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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER IX

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

          BURNS.


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

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

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

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

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

A few days after the departure of the gipsy tribe, Mr. Bertram
asked his lady one morning at breakfast whether this was not
little Harry's birthday.

'Five years auld exactly, this blessed day,' answered the lady;
'so we may look into the English gentleman's paper.'

Mr. Bertram liked to show his authority in trifles. 'No, my dear,
not till to-morrow. The last time I was at quarter-sessions the
sheriff told us that DIES--that dies inceptus--in short, you don't
understand Latin, but it means that a term-day is not begun till
it's ended.'

'That sounds like nonsense, my dear.'

'May be so, my dear; but it may be very good law for all that. I
am sure, speaking of term-days, I wish, as Frank Kennedy says,
that Whitsunday would kill Martinmas and be hanged for the murder;
for there I have got a letter about that interest of Jenny
Cairns's, and deil a tenant's been at the Place yet wi' a boddle
of rent, nor will not till Candlemas. But, speaking of Frank
Kennedy, I daresay he'll be here the day, for he was away round to
Wigton to warn a king's ship that's lying in the bay about Dirk
Hatteraick's lugger being on the coast again, and he'll be back
this day; so we'll have a bottle of claret and drink little
Harry's health.'

'I wish,' replied the lady, 'Frank Kennedy would let Dirk
Hatteraick alane. What needs he make himself mair busy than other
folk? Cannot he sing his sang, and take his drink, and draw his
salary, like Collector Snail, honest man, that never fashes ony
body? And I wonder at you, Laird, for meddling and making. Did we
ever want to send for tea or brandy frae the borough-town when
Dirk Hatteraick used to come quietly into the bay?'

'Mrs. Bertram, you know nothing of these matters. Do you think it
becomes a magistrate to let his own house be made a receptacle for
smuggled goods? Frank Kennedy will show you the penalties in the
act, and ye ken yoursell they used to put their run goods into the
Auld Place of Ellangowan up by there.'

'Oh dear, Mr. Bertram, and what the waur were the wa's and the
vault o' the auld castle for having a whin kegs o' brandy in them
at an orra time? I am sure ye were not obliged to ken ony thing
about it; and what the waur was the King that the lairds here got
a soup o' drink and the ladies their drap o' tea at a reasonable
rate?--it's a shame to them to pit such taxes on them!--and was
na I much the better of these Flanders head and pinners that Dirk
Hatteraick sent me a' the way from Antwerp? It will be lang or the
King sends me ony thing, or Frank Kennedy either. And then ye
would quarrel with these gipsies too! I expect every day to hear
the barnyard's in a low.'

'I tell you once more, my dear, you don't understand these things-
-and there's Frank Kennedy coming galloping up the avenue.'

'Aweel! aweel! Ellangowan,' said the lady, raising her voice as
the Laird left the room, 'I wish ye may understand them yoursell,
that's a'!'

From this nuptial dialogue the Laird joyfully escaped to meet his
faithful friend, Mr. Kennedy, who arrived in high spirits. 'For
the love of life, Ellangowan,' he said, 'get up to the castle!
you'll see that old fox Dirk Hatteraick, and his Majesty's hounds
in full cry after him.' So saying, he flung his horse's bridle to
a boy, and ran up the ascent to the old castle, followed by the
Laird, and indeed by several others of the family, alarmed by the
sound of guns from the sea, now distinctly heard.

On gaining that part of the ruins which commanded the most
extensive outlook, they saw a lugger, with all her canvass
crowded, standing across the bay, closely pursued by a sloop of
war, that kept firing upon the chase from her bows, which the
lugger returned with her stern-chasers. 'They're but at long bowls
yet,' cried Kennedy, in great exultation, 'but they will be closer
by and by. D--n him, he's starting his cargo! I see the good Nantz
pitching overboard, keg after keg! That's a d--d ungenteel thing
of Mr. Hatteraick, as I shall let him know by and by. Now, now!
they've got the wind of him! that's it, that's it! Hark to him!
hark to him! Now, my dogs! now, my dogs! Hark to Ranger, hark!'

'I think,' said the old gardener to one of the maids, 'the
ganger's fie,' by which word the common people express those
violent spirits which they think a presage of death.

