'They that were permitted,' answered Meg Merrilies, while she scanned
with a close and keen glance the features of the expiring man. 'He has
had a sair struggle; but it's passing. I kenn'd he would pass when you
came in. That was the death-ruckle; he's dead.'

Sounds were now heard at a distance, as of voices. 'They are coming,'
said she to Brown; 'you are a dead man if ye had as mony lives as hairs.'
Brown eagerly looked round for some weapon of defence. There was none
near. He then rushed to the door with the intention of plunging among the
trees, and making his escape by flight from what he now esteemed a den of
murderers, but Merrilies held him with a masculine grasp. 'Here,' she
said, 'here, be still and you are safe; stir not, whatever you see or
hear, and nothing shall befall you.'

Brown, in these desperate circumstances, remembered this woman's
intimation formerly, and thought he had no chance of safety but in
obeying her. She caused him to couch down among a parcel of straw on the
opposite side of the apartment from the corpse, covered him carefully,
and flung over him two or three old sacks which lay about the place.
Anxious to observe what was to happen, Brown arranged as softly as he
could the means of peeping from under the coverings by which he was
hidden, and awaited with a throbbing heart the issue of this strange and
most unpleasant adventure. The old gipsy in the meantime set about
arranging the dead body, composing its limbs, and straighting the arms by
its side. 'Best to do this,' she muttered, 'ere he stiffen.' She placed
on the dead man's breast a trencher, with salt sprinkled upon it, set one
candle at the head and another at the feet of the body, and lighted both.
Then she resumed her song, and awaited the approach of those whose voices
had been heard without.

Brown was a soldier, and a brave one; but he was also a man, and at this
moment his fears mastered his courage so completely that the cold drops
burst out from every pore. The idea of being dragged out of his miserable
concealment by wretches whose trade was that of midnight murder, without
weapons or the slightest means of defence, except entreaties, which would
be only their sport, and cries for help, which could never reach other
ear than their own; his safety entrusted to the precarious compassion of
a being associated with these felons, and whose trade of rapine and
imposture must have hardened her against every human feeling--the
bitterness of his emotions almost choked him. He endeavoured to read in
her withered and dark countenance, as the lamp threw its light upon her
features, something that promised those feelings of compassion which
females, even in their most degraded state, can seldom altogether
smother. There was no such touch of humanity about this woman. The
interest, whatever it was, that determined her in his favour arose not
from the impulse of compassion, but from some internal, and probably
capricious, association of feelings, to which he had no clue. It rested,
perhaps, on a fancied likeness, such as Lady Macbeth found to her father
in the sleeping monarch. Such were the reflections that passed in rapid
succession through Brown's mind as he gazed from his hiding-place upon
this extraordinary personage. Meantime the gang did not yet approach, and
he was almost prompted to resume his original intention of attempting an
escape from the hut, and cursed internally his own irresolution, which
had consented to his being cooped up where he had neither room for
resistance nor flight.

Meg Merrilies seemed equally on the watch. She bent her ear to every
sound that whistled round the old walls. Then she turned again to the
dead body, and found something new to arrange or alter in its position.
'He's a bonny corpse,' she muttered to herself, 'and weel worth the
streaking.' And in this dismal occupation she appeared to feel a sort of
professional pleasure, entering slowly into all the minutiae, as if with
the skill and feelings of a connoisseur. A long, dark-coloured sea-cloak,
which she dragged out of a corner, was disposed for a pall. The face she
left bare, after closing the mouth and eyes, and arranged the capes of
the cloak so as to hide the bloody bandages, and give the body, as she
muttered, 'a mair decent appearance.'

At once three or four men, equally ruffians in appearance and dress,
rushed into the hut. 'Meg, ye limb of Satan, how dare you leave the door
open?' was the first salutation of the party.

'And wha ever heard of a door being barred when a man was in the
dead-thraw? how d'ye think the spirit was to get awa through bolts and
bars like thae?'

'Is he dead, then?' said one who went to the side of the couch to look at
the body.

'Ay, ay, dead enough,' said another; 'but here's what shall give him a
rousing lykewake.' So saying, he fetched a keg of spirits from a corner,
while Meg hastened to display pipes and tobacco. From the activity with
which she undertook the task, Brown conceived good hope of her fidelity
towards her guest. It was obvious that she wished to engage the ruffians
in their debauch, to prevent the discovery which might take place if by
accident any of them should approach too nearly the place of Brown's
concealment.






CHAPTER  XXVIII
     Nor board nor garner own we now,
      Nor roof nor latched door,
     Nor kind mate, bound, by holy vow,
      To bless a good man's store
     Noon lulls us in a gloomy den,
      And night is grown our day;
     Uprouse ye, then, my merry men!
      And use it as ye may

          JOANNA BAILLIE.


Brown could now reckon his foes: they were five in number; two of them
were very powerful men, who appeared to be either real seamen or
strollers who assumed that character; the other three, an old man and two
lads, were slighter made, and, from their black hair and dark complexion,
seemed to belong to Meg's tribe. They passed from one to another the cup
out of which they drank their spirits. 'Here's to his good voyage!' said
one of the seamen, drinking; 'a squally night he's got, however, to drift
through the sky in.'

