Part 34

He became a soldier; and having served for a long time in India, was appointed colonel of his regiment. His wife and daughter were with him there, and they had become very intimate with a young officer in the same regiment, called Vanbeest Brown, who, it was supposed, had came from Holland, where he had previously been engaged in trade of some kind. Colonel Mannering, for some reason, never cared for Brown, but chiefly because he had foolishly listened to the dishonourable suggestions of a friend, who, for reasons of his own, had secretly poisoned his mind against the young officer. The dislike ripened after some time into an open quarrel, followed by a duel between the colonel and his subaltern, in which, after exchanging shots, Mannering believed he killed his adversary. Mrs. Mannering died shortly after, and the colonel and his daughter returned to England.

Now it so happened that Colonel Mannering arrived at the village of Kippletringan a day or two before the time at which the sale of Ellangowan was to take place. He was much distressed at hearing the pitiable account that was given to him of his old friend, Godfrey Bertram; and the idea at once occurred to him that he would buy the property himself, and by doing so help the laird.

Accordingly, on the day of the auction, he made his way to Ellangowan House, where he was told, on inquiry, that the old laird was dangerously ill, and was to be found up at the ruined castle in company with his daughter. Thither Colonel Mannering went to look for him. He found old Mr. Bertram sitting in an easy- chair on the slope beside the castle with his feet wrapped in blankets, and beside him his daughter and the dominie, and a handsome young man whom he did not recognise, but who, he afterwards learned, was a gentleman called Charles Hazlewood, who was deeply in love with Miss Bertram.

Mannering was much affected when the old laird failed to remember him, for he had not forgotten his hospitable kindness many years before, on the night when little Harry was born. While he was engaged in conversation with Miss Bertram and her companion, a voice was heard close by, which Lucy at once recognised as that of her father's enemy, Glossin, and she sent the dominie to keep him away. The sound of the voice had, however, also reached the old man's ears. He started up on hearing it, and turning towards Glossin, he addressed him in tones of passion and indignation.

"Out of my sight, ye viper," he said; "ye frozen viper that I warmed till ye stung me! Are ye not afraid that the walls of my father's dwelling should fall and crush ye, limb and bone? Were ye not friendless, houseless, penniless, when I took ye by the hand; and are ye not expelling me--me, and that innocent girl-- friendless, houseless, and penniless, from the house that has sheltered us and ours for a thousand years?"

A few moments after, the carriage was announced, in which Lucy Bertram and her father were to leave their home; but it was no longer necessary. The old Laird of Ellangowan was so exhausted by his last effort of indignant anger, that when he sunk upon his chair, he expired almost without a struggle or a groan.

The sale of the property was then postponed until after the funeral; and Colonel Mannering, having done what he could for Miss Bertram in her unhappy condition, left the neighbourhood with the intention of returning in time for the adjourned sale, for the purpose of buying the estate.

The appointed hour for the auction at length arrived, but Colonel Mannering had not come back. No one had even received a letter from him; and in his absence, as there was no other bidder, the infamous Glossin was declared to be the lawful purchaser, and a new Laird of Ellangowan.

At six o'clock that night a drunken post-boy reached the village with a letter from the colonel, containing instructions to buy the property. It had been delayed on its way, and was now no longer of any use.

Poor Lucy Bertram now found herself an orphan without house or home; but the kindness of some neighbours named Mac-Morlan, to some extent, assuaged the misery of her position. They insisted on her coming to live with them and Mr. Mac-Morlan even offered the dominie a clerkship in his establishment, where he might still be near his lady pupil, to whom, in spite of his strange and awkward ways, he was devotedly attached for her father's sake.

When Colonel Mannering, after the death of Mr. Bertram, left Ellangowan with the intention of coming back to buy the property, he travelled some distance, and after a while came to a post-town where he expected some letters. He received one letter, which displeased him very much, from a great friend of his who was living in the north of England, Mr. Mervyn by name, in whose care he had left his daughter, Julia Mannering, when he was starting for Kippletringan. This letter informed him that Miss Mannering was being serenaded at night from the lake beside the house by some unknown stranger, who had, however, disappeared before the letter was written.

On reading this intelligence the colonel hastened at once to Mr. Mervyn's residence, having first sent off the instructions in reference to the purchase of the Ellangowan estate which, as already said, arrived too late.

