At the hour which he had appointed the preceding evening the
indefatigable lawyer was seated by a good fire and a pair of wax
candles, with a velvet cap on his head and a quilted silk
nightgown on his person, busy arranging his memoranda of proofs
and indications concerning the murder of Frank Kennedy. An express
had also been despatched to Mr. Mac-Morlan, requesting his
attendance at Woodbourne as soon as possible on business of
importance. Dinmont, fatigued with the events of the evening
before, and finding the accommodations of Woodbourne much
preferable to those of Mac-Guffog, was in no hurry to rise. The
impatience of Bertram might have put him earlier in motion, but
Colonel Mannering had intimated an intention to visit him in his
apartment in the morning, and he did not choose to leave it.
Before this interview he had dressed himself, Barnes having, by
his master's orders, supplied him with every accommodation of
linen, etc., and now anxiously waited the promised visit of his
landlord.

In a short time a gentle tap announced the Colonel, with whom
Bertram held a long and satisfactory conversation. Each, however,
concealed from the other one circumstance. Mannering could not
bring himself to acknowledge the astrological prediction; and
Bertram was, from motives which may be easily conceived, silent
respecting his love for Julia. In other respects their intercourse
was frank and grateful to both, and had latterly, upon the
Colonel's part, even an approach to cordiality. Bertram carefully
measured his own conduct by that of his host, and seemed rather to
receive his offered kindness with gratitude and pleasure than to
press for it with solicitation.

Miss Bertram was in the breakfast-parlour when Sampson shuffled
in, his face all radiant with smiles--a circumstance so uncommon
that Lucy's first idea was that somebody had been bantering him
with an imposition, which had thrown him into this ecstasy. Having
sate for some time rolling his eyes and gaping with his mouth like
the great wooden head at Merlin's exhibition, he at length began--
'And what do you think of him, Miss Lucy?'

'Think of whom, Mr. Sampson?' asked the young lady.

'Of Har--no--of him that you know about?' again demanded the
Dominie.

'That I know about?' replied Lucy, totally at a loss to comprehend
his meaning.

'Yes, the stranger, you know, that came last evening, in the post
vehicle; he who shot young Hazelwood, ha, ha, ha!' burst forth the
Dominie, with a laugh that sounded like neighing.

'Indeed, Mr. Sampson,' said his pupil, 'you have chosen a strange
subject for mirth; I think nothing about the man, only I hope the
outrage was accidental, and that we need not fear a repetition of
it.'

'Accidental! ha, ha, ha!' again whinnied Sampson.

'Really, Mr. Sampson,' said Lucy, somewhat piqued, 'you are
unusually gay this morning.'

'Yes, of a surety I am! ha, ha, ho! face-ti-ous, ho, ho, ha!'

'So unusually facetious, my dear sir,' pursued the young lady,
'that I would wish rather to know the meaning of your mirth than
to be amused with its effects only.'

'You shall know it, Miss Lucy,' replied poor Abel. 'Do you
remember your brother?'

'Good God, how can you ask me? No one knows better than you he was
lost the very day I was born.'

'Very true, very true,' answered the Dominie, saddening at the
recollection; 'I was strangely oblivious; ay, ay! too true. But
you remember your worthy father?'

'How should you doubt it, Mr. Sampson? it is not so many weeks
since--'

'True, true; ay, too true,' replied the Dominie, his Houyhnhnm
laugh sinking into a hysterical giggle. 'I will be facetious no
more under these remembrances; but look at that young man!'

Bertram at this instant entered the room. 'Yes, look at him well,
he is your father's living image; and as God has deprived you of
your dear parents--O, my children, love one another!'

'It is indeed my father's face and form,' said Lucy, turning very
pale. Bertram ran to support her, the Dominie to fetch water to
throw upon her face (which in his haste he took from the boiling
tea-urn), when fortunately her colour, returning rapidly, saved
her from the application of this ill-judged remedy. 'I conjure you
to tell me, Mr. Sampson,' she said, in an interrupted yet solemn
voice, 'is this my brother?'

