'Why, upon that point of the argument, Miss Mannering, it is as difficult
to find a heart that will break as a glass that will not; and for that
reason I would press the value of mine own, were it not that I see Mr.
Sampson's eyes have been closed, and his hands clasped for some time,
attending the end of our conference to begin the grace. And, to say the
truth, the appearance of the wild ducks is very appetising.' So saying,
the worthy Counsellor sat himself to table, and laid aside his gallantry
for awhile to do honour to the good things placed before him. Nothing
further is recorded of him for some time, excepting an observation that
the ducks were roasted to a single turn, and that Mrs. Allan's sauce of
claret, lemon, and cayenne was beyond praise.

'I see,' said Miss Mannering, 'I have a formidable rival in Mr.
Pleydell's favour, even on the very first night of his avowed
admiration.'

'Pardon me, my fair lady,' answered the Counsellor, 'your avowed rigour
alone has induced me to commit the solecism of eating a good supper in
your presence; how shall I support your frowns without reinforcing my
strength? Upon the same principle, and no other, I will ask permission to
drink wine with you.'

'This is the fashion of Utrecht also, I suppose, Mr. Pleydell?'

'Forgive me, madam,' answered the Counsellor; 'the French themselves, the
patterns of all that is gallant, term their tavern-keepers restaurateurs,
alluding, doubtless, to the relief they afford the disconsolate lover
when bowed down to the earth by his mistress's severity. My own case
requires so much relief that I must trouble you for that other wing, Mr.
Sampson, without prejudice to my afterwards applying to Miss Bertram for
a tart. Be pleased to tear the wing, sir, instead of cutting it off. Mr.
Barnes will assist you, Mr. Sampson; thank you, sir; and, Mr. Barnes, a
glass of ale, if you please.'

While the old gentleman, pleased with Miss Mannering's liveliness and
attention, rattled away for her amusement and his own, the impatience of
Colonel Mannering began to exceed all bounds. He declined sitting down at
table, under pretence that he never eat supper; and traversed the parlour
in which they were with hasty and impatient steps, now throwing up the
window to gaze upon the dark lawn, now listening for the remote sound of
the carriage advancing up the avenue. At length, in a feeling of
uncontrollable impatience, he left the room, took his hat and cloak, and
pursued his walk up the avenue, as if his so doing would hasten the
approach of those whom he desired to see. 'I really wish,' said Miss
Bertram,' Colonel Mannering would not venture out after nightfall. You
must have heard, Mr. Pleydell, what a cruel fright we had.'

'O, with the smugglers?' replied the Advocate; 'they are old friends of
mine. I was the means of bringing some of them to justice a long time
since, when sheriff of this county.'

'And then the alarm we had immediately afterwards,' added Miss Bertram,
'from the vengeance of one of these wretches.'

'When young Hazlewood was hurt; I heard of that too.'

'Imagine, my dear Mr. Pleydell,' continued Lucy, 'how much Miss Mannering
and I were alarmed when a ruffian, equally dreadful for his great
strength and the sternness of his features, rushed out upon us!'

'You must know, Mr. Pleydell,' said Julia, unable to suppress her
resentment at this undesigned aspersion of her admirer, 'that young
Hazlewood is so handsome in the eyes of the young ladies of this country
that they think every person shocking who comes near him.'

'Oho!' thought Pleydell, who was by profession an observer of tones and
gestures,' there's something wrong here between my young
friends.'--'Well, Miss Mannering, I have not seen young Hazlewood since
he was a boy, so the ladies may be perfectly right; but I can assure you,
in spite of your scorn, that if you want to see handsome men you must go
to Holland; the prettiest fellow I ever saw was a Dutchman, in spite of
his being called Vanbost, or Vanbuster, or some such barbarous name. He
will not be quite so handsome now, to be sure.'

It was now Julia's turn to look a little out of countenance at the chance
hit of her learned admirer, but that instant the Colonel entered the
room. 'I can hear nothing of them yet,' he said; 'still, however, we will
not separate. Where is Dominie Sampson?'

'Here, honoured sir.'

'What is that book you hold in your hand, Mr. Sampson?'

'It's even the learned De Lyra, sir. I would crave his honour Mr.
Pleydell's judgment, always with his best leisure, to expound a disputed
passage.'

'I am not in the vein, Mr. Sampson,' answered Pleydell; 'here's metal
more attractive. I do not despair to engage these two young ladies in a
glee or a catch, wherein I, even I myself, will adventure myself for the
bass part. Hang De Lyra, man; keep him for a fitter season.'

