Those who watched the signs of the times had long been of opinion that a
change of ministry was about to take place; and at length, after a due
proportion of hopes, fears, and delays, rumours from good authority and
bad authority, and no authority at all; after some clubs had drank Up
with this statesman and others Down with him; after riding, and running,
and posting, and addressing, and counter-addressing, and proffers of
lives and fortunes, the blow was at length struck, the administration of
the day was dissolved, and parliament, as a natural consequence, was
dissolved also.

Sir Thomas Kittlecourt, like other members in the same situation, posted
down to his county, and met but an indifferent reception. He was a
partizan of the old administration; and the friends of the new had
already set about an active canvass in behalf of John Featherhead, Esq.,
who kept the best hounds and hunters in the shire. Among others who
joined the standard of revolt was Gilbert Glossin, writer in--, agent for
the Laird of Ellangowan. This honest gentleman had either been refused
some favour by the old member, or, what is as probable, he had got all
that he had the most distant pretension to ask, and could only look to
the other side for fresh advancement. Mr. Glossin had a vote upon
Ellangowan's property; and he was now determined that his patron should
have one also, there being no doubt which side Mr. Bertram would embrace
in the contest. He easily persuaded Ellangowan that it would be
creditable to him to take the field at the head of as strong a party as
possible; and immediately went to work, making votes, as every Scotch
lawyer knows how, by splitting and subdividing the superiorities upon
this ancient and once powerful barony. These were so extensive that, by
dint of clipping and paring here, adding and eking there, and creating
over-lords upon all the estate which Bertram held of the crown, they
advanced at the day of contest at the head of ten as good men of
parchment as ever took the oath of trust and possession. This strong
reinforcement turned the dubious day of battle. The principal and his
agent divided the honour; the reward fell to the latter exclusively. Mr.
Gilbert Glossin was made clerk of the peace, and Godfrey Bertram had his
name inserted in a new commission of justices, issued immediately upon
the sitting of the parliament.

This had been the summit of Mr. Bertram's ambition; not that he liked
either the trouble or the responsibility of the office, but he thought it
was a dignity to which he was well entitled, and that it had been
withheld from him by malice prepense. But there is an old and true Scotch
proverb, 'Fools should not have chapping sticks'; that is, weapons of
offence. Mr. Bertram was no sooner possessed of the judicial authority
which he had so much longed for than he began to exercise it with more
severity than mercy, and totally belied all the opinions which had
hitherto been formed of his inert good-nature. We have read somewhere of
a justice of peace who, on being nominated in the commission, wrote a
letter to a bookseller for the statutes respecting his official duty in
the following orthography--'Please send the ax relating to a gustus
pease.' No doubt, when this learned gentleman had possessed himself of
the axe, he hewed the laws with it to some purpose. Mr. Bertram was not
quite so ignorant of English grammar as his worshipful predecessor; but
Augustus Pease himself could not have used more indiscriminately the
weapon unwarily put into his hand.

In good earnest, he considered the commission with which he had been
entrusted as a personal mark of favour from his sovereign; forgetting
that he had formerly thought his being deprived of a privilege, or
honour, common to those of his rank was the result of mere party cabal.
He commanded his trusty aid-de-camp, Dominie Sampson, to read aloud the
commission; and at the first words, 'The King has been pleased to
appoint'--'Pleased!' he exclaimed in a transport of gratitude; 'honest
gentleman! I'm sure he cannot be better pleased than I am.'

Accordingly, unwilling to confine his gratitude to mere feelings or
verbal expressions, he gave full current to the new-born zeal of office,
and endeavoured to express his sense of the honour conferred upon him by
an unmitigated activity in the discharge of his duty. New brooms, it is
said, sweep clean; and I myself can bear witness that, on the arrival of
a new housemaid, the ancient, hereditary, and domestic spiders who have
spun their webs over the lower division of my bookshelves (consisting
chiefly of law and divinity) during the peaceful reign of her
predecessor, fly at full speed before the probationary inroads of the new
mercenary. Even so the Laird of Ellangowan ruthlessly commenced his
magisterial reform, at the expense of various established and
superannuated pickers and stealers who had been his neighbours for half a
century. He wrought his miracles like a second Duke Humphrey; and by the
influence of the beadle's rod caused the lame to walk, the blind to see,
and the palsied to labour. He detected poachers, black-fishers,
orchard-breakers, and pigeon-shooters; had the applause of the bench for
his reward, and the public credit of an active magistrate.