We omit here various execrations with which these honest gentlemen
garnished their discourse, retaining only such of their expletives as are
least offensive.

'A does not mind wind and weather; 'a has had many a north-easter in his
day.'

'He had his last yesterday,' said another gruffly; 'and now old Meg may
pray for his last fair wind, as she's often done before.'

'I'll pray for nane o' him,' said Meg, 'nor for you neither, you randy
dog. The times are sair altered since I was a kinchen-mort. Men were men
then, and fought other in the open field, and there was nae milling in
the darkmans. And the gentry had kind hearts, and would have given baith
lap and pannel to ony puir gipsy; and there was not one, from Johnnie Faa
the upright man to little Christie that was in the panniers, would cloyed
a dud from them. But ye are a' altered from the gude auld rules, and no
wonder that you scour the cramp-ring and trine to the cheat sae often.
Yes, ye are a' altered: you 'll eat the goodman's meat, drink his drink,
sleep on the strammel in his barn, and break his house and cut his throat
for his pains! There's blood on your hands, too, ye dogs, mair than ever
came there by fair righting. See how ye'll die then. Lang it was ere he
died; he strove, and strove sair, and could neither die nor live; but
you--half the country will see how ye'll grace the woodie.'

The party set up a hoarse laugh at Meg's prophecy.

'What made you come back here, ye auld beldam?' said one of the gipsies;
'could ye not have staid where you were, and spaed fortunes to the
Cumberland flats? Bing out and tour, ye auld devil, and see that nobody
has scented; that's a' you're good for now.'

'Is that a' I am good for now?' said the indignant matron. 'I was good
for mair than that in the great fight between our folk and Patrico
Salmon's; if I had not helped you with these very fambles (holding up her
hands), Jean Baillie would have frummagem'd you, ye feckless do-little!'

There was here another laugh at the expense of the hero who had received
this amazon's assistance.

'Here, mother,' said one of the sailors, 'here's a cup of the right for
you, and never mind that bully-huff.'

Meg drank the spirits, and, withdrawing herself from farther
conversation, sat down before the spot where Brown lay hid, in such a
posture that it would have been difficult for any one to have approached
it without her rising. The men, however, showed no disposition to disturb
her.

They closed around the fire and held deep consultation together; but the
low tone in which they spoke, and the cant language which they used,
prevented Brown from understanding much of their conversation. He
gathered in general that they expressed great indignation against some
individual. 'He shall have his gruel,' said one, and then whispered
something very low into the ear of his comrade.

'I'll have nothing to do with that,' said the other.

'Are you turned hen-hearted, Jack?'

'No, by G-d, no more than yourself, but I won't. It was something like
that stopped all the trade fifteen or twenty years ago. You have heard of
the Loup?'

'I have heard HIM (indicating the corpse by a jerk of his head) tell
about that job. G-d, how he used to laugh when he showed us how he
fetched him off the perch!'

'Well, but it did up the trade for one while,' said Jack.

'How should that be?' asked the surly villain.

'Why,' replied Jack, 'the people got rusty about it, and would not deal,
and they had bought so many brooms that--'

'Well, for all that,' said the other, 'I think we should be down upon the
fellow one of these darkmans and let him get it well.'

'But old Meg's asleep now,' said another; 'she grows a driveller, and is
afraid of her shadow. She'll sing out, some of these odd-come-shortlies,
if you don't look sharp.'

'Never fear,' said the old gipsy man; 'Meg's true-bred; she's the last in
the gang that will start; but she has some queer ways, and often cuts
queer words.'

With more of this gibberish they continued the conversation, rendering it
thus, even to each other, a dark obscure dialect, eked out by significant
nods and signs, but never expressing distinctly, or in plain language,
the subject on which it turned. At length one of them, observing Meg was
still fast asleep, or appeared to be so, desired one of the lads 'to hand
in the black Peter, that they might flick it open.' The boy stepped to
the door and brought in a portmanteau, which Brown instantly recognised
for his own. His thoughts immediately turned to the unfortunate lad he
had left with the carriage. Had the ruffians murdered him? was the
horrible doubt that crossed his mind. The agony of his attention grew yet
keener, and while the villains pulled out and admired the different
articles of his clothes and linen, he eagerly listened for some
indication that might intimate the fate of the postilion. But the
ruffians were too much delighted with their prize, and too much busied in
examining its contents, to enter into any detail concerning the manner in
which they had acquired it. The portmanteau contained various articles of
apparel, a pair of pistols, a leathern case with a few papers, and some
money, etc., etc. At any other time it would have provoked Brown
excessively to see the unceremonious manner in which the thieves shared
his property, and made themselves merry at the expense of the owner. But
the moment was too perilous to admit any thoughts but what had immediate
reference to self-preservation.

After a sufficient scrutiny into the portmanteau, and an equitable
division of its contents, the ruffians applied themselves more closely to
the serious occupation of drinking, in which they spent the greater part
of the night. Brown was for some time in great hopes that they would
drink so deep as to render themselves insensible, when his escape would
have been an easy matter. But their dangerous trade required precautions
inconsistent with such unlimited indulgence, and they stopped short on
this side of absolute intoxication. Three of them at length composed
themselves to rest, while the fourth watched. He was relieved in this
duty by one of the others after a vigil of two hours. When the second
watch had elapsed, the sentinel awakened the whole, who, to Brown's
inexpressible relief, began to make some preparations as if for
departure, bundling up the various articles which each had appropriated.
Still, however, there remained something to be done. Two of them, after
some rummaging which not a little alarmed Brown, produced a mattock and
shovel; another took a pickaxe from behind the straw on which the dead
body was extended. With these implements two of them left the hut, and
the remaining three, two of whom were the seamen, very strong men, still
remained in garrison.