The disappointed Dominie shut his ponderous tome, much marvelling in his
mind how a person possessed of the lawyer's erudition could give his mind
to these frivolous toys. But the Counsellor, indifferent to the high
character for learning which he was trifling away, filled himself a large
glass of Burgundy, and, after preluding a little with a voice somewhat
the worse for the wear, gave the ladies a courageous invitation to join
in 'We be Three Poor Mariners,' and accomplished his own part therein
with great eclat.

'Are you not withering your roses with sitting up so late, my young
ladies?' said the Colonel.

'Not a bit, sir,' answered Julia; 'your friend Mr. Pleydell threatens to
become a pupil of Mr. Sampson's to-morrow, so we must make the most of
our conquest to-night.'

This led to another musical trial of skill, and that to lively
conversation. At length, when the solitary sound of one o'clock had long
since resounded on the ebon ear of night, and the next signal of the
advance of time was close approaching, Mannering, whose impatience had
long subsided into disappointment and despair, looked at his watch and
said, 'We must now give them up,' when at that instant--But what then
befell will require a separate chapter.






CHAPTER XXI
     JUSTICE This does indeed confirm each circumstance
     The gipsy told!
     No orphan, nor without a friend art thou.
     I am thy father, HERE'S thy mother, THERE
     Thy uncle, THIS thy first cousin, and THESE
     Are all thy near relations!

          The Critic.


As Mannering replaced his watch, he heard a distant and hollow sound. 'It
is a carriage for certain; no, it is but the sound of the wind among the
leafless trees. Do come to the window, Mr. Pleydell.' The Counsellor,
who, with his large silk handkerchief in his hand, was expatiating away
to Julia upon some subject which he thought was interesting, obeyed the
summons, first, however, wrapping the handkerchief round his neck by way
of precaution against the cold air. The sound of wheels became now very
perceptible, and Pleydell, as if he had reserved all his curiosity till
that moment, ran out to the hall. The Colonel rung for Barnes to desire
that the persons who came in the carriage might be shown into a separate
room, being altogether uncertain whom it might contain. It stopped,
however, at the door before his purpose could be fully explained. A
moment after Mr. Pleydell called out, 'Here's our Liddesdale friend, I
protest, with a strapping young fellow of the same calibre.' His voice
arrested Dinmont, who recognised him with equal surprise and pleasure.
'Od, if it's your honour we'll a' be as right and tight as thack and rape
can make us.'

But while the farmer stopped to make his bow, Bertram, dizzied with the
sudden glare of light, and bewildered with the circumstances of his
situation, almost unconsciously entered the open door of the parlour, and
confronted the Colonel, who was just advancing towards it. The strong
light of the apartment left no doubt of his identity, and he himself was
as much confounded with the appearance of those to whom he so
unexpectedly presented himself as they were by the sight of so utterly
unlooked-for an object. It must be remembered that each individual
present had their own peculiar reasons for looking with terror upon what
seemed at first sight a spectral apparition. Mannering saw before him the
man whom he supposed he had killed in India; Julia beheld her lover in a
most peculiar and hazardous situation; and Lucy Bertram at once knew the
person who had fired upon young Hazlewood. Bertram, who interpreted the
fixed and motionless astonishment of the Colonel into displeasure at his
intrusion, hastened to say that it was involuntary, since he had been
hurried hither without even knowing whither he was to be transported.

'Mr. Brown, I believe!' said Colonel Mannering.

'Yes, sir,' replied the young man, modestly, but with firmness, 'the same
you knew in India; and who ventures to hope, that what you did then know
of him is not such as should prevent his requesting you would favour him
with your attestation to his character as a gentleman and man of honour.'

'Mr. Brown, I have been seldom--never--so much surprised; certainly, sir,
in whatever passed between us you have a right to command my favourable
testimony.'

At this critical moment entered the Counsellor and Dinmont. The former
beheld to his astonishment the Colonel but just recovering from his first
surprise, Lucy Bertram ready to faint with terror, and Miss Mannering in
an agony of doubt and apprehension, which she in vain endeavoured to
disguise or suppress. 'What is the meaning of all this?' said he; 'has
this young fellow brought the Gorgon's head in his hand? let me look at
him. By Heaven!' he muttered to himself, 'the very image of old
Ellangowan! Yes, the same manly form and handsome features, but with a
world of more intelligence in the face. Yes! the witch has kept her
word.' Then instantly passing to Lucy, 'Look at that man, Miss Bertram,
my dear; have you never seen any one like him?'