'It is, it is! Miss Lucy, it is little Harry Bertram, as sure as
God's sun is in that heaven!'

'And this is my sister?' said Bertram, giving way to all that
family affection which had so long slumbered in his bosom for want
of an object to expand itself upon.

'It is, it is!--it is Miss Lucy Bertram,' ejaculated Sampson,
'whom by my poor aid you will find perfect in the tongues of
France and Italy, and even of Spain, in reading and writing her
vernacular tongue, and in arithmetic and book-keeping by double
and single entry. I say nothing of her talents of shaping and
hemming and governing a household, which, to give every one their
due, she acquired not from me but from the housekeeper; nor do I
take merit for her performance upon stringed instruments,
whereunto the instructions of an honourable young lady of virtue
and modesty, and very facetious withal--Miss Julia Mannering--hath
not meanly contributed. Suum cuique tribuito.'

'You, then,' said Bertram to his sister, 'are all that remains to
me! Last night, but more fully this morning, Colonel Mannering
gave me an account of our family misfortunes, though without
saying I should find my sister here.'

'That,' said Lucy, 'he left to this gentleman to tell you--one of
the kindest and most faithful of friends, who soothed my father's
long sickness, witnessed his dying moments, and amid the heaviest
clouds of fortune would not desert his orphan.'

'God bless him for it!' said Bertram, shaking the Dominie's hand;'
he deserves the love with which I have always regarded even that
dim and imperfect shadow of his memory which my childhood
retained.'

'And God bless you both, my dear children!' said Sampson; 'if it
had not been for your sake I would have been contented--had
Heaven's pleasure so been--to lay my head upon the turf beside my
patron.'

'But I trust,' said Bertram--'I am encouraged to hope, we shall
all see better days. All our wrongs shall be redressed, since
Heaven has sent me means and friends to assert my right.'

'Friends indeed!' echoed the Dominie, 'and sent, as you truly say,
by HIM to whom I early taught you to look up as the source of all
that is good. There is the great Colonel Mannering from the
Eastern Indies, a man of war from his birth upwards, but who is
not the less a man of great erudition, considering his imperfect
opportunities; and there is, moreover, the great advocate Mr.
Pleydell, who is also a man of great erudition, but who descendeth
to trifles unbeseeming thereof; and there is Mr. Andrew Dinmont,
whom I do not understand to have possession of much erudition, but
who, like the patriarchs of old, is cunning in that which
belongeth to flocks and herds; lastly, there is even I myself,
whose opportunities of collecting erudition, as they have been
greater than those of the aforesaid valuable persons, have not, if
it becomes me to speak, been pretermitted by me, in so far as my
poor faculties have enabled me to profit by them. Of a surety,
little Harry, we must speedily resume our studies. I will begin
from the foundation. Yes, I will reform your education upward from
the true knowledge of English grammar even to that of the Hebrew
or Chaldaic tongue.'

The reader may observe that upon this occasion Sampson was
infinitely more profuse of words than he had hitherto exhibited
himself. The reason was that, in recovering his pupil, his mind
went instantly back to their original connexion, and he had, in
his confusion of ideas, the strongest desire in the world to
resume spelling lessons and half-text with young Bertram. This was
the more ridiculous, as towards Lucy he assumed no such powers of
tuition. But she had grown up under his eye, and had been
gradually emancipated from his government by increase in years and
knowledge, and a latent sense of his own inferior tact in manners,
whereas his first ideas went to take up Harry pretty nearly where
he had left him. From the same feelings of reviving authority he
indulged himself in what was to him a profusion of language; and
as people seldom speak more than usual without exposing
themselves, he gave those whom he addressed plainly to understand
that, while he deferred implicitly to the opinions and commands,
if they chose to impose them, of almost every one whom he met
with, it was under an internal conviction that in the article of
eru-di-ti-on, as he usually pronounced the word, he was infinitely
superior to them all put together. At present, however, this
intimation fell upon heedless ears, for the brother and sister
were too deeply engaged in asking and receiving intelligence
concerning their former fortunes to attend much to the worthy
Dominie. When Colonel Mannering left Bertram he went to Julia's
dressing-room and dismissed her attendant. 'My dear sir,' she said
as he entered, 'you have forgot our vigils last night, and have
hardly allowed me time to comb my hair, although you must be
sensible how it stood on end at the various wonders which took
place.'