After the space of about half an hour, one of those who had departed
again returned, and whispered the others. They wrapped up the dead body
in the sea cloak which had served as a pall, and went out, bearing it
along with them. The aged sibyl then arose from her real or feigned
slumbers. She first went to the door, as if for the purpose of watching
the departure of her late inmates, then returned, and commanded Brown, in
a low and stifled voice, to follow her instantly. He obeyed; but, on
leaving the hut, he would willingly have repossessed himself of his
money, or papers at least, but this she prohibited in the most peremptory
manner. It immediately occurred to him that the suspicion of having
removed anything of which he might repossess himself would fall upon this
woman, by whom in all probability his life had been saved. He therefore
immediately desisted from his attempt, contenting himself with seizing a
cutlass, which one of the ruffians had flung aside among the straw. On
his feet, and possessed of this weapon, he already found himself half
delivered from the dangers which beset him. Still, however, he felt
stiffened and cramped, both with the cold and by the constrained and
unaltered position which he had occupied all night. But, as he followed
the gipsy from the door of the hut, the fresh air of the morning and the
action of walking restored circulation and activity to his benumbed
limbs.

The pale light of a winter's morning was rendered more clear by the snow,
which was lying all around, crisped by the influence of a severe frost.
Brown cast a hasty glance at the landscape around him, that he might be
able again to know the spot. The little tower, of which only a single
vault remained, forming the dismal apartment in which he had spent this
remarkable night, was perched on the very point of a projecting rock
overhanging the rivulet. It was accessible only on one side, and that
from the ravine or glen below. On the other three sides the bank was
precipitous, so that Brown had on the preceding evening escaped more
dangers than one; for, if he had attempted to go round the building,
which was once his purpose, he must have been dashed to pieces. The dell
was so narrow that the trees met in some places from the opposite sides.
They were now loaded with snow instead of leaves, and thus formed a sort
of frozen canopy over the rivulet beneath, which was marked by its darker
colour, as it soaked its way obscurely through wreaths of snow. In one
place, where the glen was a little wider, leaving a small piece of flat
ground between the rivulet and the bank, were situated the ruins of the
hamlet in which Brown had been involved on the preceding evening. The
ruined gables, the insides of which were japanned with turf-smoke, looked
yet blacker contrasted with the patches of snow which had been driven
against them by the wind, and with the drifts which lay around them.

Upon this wintry and dismal scene Brown could only at present cast a very
hasty glance; for his guide, after pausing an instant as if to permit him
to indulge his curiosity, strode hastily before him down the path which
led into the glen. He observed, with some feelings of suspicion, that she
chose a track already marked by several feet, which he could only suppose
were those of the depredators who had spent the night in the vault. A
moment's recollection, however, put his suspicions to rest. It was not to
be thought that the woman, who might have delivered him up to her gang
when in a state totally defenceless, would have suspended her supposed
treachery until he was armed and in the open air, and had so many better
chances of defence or escape. He therefore followed his guide in
confidence and silence. They crossed the small brook at the same place
where it previously had been passed by those who had gone before. The
footmarks then proceeded through the ruined village, and from thence down
the glen, which again narrowed to a ravine, after the small opening in
which they were situated. But the gipsy no longer followed the same
track; she turned aside, and led the way by a very rugged and uneven path
up the bank which overhung the village. Although the snow in many places
hid the pathway, and rendered the footing uncertain and unsafe, Meg
proceeded with a firm and determined step, which indicated an intimate
knowledge of the ground she traversed. At length they gained the top of
the bank, though by a passage so steep and intricate that Brown, though
convinced it was the same by which he had descended on the night before,
was not a little surprised how he had accomplished the task without
breaking his neck. Above, the country opened wide and uninclosed for
about a mile or two on the one hand, and on the other were thick
plantations of considerable extent.

Meg, however, still led the way along the bank of the ravine out of which
they had ascended, until she heard beneath the murmur of voices. She then
pointed to a deep plantation of trees at some distance. 'The road to
Kippletringan,' she said, 'is on the other side of these inclosures. Make
the speed ye can; there's mair rests on your life than other folk's. But
you have lost all--stay.' She fumbled in an immense pocket, from which
she produced a greasy purse--'Many's the awmous your house has gi'en Meg
and hers; and she has lived to pay it back in a small degree;' and she
placed the purse in his hand.

'The woman is insane,' thought Brown; but it was no time to debate the
point, for the sounds he heard in the ravine below probably proceeded
from the banditti. 'How shall I repay this money,' he said, 'or how
acknowledge the kindness you have done me?'

'I hae twa boons to crave,' answered the sibyl, speaking low and hastily:
'one, that you will never speak of what you have seen this night; the
other, that you will not leave this country till you see me again, and
that you leave word at the Gordon Arms where you are to be heard of, and
when I next call for you, be it in church or market, at wedding or at
burial, Sunday or Saturday, mealtime or fasting, that ye leave everything
else and come with me.'