Lucy had only ventured one glance at this object of terror, by which,
however, from his remarkable height and appearance, she at once
recognised the supposed assassin of young Hazlewood, a conviction which
excluded, of course, the more favourable association of ideas which might
have occurred on a closer view. 'Don't ask me about him, sir,' said she,
turning away her eyes; 'send him away, for Heaven's sake! we shall all be
murdered!'

'Murdered! where's the poker?' said the Advocate in some alarm; 'but
nonsense! we are three men besides the servants, and there is honest
Liddesdale, worth half-a-dozen, to boot; we have the major vis upon our
side. However, here, my friend Dandie--Davie--what do they call you? keep
between that fellow and us for the protection of the ladies.'

'Lord! Mr. Pleydell,' said the astonished farmer, 'that's Captain Brown;
d 'ye no ken the Captain?'

'Nay, if he's a friend of yours we may be safe enough,' answered
Pleydell; 'but keep near him.'

All this passed with such rapidity that it was over before the Dominie
had recovered himself from a fit of absence, shut the book which he had
been studying in a corner, and, advancing to obtain a sight of the
strangers, exclaimed at once upon beholding Bertram, 'If the grave can
give up the dead, that is my dear and honoured master!'

'We're right after all, by Heaven! I was sure I was right,' said the
Lawyer; 'he is the very image of his father. Come, Colonel, what do you
think of, that you do not bid your guest welcome? I think--I believe--I
trust we're right; never saw such a likeness! But patience; Dominie, say
not a word. Sit down, young gentleman.'

'I beg pardon, sir; if I am, as I understand, in Colonel Mannering's
house, I should wish first to know if my accidental appearance here gives
offence, or if I am welcome?'

Mannering instantly made an effort. 'Welcome? most certainly, especially
if you can point out how I can serve you. I believe I may have some
wrongs to repair towards you, I have often suspected so; but your sudden
and unexpected appearance, connected with painful recollections,
prevented my saying at first, as I now say, that whatever has procured me
the honour of this visit, it is an acceptable one.'

Bertram bowed with an air of distant yet civil acknowledgment to the
grave courtesy of Mannering.

'Julia, my love, you had better retire. Mr. Brown, you will excuse my
daughter; there are circumstances which I perceive rush upon her
recollection.'

Miss Mannering rose and retired accordingly; yet, as she passed Bertram,
could not suppress the words, 'Infatuated! a second time!' but so
pronounced as to be heard by him alone. Miss Bertram accompanied her
friend, much surprised, but without venturing a second glance at the
object of her terror. Some mistake she saw there was, and was unwilling
to increase it by denouncing the stranger as an assassin. He was known,
she saw, to the Colonel, and received as a gentleman; certainly he either
was not the person she suspected or Hazlewood was right in supposing the
shot accidental.

The remaining part of the company would have formed no bad group for a
skilful painter. Each was too much embarrassed with his own sensations to
observe those of the others. Bertram most unexpectedly found himself in
the house of one whom he was alternately disposed to dislike as his
personal enemy and to respect as the father of Julia. Mannering was
struggling between his high sense of courtesy and hospitality, his joy at
finding himself relieved from the guilt of having shed life in a private
quarrel, and the former feelings of dislike and prejudice, which revived
in his haughty mind at the sight of the object against whom he had
entertained them. Sampson, supporting his shaking limbs by leaning on the
back of a chair, fixed his eyes upon Bertram with a staring expression of
nervous anxiety which convulsed his whole visage. Dinmont, enveloped in
his loose shaggy great-coat, and resembling a huge bear erect upon his
hinder legs, stared on the whole scene with great round eyes that
witnessed his amazement.

The Counsellor alone was in his element: shrewd, prompt, and active, he
already calculated the prospect of brilliant success in a strange,
eventful, and mysterious lawsuit, and no young monarch, flushed with
hopes, and at the head of a gallant army, could experience more glee when
taking the field on his first campaign. He bustled about with great
energy, and took the arrangement of the whole explanation upon himself.

'Come, come, gentlemen, sit down; this is all in my province; you must
let me arrange it for you. Sit down, my dear Colonel, and let me manage;
sit down, Mr. Brown, aut quocunque alio nomine vocaris; Dominie, take
your seat; draw in your chair, honest Liddesdale.'

'I dinna ken, Mr. Pleydell,' said Dinmont, looking at his dreadnought
coat, then at the handsome furniture of the room; 'I had maybe better
gang some gate else, and leave ye till your cracks, I'm no just that weel
put on.'