'It is with the inside of your head that I have some business at
present, Julia; I will return the outside to the care of your Mrs.
Mincing in a few minutes.'

'Lord, papa,' replied Miss Mannering, 'think how entangled all my
ideas are, and you to propose to comb them out in a few minutes!
If Mincing were to do so in her department she would tear half the
hair out of my head.'

'Well then, tell me,' said the Colonel, 'where the entanglement
lies, which I will try to extricate with due gentleness?'

'O, everywhere,' said the young lady; 'the whole is a wild dream.'

'Well then, I will try to unriddle it.' He gave a brief sketch of
the fate and prospects of Bertram, to which Julia listened with an
interest which she in vain endeavoured to disguise. 'Well,'
concluded her father, 'are your ideas on the subject more
luminous?'

'More confused than ever, my dear sir,' said Julia. 'Here is this
young man come from India, after he had been supposed dead, like
Aboulfouaris the great voyager to his sister Canzade and his
provident brother Hour. I am wrong in the story, I believe--
Canzade was his wife; but Lucy may represent the one and the
Dominie the other. And then this lively crack-brained Scotch
lawyer appears like a pantomime at the end of a tragedy. And then
how delightful it will be if Lucy gets back her fortune.'

'Now I think,' said the Colonel, 'that the most mysterious part of
the business is, that Miss Julia Mannering, who must have known
her father's anxiety about the fate of this young man Brown, or
Bertram, as we must now call him, should have met him when
Hazlewood's accident took place, and never once mentioned to her
father a word of the matter, but suffered the search to proceed
against this young gentleman as a suspicious character and
assassin.'

Julia, much of whose courage had been hastily assumed to meet the
interview with her father, was now unable to rally herself; she
hung down her head in silence, after in vain attempting to utter a
denial that she recollected Brown when she met him.

'No answer! Well, Julia,' continued her father, gravely but
kindly, 'allow me to ask you, Is this the only time you have seen
Brown since his return from India? Still no answer. I must then
naturally suppose that it is not the first time. Still no reply.
Julia Mannering, will you have the kindness to answer me? Was it
this young man who came under your window and conversed with you
during your residence at Mervyn Hall? Julia, I command--I entreat
you to be candid.'

Miss Mannering raised her head. 'I have been, sir--I believe I am
still--very foolish; and it is perhaps more hard upon me that I
must meet this gentleman, who has been, though not the cause
entirely, yet the accomplice, of my folly, in your presence.' Here
she made a full stop.

'I am to understand, then,' said Mannering, 'that this was the
author of the serenade at Mervyn Hall?'

There was something in this allusive change of epithet that gave
Julia a little more courage. 'He was indeed, sir; and if I am very
wrong, as I have often thought, I have some apology.'

'And what is that?' answered the Colonel, speaking quick, and with
something of harshness.

'I will not venture to name it, sir; but (she opened a small
cabinet, and put some letters into his hands) I will give you
these, that you may see how this intimacy began, and by whom it
was encouraged.'

Mannering took the packet to the window--his pride forbade a more
distant retreat. He glanced at some passages of the letters with
an unsteady eye and an agitated mind; his stoicism, however, came
in time to his aid--that philosophy which, rooted in pride, yet
frequently bears the fruits of virtue. He returned towards his
daughter with as firm an air as his feelings permitted him to
assume.

'There is great apology for you, Julia, as far as I can judge from
a glance at these letters; you have obeyed at least one parent.
Let us adopt a Scotch proverb the Dominie quoted the other day--
"Let bygones be bygones, and fair play for the future." I will
never upbraid you with your past want of confidence; do you judge
of my future intentions by my actions, of which hitherto you have
surely had no reason to complain. Keep these letters; they were
never intended for my eye, and I would not willingly read more of
them than I have done, at your desire and for your exculpation.
And now, are we friends? Or rather, do you understand me?'

