a handsome young man is the subject of the tale, added their
shrill acclamations to the general all-hail. 'Blessings on him;
he's the very picture o' his father! The Bertrams were aye the
wale o' the country side!'

'Eh! that his puir mother, that died in grief and in doubt about
him, had but lived to see this day!' exclaimed some female voices.

'But we'll help him to his ain, kimmers,' cried others; 'and
before Glossin sail keep the Place of Ellangowan we'll howk him
out o't wi' our nails!'

Others crowded around Dinmont, who was nothing both to tell what
he knew of his friend, and to boast the honour which he had in
contributing to the discovery. As he was known to several of the
principal farmers present, his testimony afforded an additional
motive to the general enthusiasm. In short, it was one of those
moments of intense feeling when the frost of the Scottish people
melts like a snow-wreath, and the dissolving torrent carries dam
and dyke before it.

The sudden shouts interrupted the devotions of the clergyman; and
Meg, who was in one of those dozing fits of stupefaction that
precede the close of existence, suddenly started--'Dinna ye hear?
dinna ye hear? He's owned! he's owned! I lived but for this. I am
a sinfu' woman; but if my curse brought it down, my blessing has
taen it off! And now I wad hae liked to hae said mair. But it
canna be. Stay'--she continued, stretching her head towards the
gleam of light that shot through the narrow slit which served for
a window--'is he not there? Stand out o' the light, and let me
look upon him ance mair. But the darkness is in my ain een,' she
said, sinking back, after an earnest gaze upon vacuity; 'it's a'
ended now,

     Pass breath,
     Come death!'

And, sinking back upon her couch of straw, she expired without a
groan. The clergyman and the surgeon carefully noted down all that
she had said, now deeply regretting they had not examined her more
minutely, but both remaining morally convinced of the truth of her
disclosure.

Hazlewood was the first to compliment Bertram upon the near
prospect of his being restored to his name and rank in society.
The people around, who now learned from Jabos that Bertram was the
person who had wounded him, were struck with his generosity, and
added his name to Bertram's in their exulting acclamations.

Some, however, demanded of the postilion how he had not recognised
Bertram when he saw him some time before at Kippletringan. To
which he gave the very natural answer--'Hout, what was I thinking
about Ellangowan then? It was the cry that was rising e'en now
that the young Laird was found, that put me on finding out the
likeness. There was nae missing it ance ane was set to look
for't.'

The obduracy of Hatteraick during the latter part of this scene
was in some slight degree shaken. He was observed to twinkle with
his eyelids; to attempt to raise his bound hands for the purpose
of pulling his hat over his brow; to look angrily and impatiently
to the road, as if anxious for the vehicle which was to remove him
from the spot. At length Mr. Hazlewood, apprehensive that the
popular ferment might take a direction towards the prisoner,
directed he should be taken to the post-chaise, and so removed to
the town of Kippletringan, to be at Mr. Mac-Morlan's disposal; at
the same time he sent an express to warn that gentleman of what
had happened. 'And now,' he said to Bertram, 'I should be happy if
you would accompany me to Hazlewood House; but as that might not
be so agreeable just now as I trust it will be in a day or two,
you must allow me to return with you to Woodbourne. But you are on
foot.'--'O, if the young Laird would take my horse!'--'Or mine'--
'Or mine,' said half-a-dozen voices.--'Or mine; he can trot ten
mile an hour without whip or spur, and he's the young Laird's frae
this moment, if he likes to take him for a herezeld, [Footnote:
See Note 8.] as they ca'd it lang syne.' Bertram readily accepted
the horse as a loan, and poured forth his thanks to the assembled
crowd for their good wishes, which they repaid with shouts and
vows of attachment.

While the happy owner was directing one lad to 'gae doun for the
new saddle'; another,' just to rin the beast ower wi' a dry wisp
o' strae'; a third, 'to hie doun and borrow Dan Dunkieson's plated
stirrups,' and expressing his regret 'that there was nae time to
gie the nag a feed, that the young Laird might ken his mettle,'
Bertram, taking the clergyman by the arm, walked into the vault
and shut the door immediately after them. He gazed in silence for
some minutes upon the body of Meg Merrilies, as it lay before him,
with the features sharpened by death, yet still retaining the
stern and energetic character which had maintained in life her
superiority as the wild chieftainess of the lawless people amongst
whom she was born. The young soldier dried the tears which
involuntarily rose on viewing this wreck of one who might be said
to have died a victim to her fidelity to his person and family. He
then took the clergyman's hand and asked solemnly if she appeared
able to give that attention to his devotions which befitted a
departing person.