Meantime the chase continued. The lugger, being piloted with great
ability, and using every nautical shift to make her escape, had
now reached, and was about to double, the headland which formed
the extreme point of land on the left side of the bay, when a ball
having hit the yard in the slings, the mainsail fell upon the
deck. The consequence of this accident appeared inevitable, but
could not be seen by the spectators; for the vessel, which had
just doubled the headland, lost steerage, and fell out of their
sight behind the promontory. The sloop of war crowded all sail to
pursue, but she had stood too close upon the cape, so that they
were obliged to wear the vessel for fear of going ashore, and to
make a large tack back into the bay, in order to recover sea-room
enough to double the headland.

'They 'll lose her, by--, cargo and lugger, one or both,' said
Kennedy; 'I must gallop away to the Point of Warroch (this was the
headland so often mentioned), and make them a signal where she has
drifted to on the other side. Good-bye for an hour, Ellangowan;
get out the gallon punch-bowl and plenty of lemons. I'll stand for
the French article by the time I come back, and we'll drink the
young Laird's health in a bowl that would swim the collector's
yawl.' So saying, he mounted his horse and galloped off.

About a mile from the house, and upon the verge of the woods,
which, as we have said, covered a promontory terminating in the
cape called the Point of Warroch, Kennedy met young Harry Bertram,
attended by his tutor, Dominie Sampson. He had often promised the
child a ride upon his galloway; and, from singing, dancing, and
playing Punch for his amusement, was a particular favourite. He no
sooner came scampering up the path, than the boy loudly claimed
his promise; and Kennedy, who saw no risk, in indulging him, and
wished to tease the Dominie, in whose visage he read a
remonstrance, caught up Harry from the ground, placed him before
him, and continued his route; Sampson's 'Peradventure, Master
Kennedy-' being lost in the clatter of his horse's feet. The
pedagogue hesitated a moment whether he should go after them; but
Kennedy being a person in full confidence of the family, and with
whom he himself had no delight in associating, 'being that he was
addicted unto profane and scurrilous jests,' he continued his own
walk at his own pace, till he reached the Place of Ellangowan.

The spectators from the ruined walls of the castle were still
watching the sloop of war, which at length, but not without the
loss of considerable time, recovered sea-room enough to weather
the Point of Warroch, and was lost to their sight behind that
wooded promontory. Some time afterwards the discharges of several
cannon were heard at a distance, and, after an interval, a still
louder explosion, as of a vessel blown up, and a cloud of smoke
rose above the trees and mingled with the blue sky. All then
separated on their different occasions, auguring variously upon
the fate of the smuggler, but the majority insisting that her
capture was inevitable, if she had not already gone to the bottom.

'It is near our dinner-time, my dear,' said Mrs. Bertram to her
husband; 'will it be lang before Mr. Kennedy comes back?'

'I expect him every moment, my dear,' said the Laird; 'perhaps he
is bringing some of the officers of the sloop with him.'

'My stars, Mr. Bertram! why did not ye tell me this before, that
we might have had the large round table? And then, they're a'
tired o' saut meat, and, to tell you the plain truth, a rump o'
beef is the best part of your dinner. And then I wad have put on
another gown, and ye wadna have been the waur o' a clean neck-
cloth yoursell. But ye delight in surprising and hurrying one. I
am sure I am no to baud out for ever against this sort of going
on; but when folk's missed, then they are moaned.'

'Pshaw, pshaw! deuce take the beef, and the gown, and table, and
the neck-cloth! we shall do all very well. Where's the Dominie,
John? (to a servant who was busy about the table) where's the
Dominie and little Harry?'

'Mr. Sampson's been at hame these twa hours and mair, but I dinna
think Mr. Harry cam hame wi' him.'

'Not come hame wi' him?' said the lady; 'desire Mr. Sampson to
step this way directly.'

'Mr. Sampson,' said she, upon his entrance, 'is it not the most
extraordinary thing in this world wide, that you, that have free
up-putting--bed, board, and washing--and twelve pounds sterling a
year, just to look after that boy, should let him out of your
sight for twa or three hours?'

Sampson made a bow of humble acknowledgment at each pause which
the angry lady made in her enumeration of the advantages of his
situation, in order to give more weight to her remonstrance, and
then, in words which we will not do him the injustice to imitate,
told how Mr. Francis Kennedy 'had assumed spontaneously the charge
of Master Harry, in despite of his remonstrances in the contrary.'

'I am very little obliged to Mr. Francis Kennedy for his pains,'
said the lady, peevishly; 'suppose he lets the boy drop from his
horse, and lames him? or suppose one of the cannons comes ashore
and kills him? or suppose--'

'Or suppose, my dear,' said Ellangowan, 'what is much more likely
than anything else, that they have gone aboard the sloop or the
prize, and are to come round the Point with the tide?'