'O, my dear, generous father,' said Julia, throwing herself into
his arms, 'why have I ever for an instant misunderstood you?'

'No more of that, Julia,' said the Colonel; 'we have both been to
blame. He that is too proud to vindicate the affection and
confidence which he conceives should be given without
solicitation, must meet much, and perhaps deserved, disappointment.
It is enough that one dearest and most regretted member of my family
has gone to the grave without knowing me; let me not lose the
confidence of a child who ought to love me if she really loves herself.'

'O, no danger, no fear!' answered Julia; 'let me but have your
approbation and my own, and there is no rule you can prescribe so
severe that I will not follow.'

'Well, my love,' kissing her forehead, 'I trust we shall not call
upon you for anything too heroic. With respect to this young
gentleman's addresses, I expect in the first place that all
clandestine correspondence, which no young woman can entertain for
a moment without lessening herself in her own eyes and in those of
her lover--I request, I say, that clandestine correspondence of
every kind may be given up, and that you will refer Mr. Bertram to
me for the reason. You will naturally wish to know what is to be
the issue of such a reference. In the first place, I desire to
observe this young gentleman's character more closely than
circumstances, and perhaps my own prejudices, have permitted
formerly. I should also be glad to see his birth established. Not
that I am anxious about his getting the estate of Ellangowan,
though such a subject is held in absolute indifference nowhere
except in a novel; but certainly Henry Bertram, heir of
Ellangowan, whether possessed of the property of his ancestors or
not, is a very different person from Vanbeest Brown, the son of
nobody at all. His fathers, Mr. Pleydell tells me, are
distinguished in history as following the banners of their native
princes, while our own fought at Cressy and Poirtiers. In short, I
neither give nor withhold my approbation, but I expect you will
redeem past errors; and, as you can now unfortunately only have
recourse to ONE parent, that you will show the duty of a child by
reposing that confidence in me which I will say my inclination to
make you happy renders a filial debt upon your part.'

The first part of this speech affected Julia a good deal, the
comparative merit of the ancestors of the Bertrams and Mannerings
excited a secret smile, but the conclusion was such as to soften a
heart peculiarly open to the feelings of generosity. 'No, my dear
sir,' she said, extending her hand,' receive my faith, that from
this moment you shall be the first person consulted respecting
what shall pass in future between Brown--I mean Bertram--and me;
and that no engagement shall be undertaken by me excepting what
you shall immediately know and approve of. May I ask if Mr.
Bertram is to continue a guest at Woodbourne?'

'Certainly,' said the Colonel, 'while his affairs render it
advisable.'

'Then, sir, you must be sensible, considering what is already
past, that he will expect some reason for my withdrawing, I
believe I must say the encouragement, which he may think I have
given.'

'I expect, Julia,' answered Mannering, 'that he will respect my
roof, and entertain some sense perhaps of the services I am
desirous to render him, and so will not insist upon any course of
conduct of which I might have reason to complain; and I expect of
you that you will make him sensible of what is due to both.'

'Then, sir, I understand you, and you shall be implicitly obeyed.'

'Thank you, my love; my anxiety (kissing her) is on your account.
Now wipe these witnesses from your eyes, and so to breakfast.'




CHAPTER LII

          And Sheriff I will engage my word to you,
          That I will by to morrow dinner time,
          Send him to answer thee or any man,
          For anything he shall be charged withal