The lover who had been serenading Julia Mannering was in reality, the same Vanbeest Brown whom she had known in India, and with whom her father had fought the duel. Colonel Mannering had, however, no idea that Brown was still alive, and the daughter was afraid to tell her father that he was. Captain Brown, as he was now known, was a handsome and gallant young fellow; and, having returned to England with his regiment, and being still deeply devoted to Miss Mannering, he had lost no time in making his way to where she was staying in the house of Mr. Mervyn, her father's friend.

When Mannering arrived at Mr. Mervyn's, he said very little about the information which had been the cause of his return; but he told his daughter that he had taken a place near Kippletringan, called Woodbourne, where he meant to reside for some time. He also told her that she would have a pleasant companion in Lucy Bertram, the daughter of an old friend of his, who was going to stay with them in his new house.

Accordingly, as soon as Woodbourne was made ready to receive them, the colonel and his daughter Julia took up their residence there, and Lucy Bertram became their guest. Another inmate of the new house was the dominie, for whom Colonel Mannering had a liking, and who, he knew, could not bear to be parted altogether from Miss Bertram, whose tutor he had been from her earliest days. When the poor half-cracked dominie heard that he was to be employed as Colonel Mannering's librarian, his joy knew no bounds; and on seeing the large number of old books which were committed to his charge he became almost crazy with delight, and shouted his favourite word, "Pro-di-gi-ous!" till the roof rung to his raptures.

After a little time Lucy Bertram and Miss Mannering became fast friends, but the latter was careful never to say anything to her new companion about her lover, Captain Brown.

Now, Brown, when he found that Julia Mannering had gone to Woodbourne, determined to follow her, with the purpose of resuming his addresses, and he accordingly set out on foot towards the North.

It was a fine clear frosty winter's day when he found himself in the wilds of Cumberland on his way to his destination in Scotland. He had walked for some distance, when he stopped at a small public-house to procure refreshment. He here fell in with a farmer named Dandie Dinmont, a big, rollicking fellow, with an honest face and kindly ways, with whom he became friends in a very little time.

There was another person, however, in the inn on whom Brown could not avoid repeatedly fixing his eyes--a tall, witch-like woman. It was Meg Merrilies the gipsy; but time had grizzled her raven locks, and added many wrinkles to her wild features. As he looked at her, he could not help saying to himself: "Have I dreamed of such a figure?"

As he was asking himself the question, the gipsy suddenly made two strides towards him and seized his hand, at the same time saying to him:

"In God's name, young man, tell me your name, and whence you come!"

"My name is Brown, mother, and I come from the East Indies," he answered.

On hearing his answer she dropped his hand with a sigh, and said:

"It cannot be, then--it cannot be; but be what ye will, ye have a face and a tongue that puts me in mind of old times." As Brown took his departure on foot, the gipsy looked after him and muttered to herself: "I maun [Footnote: I must.] see that lad again."

The traveller had gone a considerable distance across the lonely moorland through which his road lay, when his little dog Wasp began to bark furiously at something in front of them. Brown quickened his pace, and soon caught sight of the subject of the terrier's alarm. In a hollow, a little below him, was his late companion Dandie Dinmont, engaged with two other men in a desperate struggle. In a moment Brown, who was both strong and

## active, came to the rescue; and, after a short fight, the two

would-be murderers of the farmer were flying for their own lives across the heath, pursued by Wasp. Dinmont then took his friend upon his pony, and they succeeded after some time in reaching Charlie's Hope, the farmer's home, where they were welcomed by his wife and a large troop of children.

The next few days were spent salmon spearing, and hunting otters on the hills in the neighbourhood. One of the huntsmen, of whom there were a large number out, was a dark-featured man, resembling a gipsy in his appearance; and Brown noticed that whenever he approached him he endeavoured to hide his face. He could not remember, however, having ever seen the man before; but he learned, on asking about him, that he was a stranger in those parts, who had come from the south-west of Scotland, and that his name was Gabriel. Nothing further was known about him at Charlie's Hope.

Brown's visit to Dandie Dinmont was now at an end, and he again took the road for Woodbourne, the residence of Julia Mannering.

He had hired a chaise and horses, but had not gone far on the wild road to Kippletringan when night came on and the snow fell heavily; and shortly after, to make matters worse, the driver missed the way. When the horses were unable to proceed any further, Brown dismounted from the carriage in order to look for a house where he could ask the way; and as he wandered through the plantations which skirted the road, he saw a light in the distance amongst the trees. After traversing a deep and dangerous glen, he reached the house from which the light shone. It was an old and ruinous building. Before approaching the door, he peeped in through an aperture in the ruined wall, and saw in the room inside the figure of a man, stretched on a straw bed, with a blanket thrown over it. He could see that the man was dying. A woman clad in a long cloak was sitting by the bedside, and moistening at times the lips of the man with some liquid. She was singing a low monotonous strain.