'And then they may be drowned,' said the lady.

'Verily,' said Sampson, 'I thought Mr. Kennedy had returned an
hour since. Of a surety I deemed I heard his horse's feet.'

'That,' said John, with a broad grin, 'was Grizzel chasing the
humble-cow out of the close.'

Sampson coloured up to the eyes, not at the implied taunt, which
he would never have discovered, or resented if he had, but at some
idea which crossed his own mind. 'I have been in an error,' he
said; 'of a surety I should have tarried for the babe.' So saying,
he snatched his bone-headed cane and hat, and hurried away towards
Warroch wood faster than he was ever known to walk before or
after.

The Laird lingered some time, debating the point with the lady. At
length he saw the sloop of war again make her appearance; but,
without approaching the shore, she stood away to the westward with
all her sails set, and was soon out of sight. The lady's state of
timorous and fretful apprehension was so habitual that her fears
went for nothing with her lord and master; but an appearance of
disturbance and anxiety among the servants now excited his alarm,
especially when he was called out of the room, and told in private
that Mr. Kennedy's horse had come to the stable door alone, with
the saddle turned round below its belly and the reins of the
bridle broken; and that a farmer had informed them in passing that
there was a smuggling lugger burning like a furnace on the other
side of the Point of Warroch, and that, though he had come through
the wood, he had seen or heard nothing of Kennedy or the young
Laird, 'only there was Dominie Sampson gaun rampauging about like
mad, seeking for them.'

All was now bustle at Ellangowan. The Laird and his servants, male
and female, hastened to the wood of Warroch. The tenants and
cottagers in the neighbourhood lent their assistance, partly out
of zeal, partly from curiosity. Boats were manned to search the
sea-shore, which, on the other side of the Point, rose into high
and indented rocks. A vague suspicion was entertained, though too
horrible to be expressed, that the child might have fallen from
one of these cliffs.

The evening had begun to close when the parties entered the wood,
and dispersed different ways in quest of the boy and his
companion. The darkening of the atmosphere, and the hoarse sighs
of the November wind through the naked trees, the rustling of the
withered leaves which strewed the glades, the repeated halloos of
the different parties, which often drew them together in
expectation of meeting the objects of their search, gave a cast of
dismal sublimity to the scene.

At length, after a minute and fruitless investigation through the
wood, the searchers began to draw together into one body, and to
compare notes. The agony of the father grew beyond concealment,
yet it scarcely equalled the anguish of the tutor. 'Would to God I
had died for him!' the affectionate creature repeated, in notes of
the deepest distress. Those who were less interested rushed into a
tumultuary discussion of chances and possibilities. Each gave his
opinion, and each was alternately swayed by that of the others.
Some thought the objects of their search had gone aboard the
sloop; some that they had gone to a village at three miles'
distance; some whispered they might have been on board the lugger,
a few planks and beams of which the tide now drifted ashore.

At this instant a shout was heard from the beach, so loud, so
shrill, so piercing, so different from every sound which the woods
that day had rung to, that nobody hesitated a moment to believe
that it conveyed tidings, and tidings of dreadful import. All
hurried to the place, and, venturing without scruple upon paths
which at another time they would have shuddered to look at,
descended towards a cleft of the rock, where one boat's crew was
already landed. 'Here, sirs, here! this way, for God's sake! this
way! this way!' was the reiterated cry. Ellangowan broke through
the throng which had already assembled at the fatal spot, and
beheld the object of their terror. It was the dead body of
Kennedy. At first sight he seemed to have perished by a fall from
the rocks, which rose above the spot on which he lay in a
perpendicular precipice of a hundred feet above the beach. The
corpse was lying half in, half out of the water; the advancing
tide, raising the arm and stirring the clothes, had given it at
some distance the appearance of motion, so that those who first
discovered the body thought that life remained. But every spark
had been long extinguished.

'My bairn! my bairn!' cried the distracted father, 'where can he
be?' A dozen mouths were opened to communicate hopes which no one
felt. Some one at length mentioned--the gipsies! In a moment
Ellangowan had reascended the cliffs, flung himself upon the first
horse he met, and rode furiously to the huts at Derncleugh. All
was there dark and desolate; and, as he dismounted to make more
minute search, he stumbled over fragments of furniture which had
been thrown out of the cottages, and the broken wood and thatch
which had been pulled down by his orders. At that moment the
prophecy, or anathema, of Meg Merrilies fell heavy on his mind.
'You have stripped the thatch from seven cottages; see that the
roof-tree of your own house stand the surer!'