          Henry IV Part I


When the several by-plays, as they may be termed, had taken place
among the individuals of the Woodbourne family, as we have
intimated in the preceding chapter, the breakfast party at length
assembled, Dandie excepted, who had consulted his taste in viands,
and perhaps in society, by partaking of a cup of tea with Mrs.
Allan, just laced with two teaspoonfuls of cogniac, and reinforced
with various slices from a huge round of beef. He had a kind of
feeling that he could eat twice as much, and speak twice as much,
with this good dame and Barnes as with the grand folk in the
parlour. Indeed, the meal of this less distinguished party was
much more mirthful than that in the higher circle, where there was
an obvious air of constraint on the greater part of the
assistants. Julia dared not raise her voice in asking Bertram if
he chose another cup of tea. Bertram felt embarrassed while eating
his toast and butter under the eye of Mannering. Lucy, while she
indulged to the uttermost her affection for her recovered brother,
began to think of the quarrel betwixt him and Hazlewood. The
Colonel felt the painful anxiety natural to a proud mind when it
deems its slightest action subject for a moment to the watchful
construction of others. The Lawyer, while sedulously buttering his
roll, had an aspect of unwonted gravity, arising perhaps from the
severity of his morning studies. As for the Dominie, his state of
mind was ecstatic! He looked at Bertram--he looked at Lucy--he
whimpered--he sniggled--he grinned--he committed all manner of
solecisms in point of form: poured the whole cream (no unlucky
mistake) upon the plate of porridge which was his own usual
breakfast, threw the slops of what he called his 'crowning dish of
tea' into the sugar-dish instead of the slop-basin, and concluded
with spilling the scalding liquor upon old Plato, the Colonel's
favourite spaniel, who received the libation with a howl that did
little honour to his philosophy.

The Colonel's equanimity was rather shaken by this last blunder.
'Upon my word, my good friend, Mr. Sampson, you forget the
difference between Plato and Zenocrates.'

'The former was chief of the Academics, the latter of the Stoics,'
said the Dominie, with some scorn of the supposition.

'Yes, my dear sir, but it was Zenocrates, not Plato, who denied
that pain was an evil.'

'I should have thought,' said Pleydell, 'that very respectable
quadruped which is just now limping out of the room upon three of
his four legs was rather of the Cynic school.'

'Very well hit off. But here comes an answer from Mac-Morlan.'

It was unfavourable. Mrs. Mac-Morlan sent her respectful
compliments, and her husband had been, and was, detained by some
alarming disturbances which had taken place the preceding night at
Portanferry, and the necessary investigation which they had
occasioned.

'What's to be done now. Counsellor?' said the Colonel to Pleydell.

'Why, I wish we could have seen Mac-Morlan,' said the Counsellor,
'who is a sensible fellow himself, and would besides have acted
under my advice. But there is little harm. Our friend here must be
made sui juris. He is at present an escaped prisoner, the law has
an awkward claim upon him; he must be placed rectus in curia, that
is the first object; for which purpose, Colonel, I will accompany
you in your carriage down to Hazlewood House. The distance is not
great; we will offer our bail, and I am confident I can easily
show Mr.--I beg his pardon--Sir Robert Hazlewood, the necessity of
receiving it.'

'With all my heart,' said the Colonel; and, ringing the bell, gave
the necessary orders. 'And what is next to be done?'

'We must get hold of Mac-Morlan, and look out for more proof.'

'Proof!' said the Colonel, 'the thing is as clear as daylight:
here are Mr. Sampson and Miss Bertram, and you yourself at once
recognise the young gentleman as his father's image; and he
himself recollects all the very peculiar circumstances preceding
his leaving this country. What else is necessary to conviction?'

'To moral conviction nothing more, perhaps,' said the experienced
lawyer, 'but for legal proof a great deal. Mr. Bertram's
recollections are his own recollections merely, and therefore are
not evidence in his own favour. Miss Bertram, the learned Mr.
Sampson, and I can only say, what every one who knew the late
Ellangowan will readily agree in, that this gentleman is his very
picture. But that will not make him Ellangowan's son and give him
the estate.'

'And what will do so?' said the Colonel.

'Why, we must have a distinct probation. There are these gipsies;
but then, alas! they are almost infamous in the eye of law, scarce
capable of bearing evidence, and Meg Merrilies utterly so, by the
various accounts which she formerly gave of the matter, and her
impudent denial of all knowledge of the fact when I myself
examined her respecting it.'

'What must be done then?' asked Mannering.

'We must try,' answered the legal sage, 'what proof can be got at
in Holland among the persons by whom our young friend was
educated. But then the fear of being called in question for the
murder of the gauger may make them silent; or, if they speak, they
are either foreigners or outlawed smugglers. In short, I see
doubts.'

