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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'No, sir; but-'

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

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

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

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

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






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

         Henry VI, Part II


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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






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

         Winter's Tale.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A loud rapping was heard at the door.

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

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

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

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

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

     To every guest the appropriate speech was made,
     And every duty with distinction paid;
     Respectful, easy, pleasant, or polite--
     'Your honour's servant!' 'Mister Smith, good-night.'

On the present occasion she was low in her courtesy and profuse in her
apologies. The stranger begged his horse might be attended to: she went
out herself to school the hostler.

'There was never a prettier bit o' horse-flesh in the stable o' the
Gordon Arms,' said the man, which information increased the landlady's
respect for the rider. Finding, on her return, that the stranger declined
to go into another apartment (which, indeed, she allowed, would be but
cold and smoky till the fire bleezed up), she installed her guest
hospitably by the fireside, and offered what refreshment her house
afforded.

'A cup of your tea, ma'am, if you will favour me.'

Mrs. Mac-Candlish bustled about, reinforced her teapot with hyson, and
proceeded in her duties with her best grace. 'We have a very nice
parlour, sir, and everything very agreeable for gentlefolks; but it's
bespoke the night for a gentleman and his daughter that are going to
leave this part of the country; ane of my chaises is gane for them, and
will be back forthwith. They're no sae weel in the warld as they have
been; but we're a' subject to ups and downs in this life, as your honour
must needs ken,--but is not the tobacco-reek disagreeable to your
honour?'

'By no means, ma'am; I am an old campaigner, and perfectly used to it.
Will you permit me to make some inquiries about a family in this
neighbourhood?'

The sound of wheels was now heard, and the landlady hurried to the door
to receive her expected guests; but returned in an instant, followed by
the postilion. 'No, they canna come at no rate, the Laird's sae ill.'

'But God help them,' said the landlady, 'the morn's the term, the very
last day they can bide in the house; a' thing's to be roupit.'

'Weel, but they can come at no rate, I tell ye; Mr. Bertram canna be
moved.'

'What Mr. Bertram?' said the stranger; 'not Mr. Bertram of Ellangowan, I
hope?'

'Just e'en that same, sir; and if ye be a friend o' his, ye have come at
a time when he's sair bested.'

'I have been abroad for many years,--is his health so much deranged?'

'Ay, and his affairs an' a',' said the Deacon; 'the creditors have
entered into possession o' the estate, and it's for sale; and some that
made the maist by him--I name nae names, but Mrs. Mac-Candlish kens wha I
mean (the landlady shook her head significantly)--they're sairest on him
e'en now. I have a sma' matter due myself, but I would rather have lost
it than gane to turn the auld man out of his house, and him just dying.'

'Ay, but,' said the parish clerk, 'Factor Glossin wants to get rid of the
auld Laird, and drive on the sale, for fear the heir-male should cast up
upon them; for I have heard say, if there was an heir-male they couldna
sell the estate for auld Ellangowan's debt.'

'He had a son born a good many years ago,' said the stranger; 'he is
dead, I suppose?'

'Nae man can say for that,' answered the clerk mysteriously.

'Dead!' said the Deacon, 'I'se warrant him dead lang syne; he hasna been
heard o' these twenty years or thereby.'

'I wot weel it's no twenty years,' said the landlady; 'it's no abune
seventeen at the outside in this very month. It made an unco noise ower
a' this country; the bairn disappeared the very day that Supervisor
Kennedy cam by his end. If ye kenn'd this country lang syne, your honour
wad maybe ken Frank Kennedy the Supervisor. He was a heartsome pleasant
man, and company for the best gentlemen in the county, and muckle mirth
he's made in this house. I was young then, sir, and newly married to
Bailie Mac-Candlish, that's dead and gone (a sigh); and muckle fun I've
had wi' the Supervisor. He was a daft dog. O, an he could hae hauden aff
the smugglers a bit! but he was aye venturesome. And so ye see, sir,
there was a king's sloop down in Wigton Bay, and Frank Kennedy, he
behoved to have her up to chase Dirk Hatteraick's lugger--ye'll mind Dirk
Hatteraick, Deacon? I daresay ye may have dealt wi' him--(the Deacon gave
a sort of acquiescent nod and humph). He was a daring chield, and he
fought his ship till she blew up like peelings of ingans; and Frank
Kennedy, he had been the first man to board, and he was flung like a
quarter of a mile off, and fell into the water below the rock at Warroch
Point, that they ca' the Gauger's Loup to this day.'

'And Mr. Bertram's child,' said the stranger, 'what is all this to him?'

'Ou, sir, the bairn aye held an unco wark wi' the Supervisor; and it was
generally thought he went on board the vessel alang wi' him, as bairns
are aye forward to be in mischief.'