'Why, that will do you little good, mother.'

'But 'twill do yoursell muckle, and that's what I'm thinking o'. I am not
mad, although I have had eneugh to make me sae; I am not mad, nor
doating, nor drunken. I know what I am asking, and I know it has been the
will of God to preserve you in strange dangers, and that I shall be the
instrument to set you in your father's  seat again. Sae give me your
promise, and mind that you owe your life to me this blessed night.'

'There's wildness in her manner, certainly,' thought Brown, 'and yet it
is more like the wildness of energy than of madness.'--'Well, mother,
since you do ask so useless and trifling a favour, you have my promise.
It will at least give me an opportunity to repay your money with
additions. You are an uncommon kind of creditor, no doubt, but--'

'Away, away, then!' said she, waving her hand. 'Think not about the goud,
it's a' your ain; but remember your promise, and do not dare to follow me
or look after me.' So saying, she plunged again into the dell, and
descended it with great agility, the icicles and snow-wreaths showering
down after her as she disappeared.

Notwithstanding her prohibition, Brown endeavoured to gain some point of
the bank from which he might, unseen, gaze down into the glen; and with
some difficulty (for it must be conceived that the utmost caution was
necessary) he succeeded. The spot which he attained for this purpose was
the point of a projecting rock, which rose precipitously from among the
trees. By kneeling down among the snow and stretching his head cautiously
forward, he could observe what was going on in the bottom of the dell. He
saw, as he expected, his companions of the last night, now joined by two
or three others. They had cleared away the snow from the foot of the rock
and dug a deep pit, which was designed to serve the purpose of a grave.
Around this they now stood, and lowered into it something wrapped in a
naval cloak, which Brown instantly concluded to be the dead body of the
man he had seen expire. They then stood silent for half a minute, as if
under some touch of feeling for the loss of their companion. But if they
experienced such, they did not long remain under its influence, for all
hands went presently to work to fill up the grave; and Brown, perceiving
that the task would be soon ended, thought it best to take the gipsy
woman's hint and walk as fast as possible until he should gain the
shelter of the plantation.

Having arrived under cover of the trees, his first thought was of the
gipsy's purse. He had accepted it without hesitation, though with
something like a feeling of degradation, arising from the character of
the person by whom he was thus accommodated. But it relieved him from a
serious though temporary embarrassment. His money, excepting a very few
shillings, was in his portmanteau, and that was in possession of Meg's
friends. Some time was necessary to write to his agent, or even to apply
to his good host at Charlie's Hope, who would gladly have supplied him.
In the meantime he resolved to avail himself of Meg's subsidy, confident
he should have a speedy opportunity of replacing it with a handsome
gratuity. 'It can be but a trifling sum,' he said to himself, 'and I
daresay the good lady may have a share of my banknotes to make amends.'

With these reflections he opened the leathern purse, expecting to find at
most three or four guineas. But how much was he surprised to discover
that it contained, besides a considerable quantity of gold pieces, of
different coinages and various countries, the joint amount of which could
not be short of a hundred pounds, several valuable rings and ornaments
set with jewels, and, as appeared from the slight inspection he had time
to give them, of very considerable value.

Brown was equally astonished and embarrassed by the circumstances in
which he found himself, possessed, as he now appeared to be, of property
to a much greater amount than his own, but which had been obtained in all
probability by the same nefarious means through which he had himself been
plundered. His first thought was to inquire after the nearest justice of
peace, and to place in his hands the treasure of which he had thus
unexpectedly become the depositary, telling at the same time his own
remarkable story. But a moment's consideration brought several objections
to this mode of procedure In the first place, by observing this course he
should break his promise of silence, and might probably by that means
involve the safety, perhaps the life, of this woman, who had risked her
own to preserve his, and who had voluntarily endowed him with this
treasure--a generosity which might thus become the means of her ruin.
This was not to be thought of. Besides, he was a stranger, and for a time
at least unprovided with means of establishing his own character and
credit to the satisfaction of a stupid or obstinate country magistrate.
'I will think over the matter more maturely,' he said; 'perhaps there may
be a regiment quartered at the county town, in which case my knowledge of
the service and acquaintance with many officers of the army cannot fail
to establish my situation and character by evidence which a civil judge
could not sufficiently estimate. And then I shall have the commanding
officer's assistance in managing matters so as to screen this unhappy
madwoman, whose mistake or prejudice has been so fortunate for me. A
civil magistrate might think himself obliged to send out warrants for her
at once, and the consequence, in case of her being taken, is pretty
evident. No, she has been upon honour with me if she were the devil, and
I will be equally upon honour with her. She shall have the privilege of a
court-martial, where the point of honour can qualify strict law. Besides,
I may see her at this place, Kipple--Couple--what did she call it? and
then I can make restitution to her, and e'en let the law claim its own
when it can secure her. In the meanwhile, however, I cut rather an
awkward figure for one who has the honour to bear his Majesty's
commission, being little better than the receiver of stolen goods.'