'Under favour, most learned and honoured sir,' said the Dominie,
'I trust HE who hath restored little Harry Bertram to his friends
will not leave His own work imperfect.'

'I trust so too, Mr. Sampson,' said Pleydell; 'but we must use the
means; and I am afraid we shall have more difficulty in procuring
them than I at first thought. But a faint heart never won a fair
lady; and, by the way (apart to Miss Mannering, while Bertram was
engaged with his sister), there's a vindication of Holland for
you! What smart fellows do you think Leyden and Utrecht must send
forth, when such a very genteel and handsome young man comes from
the paltry schools of Middleburgh?'

'Of a verity,' said the Dominie, jealous of the reputation of the
Dutch seminary--'of a verity, Mr. Pleydell, but I make it known to
you that I myself laid the foundation of his education.'

'True, my dear Dominie,' answered the Advocate, 'that accounts for
his proficiency in the graces, without question. But here comes
your carriage, Colonel. Adieu, young folks. Miss Julia, keep your
heart till I come back again; let there be nothing done to
prejudice my right whilst I am non valens agere.'

Their reception at Hazlewood House was more cold and formal than
usual; for in general the Baronet expressed great respect for
Colonel Mannering, and Mr. Pleydell, besides being a man of good
family and of high general estimation, was Sir Robert's old
friend. But now he seemed dry and embarrassed in his manner. 'He
would willingly,' he said, 'receive bail, notwithstanding that the
offence had been directly perpetrated, committed, and done against
young Hazlewood of Hazlewood; but the young man had given himself
a fictitious description, and was altogether that sort of person
who should not be liberated, discharged, or let loose upon
society; and therefore--'

'I hope, Sir Robert Hazlewood,' said the Colonel, 'you do not mean
to doubt my word when I assure you that he served under me as
cadet in India?'

'By no means or account whatsoever. But you call him a cadet; now
he says, avers, and upholds that he was a captain, or held a troop
in your regiment.'

'He was promoted since I gave up the command.'

'But you must have heard of it?'

'No. I returned on account of family circumstances from India, and
have not since been solicitous to hear particular news from the
regiment; the name of Brown, too, is so common that I might have
seen his promotion in the "Gazette" without noticing it. But a day
or two will bring letters from his commanding officer.'

'But I am told and informed, Mr. Pleydell,' answered Sir Robert,
still hesitating, 'that he does not mean to abide by this name of
Brown, but is to set up a claim to the estate of Ellangowan, under
the name of Bertram.'

'Ay, who says that?' said the Counsellor.

'Or,' demanded the soldier, 'whoever says so, does that give a
right to keep him in prison?'

'Hush, Colonel,' said the Lawyer; 'I am sure you would not, any
more than I, countenance him if he prove an impostor. And, among
friends, who informed you of this, Sir Robert?'

'Why, a person, Mr, Pleydell,' answered the Baronet, 'who is
peculiarly interested in investigating, sifting, and clearing out
this business to the bottom; you will excuse my being more
particular.'

'O, certainly,' replied Pleydell; 'well, and he says--?'

'He says that it is whispered about among tinkers, gipsies, and
other idle persons that there is such a plan as I mentioned to
you, and that this young man, who is a bastard or natural son of
the late Ellangowan, is pitched upon as the impostor from his
strong family likeness.'

'And was there such a natural son, Sir Robert?' demanded the
Counsellor.

'O, certainly, to my own positive knowledge. Ellangowan had him
placed as cabin-boy or powder-monkey on board an armed sloop or
yacht belonging to the revenue, through the interest of the late
Commissioner Bertram, a kinsman of his own.'

'Well, Sir Robert,' said the Lawyer, taking the word out of the
mouth of the impatient soldier, 'you have told me news. I shall
investigate them, and if I find them true, certainly Colonel
Mannering and I will not countenance this young man. In the
meanwhile, as we are all willing to make him forthcoming to answer
all complaints against him, I do assure you, you will act most
illegally, and incur heavy responsibility, if you refuse our
bail.'