The Colonel, who by this time recognised Dandie, immediately went up and
bid him heartily welcome; assuring him that, from what he had seen of him
in Edinburgh, he was sure his rough coat and thick-soled boots would
honour a royal drawing-room.

'Na, na, Colonel, we're just plain up-the-country folk; but nae doubt I
would fain hear o' ony pleasure that was gaun to happen the Captain, and
I'm sure a' will gae right if Mr. Pleydell will take his bit job in
hand.'

'You're right, Dandie; spoke like a Hieland [Footnote: It may not be
unnecessary to tell southern readers that the mountainous country in the
south western borders of Scotland is called Hieland, though totally
different from the much more mountainous and more extensive districts of
the north, usually called Hielands.] oracle; and now be silent. Well, you
are all seated at last; take a glass of wine till I begin my catechism
methodically. And now,' turning to Bertram, 'my dear boy, do you know who
or what you are?'

In spite of his perplexity the catechumen could not help laughing at this
commencement, and answered, 'Indeed, sir, I formerly thought I did; but I
own late circumstances have made me somewhat uncertain.'

'Then tell us what you formerly thought yourself.'

'Why, I was in the habit of thinking and calling myself Vanbeest Brown,
who served as a cadet or volunteer under Colonel Mannering, when he
commanded the--regiment, in which capacity I was not unknown to him.'

'There,' said the Colonel, 'I can assure Mr. Brown of his identity; and
add, what his modesty may have forgotten, that he was distinguished as a
young man of talent and spirit.'

'So much the better, my dear sir,' said Mr. Pleydell; 'but that is to
general character. Mr. Brown must tell us where he was born.'

'In Scotland, I believe, but the place uncertain.'

'Where educated?'

'In Holland, certainly.'

'Do you remember nothing of your early life before you left Scotland?'

'Very imperfectly; yet I have a strong idea, perhaps more deeply
impressed upon me by subsequent hard usage, that I was during my
childhood the object of much solicitude and affection. I have an
indistinct remembrance of a good-looking man whom I used to call papa,
and of a lady who was infirm in health, and who, I think, must have been
my mother; but it is an imperfect and confused recollection. I remember
too a tall, thin, kind-tempered man in black, who used to teach me my
letters and walk out with me; and I think the very last time--'

Here the Dominie could contain no longer. While every succeeding word
served to prove that the child of his benefactor stood before him, he had
struggled with the utmost difficulty to suppress his emotions; but when
the juvenile recollections of Bertram turned towards his tutor and his
precepts he was compelled to give way to his feelings. He rose hastily
from his chair, and with clasped hands, trembling limbs, and streaming
eyes, called out aloud, 'Harry Bertram! look at me; was I not the man?'

'Yes!' said Bertram, starting from his seat as if a sudden light had
burst in upon his mind; 'yes; that was my name! And that is the voice and
the figure of my kind old master!'

The Dominie threw himself into his arms, pressed him a thousand times to
his bosom in convulsions of transport which shook his whole frame, sobbed
hysterically, and at length, in the emphatic language of Scripture,
lifted up his voice and wept aloud. Colonel Mannering had recourse to his
handkerchief; Pleydell made wry faces, and wiped the glasses of his
spectacles; and honest Dinmont, after two loud blubbering explosions,
exclaimed, 'Deil's in the man! he's garr'd me do that I haena done since
my auld mither died.'

'Come, come,' said the Counsellor at last, 'silence in the court. We have
a clever party to contend with; we must lose no time in gathering our
information; for anything I know there may be something to be done before
daybreak.'

'I will order a horse to be saddled if you please,' said the Colonel.

'No, no, time enough, time enough. But come, Dominie, I have allowed you
a competent space to express your feelings. I must circumduce the term;
you must let me proceed in my examination.'

The Dominie was habitually obedient to any one who chose to impose
commands upon him: he sunk back into his chair, spread his chequered
handkerchief over his face, to serve, as I suppose, for the Grecian
painter's veil, and, from the action of his folded hands, appeared for a
time engaged in the act of mental thanksgiving. He then raised his eyes
over the screen, as if to be assured that the pleasing apparition had not
melted into air; then again sunk them to resume his internal act of
devotion, until he felt himself compelled to give attention to the
Counsellor, from the interest which his questions excited.

'And now,' said Mr. Pleydell, after several minute inquiries concerning
his recollection of early events--'and now, Mr. Bertram,--for I think we
ought in future to call you by your own proper name--will you have the
goodness to let us know every particular which you can recollect
concerning the mode of your leaving Scotland?'