'No, no,' said the Deacon, 'ye're clean out there, Luckie; for the young
Laird was stown away by a randy gipsy woman they ca'd Meg Merrilies--I
mind her looks weel--in revenge for Ellangowan having gar'd her be
drumm'd through Kippletringan for stealing a silver spoon.'

'If ye'll forgieme, Deacon,' said the precentor, 'ye're e'en as far wrang
as the gudewife.'

'And what is your edition of the story, sir?' said the stranger, turning
to him with interest.

'That's maybe no sae canny to tell,' said the precentor, with solemnity.

Upon being urged, however, to speak out, he preluded with two or three
large puffs of tobacco-smoke, and out of the cloudy sanctuary which these
whiffs formed around him delivered the following legend, having cleared
his voice with one or two hems, and imitating, as near as he could, the
eloquence which weekly thundered over his head from the pulpit.

'What we are now to deliver, my brethren,--hem--hem,--I mean, my good
friends,--was not done in a corner, and may serve as an answer to
witch-advocates, atheists, and misbelievers of all kinds. Ye must know
that the worshipful Laird of Ellangowan was not so preceese as he might
have been in clearing his land of witches (concerning whom it is said,
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"), nor of those who had familiar
spirits, and consulted with divination, and sorcery, and lots, which is
the fashion with the Egyptians, as they ca' themsells, and other unhappy
bodies, in this our country. And the Laird was three years married
without having a family; and he was sae left to himsell, that it was
thought he held ower muckle troking and communing wi' that Meg Merrilies,
wha was the maist notorious witch in a' Galloway and Dumfries-shire
baith.'

'Aweel, I wot there's something in that,' said Mrs. Mac-Candlish; 'I've
kenn'd him order her twa glasses o' brandy in this very house.'

'Aweel, gudewife, then the less I lee. Sae the lady was wi' bairn at
last, and in the night when she should have been delivered there comes to
the door of the ha' house--the Place of Ellangowan as they ca'd--an
ancient man, strangely habited, and asked for quarters. His head, and his
legs, and his arms were bare, although it was winter time o' the year,
and he had a grey beard three-quarters lang. Weel, he was admitted; and
when the lady was delivered, he craved to know the very moment of the
hour of the birth, and he went out and consulted the stars. And when he
came back he tell'd the Laird that the Evil One wad have power over the
knave-bairn that was that night born, and he charged him that the babe
should be bred up in the ways of piety, and that he should aye hae a
godly minister at his elbow to pray WI' the bairn and FOR him. And the
aged man vanished away, and no man of this country ever saw mair o' him.'

'Now, that will not pass,' said the postilion, who, at a respectful
distance, was listening to the conversation, 'begging Mr. Skreigh's and
the company's pardon; there was no sae mony hairs on the warlock's face
as there's on Letter-Gae's [Footnote: The precentor is called by Allan
Ramsay, The letter-gae of haly rhyme.] ain at this moment, and he had as
gude a pair o' boots as a man need streik on his legs, and gloves too;
and I should understand boots by this time, I think.'

'Whisht, Jock,' said the landlady.

'Ay? and what do YE ken o' the matter, friend Jabos?' said the precentor,
contemptuously.

'No muckle, to be sure, Mr. Skreigh, only that I lived within a
penny-stane cast o' the head o' the avenue at Ellangowan, when a man cam
jingling to our door that night the young Laird was born, and my mother
sent me, that was a hafflin callant, to show the stranger the gate to the
Place, which, if he had been sic a warlock, he might hae kenn'd himsell,
ane wad think; and he was a young, weel-faured, weel-dressed lad, like an
Englishman. And I tell ye he had as gude a hat, and boots, and gloves, as
ony gentleman need to have. To be sure he DID gie an awesome glance up at
the auld castle, and there WAS some spae-wark gaed on, I aye heard that;
but as for his vanishing, I held the stirrup mysell when he gaed away,
and he gied me a round half-crown. He was riding on a haick they ca'd
Souple Sam, it belanged to the George at Dumfries; it was a blood-bay
beast, very ill o' the spavin; I hae seen the beast baith before and
since.'

'Aweel, aweel, Jock,' answered Mr. Skreigh, with a tone of mild
solemnity, 'our accounts differ in no material particulars; but I had no
knowledge that ye had seen the man. So ye see, my friends, that this
soothsayer having prognosticated evil to the boy, his father engaged a
godly minister to be with him morn and night.'

'Ay, that was him they ca'd Dominie Sampson,' said the postilion.

'He's but a dumb dog that,' observed the Deacon; 'I have heard that he
never could preach five words of a sermon endlang, for as lang as he has
been licensed.'