'Why, Mr. Pleydell,' said Sir Robert, who knew the high authority
of the Counsellor's opinion, 'as you must know best, and as you
promise to give up this young man--'

'If he proves an impostor,' replied the Lawyer, with some
emphasis.

'Ay, certainly. Under that condition I will take your bail; though
I must say an obliging, well-disposed, and civil neighbour of
mine, who was himself bred to the law, gave me a hint or caution
this morning against doing so. It was from him I learned that this
youth was liberated and had come abroad, or rather had broken
prison. But where shall we find one to draw the bail-bond?'

'Here,' said the Counsellor, applying himself to the bell, 'send
up my clerk, Mr. Driver; it will not do my character harm if I
dictate the needful myself.' It was written accordingly and
signed, and, the Justice having subscribed a regular warrant for
Bertram alias Brown's discharge, the visitors took their leave.

Each threw himself into his own corner of the post-chariot, and
said nothing for some time. The Colonel first broke silence: 'So
you intend to give up this poor young fellow at the first brush?'

'Who, I?' replied the Counsellor. 'I will not give up one hair of
his head, though I should follow them to the court of last resort
in his behalf; but what signified mooting points and showing one's
hand to that old ass? Much better he should report to his
prompter, Glossin, that we are indifferent or lukewarm in the
matter. Besides, I wished to have a peep at the enemies' game.'

'Indeed!' said the soldier. 'Then I see there are stratagems in
law as well as war. Well, and how do you like their line of
battle?'

'Ingenious,' said Mr. Pleydell, 'but I think desperate; they are
finessing too much, a common fault on such occasions.'

During this discourse the carriage rolled rapidly towards
Woodbourne without anything occurring worthy of the reader's
notice, excepting their meeting with young Hazlewood, to whom the
Colonel told the extraordinary history of Bertram's reappearance,
which he heard with high delight, and then rode on before to pay
Miss Bertram his compliments on an event so happy and so
unexpected.

We return to the party at Woodbourne. After the departure of
Mannering, the conversation related chiefly to the fortunes of the
Ellangowan family, their domains, and their former power. 'It was,
then, under the towers of my fathers,' said Bertram, 'that I
landed some days since, in circumstances much resembling those of
a vagabond! Its mouldering turrets and darksome arches even then
awakened thoughts of the deepest interest, and recollections which
I was unable to decipher. I will now visit them again with other
feelings, and, I trust, other and better hopes.'

'Do not go there now,' said his sister. 'The house of our
ancestors is at present the habitation of a wretch as insidious as
dangerous, whose arts and villainy accomplished the ruin and broke
the heart of our unhappy father.'

'You increase my anxiety,' replied her brother, 'to confront this
miscreant, even in the den he has constructed for himself; I think
I have seen him.'

'But you must consider,' said Julia, 'that you are now left under
Lucy's guard and mine, and are responsible to us for all your
motions, consider, I have not been a lawyer's mistress twelve
hours for nothing, and I assure you it would be madness to attempt
to go to Ellangowan just now. The utmost to which I can consent
is, that we shall walk in a body to the head of the Woodbourne
avenue, and from that perhaps we may indulge you with our company
as far as a rising ground in the common, whence your eyes may be
blessed with a distant prospect of those gloomy towers which
struck so strongly your sympathetic imagination.'

The party was speedily agreed upon; and the ladies, having taken
their cloaks, followed the route proposed, under the escort of
Captain Bertram. It was a pleasant winter morning, and the cool
breeze served only to freshen, not to chill, the fair walkers. A
secret though unacknowledged bond of kindness combined the two
ladies, and Bertram, now hearing the interesting accounts of his
own family, now communicating his adventures in Europe and in
India, repaid the pleasure which he received. Lucy felt proud of
her brother, as well from the bold and manly turn of his
sentiments as from the dangers he had encountered, and the spirit
with which he had surmounted them. And Julia, while she pondered
on her father's words, could not help entertaining hopes that the
independent spirit which had seemed to her father presumption in
the humble and plebeian Brown would have the grace of courage,
noble bearing, and high blood in the far-descended heir of
Ellangowan.