She paused in her singing, and Brown heard a few deep groans come from the dying man.

"It will not be," she muttered to herself. "He cannot pass away with that on his mind; I must open the door."

Brown stood before her as she opened the door, and he at once recognised the same gipsy woman whom he had met in the inn a few days before. He noticed, too, that there was a roll of linen about the dying man's head, which was deeply stained with blood.

"Wretched woman, who has done this?" exclaimed Brown.

And the gipsy answered: "They that were permitted;" and she added after a few moments, "He's dead now."

Sounds of voices at a distance were now heard. "They are coming," said she to Brown; "you are a dead man." He was about to rush out, when the gipsy seized him with a strong grasp. "Here," she said, "here, be still, and you are safe; stir not, whatever you see or hear, and nothing shall befall you!"

She made him lie down among a parcel of straw, and covered him carefully; and then resumed her song.

Brown, though a soldier and a brave one, was terrified as he lay in his hiding-place. Peeping out through the straw, he saw five rough-looking men come in who seemed to be gipsies and sailors. They closed round the fire and commenced to drink, holding consultation together in a strange gibberish which he could not altogether understand. Whenever the gipsy woman addressed them, she spoke angrily to them; and more than once she called them murderers; they, however, did not seem to mind her.

They continued drinking and talking for a considerable time, but all that Brown could make out was that there was someone whom they were going to murder. They also referred to a murder committed some twenty years before, in which their dead companion had had a hand.

After some time spent in this way, one of the party went out and brought in a portmanteau, which Brown at once recognised as the one he had left in the chaise. They ripped it open, and after examining the contents, which included all the owner's ready money, with the exception of a trifling sum in his pocket, they divided the whole amongst them. Then they drank more; and it was not until morning that they left the building. When they left, they carried the dead body with them.

No sooner were they well outside, than Meg Merrilies got up from where she had been pretending to be asleep, and told Brown to follow her instantly. Brown obeyed with alacrity, feeling that he was already out of reach of danger when the villains had gone out; but before leaving he took up a cutlass belonging to one of the five, and brought it with him in the belief that he might yet have to fight with them for his life. The snow lay on the ground as he and the gipsy came out, and as he followed her he noticed that she chose the track the men had taken, so that her footprints might not be seen.

After a while, however, she turned from the track, and led the way up a steep and rugged path under the snow-laden trees, and on reaching a place some distance farther on, she pointed out the direction of Kippletringan, and told her companion to make what speed he could. Brown was entirely at a loss to make out the reason the gipsy had for taking such an interest in preserving his life from her comrades; and was even more puzzled by her conduct when she took an old purse from her pocket before parting, and gave it to him.

She said as she handed it to him: "Many's the alms your house has given Meg and hers." And Brown, as he thanked her for her kindness, asked her how he could repay the money she had given him.

"I have two boons to crave," answered the gipsy, speaking low and hastily: "one is that you will never speak of what you have seen this night; the other, that when I next call for you, be it in church or market, at wedding or at burial, meal-time or fasting, that ye leave everything else and come with me."

"That will do you little good, mother," answered Brown.

"But 'twill do yourself much good," replied Meg Merrilies. "I know what I am asking, and I know it has been the will of God to preserve you in strange dangers, and that I shall be the means to set you in your father's seat again. So give your promise, and mind that you owe your life to me this blessed night."

When Brown had promised, she parted from him, and was soon out of sight.

The young soldier could come to no other conclusion but that the woman was mad; and having in this way solved the mystery to his own satisfaction, he strode quickly on through the wood in search of the highroad to Kippletringan.

He reached the village at length, and engaged a room at the Gordon Arms, a comfortable inn kept by a Mrs. Mac-Candlish. On opening the purse which the gipsy had given him, he was astonished to find that it contained money and jewels worth about a hundred pounds. He accordingly entrusted it to the landlady of the inn for safe keeping.

The day after his arrival at the village of Kippletringan, he determined to see Miss Mannering; and learning that she was likely to be found with a party of skaters on a lake in the neighbourhood, he proceeded in that direction.