With these reflections, Brown took from the gipsy's treasure three or
four guineas, for the purpose of his immediate expenses, and, tying up
the rest in the purse which contained them, resolved not again to open it
until he could either restore it to her by whom it was given, or put it
into the hands of some public functionary. He next thought of the
cutlass, and his first impulse was to leave it in the plantation. But,
when he considered the risk of meeting with these ruffians, he could not
resolve on parting with his arms. His walking-dress, though plain, had so
much of a military character as suited not amiss with his having such a
weapon. Besides, though the custom of wearing swords by persons out of
uniform had been gradually becoming antiquated, it was not yet so totally
forgotten as to occasion any particular remark towards those who chose to
adhere to it. Retaining, therefore, his weapon of defence, and placing
the purse of the gipsy in a private pocket, our traveller strode
gallantly on through the wood in search of the promised highroad.






CHAPTER  XXIX
    All school day's friendship childhood innocence'
     We Hermia like two artificial gods
     Have with our needles created both one flower,
     Both on one sampler sitting on one cushion,
     Both warbling of one song both in one key
     As if our hands our sides, voices and minds
     Had been incorporate

          A Midsummer Night's Dream


JULIA MANNERING TO MATILDA MARCHMONT

'How can you upbraid me, my dearest Matilda, with abatement in friendship
or fluctuation in affection? Is it possible for me to forget that you are
the chosen of my heart, in whose faithful bosom I have deposited every
feeling which your poor Julia dares to acknowledge to herself? And you do
me equal injustice in upbraiding me with exchanging your friendship for
that of Lucy Bertram. I assure you she has not the materials I must seek
for in a bosom confidante. She is a charming girl, to be sure, and I like
her very much, and I confess our forenoon and evening engagements have
left me less time for the exercise of my pen than our proposed regularity
of correspondence demands. But she is totally devoid of elegant
accomplishments, excepting the knowledge of French and Italian, which she
acquired from the most grotesque monster you ever beheld, whom my father
has engaged as a kind of librarian, and whom he patronises, I believe, to
show his defiance of the world's opinion. Colonel Mannering seems to have
formed a determination that nothing shall be considered as ridiculous so
long as it appertains to or is connected with him. I remember in India he
had picked up somewhere a little mongrel cur, with bandy legs, a long
back, and huge flapping ears. Of this uncouth creature he chose to make a
favourite, in despite of all taste and opinion; and I remember one
instance which he alleged, of what he called Brown's petulance, was, that
he had criticised severely the crooked legs and drooping ears of Bingo.
On my word, Matilda, I believe he nurses his high opinion of this most
awkward of all pedants upon a similar principle. He seats the creature at
table, where he pronounces a grace that sounds like the scream of the man
in the square that used to cry mackerel, flings his meat down his throat
by shovelfuls, like a dustman loading his cart, and apparently without
the most distant perception of what he is swallowing, then bleats forth
another unnatural set of tones by way of returning thanks, stalks out of
the room, and immerses himself among a parcel of huge worm-eaten folios
that are as uncouth as himself! I could endure the creature well enough
had I anybody to laugh at him along with me; but Lucy Bertram, if I but
verge on the border of a jest affecting this same Mr. Sampson (such is
the horrid man's horrid name), looks so piteous that it deprives me of
all spirit to proceed, and my father knits his brow, flashes fire from
his eye, bites his lip, and says something that is extremely rude and
uncomfortable to my feelings.

'It was not of this creature, however, that I meant to speak to you, only
that, being a good scholar in the modern as well as the ancient
languages, he has contrived to make Lucy Bertram mistress of the former,
and she has only, I believe, to thank her own good sense, or obstinacy,
that the Greek, Latin (and Hebrew, for aught I know), were not added to
her acquisitions. And thus she really has a great fund of information,
and I assure you I am daily surprised at the power which she seems to
possess of amusing herself by recalling and arranging the subjects of her
former reading. We read together every morning, and I begin to like
Italian much better than when we were teased by that conceited animal
Cicipici. This is the way to spell his name, and not Chichipichi; you see
I grow a connoisseur.

'But perhaps I like Miss Bertram more for the accomplishments she wants
than for the knowledge she possesses. She knows nothing of music
whatever, and no more of dancing than is here common to the meanest
peasants, who, by the way, dance with great zeal and spirit. So that I am
instructor in my turn, and she takes with great gratitude lessons from me
upon the harpsichord; and I have even taught her some of La Pique's
steps, and you know he thought me a promising scholar.

'In the evening papa often reads, and I assure you he is the best reader
of poetry you ever heard; not like that actor who made a kind of jumble
between reading and acting,--staring, and bending his brow, and twisting
his face, and gesticulating as if he were on the stage and dressed out in
all his costume. My father's manner is quite different; it is the reading
of a gentleman, who produces effect by feeling, taste, and inflection of
voice, not by action or mummery. Lucy Bertram rides remarkably well, and
I can now accompany her on horseback, having become emboldened by
example. We walk also a good deal in spite of the cold. So, upon the
whole, I have not quite so much time for writing as I used to have.