All this good had its rateable proportion of evil. Even an admitted
nuisance of ancient standing should not be abated without some caution.
The zeal of our worthy friend now involved in great distress sundry
personages whose idle and mendicant habits his own lachesse had
contributed to foster, until these habits had become irreclaimable, or
whose real incapacity for exertion rendered them fit objects, in their
own phrase, for the charity of all well-disposed Christians. The
'long-remembered beggar,' who for twenty years had made his regular
rounds within the neighbourhood, received rather as an humble friend than
as an object of charity, was sent to the neighbouring workhouse. The
decrepit dame, who travelled round the parish upon a hand-barrow,
circulating from house to house like a bad shilling, which every one is
in haste to pass to his neighbour,--she, who used to call for her bearers
as loud, or louder, than a traveller demands post-horses,--even she
shared the same disastrous fate. The 'daft Jock,' who, half knave, half
idiot, had been the sport of each succeeding race of village children for
a good part of a century, was remitted to the county bridewell, where,
secluded from free air and sunshine, the only advantages he was capable
of enjoying, he pined and died in the course of six months. The old
sailor, who had so long rejoiced the smoky rafters of every kitchen in
the country by singing 'Captain Ward' and 'Bold Admiral Benbow,' was
banished from the county for no better reason than that he was supposed
to speak with a strong Irish accent. Even the annual rounds of the pedlar
were abolished by the Justice, in his hasty zeal for the administration
of rural police.

These things did not pass without notice and censure. We are not made of
wood or stone, and the things which connect themselves with our hearts
and habits cannot, like bark or lichen, be rent away without our missing
them. The farmer's dame lacked her usual share of intelligence, perhaps
also the self-applause which she had felt while distributing the awmous
(alms), in shape of a gowpen (handful) of oatmeal, to the mendicant who
brought the news. The cottage felt inconvenience from interruption of the
petty trade carried on by the itinerant dealers. The children lacked
their supply of sugarplums and toys; the young women wanted pins,
ribbons, combs, and ballads; and the old could no longer barter their
eggs for salt, snuff, and tobacco. All these circumstances brought the
busy Laird of Ellangowan into discredit, which was the more general on
account of his former popularity. Even his lineage was brought up in
judgment against him. They thought 'naething of what the like of
Greenside, or Burnville, or Viewforth might do, that were strangers in
the country; but Ellangowan! that had been a name amang them since the
Mirk Monanday, and lang before--HIM to be grinding the puir at that rate!
They ca'd his grandfather the Wicked Laird; but, though he was whiles
fractious aneuch, when he got into roving company and had ta'en the drap
drink, he would have scorned to gang on at this gate. Na, na, the muckle
chumlay in the Auld Place reeked like a killogie in his time, and there
were as mony puir folk riving at the banes in the court, and about the
door, as there were gentles in the ha'. And the leddy, on ilka Christmas
night as it came round, gae twelve siller pennies to ilka puir body
about, in honour of the twelve apostles like. They were fond to ca' it
papistrie; but I think our great folk might take a lesson frae the
papists whiles. They gie another sort o' help to puir folk than just
dinging down a saxpence in the brod on the Sabbath, and kilting, and
scourging, and drumming them a' the sax days o' the week besides.'

Such was the gossip over the good twopenny in every ale-house within
three or four miles of Ellangowan, that being about the diameter of the
orbit in which our friend Godfrey Bertram, Esq., J. P., must be
considered as the principal luminary. Still greater scope was given to
evil tongues by the removal of a colony of gipsies, with one of whom our
reader is somewhat acquainted, and who had for a great many years enjoyed
their chief settlement upon the estate of Ellangowan.






CHAPTER  VII
     Come, princes of the ragged regiment,
     You of the blood! PRIGS, my most upright lord,
     And these, what name or title e'er they bear,
     JARKMAN, or PATRICO, CRANKE or CLAPPER-DUDGEON,
     PRATER or ABRAM-MAN--I speak of all.

          Beggar's Bush.


Although the character of those gipsy tribes which formerly inundated
most of the nations of Europe, and which in some degree still subsist
among them as a distinct people, is generally understood, the reader will
pardon my saying a few words respecting their situation in Scotland.