'Weel, but,' said the precentor, waving his hand, as if eager to retrieve
the command of the discourse, 'he waited on the young Laird by night and
day. Now it chanced, when the bairn was near five years auld, that the
Laird had a sight of his errors, and determined to put these Egyptians
aff his ground, and he caused them to remove; and that Frank Kennedy,
that was a rough, swearing fellow, he was sent to turn them off. And he
cursed and damned at them, and they swure at him; and that Meg Merrilies,
that was the maist powerfu' with the Enemy of Mankind, she as gude as
said she would have him, body and soul, before three days were ower his
head. And I have it from a sure hand, and that's ane wha saw it, and
that's John Wilson, that was the Laird's groom, that Meg appeared to the
Laird as he was riding hame from Singleside, over Gibbie's know, and
threatened him wi' what she wad do to his family; but whether it was Meg,
or something waur in her likeness, for it seemed bigger than ony mortal
creature, John could not say.'

'Aweel,' said the postilion, 'it might be sae, I canna say against it,
for I was not in the country at the time; but John Wilson was a
blustering kind of chield, without the heart of a sprug.'

'And what was the end of all this?' said the stranger, with some
impatience.

'Ou, the event and upshot of it was, sir,' said the precentor, 'that
while they were all looking on, beholding a king's ship chase a smuggler,
this Kennedy suddenly brake away frae them without ony reason that could
be descried--ropes nor tows wad not hae held him--and made for the wood
of Warroch as fast as his beast could carry him; and by the way he met
the young Laird and his governor, and he snatched up the bairn, and
swure, if HE was bewitched, the bairn should have the same luck as him;
and the minister followed as fast as he could, and almaist as fast as
them, for he was wonderfully swift of foot, and he saw Meg the witch, or
her master in her similitude, rise suddenly out of the ground, and
claught the bairn suddenly out of the ganger's arms; and then he
rampauged and drew his sword, for ye ken a fie man and a cusser fearsna
the deil.'

'I believe that's very true,' said the postilion.

'So, sir, she grippit him, and clodded him like a stane from the sling
ower the craigs of Warroch Head, where he was found that evening; but
what became of the babe, frankly I cannot say. But he that was minister
here then, that's now in a better place, had an opinion that the bairn
was only conveyed to fairy-land for a season.'

The stranger had smiled slightly at some parts of this recital, but ere
he could answer the clatter of a horse's hoofs was heard, and a smart
servant, handsomely dressed, with a cockade in his hat, bustled into the
kitchen, with 'Make a little room, good people'; when, observing the
stranger, he descended at once into the modest and civil domestic, his
hat sunk down by his side, and he put a letter into his master's hands.
'The family at Ellangowan, sir, are in great distress, and unable to
receive any visits.'

'I know it,' replied his master. 'And now, madam, if you will have the
goodness to allow me to occupy the parlour you mentioned, as you are
disappointed of your guests--'

'Certainly, sir,' said Mrs. Mac-Candlish, and hastened to light the way
with all the imperative bustle which an active landlady loves to display
on such occasions.

'Young man,' said the Deacon to the servant, filling a glass, 'ye'll no
be the waur o' this, after your ride.'

'Not a feather, sir; thank ye, your very good health, sir.'

'And wha may your master be, friend?'

'What, the gentleman that was here? that's the famous Colonel Mannering,
sir, from the East Indies.'

'What, him we read of in the newspapers?'

'Ay, ay, just the same. It was he relieved Cuddieburn, and defended
Chingalore, and defeated the great Mahratta chief, Ram Jolli Bundleman. I
was with him in most of his campaigns.'

'Lord safe us,' said the landlady; 'I must go see what he would have for
supper; that I should set him down here!'

'O, he likes that all the better, mother. You never saw a plainer
creature in your life than our old Colonel; and yet he has a spice of the
devil in him too.'

The rest of the evening's conversation below stairs tending little to
edification, we shall, with the reader's leave, step up to the parlour.






CHAPTER  XII
     Reputation! that's man's idol
     Set up against God, the Maker of all laws,
     Who hath commanded us we should not kill,
     And yet we say we must, for Reputation!
     What honest man can either fear his own,
     Or else will hurt another's reputation?
     Fear to do base unworthy things is valour;
     If they be done to us, to suffer them
     Is valour too.

          BEN JONSON.


The Colonel was walking pensively up and down the parlour when the
officious landlady reentered to take his commands. Having given them in
the manner he thought would be most acceptable 'for the good of the
house,' he begged to detain her a moment.

'I think,' he said, 'madam, if I understood the good people right, Mr.
Bertram lost his son in his fifth year?'