They reached at length the little eminence or knoll upon the
highest part of the common, called Gibbie's Knowe--a spot
repeatedly mentioned in this history as being on the skirts of the
Ellangowan estate. It commanded a fair variety of hill and dale,
bordered with natural woods, whose naked boughs at this season
relieved the general colour of the landscape with a dark purple
hue; while in other places the prospect was more formally
intersected by lines of plantation, where the Scotch firs
displayed their variety of dusky green. At the distance of two or
three miles lay the bay of Ellangowan, its waves rippling under
the influence of the western breeze. The towers of the ruined
castle, seen high over every object in the neighbourhood, received
a brighter colouring from the wintry sun.

'There,' said Lucy Bertram, pointing them out in the distance,
'there is the seat of our ancestors. God knows, my dear brother, I
do not covet in your behalf the extensive power which the lords of
these ruins are said to have possessed so long, and sometimes to
have used so ill. But, O that I might see you in possession of
such relics of their fortune as should give you an honourable
independence, and enable you to stretch your hand for the
protection of the old and destitute dependents of our family, whom
our poor father's death--'

'True, my dearest Lucy,' answered the young heir of Ellangowan;
'and I trust, with the assistance of Heaven, which has so far
guided us, and with that of these good friends, whom their own
generous hearts have interested in my behalf, such a consummation
of my hard adventures is now not unlikely. But as a soldier I must
look with some interest upon that worm-eaten hold of ragged stone;
and if this undermining scoundrel who is now in possession dare to
displace a pebble of it--'

He was here interrupted by Dinmont, who came hastily after them up
the road, unseen till he was near the party: 'Captain, Captain!
ye're wanted. Ye're wanted by her ye ken o'.'

And immediately Meg Merrilies, as if emerging out of the earth,
ascended from the hollow way and stood before them. 'I sought ye
at the house,' she said, 'and found but him (pointing to Dinmont).
But ye are right, and I was wrang; it is HERE we should meet, on
this very spot, where my eyes last saw your father. Remember your
promise and follow me.'




CHAPTER LIII

     To hail the king in seemly sort
      The ladie was full fain,
     But King Arthur, all sore amazed,
      No answer made again
     'What wight art thou,' the ladie said,
      'That will not speak to me?
     Sir, I may chance to ease thy pain,
      Though I be foul to see'

          The Marriage of Sir Gawaine.


The fairy bride of Sir Gawaine, while under the influence of the
spell of her wicked step-mother, was more decrepit probably, and
what is commonly called more ugly, than Meg Merrilies; but I doubt
if she possessed that wild sublimity which an excited imagination
communicated to features marked and expressive in their own
peculiar character, and to the gestures of a form which, her sex
considered, might be termed gigantic. Accordingly, the Knights of
the Round Table did not recoil with more terror from the
apparition of the loathly lady placed between 'an oak and a green
holly,' than Lucy Bertram and Julia Mannering did from the
appearance of this Galwegian sibyl upon the common of Ellangowan.

'For God's sake,' said Julia, pulling out her purse, 'give that
dreadful woman something and bid her go away.'

'I cannot,' said Bertram; 'I must not offend her.'

'What keeps you here?' said Meg, exalting the harsh and rough
tones of her hollow voice. 'Why do you not follow? Must your hour
call you twice? Do you remember your oath? "Were it at kirk or
market, wedding or burial,"'--and she held high her skinny
forefinger in a menacing attitude.

Bertram--turned round to his terrified companions. 'Excuse me for
a moment; I am engaged by a promise to follow this woman.'

'Good Heavens! engaged to a madwoman?' said Julia.

'Or to a gipsy, who has her band in the wood ready to murder you!'
said Lucy.

'That was not spoken like a bairn of Ellangowan,' said Meg,
frowning upon Miss Bertram. 'It is the ill-doers are ill-
dreaders.'

'In short, I must go,' said Bertram, 'it is absolutely necessary;
wait for me five minutes on this spot.'

'Five minutes?' said the gipsy, 'five hours may not bring you here
again.'

'Do you hear that?' said Julia; 'for Heaven's sake do not go!'

'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.'