'Indeed, sir, to say the truth, though the terrible outlines of that day
are strongly impressed upon my memory, yet somehow the very terror which
fixed them there has in a great measure confounded and confused the
details. I recollect, however, that I was walking somewhere or other, in
a wood, I think--'

'O yes, it was in Warroch wood, my dear,' said the Dominie.

'Hush, Mr. Sampson,' said the Lawyer.

'Yes, it was in a wood,' continued Bertram, as long past and confused
ideas arranged themselves in his reviving recollection; 'and some one was
with me; this worthy and affectionate gentleman, I think.'

'O, ay, ay, Harry, Lord bless thee; it was even I myself.'

'Be silent, Dominie, and don't interrupt the evidence,' said Pleydell.
'And so, sir?' to Bertram.

'And so, sir,' continued Bertram, 'like one of the changes of a dream, I
thought I was on horseback before my guide.'

'No, no,' exclaimed Sampson, 'never did I put my own limbs, not to say
thine, into such peril.'

'On my word, this is intolerable! Look ye, Dominie, if you speak another
word till I give you leave, I will read three sentences out of the Black
Acts, whisk my cane round my head three times, undo all the magic of this
night's work, and conjure Harry Bertram back again into Vanbeest Brown.'

'Honoured and worthy sir,' groaned out the Dominie, 'I humbly crave
pardon; it was but verbum volans.'

'Well, nolens volens, you must hold your tongue,' said Pleydell.

'Pray, be silent, Mr. Sampson,' said the Colonel; 'it is of great
consequence to your recovered friend that you permit Mr. Pleydell to
proceed in his inquiries.'

'I am mute,' said the rebuked Dominie.

'On a sudden,' continued Bertram, 'two or three men sprung out upon us,
and we were pulled from horseback. I have little recollection of anything
else, but that I tried to escape in the midst of a desperate scuffle, and
fell into the arms of a very tall woman who started from the bushes and
protected me for some time; the rest is all confusion and dread, a dim
recollection of a sea-beach and a cave, and of some strong potion which
lulled me to sleep for a length of time. In short, it is all a blank in
my memory until I recollect myself first an ill-used and half-starved
cabin-boy aboard a sloop, and then a schoolboy in Holland, under the
protection of an old merchant, who had taken some fancy for me.'

'And what account,' said Mr. Pleydell, 'did your guardian give of your
parentage?'

'A very brief one,' answered Bertram, 'and a charge to inquire no
farther. I was given to understand that my father was concerned in the
smuggling trade carried on on the eastern coast of Scotland, and was
killed in a skirmish with the revenue officers; that his correspondents
in Holland had a vessel on the coast at the time, part of the crew of
which were engaged in the affair, and that they brought me off after it
was over, from a motive of compassion, as I was left destitute by my
father's death. As I grew older there was much of this story seemed
inconsistent with my own recollections, but what could I do? I had no
means of ascertaining my doubts, nor a single friend with whom I could
communicate or canvass them. The rest of my story is known to Colonel
Mannering: I went out to India to be a clerk in a Dutch house; their
affairs fell into confusion; I betook myself to the military profession,
and, I trust, as yet I have not disgraced it.'

'Thou art a fine young fellow, I'll be bound for thee,' said Pleydell,
'and since you have wanted a father so long, I wish from my heart I could
claim the paternity myself. But this affair of young Hazlewood--'

'Was merely accidental,' said Bertram. 'I was travelling in Scotland for
pleasure, and, after a week's residence with my friend Mr. Dinmont, with
whom I had the good fortune to form an accidental acquaintance--'

"It was my gude fortune that," said Dinmont. "Odd, my brains wad hae been
knockit out by twa black-guards if it hadna been for his four quarters."

"Shortly after we parted at the town of----I lost my baggage by thieves,
and it was while residing at Kippletringan I accidentally met the young
gentleman. As I was approaching to pay my respects to Miss Mannering,
whom I had known in India, Mr. Hazlewood, conceiving my appearance none
of the most respectable, commanded me rather haughtily to stand back, and
so gave occasion to the fray, in which I had the misfortune to be the
accidental means of wounding him. And now, sir, that I have answered all
your questions--"

"No, no, not quite all," said Pleydell, winking sagaciously; "there are
some interrogatories which I shall delay till to-morrow, for it is time,
I believe, to close the sederunt for this night, or rather morning."