'Restore,' he cried, 'restore my bairn! bring me back my son, and
all shall be forgot and forgiven!' As he uttered these words in a
sort of frenzy, his eye caught a glimmering of light in one of the
dismantled cottages; it was that in which Meg Merrilies formerly
resided. The light, which seemed to proceed from fire, glimmered
not only through the window, but also through the rafters of the
hut where the roofing had been torn off.

He flew to the place; the entrance was bolted. Despair gave the
miserable father the strength of ten men; he rushed against the
door with such violence that it gave way before the momentum of
his weight and force. The cottage was empty, but bore marks of
recent habitation: there was fire on the hearth, a kettle, and
some preparation for food. As he eagerly gazed around for
something that might confirm his hope that his child yet lived,
although in the power of those strange people, a man entered the
hut.

It was his old gardener. 'O sir!' said the old man, 'such a night
as this I trusted never to live to see! ye maun come to the Place
directly!'

'Is my boy found? is he alive? have ye found Harry Bertram?
Andrew, have ye found Harry Bertram?'

'No, sir; but-'

'Then he is kidnapped! I am sure of it, Andrew! as sure as that I
tread upon earth! She has stolen him; and I will never stir from
this place till I have tidings of my bairn!'

'O, but ye maun come hame, sir! ye maun come hame! We have sent
for the Sheriff, and we'll seta watch here a' night, in case the
gipsies return; but YOU--ye maun come hame, sir, for my lady's in
the dead-thraw.'

Bertram turned a stupefied and unmeaning eye on the messenger who
uttered this calamitous news; and, repeating the words 'in the
dead-thraw!' as if he could not comprehend their meaning, suffered
the old man to drag him towards his horse. During the ride home he
only said, 'Wife and bairn baith--mother and son baith,--sair,
sair to abide!'

It is needless to dwell upon the new scene of agony which awaited
him. The news of Kennedy's fate had been eagerly and incautiously
communicated at Ellangowan, with the gratuitous addition, that,
doubtless, 'he had drawn the young Laird over the craig with him,
though the tide had swept away the child's body; he was light,
puir thing, and would flee farther into the surf.'

Mrs. Bertram heard the tidings; she was far advanced in her
pregnancy; she fell into the pains of premature labour, and, ere
Ellangowan had recovered his agitated faculties, so as to
comprehend the full distress of his situation, he was the father
of a female infant, and a widower.




CHAPTER X

     But see, his face is black and full of blood;
     His eye-balls farther out than when he lived,
     Staring full ghastly like a strangled man,
     His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch d with struggling,
     His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd
     And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdued

          Henry VI, Part II


The Sheriff-depute of the county arrived at Ellangowan next
morning by daybreak. To this provincial magistrate the law of
Scotland assigns judicial powers of considerable extent, and the
task of inquiring into all crimes committed within his
jurisdiction, the apprehension and commitment of suspected
persons, and so forth. [Footnote: The Scottish sheriff discharges,
on such occasions as that now mentioned, pretty much the same duty
as a coroner.]

The gentleman who held the office in the shire of---at the time
of this catastrophe was well born and well educated; and, though
somewhat pedantic and professional in his habits, he enjoyed
general respect as an active and intelligent magistrate. His first
employment was to examine all witnesses whose evidence could throw
light upon this mysterious event, and make up the written report,
proces verbal, or precognition, as it is technically called, which
the practice of Scotland has substituted for a coroner's inquest.
Under the Sheriff's minute and skilful inquiry, many circumstances
appeared which seemed incompatible with the original opinion that
Kennedy had accidentally fallen from the cliffs. We shall briefly
detail some of these.

The body had been deposited in a neighbouring fisher-hut, but
without altering the condition in which it was found. This was the
first object of the Sheriff's examination. Though fearfully
crushed and mangled by the fall from such a height, the corpse was
found to exhibit a deep cut in the head, which, in the opinion of
a skilful surgeon, must have been inflicted by a broadsword or
cutlass. The experience of this gentleman discovered other
suspicious indications. The face was much blackened, the eyes
distorted, and the veins of the neck swelled. A coloured
handkerchief, which the unfortunate man had worn round his neck,
did not present the usual appearance, but was much loosened, and
the knot displaced and dragged extremely tight; the folds were
also compressed, as if it had been used as a means of grappling
the deceased, and dragging him perhaps to the precipice.