'O ay, sir, there's nae doubt o' that, though there are mony idle clashes
about the way and manner, for it's an auld story now, and everybody tells
it, as we were doing, their ain way by the ingleside. But lost the bairn
was in his fifth year, as your honour says, Colonel; and the news being
rashly tell'd to the leddy, then great with child, cost her her life that
samyn night; and the Laird never throve after that day, but was just
careless of everything, though, when his daughter Miss Lucy grew up, she
tried to keep order within doors; but what could she do, poor thing? So
now they're out of house and hauld.'

'Can you recollect, madam, about what time of the year the child was
lost?' The landlady, after a pause and some recollection, answered, 'she
was positive it was about this season'; and added some local
recollections that fixed the date in her memory as occurring about the
beginning of November 17--.

The stranger took two or three turns round the room in silence, but
signed to Mrs. Mac-Candlish not to leave it.

'Did I rightly apprehend,' he said, 'that the estate of Ellangowan is in
the market?'

'In the market? It will be sell'd the morn to the highest bidder--that's
no the morn, Lord help me! which is the Sabbath, but on Monday, the first
free day; and the furniture and stocking is to be roupit at the same time
on the ground. It's the opinion of the haill country that the sale has
been shamefully forced on at this time, when there's sae little money
stirring in Scotland wi' this weary American war, that somebody may get
the land a bargain. Deil be in them, that I should say sae!'--the good
lady's wrath rising at the supposed injustice.

'And where will the sale take place?'

'On the premises, as the advertisement says; that's at the house of
Ellangowan, your honour, as I understand it.'

'And who exhibits the title-deeds, rent-roll, and plan?'

'A very decent man, sir; the sheriff-substitute of the county, who has
authority from the Court of Session. He's in the town just now, if your
honour would like to see him; and he can tell you mair about the loss of
the bairn than ony body, for the sheriff-depute (that's his principal,
like) took much pains to come at the truth o' that matter, as I have
heard.'

'And this gentleman's name is--'

'Mac-Morlan, sir; he's a man o' character, and weel spoken o'.'

'Send my compliments--Colonel Mannering's compliments to him, and I would
be glad he would do me the pleasure of supping with me, and bring these
papers with him; and I beg, good madam, you will say nothing of this to
any one else.'

'Me, sir? ne'er a word shall I say. I wish your honour (a courtesy), or
ony honourable gentleman that's fought for his country (another
courtesy), had the land, since the auld family maun quit (a sigh), rather
than that wily scoundrel Glossin, that's risen on the ruin of the best
friend he ever had. And now I think on't, I'll slip on my hood and
pattens, and gang to Mr. Mac-Morlan mysell, he's at hame e'en now; it's
hardly a step.'

'Do so, my good landlady, and many thanks; and bid my servant step here
with my portfolio in the meantime.'

In a minute or two Colonel Mannering was quietly seated with his writing
materials before him. We have the privilege of looking over his shoulder
as he writes, and we willingly communicate its substance to our readers.
The letter was addressed to Arthur Mervyn, Esq., of Mervyn Hall,
Llanbraithwaite, Westmoreland. It contained some account of the writer's
previous journey since parting with him, and then proceeded as follows:--

'And now, why will you still upbraid me with my melancholy, Mervyn? Do
you think, after the lapse of twenty-five years, battles, wounds,
imprisonment, misfortunes of every description, I can be still the same
lively, unbroken Guy Mannering who climbed Skiddaw with you, or shot
grouse upon Crossfell? That you, who have remained in the bosom of
domestic happiness, experience little change, that your step is as light
and your fancy as full of sunshine, is a blessed effect of health and
temperament, cooperating with content and a smooth current down the
course of life. But MY career has been one of difficulties and doubts and
errors. From my infancy I have been the sport of accident, and, though
the wind has often borne me into harbour, it has seldom been into that
which the pilot destined. Let me recall to you--but the task must be
brief--the odd and wayward fates of my youth, and the misfortunes of my
manhood.

'The former, you will say, had nothing very appalling. All was not for
the best; but all was tolerable. My father, the eldest son of an ancient
but reduced family, left me with little, save the name of the head of the
house, to the protection of his more fortunate brothers. They were so
fond of me that they almost quarrelled about me. My uncle, the bishop,
would have had me in orders, and offered me a living; my uncle, the
merchant, would have put me into a counting-house, and proposed to give
me a share in the thriving concern of Mannering and Marshall, in Lombard
Street. So, between these two stools, or rather these two soft, easy,
well-stuffed chairs of divinity and commerce, my unfortunate person
slipped down, and pitched upon a dragoon saddle. Again, the bishop wished
me to marry the niece and heiress of the Dean of Lincoln; and my uncle,
the alderman, proposed to me the only daughter of old Sloethorn, the
great wine-merchant, rich enough to play at span-counter with moidores
and make thread-papers of bank-notes; and somehow I slipped my neck out
of both nooses, and married--poor, poor Sophia Wellwood.