'Besides, my love, I must really use the apology of all stupid
correspondents, that I have nothing to say. My hopes, my fears, my
anxieties about Brown are of a less interesting cast since I know that he
is at liberty and in health. Besides, I must own I think that by this
time the gentleman might have given me some intimation what he was doing.
Our intercourse may be an imprudent one, but it is not very complimentary
to me that Mr. Vanbeest Brown should be the first to discover that such
is the case, and to break off in consequence. I can promise him that we
might not differ much in opinion should that happen to be his, for I have
sometimes thought I have behaved extremely foolishly in that matter. Yet
I have so good an opinion of poor Brown, that I cannot but think there is
something extraordinary in his silence.

'To return to Lucy Bertram. No, my dearest Matilda, she can never, never
rival you in my regard, so that all your affectionate jealousy on that
account is without foundation. She is, to be sure, a very pretty, a very
sensible, a very affectionate girl, and I think there are few persons to
whose consolatory friendship I could have recourse more freely in what
are called the real evils of life. But then these so seldom come in one's
way, and one wants a friend who will sympathise with distresses of
sentiment as well as with actual misfortune. Heaven knows, and you know,
my dearest Matilda, that these diseases of the heart require the balm of
sympathy and affection as much as the evils of a more obvious and
determinate character. Now Lucy Bertram has nothing of this kindly
sympathy, nothing at all, my dearest Matilda. Were I sick of a fever, she
would sit up night after night to nurse me with the most unrepining
patience; but with the fever of the heart, which my Matilda has soothed
so often, she has no more sympathy than her old tutor. And yet what
provokes me is, that the demure monkey actually has a lover of her own,
and that their mutual affection (for mutual I take it to be) has a great
deal of complicated and romantic interest. She was once, you must know, a
great heiress, but was ruined by the prodigality of her father and the
villainy of a horrid man in whom he confided. And one of the handsomest
young gentlemen in the country is attached to her; but, as he is heir to
a great estate, she discourages his addresses on account of the
disproportion of their fortune.

'But with all this moderation, and self-denial, and modesty, and so
forth, Lucy is a sly girl. I am sure she loves young Hazlewood, and I am
sure he has some guess of that, and would probably bring her to
acknowledge it too if my father or she would allow him an opportunity.
But you must know the Colonel is always himself in the way to pay Miss
Bertram those attentions which afford the best indirect opportunities for
a young gentleman in Hazlewood's situation. I would have my good papa
take care that he does not himself pay the usual penalty of meddling
folks. I assure you, if I were Hazlewood I should look on his
compliments, his bowings, his cloakings, his shawlings, and his handings
with some little suspicion; and truly I think Hazlewood does so too at
some odd times. Then imagine what a silly figure your poor Julia makes on
such occasions! Here is my father making the agreeable to my friend;
there is young Hazlewood watching every word of her lips, and every
motion of her eye; and I have not the poor satisfaction of interesting a
human being, not even the exotic monster of a parson, for even he sits
with his mouth open, and his huge round goggling eyes fixed like those of
a statue, admiring Mess Baartram!

'All this makes me sometimes a little nervous, and sometimes a little
mischievous. I was so provoked at my father and the lovers the other day
for turning me completely out of their thoughts and society, that I began
an attack upon Hazlewood, from which it was impossible for him, in common
civility, to escape. He insensibly became warm in his defence,--I assure
you, Matilda, he is a very clever as well as a very handsome young man,
and I don't think I ever remember having seen him to the same
advantage,--when, behold, in the midst of our lively conversation, a very
soft sigh from Miss Lucy reached my not ungratified ears. I was greatly
too generous to prosecute my victory any farther, even if I had not been
afraid of papa. Luckily for me, he had at that moment got into a long
description of the peculiar notions and manners of a certain tribe of
Indians who live far up the country, and was illustrating them by making
drawings on Miss Bertram's work-patterns, three of which he utterly
damaged by introducing among the intricacies of the pattern his specimens
of Oriental costume. But I believe she thought as little of her own gown
at the moment as of the Indian turbands and cummerbands. However, it was
quite as well for me that he did not see all the merit of my little
manoeuvre, for he is as sharp-sighted as a hawk, and a sworn enemy to the
slightest shade of coquetry.

'Well, Matilda, Hazlewood heard this same half-audible sigh, and
instantly repented his temporary attentions to such an unworthy object as
your Julia, and, with a very comical expression of consciousness, drew
near to Lucy's work-table. He made some trifling observation, and her
reply was one in which nothing but an ear as acute as that of a lover, or
a curious observer like myself, could have distinguished anything more
cold and dry than usual. But it conveyed reproof to the self-accusing
hero, and he stood abashed accordingly. You will admit that I was called
upon in generosity to act as mediator. So I mingled in the conversation,
in the quiet tone of an unobserving and uninterested third party, led
them into their former habits of easy chat, and, after having served
awhile as the channel of communication through which they chose to
address each other, set them down to a pensive game at chess, and very
dutifully went to tease papa, who was still busied with his drawings. The
chess-players, you must observe, were placed near the chimney, beside a
little work-table, which held the board and men, the Colonel at some
distance, with lights upon a library table; for it is a large
old-fashioned room, with several recesses, and hung with grim tapestry,
representing what it might have puzzled the artist himself to explain.

'"Is chess a very interesting game, papa?"

'"I am told so," without honouring me with much of his notice.

'"I should think so, from the attention Mr. Hazlewood and Lucy are
bestowing on it."