On the other hand, poor Kennedy's purse was found untouched; and,
what seemed yet more extraordinary, the pistols which he usually
carried when about to encounter any hazardous adventure were found
in his pockets loaded. This appeared particularly strange, for he
was known and dreaded by the contraband traders as a man equally
fearless and dexterous in the use of his weapons, of which he had
given many signal proofs. The Sheriff inquired whether Kennedy was
not in the practice of carrying any other arms? Most of Mr.
Bertram's servants recollected that he generally had a couteau de
chasse, or short hanger, but none such was found upon the dead
body; nor could those who had seen him on the morning of the fatal
day take it upon them to assert whether he then carried that
weapon or not.

The corpse afforded no other indicia respecting the fate of
Kennedy; for, though the clothes were much displaced and the limbs
dreadfully fractured, the one seemed the probable, the other the
certain, consequences of such a fall. The hands of the deceased
were clenched fast, and full of turf and earth; but this also
seemed equivocal.

The magistrate then proceeded to the place where the corpse was
first discovered, and made those who had found it give, upon the
spot, a particular and detailed account of the manner in which it
was lying. A large fragment of the rock appeared to have
accompanied, or followed, the fall of the victim from the cliff
above. It was of so solid and compact a substance that it had
fallen without any great diminution by splintering; so that the
Sheriff was enabled, first, to estimate the weight by measurement,
and then to calculate, from the appearance of the fragment, what
portion of it had been bedded into the cliff from which it had
descended. This was easily detected by the raw appearance of the
stone where it had not been exposed to the atmosphere. They then
ascended the cliff, and surveyed the place from whence the stony
fragment had fallen. It seemed plain, from the appearance of the
bed, that the mere weight of one man standing upon the projecting
part of the fragment, supposing it in its original situation,
could not have destroyed its balance and precipitated it, with
himself, from the cliff. At the same time, it appeared to have
lain so loose that the use of a lever, or the combined strength of
three or four men, might easily have hurled it from its position.
The short turf about the brink of the precipice was much trampled,
as if stamped by the heels of men in a mortal struggle, or in the
act of some violent exertion. Traces of the same kind, less
visibly marked, guided the sagacious investigator to the verge of
the copsewood, which in that place crept high up the bank towards
the top of the precipice.

With patience and perseverance they traced these marks into the
thickest part of the copse, a route which no person would have
voluntarily adopted, unless for the purpose of concealment. Here
they found plain vestiges of violence and struggling, from space
to space. Small boughs were torn down, as if grasped by some
resisting wretch who was dragged forcibly along; the ground, where
in the least degree soft or marshy, showed the print of many feet;
there were vestiges also which might be those of human blood. At
any rate it was certain that several persons must have forced
their passage among the oaks, hazels, and underwood with which
they were mingled; and in some places appeared traces as if a sack
full of grain, a dead body, or something of that heavy and solid
description, had been dragged along the ground. In one part of the
thicket there was a small swamp, the clay of which was whitish,
being probably mixed with marl. The back of Kennedy's coat
appeared besmeared with stains of the same colour.

At length, about a quarter of a mile from the brink of the fatal
precipice, the traces conducted them to a small open space of
ground, very much trampled, and plainly stained with blood,
although withered leaves had been strewed upon the spot, and other
means hastily taken to efface the marks, which seemed obviously to
have been derived from a desperate affray. On one side of this
patch of open ground was found the sufferer's naked hanger, which
seemed to have been thrown into the thicket; on the other, the
belt and sheath, which appeared to have been hidden with more
leisurely care and precaution.

The magistrate caused the footprints which marked this spot to be
carefully measured and examined. Some corresponded to the foot of
the unhappy victim; some were larger, some less; indicating that
at least four or five men had been busy around him. Above all,
here, and here only, were observed the vestiges of a child's foot;
and as it could be seen nowhere else, and the hard horse-track
which traversed the wood of Warroch was contiguous to the spot, it
was natural to think that the boy might have escaped in that
direction during the confusion. But, as he was never heard of, the
Sheriff, who made a careful entry of all these memoranda, did not
suppress his opinion, that the deceased had met with foul play,
and that the murderers, whoever they were, had possessed
themselves of the person of the child Harry Bertram.