It is well known that the gipsies were at an early period acknowledged as
a separate and independent race by one of the Scottish monarchs, and that
they were less favourably distinguished by a subsequent law, which
rendered the character of gipsy equal in the judicial balance to that of
common and habitual thief, and prescribed his punishment accordingly.
Notwithstanding the severity of this and other statutes, the fraternity
prospered amid the distresses of the country, and received large
accessions from among those whom famine, oppression, or the sword of war
had deprived of the ordinary means of subsistence. They lost in a great
measure by this intermixture the national character of Egyptians, and
became a mingled race, having all the idleness and predatory habits of
their Eastern ancestors, with a ferocity which they probably borrowed
from the men of the north who joined their society. They travelled in
different bands, and had rules among themselves, by which each tribe was
confined to its own district. The slightest invasion of the precincts
which had been assigned to another tribe produced desperate skirmishes,
in which there was often much blood shed.

The patriotic Fletcher of Saltoun drew a picture of these banditti about
a century ago, which my readers will peruse with astonishment:--

'There are at this day in Scotland (besides a great many poor families
very meanly provided for by the church boxes, with others who, by living
on bad food, fall into various diseases) two hundred thousand people
begging from door to door. These are not only no way advantageous, but a
very grievous burden to so poor a country. And though the number of them
be perhaps double to what it was formerly, by reason of this present
great distress, yet in all times there have been about one hundred
thousand of those vagabonds, who have lived without any regard or
subjection either to the laws of the land or even those of God and nature
. . . No magistrate could ever discover, or be informed, which way one in
a hundred of these wretches died, or that ever they were baptized. Many
murders have been discovered among them; and they are not only a most
unspeakable oppression to poor tenants (who, if they give not bread or
some kind of provision to perhaps forty such villains in one day, are
sure to be insulted by them), but they rob many poor people who live in
houses distant from any neighbourhood. In years of plenty, many thousands
of them meet together in the mountains, where they feast and riot for
many days; and at country weddings, markets, burials, and other the like
public occasions, they are to be seen, both man and woman, perpetually
drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together.'

Notwithstanding the deplorable picture presented in this extract, and
which Fletcher himself, though the energetic and eloquent friend of
freedom, saw no better mode of correcting than by introducing a system of
domestic slavery, the progress of time, and increase both of the means of
life and of the power of the laws, gradually reduced this dreadful evil
within more narrow bounds. The tribes of gipsies, jockies, or cairds--for
by all these denominations such banditti were known--became few in
number, and many were entirely rooted out. Still, however, a sufficient
number remained to give, occasional alarm and constant vexation. Some
rude handicrafts were entirely resigned to these itinerants, particularly
the art of trencher-making, of manufacturing horn-spoons, and the whole
mystery of the tinker. To these they added a petty trade in the coarse
sorts of earthenware. Such were their ostensible means of livelihood.
Each tribe had usually some fixed place of rendezvous, which they
occasionally occupied and considered as their standing camp, and in the
vicinity of which they generally abstained from depredation. They had
even talents and accomplishments, which made them occasionally useful and
entertaining. Many cultivated music with success; and the favourite
fiddler or piper of a district was often to be found in a gipsy town.
They understood all out-of-door sports, especially otter-hunting,
fishing, or finding game. They bred the best and boldest terriers, and
sometimes had good pointers for sale. In winter the women told fortunes,
the men showed tricks of legerdemain; and these accomplishments often
helped to while away a weary or stormy evening in the circle of the
'farmer's ha'.' The wildness of their character, and the indomitable
pride with which they despised all regular labour, commanded a certain
awe, which was not diminished by the consideration that these strollers
were a vindictive race, and were restrained by no check, either of fear
or conscience, from taking desperate vengeance upon those who had
offended them. These tribes were, in short, the pariahs of Scotland,
living like wild Indians among European settlers, and, like them, judged
of rather by their own customs, habits, and opinions, than as if they had
been members of the civilised part of the community. Some hordes of them
yet remain, chiefly in such situations as afford a ready escape either
into a waste country or into another Jurisdiction. Nor are the features
of their character much softened. Their numbers, however, are so greatly
diminished that, instead of one hundred thousand, as calculated by
Fletcher, it would now perhaps be impossible to collect above five
hundred throughout all Scotland.