'My dear sir,' said the good minister, 'I trust this poor woman
had remaining sense to feel and join in the import of my prayers.
But let us humbly hope we are judged of by our opportunities of
religious and moral instruction. In some degree she might be
considered as an uninstructed heathen, even in the bosom of a
Christian country; and let us remember that the errors and vices
of an ignorant life were balanced by instances of disinterested
attachment, amounting almost to heroism. To HIM who can alone
weigh our crimes and errors against our efforts towards virtue we
consign her with awe, but not without hope.'

'May I request,' said Bertram, 'that you will see every decent
solemnity attended to in behalf of this poor woman? I have some
property belonging to her in my hands; at all events I will be
answerable for the expense. You will hear of me at Woodbourne.'

Dinmont, who had been furnished with a horse by one of his
acquaintance, now loudly called out that all was ready for their
return; and Bertram and Hazlewood, after a strict exhortation to
the crowd, which was now increased to several hundreds, to
preserve good order in their rejoicing, as the least ungoverned
zeal might be turned to the disadvantage of the young Laird, as
they termed him, took their leave amid the shouts of the
multitude.

As they rode past the ruined cottages at Derncleugh, Dinmont said,
'I'm sure when ye come to your ain, Captain, ye'll no forget to
bigg a bit cot-house there? Deil be in me but I wad do't mysell,
an it werena in better hands. I wadna like to live in't, though,
after what she said. Od, I wad put in auld Elspeth, the bedral's
widow; the like o' them's used wi' graves and ghaists and thae
things.'

A short but brisk ride brought them to Woodbourne. The news of
their exploit had already flown far and wide, and the whole
inhabitants of the vicinity met them on the lawn with shouts of
congratulation. 'That you have seen me alive,' said Bertram to
Lucy, who first ran up to him, though Julia's eyes even
anticipated hers, 'you must thank these kind friends.'

With a blush expressing at once pleasure, gratitude, and
bashfulness, Lucy curtsied to Hazlewood, but to Dinmont she
frankly extended her hand. The honest farmer, in the extravagance
of his joy, carried his freedom farther than the hint warranted,
for he imprinted his thanks on the lady's lips, and was instantly
shocked at the rudeness of his own conduct. 'Lord sake, madam, I
ask your pardon,' he said. 'I forgot but ye had been a bairn o' my
ain; the Captain's sae namely, he gars ane forget himsell.'

Old Pleydell now advanced. 'Nay, if fees like these are going,' he
said--

'Stop, stop, Mr. Pleydell,' said Julia, 'you had your fees
beforehand; remember last night.'

'Why, I do confess a retainer,' said the Barrister; 'but if I
don't deserve double fees from both Miss Bertram and you when I
conclude my examination of Dirk Hatteraick to-morrow--Gad, I will
so supple him! You shall see, Colonel; and you, my saucy misses,
though you may not see, shall hear.'

'Ay, that's if we choose to listen, Counsellor,' replied Julia.

'And you think,' said Pleydell, 'it's two to one you won't choose
that? But you have curiosity that teaches you the use of your ears
now and then.'

'I declare, Counsellor,' answered the lively damsel, 'that such
saucy bachelors as you would teach us the use of our fingers now
and then.'

'Reserve them for the harpsichord, my love,' said the Counsellor.
'Better for all parties.'

While this idle chat ran on, Colonel Mannering introduced to
Bertram a plain good-looking man, in a grey coat and waistcoat,
buckskin breeches, and boots. 'This, my dear sir, is Mr. Mac-
Morlan.'

'To whom,' said Bertram, embracing him cordially, 'my sister was
indebted for a home, when deserted by all her natural friends and
relations.'

The Dominie then pressed forward, grinned, chuckled, made a
diabolical sound in attempting to whistle, and finally, unable to
stifle his emotions, ran away to empty the feelings of his heart
at his eyes.

We shall not attempt to describe the expansion of heart and glee
of this happy evening.