The skating party, of whom Julia Mannering was one, consisted of herself and Lucy Bertram, and young Charles Hazlewood, who, as before mentioned, was Miss Bertram's lover. Having spent some time upon the ice, they were returning to Woodbourne through the plantation. Hazlewood, who had a gun with him, had offered his arm to Miss Mannering, who was tired after skating, as they walked towards home. When they had proceeded some little distance in this way, Brown happened to meet them. He was wearing the rough suit in which he had spent the night in the gipsy's house, having been unable to procure a change on account of his portmanteau having been stolen.

Julia Mannering, who had had no intimation that her old lover was in the district, uttered a scream when she suddenly saw him standing before her; and Hazlewood, fancying from the rough appearance of the stranger that he was either a gipsy or a tramp, pointed his gun towards him, and ordered him to keep off.

Brown, in a fit of jealousy, and fearing that the gun might go off, rushed upon Hazlewood and seized the fowling-piece. But in the struggle which ensued between them it was discharged by accident, and young Hazlewood fell to the ground, wounded in the shoulder.

Brown, when he saw what had occurred, became frightened at the thought of the dangers of his position. He bounded over a hedge which divided the footpath from the plantation, and was not heard of again for a considerable time.

On the news of Hazlewood's being wounded getting abroad, the neighbourhood was thrown into a ferment of indignation. All the circumstances of the occurrence were exaggerated. It was universally believed that the attacking party was a smuggler or a gipsy, and that he had attempted in broad daylight to murder the young man. It was stated that the assailant had been seen earlier in the day wearing a smuggler's cutlass; and the purse which had been left at the inn was opened and found to contain property which had been previously stolen. Charles Hazlewood himself, however, continued to protest that the wounding was accidental; while the only person who could give any real account of the mysterious stranger, namely Julia Mannering, for reasons best known to herself, never pretended that she had any idea who he was.

Amongst those who were most active in their endeavours to capture the missing Brown was Glossin, the new Laird of Ellangowan. It was plain, too, that he had some other motive for apprehending him than merely the desire to do his duty as a magistrate of the county, which he had now become.

On returning to his house one day, he was informed that Mac- Guffog, the thief-taker, had made a prisoner, and that he was waiting with him in the kitchen. When the prisoner was introduced to the magistrate's room, Glossin at once recognised that it was Dirck Hatteraick, the smuggler captain.

In the interview which took place between them, no one else being present, it transpired that Glossin had been a kind of partner with the smuggler at the time of Kennedy's murder and the disappearance of young Harry Bertram. Dirck Hatteraick told him, too, very plainly, that if he was to be condemned he would let the secret out and ruin Glossin. Glossin, who was much terrified at the thought of being discovered, then arranged, like a villain that he was, to imprison Hatteraick for that night in a room in the old castle of Ellangowan, and at the same time give him a small file with which he might rid himself of his handcuffs and escape. During the interview between them, Hatteraick also told the attorney that young Bertram was still alive, and at Kippletringan. Glossin's situation was therefore perilous in the extreme, for the schemes of a life of villainy seemed at once to be crumbling around and about him.

Hatteraick was accordingly then sent to his place of confinement in the old castle.

At midnight Glossin looked out from his bedroom towards the castle, and after watching for some time in an agony of guilty suspense, he saw the dark form of a man, whom he knew to be Hatteraick, drop from the prison window and make his way to the beach, where he succeeded in shoving out a boat which was lying there. In a few minutes after, he had hoisted the sail, and soon disappeared round the Point of Warroch.

Great was the alarm and confusion the next morning when it was discovered that the smuggler had escaped from prison. Constables were sent out in every direction to search for him, and Glossin took care to send them to places where they would be least likely to find him.

In the meantime he himself made his way to a cave by the seashore near the Point of Warroch, where he had arranged with Hatteraick to meet him the day after his escape.

Glossin had never been near this spot since the day on which the unfortunate Kennedy was murdered; and the terrible scene came back to his mind with all its accompaniments of horror as he stealthily approached the cavern. When he reached it and went in, he found Hatteraick in the dark and shivering with cold.

During the conversation that ensued between them he learned from the smuggler what had become of young Bertram after Kennedy's murder. He had been taken to Holland, Hatteraick said, and left with an old merchant named Vanbeest Brown, who took a fancy to the boy and called him by his own name. He had afterwards been sent to India; but the smuggler knew nothing of him from the time he went there. Bertram had, however, been seen, he said, a few days before, among the hills by a gipsy named Gabriel.