"Well, then, sir," said the young man, "to vary the phrase, since I have
answered all the questions which you have chosen to ask to-night, will
you be so good as to tell me who you are that take such interest in my
affairs, and whom you take me to be, since my arrival has occasioned such
commotion?"

"Why, sir, for myself," replied the Counsellor, "I am Paulus Pleydell, an
advocate at the Scottish bar; and for you, it is not easy to say
distinctly who you are at present, but I trust in a short time to hail
you by the title of Henry Bertram, Esq., representative of one of the
oldest families in Scotland, and heir of Tailzie and provision to the
estate of Ellangowan. Ay," continued he, shutting his eyes and speaking
to himself, "we must pass over his father, and serve him heir to his
grandfather Lewis, the entailer; the only wise man of his family, that I
ever heard of."

They had now risen to retire to their apartments for the night, when
Colonel Mannering walked up to Bertram, as he stood astonished at the
Counsellor's words. "I give you joy," he said, "of the prospects which
fate has opened before you. I was an early friend of your father, and
chanced to be in the house of Ellangowan, as unexpectedly as you are now
in mine, upon the very night in which you were born. I little knew this
circumstance when--but I trust unkindness will be forgotten between us.
Believe me, your appearance here as Mr. Brown, alive and well, has
relieved me from most painful sensations; and your right to the name of
an old friend renders your presence as Mr. Bertram doubly welcome."

"And my parents?" said Bertram.

"Are both no more; and the family property has been sold, but I trust may
be recovered. Whatever is wanted to make your right effectual I shall be
most happy to supply."

"Nay, you may leave all that to me," said the Counsellor; "'t is my
vocation, Hal; I shall make money of it."

"I'm sure it's no for the like o'me," observed Dinmont, "to speak to you
gentlefolks; but if siller would help on the Captain's plea, and they say
nae plea gangs ain weel without it--"

"Except on Saturday night," said Pleydell.

"Ay, but when your honour wadna take your fee ye wadna hae the cause
neither, sae I'll ne'er fash you on a Saturday at e'en again. But I was
saying, there's some siller in the spleuchan that's like the Captain's
ain, for we've aye counted it such, baith Ailie and me."

'No, no, Liddesdale; no occasion, no occasion whatever. Keep thy cash to
stock thy farm.'

'To stock my farm? Mr. Pleydell, your honour kens mony things, but ye
dinna ken the farm o' Charlie's Hope; it's sae weel stockit already that
we sell maybe sax hundred pounds off it ilka year, flesh and fell the
gither; na, na.'

'Can't you take another then?'

'I dinna ken; the Deuke's no that fond o' led farms, and he canna bide to
put away the auld tenantry; and then I wadna like mysell to gang about
whistling [Footnote: See Note 7.] and raising the rent on my neighbours.'

'What, not upon thy neighbour at Dawston--Devilstone--how d 'ye call the
place?'

'What, on Jock o' Dawston? hout na. He's a camsteary chield, and fasheous
about marches, and we've had some bits o' splores thegither; but deil
o'meif I wad wrang Jock o' Dawston neither.'

'Thou'rt an honest fellow,' said the Lawyer; 'get thee to bed. Thou wilt
sleep sounder, I warrant thee, than many a man that throws off an
embroidered coat and puts on a laced nightcap. Colonel, I see you are
busy with our enfant trouve. But Barnes must give me a summons of
wakening at seven to-morrow morning, for my servant's a sleepy-headed
fellow; and I daresay my clerk Driver has had Clarence's fate, and is
drowned by this time in a butt of your ale; for Mrs. Allan promised to
make him comfortable, and she'll soon discover what he expects from that
engagement. Good-night, Colonel; good-night, Dominie Sampson; good-night,
Dinmont the Downright; good-night, last of all, to the new-found
representative of the Bertrams, and the Mac-Dingawaies, the Knarths, the
Arths, the Godfreys, the Dennises, and the Rolands, and, last and dearest
title, heir of tailzie and provision of the lands and barony of
Ellangowan, under the settlement of Lewis Bertram, Esq., whose
representative you are.'

And so saying, the old gentleman took his candle and left the room; and
the company dispersed, after the Dominie had once more hugged and
embraced his 'little Harry Bertram,' as he continued to call the young
soldier of six feet high.






CHAPTER XXII
                        My imagination
       Carries no favour in it but Bertram's;
       I am undone, there is no living, none,
       If Bertram be away.

                        --All's Well that Ends Well.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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






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

          Henry IV Part I


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

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

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

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

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

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

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