CHAPTER LVI

          How like a hateful ape,
     Detected grinning 'midst his pilfer'd hoard,
     A cunning man appears, whose secret frauds
     Are open'd to the day!

          Count Basil


There was a great movement at Woodbourne early on the following
morning to attend the examination at Kippletringan. Mr. Pleydell,
from the investigation which he had formerly bestowed on the dark
affair of Kennedy's death, as well as from the general deference
due to his professional abilities, was requested by Mr. Mac-Morlan
and Sir Robert Hazlewood, and another justice of peace who
attended, to take the situation of chairman and the lead in the
examination. Colonel Mannering was invited to sit down with them.
The examination, being previous to trial, was private in other
respects.

The Counsellor resumed and reinterrogated former evidence. He then
examined the clergyman and surgeon respecting the dying
declaration of Meg Merrilies. They stated that she distinctly,
positively, and repeatedly declared herself an eye-witness of
Kennedy's death by the hands of Hatteraick and two or three of his
crew; that her presence was accidental; that she believed their
resentment at meeting him, when they were in the act of losing
their vessel through the means of his information, led to the
commission of the crime; that she said there was one witness of
the murder, but who refused to participate in it, still alive--her
nephew, Gabriel Faa; and she had hinted at another person who was
an accessory after, not before, the fact; but her strength there
failed her. They did not forget to mention her declaration that
she had saved the child, and that he was torn from her by the
smugglers for the purpose of carrying him to Holland. All these
particulars were carefully reduced to writing.

Dirk Hatteraick was then brought in, heavily ironed; for he had
been strictly secured and guarded, owing to his former escape. He
was asked his name; he made no answer. His profession; he was
silent. Several other questions were put, to none of which he
returned any reply. Pleydell wiped the glasses of his spectacles
and considered the prisoner very attentively. 'A very truculent-
looking fellow,' he whispered to Mannering; 'but, as Dogberry
says, I'll go cunningly to work with him. Here, call in Soles--
Soles the shoemaker. Soles, do you remember measuring some
footsteps imprinted on the mud at the wood of Warroch on--November
17--, by my orders?' Soles remembered the circumstance perfectly.
'Look at that paper; is that your note of the measurement?' Soles
verified the memorandum. 'Now, there stands a pair of shoes on
that table; measure them, and see if they correspond with any of
the marks you have noted there.' The shoemaker obeyed, and
declared 'that they answered exactly to the largest of the
footprints.'

'We shall prove,' said the Counsellor, aside to Mannering, 'that
these shoes, which were found in the ruins at Derncleugh, belonged
to Brown, the fellow whom you shot on the lawn at Woodbourne. Now,
Soles, measure that prisoner's feet very accurately.'

Mannering observed Hatteraick strictly, and could notice a visible
tremor. 'Do these measurements correspond with any of the
footprints?'

The man looked at the note, then at his foot-rule and measure,
then verified his former measurement by a second. 'They
correspond,' he said, 'within a hair-breadth to a foot-mark
broader and shorter than the former.'

Hatteraick's genius here deserted him. 'Der deyvil!' he broke out,
'how could there be a footmark on the ground, when it was a frost
as hard as the heart of a Memel log?'

'In the evening, I grant you, Captain Hatteraick,' said Pleydell,
'but not in the forenoon. Will you favour me with information
where you were upon the day you remember so exactly?'

Hatteraick saw his blunder, and again screwed up his hard features
for obstinate silence. 'Put down his observation, however,' said
Pleydell to the clerk.

At this moment the door opened, and, much to the surprise of most
present, Mr. Gilbert Glossin made his appearance. That worthy
gentleman had, by dint of watching and eavesdropping, ascertained
that he was not mentioned by name in Meg Merrilies's dying
declaration--a circumstance certainly not owing to any favourable
disposition towards him, but to the delay of taking her regular
examination, and to the rapid approach of death. He therefore
supposed himself safe from all evidence but such as might arise
from Hatteraick's confession; to prevent which he resolved to push
a bold face and join his brethren of the bench during his
examination. 'I shall be able,' he thought, 'to make the rascal
sensible his safety lies in keeping his own counsel and mine; and
my presence, besides, will be a proof of confidence and innocence.
If I must lose the estate, I must; but I trust better things.'