A tribe of these itinerants, to whom Meg Merrilies appertained, had long
been as stationary as their habits permitted in a glen upon the estate of
Ellangowan. They had there erected a few huts, which they denominated
their 'city of refuge,' and where, when not absent on excursions, they
harboured unmolested, as the crows that roosted in the old ash-trees
around them. They had been such long occupants that they were considered
in some degree as proprietors of the wretched shealings which they
inhabited. This protection they were said anciently to have repaid by
service to the Laird in war, or more frequently, by infesting or
plundering the lands of those neighbouring barons with whom he chanced to
be at feud. Latterly their services were of a more pacific nature. The
women spun mittens for the lady, and knitted boot-hose for the Laird,
which were annually presented at Christmas with great form. The aged
sibyls blessed the bridal bed of the Laird when he married, and the
cradle of the heir when born. The men repaired her ladyship's cracked
china, and assisted the Laird in his sporting parties, wormed his dogs,
and cut the ears of his terrier puppies. The children gathered nuts in
the woods, and cranberries in the moss, and mushrooms on the pastures,
for tribute to the Place. These acts of voluntary service, and
acknowledgments of dependence, were rewarded by protection on some
occasions, connivance on others, and broken victuals, ale, and brandy
when circumstances called for a display of generosity; and this mutual
intercourse of good offices, which had been carried on for at least two
centuries, rendered the inhabitants of Derncleugh a kind of privileged
retainers upon the estate of Ellangowan. 'The knaves' were the Laird's
'exceeding good friends'; and he would have deemed himself very ill used
if his countenance could not now and then have borne them out against the
law of the country and the local magistrate. But this friendly union was
soon to be dissolved.

The community of Derncleugh, who cared for no rogues but their own, were
wholly without alarm at the severity of the Justice's proceedings towards
other itinerants. They had no doubt that he determined to suffer no
mendicants or strollers in the country but what resided on his own
property, and practised their trade by his immediate permission, implied
or expressed. Nor was Mr. Bertram in a hurry to exert his newly-acquired
authority at the expense of these old settlers. But he was driven on by
circumstances.

At the quarter-sessions our new Justice was publicly upbraided by a
gentleman of the opposite party in county politics, that, while he
affected a great zeal for the public police, and seemed ambitious of the
fame of an active magistrate, he fostered a tribe of the greatest rogues
in the country, and permitted them to harbour within a mile of the house
of Ellangowan. To this there was no reply, for the fact was too evident
and well known. The Laird digested the taunt as he best could, and in his
way home amused himself with speculations on the easiest method of
ridding himself of these vagrants, who brought a stain upon his fair fame
as a magistrate. Just as he had resolved to take the first opportunity of
quarrelling with the pariahs of Derncleugh, a cause of provocation
presented itself.

Since our friend's advancement to be a conservator of the peace, he had
caused the gate at the head of his avenue, which formerly, having only
one hinge, remained at all times hospitably open--he had caused this
gate, I say, to be newly hung and handsomely painted. He had also shut up
with paling, curiously twisted with furze, certain holes in the fences
adjoining, through which the gipsy boys used to scramble into the
plantations to gather birds' nests, the seniors of the village to make a
short cut from one point to another, and the lads and lasses for evening
rendezvous--all without offence taken or leave asked. But these halcyon
days were now to have an end, and a minatory inscription on one side of
the gate intimated 'prosecution according to law' (the painter had spelt
it 'persecution'--l'un vaut bien l'autre) to all who should be found
trespassing on these inclosures. On the other side, for uniformity's
sake, was a precautionary annunciation of spring-guns and man-traps of
such formidable powers that, said the rubrick, with an emphatic nota
bene--'if a man goes in they will break a horse's leg.'

In defiance of these threats, six well-grown gipsy boys and girls were
riding cock-horse upon the new gate, and plaiting may-flowers, which it
was but too evident had been gathered within the forbidden precincts.
With as much anger as he was capable of feeling, or perhaps of assuming,
the Laird commanded them to descend;--they paid no attention to his
mandate: he then began to pull them down one after another;--they
resisted, passively at least, each sturdy bronzed varlet making himself
as heavy as he could, or climbing up as fast as he was dismounted.