Every exertion was now made to discover the criminals. Suspicion
hesitated between the smugglers and the gipsies. The fate of Dirk
Hatteraick's vessel was certain. Two men from the opposite side of
Warroch Bay (so the inlet on the southern side of the Point of
Warroch is called) had seen, though at a great distance, the
lugger drive eastward, after doubling the headland, and, as they
judged from her manoeuvres, in a disabled state. Shortly after,
they perceived that she grounded, smoked, and finally took fire.
She was, as one of them expressed himself, 'in a light low'
(bright flame) when they observed a king's ship, with her colours
up, heave in sight from behind the cape. The guns of the burning
vessel discharged themselves as the fire reached them; and they
saw her at length blow up with a great explosion. The sloop of war
kept aloof for her own safety; and, after hovering till the other
exploded, stood away southward under a press of sail. The Sheriff
anxiously interrogated these men whether any boats had left the
vessel. They could not say, they had seen none; but they might
have put off in such a direction as placed the burning vessel, and
the thick smoke which floated landward from it, between their
course and the witnesses' observation.

That the ship destroyed was Dirk Hatteraick's no one doubted. His
lugger was well known on the coast, and had been expected just at
this time. A letter from the commander of the king's sloop, to
whom the Sheriff made application, put the matter beyond doubt; he
sent also an extract from his log-book of the transactions of the
day, which intimated their being on the outlook for a smuggling
lugger, Dirk Hatteraick master, upon the information and
requisition of Francis Kennedy, of his Majesty's excise service;
and that Kennedy was to be upon the outlook on the shore, in case
Hatteraick, who was known to be a desperate fellow, and had been
repeatedly outlawed, should attempt to run his sloop aground.
About nine o'clock A.M. they discovered a sail which answered the
description of Hatteraick's vessel, chased her, and, after
repeated signals to her to show colours and bring-to, fired upon
her. The chase then showed Hamburgh colours and returned the fire;
and a running fight was maintained for three hours, when, just as
the lugger was doubling the Point of Warroch, they observed that
the main-yard was shot in the slings, and that the vessel was
disabled. It was not in the power of the man-of-war's men for some
time to profit by this circumstance, owing to their having kept
too much in shore for doubling the headland. After two tacks, they
accomplished this, and observed the chase on fire and apparently
deserted. The fire having reached some casks of spirits, which
were placed on the deck, with other combustibles, probably on
purpose, burnt with such fury that no boats durst approach the
vessel, especially as her shotted guns were discharging one after
another by the heat. The captain had no doubt whatever that the
crew had set the vessel on fire and escaped in their boats. After
watching the conflagration till the ship blew up, his Majesty's
sloop, the Shark, stood towards the Isle of Man, with the purpose
of intercepting the retreat of the smugglers, who, though they
might conceal themselves in the woods for a day or two, would
probably take the first opportunity of endeavouring to make for
this asylum. But they never saw more of them than is above
narrated.

Such was the account given by William Pritchard, master and
commander of his Majesty's sloop of war, Shark, who concluded by
regretting deeply that he had not had the happiness to fall in
with the scoundrels who had had the impudence to fire on his
Majesty's flag, and with an assurance that, should he meet Mr.
Dirk Hatteraick in any future cruise, he would not fail to bring
him into port under his stern, to answer whatever might be alleged
against him.

As, therefore, it seemed tolerably certain that the men on board
the lugger had escaped, the death of Kennedy, if he fell in with
them in the woods, when irritated by the loss of their vessel and
by the share he had in it, was easily to be accounted for. And it
was not improbable that to such brutal tempers, rendered desperate
by their own circumstances, even the murder of the child, against
whose father, as having become suddenly active in the prosecution
of smugglers, Hatteraick was known to have uttered deep threats,
would not appear a very heinous crime.

Against this hypothesis it was urged that a crew of fifteen or
twenty men could not have lain hidden upon the coast, when so
close a search took place immediately after the destruction of
their vessel; or, at least, that if they had hid themselves in the
woods, their boats must have been seen on the beach; that in such
precarious circumstances, and when all retreat must have seemed
difficult if not impossible, it was not to be thought that they
would have all united to commit a useless murder for the mere sake
of revenge. Those who held this opinion supposed either that the
boats of the lugger had stood out to sea without being observed by
those who were intent upon gazing at the burning vessel, and so
gained safe distance before the sloop got round the headland; or
else that, the boats being staved or destroyed by the fire of the
Shark during the chase, the crew had obstinately determined to
perish with the vessel. What gave some countenance to this
supposed act of desperation was, that neither Dirk Hatteraick nor
any of his sailors, all well-known men in the fair trade, were
again seen upon that coast, or heard of in the Isle of Man, where
strict inquiry was made. On the other hand, only one dead body,
apparently that of a seaman killed by a cannon-shot, drifted
ashore. So all that could be done was to register the names,
description, and appearance of the individuals belonging to the
ship's company, and offer a reward for the apprehension of them,
or any one of them, extending also to any person, not the actual
murderer, who should give evidence tending to convict those who
had murdered Francis Kennedy.