'He raised his head "hastily and held his pencil suspended for an
instant. Apparently he saw nothing that excited his suspicions, for he
was resuming the folds of a Mahratta's turban in tranquillity when I
interrupted him with--"How old is Miss Bertram, sir?"

'"How should I know, Miss? About your own age, I suppose."

'"Older, I should think, sir. You are always telling me how much more
decorously she goes through all the honours of the tea-table. Lord, papa,
what if you should give her a right to preside once and for ever!"

'"Julia, my dear," returned papa, "you are either a fool outright or you
are more disposed to make mischief than I have yet believed you."

'"Oh, my dear sir! put your best construction upon it; I would not be
thought a fool for all the world."

'"Then why do you talk like one?" said my father.

'"Lord, sir, I am sure there is nothing so foolish in what I said just
now. Everybody knows you are a very handsome man" (a smile was just
visible), "that is, for your time of life" (the dawn was overcast),
"which is far from being advanced, and I am sure I don't know why you
should not please yourself, if you have a mind. I am sensible I am but a
thoughtless girl, and if a graver companion could render you more
happy--"

'There was a mixture of displeasure and grave affection in the manner in
which my father took my hand, that was a severe reproof to me for
trifling with his feelings. "Julia," he said, "I bear with much of your
petulance because I think I have in some degree deserved it, by
neglecting to superintend your education sufficiently closely. Yet I
would not have you give it the rein upon a subject so delicate. If you do
not respect the feelings of your surviving parent towards the memory of
her whom you have lost, attend at least to the sacred claims of
misfortune; and observe, that the slightest hint of such a jest reaching
Miss Bertram's ears would at once induce her to renounce her present
asylum, and go forth, without a protector, into a world she has already
felt so unfriendly."

'What could I say to this, Matilda? I only cried heartily, begged pardon,
and promised to be a good girl in future. And so here am I neutralised
again, for I cannot, in honour or common good-nature, tease poor Lucy by
interfering with Hazlewood, although she has so little confidence in me;
and neither can I, after this grave appeal, venture again upon such
delicate ground with papa. So I burn little rolls of paper, and sketch
Turks' heads upon visiting cards with the blackened end--I assure you I
succeeded in making a superb Hyder-Ally last night--and I jingle on my
unfortunate harpsichord, and begin at the end of a grave book and read it
backward. After all, I begin to be very much vexed about Brown's silence.
Had he been obliged to leave the country, I am sure he would at least
have written to me. Is it possible that my father can have intercepted
his letters? But no, that is contrary to all his principles; I don't
think he would open a letter addressed to me to-night, to prevent my
jumping out of window to-morrow. What an expression I have suffered to
escape my pen! I should be ashamed of it, even to you, Matilda, and used
in jest. But I need not take much merit for acting as I ought to do. This
same Mr. Vanbeest Brown is by no means so very ardent a lover as to hurry
the object of his attachment into such inconsiderate steps. He gives one
full time to reflect, that must be admitted. However, I will not blame
him unheard, nor permit myself to doubt the manly firmness of a character
which I have so often extolled to you. Were he capable of doubt, of fear,
of the shadow of change, I should have little to regret.

'And why, you will say, when I expect such steady and unalterable
constancy from a lover, why should I be anxious about what Hazlewood
does, or to whom he offers his attentions? I ask myself the question a
hundred times a day, and it only receives the very silly answer that one
does not like to be neglected, though one would not encourage a serious
infidelity.

'I write all these trifles because you say that they amuse you, and yet I
wonder how they should. I remember, in our stolen voyages to the world of
fiction, you always admired the grand and the romantic,--tales of
knights, dwarfs, giants, and distressed damsels, oothsayers, visions,
beckoning ghosts, and bloody hands; whereas I was partial to the involved
intrigues of private life, or at farthest to so much only of the
supernatural as is conferred by the agency of an Eastern genie or a
beneficent fairy. YOU would have loved to shape your course of life over
the broad ocean, with its dead calms and howling tempests, its tornadoes,
and its billows mountain-high; whereas I should like to trim my little
pinnace to a brisk breeze in some inland lake or tranquil bay, where
there was just difficulty of navigation sufficient to give interest and
to require skill without any sensible degree of danger. So that, upon the
whole, Matilda, I think you should have had my father, with his pride of
arms and of ancestry, his chivalrous point of honour, his high talents,
and his abstruse and mystic studies. You should have had Lucy Bertram too
for your friend, whose fathers, with names which alike defy memory and
orthography, ruled over this romantic country, and whose birth took
place, as I have been indistinctly informed, under circumstances of deep
and peculiar interest. You should have had, too, our Scottish residence,
surrounded by mountains, and our lonely walks to haunted ruins. And I
should have had, in exchange, the lawns and shrubs, and green-houses and
conservatories, of Pine Park, with your good, quiet, indulgent aunt, her
chapel in the morning, her nap after dinner, her hand at whist in the
evening, not forgetting her fat coach-horses and fatter coachman. Take
notice, however, that Brown is not included in this proposed barter of
mine; his good-humour, lively conversation, and open gallantry suit my
plan of life as well as his athletic form, handsome features, and high
spirit would accord with a character of chivalry. So, as we cannot change
altogether out and out, I think we must e'en abide as we are.'