The Laird then called in the assistance of his servant, a surly fellow,
who had immediate recourse to his horsewhip. A few lashes sent the party
a-scampering; and thus commenced the first breach of the peace between
the house of Ellangowan and the gipsies of Derncleugh.

The latter could not for some time imagine that the war was real; until
they found that their children were horsewhipped by the grieve when found
trespassing; that their asses were poinded by the ground-officer when
left in the plantations, or even when turned to graze by the roadside,
against the provision of the turnpike acts; that the constable began to
make curious inquiries into their mode of gaining a livelihood, and
expressed his surprise that the men should sleep in the hovels all day,
and be abroad the greater part of the night.

When matters came to this point, the gipsies, without scruple, entered
upon measures of retaliation. Ellangowan's hen-roosts were plundered, his
linen stolen from the lines or bleaching-ground, his fishings poached,
his dogs kidnapped, his growing trees cut or barked. Much petty mischief
was done, and some evidently for the mischief's sake. On the other hand,
warrants went forth, without mercy, to pursue, search for, take, and
apprehend; and, notwithstanding their dexterity, one or two of the
depredators were unable to avoid conviction. One, a stout young fellow,
who sometimes had gone to sea a-fishing, was handed over to the captain
of the impress service at D--; two children were soundly flogged, and one
Egyptian matron sent to the house of correction.

Still, however, the gipsies made no motion to leave the spot which they
had so long inhabited, and Mr. Bertram felt an unwillingness to deprive
them of their ancient 'city of refuge'; so that the petty warfare we have
noticed continued for several months, without increase or abatement of
hostilities on either side.






CHAPTER  VIII
     So the red Indian, by Ontario's side,
     Nursed hardy on the brindled panther's hide,
     As fades his swarthy race, with anguish sees
     The white man's cottage rise beneath the trees;
     He leaves the shelter of his native wood,
     He leaves the murmur of Ohio's flood,
     And forward rushing in indignant grief,
     Where never foot has trod the fallen leaf,
     He bends his course where twilight reigns sublime.
     O'er forests silent since the birth of time.

          SCENES OF INFANCY.


In tracing the rise and progress of the Scottish Maroon war, we must not
omit to mention that years had rolled on, and that little Harry Bertram,
one of the hardiest and most lively children that ever made a sword and
grenadier's cap of rushes, now approached his fifth revolving birthday. A
hardihood of disposition, which early developed itself, made him already
a little wanderer; he was well acquainted with every patch of lea ground
and dingle around Ellangowan, and could tell in his broken language upon
what baulks grew the bonniest flowers, and what copse had the ripest
nuts. He repeatedly terrified his attendants by clambering about the
ruins of the old castle, and had more than once made a stolen excursion
as far as the gipsy hamlet.

On these occasions he was generally brought back by Meg Merrilies, who,
though she could not be prevailed upon to enter the Place of Ellangowan
after her nephew had been given up to the press-gang, did not apparently
extend her resentment to the child. On the contrary, she often contrived
to waylay him in his walks, sing him a gipsy song, give him a ride upon
her jackass, and thrust into his pocket a piece of gingerbread or a
red-cheeked apple. This woman's ancient attachment to the family,
repelled and checked in every other direction, seemed to rejoice in
having some object on which it could yet repose and expand itself. She
prophesied a hundred times, 'that young Mr. Harry would be the pride o'
the family, and there hadna been sic a sprout frae the auld aik since the
death of Arthur Mac-Dingawaie, that was killed in the battle o' the
Bloody Bay; as for the present stick, it was good for nothing but
fire-wood.' On one occasion, when the child was ill, she lay all night
below the window, chanting a rhyme which she believed sovereign as a
febrifuge, and could neither be prevailed upon to enter the house nor to
leave the station she had chosen till she was informed that the crisis
was over.