Another opinion, which was also plausibly supported, went to
charge this horrid crime upon the late tenants of Derncleugh. They
were known to have resented highly the conduct of the Laird of
Ellangowan towards them, and to have used threatening expressions,
which every one supposed them capable of carrying into effect. The
kidnapping the child was a crime much more consistent with their
habits than with those of smugglers, and his temporary guardian
might have fallen in an attempt to protect him. Besides, it was
remembered that Kennedy had been an active agent, two or three
days before, in the forcible expulsion of these people from
Derncleugh, and that harsh and menacing language had been
exchanged between him and some of the Egyptian patriarchs on that
memorable occasion.

The Sheriff received also the depositions of the unfortunate
father and his servant, concerning what had passed at their
meeting the caravan of gipsies as they left the estate of
Ellangowan. The speech of Meg Merrilies seemed particularly
suspicious. There was, as the magistrate observed in his law
language, damnum minatum--a damage, or evil turn, threatened--and
malum secutum--an evil of the very kind predicted shortly
afterwards following. A young woman, who had been gathering nuts
in Warroch wood upon the fatal day, was also strongly of opinion,
though she declined to make positive oath, that she had seen Meg
Merrilies--at least a woman of her remarkable size and appearance-
-start suddenly out of a thicket; she said she had called to her
by name, but, as the figure turned from her and made no answer,
she was uncertain if it were the gipsy or her wraith, and was
afraid to go nearer to one who was always reckoned, in the vulgar
phrase, 'no canny.' This vague story received some corroboration
from the circumstance of a fire being that evening found in the
gipsy's deserted cottage. To this fact Ellangowan and his gardener
bore evidence. Yet it seemed extravagant to suppose that, had this
woman been accessory to such a dreadful crime, she would have
returned, that very evening on which it was committed, to the
place of all others where she was most likely to be sought after.

Meg Merrilies was, however, apprehended and examined. She denied
strongly having been either at Derncleugh or in the wood of
Warroch upon the day of Kennedy's death; and several of her tribe
made oath in her behalf, that she had never quitted their
encampment, which was in a glen about ten miles distant from
Ellangowan. Their oaths were indeed little to be trusted to; but
what other evidence could be had in the circumstances? There was
one remarkable fact, and only one, which arose from her
examination. Her arm appeared to be slightly wounded by the cut of
a sharp weapon, and was tied up with a handkerchief of Harry
Bertram's. But the chief of the horde acknowledged he had
'corrected her' that day with his whinger; she herself, and
others, gave the same account of her hurt; and for the
handkerchief, the quantity of linen stolen from Ellangowan during
the last months of their residence on the estate easily accounted
for it, without charging Meg with a more heinous crime.

It was observed upon her examination that she treated the
questions respecting the death of Kennedy, or 'the gauger,' as she
called him, with indifference; but expressed great and emphatic
scorn and indignation at being supposed capable of injuring little
Harry Bertram. She was long confined in jail, under the hope that
something might yet be discovered to throw light upon this dark
and bloody transaction. Nothing, however, occurred; and Meg was at
length liberated, but under sentence of banishment from the county
as a vagrant, common thief, and disorderly person. No traces of
the boy could ever be discovered; and at length the story, after
making much noise, was gradually given up as altogether
inexplicable, and only perpetuated by the name of 'The Gauger's
Loup,' which was generally bestowed on the cliff from which the
unfortunate man had fallen or been precipitated.




CHAPTER XI

    ENTER TIME, AS CHORUS
    I, that please some, try ail, both joy and terror
    Of good and bad; that make and unfold error,
    Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
    To use my wings Impute it not a crime
    To me, or my swift passage, that I slide
    O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried
    Of that wide gap.

         Winter's Tale.


Our narration is now about to make a large stride, and omit a
space of nearly seventeen years; during which nothing occurred of
any particular consequence with respect to the story we have
undertaken to tell. The gap is a wide one; yet if the reader's
experience in life enables him to look back on so many years, the
space will scarce appear longer in his recollection than the time
consumed in turning these pages.