END OF VOLUME I








GUY MANNERING

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT

VOLUME II







GUY MANNERING

OR

THE ASTROLOGER


CHAPTER I
     I renounce your defiance; if you parley so roughly I'll
     barricade my gates against you. Do you see yon bay window?
     Storm, I care not, serving the good Duke of Norfolk

          Merry Devil of Edmonton.


JULIA MANNERING to MATILDA MARCHMONT

'I rise from a sick-bed, my dearest Matilda, to communicate the strange
and frightful scenes which have just passed. Alas! how little we ought to
jest with futurity! I closed my letter to you in high spirits, with some
flippant remarks on your taste for the romantic and extraordinary in
fictitious narrative. How little I expected to have had such events to
record in the course of a few days! And to witness scenes of terror, or
to contemplate them in description, is as different, my dearest Matilda,
as to bend over the brink of a precipice holding by the frail tenure of a
half-rooted shrub, or to admire the same precipice as represented in the
landscape of Salvator. But I will not anticipate my narrative.

'The first part of my story is frightful enough, though it had nothing to
interest my feelings. You must know that this country is particularly
favourable to the commerce of a set of desperate men from the Isle of
Man, which is nearly opposite. These smugglers are numerous, resolute,
and formidable, and have at different times become the dread of the
neighbourhood when any one has interfered with their contraband trade.
The local magistrates, from timidity or worse motives, have become shy of
acting against them, and impunity has rendered them equally daring and
desperate. With all this my father, a stranger in the land, and invested
with no official authority, had, one would think, nothing to do. But it
must be owned that, as he himself expresses it, he was born when Mars was
lord of his ascendant, and that strife and bloodshed find him out in
circumstances and situations the most retired and pacific.

'About eleven o'clock on last Tuesday morning, while Hazlewood and my
father were proposing to walk to a little lake about three miles'
distance, for the purpose of shooting wild ducks, and while Lucy and I
were busied with arranging our plan of work and study for the day, we
were alarmed by the sound of horses' feet advancing very fast up the
avenue. The ground was hardened by a severe frost, which made the clatter
of the hoofs sound yet louder and sharper. In a moment two or three men,
armed, mounted, and each leading a spare horse loaded with packages,
appeared on the lawn, and, without keeping upon the road, which makes a
small sweep, pushed right across for the door of the house. Their
appearance was in the utmost degree hurried and disordered, and they
frequently looked back like men who apprehended a close and deadly
pursuit. My father and Hazlewood hurried to the front door to demand who
they were, and what was their business. They were revenue officers, they
stated, who had seized these horses, loaded with contraband articles, at
a place about three miles off. But the smugglers had been reinforced, and
were now pursuing them with the avowed purpose of recovering the goods,
and putting to death the officers who had presumed to do their duty. The
men said that, their horses being loaded, and the pursuers gaining ground
upon them, they had fled to Woodbourne, conceiving that, as my father had
served the King, he would not refuse to protect the servants of
government when threatened to be murdered in the discharge of their duty.

'My father, to whom, in his enthusiastic feelings of military loyalty,
even a dog would be of importance if he came in the King's name, gave
prompt orders for securing the goods in the hall, arming the servants,
and defending the house in case it should be necessary. Hazlewood
seconded him with great spirit, and even the strange animal they call
Sampson stalked out of his den, and seized upon a fowling-piece which my
father had laid aside to take what they call a rifle-gun, with which they
shoot tigers, etc., in the East. The piece went off in the awkward hands
of the poor parson, and very nearly shot one of the excisemen. At this
unexpected and involuntary explosion of his weapon, the Dominie (such is
his nickname) exclaimed, "Prodigious!" which is his usual ejaculation
when astonished. But no power could force the man to part with his
discharged piece, so they were content to let him retain it, with the
precaution of trusting him with no ammunition. This (excepting the alarm
occasioned by the report) escaped my notice at the time, you may easily
believe; but, in talking over the scene afterwards, Hazlewood made us
very merry with the Dominie's ignorant but zealous valour.

'When my father had got everything into proper order for defence, and his
people stationed at the windows with their firearms, he wanted to order
us out of danger--into the cellar, I believe--but we could not be
prevailed upon to stir. Though terrified to death, I have so much of his
own spirit that I would look upon the peril which threatens us rather
than hear it rage around me without knowing its nature or its progress.
Lucy, looking as pale as a marble statue, and keeping her eyes fixed on
Hazlewood, seemed not even to hear the prayers with which he conjured her
to leave the front of the house. But in truth, unless the hall-door
should be forced, we were in little danger; the windows being almost
blocked up with cushions and pillows, and, what the Dominie most
lamented, with folio volumes, brought hastily from the library, leaving
only spaces through which the defenders might fire upon the assailants.

'My father had now made his dispositions, and we sat in breathless
expectation in the darkened apartment, the men remaining all silent upon
their posts, in anxious contemplation probably of the approaching danger.
My father, who was quite at home in such a scene, walked from one to
another and reiterated his orders that no one should presume to fire
until he gave the word. Hazlewood, who seemed to catch courage from his
eye, acted as his aid-de-camp, and displayed the utmost alertness in
bearing his directions from one place to another, and seeing them
properly carried into execution. Our force, with the strangers included,
might amount to about twelve men.