The affection of this woman became matter of suspicion, not indeed to the
Laird, who was never hasty in suspecting evil, but to his wife, who had
indifferent health and poor spirits. She was now far advanced in a second
pregnancy, and, as she could not walk abroad herself, and the woman who
attended upon Harry was young and thoughtless, she prayed Dominie Sampson
to undertake the task of watching the boy in his rambles, when he should
not be otherwise accompanied. The Dominie loved his young charge, and was
enraptured with his own success in having already brought him so far in
his learning as to spell words of three syllables. The idea of this early
prodigy of erudition being carried off by the gipsies, like a second Adam
Smith,[Footnote: The father of Economical Philosophy was, when a child,
actually carried off by gipsies, and remained some hours in their
possession.] was not to be tolerated; and accordingly, though the charge
was contrary to all his habits of life, he readily undertook it, and
might be seen stalking about with a mathematical problem in his head, and
his eye upon a child of five years old, whose rambles led him into a
hundred awkward situations. Twice was the Dominie chased by a
cross-grained cow, once he fell into the brook crossing at the
stepping-stones, and another time was bogged up to the middle in the
slough of Lochend, in attempting to gather a water-lily for the young
Laird. It was the opinion of the village matrons who relieved Sampson on
the latter occasion, 'that the Laird might as weel trust the care o' his
bairn to a potatoe bogle'; but the good Dominie bore all his disasters
with gravity and serenity equally imperturbable. 'Pro-di-gi-ous!' was the
only ejaculation they ever extorted from the much-enduring man.







The Laird had by this time determined to make root-and-branch work with
the Maroons of Derncleugh. The old servants shook their heads at his
proposal, and even Dominie Sampson ventured upon an indirect
remonstrance. As, however, it was couched in the oracular phrase, 'Ne
moveas Camerinam,' neither the allusion, nor the language in which it was
expressed, were calculated for Mr. Bertram's edification, and matters
proceeded against the gipsies in form of law. Every door in the hamlet
was chalked by the ground-officer, in token of a formal warning to remove
at next term. Still, however, they showed no symptoms either of
submission or of compliance. At length the term-day, the fatal Martinmas,
arrived, and violent measures of ejection were resorted to. A strong
posse of peace-officers, sufficient to render all resistance vain,
charged the inhabitants to depart by noon; and, as they did not obey, the
officers, in terms of their warrant, proceeded to unroof the cottages,
and pull down the wretched doors and windows--a summary and effectual
mode of ejection still practised in some remote parts of Scotland when a
tenant proves refractory. The gipsies for a time beheld the work of
destruction in sullen silence and inactivity; then set about saddling and
loading their asses, and making preparations for their departure. These
were soon accomplished, where all had the habits of wandering Tartars;
and they set forth on their journey to seek new settlements, where their
patrons should neither be of the quorum nor custos rotulorum.

Certain qualms of feeling had deterred Ellangowan from attending in
person to see his tenants expelled. He left the executive part of the
business to the officers of the law, under the immediate direction of
Frank Kennedy, a supervisor, or riding-officer, belonging to the excise,
who had of late become intimate at the Place, and of whom we shall have
more to say in the next chapter. Mr. Bertram himself chose that day to
make a visit to a friend at some distance. But it so happened,
notwithstanding his precautions, that he could not avoid meeting his late
tenants during their retreat from his property.

It was in a hollow way, near the top of a steep ascent, upon the verge of
the Ellangowan estate, that Mr. Bertram met the gipsy procession. Four or
five men formed the advanced guard, wrapped in long loose great-coats
that hid their tall slender figures, as the large slouched hats, drawn
over their brows, concealed their wild features, dark eyes, and swarthy
faces. Two of them carried long fowling-pieces, one wore a broadsword
without a sheath, and all had the Highland dirk, though they did not wear
that weapon openly or ostentatiously. Behind them followed the train of
laden asses, and small carts or TUMBLERS, as they were called in that
country, on which were laid the decrepit and the helpless, the aged and
infant part of the exiled community. The women in their red cloaks and
straw hats, the elder children with bare heads and bare feet, and almost
naked bodies, had the immediate care of the little caravan. The road was
narrow, running between two broken banks of sand, and Mr. Bertram's
servant rode forward, smacking his whip with an air of authority, and
motioning to the drivers to allow free passage to their betters. His
signal was unattended to. He then called to the men who lounged idly on
before, 'Stand to your beasts' heads, and make room for the Laird to
pass.'

'He shall have his share of the road,' answered a male gipsy from under
his slouched and large-brimmed hat, and without raising his face, 'and he
shall have nae mair; the highway is as free to our cuddies as to his
gelding.'

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

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

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

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

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







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

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

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






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

         BURNS.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'That sounds like nonsense, my dear.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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