It was, then, in the month of November, about seventeen years
after the catastrophe related in the last chapter, that, during a
cold and stormy night, a social group had closed around the
kitchen-fire of the Gordon Arms at Kippletringan, a small but
comfortable inn kept by Mrs. Mac-Candlish in that village. The
conversation which passed among them will save me the trouble of
telling the few events occurring during this chasm in our history,
with which it is necessary that the reader should be acquainted.

Mrs. Mac-Candlish, throned in a comfortable easychair lined with
black leather, was regaling herself and a neighbouring gossip or
two with a cup of genuine tea, and at the same time keeping a
sharp eye upon her domestics, as they went and came in prosecution
of their various duties and commissions. The clerk and precentor
of the parish enjoyed at a little distance his Saturday night's
pipe, and aided its bland fumigation by an occasional sip of
brandy and water. Deacon Bearcliff, a man of great importance in
the village, combined the indulgence of both parties: he had his
pipe and his tea-cup, the latter being laced with a little
spirits. One or two clowns sat at some distance, drinking their
twopenny ale.

'Are ye sure the parlour's ready for them, and the fire burning
clear, and the chimney no smoking?' said the hostess to a
chambermaid.

She was answered in the affirmative. 'Ane wadna be uncivil to
them, especially in their distress,' said she, turning to the
Deacon.

'Assuredly not, Mrs. Mac-Candlish; assuredly not. I am sure ony
sma' thing they might want frae my shop, under seven, or eight, or
ten pounds, I would book them as readily for it as the first in
the country. Do they come in the auld chaise?'

'I daresay no,' said the precentor; 'for Miss Bertram comes on the
white powny ilka day to the kirk--and a constant kirk-keeper she
is--and it's a pleasure to hear her singing the psalms, winsome
young thing.'

'Ay, and the young Laird of Hazlewood rides hame half the road wi'
her after sermon,' said one of the gossips in company. 'I wonder
how auld Hazlewood likes that.'

'I kenna how he may like it now,' answered another of the tea-
drinkers; 'but the day has been when Ellangowan wad hae liked as
little to see his daughter taking up with their son.'

'Ay, has been,' answered the first, with somewhat of emphasis.

'I am sure, neighbour Ovens,' said the hostess,'the Hazlewoods of
Hazlewood, though they are a very gude auld family in the county,
never thought, till within these twa score o' years, of evening
themselves till the Ellangowans. Wow, woman, the Bertrams of
Ellangowan are the auld Dingawaies lang syne. There is a sang
about ane o' them marrying a daughter of the King of Man; it
begins--

     Blythe Bertram's ta'en him ower the faem,
     To wed a wife, and bring her hame--

I daur say Mr. Skreigh can sing us the ballant.'

'Gudewife,' said Skreigh, gathering up his mouth, and sipping his
tiff of brandy punch with great solemnity, 'our talents were gien
us to other use than to sing daft auld sangs sae near the Sabbath
day.'

'Hout fie, Mr. Skreigh; I'se warrant I hae heard you sing a blythe
sang on Saturday at e'en before now. But as for the chaise,
Deacon, it hasna been out of the coach-house since Mrs. Bertram
died, that's sixteen or seventeen years sin syne. Jock Jabos is
away wi' a chaise of mine for them; I wonder he's no come back.
It's pit mirk; but there's no an ill turn on the road but twa, and
the brigg ower Warroch burn is safe eneugh, if he haud to the
right side. But then there's Heavieside Brae, that's just a murder
for post-cattle; but Jock kens the road brawly.'

A loud rapping was heard at the door.

'That's no them. I dinna hear the wheels. Grizzel, ye limmer, gang
to the door.'

'It's a single gentleman,' whined out Grizzel; 'maun I take him
into the parlour?'

'Foul be in your feet, then; it'll be some English rider. Coming
without a servant at this time o' night! Has the hostler ta'en the
horse? Ye may light a spunk o' fire in the red room.'

'I wish, ma'am,' said the traveller, entering the kitchen, 'you
would give me leave to warm myself here, for the night is very
cold.'

His appearance, voice, and manner produced an instantaneous effect
in his favour. He was a handsome, tall, thin figure, dressed in
black, as appeared when he laid aside his riding-coat; his age
might be between forty and fifty; his cast of features grave and
interesting, and his air somewhat military. Every point of his
appearance and address bespoke the gentleman. Long habit had given
Mrs. Mac-Candlish an acute tact in ascertaining the quality of her
visitors, and proportioning her reception accordingly:--